There ain’t no love, in a concrete kingdom
Ain’t much light
Ain’t no life in a concrete kingdom
I hear the cries tonight - I hear, I hear
“What’s our plan?” Jason asks quietly, as the group walks.
Alycia’s conviction is firm. Right now, she has nothing else to hold onto. “Find the nanotechnology lab. Destroy this abomination of a city.”
Jason smiles. “That second one smacks of mission creep, but I’m of a mind to do the same.”
Alycia turns to her team. All of them read as some mixture of horrified and determined, which tells her what she needs to know. They feel what she feels.
“Fine. Antibody. ‘Jenny Byrne’. If you walk us into a trap, I’ll see to it that you don’t walk out. But you’ll take point during interactions with people here.”
Jenny smiles brightly. “Very well. Just in case anyone is uncertain about me - who speaks fluent Russian?”
Alycia, Jason, and Alex put their hands up. Emma wobbles her hand. Nono taps her index fingers together and looks embarrassed. John shrugs slightly.
“Very well. Non-speakers, practice this phrase. Я отрицательный. Я здесь для обновленного обучения. It means ‘I am negative. I am here for updated training.’ If you are confronted, say it. This marks you as a failed Antibody, like me. You are here to learn a new skill. Then the officer will ask you a question. This is for your identification number. Tell him any eight digits that come to mind.”
“And then what?” Nono asks, mentally taking notes.
Jenny’s smile brightens. “Then the officer will call it in. Then you will kill him while he is distracted, and our mission is over, and we must all flee or be killed.”
The first encounter comes less than twenty minutes later.
Alycia sees the signs of an overseer from body language. He’s scrutinizing his surroundings. He’s walking with a military gait. His shoes are polished. He’s dressed like a businessman, out for a stroll, but it’s not enough to disguise the reality.
She turns to her team. “Friendly faces, everyone, so stay relaxed,” she says with a false smile. But they get the message.
“Good day,” the officer says in English.
“Good day!” Jenny says, practically bouncing with enthusiasm.
“Quite an assorted group you have here,” the officer says. “Is there a city event I missed out on?”
Jenny shakes her head. “Nothing I know of.”
The man switches to Russian. “I recognize the Chin and the Quill units. Identify yourself.”
John, Emma, and Nono can’t follow the language. But Alycia’s hands are folded behind her back, and she uses them out of sight of the officer to subtly signal that things are under control. With this done, they stay as relaxed and smiling as they possibly can at the moment.
Jenny’s brightness diminishes, and she adopts the same professional tone. “I’m negative. 67292941, reassigned to Sidorov. I’m escorting some other negatives to new assignments.”
The officer nods, and addresses himself to the others. Still in Russian, he asks, “you negatives. Your numbers, please?”
Jenny’s face reveals that she hadn’t quite planned on this. She switches to English. “I’m so sorry, we got a little carried away. But isn’t it nice to practice speaking a foreign language with someone else?”
Alycia gets it, and Jason gets it, and both recognize immediately that the other did so. The mask the city wears is “always on”. Antibodies are here to learn to act naturally. To do that, they have to stay in character.
Alycia speaks up. “My apologies. Our friends are new here and don’t understand how things are done.”
Jason smoothly steps in, matching Alycia’s cadence. He turns to the team. “Can each of you tell this gentleman something about the most important person in your life?”
Please god, please let them catch on.
Alex jumps in. They heard the conversation and understand the context. “Hi! My name’s Shelby. The person I want to get closest to in the world is the speedster, Harry Gale, 'cause he’s sooo cool.”
They rattle off a few pretty specific observations about Harry - enough to remind Alycia that Alex, as “Agent 1337”, was once assigned to spy on the Menagerie. But it does the trick, as the officer seems mildly impressed.
Nono has caught on. “Me! I’m Nana. I got transferred to the same school as Mr. Quill and I was studying in his classes with him. I even spoke to him a few times, and later I got to visit his house, and even work for him!”
She too rattles off some fairly personal details about Jason Quill, and Alycia is reminded that Nono did not spy on the Menagerie - she just wrote reams of spicy Jason fan fiction. While she’s happiest not dwelling on that, Alycia takes a little pleasure at Jason’s well-concealed but intense discomfort.
John has it easiest. “I’m a robot duplicate of Leo Newman nee Snow, aka the American superhero Link,” he says flatly. To prove it, he transforms part of his hand into one of his many weapon systems. This, more than anything, catches the officer quite by surprise.
Emma wraps it up. “Kid Kelvin. Halcyon’s coolest hero. I’m gonna make him notice me.” She, too, has a surprising command of her chosen nemesis’ biography. Alycia understands some of this - as “Hot Mess”, Emma had targeted the hero, and ended up working with him in an underhanded way to expose corrupt corporations, cops on the take, and the like.
The overseer has been subtly checking a device in his hand during the conversation. Alycia spotted the moment he got a reply on it. He turns back to Jenny. “Your number checks out. The new negatives stayed in character, but while they are here, they need to respond to commands. Instill this in them during their reorientation.”
“I’ll see to it, sir,” Jenny replies.
“You can go about your business.”
The man walks away, and only after he’s long gone does anyone breathe a sigh of relief.
Alycia finally makes a comment. “If it were me, I’d have insisted on numbers from all of you, in spite of those cover stories.”
“Glad you aren’t in charge of this facility,” Jason jokes.
A memory reminds Alycia that should her life have gone only slightly differently, she very well might have been.
The team has been on the run for hours. Everyone is scared, uncertain, and wary. The jet’s cockpit was cramped and hot. The Chimeras are not particularly fun to sit in. Every new indignity, however small, has grown increasingly hard to handle. Now, as they walk, the tension mounts.
It’s Alex who breaks first, though via a rational argument. “Listen, this is a fake city, like the AWTC in Virginia the military ran, I get that. But this all has to be functional to some degree, right? Water runs, there’s restaurants and refrigerators and snacks. What I’m getting at is, can we just like, stop somewhere and clean up, take a break? We’re all under stress. Getting to chill for a bit will help us stay in character.”
Alycia wants to say something like “there’s important things to do here, press on” and deny the request.
Some part of her asks a question. Isn’t that just “mission first” with more words?
Is “mission first” just an excuse for me to run away from my thoughts and feelings?
Hasn’t it always been?
Another part of her, a part wearing her father’s face and speaking with his voice, reminds her of the reality. “You’re in the stronghold of the enemy. The world knows you exist. Everyone is chasing you. Everything is on your shoulders. You can’t show weakness or hesitation.”
She feels a reassuring hand on her shoulder and wants to brush it off. She almost does - but she looks up, and sees Jason’s blue eyes looking at her.
He knows, she realizes. He knows what I’m going through. After all these years, he’s finally able to see me.
She takes a breath to drown out the whirlwind of conflicted feelings, and nods. “Fine. Split into pairs. Russian speakers with non-speakers. We’ll find unoccupied buildings.”
“A word of warning,” John says, before they do so. “It’s about the robots.”
A frown crosses his face. “I know about them because of past experience. Homeschooling.”
Alycia has heard Leo use the term, and knows it’s significant to him - and hence to John, effectively a version of Leo two years closer to the events. But she doesn’t yet know what it entailed.
“They look human,” John explains. “More importantly, they act human, within their parameters. Rossum figured out expressiveness. I hate to admit it, but how the Newmans are so able to emote came from that research. Like how cats can trigger the parenting instinct in human beings by looking like babies, big eyes and crying, that kind of thing. The robots appeal to your human empathy.”
He looks around, from teammate to teammate, intent on impressing a point upon them. “Do not fall for it. Do not let these things deceive you.”
Current comfort levels dictated only one set of pairings. Alex and John have worked together, and despite their bickering, Alycia is confident in them as a team. Pairing Nono with Jason right now would be immensely awkward. That leaves Jason and Emma, and Alycia and Nono.
“I’ve been seeing some of the same people, over and over,” Alycia tells Nono, as they walk the streets of the snow-covered city.
“I did too!” the other girl exclaims. “I think - I think they’re AUs.”
The term doesn’t resolve at first, and Nono clarifies. “Alternate Universes? Um, different versions of the same character, like uh, those movies with a multiverse. Like there’s the family AU that we saw, and maybe some other robot copies they made of you and Jason? Like someone wrote a fic where you’re in school, or where you’re working at an office, or–”
Alycia interrupts. “I get the idea.”
She realizes she was more abrupt than she intended, and composes herself. “It’s - not the term I would have used. But your assessment matches my own. No doubt the intention is to let Antibodies interact with their quarries in a variety of circumstances. The robots of this city might look like people, but they could hardly emulate the richness of the human experience. One workaround would be to create several robotic duplicates, then program them to emulate only a single facet.”
Nono nods, a serious look on her face. “Flanderization. I get it.”
Alycia sighs, and keeps walking.
The pair spot a house - a rarity amongst the concrete apartments - and Alycia gestures. “That one.”
“How can you tell?” Nono asks.
Alycia gestures to a sign in one of the windows, bearing Chinese characters. “The text there is ah, family motto of sorts. One of the, hmm. One of the ‘AU Alycias’ must live here.”
The pair try the door, finding it unlocked.
Inside, however, they find four people. One Jason Quill, dressed in a cardigan sweater and slacks. One Alycia Chin, dressed in Chinese hanfu. Two children with mixed features inherited from their presumed parents.
Alycia halts, slack-jawed.
The AU Jason is the first to speak. “Hello there, you two! We weren’t expecting visitors, were we dear?”
The AU Alycia beams. “We weren’t! May we introduce ourselves. This is–”
“I know who you are,” Alycia says.
The robots pause, and look at each other.
Alycia realizes she’s breaking character, which might be the worst thing to do in this city of robots. “I apologize. I am - having difficulties. Please. You were introducing yourselves?”
“Quite so, quite so,” the AU Jason says, clearly back on track with his program. “Mr. Jason Quill, esquire. May I present my charming and beautiful wife, Alycia Quill. And our children, Ben and Jerry.”
Alycia nearly chokes. “Pleasure to meet you. My name is, ah, Alice Chan. This is Nana. I’m sorry to have disturbed your - your lovely family - but - my companion and I need - need a place to clean ourselves up. Perhaps you have a - washroom or bathroom we can use?”
The AU Alycia smiles lovingly up at her husband. The AU Jason Quill likewise smiles broadly. “Of course, of course! Come this way. In fact, young lady, I suspect my wife’s clothing may be your size, if you need a change.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Alycia manages.
Inside the bathroom, Alycia clicks the door lock. She gestures to Nono to run the shower. “Hot water will be in limited supply. Don’t run it too long,” she instructs.
Once the sound of the water fills the room, she continues. “The noise should fool listening devices. I don’t have long. Listen. I am having a very hard time. I have difficulties with robots, owing to a childhood incident I shan’t relate right now, but I assure you is still with me. Now we are in a city full of them. You - or something that possessed you - compromised me and led me here.”
Alycia draws a breath, amidst the steam of the shower. “So, Ms. Nono Rodriguez, please understand that right now, I both am very dependent on your support as a teammate, and am very close to trying to kill you.”
