The Rise Of The Consortium

Her eyes were on her ID while waiting at a bus stop for the rain to stop. It showed that she had barely an hour left to go to a mall to clean the silver dust. She wondered whether she should work or go home. She could get ten coins of health doing that. Does she want it? She checked her account to see how many coins she has after getting 50 coins of recreation. She felt like a newbie in matters of accessing all the features of her ID. After fiddling around for a few minutes, she found she has thirty-seven coins of health as well as fifty coins of recreation. It was enough to survive for three months. But she was scared of spending those somewhere she shouldn't. She has to abstain from mindless spending. She got an idea! She decided to transfer all her money to her mother's account. Let her do whatever she wants to. If someone knows better how to manage it, let them.

Oh, she must be meeting her mother. It's been almost half a day since she went to the hospital. She raised her head to look outside past the crowd only to see it was still raining. She had been waiting for half an hour but seemed like it won't stop at all. It was going to be late. She felt the urge to hurry up and do things quickly. She tried getting out of the crowd to step out of the bus stoppage without pushing anyone too much. She was one step away from the outside when she heard low mumbles of 'crazy', 'are you mad', 'must be in a hurry to meet her boyfriend' and many more. But she took a deep breath and stepped into the rain. She looked up to the sky blinking hard and ran towards street number two with newfound happiness.

She tried to recall things that happened after she left the factory. She remembered she headed towards the end of street three. If that's so, then why did she find herself in the forest for a while? What was that she saw that she was so scared of? As she kept walking towards street three with these thoughts, she stood frozen in midway being completely alarmed from a blaring siren.

"Ms. Rionora Tarnilier, anticlockwise crossing in a one-way street is illegal. Please watch your steps carefully." a mechanical voice was audible from the traffic control. A red light was falling on her, which she thought might hurt her. Tracing the source of it, she only found it coming from the middle of the square, where the traffic control system was located. All the vehicles were on their way opposite to where she was going. She remembered she can't simply jump to street two from street three. She has to go in a circle to get there. After all, that was a one-way circle.

She didn't feel much after hearing such an embarrassing announcement. She couldn't remember the last time she heard one. People rarely forget to walk oppositely. But being warned like that was something she discovered now. She wasn't surprised at all that she had to walk such a long distance just to get to the next street. If one had stepped out of street one but wanted to go back there then they had to go in a circle to get back to it. The rules were the rules. Even if it felt useless, citizens of Termist had to follow that.

She wondered if someone had noticed her walking that way then why no one reminded her of that? She looked at the passersby around her. They were on their own, occasionally looking at somewhere else. They ever felt bothered about others. Even if one is in trouble, they preferred to focus on themselves. She could clearly remember such recurring scenes during her patrolling job on the day before the weekend. Even if someone had accidentally dropped something, she would be the one to hand them back. She expected people around her to help each other but maybe no one was interested. They simply had no expression on their faces, wandered around like a machine, obliged to do some tasks of their own. They would have to be reminded to be careful where they were treading.

The road of street three was completely dry. Rio looked up at the sky to see whether there were any clouds. It looked as if it never rained or it is not going to rain in the next few hours. It was surprising to see the area near street three drenched in rain but not the street two. Raining in patches was something she never knew that happened in her city. This street was where every official goes to work. Banks, administrative offices, hospitals, or even the headquarters of the factories, everything was in street two. The hospital was the second building, after the Bank. She could reach there in a few minutes.

The ground floor of the hospital couldn't be expected to be crowded at noon. It was oddly silent. Maybe everyone was resting peacefully. The last time she reached there was too empty like that. With the remainder of the last time, came the memories of that someone she had to put away due to her work. Everything felt so drastic to her. She wondered if she had any clues of these coming. But that was pointless right now, she thought to herself. She would get enough time to think about things. She must be worried about her mother now. The most recent patients have to be on the ground floor. So she hoped at least her mother be there and not get transferred to the upper floors. She entered the room that meant for the general patients towards the end.

Everyone still rested in their respective beds. Only one bed was empty. Where her mother was supposed to be there, was empty. She looked around the room, searching for her mother. Her heart that was already speeding up, was now racing very fast. She looked around the room again to search for the grey hooded person she saw early in the morning. He too was nowhere to be found. Where were they? Did he do something to her mother? What she should do? She rushed towards the reception desk to ask about her mother. She stopped in her tracks as she was about to jump on a nurse. The nurse looked at her with a scrunched up face.

"Careful, young lady." Rio heard the nurse say as she brushed past her towards the desk. It's too late to be careful now, she thought to herself.

"Rio," she had to wait to hear what was being said to her. "Your mother is not here." she turned around to see the nurse standing near the gate, with a clipboard in her hand.

"What do you mean?" Rio frowned thinking how she must know her name and how she knew she came looking for her mother?

"Your mother left the hospital early in the morning." Rio blinked. "If that's what you're looking for." she felt herself going frozen at that thought. Where her mother must be if not at the hospital? "A minor case of weakness, so she was completely fine." she didn't know what to say. Does that mean her mother is at home?

"Where is she now?" Rio attempted to speak that came as a low mumble.

"She must be at home." the nurse walked towards Rio who was standing like a statue and pulled her aside so that she wouldn't block the way.

"Are you sure she would be at home?" Rio had her eyes on the floor which was looking blurry slowly.

"I think so." she didn't know whether to believe her or not. She would have to go home now to see what is going on.

And what about the grey hooded person? As the nurse started walking away from her, she asked her suddenly, "Have you seen anyone else in the room?" she motioned towards the room the nurse was going towards. "No one except the nurses." the nurse said imperatively. "No, I mean, other than the hospital staff, anyone else?" now Rio met the nurse's scrunched up face again. "No one." that felt like a slap to her.

She thought she shouldn't ask anymore. Maybe whoever she saw was just a vision. Maybe she felt drowsy in the morning and saw a shadow but mistaken that as a person. By the way, it didn't interact with her. So it must be a shadow.

She was disappointed by the thought that she couldn't ask any more questions about her mother or the illness. She didn't know how she could know what was going on. She walked away from the room after she saw no one around her. She left the hospital to quickly go home to find out whether her mother was OK.

She felt glad that her house was on street four, and she wouldn't have to make a circle around the intersection of the streets. This time, she felt embarrassed to run just like that. She speed-walked hoping that won't take much time. The same one-way walk of passersby without any expression was visible to her. The houses of street four were meant for people like her, who worked in places, with uncertainty. All the houses looked organized but looking closely at those will show the mess. Her house was in the midway, neither too close nor to the deep inside.

After crossing about a hundred houses, Rio wondered if she made it to her home yet. Many houses looked alike and it was hard to pick one apart. She paused in her ways and looked at each closely. There was one even more deeply in the street which had its porch light switched on, with the door left ajar. None of the houses had their lights on, and the automated system never really worked there, so that one house might be hers. She walked with frustration about how she couldn't take care of her mother while she was in the hospital. Is she incapable of taking care of the things, as many said to her? Thinking about things she had been hearing nowadays, she walked up to the stairs of her home, took a deep breath and opened the door that she remembered she had left open while rushing in the street to stop her mother.

The first thing that became noticing to her was a figure lying on a couch. Looking closely at it, it revealed to be her mother. The same pair of black trousers, which never really got old and a shirt over a t-shirt, which was hard to tell whether it belonged to her or Rio. Probably she put it on hurriedly from the clean set of clothes from the laundry shop, not having time to organize after reaching home. Till that time she looked quite peaceful while she was sleeping. Taking a few more steps, Rio accidentally stepped on the broken glass pieces, which made a tiny crushing sound. Unfortunately, that woke her mother, who looked at Rio with wide eyes, filled with certain youthfulness which Rio didn't know.

"You home?" her mother went back to her sleeping posture after peeping Rio resting on her elbow for a moment.

"Yeah," Rio went blank about what to say or do. Instead, she walked towards her mother. Shortly she paused on her ways after she stepped on something. Kneeling, she found the broken glass pieces under her feet. She remembered how a question ended with a loud crash of the glass vase. 'Don't you want to live in peace?' still rang in her ears.

She looked up towards her mother thinking about how she should talk to her. Most importantly, what she should talk about? What if her mother got mad at her again and ran off like the last night? And off to the hungry swirl where one might not come back?

But a pair of eyes looked back at her, the eyes livid, the face bright and the hair looked better than before. 'Isn't she looking younger?' a question formed inside her head. 'But it's not the time to think about it`. Rio got off to close the door behind her. Maybe that's what her mother wanted to tell, or that's what she thought. She also turned off the porch light that was still switched on, even if the evening was on its way.

"Where were you?" a question snapped her to the reality and she slowly turned towards her mother.

"At work." she carefully put the small table near the couch towards her mother's leg and sat without making any noise. "How did you get home?" she kept her voice polite, trying to hide all sorts of curiosity and sadness.

"I woke up in the morning and couldn't understand where I was. I thought I was at home but found myself in an uncomfortable bed." her mother took a turn to lean on her right side.

"I was worried about how did I get here and tried to find you around but then-"

Rio was looking towards the backyard window until she realized her mother was looking at her. She got scared for a second and looked downwards instead, trying to be attentive. "-then the staff told me that you brought me here. " Her mother finished with a sigh.

"What happened to me? Why did you take me there?" Rio sensed the seriousness in her mother's voice and had to close her eyes for a moment to gain all her courage to speak whatever was in her mind.

"Last night we were talking after I got home and then suddenly something happened-"

"What happened?" Rio gasped the way her mother cut off before she could finish. "You fell on the floor," she spoke lowering her eyes quickly.

"Then?" her mother asked with a scrunched up look on her face.

"I tried waking you up, but you didn't until-" Rio paused for a moment to look at her mother whether she wanted to say anything. Instead, her face was full of disbelief. "-until you suddenly raised your hands and you got off and then you walked out of here. "she spoke everything in a single breath.

"Where?" her mother asked impatiently. Rio didn't believe her ears what she just heard. Was her mother interested to know where did she go? Doesn't she know about it? Rio looked at her to see if she wanted to know. The look on her face said there's no choice but to be silent.

"You ran off towards the swirl." Rio felt her fingers going cold.

"The silver swirl?" her mother asked sharply that wasn't loud. "You mean to say I went to that place at such time of night?" Rio nodded slightly that might have been unnoticed by her.

"Ok I remember I was talking to you but then I don't remember what happened but that doesn't mean I went there just like that." her mother sat up suddenly while speaking a bit loud. Then her eyes fell on Rio."And how did you get that?" Rio looked up at her mother who motioned towards her neck. She tried looking at her neck but instead felt a sharp pain. She gently touched it to find a swollen region with a wound. Her eyes went wide. What it must be? And how did she get that? She felt scared about how did she get injured and she didn't even know about it. What happened to her? Before she could think anymore, she heard a painful growl. Her head shot up to look at her mother clutching her head.

"What happened?" Rio got up from her seat to go towards her mother.

"You didn't tell how did I get there." Rio was about to ask where but as soon as she found her mother looking at her, she immediately knew she wanted to know everything.

"Kne r helped me getting you there." she tried touching her mother's forehead to see if she was ill but instead her hand was pushed away.

"What did you say? You took me there with him?" her mother rumbled and shook herself back and forth. "Why?" suddenly her mother put her palms in a fist. "How many times do I have to tell you not to talk to that boy?" she spoke in a carefully controlled voice. As if her head giving her another shot of pain again, she clutched her head. "Anyways, I want to take a rest." she lied on her back as soon as she spoke.

"Mom, let's go to your room instead." Rio grabbed her mother's arm as if she remembered something important. Her mother sat up, looking at her from the corner of her eyes.

"OK." she got off the couch on her own and walked towards her room. Rio went along with her in case her mother needed any support. Her mother walked briskly towards her bed and lay down on it as if her whole body was heavy. Rio put away the shoes and socks her mother was wearing. She put a blanket over her saying, "please rest while I go out for a while. "

"Where?"

"From nearby--just please rest while I'm out."She rushed out of the room. She didn't have much time to look back at her mother. She was soon out of her home to go to a local eatery for quick takeout. She knew her mother would probably be mad at her again but she would understand it when she would know the why. That was in street five. She realized she could get food quickly and come back home earlier. She had her worker ID so she wouldn't have to be worried about anything. She could get almost anything just from a single swipe of her card. She wanted to do a lot of things, so she thought it might be a good start.