Revolving Door: Volume 2
Chapter 34: City of Smoke and Mirrors - Overture
The room is silent, save for the whispered story that Felix is unfolding. As Adelaide follows its twists and turns, she feels as if some fog were clearing, which once obscured his person from view.
“I am one of the luckiest people alive,” he says. “And yet there were times I wished to trade my life for something…else.” He meets her eye again, then laughs, pressing his fingertips to his forehead. “I cannot believe I just told you all of that. I'm sorry.”
Whether because his story has made him easier to read, or because he has given up pretenses, she can suddenly see the chagrin in his eyes. “Don't be sorry about that. I wanted to hear it, and I'm glad you told me.” She’s vaguely aware of Lea dozing on her bed in the dark, swaddled in blankets, the phone beaming soundless images to her closed eyelids. “But if that’s what your family is like, then…why do you miss it?”
“That’s a mystery to me, too. The being there, perhaps. Or the knowledge of the terror I must have caused in my wake. I underestimated it, I truly did.”
His gaze is dim with trouble, and Adelaide feels as if she must do something. “Um…do you want a hug?” she murmurs, lowering her gaze as soon as the words have left her.
“Oh? I…wouldn’t mind, I suppose.”
Adelaide spares a second to be surprised, then leans over and wraps both arms tightly around him.
He exhales, shoulders sinking. “Er, I’m sorry I’ve been such a stickler for arbitrary rules of propriety,” he murmurs. “And for reacting so poorly to your kind gestures. I was the one who knew too little about the social conventions of this place.”
“It’s fine. I know there were a lot of rules where you're from.” She finally slackens her arms and lets him go, wringing her hands together.
He nods. “Indeed. All this embracing would never do there, not unless we were, well…”
“Banging?” she offers.
“What?” he answers, the brief confusion lingering on his face, until his eyes widen. She watches his face flush before he covers his discomposure with a laugh. “That’s not what I meant to say…but you’re not wrong—hah!”
Her vision sways; a familiar feverish haziness is blooming through her thoughts, brightening when he mutters her name with a sigh. It is sweeter this time, and she floats in it for a while, before admonishing herself.
For four days, Felix leaves the apartment in the early morning, before anyone else has woken. Then Lea does, the clatter of cutlery in the kitchen waking Adelaide. She departs for work with a hasty goodbye and an explanation of the fridge’s contents.
Adelaide does not leave—it suits her to be safe from eyes. She likes feeling the walls press in, just a little. She opens the windows to hear the birds. The scent of smoke and cooking wafts from next door. When she can, she sits with her PalmNote in Lea’s bed, and takes voice notes.
Japantown feels like a different place at night. I’ve smelled more new things in the past week than I have in the decade before, and I’m so happy we’re here, but I also know we need to go soon.
Even from Lea's window, I see more of the world in a day than I did in a year from my books.
The truth is that I do not enjoy pretending to be someone else just to stay alive. I don’t feel like a real person, like Felix and Lea are. What does the world want of me? Who does it want me to be?
Felix returns first. Once he’s home, Adelaide lays aside her preoccupations, be that her phone or one of Lea’s books. There is not much conversation between them, but he doesn't seem to mind. She knows he’s on some kind of mission, but he says little about where he’s going, or why, and again she finds her view of him clouded by doubt.
Then when Lea gets home, she brings dinner for three with her. Over food, they talk of mundane things, like the latest in tech news or the trials and tribulations of baristaing at Kiana’s Place. As they discuss her work over the offerings of each day—sandwiches, bento, café leftovers—Adelaide sees the world through her friend’s words, and imagines herself there at Lea's cafe, warm and watching the world fly by. But that is not the life she will live.
For these several days, Felix finds his thoughts too crowded for him to be more than shallowly present in the apartment. His mind is elsewhere. His greetings are brief, and he lies awake while his companions slumber.
But when the trio dine together on the fifth evening, all the possibilities have finally begun to narrow in on one—a single picture of the surest path forward.
“I swear, some customers think they’re royalty!” Lea mutters from the edge of her bed as they dig into their takeaway boxes. “Like I get it if it’s because I messed up an order. But sometimes they’ll take one sip and be all like, ‘this isn’t what I asked for,’ and then I've gotta remake their order and be chill about it. Like, excuse you, sir? You ordered a pumpkin spice latte with oat milk and double whipped cream?”
“What is pumpkin spice?” Felix asks, battling in vain to keep a noodle on a fork. “Surely you're not putting pumpkin in coffee?”
“No pumpkin in pumpkin spice, thank God,” she says. “It’s like this mix of cinnamon and nutmeg. Y’know, pumpkin pie vibes…without the pumpkin…” She stares pensively at the door. “So anyway, how much longer are you two staying?”
“Not long. We may need to depart soon. Your hospitality here has been much appreciated.”
“When?” Adelaide straightens.
“Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Oh, that’s good timing then,” Lea says, “‘Cause I’ve got news, too. The landlady’s coming over for an inspection the day after tomorrow.”
“Well, then, we shan't be here when she visits,” Felix replies.
“If that’s okay?”
“It suits me, too.”
Lea sighs. “One more day here, huh,” she murmurs. “Where are you off to next?”
“Hong Kong.”
“Hong Kong?” Adelaide turns to Felix. His heart aches at the shock plainly written on her face.
“Addie. I’ll explain in a minute.”
Lea’s face shifts between three different emotions. “Hey, Hong Kong sounds like a good idea, if you have a way to get there. It’s been hella nice having you here,” she says. “But if you ever come back…I’m always happy to have you again. Remember that, okay?”
“Of course,” Adelaide replies, attempting at a smile. “I’m so glad we got to talk again.”
Silence settles upon the room, which has grown homely in his heart. He points out a white tube with black joints peeking halfway out from under Lea’s bed. “Is that an astronomer’s telescope?”
“Oh, that!” Lea’s expression shifts at once. Abandoning her food, she bows to nudge the instrument out, and then its stand. “One of the best I have, this is a Dobson six inch… Hey, I can set it up here for you to try!” She is already piecing the stand together, screwing the telescoping beams in place.
“You stargaze from inside here?” Adelaide says.
“With the window open, but yeah, I don't always want to be out on the lawn. The light pollution makes it all the same anyway.”
Lea flops onto her bed and fiddles with the panel buttons. The room lights wink out in a cascade, and the panes of her window begin to grumble aside. The sky is already flushing deep purple as Lea fastens the telescope with her eyes on a gyroscopic star chart in her phone.
“Oh, look at that. We can see Jupiter from my window. And Neptune, too.” She presses one eye to the scope and twists the focus knobs. “There it is! Lookie here, my beautiful gas giant.”
While Adelaide and Lea take turns at the scope, Felix ponders it quietly. In his city, telescopes are jealously guarded, the exclusive property of scholars and universities.
“Did it cost much?” he asks.
“Kinda. I had to save for it—just cooked all my meals for a few weeks instead of getting takeout.” She laughs to herself, and he thinks, how fortunate of a world.
“May I?” He inches up beside the two. Adelaide vacates the spot, and he takes her place.
When Felix peers through the lens, he sees a disc of golden light, while Lea explains it—the conjunction of Neptune and Jupiter, and how he may notice some of the Galilean moons if he looks closely.
“Galilean? From Galileo?”
“Yeah, the guy who named them.”
“He was the first to name these moons in my world, too.”
“World? You an alien or something?”
“A universe hopper, actually.”
“Wait. Really?”
“Oh, I neglected to mention that, didn’t I? Just like I haven’t mentioned how I can manipulate light at will.”
Lea doesn’t respond. When he straightens up from the telescope, she’s gaping at him. Adelaide scurries away with alarming speed.
“Where do you come from?” she breathes.
Felix beams and shrugs. “I’m stranded, you could say, in the wrong world. Mine is similar to yours in some ways, and utterly different in others. It was the year 1894, the last I saw of it.”
“Oh. My. God. You can’t be saying you’re literally from the Victorian era.”
“Ah, yes—Queen Victoria, she is the current reigning monarch.”
Lea continues to glance between Felix and Adelaide, eyes growing rounder each time. “So…this is the secret you've been keeping this whole time? You both…have superpowers?”
“Well, I wouldn't think it wise to discuss it with abandon.”
“Okay, fair point.” She’s taken the spot by the telescope again. “So…the masks you put on Adelaide…the sneaking around the lab…the fact no one knows you’re part of all this…that’s all because you have light powers?”
“I make the most of them, if I do say so myself.”
“That is…that’s actually cool as hell,” she mutters. “If it’s true, I mean.”
“Shall I prove it?”
Lea turns to study him, then pats the barrel of her telescope. “Sure…can you make Neptune's rings visible for me?”
His eyebrows rise. “Oh—I can certainly try. How; should I brighten your view?”
She puts her left eye to the scope again, closing the other. “Yeah, and magnify it.”
“How far away is it?”
“Almost three billion miles.”
Felix places a hand on the plastic barrel, and pictures it. The stream of light resolving, from this planet floating out in the cosmos, farther than anything he could ever imagine. Farther than my home, perhaps.
Lea twists the focus knobs, back and forth in decreasing motions, and then…
“What the hell?” she breathes.
He looks up. “Do you see it?”
She pauses. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s massive. This is the clearest I've ever seen it. Rings, check. Triton, check. Dark spot, check. No way. How is this…oh my God.”
She doesn't stop fiddling with her telescope for a while, and he holds the light in its pattern, sighing.
In the waning hours of the evening, Adelaide halts Felix at the kitchenette chairs, her face still, all her thoughts flurrying.
“So, we’re definitely going to Hong Kong?” she says.
“Yes. But I shall not remain there for long. Not necessarily. The future is hazy, even to me.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
His eyes dart about, from her face, to Lea, and to his hands. “You might remember how I spoke of my search for a Tunnel Machine. Well, I’ve found a lead. There may be such a project in the works—a wormhole portal, they call it—in the very laboratory where you were imprisoned.”
Adelaide’s breath catches in her throat.
“However…one problem has hindered its completion. It requires a part—a capacitor of some kind—that would allow it to amass the power to tunnel between worlds. Such a part has been crafted in a laboratory in Hong Kong, where there is an embargo on trade with this country.”
How easily such secrets come to him, she thinks. If he were of this world, surely they would want him in the corporate offices, doing their dirty work. “And if they did complete the machine…if you brought the part back here…you could go home?”
Felix nods. “Perhaps. I think it would be within my abilities—to retrieve that part, to return it here, and to affix it to the machine,” he replies. “There are many caveats to this plan, but it could well be my ticket back.”
A chasm of despair opens in her, and she feels as if she were falling, falling, away from all she knows. “But what will I do when you go?” the words tear themselves from her.
At this, Felix’s gaze softens with—concern? Sorrow? “Well, that depends on you,” he replies. “You could start a new life in Hong Kong, away from this nation’s jurisdiction. Or, you could come with me, back to my world.”
Hearing the choice laid out, Adelaide chokes with the agony of being torn in two. She doesn’t understand why it should be so hard, to give up one or another.
But either way—no matter what she chooses—she must let this go. Her bond with this city, with Lea and her childhood and the streets of San Francisco. The burning air. The glittering screens. All of it must be severed.
But which blade will hurt less?
“I…I’m…I don’t know.” Her eyes are wild, resting on nothing for more than a second. Tears splash down her cheeks. “I don’t know! What should I do?”
“Addie, it’s a terrible lot to be saddled with,” Felix replies, eyes mirroring her distress back, in his own muted way. “But I want you to choose for yourself, for it is your life that will change for good. And whichever you prefer, I also prefer. We may discuss it anytime—between now and when the part is procured, if ever.” He laughs bitterly. “Perhaps I shall never find that capacitor, or never bring it back here. It’s all a grand gamble, in the end.”
She bows her head, wondering at how he can live with such unknowns. “You’re the only person who could win a gamble like that,” she replies.
Adelaide is lost in her dreams. The sky is indistinct—grey or blue—and all about her tower skyscrapers she doesn’t recognise. Her head turns about as she flies through the streets, left and right. Her face is reflected back to her from a thousand glass panes, and it is different in each one—different mouths, different eyes, all expressionless, even when she screams.
She keeps feeling like something—or someone—is brushing past her shoulder. But when she turns to look, she sees no one there.
She races up the street and the street grows longer. There are shopfronts here with no names, no people, glass doors open to reveal empty counters inside. Paper blows across the street. Solar panels sprout out like rectangular flowers from the walls.
“Where am I?” she wails as she stumbles. She spins about, in search of that shadow. “Someone! Please—where am I meant to go?”
Adelaide rolls off Lea’s bed, and awakens mid-fall.
The world spins as she lands with a thud. By then, she’s still gasping for breath, her body still burning from her dreams. Nothing resolves from the shadows, and for a while the vision of skyscrapers and reflections crowds the darkness out, so she is no longer sure where she is.
She draws a shaky breath, and blows it out. Her thoughts settle. She inhales again, steadier this time. She tries moving her limbs, and feels pins and needles ripple along her arm.
Flexing her fingers, she reaches for the floor to prop herself up—and grasps an arm.
With a gasp, Felix’s eyes fly open before her. Adelaide yelps, tears spilling out of her eyes.
“Addie,” he whispers. A gentle glow fills the space briefly, just long enough for her to see the worry in his eyes, then it winks out again. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I fell off the bed. I was having nightmares.” By the end of the sentence, she’s wracked with sobs. “I’m scared. About the future—and everything.”
“There, there,” he answers, patting her arm. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I hate to see you so upset, and I apologize for my part in it. Can I do anything to ease your mind?”
Of all the things that could enter her thoughts at that moment, the first is that they are lying in the same bed.
The guilt sweeps over her like a flame, moreso because she finds this not to be unpleasant.
“Um… Can I stay here?” she asks haltingly. “Just until I feel better?”
He blinks at her. She braces herself for a reprimand.
But he only says, “Well—if it’ll help.”
The mattress is not a large one, not made for two people. Adelaide has been lying halfway off its edge, the surface shifting with her off-centre weight. She shuffles inwards, inch by inch, until she fits atop the velvety mattress, pressing up against her companion.
“Is this all right?” he asks, and she can hear pitches in his voice that only touch transmits. Every tiny movement lights flares in her mind. For now, his presence crowds out the dread of tomorrow.
“Yeah…this is good, thank you.” She’s burning up again, but not from her dreams this time. “I’ll go back in a minute…I promise.”
:::
Lea is off work, so she has all the time in the world for goodbyes. “You take care, okay?” she says to Adelaide, squeezing her in her arms. “Be nice to yourself. You’re so strong, but it’s hard being strong all the time.”
“I don’t feel strong.” She tries for a smile, but it’s not enough to warm away the cold of the impending parting.
“And you,” says Lea to Felix, walking past him to call the elevator. “I didn’t trust you at first, but now I think you’re okay.”
“Why, thank you,” he answers.
“For real, it’s been nice getting to know you. Even if it was so short. I don’t know what your next plans are…but stay safe, okay? Both of you?”
“Yeah—we will, I promise,” Adelaide replies, knowing full well there is no way to keep promises like that.
The lift doors slide open, welcoming them to the other side with its perfume of steel and concrete. Felix boards first, and then Adelaide after him.
By virtue of serving ninety units, the elevator keeps strict time on its stops. It is almost too soon when they hear the hydraulics hiss and the doors start groaning shut.
“Wait, one more thing—” Lea cries out through the narrowing gap— “if you survive, come back and see me! Even just one more time—okay?”
“We’ll try!” is the last thing Lea hears, as the doors thud shut, and her friends disappear once more from her knowing, like stars passing behind a deep space object.