Chapter Text
“Zhu Yuan?”
A field of dandelions stretched all around a lone, unclad figure, as though their roots had radiated out from her heart. In the distance was New Eridu, its skyline consumed by flame much like the Hollows had consumed old Eridu before it. Nothing seemed strange about the glow, and she felt somehow that the flora around her was entirely unbothered by the destruction looming on the horizon.
No, they didn’t mind. Rather, when a skyscraper crumbled to ash and let loose the setting western sun that had lain eclipsed behind it, the dandelions thrived and bloomed lush. They spoke to her, as if to assuage. Fire clears out the old growth and allows the sun to shine down through the treeline once again. That which has been tarnished by the dark can come to the light again. She watched the dandelions gorge on the sunlight, grow and die, grow and die, over and over again, faster and faster.
With every cycle they spewed forth their seeds into the air, and she could feel their soft, silken parachutes first brushing her cheek, then all over. Soon the seasons themselves began to speed up, spring and summer and autumn and winter passing by in a never-ending succession of instants. The dandelion’s progeny continued forth into the air, turning the bright blue sky a pale, milky white. They choked the air, filling her lungs with dandelion fluff. Her breaths drew shorter, more urgent.
“Zhu Yuan, come on.”
The voice was audible, but its syllables were formless without her attention allocated toward processing them into any sort of meaning. She watched the fire get closer and closer, the flowers bloom faster and faster.
There was no emotion in her eyes, no fellow feeling as the city fell to ruin. The air filled with floss and dandelion seeds, a dense cloud in soft orange backlight, coming somewhere from off in the distance, a place with a name that she was slowly losing the ability to recall.
The heat was getting worse, the orange burning red, then purple, then blue. It engulfed the seeds, rendering their white parachutes into tar-colored ash. Then it overtook her, and reminded her how real, genuine pain felt. It was excruciating like when ether crystals had burst forth from her soft skin and lacerated every inch of her body while all the others had stood back and watched with horror.
Here though, in this field of dandelions, Zhu Yuan was dying entirely alone. No one was coming to save her. The city had already burned.
A nudge on her shoulder. A brief, shrill scream.
“Hey, hey, woah. Hey, Zhu Yuan— calm down!”
Zhu Yuan’s eyes adjusted to the bright fluorescents of the lecture hall. Her throat felt hoarse, but she didn’t understand why for a few moments until she remembered the terror, then eventually where she was in the first place.
She heaved a few breaths, then moved toward the exercises. Deep inhale through the nose, hold. Exhale through the mouth. Let it all out, everything.
Then she looked up to Professor Ray Yersin, who was casting a worried frown onto her, entirely foreign on a face normally full of glib confidence.
“I… sorry, Professor Yersin. How long?”
She righted her crooked glasses and walked toward Zhu Yuan, no small amount of distress still plastered on her face. Zhu Yuan had obviously, seriously startled her.
“Class ended five minutes ago.” She didn’t sound annoyed, just concerned. “You fell asleep… a while before that.”
Zhu Yuan sighed and rubbed at her eyes. It was nine in the morning. If she had to guess, she’d say she fell asleep at five thirty.
“How long is a while, exactly?”
“The bulk of the class,” the professor admitted. Zhu Yuan masked her face with the palms of her hands.
“You could’ve had the decency to throw a book at me,” she groaned. “I mean, the whole thing? And people saw, too…”
“It’s okay,” Professor Yersin replied. The concern had melted away to something a tinge more parental, the look of someone who didn’t want to accommodate another but couldn’t help herself. “It’s not hard to be discreet when most of the class have their phones under the desk. I’m sure no one even thought twice. But maybe sit in the back next time, if you think you’ll need the beauty sleep.”
The comment was meant to lighten the mood, but it worsened Zhu Yuan’s embarrassment. She began gathering her belongings on the desk, putting them away in their proper pockets and sorting supplies into their appropriate containers, even as the siren song of sleep attempted to lure her away from constant forward motion.
She wouldn’t be lured, however.
“Still, I do apologize,” Zhu Yuan said once she’d zipped up her backpack. “Though I provide no excuses for my behavior, I…” She bloomed a faint red in her cheeks. “It’s the project today, in Hollow Theory. We’ve been programming carrots, and the assignment has been giving me some trouble. I get the importance of studying how to work in a Hollow like you teach, but actually understanding how they work is beyond me.”
Professor Yersin put a caring but firm hand on Zhu Yuan’s shoulder, stopping her rising from the desk.
“Listen, I understand. I won’t knock you, but before you ask, I’m not going to give you the slides either.” Zhu Yuan winced. “Just because I like you doesn’t mean this isn’t a serious class, Zhu Yuan. I expect my students to be rested and ready for what I have to share, and you’ve already had a year and change of figuring out how to accomplish that. You’re paying good money for the privilege of having me here, instead of out in the field where I could be doing some learning of my own.”
The professor looked disappointed, but Zhu Yuan knew she wasn’t the source of it. Rather, it was that she had to play the part of the professor at all, unsuited as it was to someone whose professional star was at that moment shining brightly under the White Star Institute. Zhu Yuan was making trouble for her, just like she always did for others. She felt grateful foremost, but the guilt was there too.
Professor Yersin’s hand let go. Zhu Yuan stood up tall, shorn of any evidence that she’d just waded out of a nightmare, that impossibly dense field of flowers. She didn’t remember the details, just the softness of the seeds on her bare skin and the fragrance of the bloom overwhelming her nostrils.
The inferno she did her best not to mind.
“Yes, Professor Yersin. I understand.” She walked to the door, her shame transmuting eye contact into an insurmountable challenge. “I have a responsibility to manage my time more efficiently. It’s just… been a challenge lately.”
“I know things have been hard.” Zhu Yuan stood still in the doorway, staring out into the bustling hall as she listened to her professor behind her. “You made me aware you were acting as a primary caregiver when the term began, I’m not oblivious. I think highly of your work so far in this course, you’re one of my best students this year. Just as importantly, you turn their work in on time, which can’t be said for all of them.” The admission was laced with a twinge of professorial annoyance. “I know it isn’t easy being a good student on top of life’s other burdens. But you’re only going to find yourself with more to juggle, Zhu Yuan. I hope for your sake that you can find a balance in your priorities while you have the ability to do so. It isn’t going to get any easier from here on out.”
“... Thank you, professor. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
Zhu Yuan walked out of the room and into the crowd, dissolving among the rest of the student body as she turned her mind to what to make for dinner that evening.
That much she could balance.
~=O=~
Classes had passed for the morning, one small hurdle overcome. Now Zhu Yuan could reward herself with an afternoon tradition: bottomless coffee and a quiet booth in the corner of the diner just off of campus. Its interior was a shrine to the old civilization, the walls covered in posters, neon signs, and all kinds of other cultural detritus now stripped of whatever context it might have been born from. In the midst of bars and noodle shops there on 7th Street, the main drag for her fellow students, it stood solitary. While its neighbors thronged with students any given moment they weren’t in class, catching up with friends and slurping down a quick bowl of noodles before the next period began, only a few stray souls ever seemed to seek safe harbor here.
That made it the perfect place to work, a small sanctuary away from New Eridu’s never-ending sensory overload. How the business made any money when so few ever seemed to be dining there, Zhu Yuan wasn’t certain - this one time, she was content to let something remain a mystery.
As she walked through the double doors, she saw the little Bangboo that managed the restaurant waddle up to her, taking her just as it always did to her favorite spot by the corner window. It had the perfect view down the street, allowing her to gaze idly at passersby when she found herself forgetting that all the work was to protect each and every stranger that lived in this dense city.
She sat down, ordered a coffee and a skillet breakfast - something she’d initially told herself she’d resist - and then sat down to catch up on her studies for the day. Pages of notes consumed her vision, even as she ate, until only one more task remained. She needed to finishing programming her carrot, and the latest data reads from the Lemnian Hollow were not proving easy to work with in the slightest.
She was not far enough along for even the coldest of comfort, that much was certain. She could see herself catching a criminal, managing ammunition, deescalating conflict, and anything else required of a good officer. But programming? Doing math?
No, they were things better left to those comfortable behind a desk. Zhu Yuan was no proxy, and the very thought made her shudder, not just for its illegality. Navigation in a Hollow requires independent thought, creativity, and perhaps even a certain tinge of restlessness. Zhu Yuan did what she was told, chased the dangers directly in front of her. She preferred skills that got immediate results, that saved lives directly.
But those skills wouldn’t have gotten her through a course on the theory of how a Hollow operates on a fundamental level. The theory part, by its very nature, implied an affinity for abstracts that she’d never possessed. She was passing at the moment by the skin of her teeth despite her best effort, and every second she could spare to the coursework made all the difference in the world.
Of course, any assignment worth accomplishing has an equal and opposite obstacle - or rather, distraction - to overcome.
“Oh, what do we have here?”
The words were practically purred. Zhu Yuan turned her gaze upward from her notes and toward the rat that had slid into the opposite side of the booth without the faintest hint of a noise.
“Last month’s Lemnian Hollow data. Ray brought it in from White Star now that it’s outdated and declassified. I’m supposed to be constructing a carrot.”
Jane leaned forward to peer more closely at the data. A single eyebrow raised itself.
“Intense stuff. Not that ‘intense’ is worthy of any note with you. How’s it coming along?”
Zhu Yuan ran her fingers along her scalp through strands of tied-back hair. Much of it had already fallen out of her hair tie from her snooze, and without thinking she pulled it back to re-tie it in a single, fluid motion.
She needed to be working on this assignment, not talking about it. But Jane was Jane, and someone as constantly in motion as Zhu Yuan didn’t have a lot of friends. Better to indulge the few who were willing to follow along.
“Not great,” she finally replied. She pushed the messy pile of loose-leaf paper toward her boothmate, exposing a mass of scribbling and numbers that was failing to make sense to even her. “I’ll do my best, but I’m never going to be skilled enough at data analysis to actually do any good if I don’t have a proper analyst on my side. That’s the entire reason I wanted to work for PubSec… you don’t have to think about this stuff, just go out there and do the work.”
Jane’s tail emerged from under the booth to underline the calculations as she worked through them in her head, all the while humming what sounded like one of her old-civilization tunes.
“Well, I don’t know a lot about numbers, but it all seems cogent enough.” Her tail deftly pushed the papers back toward Zhu Yuan. She smiled like she was about to poke some fun, but then the corners of her lips softened in a way that would have been imperceptible to anyone else.
“I hope you understand,” she continued, “that on rare occasions, self-preservation is an acceptable investment of your time and energy. In fact, you might even give yourself a new lease on life and go on to do more good, should you find yourself alone in a Hollow.”
Zhu Yuan knew Jane was playing to her gallant side, but like every lie she’d ever told, there was a kernel of truth in this one. She couldn’t be of help to anybody if she were dead.
Right?
Zhu Yuan’s hands grasped for her mug and brought it to her lips delicately, as though savoring something intense and rare. Black gold dripped down her esophagus and delivered sorely-needed stimulation. A plate of half-eaten eggs sat by the window, ignored now for some time.
“I haven’t seen you in a while, you know.” Zhu Yuan looked back up to Jane and felt the heat of a psychologist’s gaze, quite similar to a plumber eyeing a leaky faucet for points of failure. “I would’ve wondered whether you were alive at all, with all those unanswered texts. But that’s never been my worry with you, my bird of prey.”
A fun little nickname, Jane’s idea of a laugh. This time, though, it was unusually affectionate.
“Sorry,” Zhu Yuan said. She wanted to ornament the apology with an excuse, but she wasn’t able to find one that felt acceptable. “It meant a lot to hear from you. Enjoyed the live film review last week.”
“You’re quite welcome, you should come over and join me sometime. I just got hold of a wonderful procedural with a fascinating serial killer at its center… You look exhausted, you know.” She was staring intensely, looking like she were examining a mugshot. It unnerved Zhu Yuan, but she was well used to it after a year or two of knowing one another. “Are you okay?”
“Thank you for asking,” she said absently. “I was hoping you couldn’t tell.” The truth was mundane and depressing, as it so often was. She didn’t want to be those things and burden someone with plenty on her own mind. “I didn’t sleep much last night. Professor Yervin wasn’t happy.”
“Took a mid-lecture snooze again?”
Jane brought a well-manicured hand to her face to hide her laughter. It was gentle, like the flutter of an adult being shown a crude drawing by a five-year-old, the exact kind of reaction she knew Zhu Yuan couldn’t stand having directed at her.
Teasing was how Jane knew to show her love, though. Zhu Yuan did her best to appreciate the care.
“Most of the lecture, yeah. At least it wasn’t Professor Roland.”
“Oh, you’d be pilloried. That’d be a hell of a sight, wouldn’t it?”
Before Zhu Yuan could begin to even interpret the comment, Jane had flagged the waiter down as he walked by and ordered some sugary coffee concoction with ingredients Zhu Yuan had never heard of. The transaction was conducted with the ease and familiarity of someone who budgeted half their weekly income toward such things.
“Being restrained isn’t an interest of mine, if that’s what you’re trying to imply,” Zhu Yuan replied sardonically once he’d gone, nervous at having the nature of their conversation misconstrued by a passing ear. Her bashfulness clearly struck Jane as amusing, if her expression was anything to go by.
“Just one of many pleasures you’ll never know, living that safe and responsible life of yours.” Jane sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes, as though playing to the back rows in an old civilization Shakespearean tragedy. “What’s wrong with living on the edge a little? You don’t have to piss off Roland to have fun. Lots of other ways to vent steam on a college campus, even in the middle of an apocalypse. Hell, especially in the middle of one.”
Outside, the street bustled with vendors, neighbors chatting, all seeking connection and support in a desolate time. That was what Zhu Yuan wanted to protect so dearly, after all. The security in knowing that joy can be had, even while surrounded by unimaginable darkness.
But all of that was out there, and the two of them were in here, alone at their booth, trying to fathom one another if only for a moment.
“I need the absence of trouble more than I need fun.” Zhu Yuan’s voice was stern, though she wasn’t upset - Jane just happened to draw this side out of her on occasion like it was a game. Zhu Yuan was content to play along, even if she didn’t find the thought of letting lose at all appealing. “If the world is ending, we need people who dedicate themselves to its prolongment.” She looked Jane in the eyes with intensity, the way she’d been trained to interrogate the kinds of criminals Jane knew so well. “You’re included in that group too, whether or not you care to admit it on a given day.”
“Oh, we all cope in our own ways. I hide my altruism, you wear it like a beacon– ah, thank you, dear.”
The waiter had returned with her coffee, and she took the milky, frothy drink lovingly into her hands. Through its plastic container, Zhu Yuan could see the layers of cream, espresso, and saccharine syrup stacked on top of one another. The colors paired well with the dark red of Jane’s nails. Zhu Yuan wondered absently if the coordination had been intentional, or a byproduct of her insatiable sweet tooth.
“You got a to-go cup. Not sticking around?” Zhu Yuan asked.
“Oh, you know me,” Jane replied. “Always ready to make a quick escape. Surely you won’t take offense.”
“No, I understand. What’s next for you?”
Jane took a sip of the drink before replying. No sooner had it hit her tongue than she closed her eyes, seemingly lost in some small bliss. A moment later, she returned to reality.
“A fascinating case study on old civilization criminals. Have you heard of the Unabomber, by chance?”
Zhu Yuan recoiled at Jane’s casual fascination.
“No, and if it’s all the same I’d prefer to keep knowing as little as possible on the subject. I have a hard enough time keeping my faith in humanity as is.”
“Oh, that’s not true at all,” Jane replied coyly. “Your fountain of faith is unending, dear. That’s your trouble.”
Zhu Yuan furled her brows.
“How is that trouble? Optimism leads to action. Action leads to change. You can’t make the world a better, safer place if you see it as doomed.”
“You can’t, but don’t speak for the rest of us.” Her punched-up lips curled to the ceiling, highlighting a faint foam moustache. “You’re kind, caring, self-sacrificing, honest. All the things everyone wants you to be. Trouble is, start expecting others to treat you in kind and it all falls apart, because no one is ever going to live up to the standards you set for yourself. When you apply them toward others, the foundation comes out from under your worldview.”
Zhu Yuan stared at the dregs of her coffee as Jane spoke. She didn’t look up.
“Are you speaking from experience, Jane?”
“What kind of experience would that be, might I ask?”
It felt like a taunt, perhaps a distraction, but one without much heart in it.
“Some bruise or scar you’re not going to show me,” Zhu Yuan explained. “A time you were let down by someone you trusted, maybe.”
There was a faint hint of bitterness, much the same as the diner coffee. She’d tried before to reach out to Jane in these rare moments of emotional intimacy between them, and always came back empty-handed. Then she felt the soft, tender touch of Jane’s tail on her chin, guiding her gaze back toward Jane’s eyes.
“You don’t get to be the way I am without at least a few disappointments along the way, Zhu Yuan.” Some faded, forgotten memory Zhu Yuan would never know laid just outside of her reach. “I’m not mocking your virtue. Just trying to save you from having anything more to keep you awake at night. Call it friendly advice.”
“You’re not the first person to offer advice to me today,” Zhu Yuan remarked with a tinge of self-pity. “I must look like I need it.”
Jane’s tail drew back, slowly, letting Zhu Yuan feel the fur just barely tickle her skin. She hadn’t realized how valuable the touch had been to her until she couldn’t feel it any longer.
“You look like you need a friend,” Jane corrected her. “Lucky for you, I’m good at being what others need me to be, too. That’s why I’m keeping you from all this pesky… math. It may be important, but you can’t save yourself with a carrot if you work yourself to death first.”
Zhu Yuan cracked her first smile of the day.
“Thank you, Jane. I’m grateful for the company.”
Jane smiled back, and for a brief moment Zhu Yuan felt the same connection that had drawn her to her only university friend. The two were bound by very different obligations that resulted in a similarly heavy burden placed upon their shoulders. She was grateful for someone who could understand, another Atlas carrying the weight of another world.
But then the moment passed, and Jane revealed a motive.
“I have a favor to ask, then,” she said. “It’s actually why I tracked you here to begin with.”
Zhu Yuan had been so enveloped in her studies that she actually hadn’t considered why Jane had bothered coming all the way without confirmation that she’d even be here, regular as she was with her routine. She wasn’t certain, but she thought she had a guess as to what came next.
“Oh, okay. Shoot your shot. No guarantees.”
Jane smiled.
“I’m going to a little party tonight.” There it was. “Nothing crazy, but it should be a fun time. Beer, maybe a board game or two. Mostly psych students from my program.”
Zhu Yuan raised an eyebrow. At least one part of that sentence had been unexpected.
“Board games?”
“Oh, you wound me,” Jane replied. She put a hand to her heart as though it had just been pierced with a bullet. For a psychologist, she certainly had an unusual flair for acting.
“Just because I’m hot and I know it doesn’t mean I’m not a nerd too,” she explained. “Get a bunch of graduate students in a room and these things are revealed. And, you know…” Zhu Yuan braced. She knew what came next. “Maybe there’s some cute, single guy there I know.” She paused to gauge Zhu Yuan’s reaction, and after a moment seemed clearly dissatisfied. “Maybe even a cute, single girl, too. I honestly wasn’t sure which, so I took the precaution.”
Zhu Yuan wanted to look happy, really, she did. But she’d never been good at shrouding her feelings, and Jane was better than anyone at seeing beyond a mask. The disappointment was ephemeral, like faint shadows of fish swimming beneath the ice, but Zhu Yuan saw it all the same.
“Oh my god, you put work into it.” Zhu Yuan put her head in her hands. “Jane, you know I don’t have the time to go out with anybody. I don’t even have time for my friends.”
“Yes you do,” Jane countered. “You just don’t know how to let yourself relax around us. Hence you stress. Hence you avoid.”
“Is that your official diagnosis?”
“Call it an observation.”
“Jane, I…” Zhu Yuan exhaled. She’d had this conversation before, with friends, with family. There were only so many ways she could ward it off before it felt stale. “I don’t have the patience to get to know someone new, to invest time and energy I’m not convinced I should be passing out so easily. Not now, not at this point in my life.”
“It’s okay, dear. I understand.”
The words were practiced, and she was certain that Jane had been expecting this response regardless. But she still felt a specific, familiar shame.
Once again, she’d made trouble for someone else without intending to.
“I really appreciate you trying, Jane. It’s not that I don’t want to… live.”
Did that sound sad? It felt as much to utter the word, stark as it was.
But it was true. She did want to live. She just didn’t have the time, or maybe the courage. Jane reached across the table with both arms and cupped her hand with an unexpected tenderness.
“You’re alive, Zhu Yuan, more than you know. One day you’ll let yourself learn that.”
“Maybe,” she replied. “But I’m not the kind of person who can live the kind of life you see in movies. It’d be unsustainable. You must know that.”
“Maybe,” Jane parroted back. She let go of Zhu Yuan’s hand, summoned a wallet as she talked, pried a few dennies from its grasp, then dropped them on the table. Enough to cover her drink and an equivalent portion of the tip. “Or maybe I know something about yourself that you don’t. I’m quite proud to say it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I doubt it.” Zhu Yuan looked out to the New Eridu street outside, hoping to lose her thoughts in the crowd, but her reflection blocked the scene. She tried to find some kind of spark in her own eyes, but gave up the search quickly. Her gaze looked hollow. “I’m about what I’m about. There’s nothing to keep secret, least of all from myself.”
“I know, you’re a good girl,” Jane replied. It wasn’t mocking - if anything, it was more sincere than she’d ever sounded in the year they’d known each other, tapping some deep and invisible vein of empathy that lay under the surface of her pristinely made-up face. “I’m just asking you to consider a different version of yourself. There’s room for more than one Zhu Yuan in that oversized heart of yours, and maybe one or two of them are a bit selfish.” Her lips formed a bright red crescent moon. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
Zhu Yuan turned from the version of her trapped in the diner window, back to Jane.
“How do you know which one is the real you, then?” she asked.
Her voice was hesitant. To even ask the question felt like crossing some unfathomable pale.
“That’s the fun part. You don’t.” Jane stood up and stretched her arms above her head. Her ear twitched slightly, catching a brief, brilliant ray of sunlight that reflected off the metal of her piercings and into Zhu Yuan’s eyes. “You’ve got time to make mistakes, you know. Better now than never.”
She turned around and wandered leisurely to the door, a dainty little wave passed over her shoulders back to the booth. Her saunter, the way her hips moved and her legs bent so as to show as much leg as possible beneath her stockings - it was all so practiced, so performative. Zhu Yuan wondered what was underneath it all, if anything. Even after all this time, she wasn’t quite sure, and the thought filled her with an uneasy admiration.
It wasn’t until Jane was gone that Zhu Yuan even noticed the napkin tucked underneath the plate with a time and address that they both knew would go unvisited tonight. Jane was still trying to include her, even after all the trouble her rejections had created. She smiled warmly before picking up her pencil and returning to her work.
Maybe the distraction hadn’t been so bad. To have a friend peer into your depths, purely because whatever they found there intrigued them - it was liberating, in some small sense of the term. It made her exhaustion valid, like it had merit behind it through another’s acknowledgement of its existence. She’d needed that, perhaps more than she recognized even now.
Zhu Yuan just wished she was closer to being the person she thought Jane saw in her. Right now she felt an ocean away from whoever that was.