As the Storm Passes By

I figured that once the others got back, things might start to make more sense, but as the door opens and the elevator-shaft team starts to walk in, I can tell from the looks on their faces, whatever they found out is something we’ll have to spend a good while unpacking. Especially Seleste and the college kid, Alyson. But the confusion on their faces was different. Less out of uncertainty and more something deeper, a profound disconnect between whatever they saw and what they understand about the world writ large.

Seleste walks over to join Kat and I, mostly Kat from her demeanor. The college kids walk across the closet to Mister Jennings. And the Hernandezes meet up briefly before the parents head deeper into the clothes to talk.

“How have things been going around here, Kat?” Seleste asks.

Kat shrugs. “Not great, but not terrible.”

The other woman presses, “The halls?”

“Jackson fixed that,” Kat replies with a smile in my direction, before adding a quick, “For now, at least.”

I smile back, before interjecting. “By the way, Seleste,” I state when given the momentary attention, “I did kind of volunteer your room for a discussion after the storm passes.”

Kat nods. “He did.”

“And you,” Seleste begins, then thinks better of whatever she was about to say. Instead, she replies, “You do realize my room isn’t that big. Cramming us all in there might be possible, but it’ll be really uncomfortable.”

I sigh. She’s right, of course. “Yeah, but your room is where your strange conspiracy boards are. And we need all the help we can figuring this nonsense out.”

Seleste shakes her head. “It’s not a conspiracy board,” she insists.

“The red string says otherwise,” I joke.

The kid, who’s wandered over with his baby sister, replies, “There isn’t any red string on her whiteboards.” Then, to Seleste, he adds, “But they do have a lot more than you realize.”

Seleste just shakes her head. “He’s been saying nonsense like that for the last hour,” she complains. “And, to be fair, while you’re right about the board, I could probably recreate it pretty well in no time.” Then, after a brief pause, she adds in an almost muttering tone, “Might have to, if Alyson’s right.”

“About what?” Kat asks, curious.

Seleste shakes her head. “Maybe best to forget it for the moment. Not sure I can explain what she was talking about. Hopefully she’ll figure out a better way to explain it by the time the storm ends.”

The Hernandezes return from the coats. “Thanks for keeping an eye on the kids,” Mr. Hernandez says with a smile.

I shrug. “It was nothing. Is everything okay?”

Mrs. Hernandez shakes her head. “Nothing new,” she says, “Just, some things aren’t appropriate for the kids.”

Seleste laughs. “Good luck keeping secrets from that guy,” she jokes. They chuckle at that.

Mikey and Hilary come over to the group. “The plan’s still shove ourselves into her room,” Hilary says, gesturing towards Seleste, “For as long as it takes to not destroy the universe?”

I look to Seleste. It is her room after all. “Fine,” she mutters, then to the couple adds, “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“Alright,” Mikey says, “And you have some ideas on what’s going on, right?” he presses.

“Theories,” she says, “But everyone together can confirm or deny some of them. Probably.”

“Hopefully,” Kat adds.

“It will,” I try to reassure her. Oddly, it seems to work a bit.

“Right,” she says, a soft smile beginning to creep onto her face, “We’ll figure it out.” We make eye contact for a moment, before she focuses back on the couple. “Most of our theories are about why we had our specific…” she pauses, trying to think of the right words.

Seleste takes over. “Why we each have our specific specialties in these abilities,” she offers, continuing, “And I do think we have a fairly solid conception for most of those, but only based on the accounts of me, Katrina, Jackson, and Mister Jennings.”

Mrs. Hernandez nods. “The moment of the light thing?” she asks.

I nod. “That’s part of it, for sure.”

“I kind of want to wait for the college kids to go over the details. They were experimenting with what they could do, so I want a bit of an idea of things untainted by my theories to help make sure they’re at least sound conceptually,” Seleste insists.

I guess that makes sense. Not sure it’s entirely necessary, but I think that there’s a good chance she’s just trying to reestablish some semblance of control or normality after whatever went on in the excursion of team genius. Type A sorts like her tend to have that kind of reaction to sudden shifts in their understanding of the world or their place in their social spheres.

There is a noise as the door to the lobby opens, and the pair of employees from earlier enter. The guy, Nate, if I remember correctly, sees the rest of us here and nods. “You’re all here now,” he notes.

Aly smiles. “Yeah, sorry, we had to grab some stuff while the storm seemed to be a bit quiet.”

Nate nods, immediately seeming to believe her. Makes sense, after all, even if it would be a bit odd of a choice mid-storm. “No problem. Just passing back through to say, we did a thorough search and checked the halls. It seems safe enough to stay out here.”

I nod. “Thanks,” I say, “We appreciate you looking out.”

The woman chuckles. “Don’t mention it,” she says, half joking.

“Seriously, don’t,” Nate adds, less humorously.

I nod. “Hey, we owe you guys,” I reply, “Whatever else is going on, it’s none of our business.”

He seems to relax, and heads into the main room. The woman waits a minute, adding, “Sorry, he’s a bit nervous about things.”

“Nothing for you to apologize for, Maria,” Mrs. Hernandez says.

Interesting. That’s the second time Mrs. Hernandez has known the name of one of the employees without a nametag who seems to primarily work behind the scenes. She must be remarkably good with names and faces. Not sure why I find that interesting, but it is. Maria seems to appreciate that sentiment, giving Mrs. Hernandez a smile. “Still, it felt rude not to.”

Mrs. Hernandez replies in turn, not with a smile, but a nod. “I understand. Hopefully the rest of your day goes smoothly.”

Maria smiles before heading through the door into the shelter-in-place area. Aly looks at the two of us who did most of the interacting with the employees. “You do know, they were being dishonest, right? About their investigation or whatever?”

Kat shrugs. “To be fair, they first came through because they thought to slip into this room unnoticed. They probably didn’t do any investigating, just busied themselves in the loading bay. Because we were occupying this closet.”

Aly looks confused. “Why would that matter, the…” she pauses, as a rush of realization hits her face, along with an embarrassed bright red coloration. “Oh, right, um, the,” she stutters out.

“The same reason you were testing your new skills out there,” I joke about the situation. “Privacy.”

“Mmhm,” she says, still blushing. “I get it, no need for more discussion.” Win and Lyle are chuckling at her embarrassment.

“Don’t worry about Aly,” Win offers, “She’s just a bit shy with certain sorts of old people about those topics.”

“Shut up, Win,” she spits at him, beet red. As she’s sitting in her embarrassment, an alert comes in over their phones. Evidently, the lockdown is over, as the majority of the storm seemed to move quickly to the north.

“Alright,” I say, “Ready to sort this thing out?”

Slowly, without answering, we start to walk our way out, heading through the lobby past the already open doors to the shelter-in-place room. The stairwell ahead of us is filling with people, occasionally some look back and see them, then stare. Whether because of who they were, or the fact that they weren’t in the room earlier, I don’t know. About fifteen feet from the stairwell, by the out of order elevators, Win leans over. “Looks a bit crowded for the trip. Maybe we head out instead. Beach will probably be pretty empty and gross right now, so soon after the storm.”

Mrs. Hernandez nods. “Winsten is right,” she says quietly from her wheelchair, “I’d prefer we not carry me up the stairs with everyone staring.”

She looks over to me. I give Seleste a look. “How sure are you about recreating the info?” I ask.

“Fairly confident,” she replies, “But it still might be good to be outside, not cooped up. Even if only for a couple hours.”

“Alright then,” I say, “To the beach?”

There’s some nodding, then Jennings adds, “Preferably not near any bars,” as a joke. We chuckle along with him as we head out of the hotel’s surprisingly undamaged lobby. Well, surprising to the rest of the guests at least.

Kat looks at me as we walk down the street towards the beaches. “Do you think you made the storm veer off course like that?” she asks.

I shrug. She’s right to think that. “Maybe,” I admit, “But not directly. We were near the southern end of the storm, so maybe by widening the radius of calm as far as I could manage, if the calm hit the southern edge, that might cause it to start to turn, right?”

Kat shrugs. “I’ll take your word for it. I’m no meteorologist.”

I frown. “Neither am I,” I say as I’m thinking about it. Because it’s confusing. Why do I know that? Heck, how did I know we were on the southern end of the storm? I haven’t looked at a weather map today.

She notices the creases of concern on my face. “WHat is it?” she asks.

“Like, you studied your medical stuff right?” I say, “Did you wake up knowing more than you studied?” she looks confused, so I explain, “I knew where the storm was, and think I’m right about knowing how the storm behaved. How, I’m a freaking accountant?”

Kat seriously considers it, and says, “Remember this morning, me just seeing people’s sickness. Maybe it’s like that. Whatever base force you’re tied to that lets you talk to the storm also helps you notice and understand it?”

I nod. It does make some modicum of sense. “That would fit,” I admit. We make it to a beach, covered in trash and strange things brought onto shore from the waves and winds that always accompany storms. “So,” I say to everyone, “What did you find out?”

Aly shrugs. “It was intentional,” she says. “Don’t know if it was meant for us, or just whomever got into that elevator last night, but where we were was not here, something moved the car to and from that location with the forest and the light.”

The kid adds, “Oh and the forest is real. Not a part of the magicy nonsense that moved the elevator car. Not positive where, but I think from the weather and the trees, probably either Canada or Alaska, or maybe like Northern Europe but we happened to be in a spruce heavy area. From the sky before the purple, I’d guess fairly far from any civilization.”

“And could you go back there, or just thinking back you guys realized this stuff?” I ask.

“I saw the residue of the trap,” Aly answers. Given time, assuming there isn’t any weirdness going on with the rotation of earth or the time of year, I could recreate it. Probably.”

Seleste nods. “We looked at it, but it wasn’t like some sort of portal was still around that we could walk through,” she explains.

Hilary frowns. A thought seems to have popped into her head. “It was in Alaska, that big refuge. Easiest way there would probably be a flight into Fairbanks, taking a cargo liner up to Arctic village, then some sort of ATV for a couple days to reach the spot in the woods.” It comes out as though as much a surprise to her as it is to us.

“And how do you know that?” Seleste asks, a strange mix of surprise and confusion.

Hilary shrugs. “I don’t know. When he said it was a real place then you said we didn’t know how to travel there, I thought about it, and suddenly knew how.”