Vanya's Journals, Chapter 59: Founder's DayThese entries, like all the others in Vanya's series of journals, are undated and unsigned, save for a hollow star at the end: Vanya's symbol. It would likely be useful if she would merely change her style enough to include the date, but there's no way for you to persuade her to comply, as she died hundreds of years before these pages came to rest beneath your eyes. Patriotism is an interesting thing... It's like feeling a mother's love for the country or fortress you live in, and it's an almost universal feeling: scythods feel it the same as dwarves and humans do, and the inhabitants of Parasol are no different. Despite their apparent loathing of any day of celebration, they set one day aside every year just to celebrate Parasol, the mighty, planetwide company they call their home. It's known as Founder's Day, and in Parasol, they call it March... March the twentieth. It's the first day of spring, and in dwarven terms, that's the first day of Granite, the first month in the dwarven calendar. (Even though Parasol's year doesn't quite match up with Everoc's, I think it's still a good frame of reference.)
Something very noteworthy is that Founder's Day happens to coincide with Katie's birthday, and this year, it was on a Thursday. Katie told me that her father, Kenzon, had always done something special for her while she'd been at home - something to celebrate her birthday, but she'd also said that Mr. Kenzon never actually celebrated Founder's Day himself. He wasn't hat patriotic of a person, believing that a country was just a place you lived, and nothing more. He had no problem with ignoring Founder's Day completely. Katie, on the other hand, loved Parasol... just as she'd come to love Trebor, even if he didn't seem to love her in return.
Trebor had said apologetically he would be too busy with Founder's Day to visit her on her birthday, and had said that he'd try celebrating it the next Saturday. I could tell Katie wasn't overly happy with this, and in fact, she'd told him it didn't matter because she'd be busy and wouldn't be around anyway. It was a lie, but a defensive one: she didn't want him to know how she felt about him. Instead, she'd quietly, resignedly accepted what would happen on what she obviously believed would be a terrible day for her.
I've never actually had my birthday celebrated before... I know I was born in the winter, but not the day. Not having someone around who remembers the day you were born makes it difficult, if not impossible, to know what day you should celebrate on. I suppose I could simply
choose a day and celebrate it then, in the way that Parasol's employees celebrate Founder's Day, but I don't really see the point. My birthdays aren't as important to me as they are to Katie, and it hurts me that she could have hers so callously ignored by everyone when she cares so much about it.
These were the thoughts that were running through my mind on March the Twentieth, as I sat on the green divan across from Katie, watching her poke sullenly at her PEA, slumped over its screen. Outwardly, she didn't really seem to care about her birthday... I couldn't see her face, but it wasn't hard to imagine that it was painted with a depressed frown. Some part of me wanted to help cheer her up, though I wasn't sure how.
"You shouldn't be locked up in here all the time," I whispered sympathetically. "Especially on your birthday. It's almost like he keeps you in a prison."
She started, drawing in her breath sharply as she sat upright and raised her eyes to mine. Her face wasn't contorted in displeasure, but rather held a mischievous gleam. "It's a lot like a prison," she replied in a hushed tone, barely concealing the smile that crept stealthily across her face. "You told me you'd been in prison once. How long was it before you saw the sky?"
"What?" I hesitated in confusion, wondering why she would ask. "It was well over three or four years, but you don't see the sky much when you're living in a dwarven fortress."
"That's not much like Parasol," Katie said softly, getting to her feet and walking noiselessly to the window, tucking her hair behind a blunted earpoint with one hand. "Here, it's a rare day for someone when they don't stand under the sky at some point... but here, our dwarves are a lot like your humans." She paused for a moment, thinking. "It's been at least a month since I saw the sky."
I frowned, getting to my feet and smoothing my skirt as I followed her over, looking out the window at Parasol's bright blue atmosphere, the capital city of Division 3 stretching out beneath it: a thousand metal fingers reaching ever upwards. "You can see the sky from here," I pointed out.
"But it's not the same as
seeing it," Katie insisted, trying to get me to understand as I stepped beside her, gazing out the window. "You can't feel the air - you can't
feel the sky. I used to participate in jetpacking competitions - you know that, right? The sky has a
feel to it, when you stand beneath it... It's nothing you can imitate with a window."
Thinking I'd found a flaw, I pointed out, "But Parasol's sky is artificial. It looks like the real thing, but none of it really is."
She turned her head, and I caught her glance as she spoke. "It's real to me. The only other sky I've ever known were the red and gray skies of Everoc's blood plains." Taking a step back, she twirled around walked towards the sofa, picking up her pea and tapping at its screen for a moment before looking up at me and adding with a teasing grin, "Everoc's skies were incredibly depressing, by the way."
I laughed, staring at my feet and grinning as I walked slowly over to her. "You haven't seen the blue skies outside the blood plains... They're actually really, really beautiful, especially at night."
"As beautiful as our sunsets?" She asked me, narrowing her eyes slyly. We were trying to one-up each other, a game we played sometimes. "Division 3, Parasol's R & D division, has the most beautiful sunsets of all of Parasol."
"Maybe our sunsets aren't as beautiful as yours, but your stars don't twinkle," I pointed out in turn. "I get what you're saying, though. You miss standing under the sky."
Katie nodded in agreement. "I do."
"And Trebor too," I added impishly, watching her out the corner of my eye for her reaction.
It froze her for a second. "I do not!" she denied it, bursting out laughing as she sat back down on the divan. "I just want to get out of here for a little while so I can see the sky."
"Trebor too," I added again in a sing-song fashion, winking at her and playfully sticking my tongue out a little. "I know you, you want to visit him."
Katie looked up from her PEA suddenly. "Maybe I do," she finally admitted, adding in a low, conspiratorial voice, grinning all the while, "So let's go see him. I've been thinking about it all morning, I just wanted to get you to agree to it."
"Your dad will find out," I warned her, cautiously. "What do you think he'd do if he knew you'd escaped again?"
"Does he really have to know?" she asked thoughtfully.
"I guess not," I said slowly, glancing up at Katie, who was looking at me from beneath her dark-brown bangs, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "All right, fine!" I gave in, laughing. "I'll help you escape. It's your birthday, after all, and we we can get back before he knows you're gone... but there are two guards outside the door," I reminded her. "We need a way to get past them without them noticing us. Do you have a way?"
That stopped her. "I'm not sure," she admitted.
I sat down, pausing, a finger poking at my lower lip as I tried to figure out a way.
But Katie was ahead of me. "I think I
do have an idea," she exclaimed, jumping up and heading to her bedroom with a lightened step. "First, make sure you have the keycard to the apartment with you, just in case!"
~~~
Twenty minutes later we were sliding down an improvised rope of bed sheets. We'd fastened one end to my bed, and after checking to make sure it would reach the next balcony below us, we'd started downwards, laughing and giggling with both fright and excitement. There's an undeniable thrill involved in dangling from a makeshift rope, hundreds of feet above the ground. Behind us, the world of Parasol loomed, with all its flying cars and shimmering towers, the streets paved with the glint of metal, the shuttlecars flashing through their glassy tubes... It was exhilarating just to look at it, but to Katie, it was better than a dream. She
loved her home world, and the thought that she'd get to see it on Founder's Day, her birthday, excited her to no end.
We landed a little roughly on a smallish patio-balcony two floors below my window: first me, and then my friend, letting go of the sheets and dropping down the six-foot gap between them and the ground. We dusted ourselves off, laughing at our clumsiness, and then fixed our hair in the mirror surface of the apartment's window. When we were done, we quieted our laughter and opened the door. It was an apartment much like Katie's, and we saw a couple dwarves sitting in front of a televiewer, watching some sort of action movie.
Katie, smiling mirthfully, waved at them as we passed. "Don't mind us, just passing through," she assured them playfully. The two men only stared at us in dumbfounded bewilderment as we walked quickly across the room towards the door. Opening it, we exited into the hallway... and almost immediately doubled over in gales of quiet laughter.
"Did you see the looks on their faces?" she wheezed, unable to control her merriment. "'Duh... what's goin' on here?!'" she said in a put-on accent.
"'Don't mind us, just passing through!'" I repeated her words, laughing. "I don't think they had any clue what to do."
Katie nodded, giggling. "I know!! It isn't every day you see two girls randomly walk through your apartment!" Suddenly, she stopped, and the smile started to fade as she thought of something. "Vanya... how will we get back up there?"
The smile faded from my face as I realized my mistake, and I looked downwards, thinking. Seconds later, I heard someone snickering, and looked back up towards my friend, who was grinning and trying not to laugh at our lack of foresight. I couldn't help but smile, and it wasn't long before we were headed towards the elevator, laughing mirthfully at our situation. When you're really, really happy... it's hard for anything to get you down for long.
"So where do we go now?" I asked her as the car descended, glancing at her from the glass wall of the elevator. "Should we visit Trebor first?"
She didn't pull her gaze away from the view, but nodded. "Definitely Trebor... Maybe we could get him to spend the day with us?" She drew her eyes away from the landscape and studied me thoughtfully for a moment. "I know you don't think he likes you much, but I'm sure if you just gave him a chance, his true colors would show through. He's a really good person, Vanya," she said, trying to convince me.
I didn't really need convincing, although I felt my chest tighten a little in apprehension at the thought of spending the day with Trebor. "It's your birthday, Katie," I reminded her. "We can spend the day however you want, even if it's just sitting on a roof and looking at the city down below."
Tilting her head forwards a bit with a half-nod as the car stopped outside the shuttlecar station, she said in playful merriment, "Definitely, definitely Trebor."
Before long, we were on our way, speeding through shuttlecar tubes towards where Trebor lived with his family.
~~~
As we rode up the excessively fancy, gold-and-glass walled elevator of the Metalbrook building, Katie was talking excitedly about how wonderful the Founder's Day celebration was supposed to be, and what Trebor had told her they'd always done every year. I was listening, but just barely... the Parasol skyline is mesmerizing, especially to an elf like myself; I lived 20 years on a completely different world. The tall, vertical buildings, the sweeping, curving glass shuttlecar tubes, the hovertaxis and the brilliantly colored sky, the light of the artificial sun striking shadows the cityscape... it's too beautiful for words, and Metalbrook, just beyond an artificial lake, was much less closed-in than Rubywood.
"Trebor's family is a very well-to-do one, with strong ties in the military," Katie was explaining excitedly in a rush. "Trebor's father, Traetin, is an admiral in the Parasol military, while his
mother, Alexia, is a drill sergeant. Just about everyone in his family is in the military, and they're all
really patriotic!"
Just then, the elevator chimed and the doors slid open smoothly with a hiss. I spun around, and the first thing that caught my eye were the banners and flags hung throughout the wide, two-story hallway beyond - all in Parasol's theme of white, black, and cyan.
"I mean, just look at how they decorate!" Katie exclaimed with an awed gasp, finishing her train of thought and walking forwards. "I can't remember if their apartments are on the left side, or the right side," she mused, walking forwards and leaving me, smiling with amusement, in her wake. It wasn't long before she was ringing a doorbell on the left side of the grand hallway, next to a set of wooden double doors that were labeled very clearly with a gold plaque that read "
MALLARKUS" in all uppercase letters.
Katie stepped back a couple paces from the door and we exhanged a suspenseful glance.
After we'd waited for a moment, the left half of the double doors swung open, and a clean-shaven, black-haired dwarf slightly younger than me appeared with a friendly (if somewhat surprised) smile. "Hello, and happy Founder's Day!" he greeted us cordially. "What brings you two ladies here?"
Moving forwards, Katie introduced us. "I'm Katie Okablokum, and this is my friend, Vanya. We're wondering if Trebor is around...?" she trailed off hopefully, almost leaving it as a question.
The man raised a cautious eyebrow, as if confused as to what he should do, and then raised a finger at us. "Just one moment, hold that thought, okay?" He watched us for a moment, and then nodded rapidly before disappearing inside the apartment, leaving the door open without even inviting us inside. Turning down a corner down a hallway, he called, "Lydena?"
"Who was that?" I whispered to Katie.
She shook her head in response: she didn't know.
Moments later, a slender dwarf with long, wavy red hair falling about her shoulders approached us from the same hallway, jogging to the door, her Parasol-themed skirt and shoulder-hung purse bouncing as she walked. "I'm soooo sorry about that!" she laughed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "He's so funny sometimes. I'm Lydena, and that was my husband, Cor. We don't live here, so he wasn't sure what to do when he answered the door and saw two people he didn't know." She paused briefly, looking us over. "You're Katie," she guessed, pointing first at my friend, and then me, continuing, "and you're Vanya, right? I've heard so much about both of you from Trebor! How are you two?" She was bright and bubbly, and pleasantly so.
"Very well, and thank you," Katie responded quickly, displaying a far stronger grasp of social situations than me. "We're actually looking for him - is he here?"
Lydena's red, lipstick-coated lips puckered into a little surreptitious smile. "Oh, wanting to spend the day with him?" she whispered, giving us a wink that showed she could already guess Katie's feelings for him. "I gotcha. I gathered as much from when he's spoken of you, but he's never yet guessed it. You
do like him!" Katie blushed visibly and started to protest, but Lydena held a finger towards Katie's lips, chuckling with amusement. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. And no, he's not here right now... I actually haven't heard from him since last night, which is a little strange... especially for today."
Katie, slightly disappointed, nodded with a grateful smile. "Thank you anyway, Lydena. It was really great to finally meet you! Trebor's mentioned you a lot."
"I hope he hasn't been saying anything bad," Lydena smirked. "If he has, I have some stories I could tell about him, too. But, for now, my husband and I have to finish getting everything ready, so I'll have to see you two some other time! If you're ever up in the East Side, come see us, okay? I
love getting visitors. We're in the Foresthill apartment building, floor 56. Don't forget, now!"
After Katie had responded, the door closed behind her, leaving us alone in the hallway once more.
"Well..." I said, raising an eyebrow with a sigh, "What next?
Katie stood there for a moment, pondering what Lydena had said. When she finally moved again, it was towards the elevator, waving for me to follow. "Founder's Day, silly! We still have all day ahead of us."
The rest of the day was amazing. We hurried onwards to the festivities, down Division 3's wide Main Avenue, lined with tall, acorn-less oaks on either side. It was beautiful, and the celebration was amazing. At one point, the sky darkened artificially for "fireworks": amazing swirls of sparkling colors in the sky, with explosive sounds and the smell of gunpowder. It might not be something a dwarf of Everoc would like, but to Katie and me, it was absolutely incredible. There were all sorts of foods at stands lining the streets, and all of it was free. There were banners, streamers, confetti, parades... it was everything we could have wanted, just like a holiday back home. Katie had never been to the Founder's Day celebration, and didn't quite know what to expect, but I think I gave her the best birthday present she'd ever had. I'd given her the gift of freedom, even if only for a day... and there's something about being free that unfetters the heart and soul as well. You feel like you could fly.
It was with joyful thoughts and jubilant smiles that we headed back to Rubywood Apartments... and towards something that would ultimately erase those same smiles from our faces.
~~~
"The elevator won't stop on our floor?" Katie asked in surprise, repeatedly tapping the touchpad on the elevator wall where it said "82". It refused to light up, just like the car refused to move. "All right, we'll go to floor 81 then," she laughed, shaking her head as gave up and pressed the number beside it. The doors slid slowly shut, and although we felt no sensation of movement, the view behind us out the elevator's glass window began to drop away, as we shot higher and higher through the building.
"Why won't it stop at 82?" I asked curiously.
Katie shook her head, smiling and propping herself against the metallic rail across the window, as she looked outwards over the city she called home, the artificial sun setting in the distance. "I don't know, I've never had it happen before. I know that you can shut it off remotely, but I haven't had it happen before, and I don't know why they would. Maybe the button is broken?" she suggested.
I nodded. Things break; everything needs a little maintenance every once in a while, and it made sense that it would happen at Parasol, too. Somehow it seemed too convenient to be that, though.
A few seconds later the doors opened, and we exited into the hallway of floor 81, headed for the stairs.
"Did you have fun?" I asked her as I walked behind her skipping steps. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear her admit it.
She laughed in response. "Yes, I did," she admitted, spinning around as she walked to level a playful, mischievous glare at me. "You
know I did."
"I thought you would," I told her happily, nodding as we started up the stairs. "Want to do it again sometime?"
"Pfft, we won't be able to, you know," Katie said, rolling her eyes teasingly. "
Someone forgot to invent a way to get us back inside without the guards finding out."
I laughed at her poking jest, pushing open a door at the top of the stairs and following her through after she'd passed. "It's just as much you as me. We'll just say we left through the front door, but they were on coffee break or something," I offered, checking in my pocket to make sure I'd remembered the key to Kenzon's apartments.
She threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, that's
brilliant!" she said in teasing sarcasm. "Of
course they'd happen to be away while we left the room. And my dad used to work with security, too, but there's
no way he would know."
"I doubt they'd want to admit they let us past them while on duty, so maybe they'll just let us back in," I offered, smiling along with her as we turned the corner onto her hallway.
We both stopped abruptly as we caught a first glimpse of our floor. Black-and-yellow tape was stretched across the hall, and white-uniformed Parasol security forces were milling about outside the doorway to her apartment. Two translucent holograms lay in odd positions on the floor - holograms of the bodies of the two security guards that had guarded Kenzon's apartment only hours earlier. Katie's hand flew to her mouth as she let out a little cry and rushed forwards away from me, realizing what had happened only seconds before I did. It was a crime scene, and Kenzon's security guards had been murdered. Someone had made a third attempt on Katie's life, and this time, the only thing that had saved her was our little rebellious birthday excursion. Shaking my head in shock, I tried to convince myself that none of it was real. I could see Kenzon himself milling about among the guards, his hands on his head as he tried to stay calm and keep from panicking.
"Dad!" Katie shouted towards him as she ran, and I started afterwards her at a jog.
"Katie!" he called back, relief and happiness apparent in his voice as he shouldered his way past the police, ducking under the black-and-yellow tape and breaking into a jog. As they met in the middle, he scooped his daughter up in his arms and held her close.
"Dad, what happened?" she asked him.
As I drew closer to them, I could hear him speaking. "I thought I'd lost you... I'm glad you're all right. I got a call at work saying there had been a double murder and a burglary, and that the apartment was empty - I thought someone had kidnapped you and Vanya, or worse."
I heard my name and stopped, ten feet or so away, standing alone and very conspicuously in the center of the hallway. As Kenzon spoke my name, it appeared to remind him of my existence, and he turned his head towards me, narrowing his eyes as he set Katie's feet back down upon the carpet.
"Vanya..." he said slowly, deliberately, leveling a painfully piercing glare at me, "I expect you to explain this."
I glanced from him to Katie, who was looking at me sorrowfully with regret, and then back again to him. "If Katie had been here, she would've been killed, so what did I do wrong?" I asked uncomfortably.
"Far more than you should have..." he said under his breath, a hint of anger in his voice. "Maybe more than you know."
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