"Are you an authority figure around here?" Andris asked Corin as they exited the Captain's headquarters.
"Mm, not really. Why do you ask?"
"Well, that just seemed... kind of fast. I'm not complaining—I'm just confused. It seems like all the guards know you, you have this fancy 'stormchaser' title, and it couldn't have taken much more than five minutes for me to get the O.K. to stay here."
"Swweets trusts my judgment," she replied, shrugging, "well, most of the time, anyway. Besides, you seem like a good guy."
Seeing as he had hardly done anything but stand around and ask questions, Andris was unsure what to make of that statement, but he'd take it. After a long enough pause, Andris asked, "You're taking me to get answers, now, right?" sounding a little more annoyed than he intended. After everything he'd been through today, though, he figured he deserved to sound a bit peeved.
"Yes. Anevon's the local... information center? Man, that sounds weird. I mean, if you have questions, she has answers. It's her whole deal." Corin explained as she led Andris toward the outer edge of the park.
Something about that didn't sit right with Andris. "What do you mean, 'information center'?"
"She's very—" Corin began to say something, then quickly decided against it. "Basically, people give her stuff so that she can tell them stuff, and then she researches the stuff they give her and gets more information to give to more people."
"Huh..." Then it hit him: "I don't have anything to give her."
"Oh, just answer any questions she has. I'm sure being around someone who's actually from the before will be payment enough for her."
Andris cringed. With how little he remembered, he worried he'd be useless here—and then what would happen to him?
Before long, he and Corin made it to a hotel. It was only four stories tall, but its presence felt much larger to Andris. Flanked by six dead palm trees and draped in thick sheets of kudzu, it almost seemed as if the building itself had grown from the ground. It could have been alive. When Andris's eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the lobby, the red carpeting certainly didn't help him shake the thought. "Someone lives here?" he asked skeptically. "This cannot be up to code."
"I'm pretty sure she lives on the second story," Corin corrected, before sneezing at the dust they had kicked up. "What code?"
Andris shook his head. "Never mind. Oh, Bless you."
Corin seemed confused. "Huh?"
Right. Apocalypse. "...Never mind."
"Okay..." She gave him an odd look before climbing the stairs. Corin slowed her pace as she entered the hallway and called out, "Anevon? Hello?" There was no answer.
"I thought you knew where she lived," Andris remarked skeptically.
"I know she lives on this floor." She continued forward and shouted again, "Anevon? It's Corin! I brought someone you might want to meet!"
A few clicks came from a nearby door, which opened slowly. Someone, presumably Anevon, peeked out before stepping fully into view. A smile crossed her face. "Good to see you again, Corin." She turned her attention to Andris. "And who might you be?"
"Uh..." Andris's brain was too busy trying to figure out which of Anevon's eyes to look at to reply. He counted at least seven of them, including the two that most people had, before remembering it was probably rude to stare without speaking for so long.
"I'm, uh... Specialist Greene. Andris. Hi."
Other than the eyes, Anevon looked almost like a professor to Andris—an eccentric one, anyway. Her dark, curly hair was drawn back into a neat ponytail, and she wore an ancient blazer bearing a handful of colorful patches. The blazer itself was buttoned up, obscuring whatever was on the graphic tee beneath it.
"He's from Before," Corin added emphatically, perhaps partly to cover up Andris's behavior.
Anevon's look of wariness immediately shifted to one of genuine interest. A couple more of her eyes turned to Andris. "Really?" she asked with a widening grin. "How did you manage that?"
Remembering Corin's request, and wanting to gain the trust of as many people as possible around here, Andris tried to recount as much as he could. "Well, I... was put in stasis." That's what it was called. "I don't know for how long, or by whom... my superiors at Tempest, probably." Though he was happy he remembered something new, he was incredibly disappointed with how little he could dredge up.
"Fascinating," Anevon muttered. "Well, Andris, I think you should take a seat." She suddenly sounded like a doctor about to break some bad news. Anevon motioned for Andris and Corin to follow her into one of the hotel's rooms, directing Andris to a large, upholstered chair. Anevon and Corin stood facing him in the only other cleared space in the room, which was otherwise packed with a varied, yet orderly, assortment of appliances, toys, and knickknacks. In stark contrast to the state of the lobby, these objects were some of the most pristine that Andris had seen since he woke up.
"We should get the worst out of the way first," Anevon began clinically, "If you are from Before, then you were likely in stasis for at least fifty-three years. That's how far back our first records after the Between go."
"...Fifty-three?" Andris echoed breathlessly. It became harder to sit up straight.
Though Anevon's expression was concerned, she continued on, "...Yes. I can't say I know who your 'superiors' are, though. Or what Tempest is... Was? Hm." Anevon turned around and shuffled through the contents of one of the dresser drawers. She pulled out a notebook, which she quickly flipped through, and began to write something down. "I've never heard of Tempest, actually, but I'd assume you're wearing their uniform. Can you tell me what those chevrons signify?" She gestured at his uniform sleeves with her pen.
Half of Andris's brain was still trying to process the fact that five decades had passed without him knowing. He knew he was in stasis, and he had known the world would end. These were things he had felt prepared for. He should have known that this would happen, too.
He looked down and tried to think. "Right. Uhm..." Concentrating on the stripes helped to ground him, at least a little. There were a lot more of them than he had expected, though he couldn't remember their exact meanings. "I know I was called a 'Specialist,' which I'm fairly sure is high-ranking, and I know I worked for Tempest, for... for almost a decade, I think." Things were becoming less foggy now, but only barely. Andris felt like he'd hit a wall. He could recall snatches of memories from Tempest, but any time he tried to focus on them, they'd flit away like... like what, exactly?
"That's all I can remember right now," Andris continued, grimacing, "But, if more comes back to me, I can let you know." With the smallest pause after Andris finished speaking, Anevon asked another question. "I see. Thank you. And what was the last thing you remember before waking up?"
Oh, god, more questions. Okay. "I was... in a hallway?" Andris could feel himself contorting his face with the effort to remember. "A... metal hallway. And.. I think I was with someone. Maybe... people? I... No, I'm—" He shook his head. There was a sharp pain in the back of his skull now. He rubbed his neck and decided to give himself a break.
Anevon furrowed her brow, but continued writing.
"Are you getting some good info?" Corin inquired quietly, leaning in to look at Anevon's papers. Anevon nodded. Corin seemed quite proud of herself. Andris felt like a lab rat.
He tried his best to get into a better headspace, and when the ache died down enough, he decided it was time to get some answers in return. He conjured up a tone with a little more authority, probably some relic of his days at Tempest, he supposed, and stated, "Now I want some information from you."
Three of Anevon's eyes looked up from her notebook. "Ask away."
"What exactly happened to the world?"
From the way Anevon's eyes sparkled and her posture straightened, Andris got the feeling she'd given the impending lecture many times. "Well, no one knows for sure, unfortunately, but based on the stories and films that have survived from the Before, we do know quite a bit about what Before culture was like and what Before tech was capable of. We know about computers, and cars, and barometers, and we know that they didn't have the Maelstrom."
A few more of her eyes looked up at him. "What we don't know is what caused it all to fall apart. Somehow, something dismantled the world; and 'dismantled' is the right word. The world's governments and commerce fell apart, militaries dissolved, nations crumbled. Well, as far as we can tell, anyway. We don't actually have any records from the Between—the time after the Before but before the Now—but we have reason to believe that during the Between, very little activity actually happened. Most scholars attribute the empty period to a long-term surge in Maelstrom activity, but we don't know why Maelstrom activity would spike like that. There's simply no parallel to it recorded. Then, approximately fifty-three years ago, we have our first records of the Now."
"Basically," Corin translated, "Something something Before, then the apocalypse happened, then people were really out of it for a while and didn't write anything down, and Now we're all way more isolated than we were Before and we don't actually know why any of it happened."
Anevon smiled at her. "Essentially, yes."
Andris only felt more confused. "Corin also talked about a 'storm' and a 'maelstrom', and people keep calling her the Stormchaser. Why does that keep coming up? Is the Maelstrom like... a new superstorm or something?"
Anevon actually turned her full attention away from her notebook at that. "Oh, where do I begin?" she said wistfully. "The Maelstrom is... a collection of memories, essentially—everyone's memories, given pseudo-physical form. Some people, whom we call Sensitives, have the ability to interact with it in different ways." She noted proudly, "I'm one such person. Corin isn't Sensitive, but people call her Stormchaser because she tracks storms. Weather has a major influence on how much the Maelstrom manifests itself, which, I think, is why people started calling it a 'maelstrom' in the first place. Corin's brought back some interesting findings, actually."
It was difficult for Andris to wrap his head around what she was saying. Corin, who must have seen the confusion on his face and resigned to her role as interpreter, clarified, "All you need to know is that storms tend to mess with people's brains. As long as you're in a safe place when it starts to rain, you're fine." Before Andris could respond, something new seemed to cross Corin's mind. "Wait." She turned to Anevon. "Do you think people from Before can be Sensitive?"
"That is a very good question." Anevon stared somewhere past the walls of the cramped room for a moment. Then, for the first time since they met, every one of her eyes suddenly focused on Andris. He might have gasped aloud without meaning to, because Anevon attempted to reassure him, "Don't worry. I just want you to try something, if that's okay with you. It won't—well, I won't lie, it might hurt—but that's up to the Maelstrom, not me."
Andris didn't like this at all. He looked to Corin for some explanation, but she just shrugged. Apparently even she was out of the loop, now. In spite of that, she gestured for him to go on.
Anevon quickly adopted a softer tone, likely noticing how scared Andris looked. "I just want to know if you can sense it. Do you hear or see anything unusual? Something that wasn't there before you were in the Now?"
Andris furrowed his brow. "I don't... think so. I've had trouble remembering things since I got here, so there's a lot that feels like it's missing, but I don't think anything's there that wasn't there before."
Anevon nodded and scribbled something in her notebook again. She flipped through the last few pages.
"...How do you interact with the Maelstrom?" Andris asked.
"I use my eyes." She replied without looking, as if it were so obvious that not even sarcasm was necessary.
"...How?..."
"Oh. Right. Well, I haven't had a conversation with the Maelstrom in a little while, so I'd be happy to demonstrate, if you'd like." She closed her notebook and looked at Andris expectantly.
"Yeah," Andris said without hesitation. He then immediately wondered if he should have given it a little more thought. No, no, this would be valuable information... right?
After placing her notebook back in the dresser, Anevon faced Andris once again and took a deep breath. She gazed carefully at his jacket, and as she exhaled, her focus drifted past him—then further and further away, until each of her eyes rolled back into her head and her eyelids began to flutter.
After a few seconds, Anevon inhaled sharply. She blinked. Andris could see her irises again. Corin didn't seem at all fazed by this, and Anevon even seemed refreshed, which gave Andris some comfort. "Your jacket spent a lot of time in front of a terminal, in a gray room with a few others. It seems like you worked very closely with these others, and with the text in front of you," Anne remarked.
Okay, the comfort was leaving, but what she said did spark something. "I.. Yeah, I think I did, actually. I think.. I worked with code. that's why I was a Specialist and not an Operative." He blinked, astonished that he remembered something else.
Anevon smiled, and Andris actually found himself smiling back.
"Thank you," he said.
"Any time."
He glanced at Corin, trying to gauge if it was time to leave yet. All she gave him was a grin and a thumbs up.
When Anevon turned to her, Corin played it off by running her hand through her hair and redirecting her smile to Anevon. "Yeah, thanks, Anne."
"It's no trouble, really," Anevon replied, lingering on Corin's gaze. She cleared her throat. "Um... You two are probably tired, though, aren't you? How long were you driving today?"
"Just a couple hours. It's alright," dismissed Corin.
"I'm pretty tired," asserted Andris. He needed some space to process what he'd just heard.
Anevon nodded, then said, "Well, Andris, you know where to find me. I think that you have a lot of questions that I can answer, and I certainly have a lot that you could answer, so don't stay a stranger." She smiled.