Day 5, Week 1: Natalia Porter Part 1

Alan woke to banging on the door.

“Huh,” he muttered, taking stock of his situation.

Chloe was asleep beside him, looking satisfied in a way that made Alan’s brain flip through several incompatible interpretations and land on the one it least wanted to name. Alan had had sex with Chloe—in spirit if not technicality—and that sentence alone would have killed his younger self.

He pictured his younger selves lined up like a jury.

Eleven-year-old Alan was horrified. Fourteen-year-old Alan was impressed. Fifteen and sixteen were annoyed on principle. Seventeen looked relieved, like at least he’d finally done something.

Chloe slept through the banging without a twitch. Alan got up, quietly confident in her ability to sleep through anything short of an apocalypse. He pulled on clothes, stepped to the door, and opened it.

Laurel and Christian hit him like combined weather.

Laurel looked calm in the way people looked calm when they’d already used up their panic for the day. Christian looked… sharp around the edges, like she’d been vibrating in place for an hour.

Laurel turned slightly, as if presenting a witness.

“Christian said she had a sibling crisis,” Laurel said, “but got lost trying to find your room.”

“Ah.” Alan nodded at Laurel. “How are you?”

“Eh.” Laurel’s mouth twisted. “Mom had a letter for me. It’s, well…”

Alan winced sympathetically. “I believe the term you used to describe being her daughter was ‘being chained to a comet’ on a Facebook post that never went down.”

Laurel stared at him.

Then she sighed. “Yeah.”

Behind them, Chloe’s door cracked open like a cautious animal peeking out. Chloe appeared in the hallway in a rumpled shirt, eyes half-shut, and the second she saw Christian she woke up all the way.

Christian stepped forward with a wordless urgency Chloe matched without thinking. Chloe grabbed Christian by the wrist and pulled her down the corridor like she was reclaiming something that had wandered off.

Neither of them said a word.

They moved like magnets snapping together.

“Well,” Alan said weakly, gesturing after them as they vanished around a corner. “They haven’t changed.”

Laurel watched them go, expression unreadable.

“What’s even up with them, anyway?” Laurel asked.

Alan hesitated.

“Oh.” He frowned, searching for words that didn’t exist in the category of things you say in a hallway. “I guess you should know. It’s not a secret, but it’s awful. There was…”

Laurel didn’t wait for him to soften it. “Chloe told me about the ****,” she said bluntly. “But how did they get separated?”

Alan’s throat tightened.

“Oh.” He looked down. “Christian didn’t back Chloe’s allegations.”

He swallowed, then tried again, because the sentence felt wrong as soon as it was spoken.

“Fuck,” Alan said quietly. “That’s not right. Christian was… terrified. Rightly terrified of their parents. Chloe got sent away like Christian expected.”

Laurel’s face shifted. She looked away, as if staring at the wall would keep something from spilling out of her eyes.

“Oh.” Her voice went flat. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Alan said, shuddering. “I hate that I understand why Christian did it.”

He took a breath and tried—badly—to change the subject to something that didn’t involve family ruin.

“I’m surprised Natalia isn’t here,” Alan said. “It’s her day, right? Don’t you get herded to my room?”

Laurel actually smiled.

“Actually, no. Everyone just assumed they were supposed to show up. But Ariadne’s way too wasted to herd us, and Skynet doesn’t give a shit about the show.”

“Oh.” Alan shrugged. “Can you take me to Natalia? It wouldn’t be fair not to give her a shot.”

Laurel nodded like she’d been waiting for him to say that.

“Oh, she already asked me to get you. She’s talking with Ari about her idea.”

Laurel led Alan down the hallway at a pace that suggested she was enjoying herself.

They crossed a glass bridge over a lake that looked too deep to be inside a building. They climbed a ladder that somehow led them out a window. They had a brief encounter with an octopus in a corridor where no ocean should have been.

Alan stopped asking questions after the octopus looked offended.

Finally, Laurel led him onto a small boat. Natalia stood there with Ariadne, who looked suspiciously upbeat for someone Laurel had just called “way too wasted.”

“Laurie,” Ariadne said, smiling brightly, “did you have to take him the long way around?”

“I didn’t have to,” Laurel said with satisfaction. “But I wanted to.”

“It’s fine,” Alan lied.

He was surprised how annoyed he was at the detour. He didn’t like being treated like a prop. He didn’t like realizing he could be treated like a prop by people he liked.

Natalia turned and smiled at him, and the annoyance softened into something else.

“Well,” Natalia said, “it’s good to see you.”

She looked, to Alan’s eyes, like she was in her twenties. Plain clothes, no glamorous styling, which only made her look more intentional. Like she’d chosen not to play the “celebrity” card on purpose.

“I was talking with Ariadne about riding lessons,” Natalia said. “I thought you—and anyone else who knows a bit about horses—could teach the rest of us.”

“Oh.” Alan smiled despite himself. “Can you ride?”

“In theory, yes,” Natalia said. “Doing it without trained handlers and a horse used to a film crew will be new.”

“Ah.” Alan nodded. “Will anyone be joining us?”

Ariadne made a vague gesture.

“Chloe and Christian are speaking in some kind of twin-language, and I really don’t want to disrupt that. Joan’s over-planning her date. That leaves us.”

Alan frowned. “Christian and Chloe don’t have a twin-language. They tried, and never agreed on the basics.”

“Well,” Ariadne said, amused, “that makes whatever they’re doing significantly more exciting.”

Alan thought for a few seconds.

“You do know they speak Basque, right?” he said.

Ariadne blinked. “I did not.”

“What’s Basque?” Laurel asked.

“The language of a tiny group of people in Spain,” Ariadne said automatically, eyes unfocusing like she’d reached for a fact and found a knife instead. “Way more history than we can cover right now.”

Her expression changed mid-sentence.

“Ah, okay.” Ariadne’s voice went distant. “Wait.”

She went still.

“Wait what the actual—”

Ariadne vanished.

No shimmer. No warning. Just gone, like the hotel had decided she’d said one syllable too close to a forbidden name.

The boat rocked slightly in the silence that followed.

Alan and Natalia stared at the empty space where Ariadne had been.

After a full minute, Alan cleared his throat.

“Let’s hope that doesn’t turn out to be a problem,” he suggested.

Natalia made a face that was half laugh, half grimace. “We can put it on the list.”

Laurel stepped backward toward the edge of the boat.

“Well,” she said, “if this was a harem activity I’d stay, but being a third wheel would suck. I’ll go see if Joan needs help.”

Before Alan could ask what that meant, Laurel hopped over the side.

She disappeared into the water like she’d done it a hundred times.

Natalia and Alan spoke in unison, identical timing.

“Has she done that before?”

They stared at each other.

Natalia coughed, recovering first.

“Um. Horses.” She turned toward the front of the boat, where a Crawler-faced dog had positioned itself like it belonged there.

The dog looked back with placid seriousness.

“Can you take us to the horses, please?”

The boat began moving.

The dog did not move.

Alan watched the dog for a few seconds, then the water, then the dog again.

He had the distinct impression the boat was being piloted by something invisible—or integrated into the craft itself—and the dog was just the part that made it feel polite.

Alan tried to process his morning and failed.

“Um.” He rubbed his face. “I have a weird question.”

Natalia giggled, the sound light but not careless.

“A weird question?” she said. “Why, aren’t we going to have a perfectly normal date, on our perfectly normal dating show?”

Alan took a breath and decided to be brave.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked. “Like—don’t take this the wrong way—but it’s not like you’re my celebrity crush.”

He winced. “Everyone else kind of makes sense, even if it’s evil.”

Natalia’s smile faded into something tired and honest.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought Ariadne might’ve remembered Laurel’s crush, but she doesn’t act like it.”

She looked out across the water. “I was wondering about that too.”

“I’m sorry,” Alan said, suddenly feeling small.

“So far,” Natalia said, “I don’t have much to complain about.”

She held up her hands, flexed her fingers like she was still learning the shape of her own body.

“My transformation is incredible. You seem nice. And no one’s been a bitch to me.” Natalia glanced sideways. “Unless you count Ariadne’s abduction.”

Alan gave a weak laugh.

“I keep waiting for another shoe to drop,” Natalia admitted.

“Well,” Alan said, and surprised himself by sounding steady, “I’ll do my best to help you catch the shoe when it drops.”

Natalia looked at him for a beat, then nodded.

“That helps,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

The boat nudged up against a shoreline.

Beyond it stretched a pasture and a low barn. Several horses grazed near the fence, tails flicking. For the first time all day, Alan saw something that looked fully, honestly normal.

He offered Natalia his hand to help her off the boat. She took it.

Then, from the shoreline, a voice called out—masculine, Russian, and entirely too cheerful.

“Sorry I’m late!”

Nagasaki emerged from the water like a creature born from bad decisions. The child shook herself, droplets flying, then trotted toward them with purpose.

Alan’s face lit reflexively.

“Well, hello there!” he called. Then his smile faltered as his brain caught up. “Is it safe for you to be around horses?”

Nagasaki’s eyes went bright with excitement.

“Let’s find out!” she shouted.

And before Alan could grab her, the ferret-sized Crawler darted straight for the horses.

The nearest horse jerked its head up.

Another snorted and backed away.

Then the whole little herd began to spook, bodies shifting, hooves stamping, tension rising like a wave about to break—

“Naga!” Alan yelled, already moving.