Glasnost

“Let us know when you’re ready for the conversation we requested this morning.” Helena said. She and Hazel were watching Ava as she sat criss-cross on the bed. When they’d come back from the Dining Hall after lunch, the Japanese woman had somehow found a video game console and was playing some third-person game with a swordsman. Where she’d gotten ahold of it, neither of them quite knew. Her mentor’s supposedly Hephasetus. Maybe he offered it? Still seems like a waste of BP.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I haven’t unlocked the dash yet, so it probably won’t be long. I’ve only got like eight health left after the big skeletal bombers in the last room.”

Sure enough, a monster Ava helpfully identified as a ‘repentant king’ tackled her a moment later, and blood washed over the screen to signal her Game Over. The gamer went through the surprisingly complicated steps to save her game, then set down the controller by the television. “So what’s up?”

“We have something we need to show you. Hazel?”

Her partner took a manilla folder from under her seat and stood up, handing it over to her friend on the bed.

Ava accepted it, frowning in confusion as she looked down at her own name. “Guys, what am I looking at?”

“When my stepbrother began spending more time with you all, I decided to do some research. I wanted to know anything that could put him at risk. Whether that came in the form of a threat one of you could present yourself, or a vulnerability that needed to be mitigated for both of your sakes. He recently learned I had done this, and so asked me to reveal my actions and what I had learned. This is my gathered findings on you, go ahead and skim through as you need.”

Ava opened to the first page, seeing a relatively simple table of contents. The first chapter was supposed to be about her youth. She started skimming through and saw report cards, bits from her mom’s old blog, then medical records from when Ben was born. How did she get this? Her brow furrowed.

She slowed down as she reached her teenage years. Ava found math and science tests. She remembered the teachers, but not the grades.

Her grip tightened as she noticed a picture from the national aquarium, snuck amongst the others. No. No.

She started flipping through faster now. She saw Ben’s name again, and again, and again. No. This wasn’t yours. Anger bubbled towards her roommate, watching her read.

She fled from the chapter, flipping thirty pages at once. She started seeing Dick’s name instead of Ben’s. She scanned through, letting days become weeks:

• Richard given recommendation by Dr.Owens for athletic trainer.
• An Ava Soto is on his calendar for this Thursday
• Richard called, enjoyed the first session with Miss Soto.
• Richard visited. Mentioned Miss Soto’s education in a discussion of his strong first impressions. No records of enrollment or graduation could be found. May need to dig into this gap further if he is injured, she is found giving questionable advice, or if other problems present themselves.

They knew. That’s why Hazel was so weird about college. The thought struck Ava like a knife as she recalled their sparring session together. They’ve known the whole time.

Ava looked up at the businesswoman seated across from her. She was smiling professionally as she revealed the secret Ava had been trying to hide half her life. Her friends were all professionals, real adults with titles and framed degrees. She was a fraud who hadn’t even graduated high school. She told people she’d been to Georgetown, but that was just where she’d taken her GED. She felt caged, trapped in the uncaring documentation of her lie.

She hadn’t decided to punch Hel. She didn’t remember standing up, or her arm pulling back for a wind up. But the punch was flying nonetheless.

Her fist stopped in the air as Hazel stepped in its way.

“Miss Soto. You are going to back away.” Hazel calmly directed. She then took a single step forward, forcing an uncomfortable proximity. Ava had no choice but to step back towards the bed.

Even forced back, Ava was still seeing red. She started reaching for the black rose sword at her waist, which had come from one of Felicia’s admirer’s yesterday morning.

But she stopped herself and took a deep breath, managing to stop herself from resorting to violence again. Instead as her hand lingered over the scabbard they unconsciously formed a fingergun and her Mentor’s voice echoed in her head.

“Fine. You know about me. I don’t even care!” She shot. “I’ll even give you a tip. My mentor told me about yours. He warned me not to let you go to the temple, or you’d be able to win one of those damn wishes without even trying to touch Dick.”

“Is that so?” Helena calmly responded.

“Perhaps-” Hazel started.

“And you! I thought you were my friend. I guess you were just waiting for ‘other problems to present themselves.’”

“Ms.Turner and I-”

It was pointless to finish her sentence, as Ava knocked over the empty chair Hazel had been sitting in and stormed out of the room. There was a loud thud, then a cracking noise, as they heard the amazon slam the main door of the house.

“That… could have gone better.” Helena said. “Are you alright? I know you liked her more than most of his friends.”

“I do, yes…” Hazel faltered. “Hopefully there is time for her to forgive us.”

“She mentioned the temple.”

“Yes. Pardon me for saying this Ma’am, but it’s an obvious trap.”

I hope so. After how she reacted, maybe I deserve it. “Of course. But I still think we should go.”

“We should walk into a trap?”

“I don’t see any other choice.”

“I… please explain what I’m missing.”

“Like we agreed, we both know it’s a trap. But what else is there? Who or whatever is waiting for me still wants to help. If it turns out like the first time you were there with Felicia, then you’d be there to step in or at least get Bo. If Ava’s wrong, then we might be able to get something from it. And if she’s right, well, at least she might feel that the score is settled.” She let the real reason slip in towards the end.

Hazel paused, still apprehensive. “If you’re sure, Ma’am. I still have some reservations given what I’ve seen and heard there.”

“Then we can put together a list of everything we know about the Mentors today then to prepare. Tomorrow we can use what we know. I know you don’t like it. But I also know that you can protect me from anything.”

Her bodyguard slowly nodded. “Since we’re looking to dispose of what files we can, I’ll look for one I have faith we will no longer need. We can use the backs to write with.”

As she was about to step out to their file collection, they heard the door bang again, followed by the last voice they wanted to hear.

“So when you told me I reminded you of yourself,” Felicia crowed, “was that supposed to be an insult?”

“Yes.” Helena answered. She’d narrowed her eyes, taking her concentration away from the guilt she felt from just a moment ago.

Felicia squinted back, surprised by the honesty. “Can I see your file on me?”

“Hazel, would you get it?”

Her partner agreed. She walked past the blonde and into the hallway. Coming back a moment later, she handed another manilla folder over before returning to Helena’s side.

“Be quiet then, I’m going to read this quickly.”

She read the whole thing. They’d tracked everything she’d agree was worth recording from her youth. They had a little picture in here from one of her science fairs, her mother looking confused in a way that made more sense after the call they’d had a few days ago. There were more pictures here from her pageant career. She’d made it to second in Miss Teen Indiana at sixteen, then at seventeen the girl who’d been in third the previous year leapfrogged her. Mom had been disappointed and Felicia herself incensed, despite the fact that they’d both tried to hide those feelings from the other.

But then she’d left South Indiana and made it to civilization. Felicia’s chance to look back at college was calming after being reminded of those shitheads from the pageant circuit with their perfect hair and gleaming smiles, acting like they weren’t the same overcompetitive maniacs-

Right. Calming. She took a deep breath as she forced Miss Teen Indiana away again and tried to concentrate on the college stories in front of her. Perfect grades and glowing reviews from her professors, college nearly as easy for her as high school had been. Even the string of rejections and breakups couldn’t mar her memories of undergrad.

Felicia reached med school, and while she remembered it growing tougher, she quickly found something else. A girl had started showing up at the store she bought her manga from, and when Felicia had some by three days in a row to pick up another volume of Phoenix Crystal Ultra, that other girl had been in the same clothes each evening.

Felicia had decided to check on the Japanese girl she would learn was homeless, and… one thing led to another. Now they were both here. No wonder Ava’s pissed, if they know about this.

She kept going, reading the whole thing in near silence. Her doctorate. The clinic. The gaming group. Oh. They never knew.

When she was finally done, she tossed it on the bed with a grin.

“You finished it rather quickly, considering how closely you seemed to be reading.”

“I know most of the story, and I’m the smartest person on the island for a reason.”

Helena raised an eyebrow.

“You missed it.”

“What did we miss?”

“My crush on him. You were sniffing around, but-”

“We thought otherwise, due to your arguments with him and Richard’s own assurances that you had no such interests in him.” Hel filled in. “I assume you’re angry about us having the file.”

“Oh, a little peeved I suppose. Honestly, I’ve been more pissed when someone's been nice to me. I don’t even want to feel the need to fight y’all right now. I just feel bad for you guys.”

“You… feel bad for us?”

Felicia stood up from the bed, the petite woman looking smug. “I’m normally the one that flies off the handle. I fix things when she misspeaks or doesn’t understand the context of a situation, she fixes things after I cuss someone out or get us banned from somewhere. It’s a good system.

“Ava’s incredibly nice, she’ll forgive pretty much anything. The one thing that she actually cares about is her privacy. Digging into her education? She’s weirdly sensitive about that, and if she thinks it’s going to be revealed to the others then whatever I might decide to do is nothing.”

“Is there anything you’ve decided to do?” Helena said. She was growing weary from the explanation, despite being eager to walk into a trap just a few minutes ago.

“If Ava asks me to do something specific to help her get back at you, I will. But until then, it’s my turn to try keeping things quiet.” The blonde posed, as if announcing herself as some great messiah.

“And what’s the catch? I can’t imagine you’d want to help us.”

“No, I’m not helping you guys. My best friend wants to ruin you both, and I’m not going to take your side against hers. What I’m doing is for the sake of literally everyone else on this island, because whatever Ava does needs to be quiet enough that Aubrey doesn’t find out.”

“We’ve never been anything but kind to-”

“Judging from the fact that this exists,” Felicia pointed at the file. “You’re a couple ribs short of a rack, so I don’t particularly trust your judgement on that.”

“Regardless of why you’ve decided to do it, what might this look like?” Hazel spoke for the first time since Felicia burst in. “We appreciate any steps towards peace, Dr.Owens, but it may make all our positions easier if we coordinate our efforts to ‘keep things quiet.’”

“So I’m going to keep her distracted. If she’s awake then she’ll be with me, she’ll be with Dick, or she’ll be on the Switch.” Felicia moved to put Ava’s new console into its carrying case she could see beside the television. “I’ll try to make sure she’s on the later side to meals, and since you’re Aubrey’s roommate I’d see if you can make sure she’s on the early side.”

“We do need to let Aubrey see her file soon.” Helena pointed out.

“Fine. So do it next round. Luna’s got some plan she’s trying to accomplish right now, and I know she can’t be the only one. If Aubrey takes this like Ava did, and with how crazy she is we both know she will, then everyone else’s stuff will be smothered by her self-absorbed outrage.”

The two schemers across from the blonde exchanged a look. Hazel won their silent debate, and spoke: “You have a point, Dr.Owens. We appreciate the assistance in preventing this from spiraling further out of control.”

“Yeah. And if I can offer one more piece of advice to you specifically?”

Hazel made a hand motion, directing her to proceed.

“Stop trying to sound so fucking corporate. ‘Dr.Owens.’ Bullshit. You know me and you know my name. I’ve talked to you when you’re not with the Turners, and you sound human. Don't act like you’re from the Exterminator movies just because you’re with them. I don’t know if you’re nervous or trying to impress them, but it makes you look silly and uncaring to the rest of us.”

Hazel stiffened. “Understood, Felicia.”

“Good.” Felicia picked up the console’s case. “Good luck sleeping next to her tonight, I can’t imagine she’ll be too cooperative right now.” She walked out, and both women heard the door to the Trident slam for the third time that day.

Right. Ava will be back here by curfew at ten. Helena realized. We really need to earn her forgiveness fast.

***

The views expressed towards Southern Indiana are solely those of Dr.Felicia Owens, and do not reflect the official position of the Domestic Affairs writer.