What Happened in Strasbourg

Chapter eleven: London

That night I went back onto "Trench Chat." Every time I finished going on there I told myself I'd never do it again, it was too risky, and I didn't want to carry on awkward conversations. But it drew me back in spite of all that.

On this night web traffic seemed sluggish. Nobody was that desperate to talk about anything, and everyone disconnected fast. I was about ready to give up and go to bed when I was startled awake by a face I recognized. A girl with the remnants of a black eye and dark, short hair.
"Maddie?"

"Wait? Who are you?"

"I'm Gracie, remember I met you at the mall the other night?"

"Oh yeah, of course. Didn't guess you'd be... the type of person I'd meet on here. What made you go on here in the first place?"

I didn't want to tell her that my dad ran the distribution center. I know she'd probably hate me by proxy.

"I just... thought it would be interesting," I said. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on with Acheron and Mir-Tek."

"Well, that's exactly what Trench is about," Maddie said. "I've found a lot of info on here to share with my cousin Sasha. I'm gonna go to London to visit him tomorrow afternoon at the Chashka Utra coffee shop. You can come too if you want to talk to him."

The words that came out of my mouth next surprised me. "Thanks! I'd like to do that."

. . .

My mom was like a stagnant branch of government that no new laws could pass through. It took a lot of convincing to let my ideas go anywhere. I'd asked Ava if she'd come to London with me and she'd agreed, even if she wasn't too keen about heading to the outskirts of the Russian district. But my mom was another story...

"You want to what?"

"Go to London on the train. Ava's going to her dance class and then we're going shopping."

"Since when is Ava's dance class today? I thought it was on--"

"They.... They switched the schedule at the last minute--"

"No. You can video call each other and go on Acheron.com at the same time if you wanna shop together. That's what I had to do during the pandemic. It's a lot safer."

"It's not the same. Besides I'm not just going with Ava, I'm going with this other girl who's older than us. She'll make sure we don't get... dragged away in unmarked vans by the cops or Mir-Tek or whatever you think is gonna happen to me."

"I don't think any of that is going to happen. I just think you're not telling me the full truth about what you're up to... You didn't used to be like that, but now I think--"

"Please? I promise I'll be careful."

She shook her head and turned away.

"All right, you can go," she sighed. "Just don't do anything risky, and get back before it gets too dark."

. . .

Ava met me at the train station which was emptier than I'd ever seen. We sat on a bench beneath a shade structure, all alone except for a nervous business woman who paced back and forth on the edge of the platform.

A bell chimed as the electric train glided towards us, bringing with it a smell of ozone. It was painted silver and red with a serpentine muzzle on either end, and switched between them depending on which direction it was headed. The doors hissed open letting out a gust of refreshing, cool air but only a handful of passengers. Ava and I stepped inside, and found seats by the window. We had to wait about ten minutes for the train to close its doors and start off again, back towards London.