Skyborn The Divine

9: Metahuman

The galley, Alice learned, was a sort of cafeteria, though perhaps the word cafeteria did the place an injustice. It more closely resembled a banquet hall, with tables of many shapes and sizes covered in white tablecloths and servers in white shirts. It didn't smell like any cafeteria Alice had been in either. Absent were the smells of fry oil and processed meat she knew from her high school. Instead, she could smell spices and fresh bread and a myriad other aromas that suddenly filled her mouth with so much drool she had to swallow.

Clawson had successfully convinced Maryanne to allow her daughter time alone with the other metahuman, and so he'd led her away to have lunch elsewhere. One of the waitresses, a cheerful young woman perhaps a little older than Alice, ushered her and Ethan to a curtained-off corner of the room with a single round table and a buffet table covered in serving trays. Alice eyed the trays with a little more desperate hunger and a little less dignity than she meant to. She was famished. It seemed that ever since she'd taken up flying, her body just couldn't seem to get enough food. She wondered at that. Did flying require energy from her? Energy that could be supplied in food? It might explain things if it did. Thankfully, her friendship with Christine and her employment at Morena Rose kept her well-fed. But this place? By the smells and the look of the food here, she thought this place might be designed especially for people who needed more food than normal, and quality food at that.

Ethan pulled out a chair for her in a gesture that suddenly made the whole awkward situation seem suspiciously like a first date. He'd traded his sweat-soaked exercise shorts for a pressed, tailored white shirt and dark slacks. If her mind had been on something other than her pressing need for answers and her almost more pressing need for food, she might have found his appearance pleasantly distracting. She was not too hungry, however, to be reminded of just how casually she was dressed compared to nearly everyone around her. She'd passed dozens of people in the dining area on her way to this table, and none of them were in jeans.

As soon as Alice was seated, the young woman who'd showed them to their seats left, closing a curtain behind her so that Ethan and Alice were alone together in a dining room of their own. It suddenly dawned on her where she was, and more importantly, who she was alone with. A metahuman. Like her, someone born with extraordinary abilities, with physical limitations beyond those of mortal men and women. And yet, they were so normal. They were both awkward here, alone together. They were sitting down to a meal, just like normal people would. And she was suddenly realizing that she had no idea where to begin. In all the excitement of that morning, of the discovery that she truly wasn't alone in all of humanity, she'd never actually thought of what to say to him.

The boy, however, seemed willing to take a stab at conversation.

"Clawson's idea of privacy," Ethan gestured to something behind Alice as he spoke.

Alice followed his gaze. Sure enough, in the corner of the ceiling was a black, reflective dome about the size of a baseball. A security camera. It made sense to Alice that she was being watched, but it made it no less unnerving to see the camera. Since the day before when she'd first activated the holographic device in her apartment, she'd become familiar with the feeling of being watched.

"Don't take it personally," Ethan grinned nonchalantly. "He watches everyone. I just think it's funny that he considers this 'privacy'."

Ethan then looked at the camera dome and gave it a not-too-subtle wink.

Alice managed a tight smile through her nerves. She tried to remind herself that she'd come to this place for a purpose. She tried again to think of the questions that had driven her to come here in the first place. She tried smiling, hoping it would give her courage, and opened her mouth, hoping the words would somehow magically fill it on their own.