Unraveling the Alt Code

Chapter Four: The Same Answers

For a few moments, we both stand frozen, silently looking out of the door, half expecting the mysterious red head to burst back in. When she doesn't, Ren turns to me with a look of exasperation.
"What are you doing just standing there? Your clothes are soaked through! Are you actually trying to make us late for Isco?" She says this in a stupidly lighthearted tone that forces me to smile and roll my eyes. I open my mouth to explain, but Ren quickly reaches out with a hand to cover it.
"We don't have time for excuses Kit. Come on, let's get you changed." As she says this, she grabs me by the arm and skips out of the showers. I'm left dragging behind, dripping all over the tiles.

With a new pair of sweatpants and loose t-shirt on, I pull my hair out of my eyes and up into a high ponytail that looks more like a messy bun than anything else, but I like it anyway. Behind me Ren, watches on with her silky-straight hair already braided into a long, thick, blond plait at the base of her neck. She bounces up and down slightly with impatience.
"Let's go let's go let's go!" She says, glancing again and again at my alarm clock.
"Okay I'm ready, I'm coming!" I sigh as we both step out of my cube, beginning the long walk to Isco.

The main corridors are a little busier now as Alts walk to classes or testing. Snippets of conversation fly past my ears as I struggle to keep up the Rens peppy pace. After the whole Que situation, I've been thinking a lot of things over. In the showers, I finally came to the conclusion that he was right about wanting, no, needing to know more. I never even considered how little I really understand about my own life and now it's like an inch I just can't scratch. I need to get this out of my head, but Ren didn't know Que at all ; it won't make any sense to her what I saw. But maybe I can get my point across anyway.
The indistinct mix of voices and chatter are loud, hopefully loud enough to cover what I'm about to say.
"Ren?" I grasp her by the sleeve and she slows a little.
"Hmm?"  The reply i get is only a faint hum front he back of her throat ; I can tell her mind is on something else. But I decide to press on anyway.
"Do you ever feel like we always get the same answers?"
"For what? What'd you mean?" She tilts her head slightly to one side gives me a puzzled look with her icy eyes.
"For almost every question we ask. It's always the same vague answer, but worded slightly differently. So you never find out anything new."
"I don't understand." Abruptly, she just stops dead and whips round to face me , crossing her arms in front of her chest. Grasping her firmly by the shoulders, I continue.
" Well think about it. How many years have you been here?"
Ren pauses a minute before replying slowly.
"Seven years." She says, with thought.
"And how much do you actually truly know about why we have to live like this? What we are doing? Where we are going after?"
She draws breath, as if she's about to stay something, but yet no words leave her lips. Time passes slowly as I watch the truth finally dawn on her. Exhaling, her eyes widen with the disturbing realisation I had just this morning:
"I know...nothing. Almost nothing at all."
"You see! And no one even questions it! I mean it's just odd how..." but my frantic sentence is cut abruptly short.
Suddenly, a guardian places his heavy gloved hand on my shoulder.
"Move along now." He grunts, gesturing behind me. With a quick glance around I realise we've been blocking up the walkway. There is a crowd of people all piled up - in gridlock, like some sort of Alt motorway. In the sea of white and grey, I spot Fin and walk quickly back towards him, pushing through the dense swarm. He grabs my arm with a smile, pulling me up next to him. We wait for Ren to catch up, watching as she apologizes for every toe stepped on and every bag nudged. Slowly but surely, everyone begins to move again. The mass of Alts disperses and, to my relief, the guardian slinks off back to wherever he came from. I just hope he didn't hear too much of or conversation. Or anyone else for that matter. The image of Que's bleeding pen returns once again to haunt me. Is that what happens to you if you get sick of the same answers? I immediately shake the ugly thought from my mind. No. Of course not.

The three of us are now approaching the wide tunnel that leads to the Isco-Lab. It's walls are made entirely of clear glass ; today the golden sunlight is  streaming through. It bounces off the polished surface of Fin's glasses, giving him super-hero-like lazier heat vision, and nearly blinding me. Ren laughs her squeaky laugh as I scramble to cover my face.
"Look away from me!" I let out a panicky yell.
Now they are both laughing. And I can't help but smile too.