The dreamers (Working-title)

Chapter 5: Jason

I love Aisha.

They say the best way to learn a language is through romance. Let me tell you, that's not bullshit. I knew English long before the event, it was a part of my training. Since meeting Aisha, however, I've started to learn Hindi and I've started teaching her English as well as my first language, German.

When it's just the two of us, like now, moving around the stalls of random crap, we talk in a combination of English, Hindi and German. I'm going to translate everything to English so that you can understand it better. 

"So, having fun today?" I ask her in Hindi.

She smiles at me before trying to respond in German, "Yes, I very am." She considers what she just said and tries again, "I am, yes, very much." She goes again in English, "I am having fun today." Switching to Hindi, "Obviously, earlier when we had to run from Them wasn't great. And the," switching to English, "Reality Split," back to Hindi, "was horrifying".

You know what, I'm not going to bother saying which parts are in which language. Too much work.

"Yeah," I nod, looking around the stalls, in the distance I see Adam and Jess digging into tiny portions of fish and chips, I knew putting the Brits together was a good idea. "Reality Splits are awful. It's why Robin, Chloe and I left Them in the first place. Moral grounds." 

Aisha nods, looking away. Why did I bring up Chloe and Robin? I've known those two a lot longer than I've known Aisha, I think, sometimes, Aisha gets jealous of that. I try to move the conversation forward. "Is there anything you like here?"

Aisha takes a moment to consider, looking around. Then she smirks at me. "We don't have the money to buy anything."

I can't help but laugh, "You got me!" Thankfully she joins in.

"I have to say, I'm glad we're doing this." She starts, picking up an apple from one of the stands and putting it back. "It's good to feel normal again. Well 'normal'."

"Yeah, I get you, when you need to check every time you wake up, normal becomes somewhat of a relative term." I spot a guy with tiny free samples of cookies. I guide our stroll towards it.

"Tell me about it. At least I've got you." By now we start to arrive at the cookie stall.

"And I, you." I pick up one of the tiny free sample boxes.

"That one is little pieces of double-chocolate." The guy at the stall says, then, indicating to a second box, "This is caramel," a third box, "classic choc-chip," then three more, "raisin, spices and a secret surprise."

"Spices?" I ask, looking for clarification.

"A savoury biscuit. Curry powder and stuff. I dunno really. My wife makes 'em, I just sell 'em. No one buys 'em so I 'af to eat 'em at the end uh the day" Even with my complex understanding of English that sentence still perplexes me.

"I'll have one" Aisha tells him while picking up the box. She opens it, eats a piece and nearly throws up. She turns around and spits the piece back into the box.

"I'm sorry," the cookie man says, "I dunno why I convinced you to eat that. You can take a whole double chocolate one on the house, 'fya want." He hands a double chocolate cookie to her and I place the free sample down on the table.

"Thanks," Aisha walks along, I'm right behind her. She breaks the cookie in half and give one half to me. She devours her half without a second's delay. "And that, is how you get a free cookie."

I take a second to consider what she just said. "Wait what?"

"The 'Spices' cookie was amazing. I loved it. I only spat it out because I knew he'd give us a free one." She smiles at me with false innocence. I laugh.

"That was amazing." I tell her. It was. Then I dig right in to my delicious double chocolate cookie. Then I spot someone. No, something. One of Them.

Seeing on of Them alone is like seeing a lone Hyena, you expect the rest of the pack to be surrounding you in the shadows. Thankfully, I don't think it's noticed me. We were fairly confident that They wouldn't want to get themselves seen in no time. Clearly, they think we're on our last legs.

These guys are more well trained than anyone in our group, they could count the number of hairs on a flee from a mile away. It won't be long until they spot us. I grab Aisha and push her behind a nearby stall out of sight. 

"Oh Jason, there's a time and a place, you know." She says, grinning. "But I do like your thinking." She starts to kiss me and I have to pull her off like a starfish. "What's wrong?" Then she sees from my facial expression. "They're here?"

"At least one of Them."

"Which means approximately twenty of them." She simply digs into her bag and pulls out a little project she's been working on. It's supposedly a laser gun. There's another reason I love her, she's a brilliant inventor. She built a laser gun using bits of scrap metal, glass and a tiny section of a solar panel. She points the panel at the sun. "We need to split up, warn everyone."

"Don't be a hero, Aisha." I kiss her. The intensity of the situation means the kiss is really quite hot. One to remember us by if something terrible happens to either of us. In a situation like this, I just have to hope that isn't our last kiss.

I power-walk ahead. I see a dark-skinned woman with big frizzy hair, a guy with hooks for hands and a man in a full body protective suit. I stand right in front of them. They all look at me with concern.

"What's happening Argo?" the man in the protective suit asks, "and where's Megaman?"

I'll give you the explanations for those nicknames very briefly. Tark calls me Argo because my name is Jason and in Greek Mythology there was a character called Jason who became an Argonaut, sailing on a boat called the Argo. He calls Aisha Megaman in reference to a classic video game character who had a host of cybernetic enhancements, which is vaguely similar to Aisha (see the earlier laser gun description).

"We decided to split up so we could warn the whole group." Becca's face drops, she nods and heads in the other direction. It's odd, but we have a protocol for situations like this. We all need to leave slowly, one by one. That way, maybe, just maybe, we won't be spotted.

Let's hope this works out.