Uni's Unicorn

Chapter 7 - The Barassic

Uni ignored her friend's questions while she ate another triangle of pizza, picking pieces from the bowl of salad containing both green vegetables and chunks of fruit, peach, apple, persimmon and more...

Before Uni emptied her mouth enough to talk sense, a young woman, wearing a navy uniform similar to a police-woman, appeared as though from thin air out of the corner. She wore a belt with a holster containing a weapon.

Jilly screamed.

Carol jumped up, shaking her hands and giving a mild expletive.

The portal behind her was open. She called, "Don't panic Jilly. Please; sit down, Carol.

"My name's like yours, Jilly, but with a 'G' —Gillian —and my last name is 'Carlson', perhaps a mix of both your names."

Carol sat, emitting, "Mmfh..."

"We're keeping you safe. You're here for your own protection. Come, follow me. Keep quiet and keep up."

"But how does she know my name?"

Carol and Uni were already obeying Gillian's directive.

"Wait, I'm coming." Jilly stepped into the opening, picking up her pace as the door began to roll back.

Stretching out like arteries, narrow corridors lined with the same fabric as that of the room they'd been in, looked like a maze with no end. A noise, somewhat muffled, sounded out. Uni's first thought was that it was a fog-horn, like the one she heard some months ago near the Cape Runaway lighthouse. It sounded one morning when clouds from the sky reached down to the shoreline and visibility was nil.

Pressing a button on her belt, the woman guard caused a portal to open. Uni felt sure it was the room she'd been in before and that her father was inside. She was right.

"Sit on the sofa over at the side of the room and don't speak a word. If you can't do this, you can't stay here and will be escorted elsewhere."

When Uni had been here before, her father sat with her on the sofa. This time, she had to watch him while she sat with her friends. His concentration was on the screen in front of him. He hadn't acknowledged them. 

After five minutes passed, Uni's father looked across, smiling and giving a thumb's up. "I have to concentrate here a while longer. Sit back. Relax." Pointing his remote at the ceiling above them caused a bluish colored smoky glass petition to slide up from the floor. It was as if the room had been cut in two but they could still see him. 

Turning back to the screen, he began talking. They couldn't hear his voice. It was boring, watching him. Uni wished she could lip-read.

After five minutes passed as slowly as if it were an hour, Jilly stood and stamped her foot, saying, "I need to know what's going on. I need to be with my family, not here. We didn't ask to be here."

"Come, then," the woman said, stepping toward her. "We can talk elsewhere." Looking to Uni and Carol, she said, "You may come too, or not."

Carol stood and looked down at Uni who shook her head, looking at her father. His eyes stayed on the screen and he kept talking. 

Uni wished she could see what he saw and who he talked with, hear what was being said. How very frustrating. She frowned. The concentrated look of his face, the twist of his lips as he spoke, the way he frowned, she'd never seen him like this before. Again, she wished she could hear what he was saying. He didn't look a bit happy. He didn't look like her father at all right now. 

Carol sat. Jilly asked of the woman, "I'd like to know where we are, and I want to talk to my mother."

"Not here, but come, we'll go to the next room."