Gravity Rises (S3)

AI: Part Five

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Melody asked.

Gideon set the pillow she had just handed him on the couch. "This is great," he said. "Thanks."

It was the evening of his first day in Mabel's moon. He, Mabel, and Charles had spent most of the day in the forest. Now, Charles had gone home (or, more accurately, disappeared until the next time Mabel wanted him to visit), and Mabel and Gideon had returned to the Museum. Mabel had asked Ford if Gideon could stay, since he was a clone and didn't have anywhere else to go. Ford had agreed — and, like Mabel, he'd been surprisingly uncurious about exactly where Gideon had come from or what he was doing here. Gideon had been welcomed, and now Melody and Mabel were helping him make a bed for himself on the couch.

Where all the adults slept, Gideon wasn't sure. There weren't enough beds in the Museum for them, at least not in the real world. But since they were illusions here, Gideon supposed it didn't matter where they slept. As long as Mabel still thought they were real.

"Are you sure you don't want to borrow some pajamas?" asked Mabel.

"I'll be fine," Gideon said. He didn't want to take any chances with a fake person's fake clothes.

"Okay, then," Melody said. "I'm going to go home now. I'll see you in the morning. Good night." She waved at Gideon and Mabel, then left out the front door.

Gideon blinked. "She doesn't live here?"

Mabel giggled. "No, of course she doesn't. She has her own house nearby, but she comes to work here most days."

Huh. Gideon had thought Melody was some kind of live-in maid. In real life, she'd been at the Museum whenever he'd been there, after all. But he supposed that having servants living on your property was rare and expensive enough that only people like the Northwests did it.

"Thanks for letting me stay here, Mabel," Gideon said.

"Of course. Thanks for coming with Charles and me today. I'm sorry he couldn't shrink you."

"It's fine. I'm glad you had a good time."

Charles' surprise had been a pretty good one: a village of brownies. The brownies were tiny people about as tall as Gideon's index finger, and Charles had taken Mabel to see them and interact with them. How? By using his amulet to shrink her and himself to their size.

The real amulet couldn't do that.

Charles claimed he could only shrink two people at a time. Gideon didn't know if that was true or if he just said it to exclude him, but either way, Gideon didn't get to join Charles and Mabel in their visit to the brownie village. He sat outside, a few feet from the village gates, watching tiny Mabel and Charles walk in as some nearby brownies eyed Gideon nervously. He wondered what it would be like from their perspective, to have a giant person come and sit outside your home.

The brownies followed Mabel and Charles inside, and Gideon didn't see any others until Mabel came out again. It was more evidence that, besides Gideon, everyone only existed around Mabel. Gideon heard distant birdsong while he waited, but saw no animals.

Mabel and Charles were in the brownie village for much of the day. Gideon was rather bored waiting for them. More than that, he was anxious. If this was Mabel's perfect world, then nobody would attack her, right? Gideon thought she was safe from that, at least, but he didn't think he could count on it. And even if no one visibly attacked her, she was still in danger just by being in this moon. How was Gideon going to get her out of here if Charles wasted her time by shrinking her down to go visit brownies?

Eventually, Mabel and Charles had come out of the brownie village, and Charles had returned them both to their normal size. Mabel's eyes were alight with joy as she recounted to Gideon all the great things she'd seen in the brownie village, and she thanked Charles again and again for his surprise. Gideon had followed her and Charles back to the Museum, where Charles had said goodbye and left.