The Sorting Room

by Angelina Singer

  ✷✷✷

  “Delphine, your vitals look acceptable enough to be discharged. You will be released to your guide shortly.” Delphine turned to look at the orderly standing in the doorway of her infirmary room.

  “Uh, okay.”

  The orderly nods with a perfectly fabricated smile smeared across her face, and then leaves Delphine to gather her things and prepare to get back to the Sorting Room.

  “Hello, Delphine. I’m glad you’re okay. You gave me quite a scare.” Delphine is distracted from her preparations by Evander’s calm smile warming her frail back.

  “Oh, right. Well, I didn’t mean to. All of this… was just becoming too much for me.” She opens her mouth to continue speaking, but quickly discovers that she has been scared relatively silent. Evander wastes no time in patting her on the back reassuringly.

  “Sorting is no easy job. And it is true that you've had a few more… setbacks than is typically expected. But I know things will get better.”

  “But how do you really know that? I feel doomed to… mess up again.” Evander nods his head solemnly. “Well, you can hope with all your might that doesn't happen, because it really, really, really hurts many people.”

  Delphine’s face paled in the stark electric lighting. “But… I’m scared anyway.” Evander wished there was something he could say to make her feel better, but he was out of inspiration.

  “Well then, just do it afraid.” That was the best he could do, and now all there was left for him to do was hope that it was enough.

  On the way back to her pod for a well-deserved rest and time to refresh, Delphine is quickly intercepted with a very frustrated guide.

  “You… you did this!” Onyx walks lividly over to where Delphine stood listlessly in the middle of the Upperworld’s many pathways. “I’m so… sorry, I -” Onyx’s strong hand clamps wordlessly over her trembling mouth, silenced by his strength and affluence.

  “I don’t want to hear it. You made a critical mistake, Delphine. One that cost many people more than you ever thought possible.” He shifts his hold on her to make her see the fire in his otherwise aqua-cerulean irises. “I cannot even begin to describe it to you. Do not let it happen again.” Her moistening eyes meet his in a stare-down for the ages, a silent appeal for mercy. Lucky for the mistaken sorter, the guide is merciful, even if the half-human soul buried away deep in his core was not. She nods emphatically, and then exhales a sigh of relief once he releases her. His harsh gait told her he meant business. Little did she know how much she had truly cost not only the human world, but the lesser known Onyx Dalton Miller.

  Meanwhile, Onyx continues to walk the length of one of the main pathways, until he arrives at the utero chamber complex, to begrudgingly resume his work as a guide for a new sorter. But now that he knows the truth - the whole truth - he’s been rattled more than he might care to admit. And being rattled is never a useful attribute when ushering new beings into existence.

  The utero chamber operator nods knowingly at Onyx, and then hands him the access card to open the utero chamber housing the bubbling beginnings of his next protege. He looks at the tiny, pink, fleshy, writhing glob in the tube, takes a deep breath, and walks through the portal to prepare the light gathering room for its next occupant.

  Please don’t make me love you. I can’t bear to lose someone again. Not like Luna. Never again.

  Volume two:

  The plan

  CHAPTER 1

  Luna begins to steady her breathing under a cloudless morning sky. The dawning of a new day brings hope, and with it, the potential of redemption. The bright yellow sun was rising from the ground, promising hours of glorious daylight. Today could be the day that she completes her quest. Or at least, she hopes it is, since she doesn’t want to spend any more time in the dark.

  Her stomach rumbles, and Luna thinks it might be nerves, until she remembers what Jade mentioned about trading currency for food. She makes a mental note to get some next time she sees an opportunity for a trade.

  Okay, now to continue my mission. There was… a setback. That’s all, just a setback. I am okay. I have to be.

  From her vantage point at the top of a hill in the park, she can see the convenience store where Anthony works, with a menagerie of people milling around it getting their morning coffee and who knows what else. The only thing she could imagine doing was going to talk to him again, and bring him back to Miranda.

  Where’s the stage? It was just there before…

  This sudden revelation made her mission a bit harder, as she now has no idea where to find Miranda. But at least finding Anthony would be half of the goal. Maybe starting there would give her a sense of what to do next. High on the hope running through her veins, a broken and bruised, but very brave Luna, stands up and begins the trek across the park and the adjacent street to Anthony’s corner store. It isn’t much, but it’s all she has at the moment.

  Remembering how the busy intersection works is a life saving-skill Luna has learned in a very short amount of time. She looks across the way, and waits until the signal glows green. Then she quickly leaps across the mysterious white stripes on the ground, hoping she doesn’t fall through them. She doesn’t notice the curious stares of on-looking strangers, but that is likely for the best.

  She enters the enchanted doors which part for her as soon as she gets close. Even Earth has magic in it…

  Anthony appears to be hard at work, but Luna quickly spies his curly tuft of dirty-blonde hair peeking through the boxes on the shelf. Without any hesitation, she marches right over to him.

  “Oh, hey Bubblegum. I see you’re back.” Luna freezes for a moment but remembers that is the moniker he had attached to her. “My name is Luna.” He shrugs his shoulders and tosses a half-hearted glance her way while stocking the shelves. “I know, but I like calling you Bubblegum. It suits you better.”

  Luna nods politely even though that makes no sense to her whatsoever. “So, um, Anthony? May we speak for a moment?”

  Anthony pauses his work and gives her a quizzical glance. “Okay, yeah. What’s up?” He crosses his arms and stares into her violet eyes. “Uh, well, I’m looking for… food.” Luna mentally chides herself for being needlessly worried, but decides to just see where it takes her. The bigger talk about the soulmate mix-up might not be the best thing to lead with anyway.

  “Food? You had to interrupt my unpacking to ask about food?” He chuckles to himself. “It’s all around you, silly. Just grab what you want and I’ll ring you up at the counter.” Luna doesn’t understand his terminology (per usual), but nods as if she does in order to maintain her cover. “Okay, thank you.”

  She then takes the opportunity to take in her surroundings, at which point it becomes quite apparent that, as he promised, there are edible objects all around her. She settles on a box of tin-foil wrapped pastries and a bottle filled with a carbonated green liquid. “I’ll ring you up at the counter.” Luna remembers Anthony’s instructions and walks to the front of the store where he meets her behind the counter.

  “No way! I love lemon-lime soda too. My whole family thinks it’s gross but it’s still my favorite.” Luna forces a smile at his attempt at commonality, even though she is still hopelessly lost, and he has no idea that he’s her way out of this mess. Or, at least, half of the way out.

  “Okay, so that’ll be $8.99 for the soda and the toaster pastries.”

  Luna has no idea what he means until she recalls what Jade had mentioned about currency while strapping her to the machine that brought her here. Without hesitation, she grabs the whole wad of the mysterious greenish paper from her pocket and hands it to Anthony.

  “Woah, this is one-hundred and fifty dollars! I only need $8.99 of it. I’d say I appreciate the tip but this ain’t a restaurant, Bubblegum.” His joke is met with yet another polite, yet clueless expression on Luna’s face. “So, here’s most of it back, and your soda and toaster pastries.” Luna nods, puts the money back into her pocket, and is about
to head out the door, before she realizes that she has bigger problems to attend to. She immediately turns around to talk to Anthony.

  “Anthony?” He looks up from the mop he’s cleaning the floor with. “Yeah? What now?” Luna walks very close to him before saying the three little words that she hoped would get her on the right path to get him to love the girl he was always meant to.

  “Where is Miranda?”

  “Miranda who?”

  “The girl who stood on the plateau yesterday in the park?”

  “Oh… do you mean Miranda Garcia in Toxic Exposure?” Luna’s clueless face prompts Anthony to further explain himself.

  “The local band that was in the park yesterday… playing music… we went to see them together?”

  Luna nods emphatically. “Yes. Where can we find them now?”

  “Oh I don’t know, they could be anywhere around here. They do a lot of local gigs. Wait, did you say ‘we’?” Luna nods. “But what do you need me for?” I need you to fall in love with Miranda so I can get home.

  “I just… want you to meet her.”

  “Well I did yesterday, remember?”

  “Again. You should meet her again.” Luna is banking on the frequency of their meetings to help the probable outcome of their falling in love. It is an algorithm that she thinks could work, but in reality, nothing about relationships can be calculated like this.

  “Uh, well. I can check the band page to see where they’re headed today.” With that, Luna waits while Anthony becomes quite enthralled by a glowing screen, not completely unlike the billions of screens they have in the Sorting Room. But then she realizes the painful truth that by searching for Miranda, she’d likely have to come face-to-face with Garth again. She begins to hyperventilate at this thought, and as she begins to gag, she can feel a small, slimy object writhing its way up her throat, and it neatly slides though her lips, accompanied by some blood, landing on the palm of her hand. She screams, nearly dropping it, while Anthony rushes to her aid.

  “Luna, are you okay? What the heck is that thing you just coughed up? That’s so gross. I better take you to the hospital…”

  “No!”

  Anthony pauses mid-panic. “And why not?”

  It takes Luna less than a minute to realize that the faint green light is missing from her wrist, and the mysterious, dark, slimy object in her hand is glowing a dim green but is rapidly fading. She puts the pieces together and struggles to hide her steadily-elevating fear. For reasons unknown even to her, Luna stashes the wiry, black object in her pocket and tries to steady her breathing.

  “I’m fine. Really. Just tell me where Miranda is. And fast.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “You are now gathering light. This is a painful process that should take about a minute. If you need me I’ll be right here, but I wouldn’t suggest speaking until your vocal faculties are ready. It could slow everything down if you exert yourself.”

  Onyx runs through his instructions to his newly-formed sorter as if they were on a pre-written script. Granted, he’s done this thousands of times since his own origin, but suddenly it seemed so small and unimportant in the shadow of both his own stolen life and Luna’s stolen potential. It’s a good thing everyone here is invincible, or else I would have already destroyed that little virus, Delphine.

  He sits next to his protege with all the warmth of a stone-cold pillar, while the frail, nearly-formed body shivers, either from pain or shock. Onyx continues his routine through a clenched jaw.

  “Remember to breathe as you tolerate the pain. Almost there, no need to worry.” Onyx knows that proper care for vulnerable sorters is key so that they quickly build confidence, but helping someone else seems to be near impossible for Onyx as he himself feels broken.

  “Ahhhh… ahhhhh…”

  “Yes, yes, you can speak now. Congratulations. Now let me scan your wrist.”

  The fully-formed sorter complies hesitantly, but Onyx is oblivious to this and grabs his wrist with a death grip. “Your name is River. Now follow me to your habitation pod.” Onyx maintains his tight hold on River’s wrist and drags him out of the utero chamber to his new home at an alarming speed. The purple sky of the Upperworld zips by as they both run, gleaning curious stares from other sorters and guides.

  “Scan your wrist to enter the chamber, rest here until you are called for your first shift.

  “But what am I supposed to -”

  “Best of luck to you!”

  And with that, Onyx shuts the pod door and heads to his own habitation quarters. There was much he had to consider before he is called to orient another sorter. And it is becoming more and more unlikely that he’d be able to properly function as a guide until Luna is home. They told him it was impossible, that she could never return, and his blood boiled when he learned that they remotely expelled her communication device from her body. That was his only lifeline to her, broken forever. And now she was utterly alone, infected by the spawn of a human, and humanity itself was still hanging in the balance due to a mistake that she didn’t even commit.

  Upon reaching his own habitation pod, Onyx curls up on the floor and cries, very much like Luna did when she learned the ramifications of her job in the Sorting Room. Much time passed until he was able to think clearly.

  This isn’t… a place I want to be without Luna. I can’t continue working properly with her gone, but if I don’t, they’ll make me forget her forever. And I can’t let that happen. I am her sole connection to safety. But safety isn’t here. No. I have to go. I’m going to go to Earth to save her and raise her child as my own. And I don’t care if I ever come back to this wretched place.

  Resolute in his decision, and yet feeling utterly horrified at the ramifications of such a plan as this, Onyx knows this is something he just has to do. If only he could figure out how.

  “I don’t know how, but I’m coming for you, Luna”, he whispers to no one in particular, his already muffled voice snuffed out by the stuffy, tepid air of his pod.

  ✷✷✷

  Delphine has been extremely uneasy since the incident that started this whole unfortunate mess, so going back to the Sorting Room was not high on her list of things she wants to do. She’s still terrified that something awful could happen again.

  “Evander, I know in my heart that I am not fit to be a sorter.” Evander meets her gaze with a serious frown. “I understand how you might feel that way in light of… ah, recent events. But you must realize that you were quite literally created to be a sorter. Refusing to fulfill your life’s work would not bode well, either for you or for the Upperworld.”

  “But I might mess up again.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Of course I could! It happened once before, why couldn’t it happen again? I myself could be responsible for the mishaps of the genetic makeup of the entire human race!”

  Evander scratches his chin. “Yes, you are right to be concerned. But after such a drastic mistake, I will be re-training you myself. So that you know what to do.”

  Delphine viciously shakes her head. “You don’t understand! That’s not the problem. I understand how it works. But my eyes cannot detect light emanating from an orb or its corresponding receptacle tube!”

  Evander’s eyes widen in surprise. “Really? Are you positively sure?”

  Delphine slowly nods. “I think something is wrong with me… I just… I just can’t…”

  For one of many times, Delphine begins to cry, her tears flowing rapidly down her face while her throat emits wails of pure frustration and fear.

  “Well that, my dear, could be something to consider…” Evander wraps a tired arm around Delphine’s shivering shoulder while trying to contain his own shock. “I’ll have to talk to the… authorities about this, and you’ll likely be evaluated for fitness of sortmanship.” Delphine’s wails grow louder, but she slowly nods and buries herself in Evander’s shoulder. Once she calms down, he tucks her calmly into her bed so she can rest. Only after shutting her
pod door does he make the call that could mean worse consequences than even Delphine could imagine.

  “Jade? My prediction appears to be coming true. The system itself is breaking down. I’m going to need to meet with you and Onyx to discuss emergency plans and the next course of action. Also, this is code 141 – Zephyr must not find out. We’re going rogue.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Luna, are you sure you’re okay?” Luna nods, even though she’s panicking inside. “You, you called me Luna.” Anthony quizzically nods. “Um, because that’s your name, right?” Luna forces a smile. “But I like Bubblegum better.” A smile spreads across his lips. “Me too.”

  He looks into her eyes, and his face grows closer. Her heart beat races, but has the reflexive sense to move away before anything happens.

  “Uh, let’s go find Miranda.” Anthony stops short and blushes a little. “Yes, right. Let’s… let’s go. I’ll tell my manager something’s come up and I’ll be back soon. It is urgent, right?” Luna nods. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  Anthony gets up from the spot on the mildewed-tile floor they were both sitting on, and runs to the back room. Meanwhile, Luna wipes the blood off of her face in the tiny convenience store bathroom and makes her way back out to the check-out counter. She also grabs her bag of meager purchases off the floor and follows Anthony out the door.

  “So, I’m parked right out back… I’ll just pop the address into the navi and we’ll be off!” Luna nods, trying desperately to hide her fear and confusion. The bloody, wiry, substance in her pocket touches her leg as a reminder of what feels like her impending doom. To keep her mind off of it, Luna decides to eat some of the food she just bought. She rips open the silvery packages and stuffs the dry, thin pastries into her mouth.

  “Looks like they’re playing in an auditorium a few towns over, about an hour away. So just sit tight and I’ll have us there in a jiffy. Oh, I see you’re pretty hungry, eh?” Luna stops mid-bite and returns his eye contact from the passenger seat. “Yes. I am very hungry.” Anthony continues driving but maintains their conversation. “You know, those aren’t all that nutritious. How about we… grab some dinner after this little mission? If you, you know, want to?”