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After twenty seconds or so, you've calmed down enough to enjoy yourself. Headspace might be evil and explosion-worthy and so on, but does that make all of their ideas bad? There's a pleasant breeze in here. Sliding down a tube is faster and less tiring than walking down a million flights of stairs, and if it gets you to the same place, what's the issue? Getting back up, you suppose. Unless they flip the gravity? Or unless...
"Lottie!"
...unless they had something pushing you back up, which would essentially be an elevator, so... unless it wasn't a platform? Maybe they could install a gigantic...
"LOTTIE!!"
...fan! The breeze! A breeze to you, anyways: to Gil, a tiny fraction of your weight, it must be a galestorm. Ahead of you the pipe forks off uphill, and around you beetles are slipping, are flurrying, are— are being sucked into— "<span class="mu-i">Gil!</span>" You scrabble with one hand to stall your descent and lunge out with the other. Your fist closes around a handful of beetles, and you stuff them in the pocket of your overalls before twisting and lunging again. Another handful, and then you're both gone: you down your tube, him up his, wherever it goes. Which is fine. It's fine. You've gotten separated before, and you gave him the gulfweed, and he'll get the chance to stick up the siphons, and you still have him. You think you have him. You're not actually sure how many beetles you grabbed. "Gil?"
Nothing. It's not a good time, anyways, as you're swirling around and around— down the drain— and <span class="mu-i">out,</span> finally, and your ears pop and your vision blurs so you can't see anything but light.
—
It smells sickly sweet. You are boxed in on your left and right by eight-foot translucent barriers, and behind and ahead of you are people. They are not identical and are not dressed identically, but they wear identical glazed expressions. Dark shapes move behind the barriers. The harsh lighting washes everything out. You are in line.
At the end of the line, a dozen people ahead, is a eight-foot machine in glossy Headspace orange. Without complaining, the person at the front shuffles inside, and the orange sliding door clinks shut behind them. A musical chime plays, and a light on the machine blinks green. Fat white tubes feed into the machine's top, and one of them rattles. The person is gone when the doors open. The next person steps in. The chime this time is unwelcoming, and none of the tubes rattle, but when the doors open they are still gone.
You are Virginia Shearer, by which you mean you're Charlotte Fawkins. You don't feel glazed. There's something funny about your collarbone. The pocket of your overalls is moving, which means it has beetles in it, but you don't know if it has Gil in it. If it does, he should probably stay quiet.
It will be your turn for the machine soon. The line is moving efficiently.
(Choices next.)
