̷O̷N̷E

Elodie crossed her hands against one another and lay them to rest on the flat of her stomach. Above her stretched a high cathedral ceiling of dark wood, arched in the centre by several worn beams, spotted with texture. The square cushion behind her head was appropriately firm, as was the chaise that her body was reclined against, covered in a fabric tight knit but not coarse against her skin. 

The air was pleasantly cool, and smelled faintly of citrus and clove, courtesy of a diffuser on the coffee table to her right. Somewhere in the distance, birds chirped and the sigh of machinery whirred. They had been building another high rise nearby for quite some time, but she had always neglected when leaving to see what state of progress it was in, and so the building itself remained a mystery.

"What are you thinking about?" Cyrus said, his voice warm and crisp. She could hear his pen pausing on his thick notepad and wondered what he had been writing, given that she had been silent for five minutes or so.

"I'm thinking about the construction site." She said honestly, closing her eyes. 

In her head, she could see it, though only as a faint blueprint. This was how she thought about most things, as their structures and skeletons constructed against a grid, intersections of thin crisp lines plotting their scale and components. People came to her in this way as well, though their insides looked something more akin to diagrams in a medical textbook, organs and gristle and bone. 

The first time she'd ever opened up such a book, people had started to make a lot more sense to her. Seeing all the pink and red things layered upon each other helped to justify all the irrational quirks that saddled humanity. The unpredictability of others, the unknowable.

"Does the noise bother you?"

"No." She paused. "It preoccupies me."

"In a bothersome way?"

"No, just in a way that means I can't ignore it."

She could tell Cyrus had nodded but she didn't know how. Again the scribbling on paper began.

"Would the noise have preoccupied you before the accident?"

Elodie had to think for a moment. This was a common line of questioning, it almost felt like the accident had been her point of conception. Indeed, she had never answered such searing questions about herself before it. Elodie preferred shallow talk, even as it made her itch (truly she preferred no talk at all). Divulging about herself in-depth did not interest her, not because she harboured some deep seated contempt for herself, but rather that she felt she didn't have all that much to say.

Elodie shrugged when couldn't remember, trying to mask her frustration with a cough.

"I'm not entirely sure. I believe so."

"Does the noise elicit any physical responses? Does it instil in you ... A feeling of alertness?"

Elodie pulled herself up from the chaise then, ruffling a hand through her dark hair. She swivelled herself on the couch to face Cyrus. 

She had been seeing the psychiatrist since the accident, at the insistence of her brother. Cyrus was in his 50s, and had very masculine features, such as a sharp square jaw, high hairline and a low heavy brow. His lips pulled thin above teeth with prominent canines when he smiled, which did not seem to come to him naturally, and his eyes were small and beady. Despite all of these things, Elodie  had never found him particularly intimidating. Maybe it was because of his voice, which meandered low and furtive to the floor, or the way he would let her rest in long silences without much question. Either way, it was never Cyrus himself who bothered her, but simply the blade of his questions.

Everyone always seemed perturbed by Elodie's stagnated silences, and she had learned that certain people would react very exasperated if she let a question linger in the air for too long. Her parents, for one, and Lex, on occasion. Apart from Cyrus, Elijah was the only person in her life who seemed to have patience for them, but this was not surprising. Elijah had always understood her implicitly, in a way she had never felt from another person.

She shrugged. "I tend to ignore what my body does."

"Because of the episodes." It isn't a question but a statement. Elodie nodded anyway. Cyrus noted this. "How frequent have they been recently?"

The answer was frequent, certainly more so than they had been a month ago. The episodes were a mystery to everyone, including her doctors, who she had long ago stopped complaining to. The triggers for her episodes were seemingly at random, the episodes themselves causing her to freeze in place, her muscles tensing so hard she was sure they had calcified hard as stone. All the hairs on her body would stand on end, and she would feel a pulse through the centre of her body, as though she'd stepped on a live wire and a current was rippling throughout her body.

The episodes never used to last for more than a minute, as terrifying as they were, but recently they had begun to linger. Usually she would be able to brush them off, even mask them from others, but the effort was becoming harder.

"Same frequency, just ... A little longer."

Cyrus nodded. "Have you tried the breathing exercises I gave to you last session?"

She had, and they had done nothing. She'd tried too, truly. She sometimes felt herself resistant to the things others told her to do, but she'd really done her best this time. It was only a matter of time until an episode happened in such a way to undermine her at work, and Elodie dreaded this thought. There was little else in life she cared for in the way she did about her job.

"Yes," she replied, "they slow my heart rate and make me a little dizzy, but not much else."

Cyrus nodded concisely. Elodie caught him glancing at the time on his watch, dark eyes flickering for a moment to appraise its digital face. She herself wondered how much more time she owed him. She remained baffled at how much time could be dedicated to talking about herself.

"And how is your relationship? With your current boyfriend?"

"It's good." Elodie murmured, shrugging her slim shoulders. On the bridge of her nose, she readjusted her glasses. "He's very ... I suppose, he's very sweet? He took me to a carnival on the riverfront on the weekend."

"And did you enjoy yourself?"

She considered lying to him for a moment. "No," she admitted. Cyrus smiled, tight-lipped, and nodded. "It wasn't that I had a bad time, per se, it's just that it's not really ... "

"Not really your kind of thing."

"Yes."

"And what would your kind of thing be?"

Elodie considered this, running a hand through her dark hair. After a moment of pondering, she shrugged again. 

"I know it sounds a little daft but I just like working. I like working and I like the pauses that come in between work, like when I make myself a tea or lean back and take a breath. Those are the sort of things I like, that I've always liked. I know it's peculiar and I'd never claim to be otherwise, but that's just me. I know, though, that that's not the standard interaction that one expects when they're in a relationship with someone. So I went to the carnival and I went on some rides and ate fairy floss and took some pictures."

Cyrus glanced up from his notepad. "Does it ever make you resentful? Having to perform things that you don't particularly wish to do but do so because, as you said, other people have different expectations?"

She let out a sigh. "Mainly it tires me."

"Never angry? Never frustrated?"

"I'm not a very angry nor frustrated person." Elodie replied. "Maybe tactless. But I try, evidently."

"Evidently." Repeated Cyrus. He closed his notepad with a soft sound, raising his eyes. He had an appraising gaze, and perhaps it would have bothered her if he had been anyone but her therapist. Assigning malice to someone who was paid to listen to complaints seemed, at least to Elodie, counterintuitive. "Before we finish up, is there anything you wanted to speak about at this session? Any loose ends?"

Elodie tried not to smile, despite herself. Yes, there were certainly loose ends, in many ways her entire life felt like a thread that had fallen away from the weave of a fabric. Cast out alone, catching on things, unravelling further and further. 

Who was she? Why did it feel like she was floating through a dream? Why was she forgetting things when, once upon a time, her memory was near-photographic? These were all novel questions, ones that plagued her mind, growing in intensity as each day passed. And yet, the idea of voicing them felt unwise, perhaps even ludicrous. But more than anything, whenever she imagined herself opening her mouth and speaking her truth, she'd be overtaken by a dark foreboding, coupled with the strangest sense of deja vu. The feeling was enough to stop her short, enough for her frontal lobe to catch up, to silence the impulse in one fell swoop.

So she looked past Cyrus, over his shoulder and to the high windows behind him, flanked by navy blue curtains that rippled with an unseen breeze, and shook her head.

"No, I think that will be all."

—

Lex was sitting on the couch when Elodie arrived home, his eyes trained towards the tv. His body was spread across her three seater couch, hands resting atop one another on his stomach, a glazed look in his large prominent eyes. He glanced upwards as she entered the apartment, dropping her keys in the bowl on the side table by the door, giving her a lazy nod.

"Your brother messaged when you were out." He said, eyes falling back on the television. Elodie threw a cursory glance to the screen. He was watching the same comedy show he always seemed to be watching, a sitcom, one with a laugh track that flooded the speakers whenever an actor delivered an obvious punchline. "I heard your computer go off."

"Don't suppose you had a look at the message." Elodie asked, already knowing the answer.

Lex shrugged. "It just said to call him."

"Sure." She shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the coat rack. 

Beneath she was wearing her usual garb, a high necked grey sweater and dark slacks. Elodie was a creature of comfort, and nothing comforted her more than predictability, which of course extended to wearing the same thing for most days of the week. It was a fact about her that usually perturbed people, but Lex had never seemed to mind. Sometimes she wondered if he even noticed this quirk.

"Was it a good session?"

"It was standard." She replied without elaboration.

"Are you ever going to tell me what you talk about?" Lex probed. His nature was that of nosiness, at least when it came to secrets. This came with a degree of tension, given Elodie's preference for remaining tight-lipped.

She  shrugged as she moved into the small kitchen, adjacent to the living space. To call it open plan was probably an overstatement, the phrase usually conjured the idea of spaciousness, which was anything but Elodie's apartment. 

She'd made the decision a long time ago to not bother with any frills, and had opted for modest living quarters as it made things more manageable for her. The space in her one bedroom apartment could lovingly be called cozy, and it had been, but as Lex had spent more and more time in it, the space had grown undeniably cramped. For one, she'd had to get a coffee table and a surface to eat their meals, which previously she had chosen to forgo, eating at her desk. His things had started to pile up around the apartment as well, his toothbrush invading the plastic cup in the bathroom, clothes strewn in a pile at the foot of the bed.

She didn't mind his presence all too much though, and his semi-occupancy of her home meant that she had to field less questions from her parents and co-workers. Though they'd only been dating for the last 3 months, he'd stayed over at her place one evening and hadn't really left all that much since. He'd assured her that it was out of convenience, the highway that led to Cyberlife HQ was only a stone's throw. Whether this was true, Elodie didn't mind if that was the only reason. She almost took it as a compliment. Not many people had sought out her company, even out of strategy.

"It's not really all that interesting. Cyrus asks questions, I answer them. I leave feeling much the same as I went in."

"So it's not working?"

Elodie was facing away from him, pulling a hairband from her wrist and beginning to bundle up her hair into a pony tail. She shrugged.

"Research states that therapy takes approximately 15 to 20 sessions to start feeling meaningful change." She paused to glance over her shoulder. "I suppose I also don't know what I'm meant to be changing into. Emotionally, since the accident, I don't think I've been anymore distressed than I was beforehand."

"Maybe that's part of the issue?" Lex volunteered. He was speaking with his eyes trained forwards on the television, a habit of his. Elodie was grateful for it, she much preferred conversation unmediated by eye contact. "That the way you are isn't normal."

"Outliers happen." Elodie replied. "Normality is subjective."

"Yeah." Lex replied. "But before the accident, you barely left Cyberlife, barely spoke to anyone while you were there, all you did was ... Well, worked. It was hard to ignore. And don't forget your biggest character flaw — you didn't want to get drinks with me."

Elodie let out a short laugh, walking over to the couch and letting herself flop down beside him. She sat cross legged beside him, easing into the cushions.

"Yes. My hamartia."

That night, they ordered pizza and drank a few cans of apple cider that had been sitting in the back of the fridge for a few weeks. Lex suggested they watch a documentary, and by 11, he'd passed out on the couch besides her. Elodie brought out a spare quilt and covered him with it before quietly padding to the bedroom, phone in hand.

She crossed the room, sliding back the curtains and opening the glass door behind. The chilly Detroit air hit her, setting a chill deep into her skin. She closed her eyes, breathing in. The cold always seemed to miraculously strip the pollution from the air, leaving it not with a scent but a lack thereof. Elodie often wished she could bottle the night air in winter and store it away for when the summer brought muggy days, the kind when the atmosphere swelled fat with moisture and smog.

The phone had barely rung when Elijah picked up. Elodie was aware of how little her brother slept, given that it was a habit he had passed down to her. A beat of silence passed, as was customary. He had never bothered with pleasantries such as hello.

"Yes?" 

"I received your message."

"I gathered." He replied. "I've put in leave for you from the office for tomorrow. I need for you to visit me."

Elodie was not taken aback by this information. While her brother was no longer CEO of the company, he still exercised control behind the scenes. 

"I assume this must be an urgent matter."

"It is. It's also classified information, so practice some restraint with that boyfriend of yours." Elijah mused.

"I think you overestimate the depth of our relationship." Elodie commented. Truthfully, there was no one that she trusted in the world more than Elijah. "I'm more than accustomed to keeping sensitive information from him." 

"I wouldn't expect any less from you. It never hurts to be sure. The car will arrive the usual time, so as not to arouse suspicion. I've arranged for Lex to be assigned to some external maintenance at one of the Cyberlife shops, so there shouldn't be any issues with the conflict." He paused. "I also advise you not to bother speculating on the nature of your visit. I promise that any guesses would be far from the truth."

"If this is your attempt to not pique my interest," she began.

"Elodie." His voice was firm. "I assure you, whatever you conjure up will be far from the truth."

"I suppose we'll see." Was her reply.

"We will. Tomorrow."

His voice clipped into nothingness. Elodie dropped her phone into her pocket, leaning against the railing of the balcony, cold seeping into the palms of her hands. Elijah knew her too well, he knew that his words would set a flurry of thoughts in her mind, churning through each possible scenario in rapid succession. 

This was the way she was, the way she always had been, perpetual motion if left uninterrupted.