common sense exposition

  No, Aine wasn't all-accepting, even if she pretended to be. She looked at the other girls as though their knowledge was shallow, as though whatever they decided to lecture her could be headed off, averted. Complete knowledge of the disaster of this era was so unnecessary!

  Actually, Aine looked so softly at Nina? It was a bias or a boon Aine did not grant to any of the others.

  Why? Maybe Aine's eyes appeared softer because Nina and Aine were close, physically. Perhaps it was because they contrasted with April's peaceless, Pacific blue? How could Nina be sure she sensed anything at all? Through the armoury of intuition Nina's extrasensory perception conferred to her at all times? She should trust her power. It worked with or without her invocation. Should she? Who knew?

  For everyone else Aine had this a glass shard of an accusation. Yesterday had been so stressful. Today, they'd remind Aine of her obligations? It was unfair. Should this girl, so bright, so commanding and disarming, so much more social than Nina, really have to bear the duty of knowing? It was so not right, that a radiant girl who went out of her way to make sure that everyone relaxed and had fun and had downtime in Kaninchen's world of unremitting adversity and constant stress had to deal with this.

  But then, none of these girls who shone or sparkled or were so bright or so radiant or who lit up everyone's days deserved to be occluded by the awry knowledge of the abyss.

  Don't stare softly at Nina, then. Aine. Aine! Learn what was right and not what was wrong.

  Sophia hummed. Where did anyone even begin with a case like Aine?

  "I do know about nation-states," Aine said before anyone else could. "That's how all of these explanations start, right? I learnt that at school."

  "And seemingly nothing else," Sophia said.

  Aine shrugged.

  "The pre-war international situation?"

  "There was America, where I'm from, and there was Russia, and the Atlantic and Pacific were vaults between them."

  "A little reductive," Sophia said.

  "It's literally true," Aine said. There was a glimmer—she wasn't so easy to defeat, you know? Her gaze glared, confident. She had purple eyes, still—not that would suddenly change, of course! Why were the eyes so treasured? Why had they become an attention trap, the subject of so many soliloquies? There were five senses and yet sense outside of those senses was represented by the eye. Knowledge of others, represented by the eye. City surveillance was eyes and not ears nor nose or embrace. Reiko who was pretty everywhere had pretty eyes with a reservoir of light writhing parasitical within. Aine's purple eyes were pretty, too.

  Nina shouldn't circle back to all of these girls who knew better than her, and saw more clearly, too. She had to, though. She sat next to Aine anxious on Aine's behalf.

  Aine had wanted a distraction from yesterday. She got it. Then she slipped up, revealed what was within, and then she was no longer permitted to forget about the whirlwind and the wreck of history. Nina would break in that situation, instantly and easily. Believing things that were false was always a little embarrassing. It was always tough, too, to stand on false foundations and then to have them knocked from under you. That was true for anyone.

  It was true that those who lived on the surface of the Earth had more reliable knowledge than those immersed in the abyss, axiomatically. It was true that cursed and wrong girls should listen to their betters. Nina had learnt so much, listening to April and Reiko. She could not count on her own knowledge. She needed a nice teacher to spew every nice and right thing into her mouth, where she could chew and swallow it so easily...

  Gross. Embarrassing. How did Aine sound cheery about this at all?

  "She's not wrong," Aria said. "It's true. There was the United States of America, and—"

  "And what, Aine?" Sophia said, scrawling an approximation of the old American flag onto the TV-slash-whiteboard, stylus blotting black pixels onto it before Sophia hopped, and changed the colour to smartboard red, and smartboard blue, and then the fat blobby smartboard eraser, none of this saving her from the symbolic construction of that flag being just wrong. There were not thirteen stripes. There were not fifty stars. It mightn't have been a mistake on Sophia's part, too: known wisdom was prone to shift, tectonic.

  "Russia," Aine said.

  "Do you—actually not know?" Marzi asked.

  "Pre-August Russia...?" Aine said.

  "What year are we talking about?" Sophia asked.

  "1997."

  "Wouldn't be pre-August, then," Sophia said.

  "What? There's an August every year," Aine said.

  "Shush."

  "Thought you wanted me to keep speaking?"

  "Gah."

  In the audience: Nina was in Aine's orbit. Marzena still lay between two seats, sprawled out with her spiralling history. Haio's drowsiness had disappeared. Ah, that made sense! She had connections to the Second City, like Aria. Unlike Aria she was attached to military history, and details. It seemed Kaninchen had taught her at least a few matters from the Haze House archives; she had apparently not done so for Emi or Sarai, even though they had been under the embrace of Haze House for the entirety of their lives. She looked a little like Kaninchen. She did not act like her; she certainly did not act like Kornelia.

  Wait, that had totally slipped past Nina's notice? There was no way to bring it up without revealing Nina's problem, too. Ask Kaninchen? No. No way.

  Yesterday, Haio had been derailed, or maybe she had fallen onto the third rail. Everything had shocked her. She had landed in Aine's group. Aine and Sophia had distrusted her, Aria had attacked her. Tabitha's group didn't care at all, though. Emi seemed to be nice to her? Nina hadn't paid attention to them—she'd been asleep, a lot of the time, and now that she was awake she had been thinking about yesterday, and the past, and the future that was not yet here, but Emi was kind and friendly, foolishly, and Haio had seemed to warm up to that quite quickly?

  Some girls warranted kindness, like Haio. Some girls were happy to help anyone, like Emi. It was a nice little world. It was true for those who lived in it. Those who did not...

  The enmity that had roiled Aria's heart yesterday had not disappeared. Apart from that, Aria was a normal girl. Her red hair had frizzled, unremedied. If she came to convey the worldview of Westmoreland House to Aine, she did not show that. If she wanted to mount a pathetic attack on it, turn Aine against it, she did not show that, either. Ah, what a presumption about her? It was unkind to assume that others had evil intent—that they wished to tear up the firmament that the Noble Houses left humanity, historical lessons taught to protect the vulnerable.

  It was unkind to choke girls, too. It was also unkind to take control of them with your magic, though. Dilemma, dilemma.

  "It was socialist, right?" Aine said.

  "It was," Sophia said. She drew the flag of the Soviet Union, though the sickle left much to be desired. "And what does socialism mean?"

  "Hah. It's complicated, right? They believe the unity of the ideal world and the material world, which should be monism, but they believe in the primacy of matter over ideals: thought is caused by physical processes, and how those physical processes are constituted determines how people think. They denied dualism, but they couldn't escape it, I don't think?"

  "That was better than your previous answers!" Sophia said.

  "I lived in a nice big house in Bremerton, and a nice big flat in a compound in Shanghai. My mother did business with splinter party officials. I wasn't sealed in a box, or anything," said Aine. "I wasn't an undiligent student, I don't think?"

  "That's only a tiny part of an explanation," Emi said. "It's not... I don't want to be annoying, Aine, but it's not the most important part."

  "You sound fiery, now?" Aine said.

  "Ah, I do," Emi said. "Maybe I do remember stuff from tuition..."

  "You're smart," Haio said, shyly. "That wouldn't be a surprise, at all."

  "I don't know about that," Emi said. She laughed awkwardly.

  Ah. If Emi ended up sitting next to Haio first, she probably wouldn't have given Nina the time of day.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "She's asking you to talk about the political aspect," Sophia added.

  "They want equality," Aine said. "Everyone to have enough to live with. Everyone wants that, though. Then they want nobody to have enough power over anyone else to ruin them...? That seems easy to guarantee, but it's actually really hard."

  "Why?" Sophia asked.

  "Why would I know?"

  "Use your brain."

  "I don't really care about this stuff?"

  "Anny, it's your job to. It's your job to care. You're going to raid former Coalition bases and research sites and you don't—you're not stupid! I wish you were stupid."

  "You wish I was stupid...?"

  "Then you'd have an excuse!"

  Sophia sketched a table. Capitalism, socialism, communism. Civics class at school.

  "Wait, don't draw a line between socialism and communism?" Aria said.

  "Why not?" Sophia said.

  "They're basically the same thing," Aria said.

  "You're occluding Aine's eyes," Haio said.

  "Occluding...?" Aria said.

  "She needs to be able to see detail in the long run. Um, I think."

  "Why do girls with mind control abilities all say weird words and then act like they mean nothing?"

  "I'm sorry for speaking weirdly," Haio said.

  "It's okay!" Emi said.

  "Don't worry girls, I've got this!" Aine said.

  "Don't answer, actually," Sophia said. She erased the headings for the economic systems. "I want to check something else. How familiar are you with the history of the Old Faith?"

  "I'd like to think that I'm better at it than most people."

  "Would you swear it, in the name of their God of first causes?"

  "Nope."

  "Okay. But you're familiar with its state on the eve of the Babylon War?"

  "They claimed it was multiple distinct religions. They called the struggles between sects 'religious conflicts' as opposed to our idea of an eternal internal civil war within the Old Faith. Two Old Faiths from different continents wouldn't recognise themselves as sharing an approach to reality... that idea didn't really exist until humanity could directly contrast itself with the outside, and with secularism."

  "Proud of you," Sophia said.

  "That was the bare minimum," Marzi said.

  "Was it?" Aine said.

  "None of you would praise me for that..." Marzi said.

  Nobody was fooled by her words. Marzena chirped, a sawtooth wave giggle, idiotic, invulnerable. The other girls were being so mean to her. She said crazy things that needed to be denied, least they envelop everything. They gave her less praise than the more worthy girls. Familiar, right? But Marzena withstood it far better. (Deserved it less, of course.)

  "Marzena," Sophia said. "Name the Rashidun caliphs."

  "What are those...?" Aria asked.

  "Abu Bakr, Khalid, Umar, Uthman, Ali," Marzena said.

  "Yay. Well done," Sophia said. She clapped a brittle clap.

  "Why are you clapping?" Aine asked.

  "'Cause I deserve it?" Marzi said.

  "Why is Khalid there? Like Khalid ibn al-Walid?"

  "Uh, yeah?" Marzi said.

  "He was never caliph?"

  "The standard accounts of pre-Babylon history all agree with me. You should k—play more map games, Hunlun."

  "People who play map games are all awful," Aria said.

  Marzena did not dignify her with a reply.

  'Map games' were a nickname for political simulators, a kind of strategy game Nina generally did not play. June and Reiko had been avid players, on the other hand. Michiko pretended to like political simulators to try to make online friends, and got mad at Reiko whenever Reiko critiqued her gameplay. Occasionally Nina would look at the screen and find a 'hole' or way to help despite not understanding anything, and then Michiko would get mad at her, too.

  "...Haio said she liked them," Emi said.

  "Not surprising," Aria said.

  "You shouldn't be mean about things other people like. Especially if they might teach you something you don't know at all."

  "...'Rashidun' means rightly-guided. It refers to the early caliphs, agreed upon as good men by many within the Old Faith," Haio said.

  "Caliphs of...?" Aria asked.

  "The nascent Old Faith empire."

  "The Roman empire?"

  "Of the Islamic denomination. In Arabia."

  "Oh, that one. Wait, so who's many? Mohammedans?"

  "Within the Old Faith, we're talking about 'Sunni Muslims' specifically. There was a succession crisis in the seventh century," Sophia said.

  "Ah..." Aria said. She didn't get it at all. Then again, what was there to get? They had circled the drain. They hadn't even really begun to formulate a systematic explanation. They became sidetracked; they cut themselves off with jokes. It was more fun that way, probably. Normal people aligned themselves with consensus reality just by living, and talking, and interacting, and reading and writing and not even studying but scrolling through social networks and watching shows and playing map games, and by being taught in school. Was this a remedial class for Aine? Then actually act like it? It was as Haio had said. If they were going to teach Aine about this reality, then they should teach her in detail. Everything should be done properly. Nobody had spared Nina the rod.

  "Hey, Nina," Aine said, suddenly. Did her telepathy warn her? Was her ill aspect so obvious?

  "Yes?" Nina said.

  "Yay," Aine said.

  Nina paused.

  "I got you to say something," Aine said. "Haha, sorry. Hey, everyone, you're boring Nina. Nina thinks we should watch the second episode now, right?"

  "Nina," Aria said.

  "Yes?"

  "You don't think we should watch the next episode, right?"

  "She's not a dog?" Emi said. Nina could scarcely stand stealing that role from her, yes.

  "I'm just saying, I think she says yes to stuff pretty fuckin' easily?"

  "She's pretty easy to say yes to," Aine said. "She doesn't ask for much, though."

  "Do you want to learn what the Babylon War is or not?" Sophia said.

  "Not really?"

  "Wrong answer!"

  Sophia paused in front of the television screen or whiteboard. She toyed with the stylus.

  "You're blanking—on where to begin," Marzena said.

  "Yeah, I am!" Sophia said.

  "You thought you were getting somewhere with the questions, right?" Marzena said. "Like—Socrates."

  "Yeah, I did."

  "Your mental model isn't good enough, though. It's hard to explain—common sense. I'd know. You all think that I lack it."

  "It feels like you're acting like that on purpose," Emi said.

  "It's because I do too much reading and not enough writing," Sophia said.

  "You should start writing a book," Aine said. "In between dodging drones and stuff."

  "I don't think I'll have time to. Hm," Sophia said. She paced, not that there was much space to pace about in.

  "Nina is good at explaining things," Aine lied. "We established this, already. You seemed like you really wanted to do it, but if you can't..."

  What was Aine talking about? It was like relying on a compass where north meant south, east meant west and west meant kata. Did she want to be degraded, distorted, perverted? Destroyed? Haze House warped them for the better; Nina's presence warped them for the worse.

  "I definitely can, but sure. Hey, Nina, wanna give it a shot?" Sophia said. She smiled. "You had pretty detailed opinions about the origin of the War of the Generals, so."

  "Okay," Nina said, since Aine had already ordered it. She sipped a little water. Nobody asked when the last time she had eaten was. If she retched it'd be nothing but acid and ichor, hopefully. Hopefully!

  "You avoided saying your thoughts about Mamert, mostly. If you're scared of spoiling the others you can whisper them to me and only me. I do value your input. I demand it, even."

  "Okay," Nina said. Aine demanded it. How could she even be denied? There were always consequences for denying the whims of girls like her. Not participating properly in activities in April. Hiding things from April. Refusing to study at home alongside April. Refusing to imbibe illicit information for April. Refusing to open her mouth, reveal her tongue and recite what should remain in the black pit of her stomach for April. Each of these actions had a definite consequence.

  Sophia transferred the stylus to Nina. Nina's stupid handwriting began to mar the smartboard. Nina had done a lot of practice questions about this kind of thing, because of April. She should be able to organise her thoughts.

  Nina should not begin with the history of nation states. Aine already knew that. It would do Nina well not to insult Aine's knowledge. At the same time, trying to figure out what she did and didn't know before really starting seemed like a waste of time. Let her interrupt and ask questions. Aine liked interrupting, and talking over her, so not being asked first shouldn't anger her.

  "To begin, I want to be clear about what changed before and after the Babylon War... 'August' Russia was already in development before the Babylon War, for instance. The August Revolution was in 1991. The qualities and connotations of August are sourced from the Russian and Roman past, and not from the outside or the abyss or the Babylonian future."

  Reiko had asked why Nina considered herself a bad public speaker. She had said Nina was far better than average. Why had she asked that? She had gotten into Nina's head. She had seen so many of her memories. She faked being social to unsettle less. She faked being fluid because hesitant and hopeless girls should shut up, shouldn't be allowed to speak at all or ever, everyone had told her that, everyone, Reiko, why say otherwise?

  "I won't go through the era of national states again, but to be clear: at the beginning of the twentieth century, most people lived in the countryside, by 1997—prior to the loss of the chora to the Outside, which happened during the Babylon War—"

  "I think Aine needs a lower-level explanation," Aria said. "Like, she probably doesn't know why it's called the chora."

  "Aine is smart," Nina said, though what she meant was 'I can't do a lower-level explanation, and neither can any of you?'

  "Oh, okay. Aine is smart," Aria said.

  "I am smart," Aine said.

  "You're smart," Aria said.

  This all seemed a little unfriendly? But on the first day, weren't they... they had a positive first interaction, and—Nina had missed something. She always did. Whatever.

  "Why is it called the chora?" Sophia asked.

  "Because chora is the Ancient Greek word for countryside," Aine said.

  "Why is it Ancient Greek?" Sophia asked.

  "Why is your name Ancient Greek?"

  "Um," Sophia said.

  "It's 'cause we returned to the era of city-states, and the chora is the opposite of a polis, a city-state," Aine said. "Take that!"

  "Fine. Sorry. It's really fuckin' hard to tell what you know from what you don't," Aria said.

  "All is forgiven, Ari," Aine said.

  "Is it—" Sophia said.

  "Yes," Nina said. "The chora was also the unremembered 'outside' of Ancient Greece."

  "But Greece is inside Greece," Aria said.

  "It wasn't Gree—some cities had a Greek chora; others had a foreign chora. Their peasants were subject to the Greek speaking cities. They were economically subject; they worked longer hours to produce the surplus product that the city-states required to have a good life. They were also linguistically subject; they spoke unknown languages that were progressively erased by Greek. In the twentieth century, their languages would have been considered 'lost'. But you all know about the anti-genocide principle, and the retroactivity principle," Nina said.

  Everyone turned towards Aine.

  "I do?" Aine said.

  "Name every genocide," Sophia said.

  "Can you think of less depressing questions?" Aine said.

  "I trust you," Nina said, hollowly. "I think that it's important to remember, as twenty-first century girls, that in the twentieth century killing a people meant that they were dead, and not that their corpses radiated possibilities, and that historical action only influenced the future. It was always possible to reevaluate the past, but historical action needed to be done constantly... ink on a page would rot, but it would not drip or rewrite itself. Books were not cat-boxes."

  "Nina, you're misunderstanding the problem," Sophia said. "She does understand the anti-genocide principle, but in a few weeks we're going to be discussing something, and she's going to blurt out 'what's Rwanda.'"

  "I know what Rwanda was? Kigali and Goma were there?"

  "Not Goma. Gisenyi was a German city, Goma wasn't, Goma enveloped it. And—it's not the most important thing. I'll explain it later."

  "See, I know about Rwanda. And wasn't there a genocide during the Second Antideutsche War?"

  "Aine," Sophia said.

  "There was, right? You can't admit that I'm smart."

  "Aine?" Emi said.

  "I actually do know things," Aine said.

  "Sound more sure—" Marzena offered.

  Haio appeared to cover her face.

  "It was a bad war, particularly full of enmity, and they started killing people on pur—I mean they do that in every war. At scale, I mean..."

  Ah. Nina had misunderstood what she had gotten herself into.