Boredom

Al crumbled in his bed. With the party finishing early Al had been dismissed for the rest of the night. The captain and Marianne had stayed in the alley to finish every legal procedure with the police but the captain figured that it had been a huge first day for Al so he sent him home.

Al fell asleep quickly, it was indeed a huge day. When he woke up he looked through the apartment ads of today's journal. Nothing again. 

He hoped he could move quickly to his own apartment, the hotel was great but with his deal with Delta in the white space he was worried of being caught by somebody. 

The contaminated world wasn't that of a secret but it would be more troublesome than anything if someone caught him dealing with virus. Plus, he would probably be reported to the Nahas and he was under contract to not tell anybody about the white space.

The day became boring in no time. Now that he had a proper and regular job, he realized that a lot of free time was available to him. With his past job of mercenary he would spend the time by looking for job opportunities or teams to go on various missions.

But now he didn't need to do it anymore, this left him with hours and hours of free time. Even though it was all he dreamt about before it quickly became a nightmare. Boredom is crueler than infinite work.

Another fact that was hard for him was that, in the silent room, his thoughts became loud. Loud enough for him to become obsessed and lost with the contaminated world. 

He was starving for an answer, in adoration with how easily Marianne could control her symptoms and in a twisted esteem for how powerful Désir was. The world that felt so small and narrow in which he lived before had become vast, unpredictable and endless.

Driven by this hunger for knowledge he read through Sophia's book. Unfortunately, he didn't get a lot more knowledge. The book was massive but the part about the Virus and the contaminated world wasn't. 

Most of the book was about patrol and legal procedures, patrol methodology and different regular cases. He knew that this was important and that one day he would have to sit through it but now wasn't the time.

He tried to enter the white space to ask Delta his questions, when signing the contract he had guaranteed him answers and help with knowledge about the contaminated world. 

In the end he didn't succeed in entering space. He could still feel the soft and cold white space in him but somehow the closet door would not open. It felt like they were locked from the inside.

After getting even more bored trying to learn protocols of the Nahas, Al settled to go to the headquarters. He hoped to get a hold on Sophia and asked her some questions. However his plan quickly faded when he was welcomed by a zombie instead of a human being.

Sophia was working half asleep with piles of paper, documents and files on her desk. Her body was moving in automatic mode, filling forms and signing.

"Are you ok?"

"AAAAAAAAArgh!!!" Woken up by the sudden arrival, she jumped out of her chair and fell on the ground.

"I'm sorry I didn't want to scare you." Al helped her get up. Once she recovered from her brutal awakening she sat down again on her chair.

"Don't worry. Actually, this helped me, I was clearly falling asleep so a good scare to wake me up was needed." She took her glasses off her face and, with a dedicated tissue for it, cleaned them.

"About that, what is going on here?"

After a long yawn Sophia slowly answered, "Well, the captain was out from work and is still occupied with the police so all his paperwork was transferred to me."

Her words started to get slower and the rhythm of her sentences got jerky. "But don't worry I'm used to it, I just need to pull a second all-nighter and it should be fiii…" Her eyes closed.

She fell asleep.

Al looked at her in a mix of embarrassment and pity. She really does need a colleague to help her. Al put down the light created by the luminescent flowers in the room and put a blanket, that was folded on a chair, on her. Then, as silently as possible, he went out and closed the door behind him.

Another plan failed. He aimlessly walked in the corridor when he heard some sounds coming from the public room. 

There, Leo and Virgo were arguing again under the puzzled stare of Junior.

"Hello Al, how are you ?!" Virgo sprinted to him at the exact moment he appeared in the frame of the door. "You have to tell me everything from last night. I heard that it was quite the event." 

Virgo took Al's hand and looked at him with stars in her eyes. Hugh too close.

"Hello Virgo, I'm fine, thank you for asking. And you ?"

"I'm fine, how was Désir?" She responded as quickly as humanly possible. Al sighed inwardly.

The memories of what happened yesterday in the alley resurfaced. At this moment he really wanted to answer that Désir was monstrously powerful, cold and seductively poisonous, but, as expected, his body was not able to say those words.

Al recounted his night. He told her about Désir's arrival and his concert, about how he enchanted everyone with his voice. Then he explained that he didn't get the chance to see him more because of the drug traffic in the back alley.

He tried to tell her a bit more about the traffic but realized that she wasn't really listening to him anymore. During his story Leo was playing with Junior while half-listening to him.

"By the way, why are you here? The meeting is not planned until 2 or 3 hours."

"I was just wandering around because I got bored." Al hesitated for a second before continuing. He knew that what he was about to ask would make him look weird and it made him embarrassed in advance. "Do you know what people do when they have free time?" 

Virgo looked surprised for a second. The look of empathy that followed comforted Al and helped him get rid of the embarrassment. She then thought for some time before giving her definitive answer.

"Well everyone is different. Personally I like to read the news about world artists like Désir. Leo loves to spend time with Junior so he probably spends all of his free time playing with him. 

"Marianne usually spends her time with her sister, I know that she takes her out of school before every meeting. But when her sister is occupied she spends all of her time training in the arena.

"Everyone has their own things. What do you like to do?"

Al looked at her dumbfounded. He expected her to laugh at him but she had taken time to think about it and give him the best answer that she could find in the small time. 

"Is it weird if I say that I don't know?"

This time Virgo didn't show any surprise, maybe she had expected this or maybe she hid it. Either was she thought again.

"I guess not. I've never thought about it so I cannot really help you. But if I had to give an answer I would say that yes it is weird, but it is not bad though.

"Actually I think that it is a great opportunity, this means that from now on every discovery can become something you like. How exciting ! Now I'm getting jealous.

"The captain told me that you were good with guns, maybe you can try a shooting ground. I know that there is one next to the police station. You still have time before the meeting so why not try it?"