Unnaturals Read Online Free Page B

be happy, Mel—the city doesn't want you to hate yourself or feel guilty, nothing like this. People have felt all these things, and they never did people anything good."
    She believed him. Lucastans didn't lie.
    "Mel, all we did was make you sleep and rest. Those pills wear off quickly. They have worn off already. You should message your mom now."
    Mel had seventeen messages from her. Mom was worried and had no idea what had happened to Meliora. Three hours had passed since Mel took the first train, and she hadn't messaged about entering the sleeper. Mom would know about the sleeper-trains—but she wouldn't know about shoving. It is all right, Mom, Mel hummed. I might be becoming a doctor.
    Mom answered, partly appeased, but still the message showed worry. It was Mel's fault. Mel started crying.
    "It is your pills. It is because of your pills! I never cry!"
    There were no pills this time. The medstat approached her from behind and administered a shot. It didn't hurt. They were made so that they didn't hurt. Shots, like pills, were supposed to help people, not harm them.
    It took away the guilt, too.
    ***
    On the next day she took the sleeper-train to Annabella. She didn't dream. At least, she didn't remember dreaming.
    At the station, one of Annabella's welcomers came to meet her. He was a pleasant boy a bit older than her, perhaps Nicolas' age. His name was Gilbert. She asked him about Nicolas. He smiled at her and said he didn't know him, then hummed something into his microphone.
    Of course he didn't know Nicolas. A million people lived in Annabella, just like in Lucasta. They couldn't all know each other. You could know, what, two hundred or three hundred thousand people relatively well. She'd tracked the people who could know Nicolas and contacted them. It would make no difference that she was physically in Annabella now.
    Meliora messaged her mother, messaged hundreds of her friends, told them she was in Annabella and excited about it.
    Gilbert led her to a tourist train, which would go around Annabella's most beautiful and artistic underground areas. It was different from Lucasta, then. In Lucasta tourists were taken to see the most awesome underground advertisements.
    The people on the train welcomed Meliora warmly. All two hundred tourists and their two hundred guides gave her their interweb addresses and sent her friendly messages. She replied back, promising she'd write often. This was normal with tourism. You made new friends. She asked them about Nicolas, and seven people vaguely remembered someone with his particular interweb address. They didn't know what had become of him.
    "You know, what is it that happens to people, anyway?" Belinda24511 from the city of Clementina said as the train softly started on its way. "Have you noticed that once a person has been an adult for about as long as they have been a child, they stop writing in the interweb and can't be found at home, either?"
    "They go to the city of Death," Meliora said before anyone else could utter a word or send a message, "which is the city of prisons. There people are closed into their own minds and can't access the feeds."
    "What city is that?" someone else asked. "Is it a whole city that is a theater of wonderful experiences? We have a whole mall in Sylvanna that only does wonderful experiences now. You can walk in a snowstorm now, and even break your leg."
    "Wow, break your leg! I had this at the theater in Clementina. But do you walk with the broken leg in the mall then? Can you buy stuff with the broken leg? It must be so interesting!"
    "You can't walk with a broken leg, they have to carry you—and that is its own wonderful experience, especially if you buy the hungry, emaciated, weak one before that. Or the war one? Anyone tried war? It's like breaking your leg, but stronger. My wife had to take the relaxation pills and wouldn't repeat it for ten minutes!"
    There was a doctor on the train. Before the conversation drifted away from Meliora's