[NeoX] Journal 8 - Exits
Jan. 21st, 2026 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jdagger12 June, year zero
I stood from where I had been seated and followed Talia out of the apartment door and into the hallway. She stopped and looked back at me as I momentarily paused there and took a look around. The apartment, the workout room, the small common area with the slightly worn sofa, the pale white walls of that space had been my entire world since I came off the roof of the Governor’s mansion and fell through the rift to land…here. I gave the space a last long look and turned to the right, towards Talia and the dead end hallway I hadn’t fully examined since I had taken the measure of my quarters. Talia stood there, watching me nod to myself and walk towards her with that unfathomable expression she wore most times, until she turned and walked up to the wall. She pressed her hand to the surface, and a faint red line traced around her palm. With a quiet click, a door slid open in the center of the wall and she walked through into the adjoining hallway. I followed her and found myself in a duplicate space of the one I had just left. Same layout, same number of rooms. We walked without pause to the next dead end and repeated the process three times.
I assume something in her programming deduced I would ask, or somehow she sensed the question I was forming in the back of my mind, because Talia glanced over her shoulder and said “The transitory housing is segregated for security purposes, and this wing is furnished identically in case there are groups.” I made a low hmmph of acknowledgement as she continued “The housing units are isolated from each other like this in case someone gets as you say cabin fever”. This made me think about the stage I was in just prior to the visit from Ms Voss, and that I had been just a short turn away from exploring the possibilities of a self-created exit.
Traveling down the hallway also gave me the opportunity to watch Talia walk. She had an alluring sinuousness to her walk that was difficult not to watch. It was to my eye like a dancer’s stride, measured and purposeful. However, the one thing that kept my attention was the absolute precision in each step, in each stride, in each subtle roll of her hips as we moved down that series of hallways. Her walk was unerringly precise and metered. I couldn’t help but self-consciously glace at myself and see the way I walked behind her. My Aunt Prudence had always said I walked like my father, with the gait of an officer on parade. It also reminded me of the way Madame Fleur constantly reprimanded me in deportment class how I ‘strode forth like some buckaroo’. What I had never said then was my right knee was wrapped tight from a riding accident and the last thing on my mind was gliding like a proper lady.
All of my nostalgia was clipped short when we arrived at the end of yet another hallway and stopped in front of a clearly marked doorway with a security panel next to it. Talia dutifully entered a code and pressed her thumb against a reader plate which resulted in the door opening with an audible ‘bing’. This opened into a small room which she stepped into and turned to face me. I followed her inside and realized this was a lift carriage. She pressed a large button emblazoned with a ‘G’, the door shut behind me and we began to descend.
It was what I considered to be a long ride down, with enough of a descent that my ears popped, then thankfully it stopped with a very slight bump. The door slid open and a voice announced ‘Lobby’. We stepped out of the lift into an open area with marble flooring, a few comfortable seats and tables scattered in an adjoin space and two other lifts facing a large kiosk that had the title ‘Information’ floating above it in a pastel blue font. Talia began walking ahead of me towards a large set of glass doors. She turned and smiled at me in that reassuring way of hers and said “Please put on your glasses. The light may hurt your eyes”. With that, I stepped out of the door and into the streets of Neo Extropia.
I stood from where I had been seated and followed Talia out of the apartment door and into the hallway. She stopped and looked back at me as I momentarily paused there and took a look around. The apartment, the workout room, the small common area with the slightly worn sofa, the pale white walls of that space had been my entire world since I came off the roof of the Governor’s mansion and fell through the rift to land…here. I gave the space a last long look and turned to the right, towards Talia and the dead end hallway I hadn’t fully examined since I had taken the measure of my quarters. Talia stood there, watching me nod to myself and walk towards her with that unfathomable expression she wore most times, until she turned and walked up to the wall. She pressed her hand to the surface, and a faint red line traced around her palm. With a quiet click, a door slid open in the center of the wall and she walked through into the adjoining hallway. I followed her and found myself in a duplicate space of the one I had just left. Same layout, same number of rooms. We walked without pause to the next dead end and repeated the process three times.
I assume something in her programming deduced I would ask, or somehow she sensed the question I was forming in the back of my mind, because Talia glanced over her shoulder and said “The transitory housing is segregated for security purposes, and this wing is furnished identically in case there are groups.” I made a low hmmph of acknowledgement as she continued “The housing units are isolated from each other like this in case someone gets as you say cabin fever”. This made me think about the stage I was in just prior to the visit from Ms Voss, and that I had been just a short turn away from exploring the possibilities of a self-created exit.
Traveling down the hallway also gave me the opportunity to watch Talia walk. She had an alluring sinuousness to her walk that was difficult not to watch. It was to my eye like a dancer’s stride, measured and purposeful. However, the one thing that kept my attention was the absolute precision in each step, in each stride, in each subtle roll of her hips as we moved down that series of hallways. Her walk was unerringly precise and metered. I couldn’t help but self-consciously glace at myself and see the way I walked behind her. My Aunt Prudence had always said I walked like my father, with the gait of an officer on parade. It also reminded me of the way Madame Fleur constantly reprimanded me in deportment class how I ‘strode forth like some buckaroo’. What I had never said then was my right knee was wrapped tight from a riding accident and the last thing on my mind was gliding like a proper lady.
All of my nostalgia was clipped short when we arrived at the end of yet another hallway and stopped in front of a clearly marked doorway with a security panel next to it. Talia dutifully entered a code and pressed her thumb against a reader plate which resulted in the door opening with an audible ‘bing’. This opened into a small room which she stepped into and turned to face me. I followed her inside and realized this was a lift carriage. She pressed a large button emblazoned with a ‘G’, the door shut behind me and we began to descend.
It was what I considered to be a long ride down, with enough of a descent that my ears popped, then thankfully it stopped with a very slight bump. The door slid open and a voice announced ‘Lobby’. We stepped out of the lift into an open area with marble flooring, a few comfortable seats and tables scattered in an adjoin space and two other lifts facing a large kiosk that had the title ‘Information’ floating above it in a pastel blue font. Talia began walking ahead of me towards a large set of glass doors. She turned and smiled at me in that reassuring way of hers and said “Please put on your glasses. The light may hurt your eyes”. With that, I stepped out of the door and into the streets of Neo Extropia.
