Sheltering in Place: Making an Impression

And as ye would that men wouldn't do to you, don't do it to them. Karma's a bitch.

Neon Luke 6:31 (Unified Standard Edition)

- - -

Hitomi was seated in a small basement room. It smelled damp. The large cinder blocks that made up the walls were painted a boring shade of grey, more than one coat of it too, given the chips in the flecking paint she saw revealed just more... grey. The drop-tile ceiling had yellowed fluorescent tubes embedded in them that flickered at intervals, buzzing with a light bzZz-zzZ sound.

It all felt cheap and disposable: just like the small wooden table she sat in front of.

Mr. Yamada, the man in charge of the embassy, was seated across from her with a notepad and a pen, scratching down something or other as a guard watched from the corner.

The guard wore a dress uniform and seemed uninterested in Hitomi, which was good, because she really didn't want to draw any more special interest to herself than she already had.

Thankfully Dr. Nagisa, who hadn't managed to find a safe way to get things sent from her Reston apartment to the embassy, had rooted around and bugged the female staff until someone had found a decent change of clothes for Hitomi.

Now she was dressed in a button up shirt, a cute vest, and was wearing a pencil skirt. They'd even scrounged up some leggings and thank god they did, because she hadn't shaved her legs in two days.

Hitomi didn't want to think about her face or arms. Her high school friends in D.C. thought it was weird that she shaved her upper lip and cheeks and her arms, but she thought it was weird they that all shaved their pits. So. It all balances out? Everyone was weird.

Speaking of weird, she wondered if this room was part of the embassy's fallout bunker. There was a line of people outside in the underground hallway, all waiting for their "placement" interview. The strange thing was, that there was ANOTHER door behind Mr. Yamada, through which one of the previous people in line must've gone through because unlike other three she had watched (who all came back out of the room) the one who went in right before her never came out again.

She gulped lightly. Sakura was behind her in line, and Hitomi hoped they'd all be OK.

"Ms. Hisakawa, thank you for joining us. Hopefully this will be very short."

"Uh, of course, sir."

"I know you've already spoken to the Ambassador, and I've also seen the video of your actions in Sheridan Circle," he began, looking over his glasses at her. "Truthfully, I believe you've already been vetted, but, for the safety of our mission here, I have just a few questions for you."

"OK," she smiled softly, trying not to show her teeth as she had become so accustomed to.

Be polite, Hitomi. Keep this roof over your head! Light work, hot meals! Be polite!

"Right then, so, first: your name is Hitomi Hisakawa, age 17, and your birthday is... ah, tomorrow! Well, congratulations, Mr. Hisakawa!" he said warmly, surprising her.

She blushed and tucked her hands into her lap, clasped together. "Thank you, sir."

"And you're from Takasaki, is that right? And you attend the Takasaki Municipal High School of Takasaki City University of Economics?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, good. It says that your degree interest leans towards computers, not economics as such, is that right? Non-vocational? Academic track?"

Hitomi brightened, excited to talk about her precious computers. "Y-yes! The school still has an excellent computer science program, even at a high school level, and I won a scholarship to come here you see and-"

"Very good," he softly interrupted, scanning the papers again, "Let me move on to the more important questions for our interview."

She just said, "Yes."

"What religion would you say you belong to?"

What? Well, OK, perhaps that was fair, given the civil unrest - it just seemed so, ugh, risky to ask such a thing! Then again, it wasn't like this was a real job interview. She couldn't sue them!

"I don't... really consider myself... religious. I mean, we have a small shrine at the house in the entry for grandma and grandpa, but, uh... Shinto, I guess?"

He marked a few notes down.

"Are you now or have you ever been affiliated with the Christian or Muslim faiths?"

Whoa. That was straight up racist, was that the right word for this? Racist? Religionist? Ergh.

"Well, uh, my host family is Mormon? If that counts?"

He actually paused for a moment, scratching his chin, "Hmm, I don't know much about Mormons myself, but they're a Christian denomination?"

"I think so, I uh, went to church with them a few times to be polite but it was... not a very comfortable experience for me."

He nodded, seeming pleased with her answer.

"Tell me what you think about what happened the other day. What do you believe happened?"

Was this a test? Oh, wow. It was definitely a test. She wasn't stupid. Just like the Latvian embassy they were trying to identify the mentally compromised people and make sure they weren't a danger to everyone.

"I honestly don't know what to believe, but... if that was an 'angel' of 'God' then I don't want anything to do with such cruelty," she said, honestly.

He jotted something down again, then stood, bowing to her, which she returned, and said, "Well, thank you very much Ms. Hisakawa, I think it's clear that you have a good head on your shoulders. And a brave one."

"Thank you very much!"

"I'll make arrangements for you to have some time to discuss your experiences with a qualified professional - as you can imagine she's quite busy helping some of those who lost loved ones cope with their situations, but she should be available in the next day or two."

"That is very kind, sir."

He waved her off, "Not at all, the safety and well being of our citizens is the reason our mission here exists. Now, I would like you to speak with Mr. Ueno about assisting with certain Information Technology tasks, if that's alright. We also have need of some assistance with serving meals, if you could be so kind."

Hitomi didn't mind that the assignments weren't really optional. They all seemed like a small price to pay for, hopefully, a ticket home on the next available flight to Narita Airport.

"Of course, I'd be happy to."

"Well then, please, do be so kind as to send in the next person," he gestured towards the door.

As she left she gave Sakura a big thumbs up, and made her way back upstairs past the others waiting in line. It was only as she came to the main level and felt some sunlight on her face from the tiny shafts making their way through the mini-blinds that she wondered what had happened to the man who had gone through the OTHER door.

- - -

The IT department of the embassy was really just two rooms: one sealed off from the other by a steel door with a keypad. Hitomi could hear the loud fans of the air-conditioning unit ventilating the space inside, mixed with the softer whine of individual fanblades inside each server in the server racks.

Ah. Heaven.

The white noise was incredibly soothing, and she had gotten a dreamy look on her face when Mr. Ueno had walked Sakura and herself over to it, explaining that he probably wouldn't need to give them access, since anything critical could be done remotely from the desktops in the small office space they were in.

Mr. Ueno had one desk to himself, and there was an empty desk next to him with piles of random equipment; most of it was partially disassembled desktop computers, no doubt scavenged for parts.

Hitomi wasn't the best at computer repair, but, unlike other electronics, computers tended to be so modular you just had to swap out parts and cables and bam: job done.

Sakura had gushed over the networking control software, asking dozens of sharp questions, especially about how the "virtual private networks" worked between the embassy, the other domestic embassies (like in California), and back to headquarters in Tokyo.

Mr. Ueno had deferred some of the questions, and mentioned that he normally had two assistants, but that they were both on vacation when everything had happened. One was stuck in Canada, the other in Florida.

He explained the basic security rules to Hitomi and strongly warned her against plugging her laptop into any of the ethernet ports in the actual server room, as her equipment was unapproved and certainly insecure.

Guest WiFi only for her!

But that was fine, and Mr. Ueno kept them busy until dinner, sending Sakura out more than once to handle some desktop support for the workers in the embassy while Hitomi got some coding practice in.

When Mr. Ueno was out, Sakura took the chance to sit right next to Hitomi and initiate some girl talk, ultimately ending in her asking more about Hitomi's wrapped up arm.

"Here, do you want to see?" she offered.

Hitomi undid the button on her cuff and pulled back the shirt's long sleeve. Then she unclipped the little metal clasp on the bandage, unwrapped the bottom part, and showed off the dark bruising which was black and blue and had ugly orange and pale yellow rings bordered the splotches.

Truthfully Hitomi had been curious too and had wanted to see how the bruising was progressing.

Blergh.

"O. M. G.!" Sakura yelped, instinctively grabbing Hitomi's wrist and pulling her closer to the slightly older girl. It didn't hurt, she was just surprised, and she ended up putting her hand on Sakura's thigh to try to steady herself.

Sakura hadn't even noticed where Hitomi's hand was because of how engrossed she was in the long bruises stretching up Hitomi's arm. She wanted to pull back, but was, in the moment, afraid that would just make her hands positioning worse somehow.

"Oh wow, Hitomi, I knew you said it hurt after you were swinging that - what was it? A pipe? That pipe around - but wow!"

Sakura pressed a thumb gently into Hitomi's bruise and the area dimpled lightly, not changing color when the thumb came away. "I didn't even know someone could do this to themselves, it's like one of those old Martial Arts movies."

The normally stoic girl was very animated, Hitomi noticed, and looked up at her and smiled a real smile, "But I'm glad you're OK!" she said, letting go of Hitomi's wrist. Then she looked down, having realized that she had pulled Hitomi so far forward into her space.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" they both managed to say at the same time, and then Hitomi giggled, wrapping her arm back up and fixing her sleeve.

Mr. Ueno chose just that moment to walk back in, letting them know it was time for dinner and they had the first service shift. They hustled off together, throwing on some aprons and lining up along the tables to help serve more rice and soup.

Hey, it was a hot meal and better than nothing!

They must've served over fifty people by the time they saw Mr. Ueno come through the line, and Hitomi happily scooped him an extra portion of steamed rice. She had been taught at school that brown nosing was a detestable yet indispensable part of life!

Sakura was just about to scoop him up a helping of fish-stock soup when she fumbled the thick paper bowl - it fell onto the table and she quickly bent over to grab it before it fell off onto the floor, but she sent the ladle slinging back, splashing Hitomi's hair with fish-stock soup!

"Arghhh!" Hitomi ducked, grabbing at her hair, "Nooooo!!!"

Sakura must not have noticed what she'd done at first, because it was a few seconds before she turned around, put down the bowl she had just ladled soup back into, and saw Hitomi's head.

She started making a huge fuss over Hitomi, dabbing at her bangs and forehead with some napkins, and apologized repeatedly, "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" And then she pointed at the bowl on the table, "I'm sorry Mr. Ueno, but there you go! Hitomi! Oh no!"

Mr. Ueno laughed good naturedly at the two younger women and took his bowl to a nearby table, watching their antics as they attempted to save Hitomi's hair from smelling like fish.