Avalea

Prologue

Vea

I walk the streets of a city which is unrecognizable.

A cacophony of neon and granite, people bustling past me with their eyes ahead, focused on the next video, the next platform. Food vendors go about their business, competing for the next mouth to feed and shares to earn. I keep my head down and continue along my path, waiting for the moment I remember what my place in all of this is. The moment that happens at the same time, every day.

A billboard. The best placement in the city, high above the buzzing hive of The Diamond District, so-called for its’ structure but also for its’ glamour. The perfect place for the elite to consume every message that can be displayed in high-resolution for every product that can be sold for an even higher price. Wannabe sharelites swan around, showing off their brand-new feel-screens and doxxers prowl after them, waiting for something embarrassing to happen to give them new material.

In a society where emotions are a grossing revenue, nothing markets better than shame.

I square my shoulders and glance at my watch before turning my eyes back to the screen.

Three... two... one.

A woman, her pale skin flawless and her bobbed dark hair pristine, not a hair out of place. A simple white button-up shirt and a delicate silver chain around her neck. She smiles.

“Citizens of Avalea,” she begins, her voice comforting, smooth yet confident. “Thank you all for continuing to show loyalty both to the ideals and traditions which have allowed us to maintain our reputation of high-standard living. In these hard times of attacks by minor rebel groups, we stay vigilant. We stay resilient. We stay Avalean! They wish to return to times of hardship, tumult, unnecessary disharmony. Yet we continue to stand against them. In His eye...”

“Lies the truth.” I murmur out of habit, along with half a thousand other disembodied voices around me, voices of the people who have lived here alongside me all my life.

My eyes stay on the smiling woman. Her face stays there for one, two, three seconds before the screen returns to an advert for perfume:

CANDID – THE NEW UNISEX FRAGRANCE. DARE TO BE GENUINE.

Sometimes I find myself wondering what she does after those announcements. Does she sigh in frustration, maybe a little relief? Pour herself a glass of whatever she’s drinking that evening, find herself in the warm embrace of a lover? Or maybe she looks out at the city through her window, as I do, and think “where did all of this come from?”

Maybe she does none of those things. Maybe she goes to bed and sleeps restfully.

My sister, the politician. Our fearless leader. The girl I remember as bookish, smart, who looked out for me.

“What happened to you?” I whisper as I clutch at the silver heart-shaped locket at my chest, the one I know matches hers even though she doesn’t let it show on the broadcast. Too personal, too sentimental.

Too real in a world where everything is fabricated.

Five years ago

Myra

She’s running again.

I’ve told her before that she can’t keep doing this. Young girls who tear round the streets of Avalea spraying anti-Parson imagery on any viable surface won’t be met kindly under His eye. She thinks because his face is all over any news outlet for debauchery and debonair behaviour that he’s not taken seriously. He’s not the first to get away with it and he won’t be the last. Before James Parson, there was Henry Parson. And before him, Anthony. Robert. On and on, through countless decades his family have made their standards and expectations for our fair city very clear. Named partly after the mystical land of Avalon and partly our founders wife, Tallulah Parson, our city and the women in it have always been linked to the ideal of being iridescent. Mysterious. For the respite of men. Anything outside of that ideal, well. It doesn’t end well for anyone.

And yet my sister continues to run. Loudly. Unapologetically. A law unto herself.

Banging at my door, breathless and laughing.

“You can’t keep doing this, Vea,” I hiss as I open the door, pulling her in sharply by the elbow.

She giggles, eyes shining in the tawny amberlight of the streetlamps outside.

“What? I’m with my boss-bitch sister, at her very corporate-professional apartment, on a weekend watching reality tv! And isn’t that exactly what a young Avalean female should be doing? In His eye!” Leaning back, arms high in mock-praise, my sister is high on her imagined power.

“Yeah, your boss-bitch sister who could lose her job if you get caught. You know how easy it is for people to get doxxed! You don’t even need to be famous anymore. Everyone-”

“Knows everyone, I know, I know. I see it, don’t worry. Every day, I - “ she cuts herself off, looking over to my tv. An interview of James Parson is on. Her lip curls slightly as she walks over and sits in front of it, elbows on her knees, hackles up, shoulders tense.

“ - do you get that go-get-em attitude from? I mean after all you are listed as number one in the Tox Monthly “Greatest Minds Under 40.” Talia Thorpe is sitting across from James Parson, her smile demure and legs crossed.

“Well Talia, I think what it comes down to is I want to make the most of every oppurtunity to make sure our city is the best there is. You can make a profit off of anything, if you have the right team. And not just monetary profit, profit of lifestyle. Morale goes up, patriotism. All the things that make you feel good about where you come from. I mean, can you imagine if you could sell happiness? People would be up and down the street!” James looks down the camera. “Who doesn’t wanna be happy, huh? Look at this guy, you’d pay from your lining wouldn’t ya bud?” Canned laughter ensues.

Vea scoffs. “And they say I’m dangerous. This guy is giving me nightmares and I’m not even asleep yet. Goodnight.” And she stalks off to bed, leaving me with Talia and James. And the terrifying realisation that...

He’s not wrong.

The next day I go to work, the mundane duties of the day piling on. Until I look at my schedule and booked in for my 2 o’clock are the initials JP. Nothing else. The minutes tick on and on as I try and diminish my daily to-do list but I can’t. Why does he want to see me? What could I possibly offer him?

At 2:01pm he enters my office, confidence radiating from him.

“I have a vision, Myra. A vision of community, widespread mental awareness, unbridled freedom of speech. And I want to charge a dollar a word. How can I do it?” He looks at me, unflinching. Waiting for my response.

“Make emotions marketable. Charge for the experience of the finer things, not the things themselves. Encourage, no, legalise the sharing of experiences online. They go for a meal? They share their location, if they enjoy the meal the proprietor charges them more. Entertainment venues, arts-based careers, hell you could even make it pharmaceutical. Make them believe they can buy happiness in a bottle and you have yourself a product. And of course it’ll become competitive. Everyone wants to be happier than their neighbour. Men, women, children. It’s the Avalean dream.”

James smiles and leans back in his chair, winks at me.

“This is why I came to you.”

I can feel my soul pulling, pulsating at the thought of becoming part of a larger picture. A lifetime of being the older sister, the responsible one, the one who holds the answer to everything but never seen. But now I will be.

Now they’ll have no choice.

Present Day

One day she was my Myra, the next she was Myra Parson, a politician in her own right with a viciousness that went unparalleled even by James himself.

Five years since I had seen my sister as I knew her, five years of being on the streets, seeing the other side of the coin where families on the poverty line were literally out of pocket trying to be happy. Doing things they shouldn’t need to do, seeing things they shouldn’t need to see. Seedy clubs where medicine was in high demand and stakes were even higher. Backstreet gangsters feeding off of pain and desperation to feel happy, safe. Loved.

I love my sister still. Despite the sensationalism created around peoples misfortune and the rancour it causes me to feel, I still remember her hand on my elbow, pulling me in from the trouble I was intent on making.

I touch my locket. Remember hers.

“Time to make a little more.”

I raise my hood and walk quickly to her apartment. I knock on the door.

“Vea. It’s late. What are you doing here?”

“I just want to talk, Myra. Please.”

A pause. The door buzzes.

I’m in.

I walk into a white lobby, a wooden spaced staircase winding upwards.

“Up here,” she calls. I ascend.

My sister sits in front of me, crystal glass of something that smells alcoholic in her hand.

“It’s been a long time. What have you been up to?” She asks in a tone that’s nonchalant, whether that’s due to the alcohol or the fact she sold her soul I have no idea.

“Oh, not much. Explored the underbelly of the city, joined a rebel group... or two” I shoot a sly grin at her and she freezes.

“You’re kidding... right?” She’s not looking at me but I can feel the disapproval in her eyes. A politician with a rebel sister would cause a field day for the doxxers.

“Maybe... maybe not.” I try and steady my breathing. She sighs.

“You never could leave well enough alone. What do you want to talk about?”

“Your empire. You need to give it up. The city is suffering, Myra. More than it ever has. You have no idea-”

“Oh, I have an idea. Have you forgotten how we lived when dad left and mumma died? Who took care of you? Of both of us? Do you really think that was easy? That I didn’t make sacrifices? I knew you were idealistic but I didn’t think you were naïve-”

“Myra, all of that can only point to the conclusion that this needs to stop. So kids like us get a better chance. So maybe there wouldn’t even be kids like us.”

Myra looks at me, her eyes swimming.

“There will always be kids like us. You had it easy, you got to run around, getting chased by police, getting thrills from putting me in danger so you could, what? Feel important? Feel special?” Her voice is scornful. “What I’ve done, what I’ve built, I did so I could feel that. For once. Emotions have always been marketable, hell they’ve always been marketed we just didn’t realise how to make it the big picture. Until me. And I’m not giving it up.”

I look at my sister, her chest heaving, her eyes sharp and indignant.

“Oh Myra... You just did.”

An electrical echo reverberates through her glass windows... “-just did.”

Her eyes look past me to the billboard outside, her own face looking back at her. It remains perfectly still, save for a tightening in the left side of her jaw. A giveaway that she’s finding it harder to maintain control than she’s letting on. Her eyes dart to my hand, touching the locket that played its’ part in her demise.

My sister, a quiet protector. A businesswoman, overlooked. The politician, face of a city and the ideals she built it upon. And now, she can be seen as exactly who she is.

In high definition, just like she’s always wanted.