Descend the Stairs (Part 3)

Elliso watched us with a barely restrained grin when we rejoined the crew in the elevator line. The lady with the stroller was gone, and only the five of us remained lined up for the elevator.

“We waited for you,” Pera stated. She, too, observed Nelle and I with more than just her usual detached gaze. I prayed it was due more to our admittedly questionable attempt to act like two dudes palling around than interest in what we’d been up to.

Deji, of course, had no interest in subtlety. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say he had no capacity for it.

“What were you guys doing?”

“Yes,” Elliso said gleefully. “What activities were our two little celebrities up to together, out of sight?”

“Don’t think we’ve forgotten you conducting a kidnapping to silence her, either,” Pera added.

I had indeed been hoping they would.

“Riiiiight!” Deji said. “What was up with that?”

“I’m afraid all inquiries will need to be referred to our agents,” I said.

“Your agents, huh?” Elliso said. “It must have been something pretty scandalous if you’re doing damage control already.”

How did this guy always manage to turn everything I said around on me?

I looked to Nelle for help, only to find her with both hands covering her nose and mouth, as if trying to hide her face. The tips of her ears were red.

Wait, wait, wait! We actually weren’t doing anything! I mean, it wasn’t nothing, but…

To be honest, I wasn’t even fooling myself. I could still feel the pressure of Nelle’s head against my chest, could still remember the tears in her eyes and my hands screaming at me to place them against her cheeks. 

And that wasn’t even counting the words that might have been, by anyone who wasn’t dense as a black hole, very reasonably be construed as an indirect confession.

With Elliso looking like a shark on the hunt, Nelle’s reaction was like blood-red tea in the water, and we were about to face his fangs.

I’d never been so grateful for the ding of an elevator in my life.

“Time for some cinnamon rolls!” I said, turning Nelle toward the opening door by the shoulders. The movement seemed to shake her out of her funk, and she partially turned over her shoulder toward me.

“The elevator!” she hissed at me.

“It’s fine.”

“I have an idea!”

“The girlfriend thing is still a no.”

“A better idea.”

I didn’t know how much better an idea she could have thought of when just seconds ago she’d been redder than Mars, but the elevator door was opening and the others were already on our heels.

Her determination was impressive, I had to admit.

“Do you guys remember the elevator experiment?”

Nelle spun out of my hands, turning to face Pera, Deji, and Elliso. I saw an expression of confusion cross Elliso’s face at the quick change in Nelle’s demeanor, his eyes flicking to mine before returning to Nelle.

“Elevator experiment?” asked Deji.

“I remember,” Pera said. She looked at Nelle, then at Deji, then back at Nelle. “Asch, right?”

Nelle nodded excitedly, and a sparkle appeared in Pera’s eyes.

I remembered learning about the Asch paradigm in one of our human studies classes, and about the TV show that had used it as the basis for the elevator experiment Nelle wanted to do. What I didn’t understand was how it could possibly resolve my current predicament.

“Even if we are the Experimentation and Analysis Club, we shouldn’t do it here,” Pera said. “Right, Elliso?”

“I mean, I’m not part of the clu-”

It was truly impressive how threatening Pera could look only by lifting her eyebrows a fraction of an inch.

“Right,” Elliso said, holding his hands up. “You’re completely correct. We shouldn’t.”

When Pera turned her look on me, I simply gave a thumbs up. It felt like backing away from a dangerous beast very, very carefully.

Deji looked back and forth between Pera and Elliso in obvious confusion. I knew why; I could distinctly remember his light snores during that particular human studies class, taking advantage of my height to hide himself.

A small smile appeared on Pera’s face. She stepped past us, pressed the button, and the elevator door, which had already opened and shut while we spoke, slid open once more.

“Let’s get in, shall we?”

Nelle nudged me forward, and suddenly I understood everything.

I had to admit, it was indeed a much better idea than the girlfriend one.

The experiment footage we’d watched had shown a group of actors all facing the back wall of an elevator, away from the door. When a man who wasn’t part of the experiment joined them, he’d looked uncomfortably around before gradually turning to face the same direction. The point had been to illustrate the strong pressure people feel to conform to the behavior of those around them.

And now, Pera was using Nelle’s idea as an opportunity to run the experiment on Deji for her own amusement.

I made my way inside. The elevator had a glass door opposite the one I’d just entered, so I turned and faced the wall on the left, putting myself into the corner. From this position, all I could see was the silver of the steel wall. It wouldn’t stop me from feeling the elevator rise, but having an excuse to face the wall so I didn’t have to look out the windows would help.

Nelle sidled up next to me, her shoulder bumping into my arm as if to say, “I told you so.”

I heard Elliso’s footsteps next, completing the row on Nelle’s other side.

Outside, Pera said, “Ladies first, right, Deji?”

“Why’d you let them go in then?”

“You’re welcome to join after me.”

I sensed Pera taking her place behind my left shoulder, leaving an obvious spot for the fifth member of our group to stand if he, like the man in the show we’d watched, were to comply with the unnatural pattern the rest of us had established.

“Uh… guys?”

I felt bad for Deji, but the elevator had begun to move and I had other things on my mind.

Like not passing out.

“Guys? Why are you all staring at the wall?”

I closed my eyes and put my forehead against the cool metal. I’d forgotten how many floors up Elliso had said the restaurant was. Had he said? I couldn’t remember.

“Pera? Elliso? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

I zeroed in on Deji’s confusion, his baffled questions providing a welcome alternate focal point.

“You guys are weird.”

I heard a couple of footsteps, and Deji stopped talking. Not long after, the elevator chimed and the door to my right slid open.

I gratefully stepped off, apologizing to the first person waiting in line to enter as I beelined for a nearby chair and sat down, trying to look as put together as I could manage.

“Well?” Elliso said as he and Pera followed Nelle out.

“What were you guys doing in there?” Deji asked, sidling around the people replacing us in the elevator.

Pera looked at Deji, then back at Elliso.

“Conformity was achieved,” she said, her smile reappearing.

“Conformity?” Deji said.

“Nothing important,” Pera said. She lifted a hand to pat Deji’s shoulder with a pleased expression on her face, and I couldn’t help but see a researcher in a lab coat giving a dog an approving pet.

He glanced at her hand on his shoulder, then back at her face.

“I don’t get you,” he said.

“I know.”

Elliso, who had made his way to my side, made an amused chuckle. If I hadn’t been afflicted with the aftermath of the elevator ride, I probably would have done the same.

Sorry, Dej. You’re on your own with that one.

“You good?” Elliso asked, looking down at me. “You’re kind of pale.”

“I’m fine,” I said, at the same time that Nelle spoke up.

“He’s just hungry. He didn’t have breakfast this morning.”

Ordinarily, you wouldn’t think that such a remark would have serious consequences. After all, it’s not like skipping breakfast is all that unusual. Not the sort of thing to lead to distress if someone just so happened to falsely tell people that was what you’d done.

But here’s the thing about my friend Elliso, former attendant of Princess Nelle XI Yumin Rondar, current naturalized citizen of my home planet: Despite his love of teasing, he’s actually very caring. The type of guy who would come visit you in the nurse’s office after hearing you’d got sick in physics class.

Letting someone go hungry was basically against his moral code.

“Don’t worry, An. I got you.”

And that’s how I ended up with not one, not two, but three giant cinnamon rolls before me.

On any other day, I would have been delighted. But, as chance would have it, the only empty table that could seat five just happened to be right next to a window overlooking the entire intersection below.

Like I said. It was a day of troubles for me.

And we haven’t even gotten to the stairs yet.