BREATHE, book 4, building

Alice took a deep breath in 
and, counting, a slow breath out, passing ten, passing twenty, thirty, bending forward to squeeze out more air, fighting to keep exhaling, reaching thirty-nine — and taking a deep breath in.
It could be done.
Alice opened her eyes. 
It was dark. Outside. In here, in the atrium, the only light came from the Oceans Bar. Soft. Dimmed. 
No one was here — unless you counted the storm, which reached London some twenty minutes ago and seemed to be getting into a mood, building up from a groan to a high note, like a siren, like it was waiting for something, expecting something, preparing for something. 
Most team members were at the Jellybridge Estate, the prospective site for the town. 
A site for the town.
Huge. Nine times the size they needed. Rolling meadows. Partially framed by the New Forest in the south and west, and by the Old Forest in the east and north. A fold divided the site into east and west. A lake north/west of the site, peanut shaped, five peanuts, complete with a small island. A stream and a river merging with the lake, not crossing the land, running north. Above the lake a hill. Some way below the lake a pocket of flat land surrounded by the Old Forest. 
Alice took a deep breath in.
Thirty-nine days, starting on Tuesday, after this weekend. Thirty-nine days to convince the British government to let the town project build a town from scratch and to run it as an experiment in an attempt to find out what kind of environment humans need to thrive.
Alice chuckled. The government had no idea what was coming. Nor did they know that it was Queen Lusana herself who had offered the estate to the town project — as a gift. 
The estate included a derelict train station in the Old Forest,  farmland and farm buildings in the south, bordering on the Young Forest. Inside the Young Forest was the large Jellybridge House with a lot of land around it, home to gardens, cottages, barns and famed stables. ‘Not racehorses. Practical horses,’ Jimmy, the master of horses, told Alice. A northward track through a small part of the Young Forest connected the Jellybridge House area with the prospective site for the town. 
The estate would be a gift, yes, but the offer came with conditions. 
One of these conditions was that the British government had to approve of the town and had to grand the project the autonomy it needed for the experiment. The project had until the 31st March to get the British government on board, or else the queen’s offer would be nil and void. 
The project’s odds weren’t good. Ever since the team’s arrival in London, the previous summer, the British government had either ignored the project or mocked it as something that could never happen in the UK.
Alice inhaled, opened her arms and slowly began to spin, listening to the howling sounds of the storm. Intense. Powerful. She fixed her eyes on the thumb of her outstretched arm, focused her mind on the huge empty space and filled it with memories. 
Here in this building, here in this atrium, the project teams shaped the plans for the town. Week after week, month after month, digging deeper into the root causes of what damaged people, communities, the planet, and into what might be possible if the project team had the courage to leave no stone unturned in their quest to rethink everything that might need a rethink. Here in this building, they completed the plans for their town and for the experiments they wanted to do in the town. Here they did everything they could think of to get a site for the town. And here they failed to convince a single government to give them the autonomy to be thorough in their research. Here Tom pressured them to dismantle the project. And here in this atrium, on a spark of defiance, Alice decided not to give up, not to give in to Tom’s attacks, but to step up and transform the town project into a business project, and expand the project’s existing business networks so that the teams could continue to shape, rethink and test alternatives to everything that made the world sick. That afternoon, riding the wave of defiance, they began the transformation.
And then suddenly, some two weeks later, an offer.
Alice stopped to spin, feeling dizzy. 
An offer of a site for the town. 
Alice leaned against a bar table and focused on her breathing — in, out, in, out.
Yesterday, a small group of team members visited the site. Some, Alice included, were reluctant to consider the site as an option because of the involvement of Queen Lusana. Neither monarchy nor classes made any sense to Alice, and she was worried about getting entangled in a class system she didn’t understand and didn’t want to replicate in the town. 
It was a long day, doubts and discoveries, drizzle, mud, an eagle, questions, suggestions, the sky opening, hints of sunshine, wondering what the town might look like, asking what their presence would do to this land, facing more doubts, a walk through the night, a tea in the stable, combing through the pros and cons of accepting a gift from Queen Lusana, a confession. 
A long day. 
A short night. 
Revelations. 
And eventually decisions. 
Outside of the Compound, the storm was picking up again, moaning around the buildings: the three main buildings, one set behind the other, Front House, open to the public with venues, shops and businesses, Central Building, the heart of the project with the atrium, and Back House, flats for the team; plus all the smaller buildings in the large area next to the main buildings, home to the existing project businesses. 
Startled Alice turned. Something had crashed outside. Was the storm attacking the gardens on the roofs, uprooting plants? 
Maybe. 
Alice exhaled.
This morning, she assembled an excellent Campaigns & Negotiations Team. Eighteen people. Experts in business, tech, crafts, ecology and society. Plus jokers for sanity, education and the NHS. Most of them she knew well, liked and respected. Each of them had their own team, and both Security and Research would work for all of them in the background as well. 
If anyone could pull off a successful campaign, then it was this team. 
It was during the conversations with these team members that Alice gradually came to the decision not to dismiss this opportunity but to fight for the site.
After the signing ceremony with Queen Lusana and Princess Felicitas at Waterbridge Castle, some hours ago, Alice sent her new team on a three-days break.
Three days. Three days to rest and connect with their families and friends. Three days before they would start on a thirty-nine days campaigns and negotiations marathon. 
Tuesday. The starting line.
Alice straightened. She had one more task, tomorrow. After that, she would rest a bit, too. 
Probably. 
Tonight, her mind was still buzzing with today’s events.
Breathe.
Jack. The storm. Tom’s threats. Assembling the campaign team. Riding. The site. Tom storming out. Leo. The joy in the eyes of the Jellybridge staff when Alice announced that she would accept the queen’s offer. Jack. The site. The signing ceremony with Queen Lusana and Princess Felicitas. Back to London. The news of Jonas’ death, one of Leo’s people. The video connection breaking due to the storm. Silence in the car. Jazz, the head of Project Security, driving. Arriving at the Compound. Being here. No one around. 
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
A workout might help. Sweating out some of the tensions. Clearing the mind. Stretching. Twisting. Unblocking.
Alice nodded to herself. Yes, a workout might help.
Alice gave the atrium another glance, allowing the echoes of everything that had happened here to fill her for another moment. 
Then, with a little smile, she picked up a pile of folders from the bar, turned off the lights, crossed the atrium and opened the backdoor. 
The storm hit her full frontal. She staggered backwards, then she leaned forwards, pressing the folders against her chest. Pushing against the storm, she crossed the narrow street and the courtyard of the Back House, and was glad to reach the front door.
The workout studios were at the back of the Back House, on the ground floor. Studio 2, by far the largest studio, was flanked by studio 1 and 3. Alice always worked out in studio 3, sometimes using the punchbag to let off steam.
When the door of studio 3 closed behind her, some of the mood lights on the floor turned on. Folders on a bench, Alice walked to the punchbag near the back of the studio and was drawn to the large windows. Rain had joined the wrecking party outside, and gusts of wind were lashing wet masses against the windows. So much force and energy.
Patterns appeared and disappeared on the glass. Rain and Wind. A dance. Strange and beautiful. Powerful.
Alice lowered herself to the ground, crossed her legs and watched the elements play. After a while, she closed her eyes. This— this moment is the quiet before the storm — in the middle of a storm. 
The storm’s moans, groans and high pitches had no melody, but right now it sounded as if some intention or message was included.
Leo told Alice about Megan’s speech. Megan was right. When it came to nature, they were still silly romantics. Nature didn’t care about humans. But humans needed to care about nature for their own sake — and most humans needed to rediscover that they were part of nature, not its patroniser, not its manager, absolutely not its superior but a part of the wonderfully entangled, interdependent, unruly whole that is the natural world. 
Leo said that everyone was determined not to lose anyone else to the storm, but some more trees were bound to yield to the attacks.
Alice exhaled.
The Campaigns & Negotiations Team would use studio 2 as their workspace until the seventh floor of the Central Building would be ready for them, probably next Friday. 
Using the seventh floor was a compromise. 
After the project’s decision to expand their business activities, they decided to wrap up the town project, and they began to empty the town team’s offices in the Central Building to transform the Compound into an incubator for the project’s businesses. But with the town suddenly an option again, the town team had reclaimed the sixth and seventh floor for their work. And the third floor with the conference rooms would remain at their disposal, too. All other floors would continue in transformation mode and would soon host up to twelve project businesses on each floor, most of them in their early development stages, over seventy all told.
Breathe.
Leo.
Leo was the best possible personal assistant Alice could wish for. And he headed the large and essential project coordination team. 
But Alice decided against working with him in the coming weeks. She needed Leo at the Jellybridge Estate because she wanted the town teams to prepare everything for the start of the building phase — despite the uncertainties. But Alice knew that even after a win, their opponents would still try to stop the project and that was why she wanted to start building as soon as they had secured the government’s approval for the town. 
Rohana and her team would be working with Alice. So far, Rohana had been Leo’s right hand for the Compound — a brilliant organiser, a good thinker. Rohana was about five foot six, Alice’s height, had shortish dark hair, was thirty-six and liked to wear the Indian+ dot.collection, which mixed traditional Indian outfits with design elements from other countries. 
Rohana. Alice smiled. When they were at Waterbridge Castle for the signing ceremony, Alice walked into a bathroom just as Rohana held her penis over a urinal. 
Surprised, Rohana snapped: ‘Aren’t you supposed to go to the ladies?’ 
Alice chuckled. ‘No. I’m non-binary. I tend to use the toilet that’s less in demand. I had no idea you’re trans.’ 
‘I didn’t think I had to explain myself.’ 
‘Nor did I. But I thought no one has to hide on our project.’
Rohana grimaced, dropping her skirt. ‘I’m not hiding. I am a woman, and I don’t want to discuss my body parts.’ 
Alice chuckled. ‘OK. I actually don’t want to discuss mine either.’ 
Rohana rolled her eyes and washed her hands. ‘Does Troy know?’ 
Rohana grimaced. ‘Why? Because we transpeople answer to each other?’ 
‘Just curious. Honestly. For all I care, you could have a penis and a vagina. It wouldn’t make a difference to me.’
Rohana dried her hands, seeming tense. When she turned, she said: ‘I hate having to explain myself. I just want to be.’
Alice nodded. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I hate telling people that I am not a woman, not a man, and both, and no gender at all. I know exactly what I mean. But someone who had to listen to the boys do, girls are all their lives, how are they to grasp that there are a lot more genders and that the sex of humans and animals isn’t as clearcut as generations of teachers, preachers and parents made us believe.’
‘It’s a relief, isn’t it?’ Rohana said, frowning. ‘To be able to name who you are, to get out of the corset generations of humans forced on themselves by insisting that there are only men and women, and that each had predestined tasks and behaviours.’
‘Oh, yes! It’s liberating.’ 
Rohana nodded, and smiled a little. ‘I hadn’t considered that you know about that. I’m glad we had this talk. But I’d appreciate it if you could keep it to yourself.’
Alice nodded. ‘I will. Are we OK?’
‘Yes. Yes, we are OK,’ Rohana returned with a big sigh.
And that was that.
Are we OK?
Tom.
Tom crashing the meeting with the first members of the Campaigns & Negotiations Team, flaring up in front of everyone, declaring that he was out, done with the town project.
You need to forget, Alice. Tom is gone. He has given up on the project. He is on his way back to New York. Yes, he has threatened to have the project and the businesses dismantled. But you are safe. The project is safe as long as Fran, Tom’s wife, is with the team. And she is. She told you again at the signing ceremony. 
All you need to do is win. Once you’ve got the site, Tom can’t do any harm any more. 
Breathe!
What will it take to win over the British government? Will it be enough to get the public on board? Will the public put pressure on the government?
Breathe.
Jack. 
Let Jack go. So he is in love with you. And as you spell it out, you have trouble believing it. It seems unreal. Like something you dreamed about and could never happen. But it did. You have been drawn to him all these months, only you never expected, suspected, asked for— Let go! He knows that you have to focus. You know that you have to focus.
Breathe!
He is on the team.
I know, and it will be OK. You both want to build the town. You both know that right now you can’t let anything distract you, not even something that offers warmth, love, joy and a lot of laughing.
Breathe.
Alice took a deep breath in 
and a slow breath out, counting, passing ten, passing twenty, passing thirty, bending forward to squeeze out more air, fighting to keep exhaling, reaching thirty-nine — and taking a deep breath in.
It could be done.
Alice opened her eyes.
After tomorrow the town project would go silent. No interviews. No comments. Time to prepare their next steps. 
Fran, who supported the Campaigns & Negotiation Team with her Research Team, suggested this strategy: ‘It’s something I learned from my husband, Tom. If you want to soften someone, make them sweat. How? Give them a minimum of information. Just enough to get them hooked, to get them speculating. Then go silent. Be unreachable. Let them stew. Why? Because with every minute their uncertainty will grow, and with every hour they will come up with another worst case scenario. And then, one fine morning, you break your silence, stroll into the meeting, and whatever you say will seem moderate compared to the horror scenarios they imagined in the meantime.’
Jack and Dennie would do voice trainings and acting classes with everyone who might give a speech — for the ‘stroll with panache,’ Dennie joked.
Breathe.
Alice took a deep breath in and listened, focusing her mind on the sounds outside. The rain had stopped. The storm was still raging. 
And then, a sudden silence — followed by a single howl — a howl with a note of confidence, the confidence of someone who was rising to face down an opponent.

The next morning, Jazz and Calum drove Alice to Downing Street where Alice submitted a formal request for a meeting with the prime minister to discuss Queen Lusana’s offer of the Jellybridge Estate.

Downing Street didn’t react, and some ten hours later, Queen Lusana made an announcement, concluding with: ‘I have studied the plans for the town project, and after meeting with Alice Adler, three days ago, I decided to offer Jellybridge Estate to the project. I am curious what the town project will discover, and I am hopeful that it will gain valuable insights for all humankind. Some conditions are attached to my offer. Alice Adler and her lawyer Emine Hamdi insisted on adding details to the original draft, demonstrating yet again that they intent to act responsibly and thoroughly — even in the face of conditions Alice Adler isn’t particularly happy with.’

Shortly after this announcement, the preliminary contract between Queen Lusana and Alice Adler was published by most media outlets.

Preliminary Contract

February, 17, Waterbridge Castle

The gift of Jellybridge Estate is subject to the following conditions:

Ownership

1. Alice Adler must be the sole owner of the entire estate. Alice Adler cannot sell, lease or give away any part of the estate, neither land nor real estate, with one exception: Alice Adler can use rents and/or stand-in community ownerships as part of the town experiment. Both could be used after the experiment is concluded if the experiment proves that rents and/or community ownerships are useful for the town. Useful is defined as supporting a town-wide economic balance and as avoiding cost of living pressure on the inhabitants of the town. A stand-in community ownership means that Alice Adler is still the sole owner and has a veto on everything a community might want to decide. This stand-in community ownership is an option to test the idea, not an attempt to fragment the estate. The crown insists on a sole ownership to ensure that the estate will be cared for and looked after as a whole and in a consistent way.

Inheritance

1. No one can inherit the estate from Alice Adler.

Successor(s)

1. Alice Adler will appoint a successor or a group of successors who can and will continue Alice Adler’s work in her spirit after her resignation or after her passing. The ruling monarch is granted a veto with regard to the successor or group of successors. Should Alice Adler pass before she appointed a successor, a group of her most trusted allies will appoint a successor or a group of successors. A successor or a group of successors must be dedicated to continue the research into finding out what kind of environment (regarding town planning and architecture, business composition and business practices, arts, crafts and empowerment, education and research, nutrition, food security and water quality, nature and biodiversity, administration and security, health and community) make a human thrive. Furthermore, a successor or a group of successors can only propose changes which benefit the town as a whole. All proposed changes must undergo rigorous testing to ensure that the changes will benefit everyone in town and are in line with the project’s goal and findings. The project’s goal is to contribute to the evolution of humanity by finding and addressing root causes of damaging practices and narratives. All recommendations regarding all aspect of human life and activities are to be based on research and substantiating tests.

Head of the town project

1. Alice Adler must be the sole head of the town project for the duration of the experiment unless she appoints a successor or a group of successors due to health concerns. After the experiment, Alice Adler must be part of the town’s administration and must have the right to veto everything concerning the welfare of the town. The crown insists on this to ensure consistency for the experiment, and to ascertain that Alice Adler is prepared to fully commit to the project for the entire run of the town experiment.

Transparency

1. While acting fully independently of the ruling monarch, Alice Adler must agree to present the ruling monarch with an occasional update on the town project’s findings and on the development of the town. The same applies to the successor(s).

Approval

1. The British government and the local authorities (in the neighbourhood of the Jellybridge Estate) must agree to the town project. Furthermore, Alice Adler and the British government must agree on the terms and conditions for undertaking the town experiment.

Deadline

1. The offer of the Jellybridge Estate is valid until the 31st March, at midnight. After the deadline, the offer is nil and void, and cannot be renewed.

The gift

1. The gift of the Jellybridge Estate to Alice Adler will enter into force if and when the conditions 1-7 are met.

Breach of contract

1. Should Alice Adler fail to comply with any of the first six conditions after the contract came into force, then Alice Adler and the ruling monarch will find a solution which serves the town. Both the ruling monarch and Alice Adler commit to the safety and well-being of the inhabitants of the town regardless of which disagreements or problems might have surfaced.

Two hours after the publication of the preliminary contract, ripples news, the town project’s paper, published a statement about the queen’s offer and introduced the Campaigns & Negotiations Team.

By that time, the phones in the Compound were running hot. But no one answered. Hardly anyone was there. Everyone wanted to be at the prospective site for the town. 

© Charlie Alice Raya, book 4, building, part 1: campaigns