“This better be my last drink, if I’m going to be at all useful tomorrow.”
Mallery made a comically mopey face, still impressing with her almost cartoonishly elastic actress skills. She dropped the look, tossing it aside as the joke it was. “Okay. Then skip the drink and just take in the city. I did mention it’s a rooftop bar, right?”
“You didn’t. Rooftop, eh?”
Leah imagined a shoulder angel and a shoulder devil. Her shoulder angel was dressed in professional slacks and a collared shirt in the manner of her style idol, Janelle Monáe. The shoulder devil was Mallery, wearing an even-more-exaggerated version of the woman’s dress.
“Drink lots of water and get enough sleep! This is a job!” shoulder angel said.
“Rooftop bar! Cute coworker! New York!” said the shoulder devil.
I really hope I don’t regret this, Leah thought, banishing the shoulder angel and devil.
“Let’s do it.”
Mallery lit up like a kid on Christmas. “Fantastic.”
The senior Genrenaut turned to the bartender and called, “Check, please!”
Chapter Four
Did You Get the Number of that Martini?
Leah woke up with a head full of mothballs, light piercing her eyes like lances.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was, but the residual smell of patchouli opened the window of memory, and reality came streaming in.
She was still dressed in her fancy club gear, which meant she hadn’t bothered to undress after getting back from the bar.
The previous night came back to her in fits and starts. The sights, the sounds of pounding techno, and another round of drinks.
An imaginary Better Judgement shoulder angel appeared, shaking her head, dressed in the elaborate dresses her mother made her wear as a kid for Chinese cultural festivals.
“Told you so,” the angel said in Mandarin. It had always been a know-it-all. And yet she never seemed to listen.
Her mission phone read 8:17, which was only fairly late. There was a glass of water on the bedside table. She glugged the water, then grabbed her towels and made a break for the shower.
One bracingly cold shower later, she wandered into the office/living room, wearing her gym clothes. She skipped makeup for the morning.
Walking into the room with the team assembled, she saw Mallery in trendy clothes and a full face of makeup.
“Good morning. Nice of you to join us,” King said, tut-tutting heavy in his tone.
You’re doing great today! she taunted herself as she slunk around the couches and took a seat.
The whiteboard was back, with a fresh message in two columns.
The first read:
STORY BREACH LEADS
1) Techie couple reunited by Leah
Leah reports
2) Online dating pool
Roman reports
3) Gossip pool
Shirin reports
And in the second:
TODAY’S AGENDA
1) Follow-ups based on leads
2) Regular haunts
Mallery set her coffee down and tapped on the board with her marker. “Okay, let’s get started. Word from HQ says that the story Leah patched last night was not our breach. We’re going to hear from Leah first, since even though it wasn’t the breach, patching a story is still a very exciting achievement, especially since she did it all by herself.” Mallery tapped the other numbered points on the board. “Next, we’ll get status reports and leads from Roman and Shirin, and then I’ll assign today’s tasks.”
Mallery said, “You’re up, newbie.”
Leah wished for caffeine, wobbling to her feet to address the team at Mallery’s prompting. She ran through the night’s adventures, focusing on identifying Hossan and Sarah, inserting herself to give advice, and the PDA-tastic reconciliation between the pair.
“Nicely done,” King said. “Next time, you can plant a mic on the subject so your team can listen and intervene if things are heading off base. When we ID the prime suspect couple, remember what you did here. Chances are, what we have to do will just be a bigger version of your story patch, though experience tells us that it usually takes more than a five-minute pep talk for a breach as far-reaching as this one.”
“How far-reaching?” Leah asked.
“Filings for divorce in the USA and Canada have increased nine percent over the last month, and dating websites have seen a twenty percent increase in membership cancellations due to frustration.”
Shirin piped in, “For context, the last time there was a breach in Romance, those numbers were three percent and twelve percent, respectively.”
“Holy schnikes.”
Mallery shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear, but I won’t stand by and accept that as field profanity. We’ve got some latitude in our PG-13 rating; give it a proper crap or hot damn.”
“Well, crap.”
“There you go. Don’t let a little hangover keep you from speaking with gusto.” Mallery tapped the whiteboard again. “Now, to Roman, with some findings from the online dating site mines.”
Roman was dressed in gym clothes, warm-up pants and a grey hoodie over white tank top. “We’ve sorted out a half-dozen candidates using Mallery’s algorithms, and cross-referenced their hobbies and locations to find some likely places to run into them over the next couple of days.”
Leah raised her hand. “Wait, how? Isn’t that, like, ridiculously invasive?”
Roman looked to Mallery, then King. He shrugged. “This is what we do. If we fix their stories, we’re helping them. The natural state in this world is Happily Ever After. In this world, people are actually incomplete until they’ve found their match. If they aren’t in story breaches, our making contact will be a momentary blip on their lives. No one gets hurt.”
Leah looked around to the group. “And this doesn’t bother anyone else?”
“It’s this or rely entirely on serendipity to do our legwork for us,” King said. “With the ripple effects we’re seeing on Earth, these approaches have been sanctioned by the High Council and are entirely appropriate.”
“Is it possible to log my displeasure without being insubordinate? Can I, like, fill out a form or something?”
“So noted,” King said. “Roman...”
“As I was saying.” Roman wrote out the six names on the whiteboard, beside the “Online dating pool” section.
“I’ve got likely haunts and plans for making contact in today’s briefing email, along with relevant details for each candidate.”
Mallery kept going. “Shirin, you’re up with word from the wide world of gossip. Please, spare no detail. I do love these little morsels of story, even the red herrings. They are the relationship hors d’oeuvres before the main course of romantic reconciliation.”
Shirin took the presenter position, spinning the whiteboard around to the clean back. Leah’s stomach grumbled, which elicited a smile from the older Genrenaut. “Someone hasn’t had breakfast yet.”
Leah shrugged. “Meetings take priority.”
“Some of us were up at six and got in a run and a breakfast before the meeting,” Shirin said.
“And some of us had to shepherd home an inebriated probie at one AM,” Mallery riposted before stepping back to let Shirin go.
There was no venom in the women’s words, just the bantering barbs of long acquaintance.
“Shaking the gossip branches yielded a few choice bits.” Shirin started writing on the whiteboard, breaking down their leads for possible plot threads. They’d covered this in her orientation—it was standard approach when a breach wasn’t immediately evident—look for events and trends that stood out, then narrow down until you find your breach. If possible, use one plot to resolve another.
“Newspaper sources indicate Mercy Hospital admitted three people who were hit by cars after getting engaged. Two have been discharged; one is still recovering.”
On the board: ENGAGEMENT RINGS IN HOSPITAL
/> “The Off-Broadway Achievement Awards are in five days.”
OFF-BROADWAY AWARDS
“And a physical therapy company embedded in a gym that caters to the trendy urban professionals is advertising for two new PTs.”
PT POSTS OPEN
“And lastly, millionaire actor Kyle Randal is hosting a gala tomorrow night. Randal is well known for being a lecherous skeeve, so there’s a very good chance, given where we are, of women put into compromising situations which would then make for a creepy but in-genre meet-cute with innocuous guys.”
SKEEVE PARTY
“Thanks, Shirin.” Mallery tapped the board over the listed plot threads. “King and Roman, you go ahead and grab those PT jobs. The gym association gives us a good field base for a wide range of possible stories. Shirin, I want you on the algorithms today; see if we can cross-reference some of these findings and come up with intersections to narrow our search.”
“Leah and I will hit the haunts. Two of them jog in the mornings in Central Park, so we’ll start there. Updates by five PM for the evening meet-up, then we make plans for the evening.”
Mallery paused as the team shuffled on the couches and seats, ready to move.
“Any questions?”
Leah, as usual, had many questions, but they could wait until she was talking to Mallery.
Starting the day in Central Park, served both of Mallery’s agendas: reconnaissance and working through Leah’s hangover.
Mallery trotted along merrily, gloves and yoga pants and a light fleece, hair held back in an exercise-standard ponytail.
Leah, meanwhile, huffed as she tried to keep pace.
“How are you in better shape than I am and you’ve just been in traction?”
“Because I was in marathon-running shape before my last mission, and you haven’t been around long enough for Roman’s fitness regimen to deform your life like a black hole. Also, it looks like your liver also needs some more training.”
Leah huffed and puffed, pushing herself to catch up to Mallery. “I was stretching it. Next time I say, ‘I shouldn’t have another drink,’ please don’t pressure me like it’s no big deal, even if it makes me out to be a spoilsport.”
Mallery’s face darkened. “You’re right. I was just so happy to be back on my feet, I got a bit carried away. And then I had to carry you away!”
“Sorry about that. I hope I didn’t inadvertently kick off any romance plots with random passers-by at the bar.”
Mallery picked up the pace again. “No, nothing like that. You were very easy to take care of. Once we got back, I just left you with the glass of water and went on my way.”
A moment passed. “Priority One is spotting the candidates from Roman’s notes who frequent this park – Anna Grace and Jasper Montes, but also be on the lookout for other broken stories. So, what we’re looking for,” Mallery said, gesturing to the other runners on the trails, “is groups of friends, probably three of them, talking about relationships. They’ll be running just a bit slower than everyone else, but they’ll be talking a lot.”
“Like we are,” Leah said.
“Exactly! If I were a group of Genrenauts watching the scene, I’d definitely peg us as candidates. You’d be the romantic lead, and I’d be the wise, free-spirited friend, offering you advice about how you need to put yourself out there more.”
“Got it,” Leah said, pushing past the wall and finding something resembling a stride.
Focusing on the other joggers helped distract her from how not-in-shape she was. She saw solo runners in their own worlds, pairs jogging silently, love-birds in matching outfits jogging and stealing long glances at one another.
Then, Leah spotted a trio of women moving a clip slower, jogging in a shallow chevron formation, one of them a half-pace ahead of the other two. They moved along a trail that would converge a few hundred feet ahead.
“How about them?” Leah said, indicating the trio with a short motion, trying not to be too obvious.
“Good eye. Now we have to catch up. Let’s get the lead out. Pain is just weakness leaving the body!” With that, Mallery poured on the speed, leaving Leah behind.
Sometimes this job was too much. On the other hand were the cushy salary, amazing benefits, and impossibly cool vistas. She kept reminding herself of the positives as she hurried to catch up with Mallery and the trio.
The center woman was a brunette white woman in her mid-twenties. Her friends were a shorter white redhead and a taller black woman, seemingly of a similar age. The women were still ten paces ahead, but they spoke loud enough to be heard. Or maybe that was just the world’s physics giving them a break.
“...to get yourself back out there,” the black woman said.
“One thing at a time.” the woman in the center said. “I still don’t know if I want to take the offer from the studio.”
The redhead said, “You need closure. Go see him.”
“Can we talk about something else?” the woman in the center said.
“No problem, Anna,” said the taller woman. “We’ve got to get to rehearsal. Let’s take the turn-off here and hit the showers.”
The women turned off of the track, heading for the edge of the park.
“Back in a sec.” Mallery threw up her hoodie, leaned forward and rushed ahead, sprinting to overtake the women. She pushed straight through the middle of the trio, jostling the women aside.
“Excuse me,” the redhead said as Mallery rushed ahead then turned back around toward the center of the park.
Lungs heaving, Leah was happy to drop off the pace. She slowed and stopped at a bench, collapsing onto the cold wooden slats as Mallery looped around, heading her way.
The trio headed off, turning out of the park and out of sight.
Mallery slowed to a jog, then a walk, walking up to Leah sweat-sheened but still beaming.
“Good pick. That’s definitely a lead worth following. I snuck a picture, so I’m going to shoot that over to the team for them to run through the algorithm for confirmation. The tracer I dropped in Anna’s hoodie will let us keep tabs on her on the way to her gym and then home.”
“Can I state again that this is kind of creepy?” Leah said.
“We’re serving as donor figures in these people’s stories. Like fairy godparents but with headsets and genre knowledge instead of magic wands and transforming rodents,” Mallery said. “You’re going to need to get over this if you want to stick with the team, newbie. If you’ve got a major problem, you should log it with King, but I can tell you now that it won’t end well.”
Mallery stretched her arms and legs, reminding Leah she should do the same. Her head spun as she got to her feet again, but her lungs felt better, like she’d dusted the curtains.
“King doesn’t like wasting his time,” Mallery said. “If he starts to think he’s been wasting his time with you, it’ll throw a pall over everything you do, even the good stuff like your patch yesterday. Hold on to those doubts until we get this story patched, and if you’re still worried, we’ll grab coffee and talk it through.”
Leah’s back cracked as she stretched, short of breath “It’s just a big adjustment. All of this sneaking around and playing with people’s lives.”
“It’s for the good. Not just the greater good. It’s for individual people’s good as well. Especially here. Ninety-nine times out a hundred, fixing a story means reuniting someone with a lifelong love. We’re the guardian angels they never need to meet.”
“I guess. It’s still creepy.”
Mallery made for the park exit, raising a hand to hail a taxi as soon as she was within view of the street. “You’ll get used to it. Let’s get back to the condo so we can shower and head back out to the next haunt.”
“Can I collapse and die for a few minutes somewhere in there?”
A taxi rolled to a stop right in front of Mallery. Leah smiled at the story world magic.
“That’s what showers are for. Come on, you’re the youngest of us
all.” Mallery beamed, which Leah was realizing was pretty close to the woman’s resting face. Some women had resting bitch face, but Mallery glowed. It was impressive. A little annoying, but impressive.
———
Leah didn’t die during their pit stop, but she did spend ten extra minutes in the shower massaging her already-sore legs.
This time, instead of heading back out with Mallery, she got to stick around and work the data mines with Shirin.
“You’ve gotten a taste of finding stories in the field. Shirin can teach you about how the other half of the story is assembled,” Mallery said, throwing on her coat, picking up a bright yellow umbrella from the front closet, and blowing a kiss to the pair of women before whirlwinding out of the door.
“That woman is a force of nature,” Leah said, watching the door.
“She sure is. Just make sure you’ve got both legs planted firmly on the ground when she comes blowing by, or you’ll get caught up in her storm system,” Shirin said.
Now, what does she mean by that? Leah wondered as the older Genrenaut turned and moved to the workstation set up in the living room.
“Come on over, newbie. Now you get to learn how to do the real work.” She waved her hand at the three screens arrayed like half a hexagon.
“We’re tracking Anna, the woman you and Mallery pegged at the park, as well as digging into the cases in the hospital. What I’m going to have you do is run down any intersections between the candidates we’ve identified. We’re assuming a straight pair based on the conversation, but don’t automatically discount queer pairings – there may be something less obvious going on. Occam’s Straight Razor has gotten teams in trouble in the past. Just because there are almost no mainstream queer romances in the theaters doesn’t mean they don’t have their own stories here,” Shirin said.
“Glad to hear.” One more point in this world’s favor. Red Rooster was hectic and dazzling, but it also felt welcoming, validating.
The Cupid Reconciliation Genrenauts Episode Three Page 4