by Rob Hart
He’d seen Zinnia come into the hallway. She must have been coming in to use the bathroom. Paxton wondered if she’d noticed the door open. If someone could trip on it. He walked back to the lobby and waved over Dakota, who was talking to another blue.
She jogged over. “What?”
Paxton led her to the door. Gave it a little kick. She dropped into a crouch and looked at the lock. “Piece of plastic in here.”
“What do you think?”
Dakota stood. Put her hands on her hips. Looked down the hallway, then at the CloudPoint. “Could be vermin. I’ll run the watch data.”
“Vermin did that?”
“Special kind of vermin we get. Good catch.”
“Didn’t take a whole lot of skill to spot that,” he said.
“Don’t shit on a compliment, bro.”
“Fair enough.”
Dakota pressed the crown of her CloudBand. “Can I get a tech team down to the bathroom hallway in the lobby of Maple? Got a CloudPoint issue I need someone to look at.” Then she looked up at Paxton. “Shift is over.”
“Already?” he asked.
“Talked to Dobbs,” she said. “We can call it. You see something like that…you can call it for the day.”
Paxton surveyed the crowd. Even from their vantage point in the hallway he could tell the lobby was filling up.
“Let’s help get the area cleared,” he said. “Then we’ll call it.”
Dakota nodded. “Sure.”
They made their way over and spoke to the assembled groupings, asked them to return to their rooms, or to clear the area, and not everyone listened, but most did. Dakota seemed to carry some extra weight of authority on her slight frame because people recognized her. After a bit, some folks in green with cleaning supplies came trudging through, carrying themselves like they were headed to wipe up a grocery aisle spill.
Paxton waited for Dakota to finish speaking to a woman, then slid up beside her. “This happen every Cut Day?”
“A handful.” She paused, like she was going to say something else, then seemed to change her mind. “Listen, at this point I think we’re in the clear. Why don’t you head back?”
“Okay,” Paxton said. “Thanks.”
He lingered for a moment, wondering if he should do something. If this was a test and he should stick around. But Dakota turned away, worried about something else.
He made his way to his apartment, then the bathroom, got a shower well up to scalding and stood underneath, letting the spray scratch at his skin. He paid the credits for an extra five minutes. Back in his room, he pulled out the futon and loaded up the pillows and blanket so he could both sit up and spread out, pulled out the keyboard, and fired up the television.
It played an ad for a really nice thermos, which made Paxton want coffee, so he hit a button to drop him into the Cloud store. He bought the thermos, and then it offered to sell him a coffee maker and coffee pods. He realized he hadn’t bought anything for the apartment yet, which he was loath to do. The more settled he got, the longer he would be here. But coffee was a necessity, so he ordered those, too, and the screen told him everything would be there within an hour.
He could use a cup before going out.
He was still unsure of how to handle Zinnia. Maybe best to leave it alone.
She was pretty and she seemed interested in him and couldn’t that be enough? Did he have to complicate it by being weird?
Still a few hours until he was due to meet her for drinks, so he figured the sudden off-time would be a good opportunity to get some work done. He went to the small pile of books he had brought with him, found an empty notebook. He sat down with it and opened it up to the first page. Blank, crisp, full of promise.
At the top he wrote: NEW IDEA.
And he stared at the page until the coffee maker arrived. The knock at the door startled him so that he dropped the notebook. At the door a small pale man, wearing a red polo and a neon-yellow CloudBand strap, handed him a box. The man nodded and ran off.
Paxton ripped it open on the counter, took out the coffee maker and the pods. The box he put aside to deal with later. The pods came in an assortment of flavors. He selected cinnamon bun and set it to brew into an old mug he found in a cabinet. The mug said HOT STUFF on the side. With that going, he sat down and fired up the internet browser on his television and searched “revolutionary kitchen gadgets.” Maybe browsing through ideas other people had had would spark one of his own. He used the touchpad to scroll through lists and blogs, about digital scales that were Bluetooth connected, a countertop machine that made craft cocktails from packets, a butter mill you could use to ground frozen sticks to make them more spreadable.
Homemade ramen noodle maker.
Self-regulating temperature pan.
Instant pancake machine.
His brain remained a barren wasteland. No flashes of insight. He lost himself in the clicks until he remembered the coffee. He pulled it off the brewer and sat with the mug cradled on his stomach, softly blowing off the steam as he clicked around the television, looking for something interesting to watch. He found more commercials than actual programming. He lingered on the Cloud News Network for a few moments, which was reporting the strong stock performance of the company, as Ray Carson was expected to be named CEO.
As the time to meet Zinnia approached he threw on a clean shirt; downed the last of the coffee, which had gone cold; and left the apartment. Made his way to the pub, early by about ten minutes, but Zinnia was already sitting on a stool, halfway through a glass of vodka. He went to the stool next to her, gave it a shake to make sure it was stable, and climbed aboard.
Zinnia waved over the bartender, the same one from the other night, who went to pour the same beer Paxton had previously had, which made him happy. It made him feel like a regular, and it was nice to feel like a regular anywhere, even here.
More than that, too, he felt the way the smell of the coffee in his room had made him feel. Sitting next to Zinnia made this giant waiting room feel like an actual place, for people to live.
Zinnia waved her arm over the payment sensor. “On me tonight.”
“That’s not terribly chivalrous of me.”
“It’s also reductive and sexist to think I need your money.” Zinnia turned, frowning, and Paxton froze. But then she smiled. “I’m a modern kind of gal.”
“Fair enough,” Paxton said, accepting his beer. They clinked glasses and he took a sip. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
Finally, Zinnia spoke. “Heard someone got killed by a train downstairs in Maple.”
“Yeah.”
“Accident?”
“No.”
She huffed. “Terrible.”
Paxton nodded. “Terrible.” He took a sip of beer, put the pint glass down. “Want to tell me about your day? Something that wasn’t terrible?”
For example, dots. Can we talk about dots?
“I picked stuff up and dropped it off,” she said. “Nothing even remotely interesting.”
Zinnia didn’t speak for a few moments, and Paxton tried to get a read off her and couldn’t.
This was not the day to be doing this. After a few sips and a little more silence he was ready to call it a night and try again in a few days, when she asked, “How’s the task force thing going?”
“I think that’s done,” Paxton said. “They decided to go in a different direction. I’m going to be working the exit line at the warehouse.”
“That’s too bad,” Zinnia said.
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t have some amazing insight or, you know, move heaven and earth during my first week. The problem is, somehow, people are moving around without being tracked by the watches, right? Nobody can figure out how, and I just get here and I don’t have some kind o
f answer for them, and they’re all bent out of shape.” Paxton exhaled. “Sorry.”
Zinnia sat up a little straighter. Her face brightened. “No, it’s fine. This is really interesting.”
Paxton fed off her enthusiasm. “Yeah, so, there are a couple of problems with blocking the signal. If you take the watch off for too long and it’s not on a charging mat, an alert is supposed to go off. And you can’t leave your room without it on.”
Zinnia’s gaze drifted to the concourse of Live-Play. The crowds outside were thick. A rainbow of polo shirts filtering past the front of the bar in both directions. “So how the hell are they beating it?”
“Planning on running some oblivion?”
“Maybe.”
Paxton laughed. A real laugh, the kind that hurts your ribs.
“No,” she said, picking up her glass, holding it aloft. “No. Just, it’s fascinating.”
Paxton nodded, took a sip of beer. Thought about the dot. About asking. How easy it would be just to say the words.
But the longer he sat there the less he cared about it.
Then she slid her hand across the bar, touched his elbow. It was a glancing, almost friendly touch. Sort of a getting-your-attention thing. She said, “I run around all day picking things up and putting them down. It’s interesting to hear about something else.”
And she smiled again. It was the kind of smile a person could get lost in, and for a moment he thought it was her inviting him to lean in for a kiss, but before he could, he heard someone mutter, “The fuck…”
The bartender was looking at his watch, so Paxton looked down at his. On the display was an unlit match. Same on Zinnia’s. Paxton tapped the screen but nothing happened. The image remained the same.
“What do you think this is?” Zinnia asked.
Almost in response, the match caught fire, orange flame curling off the tip. The image dissolved and it seemed like words were forming, little squares sliding into place, when the screen went blank and returned to the home screen, which showed both the current time and a small countdown in the corner—hours until his next shift.
The two of them looked at the bartender, like maybe he’d been there longer and would have a better sense. He just shrugged. “I got nothin’.”
Paxton made a note to ask Dakota about it tomorrow. Maybe it was a glitch. Anyway. The warm-and-fuzzies he was feeling for Zinnia disappeared in a puff, and his mind snapped back to the man on the tracks, as if the thought itself were intent on ruining his night.
The blood. His face. The slackness of it. The way the body seemed to collapse on itself in death.
It made the dot thing and the door thing seem so much smaller in comparison.
Paxton weighed it all. Like flies buzzing around him. He needed to swat it, or at least try.
“Got a weird question for you,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“I saw you today.”
Zinnia didn’t answer, so Paxton turned to her. Her eyes were wide. She seemed frozen on her barstool, like he could give her a little nudge and she’d tumble off, shatter like glass.
“You were going into the bathroom hallway, down in the lobby.”
“Okay…”
“Nothing weird, I just wanted to know—I had to go into the bathroom later on to wash my hands and the CloudPoint door was open. Did you see anyone messing around with it?”
Zinnia let out a long stream of air, then nodded. “I noticed that, too. I mean, half the shit around here is broken, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Paxton said. “Maybe that’s it. It’s weird. Seemed like there was a piece of plastic wedged in there or something. I let my supervisor know.”
Zinnia’s hand, which had been lying on the bar, tightened into a fist, and she slowly spun her knees away from him, toward the exit. He suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything. It felt invasive.
“I’m sorry,” Paxton said. “I wasn’t spying on you or anything. Just…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” He put his head in his hands. “It’s been a day.”
“Hey,” Zinnia said.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“No.”
Zinnia nodded. “Want to walk around a bit?”
“Sure,” he said.
They knocked back their drinks, walked out in silence. Zinnia took the lead, seemed to know where she was taking them, so Paxton followed, down the promenade, toward the elevator bank of Maple, and he felt a twinge shoot through his body as she led him onto an empty elevator car and swiped her wrist, her floor appearing on the flat panel. She leaned against the wall, looking forward, her face set like she was marching off to war.
Paxton wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to assume, but at this point he figured it was safe to assume.
They made it to her door and she swiped it open. They entered, the light off, fading sun streaming through the frosted window so the room was barely lit. The ceiling layered with tapestries, overlapping each other, every color of the rainbow, and it made Paxton happy to see this part of Zinnia that she kept hidden away in her room.
He was a good six inches taller than her, but briefly he felt shorter, like she was growing to fill the space, and then he reached out his hand and took hers, leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. She kissed him back. Soft, then hard, then she put both hands on his chest and shoved him back. He landed on the futon, which was already folded down into a bed.
ZINNIA
The good news, at least, was the sex was solid. Paxton didn’t make her go cross-eyed, but he gave it an honest effort. He didn’t give up. He even got close. And close was better than she’d had in recent memory. She gave him a little pity shudder-and-gasp. He’d earned that much.
They even had a few laughs when they both found themselves in those awkward first-time places, where you’re feeling each other out, crashing into each other in stops and starts, not used to each other’s bodies or rhythms.
When it was done they cuddled on the thin mattress, trying to find a comfortable position, until Paxton sat up on the edge of the bed, naked, looking away from her but trying to twist around.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think I’m going to go back to my own room. Nothing against you, nothing against you at all, but I can’t usually sleep next to other people. I sleep too light. Not that this mattress is even big enough…”
Zinnia felt a little jolt of sadness. She did like to sleep next to someone. That proximity, the warmth. It made her feel safe. Which was funny, in the sense that Zinnia could kill him a dozen different ways just from that angle. But still, she wished the bed were a little bit bigger.
She watched him dress, found he was in better shape than he appeared from outside his clothes, which didn’t really fit him right, doing too good a job at hiding the muscles between his shoulder blades that bunched up and caught the light.
After he got dressed he leaned over and pressed his face to hers, and said, “I liked this a lot. I’d like to do it again.”
Zinnia smiled with his lips still pressed to hers. “Me, too.”
After he left, she wanted to linger a bit in the after-sex glow but found she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop her brain from spinning.
Someone had figured out how to block the watch signal.
She was climbing through the ceiling like a goddamn amateur, and a bunch of dumb-ass drug dealers had come up with a more elegant solution.
Which, one, pissed her off because they’d figured it out and she hadn’t, and, two, made her want to know their secret.
Her solution was workable but not preferable. It would be so much better to block the signal when needed, rather than leave the watch behind entirely. Because not wearing it left her vulnerable; if someone caught on, if her sleeve went up too far or she found a d
oor she couldn’t get through, she’d be screwed.
She would have to find a way to pump Paxton for information, without coming off as too probing or eager. If someone figured it out, she wanted to know as soon as possible.
That was why she wanted to see him again.
That was what she told herself, and after a few tries she believed it.
She got dressed. Checked the hallway to make sure it was clear. Found the out-of-order sign on the women’s bathroom but went inside anyway. It was in working order. And as she set herself up a shower, she decided to track down a bottle of wine, and then drink it while she reread the watch manual. Something to keep busy while the laptop, under a pile of clothes, chewed on Cloud’s internal code.
PAXTON
Paxton floated down the hallway, like his feet weren’t even touching the floor. This felt like the start of something. Something real.
He got to his apartment and fell into his futon and didn’t even bother removing his shoes. When the faded yellow glow of the sun cut through the window and woke him, he realized it was the best he’d slept in weeks.
The CloudBand beeped at him, like it knew he was awake, reminding him he had three hours to shift and only 40 percent battery, so he placed it on the charging mat and brewed some coffee, the small space filling with the smell of roasted beans. The sense-memory section of his brain flared, and he replayed the previous evening in his head.
He’d made her climax. He was sure of it. You couldn’t fake that, the way she dug her nails into the back of his head, bucking her hips forward so hard it nearly unhinged his jaw.
He flicked on the television—“Hello, Paxton!”—and it launched into a commercial for a new model of the CloudPhone, this one with 4 percent more battery life and two millimeters thinner, and Paxton considered whether he should put himself on the waiting list to get one but figured he could wait a bit. He’d heard the next generation, the one after this, was going to be even better.