by Rob Hart
Paxton wanted to take the container out of his pocket. He wanted to throw it at her. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run and leap off the balcony on Live-Play, swan-dive the three stories to the hard ground, where he would no doubt break his neck. He wanted to do anything except for what he chose to do, which was get up and leave the bar, and as he reached the front Dakota called after him, “You just keep on doing the right thing, mister model employee!”
PAXTON
Paxton woke up, pulled on his blue polo, checked his phone, and, finding no messages from Zinnia, shuffled to Admin, where he checked in, then went on patrol, walking the length of the promenade, back and forth, until he was tired, and he sat for a little while, and then continued on until the end of his shift, at which point he sat in the pub and drank beer, and then he went back to his room and tried to fall asleep, trying to not think about the little container of oblivion in the drawer next to the sink, typing and deleting text messages for Zinnia that he never sent.
PAXTON
Paxton woke up, pulled on his blue polo, checked his phone, and, finding no messages from Zinnia, shuffled to Admin, where he checked in, then went on patrol, walking the length of the promenade, back and forth, until he was tired, and then he stopped to eat at CloudBurger, and then continued on until the end of his shift, at which point he went back and watched television and tried to work up the energy to stand and walk to the drawer next to the sink, to take out the oblivion container and dump it down the sink, but instead he fell asleep.
PAXTON
Paxton woke up, pulled on his blue polo, checked his phone, and, finding no messages from Zinnia, shuffled to Admin, where he checked in, then went on patrol, walking the length of the promenade, back and forth, until he was tired, sat for a bit, then continued on until the end of his shift, at which point he went to see a movie and pretended Zinnia sat in the empty seat next to him, and since he was looking forward the whole time he could almost believe it, and he went back to his room and called her number but it was disconnected.
NOTIFICATION FROM THE US PATENT OFFICE
In accordance with Rule 16-A of US Patent Office regulations, please find herewith a copy of notification of provisional refusal concerning the Perfect Egg, on grounds of claim by another corporate entity, which has introduced and is marketing a similar product, CloudEgg. In order to object to this office action, please be advised that you must hire a patent attorney, who can file a claim through appropriate legal channels.
CLOUDEGG!
A young woman stands in her kitchen, in black and white. Subway-tile backsplash, marble countertops, copper pots hang overhead.
In front of her is a bowl. She’s cracking and peeling hard-boiled eggs, but doing it roughly, jabbing her fingers in, tearing them apart, chunks flying, eggshell everywhere.
She looks up at the camera, flustered.
Woman: There has to be a better way!
The screen flashes from black and white to brilliant color. Freeze frame.
Voice-over: There is!
An ovoid device spins on a pedestal. Bigger than an egg, with a seam running down the middle.
VO: Introducing CloudEgg!
The woman takes the device, opens it, puts an egg inside, and puts it in the microwave.
VO: The CloudEgg cooks your egg to the perfect doneness, every time.
Cut to a pot of boiling water. A buzzer sounds, and a red circle with a slash across it appears.
VO: No more messing around with imprecise cooking methods. And when the egg is done…
Cut to the woman taking the device out of the microwave and opening it up, the shell coming off perfectly, the shiny, naked white albumen gleaming like something precious.
VO: Cleanup is a breeze!
Cut to a long row of the ovoid devices in an array of primary colors.
VO: Available in the Cloud store now!
PAXTON
Paxton woke up, pulled on his blue polo, and shuffled to Admin, where he checked in, then went on patrol, walking the length of the promenade, back and forth, until he was tired, and then he went to his apartment and opened the drawer next to the sink and took out the container of oblivion and placed a single postage-stamp slice of it on his tongue, then a second, and then a third, and then another, until his mouth tasted like chemical cherries and he stumbled to the bed, where he fell into the warm embrace and continued to fall like there was no bottom.
PAXTON
Paxton woke up, his head full of wet cotton. He stumbled to the sink, where he found the oblivion container, now empty; he hadn’t realized he had taken that much. For a moment he counted himself lucky to be alive and then remembered this was the non-OD version, and he wondered if he’d known that when he crammed them down his throat last night.
He washed the taste of cherries out of his mouth and felt good the oblivion was gone but also wondered if he should get some more. Thinking about that made it easier to not think about the letter from the patent office.
Before he could settle on a course of action regarding the oblivion, his watch pinged, letting him know that he was about to be late for his shift. He pulled on his blue polo, muscles aching, and made his way to Admin.
In the bullpen Dakota called out, “Hey.”
Paxton turned to find her striding toward him, in her new tan uniform. It made her seem a few inches taller. Paxton wondered if the smile went with the uniform. He’d never seen her smile like that. He waited for her to catch up with him. “Can you do me a favor?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
She held out a small white envelope. “Bring this to waste processing. Ever been to that side of the world?”
“No.”
“I queued up your watch to take you there.” Dakota smacked him on the arm. “Thanks, partner. Listen, how about you and me grab a drink at some point soon, huh?” She smiled, thumbed her uniform. “You keep up with what you’re doing, and you’ll be next.”
“Sure, that’d be great,” Paxton said, with no intent to follow up on the offer.
He turned and made his way to the elevator, glad to be away from her, away from the bullpen, looking forward to some mindless wandering, because at least when he did that, he could be alone. Surrounded by hundreds of people, he could be alone.
He took the tram to Incoming and made his way to the processing tram, which was empty, and rode that to the waste stop, where he stepped into a plain concrete lobby where a young Asian man in a blue polo sat at a desk and nodded to him. Paxton waved the envelope. “Delivery.”
“You’re in the system,” the man said, glancing down at his watch. “Go right ahead.”
Paxton looked at his own watch. Second floor, room 2B. He took the elevator up and followed the winding hallways until he found a room with an old man sitting at a desk, who grunted as Paxton dropped the envelope on his desk, and then he was out, down the hallway, and back to the elevator.
At the other end of the hallway was a man in a green polo, slowly pushing a broom across the shiny floor.
There was something familiar about the man.
The elevator door yawned open and Paxton considered stepping on, but he let the doors close and turned. The man looked up. It took a second. His hair was longer, and he’d grown a patchy beard, but then Paxton recognized him.
Rick, the man who had attacked Zinnia in the hospital.
The man recognized Paxton, too, because he dropped the broom and took off down the hall. Paxton threw himself after him, making a hard left at the corner, and he saw Rick look back in fear before swiping his way into a stairwell. Paxton made it up to the entry pad and swiped but it turned red.
He swiped again. Still red. He yanked the handle of the door before slamming the flat of his palm against it. Once, twice, three times, until it went numb. W
hen he realized he wasn’t getting through the door he took his anger and balled it up, holding it tightly to his chest, and marched to Admin, where he didn’t even bother knocking on Dobbs’s door.
Dobbs was talking to a young blue and was straight-up pissed at being interrupted, but when he saw the look on Paxton’s face, he softened, like he knew what was coming. He waved the new recruit off.
Paxton waited until he was gone and shut the door.
“You told me you fired him,” he said.
Dobbs inhaled, exhaled, tented his fingers. “You agreed to have your woman look the other way. We did the same. Neater that way.”
“Neater,” he said. “You gave me your word.”
Dobbs stood and Paxton took a step back. “Now, listen here. He’s off in a shit job and mostly separated from the rest of the population. It’s done.”
“Why?”
“Paxton…”
“You owe me that.”
“I don’t owe you—”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me.”
Dobbs sighed. Looked around the room, like he was hoping for an exit to appear. When one didn’t he said, “Because to fire him, I have to give cause. If I list the cause as an assault, I have to file a report, and then I have to answer for why there was another incident in my facility. It’s been a busy few months here and the stats are not in my favor. We can’t afford to pile more shit on top of the shit pile we already have.”
“So, what, we cover it up? We just let it go?”
“Now, listen here,” Dobbs said, stepping around the desk and moving toward Paxton, until he was so close Paxton could smell that aftershave. “I get that you’ve got some kind of shining status here now, but that don’t mean much to me. I can’t fire you but I can move you to permanent scanner duty. Hell, I can put you on the skin cancer beat. You’ve been a team player so far, son. Don’t let me down now, okay?”
Paxton wanted to be angry. He wanted to admonish Dobbs, to say something that would jab his thumb in the old man’s eye.
That was what he wanted but that wasn’t how he felt. The way he felt was desperate, for Dobbs to soften, for the man to call him “son” again, the way he did before, because the way he said it now, it had a sharp point on the end.
He left, his hands squeezed into fists so tight his nails cut into his palms, and he looked for Dakota, for more cherry-flavored bliss.
PAXTON
Paxton wandered the promenade, thinking about all the things that vexed him, but mostly he thought about the taste of cherries that lingered on his tongue. The taste didn’t wash away, nor did it wash away the things he wanted it to.
He wondered what day it was and guessed Sunday, but checked his watch and found it was Wednesday. He walked, but then forgot where he had walked. A new arrival asked him for directions to Live-Play, and only after he sent the young man on his way did Paxton realize he’d sent him in the wrong direction. As the end of his shift neared he stopped at CloudBurger, and as he ate he figured this would be the highlight of this day. Which he realized he had already forgotten again.
Wednesday.
As he left the restaurant a small figure crossed his path. Her bald head and alabaster skin and short stature made her look like an alien. She was wearing a red polo, and the way she walked, it was nervous. Eyes darting, muscles clenched. He thought it might be the drugs eating a hole in his brain, but as he watched the woman walk away he realized, no, you don’t soon forget a person who holds you at gunpoint.
Ember was oblivious to him and it bothered him that she hadn’t seen him. That now she couldn’t spare him a glance. How little did he matter? It wasn’t the right response but it was how he felt, so he followed her, touching the item in his pocket to make sure it was there.
She got on the tram and he did, too, on the other side, standing in the middle of the crowd, as if to say, See me, but she kept her head down, hiding her face.
She got off at Admin, queued up at a kiosk, a dozen people ahead of her in line. Paxton stood alongside her. She glanced at him and froze, staring forward. Closed her eyes, like she was trying to wish him away.
“Hello,” Paxton said.
It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was all he could think of.
She sighed, long and hard. Her body drooped.
“Of course,” she said. “Of fucking course.”
“Finally made it through the interview process,” Paxton said.
“Of all fucking people. All the resources we devoted to this…”
Paxton put his hand on her arm, digging his fingers in to maintain a grip, but not so hard or tight as to cause a scene. “Let’s go,” he said.
He thought she might struggle, but she didn’t. He recognized the look on her face. It was the same look he saw on his own face in the mirror each morning: complete, whole-bodied defeat. She let him lead her around like a doll, over to the elevator, where he swiped in, and they rode up to the security bullpen.
Paxton stepped off, still holding her arm. At the long end of the hallway was the open door of the bullpen, blues strolling back and forth beyond the frame.
There were six offices between the bullpen and the elevator. One of which was currently empty, as it was often used by other departments coming in to liaise with the security team.
Third door down on the left.
Ember shuffled next to him. “Well?”
Paxton thought of bringing her to the bullpen. The look Dakota and Dobbs would give him when they’d realized what he’d done. Captured some vermin. Maybe Dobbs would call him “son” again. Maybe he’d mean it.
They walked halfway down the hallway and Paxton stopped in front of the empty office and swiped them in. He held the door for her and she moved into the room—a desk with a tablet bolted to it and chairs on either side.
A sign on the wall said in cursive script: YOU MAKE ALL THINGS POSSIBLE!
Ember took in her surroundings, and as Paxton closed the door and flicked on the light switch, she moved into the corner, hands up to protect herself, suddenly more concerned about being cornered in a windowless room with a man she didn’t know. A man she’d previously threatened.
“Sit,” Paxton said.
She shuffled toward the desk, not taking her eyes off him, and sat like the seat might contain a pressure-sensitive bomb. Paxton sat across from her. Fear morphed into confusion and she looked at him like he was an abstract painting. Something to be figured out.
“You look different,” she said. “Not good-different.”
Paxton responded with a shrug.
Ember looked around. “The woman you were with. Where is she?”
“You were wrong,” Paxton said.
“What?”
“About the books. We have copies of Fahrenheit 451. We have The Handmaid’s Tale. Cloud hasn’t suppressed them. No one orders them. They don’t stock stuff that people don’t want. That’s just…that’s good business, right? That’s the market dictating.”
Ember started to say something, then stopped. Like, What would it matter?
“I guess it doesn’t make a difference, whether you were right or wrong,” he said. “The point is people didn’t listen. It’s not because it was kept from them. It’s because they didn’t want to know.”
Ember shifted in the chair.
“Why this facility?” Paxton asked. “You tried to get in here once. It didn’t work. Why not go to another MotherCloud?”
“What is this?” Ember asked. “Therapy session? Interrogation? You want to hear my life story?”
“Answer the question.”
Ember sighed. “My parents owned a coffee shop a few towns over. Nice little place. I grew up there. When this place went in, all the towns around it withered and died. So did the shop. So did my
parents.” She looked at her hands in her lap. “I guess you could call it personal, with this one. Maybe too personal.” She looked at Paxton. “What are we doing here?”
“What were you planning?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
He said it hard and fast: “Tell me. Where’s your match?”
“I didn’t bring it.”
Paxton laughed. “Are you kidding me? You finally got in and you didn’t bring it?”
“Are you crazy? Get caught with that on the way in? You know what would’ve happened to me? I’ve been trying to find some way to get it smuggled in. Otherwise, I’ve just been looking for an opportunity to cause some damage.” She sighed and looked away. “But no dice. This place is fucking impenetrable.”
Paxton reached for his pocket. Confirmed that, yes, it was still there. He removed the thumb drive and turned it over in his hands, running his fingers over the smooth plastic. Ember’s eyes went wide. She breathed in, held it.
He didn’t know why he’d kept it. He had meant to throw it out the window, back in the car. It hadn’t been flagged when he came back into MotherCloud—since he was a blue they’d barely glanced at the screen when he passed through the scanner. Perks. When he got to his room he realized he still had it, and because it was a thumb drive, because it held some kind of value, he put it in the drawer next to the sink rather than the trash.
It was just a little hunk of plastic. And yet he liked having it in the drawer next to the sink, and after he saw Rick, he’d taken to carrying it in his pocket, rubbing his thumb into it when he felt like he needed to calm down and center himself.