Genrenauts: Season One

by Michael R. Underwood

  She imagined King barking orders in the ready room. “Okay, folks, put away the lasers and armor and suit up in your Elizabethan gear. Roman, don’t skimp on the codpieces.”

  Gawking at herself in the front hall mirror, Leah asked, “So, where are we going first?”

  “Red Rooster, then PopBar, and if there’s time, we’ll close out the night in the Meatpacking District at a place called Puzzles.”

  Leah sighed to herself. Oh, New York. Home of aggressive crowds and highway-robbery drink prices.

  “We’re out!” Mallery called to the rest of the team as she swapped her cell’s SIM card to one of the cards provided in the safe house. Cell phones couldn’t call across dimensions, but with a local SIM, they worked in the field just fine. “Text with any updates.”

  “Have fun,” said Shirin.

  At the same time, Roman called, “Don’t go overboard.”

  Going out on the town with a fabulous ex-Broadway leading lady, prowling for love stories gone awry. What could possibly go wrong?

  * * *

  The apartment was abuzz with noise and preparations for fifteen minutes, then suddenly silent once both pairs had departed for their assignments.

  Leaving Roman alone to get to work. He synced his phone to the room’s speaker, listening to a podcast as he reset the desk workspace into a standing desk. The tech on this world was basically identical to that of their Prime World; all they had to do was swap out SIM cards and IP addresses.

  Roman and sitting desks did not get along—too constricting, not enough chance to move around. He’d gotten the ADHD and dyslexia diagnoses not long after landing on-planet. Back in the Post-Apocalyptic Region of Action World, where he’d grown up, what passed for doctors didn’t get that sophisticated. He had meds, but the harder he had to push himself on a mission, the more his story nature reasserted itself and reset his neurochemistry to its defaults.

  Which meant that when he was faced with several hours of focus-intensive work, he needed every advantage he could make for himself. He tested his modified desk’s stability, and when satisfied, he pulled up Persona and Matchmaker.com on his tablet, pacing the apartment, working individual case studies, while the main workstation crunched numbers.

  Initially, Roman had been uncomfortable on this beat. After all, comedic romance in a cosmopolitan city was about as hard a contrast from the world he’d been born into as you could imagine.

  Love was about as close to a universal as you could hope for. People looked for it even in the wasteland.

  The first compile came back with no results. He set the next search to run and started another lap of the apartment.

  This part of the job, the data-combing, match-selecting, turned out to be not that different from what he was already used to. Back home, he’d analyze people to see where the weak spots in a gang or community were; here, he studied them to find their compatibilities, the places where the sum transcended the whole of the parts.

  Like these two he’d found on Matchmaker. Testimonial from a happy couple—Chiana and Aisha—met on Matchmaker right when Aisha was going to let her membership lapse—the timely email, a disastrous first date, a make-up date, and the testimonial ended with a picture of the happy couple, Aisha showing off a sparkling engagement ring.

  The frisson of happiness for others put a spring in Roman’s step, and he started another lap, setting the workstation to run another simulation.

  With luck, the others were getting better results than the parade of fail he’d seen so far.

  * * *

  Red Rooster was a gay bar just to the northeast of the NYU campus, and was filled with the young and the fabulous. The DJ played Adele, Lorde, Prince, and the Spice Girls, mixed in with some alt-pop Leah had never heard of but would fit perfectly in a Rom-Com soundtrack.

  The bar was already packed at seven PM, dance floor filled with bushy bears, beefcakes, and more, a half-dozen muscled men in tight shirts joyfully grinding together to the music. Women dominated the other half of the floor, burly butches alongside fineried femmes, angelic androgynes mixing here and there and everywhere. Neon drinks lined tables, and the bartenders were wearing almost as little as the patrons, muscle-showcasing V-necks on men, midriff-bearing tops on women, tattoos and piercings abounding.

  Mallery strode right up to the bar and leaned forward, catching the attention of a Pacific Islander bartender with an undercut, wearing a black vest as her top.

  “Can I get an amaretto sour and two dirty martinis, darling?”

  The woman flashed a rakish smile and continued her whirlwind of activity, pouring, scooping, measuring, and sliding glasses back and forth to thirsty patrons.

  The music pounded on as Leah joined Mallery at the bar.

  “So, how do we do this?” She realized she was almost yelling, but it was the only way to be heard.

  “Spotting broken stories is like sexing chicks.”

  “What?” Leah asked, her voice cracking.

  “Baby chickens. There are people whose job…”

  “Ah, okay,” Leah said, getting the point.

  Mallery continued, one eye on the bar, one eye on the dance floor. “They spend all day telling if chicks are male or female. At first, they all look the same, and you have to watch someone who knows how as they work. Then eventually, you just get a sense for it. Same thing here.”

  “So, you’re just going to use the Force and find broken stories?” Leah asked.

  The bartender returned with drinks, setting them by Mallery. Mallery presented a platinum card. “Let ’er ride,” she told the bartender.

  “The Force, and liquor as a social lubricant. Grab your drink and follow me.” Mallery took a martini in each hand and forged into the crowd, drinks held high to avoid the crush.

  Leah fetched her drink and took as a sip as she followed her teammate.

  Also, the drink was excellent.

  Mallery worked the room like a pro. Shirin’s method involved making everyone feel like they were old friends; Mallery was just the life of the party. She laughed, joked, flirted, all the while pumping people for information.

  Even though she was following in the wake of a bombshell, Leah got several offers of drinks and varyingly obvious pickup lines herself, which she tried to deflect without offending anyone and engaging just enough to get some leads. It’d been a while since she’d been to a gay club for anything other than an evening out without dudes trying to pick her up constantly. Leah placed herself at around a “2” on the Kinsey Scale, so she appreciated the view from all sides of the bar before Mallery settled up and whisked her off to bar number two.

  * * *

  Mallery adopted a Long Island accent as she slid into the cab, Leah following.

  “If you want to be an agent, you need to learn how to read a story. The stories are all around us, right? So, you want to look for stories in progress, read the difference between a lack of sexual tension between people and the comfortable ease that settles in with a couple that’s been together for years.”

  Mallery dug a compact out of her purse and set about touching up her makeup. Seeing from the side instead of from the front, Leah could tell she wasn’t actually applying anything. Just another part of the show for the cabbie.

  “One of the big signs to look for is people being self-conscious, people who look and act like they’re lost at sea, off course, you know? Those are the ones that are worth studying. The next question to ask yourself is “What’s missing? Are they broken-hearted or just yearning? Where did their story go off track?

  Mallery was playing around the edges, avoiding saying anything too blatantly weird, staying within the bounds of self-indulgent New York Arts People weird.

  “This will do, driver.” Mallery tapped a manicured hand on the glass. She paid with crisp bills, then nodded to Leah to slide out on the passenger side as cabs and cars beeped and honked, threading and honking their way down the street. The official paperwork said the Genrenauts were privately funded, b
ut Leah guessed they may be getting some government cash, too. King was not very forthcoming with answers on the subject, and when she asked anyone else, they told her to ask King.

  PopBar stood just down the street, red neon and black broadcasting the promise of delight to a darkening street. Fall coats abounded in the block-long line to get in to the bar.

  “Looks like we’re due for a wait,” Leah thumbed at the line.

  “Oh, please.” Mallery passed Leah and walked straight to the bouncer, a tall Latino with an earpiece, a clipboard, and a tailored suit.

  Leah caught a flash of a bill folding on the way between Mallery’s purse and the bouncer’s suitcoat, and the velvet rope opened magically. This earned them stares from the people in line. Some of appreciation, some of disgust.

  Leah looked over her shoulder to the crowd behind them as they walked into the dim front hall, coat check on the right, music thumping from the left. “Do we get to throw money around like this on every mission?”

  “They call them discretionary funds for a reason, my dear. This time, you look out for stories yourself. When you see a likely breach, I want you to tap me on the shoulder and lean in as if to say something, then tell me who and where. Let’s see how your instincts are.”

  The interior of PopBar was more bistro than club, with tables and servers. The crowd was less edgy and less queer. Women sat on the interior spaces, straight down the line, with men on the outside, an assembly line of smartly-dressed couples at tables for two, some with appetizer plates, others just nursing drinks.

  This wasn’t just any restaurant setup, though. The tables were numbered. In the server’s aisle by the row of numbered tables, a South Asian woman with a tight bun, a headset mic, and a slick blazer announced, “Time’s up.” The couples waved, shook, or sighed in relief as the men grabbed their drinks and slid down one setting, introducing themselves to the next woman in line.

  “Speed dating, a prime locale for spotting people in broken stories.” Mallery once again made a beeline to the bar.

  “How do we tell the people in broken stories from the regular lovelorn at the start of their stories?”

  Mallery surveyed the speed daters. Leah zeroed in on the body language, the conversational flow, anything out of order.

  “It’s different from someone at the start of their story—those folks are more likely to seem bland or listless. Someone with a broken story will be distracted, hesitant, off-balance. And if you’re lucky, they’ll look just a shade out of sync with the world around them. King says he explained that part. Any likely suspects?”

  “The woman at seven isn’t having any of it,” Leah said, a gentle nod indicating a black woman with arms crossed, her eyes focused somewhere in the distance as a white man leaned forward, eyes on the woman’s neckline, swishing his drink and talking with a wolfish grin.

  “Yeah, but I’d peg that more on the guy’s creeper look than anything else.”

  “What about the guy at one?” The Middle-Eastern man at the end table wasn’t even looking at his momentary match. His focus was three tables down with the woman at four: white, hair pulled back, and librarian glasses offsetting a baby blue sweater.

  “Good eye. They’ll finish in twenty minutes or so. Watch for other potential breaches. When the speed daters take a break, the participants will fill out their cards, and that’s when you’ll swing by to say hello to lovelorn number one and see if you can tease out the story about his bespectacled crush. Got it?”

  “I’m not good at chatting guys up on my own, let alone with a covert purpose.”

  “You could just lay into him, comedian-style.”

  “That’s not likely to get me good answers either; he’d just bolt.”

  “It would be funny,” Mallery said with a wink. “No, just ask him if he’s okay, joke about the speed dating format. The story should fall out pretty easy on its own, if you’re right about the breach. When someone’s story is broken here, they’re subconsciously looking for someone, anyone, to latch on to, to start another romance.”

  Well, that’s not alarming at all, Leah thought, watching the awkward mark as his momentary match, a probably-Malaysian woman in a hijab, tried to carry the conversation.

  Their drinks arrived, and Leah sipped ever so slowly at hers while Mallery worked the crowd. She moved more here than at the Red Rooster, the room more open. She walked the length of the bar, then turned and made her way back, setting her drink on the bar and picking up conversations one at a time with the singletons and their nursed drinks.

  Leah watched her mark phone it in through three more speed dates, until he sat down at the table with the subject of his attention. The maybe-librarian gave a big sigh and buried her attention in the plate of appetizers before her. The man started talking, hands shaking, all false starts and clumsiness. He knocked over his own drink, spilling the wine on the woman’s lap. The woman shot up and slid out past him, jetting for the bathroom. The man followed after her for two steps, but the hostess stepped up to stop him with an authoritatively raised hand. He watched for a moment, then turned and almost jogged out the front door.

  And this is where you go after him, Leah realized. Abandoning her drink, she left the bar, trying to work in stealth mode as best she could.

  The man leaned over a newspaper stand, hands still shaking. He looked like he was about to hurl.

  Chapter Three: Learning on the Job

  “Are you okay?” Leah asked, voice cutting through the street sounds—the rubber-on-asphalt of cars, honking cabbies, and the clattering of shoes on concrete.

  The man didn’t respond.

  She stepped up to his side and leaned into his field of vision, repeating her question.

  This time he noticed her, righting himself and crossing his arms as if he was holding in his fear and shame.

  “I’m just a dolt.”

  Leah shrugged. “I’ve done worse. Once, I had a date over to cook dinner together. Accidentally cracked an egg in my hands and dropped it all over his brand-new sneakers. And then, once I’d cleaned it off, I gave him a bloody nose when I stood up and clocked him with my head. He didn’t call after that.”

  A twinge of a smile flashed across the man’s mouth, and his body language loosened up.

  Sadly, the story was 100% true.

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Leah said. Remembering her mission, she added, “Do you need to talk about it? I’m happy to be a neutral party. I was always the confessional buddy for my friends in high school.” Which was true, but she hadn’t planned on saying it. She’d just switched into empathy mode and it’d come spilling out.

  “I don’t want to bother you with it. It’s ridiculous,” he said, looking down at his own shoes.

  Leah extended a hand. “I’m sure it’s not. I’m Leah.”

  “Hossan,” he said, shaking her hand.

  Hossan leaned on the newspaper stand, facing the street, looking away from the bar. “Sarah,” Hossan caught himself. “That’s her name, Sarah. She and I were designers working at Himalaya, perfecting their Also Bought algorithms. We started going out for drinks after work, and got to working on an algorithm for dating, wanting to use our skills for something better than selling people more useless crap.”

  “So, we left and started Cliq, turning the algorithm to dating. We spent all of our time together, pulling twenty-hour days laying out the basic code to underlie the algorithm. It wasn’t long before we weren’t just coding together. That part, that was good.” Hossan blushed. “When we launched, companies came sniffing around almost immediately, with angel investments, promises, and expectations.”

  The heartbroken man watched the street, buses and cars dancing their honk-tastic cha-cha. “Sarah wanted to keep the company pure, let it grow at its own rate, but I got blinded by the money; I wanted to take over the online dating world all at once. We started fighting over the business, and then over little, ridiculous stuff. It got worse over the next six months, even as the
site was exploding and the offers came rolling in.”

  Hossan pulled out a scribbled note on the back of a receipt. “Two weeks ago, she moved out of our apartment and left a note.”

  Hossan handed it to Leah.

  It read:

  “Hossan,

  I’m through. You can keep the damned company. Buy me out, and then go sell your soul around town all you want.

  Sarah”

  Leah looked to see that Hossan was staring up at the skyline and the clouded sky. “So, now I’m here, and I just fell on my face trying to make it right. I don’t even really care about the money. I just got locked into this competitive loop, trying to top everyone. I lost track of what made it special. And now I can’t say any of it. I look at her and all I can see is every wrong-headed thing I said when I was caught up in it all, and then I spilled my wine on her favorite sweater her dead aunt knitted for her, and made it all worse.”

  Well, hell. Maybe I can fix this right now and we can be back before midnight! Leah put a hand on Hossan’s shoulder.

  “I bet you that if you go back in there and say just what you told me, you’ll be fine. Take a long breath before you start, and speak slowly. She knows you; she’s got to know how you feel. The note tells me she’s obviously more hurt by what you said than anything else, which means you can go in there and make things right.”

  “All I want to do is crawl inside a dark hole and forget.”

  “How do you think Sarah feels? She made this amazing thing with you, and then you got caught up in the business, not the beauty. Forget Cliq and convince her you care about her more than the money and the fame and everything.”

  This part came strangely easy. She had been the one her friends came to for help, since she’d always been the “funny one” in her group of friends, more often the third or fifth wheel than the leading lady in the romantic drama of the group.