“Where are we?” Leah asked as Roman double-checked the instrumentation.
King gestured to the view. “We maintain properties on all of the story worlds where landing out of sight is impossible but spaceships are still not in-genre.”
“So, is this our safe house, too?” Leah asked.
Mallery jumped in. “No, thank goodness. This place is drafty as all get-out, and even worse, it’s in Long Island City.”
“What’s wrong with Long Island City?”
Mallery unbuckled and climbed out of her seat, descending the rails along the side of the ship. “It’s so close to Manhattan, practically within a stone’s throw, but the neighborhood is split between soulless industrial and far-too-ritzy condos, with barely anything left besides. No, the company maintains an apartment on the Upper East Side for teams to do their business.”
Leah started to climb down after Mallery. Roman released the hatch, revealing the poorly lit interior of a mostly empty warehouse. They formed a baggage line to bring down the gear.
After a few minutes to lock down the ship and get their gear sorted, Mallery led them out. The warehouse was lit with motion sensors, and as they were walking through the vast room, one blinked on, revealing a medical station in one corner, and a whole lot of nothing else. She paced around the building a bit to test out the sensors, and to explore.
“So, this place is just for landing the ship?”
“Pretty much. Other worlds, we tend to lay in supplies and surplus gear. Here, most everything has to be contracted or ordered fresh,” Shirin said.
“Flowers, chocolates, Jet Ski rentals, things like that,” Mallery said. “It’s wonderful. I feel like Cupid every time we have a mission here. There’s a reason TV channels keep ordering matchmaker dramas even when they don’t take off. Same reason why we have dating shows. The romantic impulse is undeniable.”
“For many people,” Roman said. “Some of us can’t be bothered.”
“Only those with cold, dead hearts,” Mallery shot back, smiling.
“Just try to keep from going full Manic Pixie Dream Girl on the mission this time.”
Mallery laughed. “No worries about that. It’s not like I could play the suzaphone with a broken arm.”
From the look on Roman’s face, this was an old, toothless argument among friends.
King’s smile confirmed Leah’s suspicion. “Play nice, children. I’ll get us a cab.”
Mallery cocked her head. “I thought you said you couldn’t get a cab in NYC even if you were wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit?”
King grinned. “On our Earth, yes. Here, anyone can get a cab in five seconds flat.”
And so he did.
A half-hour of halting traffic on the Manhattan side of the bridge later, they reached the field office, which turned out to be a posh three-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a gorgeous building in Central Park East. Their previous trips had taken them to obviously foreign climes—the nineteenth-century American frontier in Western World, and deep space in Science Fiction World. The Rom-Com world was just…New York. The richest and prettiest possible New York, but still identifiable as the Big Apple she knew and feared for its inconsistent comedy club crowds.
The apartment had smart, modern furniture, a fully-stocked pantry, and enough knickknacks and fiddly bits to make for a fine cocktail party.
“Is this a field office or a superhero loft?” Leah asked, picking her jaw up off of the floor.
“Why, both, of course!” Mallery snaked an arm around Leah’s elbow and led her through the rest of the apartment. Each bedroom had a different feel—one leaned eclectic NYC hippie with Tibetan prayer flags, herbs, and a peace-symbol blanket over the bed, one was super-literary-prep with wall-to-wall bookshelves, and the third was a hipster paradise, complete with ukulele, steampunky Victoriana daguerreotypes, and more.
“How does the Council pay for all of this? This condo has to cost a fortune.”
“Oh, on Earth Prime, it would. However, every Rom-Com protagonist in films has a swank apartment like this, even on lower-middle-class jobs, so that’s just how this world works. If I recall, the rent for this place is something like a thousand dollars a month.”
Leah was aghast. This called for aghast. “My last apartment cost a grand a month, and that was in an only moderately shady part of Baltimore. This place should cost several times as much.”
Putting her useless jealousy aside, Leah walked up to a double-wide window facing the park. The leaves were changing, making for a sea of rich oranges and yellows beside a crystal-clear lake. The view was postcard-perfect. And as a cherry on top, there was a couple rowing a boat in the lake, one carrying a parasol. And Leah could even make out a picnic basket. The energy of the place was contagious. Western world was cheesy and scary. Science Fiction was cheesy and a bit confusing. Rom-Com world was cheesy and delightful.
“Can I just live here and report to work using a spare ship or something?” she asked.
“No go,” Mallery said. “Long-term exposure to a story world has an elevated chance of wrapping us up into the world’s story. Worst case, you forget where you come from and become a local forever.”
“Like, lose yourself in the Matrix kind of thing?”
“Basically.” Mallery joined Leah at the window to share in the view.
“Has that ever happened?”
Mallery’s expression darkened. “Yes. So we come, we do our jobs, and then we leave. Just like our New York. Nice place to visit, but leave before it makes you hard, like the song says.” Mallery stared out the window for a long moment, hand wrapped in the curtains.
Then, in a sharp motion, she turned from the window and called through the condo.
“Assemble in the living room, please! We have a love story to fix!”
Chapter Two
Meddling for Fun and Profit
Mallery gathered the team around a table. She had pulled a flippable school-style whiteboard from somewhere. On the whiteboard were a trio of bullet points and a header:
HOW TO FIND A BROKEN STORY IN ROMANCE WORLD
1) Dating sites
2) Major haunts
3) Gossip network
Mallery stood by the whiteboard, marker in hand. “Okay, so we know that the breach originated in this urban center. Chances are, we’re looking at a recent breakup or missed connection. We’re going to divide up the team to cover the three major sources of information for finding broken stories.”
Mallery tapped the three numbered points in sequence.
“Roman, you’ll get to work the dating sites. Use the back-end key I designed to get in and see who reactivated accounts in the last month, and feed some bait accounts into the algorithm to find some likely partner candidates. You’ll also want to reactivate the bait accounts we have set up.”
“Bait accounts?” Leah asked.
“We forge dating profiles using models from our own Earth, which we craft into archetypes that should attract romantic comedy protagonists—quirky but gorgeous.”
Nice. “Got it.” It was like Person of Interest but for romance.
Leah tapped away on her tablet, taking notes. Since Mallery was in the driver’s seat for this mission, King’s custom of requiring everyone take notes with legal pads was apparently suspended. King still took notes analog-style, sitting up, his legs crossed, but when Roman and Shirin pulled out their tablets, Leah followed suit.
Mallery continued. “Newbie, you’re with me on major haunts. I’ll show you how to pick up broken stories in the wild. It’ll be fun. Hydrate now and decide on a cocktail of choice. Mixing your drink types is a rookie mistake, and I won’t have it on my mission.”
Leah chuckled, continuing to reset her brain to fit the story world—in Western World you had to watch your guns, so of course in Romance World you had to watch your drinks.
“That leaves Shirin and King on gossip networks,” Mallery said. “Pick up contacts and see where social circles have gone off.
Focus on Midtown in the publishing business, NYU, and the fashion industry, but let’s not forget the sexy art jobs like architects and the theatre world. Most of our documented breaches in this territory are upper-middle-class, dating for less than two years. My analysis of latest reports from Scouting and Forecasting is in the mission folder. Text or email with any leads, otherwise we check in with progress tomorrow at nine AM. Any questions?”
Leah had questions, but they could wait until she headed out with Mallery. Her first mission, they’d known exactly where the story had broken, and her second, Shirin’s contacts had put them on the trail within the afternoon. This was looking like it’d take longer. And even with an intimidatingly large organization supporting them, it seemed like this job always came down to fieldwork.
Find one specific unhappy couple in a city of eight million. No big deal, right?
Mallery walked past Leah, on her way to the bedrooms. “Suit up. Club attire.”
Luckily, Leah had been allowed to pick out her own outfits, though Shirin had given her all of three minutes to do it, which was not nearly enough time to play with a several-thousand-dollar wardrobe of hand-or-at-least-algorithm-picked clothes.
Leah wheeled her suitcase to one of the bathrooms, which sported a full-length mirror. She’d been told to pack three everyday chic outfits, two club/bar outfits, a just-in-case ball gown, and exercise clothes.
Since the laws of dramatic progression suggested she save the fanciest clothes for later in the story, Leah went with her less risqué club outfit—black palazzo pants and a white tank top with a blue chiffon throw over it. The more risqué one was a pour-yourself-in-tight print dress that Shirin had pointed her toward when her other two choices were deemed “too tame.” She reluctantly pulled out the yellow heels, hoping that there would be seats at the club.
Leah emerged from the restroom to see Mallery waiting, decked out in a black cocktail dress and an epic-level push-up bra. Her bombshell look was somewhat undercut by the cast, but only just.
“Whoa. That bra come with a permit?” Leah said.
Mallery stood proud, hands on hips, one stance allowed by her cast. “We’re looking to get information. If people want to talk to my boobs instead of me, so be it. Now get back in there; we need to do makeup.”
“I’m already wearing makeup,” Leah said, already knowing she was doomed.
“Oh, honey. We’re going clubbing in the Lower East Side. That’s a full-face situation at least.”
Crammed into the front bathroom, Leah became very aware of Mallery’s presence. Her body heat, her breath. Suddenly, it was very warm in the restroom.
“Can we open the door?” Leah asked, moving a hand to the door and accidentally elbowing a very soft body part.
Mallery winced, covering up. “Geez. Careful there.”
“Sorry.” Leah opened the door, letting in some cooler air. It helped a little. “It’s a bit cramped in here. Wasn’t the other restroom like three times this size?”
“Yes, but we were already here. I’ll finish up in the other room.” Mallery sidestepped out, leaving Leah to catch her breath.
A minute later, Leah made her way to the master bedroom and its accompanying bathroom. She passed Shirin, who raised an eyebrow as she walked by.
Leah gave a defusing smile and a shrug.
The master bathroom was more than large enough to work comfortably. Mallery finished Leah’s makeup, then did her own.
Leah felt like she was about to step onto a movie set, which made sense. Mallery had done her makeup better than she ever bothered to do for herself. Her college improv comedy troupe had used makeup for shows, but this was a whole other level. Compared to her last mission, it was totally normal. Every world had its own levels of weird, and Leah could imagine the whiplash that would come with jumping between worlds quickly in back-to-back missions.
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 line
d 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.
The Cupid Reconciliation Genrenauts Episode Three Page 2
