Viral Spark

by Martin McConnell

  Her eyes dart to the side. She nods.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. What did you see in his apartment?”

  My eyes drop closed. Even if he was a jerk, she liked him for a while, and the truth about what I saw could sting.

  “Was he hurt?”

  The image of his body plays back in my mind. His eyes are open, like his mouth. He’s suspended in the room, with a blood trail running from the corner of his eye. The edges of his front teeth are in sharp focus, catching the flickering lights of the room around him.

  “I don’t think he made it,” I say. “I wish I knew what happened.”

  Her warm hand brushes my cheek, and she appears again, close to me, those glass eyes looking directly into mine. She’s hurting, and I can feel the sting. Somehow, our minds are synced as one. I’m sure she can feel my pain as well, though I have no idea how.

  “Maybe it’s better not to know,” she says gently.

  “Hey,” Tom’s voice booms from behind me. “Romeo. C’mon, kiss her and let’s get on our way. We have work to do.”

  “Will you come back for me? At least for a visit?”

  “The first chance I get,” I say. “I’ll be here.”

  “Okay. Be safe.”

  She pulls herself close, planting a gentle peck on my lips, and leans back again. “I have to get back to work.”

  Vivaldi’s Spring plays gently from the tablet.

  “Good luck,” I say. We release, and she sends a casual stare toward Tom before leaving.

  “You about done?”

  I spin around, and hold up my bloody hand, still clutching the tea canister. “You see this?”

  “Metal tube, very nice. And you need to wash your hands, there’s Lith-X on them. But later. Now let’s get going. And shut that analyzer up.”

  He stalks toward the door. I follow, trying to hush Bee. “What’s the big rush, anyway?”

  “There are soldiers crawling all over the office. I need to get over there and see what they want. I don’t know what they’re doing there, but it has something to do with the virus, and they’ll want to talk with me.” He glances back. “They’ll want to talk to you, too.”

  “Soldiers?”

  I’m focused so intently on keeping up that I pass the café without a glance. We walk through a blast of air, and Tom holds his arm up as the doors leading outside open wide.

  The sunlight burns my face. My closed eyelids glow bright red, and I stumble and stop. I squint my eyes open in varying amounts to find a slit size that allows me to see without the scorch.

  “Why is it so bright? It’s never this bright.”

  Tom’s voice comes from somewhere ahead of me, several paces away. “It’s always this bright during the day. You’re just used to being trapped in a dark building all the time.”

  His body comes into view, and I trot toward him. “I go outside. I go up to the farm almost every night.”

  “Yeah? Well, try it on your lunch break one day without the auto-shading glass over your head. Can you see me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, this way.”

  He leads me to a dark blue compact vehicle, a four seater. The sides swing upward, hinged somewhere near the front. He climbs in on the right-hand side while motioning me toward the left door. As I climb in, the seat adjusts to comfort me. The door closes. I can’t remember the last time I was in a vehicle. It’s so hot. Something rumbles under the seat, and there’s a loud pop. Air blasts through the cabin, cooling my skin and choking my breath.

  “Does it have to be like this?”

  Tom laughs out loud, the first bit of levity all day. “You know it’s funny. I was talking to one the recruiters last week about ferrying new employees over, and the fun she has doing it. Welcome to the world, Son. You’re out of your box.”

  I shield my eyes from the bright sun beaming through the untinted windows.

  “Baby Blue,” says Tom. “Let’s roll. Back to the office.”

  The vehicle takes off, and I grip the door and center console to stabilize myself.

  He laughs again. “Try to relax, Robert. You’ll survive the road trip, I promise.”

  When I look over at him, there’s a sheet of reflective glass over his eyes. Some kind of eye shades like the agents have on their helmets. I’ve seen them in the market before, but never knew what they were for, until now.

  EIGHTEEN

  Hiroshi Tower stands with the presence of an ancient Egyptian monolith in the center of the city. One of the largest buildings, possibly the largest in town. Taller than everything around it. As Tom’s car pulls into the expanse of flat concrete around the base of the structure, I can’t help but be humbled. Various floors high above the ground break the straight corners, decreasing the girth of it as it stretches further into the sky. The building is painted black, with tinted windows that give it an ominous appearance. At ground level, the footprint alone humbles my old building. Tall windows suggest a communal floor level with a three or four story ceiling.

  The car zips through the lot, and then descends into the earth.

  “Tunnel?”

  “There’s a lot of people living here. When they constructed the place, they carved out several floors underground for extra parking. It was built long ago when more people drove cars, and before automated vehicles became the norm. Now, there is more parking than we’ll ever need.”

  The thin scattering of vehicles in the underground lot confirms what he said. Empty spaces outnumber full ones at least three to one, until we pass into the second underground level, where there isn’t an open spot anywhere.

  “Plenty of parking, huh?”

  “This is a sales lot. If you decide that you want to buy your own car, this is where you go. Hiroshi residents get a discount.”

  The third level is nearly empty, and Tom’s car finds a space beside some kind of service elevator. The doors of the lift are extra wide. Perhaps this is the loading area. Or maybe the lift was designed to move vehicles from floor to floor.

  Another loud click sounds, jolting the vehicle. Bee responds with a farting noise.

  “What is that clunk under the seat? Is your car broken?”

  Tom’s head turns toward me as he strips off the glasses. “Don’t talk about Baby like that. No. That’s just the charging port connecting itself beneath the vehicle. C’mon, we’re late.”

  The doors open, and I climb out. I notice that I’m still wearing my smock. I make a mental note to return it once I get a chance. I pat my pockets, ensuring that I have the tablet, my tea, and the infusers. When I look up, Tom is already waiting at the lift. I jog to catch up. The air down here is more comfortable than on the surface, but it’s still hot, with added moisture and an offensive smell that I can’t identify.

  The enormous doors of the elevator open, and we step inside. The lights lining the walls are old fashioned, that or they are made to look that way. Each consists of a plastic covering over two glowing tubes. Together they make a line that runs along the upper corner of the walls.

  The doors open on a level that reminds me of the ground floor in my old building, but larger. The room stretches on forever in front of me, and huge round pillars run from the ground up to stone arches, about three-fourths of the way to the ceiling. Each round tube is as big around as my outstretched arms. The arches spread like a grid, from the top of each pillar in four directions to the next one. They partition the ceiling into and endless sea of squares that provide the supporting framework for the stories above. Hanging from the center of each square is a collection of suspended glass fragments glowing from inside. People are everywhere, rushing back and forth, and the number and variety of bots zipping around is enough that I imagine the maintenance shack has a full crew, rather than one kid.

  There are the familiar bubbles and carts, but also some that race around on two large wheels, with a tall pie plate topped pole of robot balancing from them. Skinny arms extend from the pole, capable of manipulat
ing the surrounding environment. Maybe they are a new stocker bots, or perhaps salesmen of some sort.

  Tom grabs me by the tunic, and yanks me out of my starstruck stares into the glittering world of wealth.

  He stands before another, smaller lift, and turns to me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  For all the beauty of this place, it isn’t free from the grip of the virus. The chandeliers flicker while we wait for the door to open. Once inside, the lift zooms upward, stressing my knees under the acceleration. A moment later, I float for an instant, bracing against the wall.

  “Fast lift. You’ll get used to it.”

  My jaw drops when the doors open into a vast expanse of cubicles that stretch on toward a distant wall of windows. Real windows, with a city skyline behind them. Tom pushes his thumb to a black plate, which flashes green, and urges me to do the same.

  When my thumb hits the plate, it glows red. The square blurts an unsavory tone, and Tom shrugs. “Guess they don’t have you in the system yet. Don’t worry, they will back log it, and you’ll still get paid.”

  “Get paid?”

  “Yep, welcome to work. The clock-in feature is a redundant back-up for the implant scanners over your head.”

  I look up, and see a white cylinder with flashing lights on the underside, much like the ones at school or in the maintenance shack, or everywhere else for that matter.

  My head drops to level. Tom has moved on, and I rush to keep up, which is starting to wear me out. On the right-hand wall is a series of old-fashioned doors, a flashback to a time when all such barriers were decorated with wooden veneers. One of the doors slides open, and he ducks inside. I turn in behind him. There’s a man inside, blocking his path.

  Black helmet, dark glasses, skin tight under-suit over bulky muscles that rival Tom’s. His suit has a second layer of dense fabric with external pockets everywhere. His boots are matte black, and he’s clinging to a rifle with his thickly padded gauntlets.

  “Relax,” says Tom. “It’s my office.”

  “And who’s this?”

  “New guy.”

  “He’s not validating.”

  “He isn’t in the system yet, just let me––”

  “Sorry. If he isn’t in the system, then I need to take him for identification.”

  “Fine, take him, and bring him back quick. I need his help to start tracking this thing.”

  Tom dips around the soldier, and hops into one of the chairs behind what I assume is his desk. His wall displays a man in a suit, and the soldier takes a step toward me.

  “This way,” he says, in a mechanical voice.

  “Tom?”

  “Just go with him, and get back here as soon as you can.”

  “This way.”

  “This way,” chirps Bee from my pocket.

  The rifle tilts a few inches upward, still aimed at the floor, but ready for action. “What was that?”

  “It’s this stupid tablet that’s acting like a parrot.”

  “Okay, fine. Get moving.”

  I walk out the door, not knowing which way to turn. Two more of the black suits appear from the left, and one of them directs me the other way.

  Stomping boots follow me along the wall, until the voice comes back. “Halt.”

  I can’t tell the three of them apart. One of them has two fingers pressed against the side of his dark glasses. The door beside me opens into a conference room, where the suited man I’ve come to recognize sits at the end of a long table. To his left is the redheaded stress sack that Tom has been communicating with.

  “Enter,” says the mechanical voice.

  I step inside, and the door closes behind me. The general manager walks around the table. His hair is trimmed short, like Tom’s. It would be solid black if not for the dusting of silver strands.

  “I’m really sorry about the mess out there. Usually I’m able to greet people more warmly. I’m the general manager.” He extends his hand for an old-fashioned shake. “You can call me Mr. Jackson. This guy over here is Scott. He’ll be your direct supervisor. If you need to find him, just scan the cubicles for that patch of red hair. It’s like a beacon.”

  I nod as our hands shake twice.

  Scott isn’t quite as friendly with his introduction. “Do you have the analyzer, or does Tom have it?”

  “I have it on me.”

  “Let me see it.”

  I pull the device from my pocket, and hold it up for him to see. Mr. Jackson smiles and looks to the side.

  “Very funny,” says Scott. “Slide it over here.”

  I place the device on the conference table, and give it a shove, after which it glides across the slick table like a skater over ice. Scott catches and scans it. Bee lets out her signature buzz of displeasure, and the tablet drops on the table.

  “I hope you came ready to work,” says Mr. Jackson. “Once we get you caught up on paperwork, then we’ll have to get started straight away. Sorry for the rush, but there’s a lot going on this morning.”

  He steps to the side and extends his hand to the conference chair that he was previously sitting in. Scott taps the table, pulling up a console, and swipes around on it for a moment. I take a seat, and he pushes the console my direction.

  “Fill this out. And read the documents that are attached. Don’t just shuffle through them.”

  His skin is pale, almost pure white, as if he’s never seen a drop of sunshine in his life. His face is dotted with little red flecks and blemishes.

  The door opens, and one of the soldiers steps in. “Mr. Jackson,” he says in the annoyingly mechanical voice. “The colonel is here. He’s ready to speak with you.”

  “Well,” says the GM. “It looks like I have some things to do. You two have fun.”

  Fun?

  He follows the soldier out of the room, and the door closes. I turn to Scott.

  “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

  He has another console open on the desk, and his eyes are flicking back and forth between the display and that tablet. He doesn’t even look up to respond. “I think you need to be a little more concerned with doing what you’re told, and a little less concerned with things that are over your pay grade.”

  I look down at the console before me. It starts off simply, name and identification information. I concentrate on my implant, and most of the data populates automatically. The next document that pops up is a file that reads Employee Handbook and Operating Procedures. At the bottom is a page indicator that reads 1/53.

  This could be a very long day. I wonder what Tom is up to, and if I’ll see him again before the office closes.

  I read the dry and uninformative document. Most of it discusses how this is a company where people are expected to behave in a certain way. The same garbage I read when I was assigned to my finishing school job.

  Parts of the document explain why the agents act the way they do. They probably have a similar terms of service agreement to fill out, and since they are always covered in monitoring devices and audio microphones, they’re probably held more accountable in their job than the rest of us.

  Page after page of redundancy and nonsense, but I can feel every time Scott’s eyes look up to check if I’m reading or not. It’s like school, except having a human instructor there to look over your shoulder and make certain that you aren’t cheating. Hardly necessary, as I suspect the room is scanning my eye moments and implant impulses to ensure that I’m observing every detail.

  This is what I wanted, a nice job in a high-rise office, but it’s hardly what I expected. Everything from the faint smell of surface cleaner in the air to the smear free table that looks as if it’s never used feels sterile and clinical. I suppose I’ll adjust eventually. Everyone else seems to have, but so far, the artificiality feels alien.

  “Can’t you read any faster than that?”

  I glance up, and he’s leaning over the table, half standing, hovering over me.

  “You said r
ead it. I’m making sure that I understand everything.”

  “Okay, fine. Just try to hurry. I have a lot of work to do, and I can’t babysit you all afternoon.”

  Bee blares Vivaldi’s Spring, and Scott jumps to attention. His chair flies toward the wall. “Son of a holy––what’s it doing? What is that?”

  I can’t help but crack a smile. “That,” I say, “is one of the greatest symphonies ever written. And the virus likes it. Be ready for anything when you’re around that little device. It’s full of surprises.” I wink, and return to my reading. It goes faster now that Bee had adjusted the ambiance.

  NINETEEN

  No sooner than I finish the files Scott put in front of me, the door slides open, and Tom steps in.

  “Are you done with him? Is he signed in?”

  “Taking his time on the reading.”

  “I just finished this one. What’s next?”

  Scott leans across the table, craning over the console in front of me. “That should be enough for now. What’s up Tom? You need him right now?”

  “Those military guys are getting a little restless. They want solutions.”

  Scott looks over at me. “You heard the man. As soon as he’s done with you, come find me. As you can imagine, we’re swamped at the moment. I’ll try to find something for you to do that doesn’t require a week of training.”

  I climb out of the chair, and follow Tom back to his office. His tall frame carries him so fast that I have to jog to keep up. The canister bumps against my leg with every step.

  As I rush through the door of his office, I’m stopped and scanned again by a soldier in black. “Identity confirmed,” he says, as if he can’t remember me from an hour ago. I walk past him and stare straight at Tom.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on? What’s with all of this hurrying?”

  Tom takes a deep breath, and spins in his chair to face me. “I understand that you aren’t up on all of the details, but you know that agents watch everything, right?”