A matronly woman greets me at the front desk and explains that this facility—for all intents and purposes—really is a funeral home, meaning that the business end of human disposal lies elsewhere. When my questions stall, the woman politely offers to help me navigate the facility. It’s a large building, octagonal with a large fountain situated at its center. My escort leads me through an endless corridor which skirts its perimeter—the figurative circle of life, I guess. We pass a series of thematic viewing rooms along the way, most of which are not currently in use. I’ve lost count of them when the woman deposits me at an open door and, with a tidy bow, leaves me to my devices. From the hall, I hear soft music within.
I poke my head in bashfully, peering around the strange space, afraid to commit my body to its unexplored belly just yet. My nostrils are pleasantly teased with a faint waft of peppermint and jasmine. The music is ethereal, calming.
It’s nice. So I ease inside.
The room is unoccupied, save for Arthur’s casket and a few rows of padded chairs. The casket is constructed from some sort of translucent, glowing resin. I step forward and notice tiny fossils suspended in the resin, trapped like insects in ancient amber. I suppose this is supposed to be symbolic of something—and it truly makes for a beautiful effect—but I’m too emotionally impaired to give it my full appreciation.
But I have no doubt the nexus has taken note.
Arthur looks good for a dead guy. His face is lifelike and peaceful, like he’s merely dreaming. I’m grateful that someone went through the trouble of restoring his pallor and shaving the scruff from his face; given that Arthur’s is a pauper’s wake—generally reserved for the homeless or otherwise unclaimed—I assumed every expense would be spared. I’ve never been happier to have been wrong.
I touch his hand—it’s stiff, kind of waxy—and let my fingers glance off his wrist, not really repulsed by the stitches there as much as I am disturbed by the notion that he might have been alive to feel the pain as someone carved out his implant.
I glance around the room, soaking in the distressing emptiness of the space. The efforts of architects and interior designers can only take things so far; at some point, people have to show up. I feel immensely sad to be alone here with Arthur, to discover with certainty what I’ve grown to suspect—that I was his only friend. “Arthur, my friend,” I whisper, “I’ll never forget you.” I lose my grip for a second and a thick sob slips through my net.
Then another. And another.
I hear a faint rustling behind me, like fabric against fabric, and swivel my gaze just in time to see a figure—a woman, I think—disappear through the door.
“Wait!” I cry out, but she’s gone. I rush to the door and erupt into the hall; I catch a brief glimpse of her before she rounds the corner and disappears—tall and willowy, long auburn hair splayed down a black mourning dress—but I resist the urge to chase her.
Just then, like a lumbering hoard of socially inept degenerates, a small army of my fellow nerds appears around the bend, looking lost and confused, trying hard to look cool. My heart does a flying leap into my throat, and it’s all I can do to keep from sobbing again. Leading the charge is Ryan, who I know never really got along with Arthur, but always respected him.
Thank God for him.
At his approach, I reach out to shake his hand, but observing my own quaking like a leaf, I shove it in my pocket instead. Ryan, who normally lives for moments of weakness in his competitive rivals—technically, I’m not his rival, but he’s treated me like one since the day we met—draws no attention to this and gives me a comforting shoulder squeeze.
I return to the viewing room, this time reinforced by the presence of my coworkers. My thoughts are unapologetically frazzled, yet I have the presence of mind to appreciate that the nexus has managed to notify everyone about the wake. At the same time, I’m bitterly ashamed to have made so little effort beyond my paltry conversation with Tim. Thank goodness my coworkers, unlike me, are willing to heed their updates. But despite the volatile range of polar emotions I’m enduring for the moment—gratitude versus shame—one thought is persistently pressing things like them out, fighting tooth and nail for my undivided attention.
Ryan sits next to me and smiles. It’s weird how tragedy does this—brings together people who are otherwise happy to be apart—and, before I’ve had a chance to think it through, my mouth has opened to speak my mind. “Did you see that lady in the hall?”
The smile falters, but doesn’t disappear altogether. “What lady?”
“You didn’t see a lady in the hall, right before you guys found me?”
A nervous frown. “No, I don’t think so. Pretty sure the hall was empty.” Ryan’s eyes dart around the room as his voice abruptly drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Why, who was she?”
I sink deep into my seat. “Good question.” My gaze is drawn to Arthur, where the others are busy paying their respects in a somber queue. I blink as I recognize Rupert among them, taking notice of the fossil-infused casket just as I had done earlier. I should probably sideline him now while I have a chance—we work on different floors, so I rarely see him around the office. Today is perhaps my second or third Rupert sighting in the last month—but I don’t. It’s not that I’m angry or tired. Maybe I’ve subconsciously concluded that I don’t really need his testimony to affirm what I’ve already begun to believe.
And I don’t even have to look at Ryan to know he’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking: that I’ve just narrowly avoided meeting Arthur’s mistress.
Good thing it was me here rather than Mitzy. Divorced or not, something tells me Arthur’s ex would’ve torn that poor woman to shreds.
Adrian’s in a protective mood tonight, repeatedly asking me how I’m doing, if I need anything. Saying things like poor baby and I can’t stand to see you hurting. We have dinner in and watch a movie. Adrian’s taking a sabbatical from old movies. I don’t understand why, but I’m trying to be accommodating. Dumb flicks like the one we’re watching now make that seemingly trivial task particularly difficult. It’s yet another bland facsimile of a century-old chick flick that wasn’t any good the first five times it was remade, but Adrian laughs and cries like it’s the best thing she’s ever seen. Worse, she revels in drawing the film space around us like a cloak, so she can feel a part of the story. Why she would waste 4D features on a movie with absolutely no action is a mystery to me, but who am I to judge? About halfway through, I stop watching the movie, silence my NanoPrint—there’s nothing more aggravating than trying to watch a movie as your implant interrupts every other minute with useless film star trivia and snack advertisements—and begin watching her.
The view is far more entertaining.
The last thing I remember before closing my eyes is thinking, How did I get a hottie like this?
At two in the morning, I tread through darkness into the bathroom to pee; I’m committed to sleep, so my eyes are barely open in slits—it may be wasted effort, but I’m hoping that keeping them just so will allow me to return to the exact dream-state I awoke from. To my irritation, at the precise moment when I flush the toilet, my NanoPrint whizzes to life and a queue of unacknowledged contact requests unfolds down my retinas.
Goodbye, sleep. How I loved you so.
The first request is from Tim: “Never mind, Wil,” he says. “I’ll get with you in the morning. But be warned: you’re gonna owe me big time when you see what I found.”
The next one is from Mitzy. Wondering how I’m doing, if I might like to meet her for lunch sometime. If there were any remnants of sleep still lingering in my system, hearing her voice squeezed them out in an instant.
I think of Mitzy; I think of Victoria’s Secret. I think of Mitzy wearing Victoria’s Secret. I think of Mitzy no longer wearing Victoria’s Secret.
Dang it.
I return to bed and lie there in the darkness, trying to work out what it is about Mitzy that has me so infatuated. In theory, she shouldn’t even compare
to Adrian, who is gorgeous in all the conventional ways, sexy to an absolute fault. Yet here I am, heartstrings singing at the mere thought of Mitzy—a girl I hardly even know. A young woman I’d thought to be a con artist only a short time ago.
I shouldn’t be dwelling on these thoughts, I know, and I feel terrible for failing to ward them off. Despite my erratic behavior of late, I’m truly not a disingenuous or duplicitous person. I have no interest in deceiving the people around me, nor do I find the prospect of infidelity to be anything other than disgusting.
But.
What can I say? There’s just something about Mitzy. Maybe in another life, another world where there is no Adrian or nexus fraud, we might’ve been something.
It’s too early. I get into the coffee right out of bed, sucking down two cups before I even consider showering. Alas, it fails to medicate my caffeine deficiency fast enough, and for once, I turn to my implant for help. I recognize that it’s an ill-conceived plan, but my brain is too sleep-deprived to come up with any less of a gamble. Wouldn’t you know it? As common sense surely predicted, the coffee finally decides to kick in just moments after it’s no longer needed, and now I’m more wired than I’ve been in a long time—possibly ever—and what’s really weird? The sensation isn’t entirely uncomfortable. I feel as though all the sharp corners—the unseemly burred edges of consciousness—have magically softened. It’s like my mind is jaunting a half-step ahead of my body.
Waiting for a tram, my hands patting out an arrhythmic tribal cadence against my thighs—completely of their own accord, incidentally—I notice a couple of pigeons nearby. My interest is piqued when one of them begins some weird jiggling dance for the other, puffed up and bobbing about, effervescing like some gelatinous oil slick. The second bird cringes and turns tail as if offended—
Wait, wait, wait: can pigeons cringe? I may have imagined that part.
—and abruptly flees in a rude applause of feathers. I erupt in boisterous chortling at this small-scale reenactment of my own romantic life, and a few of my fellow pedestrians shuffle away from me, as if standing within earshot might contaminate them with whatever I’ve been infected.
I pick up my usual large coffee in the lobby out of respect for my morning ritual, but now that I have it in hand, I’m afraid to drink it. All the way to the elevator, it sloshes about, dribbling onto my skin like brown lava. I’d leave it on the elevator if not for a surly-faced woman who would certainly object.
“Coffee?” I offer with a maniacal grin. She glares at me and turns to give me her back. It takes every ounce of my humanity to keep from dousing her. I’m not sure what department she works for, but I suspect no one would complain much if deprived of her glittering company for the morning.
Upstairs, Tim is waiting for me by my office door.
“Tim! Timmy-Tim, my man,” I rattle loudly. “What’s happening?”
One of his feet is tapping impatiently, but its metronome rapidly flags, and then stops altogether at my approach. His face is slightly flushed, probably from the temperature of the outer office, which is a good fifteen degrees warmer than the racks. On second thought, maybe it’s just that he’s excited; his eyes are sparkling.
“Got something you need to see,” he says. His voice is a steel cable under tension—stretched taut, barely restrained. He escorts me to the racks, where I happily toss my coffee and we both slap on ear protection before plowing inside. Ryan’s hard at work and doesn’t even look up as we crowd his workspace. Tim zips to the NanoRack and I follow dutifully.
“Check this out, Wil,” he says with a thin smile, then turns to the rack.
“What is it?” I peek over his shoulder, but there’s nothing to see yet—he’s frantically navigating menus, burrowing into the nexus with the precision of a concert pianist.
“I did some plunking around yesterday after you left. And I found some interesting stuff.”
“Like what?” I probe. He moves with lightning speed that I can’t begin to follow, and until he arrives at wherever he’s headed, I’m just begging for motion sickness.
“Like, remember how Mitzy’s profile ID was cross-contaminated on the nexus?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, I followed the other profile ID to see who it belonged to, and I think I’m on to something.”
At our backs, Ryan interrupts our conversation. “C’mon, Tim. We don’t have time for this nonsense.”
I turn to look at him like he’s on drugs.
“We have a new contract to spec out this week,” he explains. “I need you both completely focused if we’re gonna hit deadline.”
A new contract? Oh, man. Good thing I’m in high gear right now. But wait: “Is it a rush job?” I demand, because if not, it can wait five minutes, as far as I’m concerned.
“Aren’t they all?” Tim snipes from the side of his mouth.
“Cool it, Tim. You guys can play detective on your own time.”
I give Tim an exasperated grimace, as if to say, What the heck crawled up his rear? Tim shrugs and grumbles, “To be continued. The nexus-master has spoken.”
Ryan rolls his eyes and says, “Stop calling me that, man.” But the corners of his lips are tugging into a smile he can’t quite keep at bay.
To be continued turns out to be the next afternoon, and then only when the swell of my impatience compels me to skip lunch and corner Tim in the racks. Unfortunately, by then Tim has inexplicably switched teams.
“You know what, Wil?” he says with forced—and completely unconvincing—flippancy, “I don’t know what I got all excited about. I’m pretty sure it was just a truncation error or something.”
I reward this flip-flop with as much venom as a glance can inject. When that alone doesn’t prod further explanation from him, I launch a full-fledged examination. “But you said that kind of error can’t happen on the nexus without help from a human. You said that someone had to have intentionally overwritten the data.”
Tim’s ears are beginning to flush red. Good.
“Yeah, I know what I said, and I’m sorry for getting you all bent out of shape.” He smiles sheepishly and buries his hands deep into his pockets. “Turns out it was nothing.”
I stare at him with my mouth working silently, like a fish in the throes of death. My thoughts wander to old crime television—Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Perry Mason—trying to remember what you’re supposed to do when someone turns your witness. Unless I’m misreading the cues, this is the part where I’m supposed to badger him until he jumps from his seat and exclaims, Yeah, I did it; and he had it coming, too!
“I don’t believe this, Tim!” I bark. “What the heck’s gotten into you?”
Tim, who’s never seen me lose my temper before—even in this artificial context—is understandably taken aback. “Nothing, man. Jeez, don’t make a huge thing out of this. It was just a misunderstanding, that’s all.” His eyes wander toward the back of the room, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Ryan’s standing by unseen, overseeing this little scene like the director of a really scrappy play.
It seems a change of tactics is in order. Lowering my voice, I place a gentle hand on Tim’s shoulder. “What’s going on here, buddy?” I’m trying to project an air of protectiveness, like I’m the only person on the planet he can talk to openly—I know, I’m impressive: from bad cop to good cop within thirty seconds. Tim’s eyes are a little bloodshot, and they widen at my touch. I notice his mouth is twitching just a tinge.
I can’t speak for Matlock or Ms. Fletcher, but I feel certain that Perry Mason would be proud: I’ve about got this perp cracked.
Unfortunately, he’s cracking in a way I wasn’t shooting for. “Back off, Wil,” he snaps, shrugging off my hand like it’s dripping fire. His nostrils are flaring, fingers curling into puny fists at his side. “You gotta let it go, all right?”
I’m speechless. He may be a good guy—my friend, in fact—but he has his limits just like anyone else. And just like anyone who has just stepped
past his, I can tell that Tim feels guardedly remorseful for losing his cool.
But that doesn’t mean he’s changing his story.
“Listen, I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Tim pleads. “And so do you, you know?”
I shake my head in disbelief and direct my feet toward the door.
“Wilson,” Tim yelps. I turn my head and stop in midstride. His face is pained, torn. “Sorry, man. Don’t mean to be rude or anything.” He looks appropriately deflated, considering that he’s just let down a buddy in need. I really don’t have any idea what’s at play here, but I’m not exactly brimming with sympathy.
“Whatever, Tim.”
I rip off my earplugs and blast out the door without another word.
I spend the next half hour locked in my office trying to ferret out something useful from the nexus. Unlike Tim, I have neither the clearance nor the intellectual capacity to manually cross-reference NanoPrint data. The best I can manage on my own is to check up on Mitzy—my Mitzy, not Arthur’s. Looks like a late lunch at a sushi bar in about fifteen minutes; no dinner scheduled yet. No surprise there—I still haven’t gotten around to making dinner plans either. I don’t know why I’m stalking this girl, and I’m feeling more than a little slimy for making excuses. I leave Adrian a meaningless, guilt-driven contact request before heading down to the cafeteria.
I’m still angry with Tim; if I run into him on the elevator, there’s a good chance I might lock him in a sleeper hold until he passes out. And if I’m gonna bother going that far, I might as well leave him with a Spanish moustache for good measure—with permanent ink.
The elevator’s all mine, though. Just me and my problems. Me and my lackluster, nexus-hacking, witness-interrogating self.
The Pedestal Page 7
