The wide sidewalk. Should not be this close. Up, grunt. Oo-rah.
Three blocks to go.
Just then I get the idea to message Natalie. To thank her again, let her know that I’m still standing, and that I appreciate what she did for me. She’ll be asleep now, at an hour when my sister would have been just finishing the last few hours in her night rotation. I flick on voice control in my wearable’s retinal display, but my eyes don’t seem to want to focus. (Fred always loved dictating the messages she sent me when I was over there, but because she talks—and swears—so fast, her messages always contained at least one [unintelligible] from the voice-to-text translator.) Finally on the third or fourth try I get it, and I say quietly to myself what I want to say to Natalie, and then I flick send, or try to, and then I have to do it again, and either it works or I might have deleted it, but I hope it went.
Maybe she’s thinking about me, wondering how I am.
Probably not.
Something in the night is buzzing. I saw a movie of a bumblebee once, at school. But the bumblebees collapsed. Everything collapsed. That’s why we, humans, men, Marines, women, too, and also me in this particular moment, that is why we can’t collapse. It was our mission, over there: Forestall collapse! Prevent recollapsation! Have to say, it’s not a hell of a rallying cry. Keep shit up! Keep shit shitty!
From upstairs in one of the apartment buildings, from a darkened window, Shut the hell up down there. Sir, yes, sir.
No Marine forgets how to keep humping on once they’ve learned it. Now I’m breathing hard, listening to the breath thundering in and out of my nose as my steps retake their rhythm. I have something like Pop’s nose, something like Pop’s hooked overcast face. I have never considered myself handsome. I am a bit strange-looking, to be quite honest. I have a face that can be alarming. But women like me. They do. Sophie! She was beautiful. The woman in the park, the woman with the broken arm—she liked me, enough, until she realized that I didn’t really belong there, that I’d tricked her. Even that nurse at the desk, Ms. No-Next-Time. Tough customer. She liked me, though. Didn’t kick me out. Does Natalie like me? I like her, I admit it. I’ve admitted it, to myself, over and over, since the minute I met her. I do like her and I want her to like me. She’s pretty; she’s smart; she’s good. I can imagine her, us, I can imagine her skin, her mouth, my hands, my God I’m walking down the street in the middle of the night hard like a fucking teenager.
Yes, I’d like to fuck Natalie. Of course. But more than that I want her to—what? I want to kiss her; I want her to want me. I want her to like me. I respect her. I know she does not respect me. Men want women’s respect, but women want men’s respect, too—I don’t think it needs to be made more difficult than that. But Natalie’s not going to give anything away. With her, you have to earn it.
So that’s the problem. The problem that’s not going away.
I have a few of those right now.
One’s slowly unstiffening in my pants.
Several others are in my heart, or head, or wherever I’m keeping the things that keep me moving even when all I want to do is sit down for a fucking second.
Nope. On your feet, grunt.
Then there’s the problem that’s not going away because it is following me down the street in the darkness. I can hear it. Metallic bee.
I’ve already taken out one of your buddies today, metallic bee. Don’t make me hurt you.
Don’t make me hurt you, motherfucker. Okay, yes, volume decreasing. I get it, sir, yes, sir.
Ahead is the building I’m looking for, and does it seem a little bit miraculous, on this night, that I even found it? Yes, it does. But I’m being followed. Again. Little metallic bee. I know better, this time, than to chuck something at you, but I also know better than to let you trail me, especially where I’m going.
I bank left, cross the street. The drone speeds up brzzzzzrrrrrrrroooooooo. Come at me, little fucker.
Time to swerve off the main street onto a sleepier street of two-flats. Between dark-shrouded buildings there’s an empty, trash-flecked driveway, and this I walk down—not running, not even at a trot, but at the pace I’d walk if I lived here and wanted to get home, inside, into my bed—until I reach a row of overflowing trash cans. I take a knee behind one and listen.
Get back to your hive, little bee. The drone passes straight by the house I’m crouched behind, rocketing down the street. Halfway down the block the security flashers come on, lighting up the gray faces of the buildings along the block in blue and red strobes.
From a distance, the canned message sounds less certain of itself: For your own safety, please return to your homes. For your own safety, please return to your homes.
A feral cat is looking at me without much interest from its perch atop the fence that separates this driveway from the next.
“Kitty,” I say. I’m drunk, yes, but I would argue that this is anyone’s instinctive response upon catching sight of a cat, even a feral one that would eat your face given half a second’s chance.
Who’s out there?
Still in my crouch, I put my hands lightly on the pavement for support and freeze every muscle. The cat and I stare at each other. The cat takes its moment and slinks on down the fence line. I lower my eyes, slow my breathing. Count to a hundred.
When I finally exit the driveway there’s not a sound, not a movement, not a light all up and down the road. Just me and the heat and the garbage and the stars and the dead trees and the sleepers, all around.
I backtrack to Gard’s building and let myself in. Her apartment is on the third floor in a brick multifamily, a little two-bedroom she used to share with a friend from nursing school until her friend moved out. Fred had been helping with Gard’s rent, as she made a point of informing me, and she’s been continuing to pay the landlord since Gard was discovered missing. Another sign that Gard can’t be really truly gone: her older sister is prepared to pay her rent forever just to prove it.
The place has been ransacked by a sequence of careless investigators from Security, none of whom found anything, none of whom bothered to put anything back. If it wasn’t such a lonely holy mess, I might have moved in here, to avoid staying at Pop’s place. But to live here, someone would first have to put all of Gard’s hard-heartedly strewn things away, her scrubs and her clothes and her novels and her shoes all over the bedroom floor, her sanifoam in the bathroom gone gummy, her stale cereal and dusty plates in the kitchen. Neither Fred nor I have had the heart to do it yet, to touch her things. Pop hasn’t been here, I don’t think, but I’ve been here a lot, looking for clues. Or something. But there’s nothing to find.
I hate being here, to be honest. Being in Gard’s place is like running a pointless drill over and over again. Sitting in an empty room surrounded by all her stuff doesn’t make Gard any more likely to show up. Probably makes it less likely than usual, in fact.
Gard’s portal was, of course, analyzed as part of the investigation when she was reported missing, although if Fred’s message means what I think it means, no one who wasn’t meant to find anything would have. Fred’s first jobs were in software engineering, privacy and security. She and Wash could have had a fine time comparing not-quite-officially-approved access methods, if they’d ever met. It takes me a few minutes to find the portal, but then I spy it, on a soft chair in the living room where it’s been tossed by whomever skimmed it last, probably me, on one of my own unsatisfying hunts for a lead, any sort of lead. Gard only ever used a handheld portal, and this one’s about the dimensions of a sheet of paper. Even if she could have afforded one, I don’t think it would ever have occurred to Gard to buy a portal big enough to hang on the wall. Although Fred would have dearly loved to get her something bigger—she’s already threatened or promised as much for me. Christmas is coming and you have no idea how cool the technology has gotten since you’ve been gone.
I swipe the screen awake and of course the thing badly needs a charge, so I stumble around in the half dark until I find o
ne of Gard’s charging targets and thank God it’s next to another chair, some low-slung thing that looks like a wadded-up mattress on a wooden frame, so I can at least sit down (don’t even think about falling asleep) while I try to figure out how to unlock Gard’s portal.
As it turns out, I don’t have to work very hard.
I’ve barely touched it, but the screen of the portal blinks once, then twice, then goes blue. Three lines of text fly into the top layer on the screen and—this is unexpected enough that I instantly feel about 20 percent more sober—onto my own retinal display. I sit back hard enough that I feel the chair’s legs scoot underneath me. How in the sweet shellacked hell?
Hello, sweetheart!
If you are Gardner Quinn, please say hi.
If you are not Gardner Quinn, please go fuck yourself.
I close my eyes: the same three lines, right there in blue on my wearable’s top layer. I’ve never seen a portal do that before, didn’t know they could. The only time I’ve ever seen a portal screen transmit something simultaneously onto my wearable’s retinal display was when Wash had about half a dozen lines snaked into a two-inch incision in my forearm in his sandy-ass little communications hooch somewhere in what’s left of California.
“Hi, Fred,” I murmur experimentally. Again, on both the portal screen and on my wearable, an unsettling visual echo:
It’s you!
Then nothing, for long enough that I feel my headache lift its ragged flags again. My eyes want to drift closed and stay that way. It’s got to be, what, four in the morning by now? Five?
Then a lot of movement happens, very suddenly: a layer opens on top of the messages I’ve already seen—but not a layer exactly, more like a second interface. Like a foreign operating system opening on top of the existing one. Which might be what it is, in fact, for all I know or can tell. Then Fred’s earlier message to me swings past, like a drone on its way someplace, and an icon of a little envelope with a padlock on it (very quaint) extracts itself from the message text and flips open. A series of files—messages, by the look—are dealt into the lower-left corner of the display, a neat hand of poker.
The top file is a message from Fred to Gard, from a month ago:
November 12, 6:18 AM
Where are you? Why aren’t you getting back to me?
Are you all right? Please answer me. Please.
Sweetheart, I promise. I won’t do anything, I won’t
ask you for anything. Please just let me know you’re okay.
I can flip to the next file by swiping this one to the right side of the screen, it seems, but I can’t tell whether I’m doing it by touch on the portal or by midrange focus on my wearable, and the effect is a bit nauseating. Also, hard to control—before I know what I’m doing I’ve flipped over half the stack of messages (sorry, Fred, but there’s some UX to work out here), which seem to go backward in time, so that the oldest messages are buried beneath the newer. There are messages from Gard in here, I realize, and my heart and my stomach both execute a nasty lurching half step.
Sep 20 10:31 PM
They’re all just barely making it.
I don’t think you understand.
It’s too much to look at the portal screen and the same thing on my retinal display, but I can’t figure out how to disable one without the other. Also I’m beginning to feel a peculiar tugging sensation in my eyeballs, like Gard’s portal screen is magnetically attracted to me. My wearable arm feels a little warm, too. It’s not unbearable, but I wouldn’t call it pleasant. Still, it’s impossible not to be impressed. Fred, what are you up to?
The earliest file is an exchange dated March 8 of this year, between Fred and Gard.
Mar 08 7:27 PM
This is it! It’s so cool, you don’t even know. I’ve been
dying to show to someone and you’re the lucky gal
Mar 08 7:29 PM
Wait, what even is this? What did you do
to my wearable? Whose portal is this?
Mar 08 7:29 PM
Yrs now, honey—don’t let anybody else use it!!
And now you have the 1 thing nobody else in
this town has: Some fucking privacy
Mar 08 7:31 PM
I have plenty of privacy.
Other than my clients I talk to like 2 people.
Mar 08 7:31 PM
Yes, that’s my problem and my point.
I’m worried about you
Ever since you took this other job
You’ve been weird, like super super weird
and I know you’re not taking care of yourself.
And if you can’t talk to me about it in person,
because you’re in trouble, or something,
then you can talk to me here. That’s why I
built it. It’s safe.
Mar 08 7:35 PM
Fredlet, don’t be mad, but I don’t want to talk
about it, not even with you. Can you just let it be?
I know you want to help
but I don’t need help. I just need sleep.
Mar 08 7:36 PM
Do you even know what I went through to get us
connected on a private network like this?
Mar 08 7:36 PM
No. I’m sorry. But you really didn’t have to
Mar 08 7:37 PM
Yes I did.
I did it so you could
TALK TO ME
so you could TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS
GOING ON
Mar 08 7:39 PM
My arm feels like it’s on fire. Is that this thing?
What is this? What did you do to me?
Mar 08 7:39 PM
It’s safe, don’t be such a weenie
It’s just your processors working a little harder than
usual
Mar 08 7:41 PM
I don’t like it
I flick to the next file in the stack. My own arm is warm like I’ve been resting a trigger on it all afternoon. It’s a weirdly familiar sensation.
MARCH 11
Mar 11 6:27 PM
you are worrying me again
you are worrying Pop
I wish you would just tell me what’s going on
Mar 11 6:30 PM
It’s just your processor working harder than
usual. Don’t be a weenie.
Mar 11 6:30 PM
Ha ha not funny
Mar 11 6:31 PM
I’m fine.
APRIL 28
Apr 28 10:33 PM
Thank you for listening to me today
Apr 28 10:33 PM
Of course. I worry about you.
Please take care of yourself.
Be careful.
Apr 28 10:35 PM
I am. I will.
Apr 28 10:37 PM
Did that patient, the little mom with
the baby, did she
is she okay?
What ended up happening?
Apr 28 10:39 PM
I think she’s all right for now.
I can’t talk anymore.
Apr 28 10:40 PM
OK. Please be careful, Gard
Whatever you’re doing
I know you don’t want to tell me
But just be careful
JUNE 2
Jun 02 11:02 PM
Gard I’m freaking out
Jun 02 11:05 PM
Why? Is Pop OK? Did he hear something
about CQ? Is everything all right?
Jun 02 11:05 PM
ur asking me? that little shit never
messages ANYBODY over there
Jun 02 11:06 PM
You scared me
Jun 02 11:08 PM
I have something I want to tell you
it’s a secret
you can’t tell anyone
but i need your help i think
Jun 02 11:09 PM
Anything. Anything I can do I’ll do.
Jun 02 11:11 PM
OK
/>
I think I need to see a completionist
Jun 02 11:11 PM
What! What?????
Jun 02 11:11 PM
Keep your pants on. Christ
Jun 02 11:11 PM
But that’s really exciting!
I didn’t even know you were getting
Insemina treatment!
Jun 02 11:12 PM
Gard come on
Jun 02 11:12 PM
??
Jun 02 11:13 PM
You know I haven’t been doing fucking Insemina
Jun 02 11:13 PM
Are you telling me you’re naturally pregnant?
Jun 02 11:15 PM
Fred?
Jun 02 11:17 PM
Are you there? Are you OK?
Jun 02 11:20 PM
It’s all right. You know you can talk to me.
Jun 02 11:21 PM
I’m sorry I was so surprised—it’s just amazing!
You know how rare this is, right?
Jun 02 11:23 PM
Fred?
You there?
Listen. Let me give you the practitioner’s view
as someone who’s been an NC for three years now.
And that’s thanks to YOU,
and thank you again, because it makes it possible
for ME to help YOU for a change, which maybe
you have no idea how exciting that is for me. OK?
Jun 02 11:25 PM
But from an NC’s view, natural pregnancies
are what we live for.
You are so special, honey. You represent hope
that humankind can maybe come back from this.
Jun 02 11:27 PM
Well that’s fucking comforting.
Jun 02 11:28 PM
Trust me, Fred.
It might not seem that way now but everything’s
going to be all right. I’ll help you. It would be
my honor and my privilege to help you. Srsly.
Jun 02 11:31 PM
OK wring your tampon out already
But thx
Really thx
I don’t want anyone else to know yet, ok?
The Completionist Page 16
