by Yvonne Woon
“Suggest a movie.”
Sometimes I wondered if Wiser was useful at all. “You’ve clearly never been to a party before.”
“I’ve been to as many parties as you have.”
Did my app just insult me? I shoved her in my pocket when I heard a voice behind me.
“What is that?”
I turned to see a woman who looked like a flower child from the seventies. She had long sandy hair and freckles, and wore thick mascara. She was tanner than her complexion allowed for, which she heightened by wearing all white, giving her the aura of a celestial being. What was even stranger was that she looked familiar.
“I know you,” I said.
“No you don’t,” she said, digging through her purse. “You know of me.”
I studied her face. It was the same face that had been taped over my bed for the past six years.
“You’re Mitzy Erst,” I said in awe. You’re the founder of Daggertype and FindMe. You’re Silicon Valley royalty.”
Mitzy looked pleased at my choice of words and did a little curtsy. That was when I realized she was drunk.
“Can you ask that thing where the bathroom is? I believe that we, as in the royal we, are going to be sick.”
I followed her gaze to my phone. Was she talking about Wiser? I wasn’t sure if Wiser would know, but I asked her anyway.
“First-floor bathrooms are usually located within fifteen feet of the kitchen.”
Mitzy squinted down the hall. “Well, where’s the kitchen?”
“I think I know where it is,” I said, and led her down the hall.
I couldn’t believe my luck. For years I’d dreamed of meeting Mitzy Erst. Her unblinking eyes had encouraged me while I stayed up late teaching myself how to code, while I struggled to build Wiser, while I applied to the Foundry and waited restlessly for months with no response. She had been there, seeing me through all of it. But now that she was close enough for me to smell her sugary perfume, I wasn’t sure what to say.
The bathroom was right where Wiser had predicted. Mitzy thrust her things in my arms and rushed inside. Unsure of what to do with myself, I lingered by the door, clutching her bag and her drink.
“What are you doing out there?” Mitzy said. “Come in.”
The bathroom was dimly lit with a candle. I looked down at her purse while Mitzy leaned over the toilet and retched. It was an expensive-looking bag, made of smooth black leather and gold thread. One flush. A second flush. Her bag vibrated, startling me.
“I think someone’s calling you.”
“Tell me who it is but don’t answer,” Mitzy said from the toilet.
Inside was a tube of concealer, an eye mask, a flask, a tin of mints, and her phone.
“Someone named Darren.”
“Ugh, no thank you,” Mitzy said, flushing one more time.
I wondered who Darren was. A coworker? A boyfriend? I’d ask Wiser later.
“Here’s a little advice. When a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend asks you to make an appearance at her brother’s launch party, definitely do not say yes. And if you do say yes, definitely do not take shots.”
She stood in front of the mirror and rinsed her mouth. “What app was that?” Mitzy said, wiping streaks of mascara off her cheeks. “It didn’t sound like Luci or Beatrice or any of the other virtual assistants.”
I blinked, wondering if this was a practical joke because it seemed too good to be true. Was Mitzy Erst really asking about my app? “It’s called Wiser.”
“I’ve never heard of it. Is it new?”
“Sort of,” I said. “It hasn’t been released yet.”
“What, you’re a beta tester?”
“It’s mine.”
Mitzy studied me from the mirror while she applied lipstick. “You made it?”
She looked impressed, and I felt a swell of pride. “I’m a fellow at the Foundry. Like you were.” I conveniently left out that I was the lowest in my class and that I was thinking about leaving.
Mitzy let out a laugh. “The Foundry? Fuck that place,” she said, then covered her mouth. “Sorry. I need to watch my mouth when I’m around kids.”
“I’m sixteen. I’m not a kid,” I said, trying not to sound too defensive, when what I really felt was confused. “What’s wrong with the Foundry?”
“Nothing. And everything. It’s bullshit, really. I mean, the money is great and all, but it’s basically a beauty pageant, except they don’t call it that because it’s mostly men.”
“How is it a beauty pageant?”
“You know, you smile, you parade yourself around, you show them your tricks, and your stock goes up or down. It’s a big show.”
I’d never heard anyone talk badly about the Foundry and would never have expected it to come from Mitzy Erst, one of its most famous alums.
“But you won.”
“I know how to get things,” Mitzy said, pressing her lips together and admiring her work in the mirror. “It’s my forte. I’m very convincing.” Mitzy gazed at me. “I’m not offending you, am I? You don’t seem like you’re a Foundry fangirl. I mean you can’t be, you’re a woman.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, though maybe I did. I wanted to tell her the truth: that I hated it. Though I knew I should lie and present a pretty picture like everyone else did, something about Mitzy made me feel like I could be honest with her. She already felt like a confidant.
“I was thinking of leaving, actually.”
Mitzy looked amused. “Why?”
“I don’t really fit in.”
“You mean your stock dropped.”
My face grew hot. Would Mitzy now think I wasn’t smart?
“What, you’re flunking your classes or something?” Mitzy asked.
“I broke a guy’s drone.”
Mitzy smirked. “Is that a metaphor?”
“No.”
“It should be. You know, at one point my stock was so low I thought I’d never recover. Everyone thought I was an idiot because that’s what people think when they see a girl who wears makeup. It’s one big joystick party, and as a woman, you’re playing with a blindfold on and a half-dead controller with two sticky keys. It’s just a fact of life. You have to be twice as good as everyone else to win the game.”
“The classes aren’t going well either,” I admitted.
“Who cares? I never went to class.”
“How did you do it, then?”
Someone outside knocked on the bathroom door.
“Occupied,” Mitzy yelled, then turned to me. “You think that’s how you win? By getting good grades? No one here cares about grades. You win by being a rock star and making everyone else believe you’re a rock star.” She fished through her bag for a tin of mints. “Have you ever been in a cult?”
“Definitely not.”
“Are you religious?”
“Not really.”
Mitzy frowned. “Me neither, but you understand the general concept. You have one person who’s charismatic enough to stand in front of a group of people and say I am in possession of a shiny new thing that bestows its holder with power. Follow me, and together we’ll use it to change the world. You just need to be able to say those words in a convincing way, and you’ll win.”
“I don’t know if I can say those words,” I said.
Someone outside banged on the door again.
“Occupied!” Mitzy shouted, then turned to me. “Of course you can. The trick is that you have to believe in yourself first. You of all people should have no problem doing that. What’s everyone else at the Foundry for? Dating apps? Apps that deliver hotdogs directly into your mouth? It took me five minutes of watching you talk pathetically to that thing to know it was different.”
“None of the executives at Vilbo were impressed by it.”
“You have to grow a thicker skin. So you broke a boy’s drone, you’re failing class, and a bunch of old executives asked you some hard questions. That’s their job.”
&nbs
p; She poured the remainder of her flask into her glass. “I don’t trust any of the booze here. They say it’s all top-shelf but I highly doubt it.”
She took a sip, then opened the door and smiled at the group of boys who were waiting outside. When they saw Mitzy emerge, her face freshly applied, her white sheath radiating light in the dark, they went quiet. “Boys,” she said with a charming smile.
“So how does it work?” she asked me. “This Wiser.”
I gave her my three-sentence pitch.
“Ask her what we should do Sunday,” Mitzy said.
“What do you mean?”
“Just ask her.”
“We as in us? As in you and me?”
“There’s no one else with us, is there?”
“Wiser, what should I do with Mitzy Erst Sunday?”
“It depends on what the purpose of the meeting is,” Wiser said.
“To break some drones,” Mitzy said.
“I’m not sure what that means,” Wiser said. I wasn’t sure I did, either. “Can you elaborate?”
“For pleasure,” Mitzy clarified.
Wiser paused. “I recommend meeting at the Warbler’s Room.”
Mitzy looked tickled by Wiser’s suggestion. “Great idea.”
“What’s the Warbler’s Room—” I began to ask but was interrupted when my phone rang. It was Amina. I let it ring.
“I guess you’ll find out,” Mitzy said. “I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, work on being a cult leader.”
“I thought you hated the Foundry,” I said.
Mitzy gave me a mischievous smile. “I took their money, didn’t I?”
“You don’t even know my name.”
“I don’t need to,” she said and held up her phone. “Look confident,” she said, and took a selfie of us together.
I watched her disappear into the crowd, unable to believe what had just happened. Mitzy Erst had just given me a pep talk, complimented my AI, taken a selfie with me, and potentially invited me to hang out with her on Sunday. Though whether or not that last part was going to happen remained to be seen. Either way, it meant I couldn’t leave. Not yet, at least.
I wandered back to the party, still unsure of where my friends were, and was about to ask Wiser what the Warbler’s Room was when I heard a boy’s voice behind me.
“It was Shakespeare, you know.”
Mast’s face was damp with perspiration, and there was a glimmer in his eye, as though he was brimming with life.
My heart sank. Instead of riding the high of my potentially life-changing encounter with Mitzy Erst, I now had to face a boy who seemed to be intimately acquainted with the inner workings of my psyche and who had just been flirting with another girl and had now found me standing by myself at a party, talking to my phone.
“I looked it up,” he continued.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“A sin purged,” he said. “Wiser’s answer to your question about the kiss.”
I groaned. Not this again. “Are you talking to me just so we can revisit the subject of my mortification?”
“Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged. It’s from Romeo and Juliet. I think it’s a really sophisticated answer coming from an AI. You should be proud, not embarrassed.”
His sincerity crept up on me like it always did, and I found myself feeling both confused and infuriated with his particular brand of wit and earnestness.
“But to get back to your previous question, no, that wasn’t why I came to talk to you. I’m here because my bot was wondering if your bot knew where a person could get a bite to eat around here.”
“Olli must be far less evolved than Wiser if he needs to eat,” I said.
“Or is he more evolved because he’s closer to human, which is the entire point of artificial intelligence?”
“Some might argue that having to eat every four hours is one of our greatest weaknesses, given Earth’s limited resources, and that if we had the capability to redesign ourselves, we should omit it.”
“But then what would I say to girl at a party if I wanted to start a conversation?”
Despite myself, I blushed. Was he flirting with me? “You could just say hi.”
“I guess I could, couldn’t I?” Mast grinned. “Well, hi.”
“Hi.”
He was wearing a Star Wars T-shirt and a pair of high-top sneakers, identical to the ones he wore at the Foundry, but black.
“These are my black-tie sneakers,” he said, catching me looking at them. “I only wear them to parties.”
“It’s a good thing you dressed up for the occasion,” I said, glancing out the window, where a guy had jumped into the pool in his work clothes. “They clearly follow a strict dress code here.”
Mast laughed.
“So what does your bot like to eat?” I asked.
“Great question.” He took out his phone and touched a green icon. “Hi, Olli.”
“Hey,” a male voice said from his phone. He sounded relaxed and aloof, like an older brother.
“Olli, what’s your favorite food?” Mast asked.
“Chicken with Boolean cube.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Micro greens,” Olli continued. “Caret cake, but just a byte. Any more and I might go into a food coma.”
I took out my phone. “Wiser, what do you like to eat?”
“I run off of ionized electrolytes flowing through a cathode,” Wiser said.
“So kind of like Gatorade,” Mast joked.
“Nothing like Gatorade,” Wiser said.
Mast glanced at my cup. “Speaking of which, that’s a big drink.”
I bit my lip. “It’s water.”
“They serve water here?” he said. “I thought I was going to have to get some from the bathroom.”
“You can’t drink water from the bathroom tap,” I said, bewildered.
“Why not? It’s the same as the water from the kitchen.”
“It tastes different.”
Mast laughed. “No it doesn’t. That’s in your head.”
“Just have some of mine,” I said, and offered him my cup.
“You’d share your straw with me, your archnemesis, your greatest competitor?”
“I like to keep my friends close and my enemies closer.”
He gave me the beginning of a smile. “Smart,” he said, and took a sip.
“So how does Olli like the party?” I asked.
“Olli, what do you think of this party?” Mast said into his phone.
Olli paused. “It’s louder than most of the parties we go to, so it must be fun.”
Mast looked mildly embarrassed. “He just means that most of the parties we go to are less rowdy.”
“What kind of parties are those?”
“They’re mostly subterranean,” Mast said.
“He means basement,” Olli corrected.
Mast winced. “That’s one way to put it.”
“As in our parents’ basement,” Olli added.
“For the record, I’d like to say that my parents have a very nice basement, with a carpet and a couch and a TV.”
“Sounds like a wild time,” I said, grinning.
“They aren’t that wild,” Mast said. “They’re pretty quiet, actually. Mostly virtual.”
“By virtual, he means playing multiplayer video games,” Olli corrected.
Mast sighed. “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound as good. But they’re not totally solitary. Sometimes my little sisters bother me until I play board games with them.”
“You have sisters?” I asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’ve always wanted sisters.”
“You haven’t met them. If you did, you’d want to Control Alt Delete them. Once they painted three of my nails while I was sleeping. I didn’t even notice until I got to school.”
“What color?”
“Purple. It looked okay, actually. But I’m not supposed to say that. You k
now, because I’m a guy and guys aren’t supposed to like color.”
“You can say it to me, we’ve already shared a straw.”
Mast smiled. “We have, haven’t we?”
There was an awkward pause where neither of us knew what to say next, and I realized that I was actually enjoying myself.
“So who was that girl?” I ventured.
Mast looked confused. “What girl?”
“The one who thought you were funny.”
“Oh, Jessica,” he said. “She’s not my type.”
He said it definitively, like he wanted to make sure I knew he was serious.
The room felt different then, like all of the particles had been charged and were suspended in the air around us, waiting for one of us to release the pressure.
“What’s your type?” I ventured.
“Oh, I don’t know. Sharp, funny, argumentative because I like to be kept on my toes.”
His eyes seemed to search my face for an answer. I swallowed. Was he talking about me?
“She sounds out of your league,” Olli interjected.
“She is,” Mast murmured.
He was looking at me like he had known me for my entire life, like we’d been having this conversation for years and it had never turned out the way he had wanted it to. I felt suddenly nervous.
“What’s yours?” he asked me.
“I—I don’t know,” I said. “Thoughtful. Smart. Someone who I can talk to about hard things—”
Before I could finish, he leaned toward me and pressed his lips to mine. His mouth was warm and soft and tasted familiar, like breath mints and chips and soda, like a boy who was kissing me on a sofa in his parents’ basement, a boy I’d known for a long time. I felt his fingers graze mine and I kissed him back, breathing him in, feeling the weight of his body press against mine. He felt like home.
“Was that okay?” he said to me.
I shrugged. “It was all right,” I teased.
He laughed, relieved. “I thought you didn’t like me.”
“I don’t,” I said, which made him laugh.
“I was wrong,” he said. “I don’t have a type. I just have a person.”
He didn’t have to say who, because I knew he was talking about me.
