Love Minus Eighty (5 page)

Mira jolted awake before she hit the ground.

An old man—likely in his eighties—squinted down at her. “You’re not my type,” he grumbled, reaching over her head.

As the front door whooshed closed, Veronika dropped her groceries on the counter and immediately activated
Wings of Fire
. Normally she would first dress in something to fit her part, maybe break out some pretzels, but last night she’d intentionally discontinued at a good part, and had spent all day anticipating.

She pulled on her extensions as the living room transformed into Peytr’s dance studio, the program adapting each piece of furniture into some functional aspect of the set so she wouldn’t bump into it. Peytr materialized, filling Veronika with a warm, comfortable glow of longing. It was embarrassing, how engrossed she was in this show. Well, not in the show itself as much as in Peytr Sidorov. For Veronika, it was always about the male lead. She fell for Peytr the moment she saw the preview for
Wings of Fire
.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Peytr asked, picking up where they’d left off last night. “If we cross this line… if we act on what’s in our hearts, there’s no going back.” He
was slick with sweat from dancing, his musky scent magnified by the exertion.

Veronika’s heart was pounding with anticipation. If she told Peytr she wanted to go through with it, as she planned to, she was fairly sure Peytr’s wife, Anya, was going to walk in and discover them. All day Veronika had been planning what she’d say to Anya, trying to anticipate Anya’s reply. She’d grown to despise Anya in a manner that was entirely too real.

In answer to Peytr’s question, Veronika reached out and stroked Peytr’s virtual shoulder, feeling his slick skin under her fingertips, though well aware the sensation was really originating in her brain. She tried to still her breath as Peytr caressed the curve of her breast, which felt just as real, causing her nipples to tense.

Peytr leaned in and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she answered. It was the first time they’d said it, the culmination of a month of anticipation building from their chance meeting at a penthouse party. Now, the first kiss. Veronika held still as Peytr leaned in, his eyes closed. Veronika kept hers open, not wanting to miss a thing, anticipating the sound of the door opening, of Anya’s husky howl of surprise.

“Hey, sweetie, do you—” A male voice that was not Peytr’s broke the spell. Veronika leaped from Peytr like she’d been goosed.

She spun to find Nathan gawking at her via screen.
Shit, shit, Goddamn it.
She’d forgotten to set up a block.

“Oh. Sorry,” Nathan stammered. “I’ll come back.”

“No. It’s all right. I—” She hurriedly banished the interactive as the heat recently building in her loins migrated to her cheeks. “What is it?” She felt so incredibly stupid.

“I just wanted to see if you wanted to meet up with the gang at Ponyface for a drink later on.”

“Yeah, sure.” Her lips felt numb.

“Great, I’ll, uh, let you know what time once I know.”

Nathan beat a hasty retreat. As soon as he was gone, Veronika covered her face with her hands and wished for death. How was she ever going to face him again? Yes, romance interactives sold by the millions, so theoretically what Nathan had caught her doing wasn’t particularly strange, but it was still pathetic. Millions of people also masturbated, yet people didn’t want others popping in while they were doing it. How could she have forgotten to put up a full block?

If it hadn’t been only three p.m., Veronika would have dealt with her searing humiliation by drinking heavily, but that would have to wait a couple of hours. Instead, she decided to work. Focusing all of her attention outward, toward the plights of others, seemed like the best way to pass the next few hours. Maybe with a day or two’s distance this would feel less humiliating.

She conducted some advanced searches, using her own signature algorithms to find potential matches for a client having trouble locating men on her own. It was difficult to concentrate. Pulling it up from her system, she replayed the recording of the moment she’d turned to discover Nathan floating behind her, froze the image of his face, covered her own at the sight of his thinly concealed shock and embarrassment.

Was she getting weird from being single for so long? Lots of thirty-two-year-olds were single, but some were better suited to being single than others.
Nathan
was certainly suited to being single (to Veronika’s eternal dismay). But she wasn’t. It always felt a little off—a little wrong—to come home to an empty apartment. It was as if her life was on hold, the real part yet to get under way. And it was making her weird. Five or six hours a day of romance interactives was a little weird.
It was also childish. Virtual environments were for children. Adults inhabited the real world.

On top of all that, there was the threat of technomie. Because of the nature of her job, Veronika already spent too much of her time interacting with screens, sending subvocalized voice messages, and texting. Instead of withdrawing further from human contact, she should be immersing herself in the real world. Maybe raw-lifers exaggerated the dangers, but the research was clear: In-person contact was vital to healthy functioning. She should give the interactives up. She should delete them all, even the new Peytr Sidorov one she’d been saving. Go cold turkey.

The thought of it swelled her eyes with tears. It would be like going through a breakup; her apartment would get so much emptier. Which was probably a good reason to do it.

No. Some other time, when she was feeling stronger. When she was back in a real relationship.

Veronika reactivated
Wings of Fire
. At first she felt silly and self-conscious, but when Anya burst into the room and discovered her with Peytr, she nearly forgot about the encounter with Nathan.

“Where are you going? Why are you going in there?”

Rob turned to face the screen that had been following him since he got off the micro-T—a brown-skinned woman, maybe southeast Asian, young. Until now she’d kept her distance, said nothing, but whenever Rob glanced behind him, she was there. Now she was right in his face.

“Do I know you?” Rob asked.

“No, but I know you. Why are you going in there? Don’t you know she’s in there?”

Rob swallowed thickly, feeling himself redden. Since he first noticed her, half a block behind him on Riverdale Avenue, he was afraid she might be a friend of Winter West. Since he wasn’t wearing a system, locating him could not have been an easy task. Either she’d been watching him since he left the house, or she’d paid a locator service to alert her as soon as he passed a public security camera. That couldn’t have been cheap.

“Yes, I know she’s in there,” Rob said.

The woman’s eyes grew wide. “Then how dare you go in?”

Rob turned, continued toward the big doors to Cryomed’s dating center.

The woman’s screen swung around to block his way. Rob was tempted to walk right through it, as he’d done with Lorelei, but he stopped.

“Winter was my closest friend,” the woman said. “I want to know why you’re going in there. If you don’t tell me, I’ll call the police.”

“The police?” The door was ten feet away. He could duck around the screen and sprint inside before the woman could react. But if he did, she would probably be waiting for him on the way out. Better to deal with her now. He was anxious enough about this without having to face Winter’s friends. “Look, I’m going inside to face up to what I did. No one feels worse about this than I do. I’m doing what I can to make things right.”

The woman studied him, her eyes narrowed with anger and suspicion.

“Why else would I possibly be going to see her? Do you think I want to see her, that I’m going to enjoy this? I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

Slowly, tentatively, she moved aside. “All right. Tell her Idris loves her.” Just before the doors swirled shut, Rob heard her add, “You bastard.”

Deep in the wall, machinery hummed, and the crèche slid slowly out of the wall, like a drawer opening in a morgue. She came feetfirst, and was covered in a silver wrap that was something between a blanket and aluminum foil. Rob was relieved he couldn’t see her body. He probably should have read what to expect before coming, but as soon as the money
had been secured and there was no turning back, he’d wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Raising the money had reminded Rob of their frantic attempts to raise enough money to save his mom when she got cancer, only this time they’d needed far less money, and had succeeded in raising what they needed.

His chest felt tight, his stomach and bowels were roiling. Another bout of anxiety-induced diarrhea was probably imminent. If he hadn’t been twenty-five years old and in perfect health, he was sure a heart attack would be imminent as well.

Her face was the only part of her not covered in silver wrap; Rob stifled a moan when it slid into view. She was so terribly white, her lips gray blue, her eyelashes frosted. She was so clearly dead, and he so did not want to see her dead eyes open and fix on him. As the glass between them slid away, he considered fleeing. He could hide in the bathroom, tell his father he’d done it, fabricate a story about how well it had gone, how cathartic it had been for both of them. Of course, he wouldn’t do that, not after his father had taken out a high-interest loan to get him here.

Some sort of machinery started up beneath the crèche, a whooshing, whistling sound that grew higher in pitch and then stabilized, and a separate deep thrumming that Rob felt in his lurching belly.

Winter opened her eyes.

Her pupils were fat disks, devoid of awareness, staring into eternity. Rob pulled back, leaned out of her field of vision, his breath coming in gasps as Winter blinked once, twice, in slow motion.

“I can’t—” Rob whispered. He stood to leave as Winter’s eyes rolled to look at him, her head perfectly, unnaturally
still. Her eyes were focused now—focused on him—and they were wet with terror.

“Hi, Miss West, my name is Robert.” He licked his lips. His mouth was horribly dry.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out but a hiss of air, as if her mouth was one of those spigots that inflate your tires that you still came across, out beyond the suburbs. He watched her recently frozen tongue struggle to form a word. “Do you work here?” When he was searching for her crèche he’d heard other women speaking, so he wasn’t startled that her voice was a deep, rolling, androgynous croak.

“No. This is the first time I’ve ever been here.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if gathering strength. “I’m scared. I want to go home.”

Rob pressed his hand over his mouth; his chest hitched spasmodically. “I’m so sorry.”

Winter narrowed her eyes like she was trying to see Rob better, like he was far away. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t understand. You’re my first…”—she struggled for a word—“visitor.”

Her first “date,” she meant, but she didn’t want to call it that. Rob couldn’t blame her.

“What day is it? How long have I been here?”

“About three weeks.”

“It feels longer.” Her speech was coming easier, maybe as her lips and tongue warmed, but the awful, empty gargling quality of her voice persisted. “The woman who works here told me I’m supposed to talk to you, get to know you, not talk about this place.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m not…” He trailed off, the words clogging in his constricted throat. He was going to say, “I’m not here for that,” but then Winter would ask why he was
here, and he’d have to say, “Because I’m the one who ran you over.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Robert. Rob.”

“Hello, Rob. You’re not catching me at my best.” She laughed, or maybe it was a sob. “What do you do?”

“I’m a musician.”

“What do you play?”

“The lute.” He took a deep breath. He stammered, starting and abandoning a half-dozen sentences. How could he broach something like this? It needed to be led up to, he couldn’t just blurt it out.

“Aren’t I the one who should be nervous?” She smiled, clearly trying to put him at ease. He was a wreck, blinking rapidly, his breath coming in shaky gasps. He closed his eyes, feeling like an idiot.

“I promise you, the only reason I don’t seem nervous is because my heart isn’t beating.” Winter’s own words seemed to startle her. Her mouth moved soundlessly, her eyes darting around as if seeking an escape route. “I’m really dead, aren’t I?”

He didn’t want to answer, but what choice did he have? “Yes.”

“She wouldn’t tell me much about the accident, when she woke me for the orientation.”

Somehow Rob’s heart found another gear. “Do you remember it at all?”

“No. Not at all. She said I was hit by a small vehicle? Does it say how I died, in my profile?”

Rob checked the timer in the wall above her head. He’d used up nearly four minutes; the remaining seconds were ticking away much too quickly. He needed to get to the point,
or this would be pointless, and nine grand he couldn’t afford would be wasted.

He just had to say it, let it spill out. He inhaled sharply, looked directly at her face, his heart pumping madly, and said, “There was—you were jogging, and a Scamp came around the corner too fast. The driver wasn’t paying attention. And he hit you.”

“It says it was a he?”

The timer was racing, the seconds bleeding away. Thirty-one seconds. Twenty-eight. “No, I know it was a he because I—.” He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. There wasn’t time. If he told her, there wouldn’t be time to explain, to express how sorry he was. To ask her forgiveness.

Nineteen seconds.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said.

She smiled. It was clearly meant to be a sunny smile, but with limited muscle control it looked like she was showing Rob her teeth. From her profile he knew she’d had a beautiful smile. “Sorry for what? I should be the one apologizing. You’re being kind enough to visit, and all I’ve done is talk about my accident.”

Eight seconds. She couldn’t see the timer. She had no idea how little time they had.