I was a bit taken aback. “Well, yes.”
“I don’t have much to compare it with. Everything up until today felt a bit dulled down, like you’re trying to get the feel of life through a thick, muffling blanket.”
“But you seem to be pretty well adjusted and speak perfectly,” I pointed out.
“Yes. I had time to learn these things as I developed.”
“Developed?” I asked, surely he didn’t mean that he had been in there long.
“Yes, I had been in there a while.” He seemed to know what I was thinking. “Don’t worry, I can’t read your thoughts. But when we are inside, we learn to listen.”
“Oh,” I said.
“And you can call me Jason. It’s less formal and you didn’t call him Mister Evans. Unless he asked,” he smirked. My face warmed up, I knew I was blushing and I wondered how much more Jason knew about me and Paul.
Soon we were back on the 151st floor. I stepped out in front of him and checked my digitary. I said, almost inaudibly, “Show me the board room.” An interior image of the boardroom came up. The board members were leisurely enjoying coffee and hovering in different parts of the vast room, some standing by the large windows facing out over the expanse of the city below. I snapped the digitary back to its small form and palmed it. I opened the door quietly and told Jason to wait outside. Mr Currington was leaning against the rosewood desk in the corner, with a cup of coffee in his hand, and his reading glass pulled up. These board meetings were one of the few times he bothered to put on a suit and tie, mostly the office dress code was casual to encourage a camaraderie between departments and levels.
Bill noticed me and said, “Off.” His single lens glass shrank back and disappeared behind his ear.
“Jason is ready, shall I show him in?”
“I want to speak with him first.” He stood up.
“Right this way. Would you like an office?” I expanded the digitary and whispered, “T four, one five one. Floorplan.” I glanced down, the office plan showed that there was a free room next door to the board room. “Prepare T four, one five one, twenty-seven.”
“Complete.” The voice spoke into my ear as I opened the door for Mr Currington and stood by as they greeted each other like old friends. There was little emotion in Jason’s face, and the set line of Bill’s jaw told me that this was a meeting to establish the order of control.
“This way, gentlemen.” I led them a few feet away and pressed my fingertips to the small, almost invisible panel with the number 27 above it. The door slid open. Inside the room, the temperature was comfortable, the windows shaded to just the right extent and there were hot and cold refreshments on the side table. I stood to the side to allow the men in, and then left, closing the door behind me.
I walked back into the boardroom and saw that Akhila had returned. The board members were grouped around her as she handed out pastries from the old-school bakery that was on the second floor of Tower 1.
I noticed that the chair where Paul had been sitting had been replaced and there was absolutely no sign of his ever having been in the room. I felt a twinge of sadness about how easily he was cleaned away, but I knew that if there had been any residual bits of Paul still in the boardroom, I may have lost it.
My relationship with Paul had been mostly physical, and we didn’t meet outside of the city, except that first time he came out to my home region and told me to apply for a job at Bonds Ltd. This current situation was too surreal, like that nagging, consequence-free feeling I got when “playing my role” in one of those interactive horror films.
I caught my reflection in the glass; I was so pale. I remembered my grandmother pinching her cheeks before she walked us into the meetings at town hall where we sang and listened to stories of the Union; she said it gave her a bit of life. I quickly pinched my own and hoped that she was right.
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Miriam Johnson is from Alabama, and currently lives in Edinburgh. She has a PhD in Creative Writing, and is busy doing another in publishing and social media— because, apparently, she is a glutton for punishment. She helps run Lunchquest.co.uk and plays roller derby between jobs.
Lacewing
Edd Vick
With all of time and space at their fingertips, Cait and Ron agreed to meet in the Jurassic. “Somewhere on the east coast of what will become Africa,” said Cait, “overlooking the Tethys Sea.”
There was brief confusion when Cait appeared in 160 million years BCE and Ron chose 180 million, but they soon reunited. The heat hit them, and the atmosphere—higher in carbon dioxide—made their hearts beat harder. “It’s love,” joked Ron.
They linked hands and strolled along a beach under a flock of pterosaurs snapping up enormous insects. The Earth baked, and they with it.
Cait flopped down beneath a fern. One of the insects cowered there, a butterfly if butterflies were the size of house cats. Its wings were filigree and shone with countless colors.
“Lacey,” she said, passing her hand over it, not quite touching. “Now you’re the only one here with a name.”
“Besides us,” said Ron. Whistles signaled from down the beach. Ron shaded his eyes, looking back the way they’d come. “And the ones after us.”
“Is it your family this time,” she asked, “or mine?”
He shrugged.
“Meet you in Rome,” said Cait, catching hold of something that yanked her out of then and there.
“Wait,” said Ron. “When?”
He smiled. It didn’t matter. He’d find her.
After he vanished, Lacey hopped to the edge of the fern’s shadow. She looked up. The sky was briefly clear of predators. She spread her wings and flew.
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Edd Vick is a graduate of the Clarion SF Writing Workshop. His stories have appeared in magazines including Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog, and many anthologies. By day a bookseller, he lives in Seattle with SF novelist Amy Thomson and their adopted daughter Katie (also five chickens, a cat, and a dog).
Into the Head,
Into the Heart
