11
Check, Check
“Luna. Check my clip.” Kayla looked like she was taking her last dying breath chucking the clip across the mattress.
“Yeah, sure.” The butler counted the money in the metal clip. “Three, six, nine, twelve, thirteen. Two short from fifteen.”
Kayla’s eyes blinked, and her head fell to one side.
“How is life in the future for you?"
“I mean, I like it here. Everything’s a lot more interesting now.” Luna tilted off to one side to pick out her own headset. “This thing is magic.”
“Make me some ramen. I wanna talk.”
Luna’s enthusiastic grin subsided a little.
“I’ll get you something.”
The footsteps were heard, then some ruffling in the kitchen, then some chatter with a male voice with a third voice thrown in between, then the staircase noise that got louder and louder, and she returned with a sealed container in her hands with a metal fork she affixed with her thumb to the lid.
“You don’t need that tea, right?”
Kayla shook her head and the butler went to grab the mug inside as the clear flap moved away itself. The ramen container was inside, the machine’s inner sensor flashed twice, and a metal mechanism lowered onto the lip of the biodegradable resin cup. A tearing was heard, and the sound of hot water being inserted. On the outside of the automator, a timer ticked down from sixty as the processor whirred on a low drone. As the timer approached zero, the machine emitted an audible zip before the clear guard lifted again, the display that shone through the white polycarbonate surface reading 122 degrees. It beeped and Luna reached in to retrieve it.
“They told me it’s cool to touch.” She stuck the steel fork inside the stirred ramen with a neatly-cut top. “Here.”
“Have you ever worn anything goth, ever?” Kayla shot her a look as if she was interrogating Luna.
“Well, once?”
“When?”
“When I was, I forgot, fifteen? Sixteen? I was part of this high school pop club and I had to give a speech… in full costume.” They share an awkward laugh. “Why do you wanna know?”
Kayla was fully concentrated on her ramen. She was thinking of the thirteen count that Luna ended up with.
“Nothing, it was some dumb dream—“ She stared at the clip again.
“Tell me about it.”
Kayla looked at her.
Alex passed a mug of tea to Angel. The latter was holding the copy of the letter with her handwriting on it over the sheets that was pulled up to her waist. She read the letter, occasionally taking sips from her own mug. Her boyfriend stared at the TV, his eyes seeing what’s happening but otherwise not processing anything. The ruffling of the piece of scrap paper distracted him from actually watching anything.
“I uh, I just don’t understand.” Angel attempted to pass the paper to him, but he didn’t take it. He gazed on the note she wrote anyway. “You never told me why am I writing this. I don’t get it.”
Alex stood up at the side of the bed, and threw on a shirt. He was helping the rest of his clothes on when he collected Angel’s outfit and placed it on the bed in front of her.
“Let’s move this outside.” He looked almost apologetic at her. “Lest they hear it.”
Angel silently nodded. She clicked the mug into the slot on top of the utility processor, and a canteen in the bottom slot. The machine poured the remaining tea into the bottle. She fed a tea bag into the side of the white plastic block and shut the door. The clear tube that fed water through ran the fluid through, flushed through the leaves, and filled up the rest of the space. The couple swung out of the door.
They sat down at the square that was next to the disjointed block that was the Irvine District Mall. Colors floated on the ground, about one hundred eighty people gathered around them. They were sitting on a orange-glowing prism about fifty feet from the door.
Alex checked his pocket and opened his palm to her with two gummy bears laid on top. She took the green one while he took the yellow.
“Okay, I’ll just whisper.” Angel’s headset tuned itself to heed his warning. “Don’t sleep now, okay?”
She swallowed the bear and leaned into him.
“Do you want to see our paycheck? I mean, look at this.” He tiled his film for his lover to have a look. “That’s all our roles. They told me Kayla would be fine. But your handwriting could be convincing enough. We’ll hang onto this for another week, perhaps, then we could go take a rocket-jet to Europe.”
“I don’t know, I might have nearly killed her—“ Angel fell into his embrace. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“You won’t have to. I swear. I know this is hard for you, I fought the requirements because I knew you hated it. Syrup, please. I signed up for us. Just a few more weeks. Let them finish.”
“I don’t know, sugar.” Angel sat back up and checked her film for something to distract herself. “Are you sure they are going to deliver? What if they lied to us, and what if— what if— this is all for nothing? I don’t want to ruin people’s lives by plucking them out of the air just to live with us—“
He pushed her against himself and kissed her. On his release there was a subtle look of mild surprise on her face.
“Can I show you something, syrup?”
Alex raised his wrist and tapped the red ribbon on the central hub screen. The virtual transaction list moved to a screen for a check.
From Circle, Inc.
Pays Alex Fritz and Angel Vernon
Fifty thousand dollars and 00/100—
$50,000.00
Transferral effective immediately.
Accepted 45 min ago. Report transaction. Return.