“I think I’m still in the nostalgia loop,” I say, taking a sip of chocolate goo, “because I feel like I’ve been here before.”
“You have been here before,” Yide says. “This is Nighthawks. We’ve eaten here dozens of times.”
I look around at the neon lamps, the checkered flooring, the sizzling flat top grill, the simulWaitresses on roller skates, the glowing jukebox. Rock n’ roll blares, some simul named Roy Orbison synthing about the lonely.
“Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense,” I say. “My memory is just so patchwork right now.”
We goo in silence for a bit. Chuck Berry takes over synthing.
“I’m glad you feel better,” Yide says. “Yesterday was pretty rough. I’d never seen you like that. You didn’t even remember my name. I was worried you’d never get back to base.”
“The night of my breakdown,” I say, “you messaged me saying you’d had a terrible day.”
“That’s right.” Yide’s face turns toward the jukebox. “I got fired, Vonn. Half our company did. CEO Bubbles booked a call to say that our services were no longer needed, and terminated us on the spot.” Her eyes start tearing up, all soppy like.
“What was your job again?”
I don’t know if I’ve forgotten Yide’s job because of the after-effects of my Jaz binge or because I’m just an asshole. Either way, I know she’s told me many, many times before.
“I was Head of HR at Bee Hive,” she says in a different synth. “It’s a content machine with a family-like company culture. I added value by creating a smooth, streamlined, frictionless environment for our employees. It was a great experience which taught me an array of hard and soft skills, the likes of which will doubtless translate to a company like yours.” Yide’s head is vibrating, pulsing, in a trancelike state, and her hands are shaking.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “A company like mine?”
“A company like…” Her face settles into a wavy blue. “Sorry…that was an AI auto response.” Her synth switches back to normal. “I guess it was triggered by your question.”
“So you’ve been interviewing?”
“Yeah…” Yide glances down at the table. “No luck though. It’s a tough job market. You know…” Yide looks up. “I probably shouldn’t say this while we’re glassed, but I’ve been using that vacuum link that X sent. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. I’ve been reading that book, Burn It Down, and I’ve been trafficking the forums. You know, Vonn, users in forum are saying that Middle Management banned Jaz because people were remembering so much that they were making connections between the present and the past. They were seeing patterns. In a word, they were starting to see the system as a whole and getting angry.”
“The system as a whole?” I’m looking around Nighthawks, making sure nobody is listening to us. “It sounds like you’ve gotten in pretty deep, Yide. What the hell happened to you?”
Yide blushes. “It started when I got fired. On that call. With all the other workers. It was so impersonal, you know, the way CEO Bubbles just got us all on a call, like we were just, like, a soulless blob of simuls, and he let us all go, real efficient like, slaughtering everyone in one fell swoop, the same CEO, you know, who had the audacity to tell us we were a family, but then, when it comes down to it, he treats us like chattel, he stabs us in the back, just because profits dropped by 10% last quarter, and I’m sick of it, Vonn, I’m fucking sick of it, the hypocrisy, the brazen carelessness, and I’ve had enough of it, and yeah, you know, maybe that book, Burn It Down, might have been buzzing in my head at the time, I mean, like, maybe if I hadn’t read the book, maybe I would have thought it was normal, but it’s not normal, Vonn, or, at least, it doesn’t have to be.”
I’m not sure what to say to this. I sit there, listening to Buddy Holly synth about true love.
Yide leans forward. “Vonn, I think we should find this Elijah Mitchell guy. Maybe he has some answers, you know.”
“Answers to what?”
Yide gnaws on her lower lip. “I don’t know. But I can’t keep living this way. There has to be a better way.”
“There’s a name I remember. Claudette. For some reason, when you said there has to be a better way, that name dinged in my feed.”
“Claudette? She’s the Withouter that saved you or captured you or whatever that night we were at The Underworld. Wow, you must really be having memory glitches. Don’t you remember telling me and X about her?”
“Sort of,” I say. “But not really.”
Yide squeezes my hand. “You were so close, Vonn, I could see it in your eyes, the night we vacuumed, but you’ve forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?”
“What you were telling me that night about being burned out and vibe killed, about being crushed by the meaninglessness of your job, your life, and all that stuff with the vacuum link and the book, I could see the circuits connecting, the way you were arriving at the logical conclusion.”
“Which is what?”
“Well, it’s like Mitchell says in the book: a cage of pleasure is still a cage, and in order to escape the cage, you gotta burn it down.
“And how do you propose we burn down our cage?”
“Personally, I think the answer is in the device.”
“What device?”
“The device you swallowed.”
I see the reflection of my face in a mirror behind the counter, the way it curls into a question mark.
“You don’t remember,” Yide says, “because the Jaz hijacked snippets of memory, but you swallowed a device that Claudette was trying to give Elijah. If we can just retrieve that device and talk to Elijah, maybe he can tell us how to burn it all down.”
“Sure, but we don’t know where Elijah is.”
Yide does a double take, looking over her shoulder. Then she leans in. “I know where Elijah is, Vonn. Or, at least, I think I know how to get to him. You see, yesterday, when you were in the malWard, I unGlassed and looked at this strange object that I found in your jumpsuit. It was a piece of paper, Vonn, with an address on it. So I went there. And guess who I saw coming in and out?”
“Elijah Mitchell?”
“No, a woman. She had thick thighs.”
“Claudette?”
“It’s coming back to you, isn’t it?”
“Bit by bit.”
“The circuits are connecting.”
“Yes,” I say. “The circuits are connecting. So did you talk to her?”
“Not yet. I didn’t want to scare her away. She doesn’t know who I am. She might have thought I was Middle Management. But she knows who you are, Vonn, and I’ll bet she’ll talk to you.”
My nerves rattle. I think about my cosy persy, and then I think about my weekly performance reviews, the blurs of leadership all clouding toward me, the questions about engagement drops, the constant meetings, the never ending Tasks, and I find my hand floating down to my blaster, checking to make sure that the malWard didn’t confiscate it.
After lunch, we go for a walk.
I want to hold her hand. It’s all I can think about, holding her hand, as we walk through the goo court. But I don’t hold her hand. I’m too nervous. Too unsure of myself. I love being with her so much that I don’t want to ruin anything by making it weird.
We walk past the shops and kiosks until we get to the border checkpoint. Security Guards strand rigid beside a row of metal detectors. Middle Managers, dressed in gilets, pace, looking important. In the distance is an elevator. Everyone knows that the elevator leads to The Without, but it’s very rare for anyone to elect to leave The Within. Why would you? Life in The Without is full of pain and suffering, whereas life in The Within is full of entertainment and pleasure. You’d have to be crazy to defect. Of course, the few that ride the elevator up to The Without are never heard of again. We can assume they died of starvation or disease. And as for the occasional Withouter who gains legal entry into The Within, they return to The Without almost immediately because they are clearly too stupid to understand all the benefits of the wonderful technology in The Within.
“Do you ever think about going to The Without?” Yide asks.
“No, never.”
“I do,” she says, and I can see in her eyes a fierce determination that rattles my heart.
We stand in silence for a long time, staring at the elevator door.
“I’m going to the outskirts,” Yide says. “I have nothing to lose.”
But I do. I have something to lose.
And I can’t lose her.
So I say, reaching for her hand, “I’ll go with you.”