The room I’m brought to is the size of a closet. I sit in an egg-shaped chair. It’s just me and Bunnfield. He gives me three addies, and after I swallow them, I start to feel almost human. He asks me to glass, which I do, naturally, and I find myself transported to a virtual spa. A waterfall hisses behind me. A nude masseuse kneels. She places her hands on my feet, and I feel my jumpsuit contracting. The pressure feels good. I must have walked at least a mile with Claudette, so I’m understandably very sore.
Bunnfield sits across from me. His naked masseuse is a masseur. For a moment, I forget that I’ve been detained, but then Bunnfield clears his throat or whatever, and he waves away the masseuse and the masseur, and it’s just me and him all alone with the waterfall.
“Let’s try to make this quick,” he grunts. “It’s been a long night. For both of us.”
I nod.
He snaps his fingers. A firepit appears. I feel the warmth. I know, instinctually, that upperManagement must be tuning in, but I can’t shake the sense that it’s just me and Bunnfield, two chums enjoying a nice spa visit all amped up on addies.
“Let’s start with the mal,” Bunnfield says. “When did it start?”
“What mal?”
“The mal.” He scratches his stubble. “Your activity log says you’ve unGlassed seven times tonight. What’s the nature of the mal?”
“No mal,” I say.
Confusion grows on Bunnfield’s interface and he's all, like, “I don’t understand. If there’s no mal, why unGlass?”
“Um…” I try to remember each unGlassing incident, but the addies are making it difficult, so I just shrug, which is hellaAwk because seven unGlassings is a lot for a whole year, much less three hours, and Bunnfield is all, like, “no ransom or nothing?” and I shake my head, no, and then, trying to change the subject, I say the first thing that comes to mind: “Vonn Industries is the leading producer of plastic in The Within.”
Bunnfield nods, seemingly satisfied with the favorable mention of my parentCompany. “What can you tell me about the Withouter?”
“Um…” I don’t want to tell Bunnfield anything about Claudette. Even sharing her name feels wrong to me. “I think it’s maybe a misunderstanding.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure the Withouter is a Withouter.”
Bunnfield furrows his brow. “What makes you say that?”
“A hunch, I guess.”
“I see.” He turns off the firepit. Then he puffs a vape, watching me intently. “Did you have previous contact with Claudette before the kidnapping?”
So Bunnfield already knows her name. I wonder what else he knows…
“She didn’t kidnap me,” I say. “She actually…saved my life.”
“I’m not following.”
“In the underWorld, when the shooting broke out…”
Bunnfield raises a hand. “I’m aware of what occurred in the underWorld. I’ve reviewed your stream. What I’m curious about, Vonn19, is what occurred outside of your stream.”
“You mean in the tunnels? I had to unGlass because there weren’t any sensors. It was all glitchy down there.”
A box enlarges in my peripheral. Spinning in the box is a beeping device, and my stomach drops.
“Do you recognize this device, Vonn19?”
“No,” I lie.
Bunnfield is silent for an uncomfortable amount of time, and I realize that he’s probably messaging upperManagement in a private chat, and meanwhile I remind myself that I was unGlassed pretty much the whole time I was with Claudette, which means there’s no footage of the device, which means they can’t possibly know I’m lying. And then I ask myself why I’m lying in the first place, and suddenly the notion of trying to save Claudette, whom I don’t even know, seems kind of stupid, and I’m just sitting there in the silence, knowing full well that it would be hellaSus to retract the lie now, which means I’m trapped in the lie, and all I can do is wait for Bunnfield to say something.
“You had your blaster,” he says. “Why didn’t you use it?”
I hesitate. “I guess…like…I didn’t want to or something.”
The silence is overwhelming.
“Let me ask you this, Vonn19: is there anything you’d like to tell me before we let you go?”
I swallow hard. The truth starts to bubble to the surface of my tongue, but I can’t release the words. I see myself, as if from above, sitting in the Interrogation Spa, almost like something you’d see on a detective feed channel, and I think to myself, helplessly, don’t forget to like and subscribe.