“They track you each time you come in, keep your measurements updated, let you know how your body’s changing over time,” Avery explained. “I know guys who come in here just to track their workout progress.” Rebecca began typing on a tablet, and a holographic scan of Watt’s body, a big blue silhouette, was projected in the middle of the room.
“What kinds of details will you be wanting? Button size, lining, lapels …?” Rebecca asked, a little edge to her voice, and looked at Watt expectantly.
Nadia? Where are you?
“Why don’t you set the scene,” Avery suggested to Rebecca, reading Watt’s silence. “It’s for the University Club gala, so I’d say cherry floors, dim lighting, and the dark walls lined with those terrible white curtains—you know which ones I’m talking about.”
You told me not to volunteer information unless it was requested directly, Nadia answered.
Well, I take it back, Watt snapped.
Rebecca clicked away at the tablet some more, and instantly the room transformed into the empty dance floor of a distinguished wooden ballroom, with high, narrow windows looking out into the night. A few more taps, and holographic couples in tuxes and floor-length dresses appeared in several small clusters.
The silhouette of Watt’s body was still hovering there, like a ghostly headless mannequin. Rebecca nodded and a black tux materialized on it, the exact size and shape that it would be when it was sewed to Watt’s specifications. “Midnight blue, navy, or black?” she asked.
“Black?” Watt guessed. He watched as she approached and began moving her hands through the air, pinching her fingers to zoom out or widening them to focus on certain details. She chose the lapel first, scrolling between various widths and textures of silk, glancing from the projection to Watt and back.
“Formal attire is supposed to be minimalist, to detract attention from the body of the wearer,” she was saying, almost under her breath, “but you have such a wide chest, I’m thinking you might want a broad notched lapel, to balance you out.”
“Sure,” he said helplessly. Was that supposed to be an insult?
“Is your bow tie butterfly or bat-winged?”
Nadia had projected a guide to bow-tie shapes onto his eyes, but Watt was still floundering. Avery and Rebecca were both looking at him, expectant. “I don’t have a bow tie,” he said. “I mean, it got ruined too, with my last tux. I need everything.”
Understanding flashed in Avery’s eyes, and she stepped forward. “I like butterfly, myself,” she said quickly. “I prefer more classic styles. What do you think of jetted pocket, cummerbund, and optional suspenders?”
“That’s perfect,” Watt said, grateful, as Rebecca glared at him and made the necessary adjustments to the projection.
Watt swallowed when he saw the bill, but he could afford it thanks to all the payments he’d collected from Leda lately, especially the bonus she’d given him for the pics of Atlas in the Amazon. Really he owed this entire date to Leda, he thought, with a strange amusement. If it wasn’t for her, he would never have realized that Avery existed.
As he and Avery walked out the front doors—which had now taken the form of old ironwork gates, with holographic vines creeping over them—Avery turned to him. “This is your first tux, isn’t it?” she asked softly.
Nadia offered him an array of excuses, but Watt felt tired of hiding the truth. “It is,” he told her.
Avery looked unsurprised. “You didn’t have to lie to me, you know.”
“I didn’t lie. At least, not about anything important. I just didn’t tell you everything,” Watt hastened to say. He’d told Avery the truth whenever she asked—about how many siblings he had, for instance, or what he liked to do. Whenever she asked a question he didn’t want to answer he had neatly dodged it, and let her fill in the blanks with the assumptions he knew she would make. He’d been so proud of himself, but suddenly it did seem a lot like lying.
“Actually I live on the two hundred fortieth floor,” he confessed, then glanced away, unwilling to see her reaction.
“Watt.” Something in Avery’s voice made him look up. “That stuff doesn’t matter to me. Please don’t lie to me again. Too many people lie to me as is. I thought—” She pursed her lips, frustrated. “One of the reasons I like you was that I thought you were actually honest with me.”
“I am,” Watt assured her, thinking guiltily of Nadia, and all the information she’d given him on Avery, to help his chances. But wait—had Avery just said she liked him?
“Oh no. Watt!” Avery exclaimed, blushing. “We need to go cancel your tux order!”
“Why?”
She blushed adorably. “Because! Don’t you want to go somewhere less expensive? Or you can rent one! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize, when I suggested Norton Harcrow, that you—”
“I’m getting the tux,” Watt said firmly, and Avery fell silent. “I can buy it and I want to buy it, and mostly, I’m excited for the chance to wear it, with you. Besides,” he went on, confident again, “I’m hoping this isn’t the last gala I get to take you to.”
Avery smiled at that. “Who knows? Maybe you’re right,” she said opaquely.
“I’ll take a maybe for now.” Watt paused on the sidewalk, not wanting this to end. “In the meantime, can I buy you a coffee to thank you for helping me with my first tux?”
“There’s a place down the street that has awesome hemp milk chai. And hot coffee,” she added, catching his expression, “if you don’t like hemp milk.”
“Who wouldn’t like hemp milk?” Watt said in mock seriousness.
As he followed Avery to the coffee shop, Watt’s mind was racing, thinking over everything she had said—and everything he hadn’t.
Avery was right. She deserved more than the way he’d been treating her, pretending to be something he wasn’t, trying to tell her exactly the right thing. He wasn’t just trying to sleep with her—well, he amended, he wasn’t only trying to sleep with her—so why was he acting like it? What he really wanted was to pursue Avery. For real.
And so Watt made a decision he’d never made before. He would stop using Nadia when he and Avery were together.
See you later, Nadia, he thought, then sent the command that would power her all the way down. Quant off.
He felt the sudden emptiness like a sound, or rather a lack of sound, like the silence that echoed after a summer storm. He hadn’t turned her off since the day she was installed in his head.
“Here it is,” Avery said, pushing open the door and looking back over her shoulder at Watt. Her eyes were so startlingly blue it almost took his breath away. “I hope you’re ready for the best coffee you’ve ever tasted.”
“Oh, I’m ready,” Watt said, and followed her inside.
RYLIN
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, RYLIN stood outside the 50th floor entrance to Lift Maintenance, steeling herself. She could do this, she told herself. She had no other choice.
Pasting a smile on her face, she walked in the metal double doors and winked at the craggy old security guard behind the flexiglass sign-in counter. He grunted, barely looking up as she sailed past, recognizing her from all the times she’d been here with Hiral. Technically only lifties were allowed past this point, but Rylin had seen plenty of their significant others in the locker room before, delivering forgotten items or cleaning out dirty laundry.
The locker room was musty, and smelled like stale sweat and grease. Rylin walked confidently to the far side, past two guys in the corner who were stripped to the waist, playing some game on their tablets to kill time. They were the skeleton weekend crew, on call in case of emergencies. Moving quickly, she punched in the passcode to Hiral’s locker and swung the door open.