Tayi wakes up in a fairly irritated sort of slump, legs folded over one another and half hanging off of the large leather chair that held her up. She peels her arm off of her keyboard, admiring the pink marks embedded in her skin, and feels her ears twitch unprovoked. She yawns, arms pulling at themselves above her head in a stretch that makes her body shudder as she swivels around in the chair.
Silas lies, all too comfortably for it being hers, across her bed, his limbs sprawled out like someone had dropped him there. She ignores him in favor of fumbling through her desk drawer for a cigarette, kicking herself mentally for falling asleep in the first place when she knows she'll probably be working on her project all day now. Tayi pauses before she opens the door, pulling a previously discarded pair of light grey joggers on to counter the cool February breeze and then stepping out to face the acres of land leading up to the sunrise. If she turned the other way, the once-thriving forest would be blackened like she'd put her cigarette out on top of the pines. She tried to never turn the other way, the hastily built stack of decaying cardboard moving boxes sinking into the old couch that had been sitting across the deck telling a dark, ominous story.
Her lips curl around the cigarette with a sort of formality and she inhales deeply as she rubs her eyes with the heel of her free hand, wishing she wasn't always exhausted. The electricity tingling through the air seems to keep her in a constant state of alertness, so she gives in and materializes the screens as internet pages, settling for scrolling through the local news channel's website.
She's just finishing up when Silas appears next to her, and they stand in silence for a minute until he hands her a cup of coffee.
"Anything good today?" he doesn't look at her, staring out past the line of trees at the clouds but smiling when her face shifts at the rumchata-coffee concoction.
"No," she muses quietly, releasing another disturbingly pent up yawn "Not really. Sixty and sunny today." and he grins at her, eyes filled with some sort of humor Tayi couldn't quite place.
"I miss the weather before the Calamity." Silas's voice is low, eyes lost in the mess of sunset and trees in the far distance.
Tayi doesn't respond, and she smashes the Marlboro between her fingers into the wood of the railing until the butt is snapped and black ash is dripping off in pieces. Silas flinches, even if he tries not to when the lightbulb above them shatters to pieces.
The electricity that tingles through the air in streams of cool, relaxing waves calm her down after a minute and lull her into staying awake, even if it's just for an hour. She doesn't apologize for the lightbulb, and Silas perches next to her on a separate chair to watch with either boredom or a feigned interest; Tayi couldn't tell. The monitor blazes to life before she even sits down, and as soon as she types in her password, she feels her heart sink into her stomach. Her screen is unfrozen, and whatever pop up she'd been trying to fix for days since it appeared, is gone without a trace. Eyes wide, Tayi flicks her screens up and immediately scans through all of the coding. She finds nothing out of her ordinary and immediately pours a glass of Hennessy even though it's definitely too early in the morning.
"I don't understand any of this shit." Silas tells her passively, trying to break the awkward tension she's created around herself and stands up "Let's go out, eh? It's Saturday, you know."
She scowls at him softly "Saturday means nothing to me. I'm not leaving."
A beep sounds from the wireless speakers on either side of the desk, loud enough to catch both of their attention immediately after it stops.
"An email?" Silas inquires at the screen, leaning in to make sure it was real "But you don't talk to anyone?"
It was phrased more as a question like he thought she was hiding some sort of secret group of friends she'd obtained online, and Tayi almost laughs. She'd made sure to stay away from any and all social media, nestling herself in a plethora of computers and coding for what feels like her entire life. Settling for a nod instead, she stares at it for a second before opening it on the main screen so Silas could see it too. She's too nervous to touch her mouse so she clicks it open mentally, email opening far more quickly than she would've liked, and swallows as she begins to read it.
'Tayi Yako,' it begins, the foreign language switching to English through one of her programs, Silas nodding appreciatively at the switch so he could follow along with her 'Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Makato Kushimia, head director and inventor at New World Technology located in Iwaki, Japan. My staff and I have previously been in contact with your father before the accident, and have therefore been keeping our tabs on you as well, of course. Noting your various accomplishments through our partner US company Net World Technology, I would simply love for you to come on site to work with me on my latest project! If you're interested, we can discuss the finite details and pay, as well as the few things NWT needs on your behalf. If you have any questions, feel free to call my personal number or email back at your convenience. It is indeed hard to reach you, you know! Your firewalls are impeccable!
Sincerely,
Makato Kushimia'
She stares at the screen unblinking for a minute, the clinking of glasses sounding in the background as Silas pours glasses of more than likely the last of her fireball.
"Well?" He pushes slightly as she accepts the glass from his hand, sipping it almost immediately with a shrug.
"I'll figure it out after this drink. Maybe one more. Maybe three days locked in a game."
Tayi purses her lips into a thin, anxious line as she stands up and trudges out the door, tail sagging with exhaustion and stress through an angry slice in the back of her two-sizes-too-large t-shirt. Her head tingles as she moves through the long hallway and down the staircase to the living room, Silas following slowly behind her and settling down on the chair next to the couch she chooses to sprawl face first into.
"You have to answer, you dumb bitch." He lights a cigarette casually, the smoke rising up and disappearing before it could come close to the large skylights above them, then hands Tayi one before he starts again "You should go, too. It sounds like a pretty good job, sorta. At least he sounds like he's willing to do whatever you want, and really, how bad could what he want from you, of all damn people, be?"
She bursts into laughter almost immediately, nodding after a minute with a red face and tears in her eyes "This is a fucking joke, right? He wants me to leave the house, to go to wherever Iwaki is, of all the places he could've picked, oh my god. Not a chance in hell."
"Tell him you want two tickets then. I'll go with you, and you'll get something you want from him. He was friends with your dad, Ta." The offering of advice is more heartfelt and sympathetic than Tayi would have liked, but she accepts it as it is anyways and nods at him. She blows out smoke and ashes the cigarette with a flick of her fingers "Sure, sure. I'll think about it."
She leans across the couch on her stomach after she smashes the rest of her smoke out roughly in the ashtray, the black fur of her tail covering the back of her exposed legs as a built-in blanket, and closes her eyes in a weak preparation to nap as the alcohol takes hold of her stress and melts it away.