11 Office Face

"You know," Marci says, "For a rescue mission, you're not doing a great job."

Okay, yes, she has a point, but-

"It was supposed to be a wellness check."

I fill my paper cone with water, but I don't drink from it, yet. Marci doesn't fill hers. She just leans against the wall.

And it looks like she needs it.

Funny. My last job, back in my reality, also had a water cooler. The type that punches a hole in the bottle cap for you, so you don't even have to waste any water. I still remember the time my brother tricked me into drinking from the hot water tap.

'Course, we were both little, and he thought it was the room temperature tap.

...Put me off coffee until I was in college. And then I got burned again.

"But," Marci says, "you know about the weird magic. The possibility of weird magic stuff. And you still just—"

She waves her free hand.

"—waltzed in. Watch your step. Cooler leaks sometimes. Gets real slippery."

"Thanks. For a missing woman, you look fine."

She smiles a little. "Thank you."

"No, I don't mean like that. Though you—Nevermind."

This is not a good time to start blushing. Good thing I'm dark enough for it not to show, unless she has thermal vision. Which very few people do.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

I'm not really flirting, but she giggles anyway. It's a nervous giggle. The type that's two steps away from tears.

"You know about the algorithm?"

"By reputation."

"I was poking it with a stick. Got up for a cup of coffee. When I came back, reality was…breaking around my computer. Things were changing. And you know my first thought?"

"No,"

"The Elephant's Foot."

"The one in Chernobyl?"

"No, the one in Cher-" She blinks. "Huh. Most people wouldn't get it."

"I read a lot. Have a good memory."

"Hm. I remember thinking 'I hope I can still have kids,' then I was here. Wearing—" She plucks at her blouse, lets it fall. "—wearing this. Even got a haircut."

She rubs her eyes with the back of her cup hand, and sighs.

I say, "Yeah, me too. Plus, I'm shaved. On...on my face, at least. Can you hack into the company network?"

"Already tried. Got bupkis."

I wait. She doesn't explain. I raise my eyebrows.

"I mean, I got through, but it just connected to another network. Another company network. As far as I can tell, the Internet is just corporate networks, connected to each other."

"So we're…what? On the elemental plane of white-collar business?"

"Maybe. Did you notice the year on the computers?"

"I noticed they were running Windows 98. And I noticed the year was 1999. Isn't that the year-"

"—Office Space came out, yeah."

"A lot of other things happened that year."

"I know." She shrugs. "But it might mean something."

"Objection, Your Honor, circumstantial. The Matrix also came out in '99."

She snorts, shrugs. "I'm just saying it might mean something."

"Okay, sure."

"Maybe we're in a sim of an AI trained on Office Space and Dilbert," I said. "Maybe it's some kind of sentient algorithm that figured it out how to do magic from first principles. Maybe we're just rats in a maze, and it's waiting to see what we do. What lever we push for a food pellet."

We both look up.

No plexiglass. Nothing but boring, grey, acoustic tile.

"Speaking of food," I say, "have you noticed any deliveries? If nobody ever leaves, where does the food come from?"

"I don't know. Maybe it grows. Like the white fuzz on leftovers." She looks at the windows, and the buildings outside, surrounded by fog. "There's nothing out there."

"I…see office blocks and fog."

"No, I mean, the time. If you looked out there, what time does that look like?"

"…Oh."

"Exactly. It's never night, never day, just—" She waves her hand toward the window. "Grey. No sunrise, no sunset. No birds. No cars below. No choppers above."

I nod. "Yeah, that seems like something an AI would do. Saves processing power."

"Or a lazy game developer."

Lazy.

Like I've been spending the last few weeks.

"Floyd? What's that look on your face?"

"What exactly do we do here?"

She shrugs. "Move numbers on spreadsheets, as far as I can tell. Why? What do you do normally?"

"Right now? I…"

The words stick in my throat.

I look away.

Swallow hard.

Look back.

And give her a half-smile.

"Nothing."

And it all comes spilling out.

-/-

"So," Marci says, "you've been chilling in your room, doing NEET things, because you're worried the real world might be a simulation, and nothing you do matters."

"Right."

"So—" She waves her hand vaguely. "—all this would be a simulation inside of a simulation?

"…Yeah. Maybe. I don't know." Can you repeat the question?

She doesn't say anything for a while. Just stares at me. Then: "You're displacing."

"What?"

"Dis-pla-cing, Bahama boy"

"Like a boat?"

Her smile's very sarcastic. "Like you can't deal with your issues, with the risk, so you're pretending they aren't real. Is…Is that why you use the fake name?"

"Huh?"

"Pink Floyd. Eric Clapton. Not exactly subtle. You even a prog rock fan?"

I hold up my hand, then remember that I don't have Sadie. Would she have made it through if I'd been wearing her? "I have a ring that acts like a prism. I remembered the Dark Side Of The Moon cover. And - and I thought you majored in Comp Sci, not Psych."

"I have Spotify. Stop trying to change the subject."

I know that tight, hot little feeling between my eyebrows. I've never liked it. Or the tight smile on my lips. "Okay, Herr Doktor. You know the odds, right?"

"Yep. If simulations are possible, and they can nest, it's more likely that we're in the simulation than not." She shifts her voice to sound like an old lady. "You're clever, young man, very clever, but it's simulations all the way down!"

I understand that reference. "There you go."

"And why didn't you think about this until after the school shooting? What are your friends feeling? Gabe and Olive? Probably had to beat off the press with a stick."

"Olivia."

"Deflecting again."

That spot between my eyebrows keeps getting tighter. "Okay, fine. I guess they're -"

"You guess? When was the last time you checked? How about church? Your barber? You think they're worried about you?"

Something stabs in my chest, like an invisible man just poked me with a pen. You did it again. "Well, I mean, I've been busy-"

"Doing what?"

I say nothing.

"…Look, I get it, I really do. After…after mom's cancer, I took a while to get back on my feet." She reaches out - and up - squeezes my left shoulder. "But hiding from the problem isn't going to fix it. I think…I think you need to decide what world you're going to accept."

I can't look at her.

"…But that's not everything, is it?" she asks.

No, it's not.

"…I found a dead guy. Murdered. Locked in a shipping container. The murderer nearly killed me. Nearly left me dead and rotting, like…"

There's a moment - just a moment - when I think I can smell the inside of that container. And Veracruz. What I did to his legs. Smells rusty. Tastes rusty.

I swallow. Twice. "...I have dreams, sometimes."

"Dreams?"

"Nightmares."

"...Have you…talked to anyone? About this?"

I shake my head. "Just you."

"What about the family?"

I smile. Technically. "They're in another universe."

"No, the ones you live with. The Ambroses. You said the dad works with cops, right? He should know how to deal with this stuff. Or people who know people who can help you."

"The Aldrins."

"Not the point."

Slowly, I say, "It's funny. All this weird sh-stuff in the world, and I nearly get people killed by procrastination."

"Yeah…" Marci says. "Why, exactly?"

Something clenches in my chest.

"...I don't know." I lift my paper cup. "Why are you only pretending to drink?"

"It's…I have a theory. Because I've been here long enough to see people…change."

She puts the heel of her free hand to her eye sockets, shudders, takes a deep breath.

"If it's in the air, I'm already screwed. But if it's in the water - or food - I think I have a shot. Maybe we can figure out something. Together."

When she lowers her hands. the dark circles around her eyes look…deeper, somehow.

Kind of like the ones under mine. But I had those when I came in.

You ever have that moment when you notice something, and realize it's been there all along?

Well, this is the moment where I suddenly become very, very aware of the smell of the water in my cup.

And how little of it is left.

And the taste in my mouth.

And the funny sinking feeling in my stomach.

"Have…have you ever seen anyone take a break?"

"N-no. Besides you and me."

"There's dust in the break room. Even on the microwave. And the H.R. Giger coffee machine. Like nobody actually uses it."

"…Like somebody made a break room without knowing what it's actually for."

Break room.

Breaks.

Why does that—

"Um."

She looks at me sharply. "Um what? What are you thinking?"

"Okay, I don't mean to alarm you, but…when was the last time you slept?"

"I…It was…" Her eyes go narrow. But not at me, at something off in the distance. Chronologically speaking.

And then her eyes go wide. "Oh."

"Yeah," I say.

"Oh, s—"

"Clapton!" someone shouts. "Fishbrook!"

I cringe. Haven't had a regular job in a while, but I still have the instinct.

…Probably Mum's fault.

"Are you slacking off?"

The angry…guy headed our way has large feet - the better to stomp with - and big eyes - the better to see slacking workers with. Also, a blue shirt with white cuffs and collar.

All he'd need is suspenders, and glasses, and he'd look like a caricature of the boss from Office Space.

Marci gives me a See? See? look. I refuse to give her the point, and give the boss my Loyal Employee smile.

"Just taking a smoke break, boss."

He growls, "I don't see any fire."

I look down at the cup. "Knew I was forgetting something."

He nearly rolls his eyes out of his head, which would take some doing. "How do you expect to get the corner office if you're busy making time with Miss Fishbrook?"

I could come up with some kind of witty retort, honest. But a tactical belly-showing might be in order. So I dump the cup into the bin, tip my imaginary fedora to Marci, say, "Miss Fishbrook," and turn away.

And I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I see her smile. I certainly hear her say, "Mis-ter Clapton."

And there's something in her voice—

Nah.

Couldn't be.

We just met.