Chapter 2
Lydia
He said he was okay. At least, I think that’s what he said. It was really hard to tell. I was freaking out, and he didn’t actually have a mouth anymore. Communication issues this early in a relationship are often bad signs.
Is there any way he was actually okay? He looked like his face was a mask rolling down itself with another mask underneath it.
It was one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen, but I also have a sort of sense of secondhand embarrassment, like I was witness to something I wasn’t supposed to see. Something intimate and personal.
Everything I’ve seen today is weirder than anything I’ve seen before.
Technology is wildly out of control and I don’t know how any of us are going to survive once this stuff gets out of the lab.
But that’s a problem for next month, or maybe a year from now.
Or maybe in the morning, Simon will be a puddle on the floor that gets inadvertently wiped up by the janitor and all his research will be lost forever.
I should have maybe gotten help for him, but I just went home and showered, and now I am tucked up in bed, my red lamp throwing a calming yet frankly Amsterdam-style feel across the room.
It’s supposed to stop me from fucking my sleep cycle up, but it turns out my dubious decisions do that well enough.
I can’t believe myself.
This morning, I would have sworn that I was a sane, responsible woman who doesn’t make rash decisions, especially not sexual ones.
I strictly adhere to a ten-date rule before I even kiss a guy.
Men don’t like that, but generally speaking I find that by the time ten dates roll around, I don’t like them either.
Today, though, I just slept with a man I don’t know.
I am going to have to go to the doctor about that, make sure I didn’t catch anything from a dude who apparently will fuck anybody who walks into his laboratory.
I don’t come off any better in that equation though, do I?
I am just as bad for it all. I let him. I practically begged him, without words. I didn’t say no. I just let him…
Clunk.
I startle at the noise. It’s usually pretty quiet here. I am on the first floor, but my apartment has gardens and a gate, well… more like a flower bed and a rusty old thing that squeals in the wind. Screeches are normal. Clunks are not.
There’s something outside the window. I can hear it rustling in the bushes.
I don’t want to look, but I have a feeling I will regret not doing so.
Creeping to the ledge, I peer out over it.
Something really is in the garden. A large dog, I think?
I breathe a sigh of relief. I was worried that it was him.
Dr. Seek. I laugh at myself a little. Of course it’s not an elite scientist poking around by the trash cans.
He wouldn’t, I don’t know, get my address from HR and then come and look in my windows, would he? He’s got better things to do.
My imagination is getting far too overactive.
Post-clunk, I make a decision.
I’m not going back to Z-Corp. I don’t care how many hot melting doctors they have there. I don’t think I could face Simon again anyway after just letting him have sex with me. I guess I got a little power back with the melting, but it still doesn’t feel great.
I remember the feeling I got in the lab, the sense that if I stayed there, I’d never really get out again.
There are urban legends about that place too.
There are a lot of stories about Z-Corp doing terrible things to people.
I took the job because I didn’t think they’d happen to me.
Then my boss’ face fell off and I reconsidered.
I decide to draft and send a short resignation letter so I don’t just become a no-show. It’s important to be professional even when you’ve just let yourself be ravaged by your boss.
I pull up the recruitment email I got a few days ago and hit reply.
“Sorry, Veronica, but I don’t think I am the right fit for the documentation project. It’s highly complex and involves technologies outside my wheelhouse. I think it best if I refer this to one of my colleagues who will be able to handle the task in a swifter and more accurate way.”
I’m going to send this job to my rival, Melody Firth. Melody would do anything for a job like this. She loves tech, loves innovation, and I think she melts men for fun, so she won’t be bothered by a man melting for her. Maybe.
I send the email, and I get a message back almost immediately, which surprises me. What admin staff is up answering work email at 11 p.m.?
“We expect to see you at the lab at 9 a.m. —V.”
I bristle indignantly. I don’t like being talked to as though I am owned. Who the actual fuck do these people think they are?
“I’m an independent contractor, and I’m giving notice. Thank you.”
“We will see you at 9 a.m. V.”
“You won’t though,” I mutter to myself.
* * *
I am at the lab at 9 a.m.
I’m not even sure why. Emails can’t tell me what to do. But I have that hollow guilty feeling at the notion of being expected somewhere and not meeting that expectation.
“Miss Barnes?”
A woman in her mid-forties with the shiniest blonde bob I have ever seen cut to viciously precision sharpness just between her chin and her shoulders approaches me with her hand outstretched.
She is wearing a Chanel-style suit that just happens to be in the same shade as the company logo.
Her shoes match too. Someone has spent a lot of money on her wardrobe.
I doubt it was her. She almost looks sponsored.
I have to assume this is Veronica Valentine, the famous V who both hired me online, and refused to let me quit last night.
I didn’t actually have an in-person interview, just a phone call.
The hiring process was so lax I was quite surprised by it, but the contract they had me sign when I accepted was anything but.
I think I had to initial about two hundred pages just to be allowed in through the front door.
“I wasn’t going to come today,” I say after shaking her hand. “I think I should leave my notes with you, though, for the next writer to continue with.”
“Yes, I’m aware. We believe you’re highly competent and very suited to the task. We’re sorry if you didn’t feel supported in the role, and we look forward to finding new ways to help integrate you into our workflow.”
She ignores my comment about returning the notes.
There’s something about this woman that unsettles me. She speaks like a robot, but a lot of people do that these days. Corporate speech has been a thing for a long time. There’s something extra shiny and extra smooth about her.
I want to walk out the front door, but I don’t, because I know that will seem unreasonable and unprofessional and this woman’s smiling features suggest she will leave negative reviews wherever she needs to in order to ensure that costs me.
“We’re very eager to retain you,” she says. “We’re prepared to offer an extra ten percent on your original offer, and a hundred percent completion bonus payable within the next nine months.”
“Why?” My question is so blunt it’s almost rude, but I am working in a place where people melt. So I allow myself a little rudeness.
It’s not what you’re usually supposed to say when someone offers you a great deal of money to do the job you already agreed to do, but I am curious, and concerned. Z-Corp has a lot of money.
“We believe in incentivizing the people we want on our team. We want you on our team. I believe Doctor Seek is waiting for you now.”
“I wonder if he has a face,” I mutter under my breath.
“Excuse me?”
Veronica gives me a look as if she understood exactly what I said, but is daring me to repeat it. I am not that bold.
“I wonder if he has space,” I lie. “The lab is quite crowded. I felt like I was in his way.”
“I’m sure he will make you feel welcome,” she says. “Off you go.”
Off I go, to the elevators, like a good little working automaton who does what she’s told because there’s money involved and she can’t live without it.
I am nervous to see the doctor again. I wonder if he’s going to be nicer to me.
Or worse, meaner. My stomach starts to churn with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.
I go down to the lab. I don’t have to be escorted this time, because my pass has been adjusted to allow me to use the fancy elevator that goes to the floor where his lab is located.
I let myself into the room where everything happened. It all looks… normal? I don’t know if I am disappointed or confused.
Dr. Simon Seek is already at work. He looks more handsome than ever, literally.
I imagine that having his body rebuild his face whenever he drinks the company ink means fresh, clean skin.
They could sell this stuff as skin care if they wanted.
People would buy it. People will buy anything that makes them look smoother.
“Hello,” I say. “You’re looking well today.”
It’s a slightly sassy comment, but I am a slightly sassy person.
He gives me a nod, then turns back to his work.
I am pissed. Instantly.
We fuck, his face starts to fall off, I run away, and he acts like I’m nothing and nobody?
I feel a hot flush of shame and what seems like rejection.
I didn’t expect him to welcome me with open arms, I guess, but some acknowledgement of what happened between us yesterday would be, well, nice.
Or just simple human decency. He probably doesn’t have a lot of either of those two things, I guess. Humanity or decency.
I slam my notes down on the table, which doesn’t do much because they barely weigh anything. There’s a slightly enhanced puff of air that is probably not going to have any impact.
He keeps doing what he is doing. I let out a long, passive-aggressive sigh and flip through the notes he’s allowed me to have. There’s nothing in here about turning into a boiling hot dog with little to no notice. Interesting omission.