Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
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A man and woman waited at the front entrance, chuckling to themselves. When Ty asked how he could assist them, they shook their heads.
"We're already being helped by a big ol' buck," the robust woman said.
As Ty struggled to understand the meaning of her phrasing, Wallace appeared. He was frazzled, sweaty, and toting an armload of merchandise he dumped on Samantha's register.
"What the--" she began.
"How else can I help you?" Wallace ignored her protests in favor of the couple.
The woman checked over her list. "Ah need a yellow table cover, with a table skirt."
Wallace nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
He hurried down the aisle.
"Grab me some napkins too!" she hollered after him.
But he brought them the wrong napkins, at least, according to the customer.
"I need luncheon size, not beverage. Now hurry up, boy!"
She and her male companion laughed, and from what Ty could tell, they were laughing at what they were putting Wallace through.
To end their gross display, Ty offered to help them checkout.
"The boy'll help us. Thanks, though," the man said.
"His name is Wallace!" Samantha called from her place at the register.
The couple seemed not to hear her.
Wallace was a nice guy times ten. His face never revealed what had to be disdain for the couple. Despite everything, he rang up their purchases with a smile. He even thanked them, telling them to come back to see him.
On her way out of Good Time, the woman remarked, "What a nice boy!"
"What assholes." Samantha vented once the store was empty. To Wallace, she asked, "How did you keep from screaming, or ripping their heads off?"
He kept his smile. "It's just a job, and they're just people. They think they're taking something from me, but really, they're paying my salary. Plus, I can't give in to the most obvious stereotype."
Ty asked, "Meaning?"
Wallace's customer-service attitude slid from his face. Without the plasticine, he looked tired.
"I can't be an angry black man."
Samantha looked as impressed as Ty felt. Most of the time, Wallace's feel-good attitude lacked any foundation of logic. There were plenty of Wallace-related stories shared amongst the employees, spreading the perception of Wallace-the-simpleton.
Today, he was anything but.
"At least people like them are rare," Ty said.
Samantha and Wallace stared at him like he'd shed his clothes.
"What?"
"People like that are not as rare as you'd like to believe," Samantha said. "Today, I rang up a woman trying to find the perfect princess-themed napkins. She was upset because the Good Time brand have black and white princesses on them. She said it wasn't fair for the manufacturer to offer only one choice."
"That's not great," Ty said, twirling the cart of go-backs, "but racism has mostly disappeared."
"Really?" She rested a hand on her hip. "Tell that to Wallace, who lives in a near all-black neighborhood."
"What is she talking about?" Ty asked Wallace, who looked away without answering.
They had been close friends for a while, but Wallace had yet to speak candidly about his neighborhood, or anything concerning race.
Ty wheeled away the cart of returns, as he had little to say to Samantha. She ranted on about segregation, how the concentrated presence of minorities in a neighborhood brought down the value, and how minorities had a greater chance of attending poorer schools due to neighborhood segregation.
"Where is all this coming from?" Ty asked, worried a batch of customers would be within earshot.
He was also amazed at how well-read she was on the subject, for it was one he had never touched on in his lifetime.
Samantha gestured to Wallace. "We've been talking about stuff."
His memories, brainwaves, and thought patterns in a woman's body for a couple of days, and look what it had spawned. He wanted to steer the conversation in different directions, as it was making him uncomfortable as hell.
"I know you think you're a feminist, and I think that's adorable, but really, let the men talk," Ty said, patting her on the head.
It was a line from a popular television show, and he had meant it as a joke, but his delivery of it had been too serious, partly because he believed what he was saying.
"Oh, cold, if not a tad sexist," Samantha said.
"Lighten up!" Wallace snickered in an apparent show of betrayal that Ty found funny.
She frowned, but shut up. Ty didn't know why she was so upset anyway. What he'd said was just a joke, that was all.
Just a joke.
~*~
A/N: Dedicated to benaddict31 , a fellow horror writer. Her work has been featured on The Exorcist and Incarnate profile, and a bunch of other awesome stuff.
She's one more member of #TeamInsides&Entrails for the Zombiepalooza featured on the WalkingWithZombies profile.
