An Imaginary Line

Chapter Three: Work

It was nearly 3:00 by the time Harper arrived to work.

"I see you decided to come in nearly on time today," quipped a young man playing with a synchronizer in the sound room. Harper rolled her eyes and kept walking through the office as she received a few odd looks from her coworkers. Just as she was about to open the door to the maintenance room--her sanctuary--her manager caught sight of her and called her into his office as he was shouting into his phone.

She walked in but stood near the door. He soon put the phone down and stared at her expectantly.

"Well? Should I wait for your excuse or placidly accept the fact that my employees will now be coming in to work on a Friday afternoon, at whatever time they please, and expect to find a job waiting for them on Monday?"

"I'm sorry, I was on my way to work when I got in an accident, and then I had car trouble, and it was raining so the traffic was awful, so--"

"One sniffle story per occasion is plenty, Bosko. The accident I do believe, but only because you've got blood on your face. Now get to work, and I don't care if you have to stay overnight to finish it. This machinery needs retuning before those flying cacti that call themselves musicians show up tomorrow morning."

"You got it, chief."

"Hey!" he yelled powerfully, right past her and in the general direction of two men moving a giant plant across the hallway. "Where are you taking that? I didn't authorize a ficus transfer." Harper turned on a dime and darted toward her haven of mechanical bliss before he could come up with a reason to dismiss her.

She immediately began setting tools apart to tackle the tuning job. She'd laid a blanket out on the concrete floor and was now cleaning them up and organizing them in order to work without distraction.

"Need any help with that?" a familiar come-hither voice called from behind her. She didn't lift her head. There was only one person in the world who would apparently stop at nothing to insinuate himself into her life.

"No thanks, I got this one," she answered.

Another member of the maintenance crew, sitting in the corner behind her working on his own project, shook his head, grinning.

"What man? It could happen," said the would-be Romeo.

"Yeah, not likely," he grinned, as he skillfully switched a drill gauge with one swift movement. "You know the chances of you getting matched with one specific girl is about one in a billion, right? Besides, you're both European stock, which only reduces your chances to about... Zero," he reminded him.

And that was true. It was next to useless to hope that anyone you knew would be your state-sanctioned match, because the whole system was designed to improve genetic variety, something that didn't take personal feelings into consideration. Most eligible civilians just waited for their match, never entertaining the idea of being matched with anyone they knew, because that always ended up in either soul-crushing heartbreak, or worse.

"Well, what if—"

"Don't even play, man."

"What? You don't even know what—"

"I know you were about to suggest just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I stopped you. You're welcome."

Harper, the only one among the group, or in fact the entire city of New York, who knew of her situation as a non-citizen, decided to put the issue to rest once and for all. After all, workers—cogs--were the scum of the earth; they were barely permitted to exist, let alone get matched.

"Listen Carter—it's Carter, right?—Let me save you some trouble. It would be literally impossible for us to get matched. So please leave me alone."