The Receiver

4 - S E C R E T

"Is he always this elusive?" Iris asks, stretching out on the crescent-shaped couch.

"I'm sure he's just busy," I plop down beside her.

"Doing what?" she asks.

"No idea."

"The other day you said he invented The Primal Trials. How does an uppercruster fall into bottomfeeder business?"

"I don't have any more answers than you do," I say, glancing around. "But money doesn't seem to be the issue."

We lapse into silence, the three of us facing the Welcome sign on the laserscreen. Iris sits forward and waves her arms in front of the screen.

"I think it's voice-activated."

"Oh." She drops her arms. "Laserscreen on?"

"Say it like a command," I suggest.

"Laserscreen on," she orders.

At her words, the massive WELCOME explodes in an impressive spray of pixels, passing through us in tiny ghostly cubes. The screen expands outward from the floor to ceiling, a sunlit landscape of rocky bluffs appearing on the wall. A bubble floats across the screen, pulsing with light.

"What is that?" Iris asks.

"It appears to be some sort of memo," Frank says.

"Open message." I say.

Zander's head materializes on the screen, twenty feet tall, his mouth big enough for me to fit inside.

"That's him," I tell Iris.

"Wow," she exhales.

"Hello girls," Zander says. "I hope you like you're new place. I trust my message about your designbot made it to you. And don't worry about prices. I've added enough credit to your cuffs to last for the next couple of months. They're on the coffee table." My eyes fall to the polished box on the table. "I know you're not familiar with the technology, but they're extremely user-friendly. You wear them like this." He lifts his wrist to show us. "It'll give you access to everything in the city. Take the day to go see a movie, buy some new clothes, whatever you want. I have a meeting tonight, but depending on how it goes, I might be able to have dinner with you. We can eat and chat about..." he trails off, eyes moving away from the camera for a moment, "the situation. Have fun."

His face dissolves and Iris swipes the box from the table. Inside, two flat silver devices rest on a cushion. Iris slaps hers onto her arm and it curls around her wrist, fitting snugly, and I follow her lead. The metal is cold on my skin. It reminds me of my prosthetics.

"I'm nearing low battery," Frank says behind us. "Should I plug into the charging station?"

"There's a charging station?"

He points to the far corner of the room, past the kitchen, where a small platform casts a hologram of a generic robot and a lightning bolt. I give Frank the okay.

Iris bumps her cuff with mine. "Shall we?"

I follow her toward the main door, wishing Milo and Katzan were here. The doors open at our approach and we step inside, the doors closing behind us.

"How does it work?" Iris whispers.

"Um. Can we leave, please? We'd like to take the monorail into the city and—"

"Whoa," Iris says just as a woozy feeling hits my stomach. Suddenly, I still feel hungover.

A second later, the doors open to a small crowd of well-dressed people. Some walk, some stand, some sit, but to my relief, none of them look at us.