The Soulmate Curse

Promise

From her office desk, Zhen watched as Finn opened an office stationery pack for a few items she'd ordered. She stoically accepted the rain of glitter that spewed out of the tiny glitter bomb that Zhen had secretly added to the box. All the office robots and AI powered vacuums beelined for Finn, completing the prank. She was soon inundated by robots begging to help her clean the mess. Knowing the nature of glitter, the robots would hover for at least an hour. Zhen ducked her head and laughed. She wasn't the only one. Their colleagues had caught on to the prank war between the two and were always waiting to see what would befall either of them next.

"I'll be picking out glitter from my hair and places that glitter shouldn't be for weeks," said Finn.

Zhen looked up at her. Finn was fishing glitter from inside her V-neck tee, trying to be discreet. A few of the robots had followed behind, cleaning up the glitter trail she was leaving behind. Zhen couldn't help laughing again.

"Okay," said Zhen, wiping away tears. "Maybe that was a tad bit much."

Finn rolled her eyes, but she was fighting a smile. "Oh really?"

That week they were working on a system that would mechanise and digitise all the gardens that littered the urban landscape. When the city had made it law for all cars in the urban centre to be self-driving electric cars, pollution had significantly dropped in just a few months. A little after, all the public land in and around town was seized by the local Victory Garden Organisation and turned into gardens to feed those living in the city and employ the homeless, most of whom were addicts or couldn't qualify for Universal Basic Income. Finn and Zhen were tasked to prototype machinery and robots that could be used to maximise production and aggregate all the food that these little gardens could grow.

The task took much longer to tackle than any other they had worked on. It meant late nights and early mornings. Without planning for it, the two started leaving their apartment and walking back in the dead of night together. They were usually talking about work, but Zhen couldn't say she hated it. She also couldn't admit that, maybe, she wanted more. It was a bittersweet feeling. An emotion swathed in gritty resentment and fear and loss. She'd find herself being happy in Finn's company then the sudden awareness would shatter into a thousand shards of pain and sadness. A nauseating rollercoaster of feelings.

"Do you think we're ready for the presentation next week?" Finn asked as they took the corner that led to the entrance of their apartment building, pulling Zhen from her thoughts.

"We're making good progress," said Zhen.

Zhen was about to say something else, when she heard an odd voice in the landscape shrubs that were planted in large containers close to the apartment building's doors. She stopped and looked at the planters. A scraggly orange paw was poking out, just under the shrubs. The cat meowed again. It was almost summer, but the nights were still bitingly cold. Poor guy was probably just looking for some place to crash. Zhen opened the building's door and let Finn walk in first. Then she waited, holding the door open. A few moments later, the cat poked its head from under the shrubs, then jumped from the large planter and dashed into the heated lobby. It found a cosy corner and curled up to sleep.