Dangerous (19 page)

She told me to button my blouse as we left.

The air outside was hot, and smelled of distant brush fires.

14
breach

I FELT JETLAGGED as I pulled up to the front gate, on the first Monday morning of Daylight Savings Time. And once again my security badge didn’t work. Two hundred and fifty pounds of Security Guard Tyler slithered out of the guardhouse to peer down through my open window. Under those mirrored eyes I unconsciously pulled the top of my blouse closed.

“How was your weekend, Sunshine?” he asked, with coffee breath. When I didn’t answer, Tyler held out his hand. “Lemme see your badge, hun.” According to the computer my access had expired, which I thought was preposterous. He phoned the front desk to verify my employment status, then fiddled on his computer and told me my card would be working again by tomorrow.

My skin crawled when he touched my hand overlong to give me another temporary badge. “Have a nice day, Sunshine!” he called as I sped away.
Screw you, creep
, I thought, as I thought about filing harassment. But what had he really done?

“I think the new guard likes you,” said Shelley as I staggered in the door.

“Oh god, I need coffee,” I moaned. But when I reached the coffee machine I found Shelley hadn’t made any yet. Irritated, I prepared it myself and imagined how Val might deal with such a lazy doll. The resulting mental drama brought a wicked smile to my lips and chased away the bad taste of Tyler.

I thought back on last night. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I actually knew
less
about Val than before our dinner with Milton. Sure, I had learned the names of a couple of past dolls—Carly, Ava—and heard tantalizing hints about past events. But these only heightened, rather than dispelled, the mysteries surrounding my Keeper.

I hoped I’d have a chance to tease some information out of Milton, in two weeks’ time.
Oh, god.
The trip was a yawning abyss of unknowns, filling me with apprehension. The man seemed equal parts gentleman and libertine. It was also unclear whether Val planned to accompany me, but I secretly hoped she wouldn’t.

I couldn’t concentrate on work, as I replayed the events of the weekend in my head. I recalled Brent’s comment about my debut making a splash in the gossip-blogs, but thankfully an internet search with the terms
koishi photographs elements encino
yielded no results.

About an hour before lunch, Carl summoned the crew to morning dailies, where we reviewed the latest versions of the shots we were working on. As we sat in the darkened screening room my cellphone vibrated silently in my pocket. I snuck a peek and found a text message from Val.

NE Corner of Sunset and Vine. 12:00pm sharp. Get in the car.

That was it. No explanation, just the brief, enigmatic instruction. The intersection in the message was about five minutes’ walk away. Fortunately the meeting broke up at 11:45, giving me time to decline a lunch invitation from a coworker and walk to my assigned destination with a few minutes to spare.

The massive bank building on the northeast corner of the intersection was fronted by a large circular water fountain with a tiled lip. That was where I sat to wait, as people and automobiles surged past in rhythm with the traffic lights. It was about 95 degrees in the blazing sunlight.

Val hadn’t said if it would be her car or not, so I didn’t know what to look for. But eventually a black car turned from Sunset onto Vine, and pulled to the curb before me with the hazard lights on. The passenger window rolled down, through which the driver called out, “Miss Paz?”

I went to the window. “Yes?”

“The rear door is unlocked, Miss.” The driver had a vaguely Eastern European accent. He wore a suit, and pilot-style sunglasses, dramatic against his mustache and thin, no-nonsense lips, square jaw.

A car honked behind us. This was a no-parking zone, and the lunch traffic was extremely heavy. I quickly got into the back seat, and once the door was closed we got underway. The interior of the car was quiet and cool, and dark from tinted windows.

“You’re to wear the sunglasses, please,” he told me, and I found a pair on the seat beside me. The big kind that fits over eyeglasses, but these had been spray painted black on the inside, making them completely opaque. I couldn’t see a thing, even around the sides.

He drove for about five minutes, turning this way and that until I had no idea where we were. I guessed we’d gone generally north.

My phone buzzed, creating a problem. With the glasses on I couldn’t see who was calling, though I was sure it would be Val. But I didn’t dare peek, because the driver might see me cheating. Blindly, then, I found the pick-up button and lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hello…?” I said tentatively, holding back the
Ma’am
.

“Hey Toots, are you at lunch?” To my complete surprise, it was Trish, not Val.

“Um, kind of. I’m a little busy at the moment.” To say the least. Talking to her under these circumstances was disorienting.

“That’s fine. I just wanted to tell you I’m flying into Burbank this weekend. I know, short notice, but do you wanna get together for dinner Saturday? I can’t wait to hear how things are going for you. We haven’t talked in ages.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said, feigning a casual tone while dreading the prospect of trying to explain my recent adventures without freaking her out. “But let me call you back tonight, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll call you Friday from the airport. Be good!” she said, and hung up. I put the phone away, glad to have avoided saying anything the driver could report to Val.

Then the car made a right turn and stopped. I heard the driver’s power window open, and the rasp of a parking ticket being printed. We descended into an echoing, cavernous space where the car’s tires squeaked as the driver steered.

When the engine stopped the driver said, “One moment, Miss.”

He got out, opened my door, and helped me stand. But he did not release his grip on my hand. Rather, he led me a short distance to where I heard the sound of an elevator drawing near. As far as I could discern, we were alone. When the elevator door dinged open I was guided within, and we rode up in the closed space. He smelled of cologne, and I felt foolish and vulnerable there, holding his hand like a child. But it was that, or take off my sunglasses and risk Val’s displeasure.

I wondered how the driver had come into this role. How much he knew of Val? Was he a knowing friend, or simply a paid chauffeur, given a large tip and reassurances enough to guarantee his complicity and silence? I couldn’t guess.

My apprehension was immense. With only a single text message, and a brief car ride, I had crossed from my comfortable life into Val’s nether realm of unknown dangers. I shivered in the chill elevator and wondered what I’d find on the other side of those doors. I did not like the direction this game was taking.

We stopped. The elevator doors parted and I was helped into a carpeted hallway where we walked perhaps twenty paces before we stopped, and I heard the jangle of keys. A door opened; I was gently urged inside. The door shut again.

“Your glasses, Miss,” said the driver, and I handed them to him, squinting as my eyes adjusted to sudden light. The driver left the room without a word, exiting by the same door we had just entered. Now I was alone. I couldn’t hear whether he stood by the door, or actually walked back to the elevator.

It was an office, or at least the empty shell of one. The walls were still bare, but the wall opposite the door was made of plate glass windows covered by metal blinds. The high ceiling still lacked acoustic drop-down tiles, and the floor was bare, smooth concrete.

The only furnishings were obviously temporary. In the center of the room were a folding chair and card table, illuminated by a pair of opposing spotlights on stands. Between them, about twenty feet from the table, was another pole-like stand topped by a small white ball. It stood at about head height.

My cellphone buzzed, showing another text message from Val.

Lunch is on the table.

And so it was, in a paper bag, beside a bottle of water.

I sat, sheepish in the glare of the twin lights. I set the phone on the table, and extracted the napkin, plastic utensils, and a covered dish of Chinese chicken salad.

From my seat I could see the white ball was a webcam aimed at the chair, and thus at me. My skin crawled as I nibbled self-consciously at the salad, watched by that cold, unblinking eye. Val was at the other end of it, of course, but I felt utterly alone and yet violated at the same time.

Doll does not like her lunch?

I began to tap out a reply on the phone when she sent another message.

You may speak, I will hear you.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” I said, with a catch in my voice.

That’s better. Continue eating.

There was no microphone to be seen anywhere, so either it was hidden, or built into the web cam.

I ate self-consciously for about ten minutes, during which no further messages arrived. When done, I replaced the cover upon the plastic dish and put everything into the bag again. Still no message. So I sat quietly with hands folded in my lap for another five minutes; by this time it must surely be half past noon. I looked to my opened cell phone to check the clock, but the display had timed out and was dark. I began to worry about getting back to work on time, because I had—

The phone buzzed again, startling me. It was now 12:35. The message from Val read:

Is doll fed?

“Yes Ma’am.”

Yet doll is not thankful.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. Thank you, it was delicious.” My voice was small, mouse-like. Cold fear dripped down my spine at the icy tones I imagined in those typed words. The silence begged for more fervent pleading, but I had learned Val’s dislike of melodrama. There was no surer way to her wrath than an overdone apology.

Kneel on the X.

What X? I searched the floor for a good twenty seconds before finding it right beneath my feet: two crossed lengths of masking tape each about 4” long. I stood and moved the table and chair a few feet away before taking my place as instructed, facing the camera. I held the phone in my lap and watched it expectantly.

12:40.

The sense of alienation was dreadful. After the trials of the weekend and Val’s apparent pleasure at their outcome, I would have expected anything but this unexplained dehumanization. A hundred times I thought of speaking out, to ask if she was displeased, but the words wouldn’t come. And so I waited as my knees and ankles began to hurt from the pressure of the smooth concrete.

12:45.
Still nothing.

12:50.
Finally I was forced shift position, for the bones in my feet were in agony from the unyielding floor, and my left foot was beginning to cramp. My movements did not elicit comment.

12:55.
Now I felt a sense of panic at the lateness of the hour. If she did not send the driver back now, I’d be late getting back from lunch. In fact, I feared she didn’t intend to return me to work at all. I started to compose excuses for my late return from lunch, when the phone buzzed again, and the message I found read:

The driver will take you back now. See you tomorrow, same time.

I rose on cramped legs just before he opened the door. He offered the sunglasses again, then helped me down the elevator and into the car. The return trip was shorter but just as confusing with its unpredictable turns.

When he said, “We are here, Miss,” I placed the sunglasses on the seat beside me and got out of the car. I’d expected to find myself back at the fountain in front of the bank. But disorientation claimed me briefly, until I saw that he’d stopped at the corner nearest my workplace and saved me the long walk back from the original pickup spot. I thanked him for this kindness and watched him drive off. I arrived only three minutes late as if nothing unusual had happened.

§

That night I called Val.

“You’d better have a good reason for calling. I look forward to hearing your explanation.” And then a beep, indicating this was only a recorded message. But the challenge had been issued so forcefully I hung up and sent an email instead. I tried to begin a painting for Milton’s show but couldn’t focus. Val’s sudden inaccessibility left me disconsolate, paranoid. Fruitlessly I replayed the weekend in my mind, searching for any transgression that might have garnered such punishment. It was an utter mystery.

The impending debut had always seemed a critical rite of passage, and after surviving it I had expected a greater intimacy in our relationship; or at least a brief respite from its previous rigors. But with Val, nothing ever went as expected.

Television offered no solace and I went to bed early, seeking oblivion in sleep. But I could only toss and turn in the tangled sheets until exhaustion claimed me well after midnight. What few snatches of dream I could recall later were restless, melancholy, unsatisfying.

§

The next morning, Tuesday, I received no text messages from Val and thought perhaps she had abandoned the game. Even so, I dutifully walked to the appointed intersection at noon. And there was the car.

And the opaque sunglasses. I would have peeked out of them were that possible, but they fit snugly against my face. Instead I tried to memorize the driver’s turns and counted seconds for the straights. I thought he took a new path this time, probably to make such memorization difficult. This time I felt we had gone a little east as well as north.

The awful room was just as it had been the day before, with its table, lights, camera. I also found a manila envelope on the table, with a printed label on the front, which read
Open After Eating.

Once seated, I extracted my lunch from the bag as before; today it was a Cobb salad and the same bottled water. The mystery of the envelope, and the enforced waiting, were torture. Yet I ate slowly, in delicate rebellion against my curiosity, and also to spite Val—with whom I was now quite upset.