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your time, we don't want any rash decisions, do
we?” He would take the job right there and then, even if it was tea
boy.
     
    At home he double-checks his firewall before
searching for The Caves of Liita . It hasn't been
tampered with but his absence for a few days concerns him,
especially with the XXLI job offer. He questions his good
fortune—he wasn't a lucky person and decides to reconfigure his
protection before accessing the outside world. It turns out to be
unnecessary. The Caves of Liita draws a blank. He thinks
about checking the underground network. Any search that came up so
bare was a prime candidate for further investigation but it also
meant trouble. The Source Foundation must have tread on some big
toes back in the day, a likely explanation for why it looked so
wiped out. He's interrupted by the personalized agreement from
XXLI. A hundred-thirty-five pages he's required to read and sign
off on each section. He's an hour in before he reaches the code of
ethics. The first page is about bathroom usage. He signs off.
     
    The midnight dog walkers are out in full force with
Jack Russell's and Chihuahua's, good urban pets to snap away
unwanted conversations. It suits Jamie fine as he heads over to
Vic's, a diner he used to frequent when he had a job. Now that
things are turning for the better he feels he can indulge. Vic's is
over energized with music and youthful customers. It's designed to
obliterate the environs, the unfulfilled lives. It's what he always
liked about the place. Masquerading as a house of edge and
attitude, it was in truth an ode to an age of innocence. When he
takes a seat, he's a little bothered by his reality. He's here to
satisfy a craving, a Congolese velvet chocolate shake. It arrives
teasing him, chocolate dripping over the rim. Not everything has to
have a meaning he tells himself. A sixteen-year-old girl slides
into the seat opposite; she doesn't introduce herself but parades
luminous yellow skin and a fake fur coat.
    “That's some shake,” she says.
    Jamie offers her a straw. It's too big for him
alone—that's the deal at Vic's—everything's too big, you attract
the other by the need to share. Sometimes you get freeloaders,
sometimes intellectuals who need someone to listen to them, and at
other times sixteen-year-old girls you couldn't tell if they were
freeloaders or destined to be intellectuals or both. Jamie slurps
with her and watches chocolate dribble down her chin. She's
flirting with him, and he plays along wiping the dark track off her
yellow skin. “Have you heard of the source foundation?”
    “The rav club?”
    She's so young, another generation away from him. He
slurps and, in the blink of an eye, she's whisked away by her
boyfriend who had been yelling ‘Zelda’ for a while.
     
    On his way home he skirts groups of teens, cliques,
and homeless. He prefers the quiet of dark alleys in the early
hours where footsteps echo and his mind can churn uninterrupted. A
freedom of sorts. He reaches the corner of Henderson Street.
Saturday night in full swing. Youth in glitzy clothes swarm drunk
and high. They mix with blue lights and sirens before being hauled
into trucks and redistributed to their homes in the suburbs. On the
other side of the road there's a vending machine vying for his
attention. Something new. Another XXLI product. Now he's about to
work for them he takes an interest and decides to buy a latte with
random latte art. A barista pops up on a screen with a smile and a
wink and makes the latte as ordered. It's an effective recording,
when the barista hands over the cup, it glides out of the machine
at counter level. The latte art is of a perfect heart. The universe
is teasing him, he thinks. He must follow the ruse.
     
    *****
     
    First day uncertainties. A new environment. The tease
continues with Grace. It's not her doing, just the way the company
operates. She's to be Jamie's personal HR contact throughout his
stay, to guide him should any difficulties