Will McIntosh - Love Minus Eighty

The familiar high-pitched wheem of the scissors, Dad’s fingers brushing his head, made Rob’s throat clench with emotion. Two years ago Rob had quietly begun getting his hair cut at a swanky shop in High Town, where you could see what your haircut would look like beforehand, rather than hope Dad got it even and didn’t shear off too much. Dad had never said a word about it, but now Rob could see what a betrayal it had been. He’d basically told his own father he was no good at what he did. What a thoughtless bastard he was.

No more, though. No more selfishness.

Not that he could afford haircuts in swanky salons in any case, now that he and Lorelei had broken up. The mirror allowed him to see through the doorway behind him, out the kitchen window into the backyard. Lorelei was gone. Did he feel better or worse about being supported by Lorelei and her trust fund for the past eight months? About the same. He’d felt slimy about it before, he felt shitty about it now. He’d told himself he had no choice, that Lorelei wasn’t about to live in Low Town, and Rob couldn’t afford to live in High Town without her help. Who was he kidding? He hadn’t been able to afford to live in Low Town on what he made as a musician.

His dad set an old handheld in Rob’s lap, amid the clumps of hair collecting on the barber sheath Dad had whipped around him like a bullfighter wielding a red cloak. Rob liberated one hand from the sheath and picked up the handheld.

“What’s this?”

“I’ve gone back and forth on whether to show you.”

“Show me what?” Rob was uneasy about something in his dad’s tone. “What is it?” He sensed it was something that would force him to think about things he didn’t want to think about.

“Just look at it.”

When Rob saw Winter West’s name at the top, it felt as if all of the light drained out of his head. He was sure he was going to black out, but he didn’t.

It was a profile from Cryomed’s dating center. The bridesicle place.

“Oh. Jesus Christ.” There was a clip of Winter standing in front of the Grand Canyon. She was laughing. Not smiling but flat-out laughing, her nostrils flared like a winded colt. Her hair was striking—long, curly, deep auburn—she looked to be one of those easygoing, energetic people others love to be around. A lot of people probably missed her.

“She’s in the minus eighty. She didn’t have freezing insurance, but she was good-looking enough that Cryomed picked her up for the bridesicle program.” Dad leaned over to look at the screen with him.

Even on this old handheld, Rob could have expanded her profile so that she was standing right next to him, as big and bright as life itself. But it hurt just to look at her static clip on the tiny screen, like a flame on his retinas. She’d been thirty, single, a teacher. An English teacher. She’d been an avid runner, loved random-selection reality feeds and vertical gardening.

“She just made the cut.” Dad pointed to her global attractiveness rating, which was eight point six, before returning to the haircut. “They only take uninsured who are eight and a half or over.” Her face was all original, so the rating was unadjusted. A nose job or butt implants would have put her in the ground.

After her physical stats was a list of the damage, beginning with the major organs that would need to be replaced. Rob squeezed his eyes shut, turned his head. “You’re showing me this to say that at least she’s got a chance, is that it? At least she’s not in the ground?”

Dad stopped cutting, stared out the window, tugging at his lower lip. “I guess that’s part of it.” He looked at Rob; it had always amazed Rob how open and frank his gaze could be. Maybe it was because he wasn’t educated enough to learn about guile. More likely it was because he never carried on other conversations while talking to Rob, never divided his attention. It was hard to meet his father’s gaze now. “What I was really thinking was, you could go there and apologize.”

“ What? ” The thought filled him with electric terror. “No, no, no.” It would never have occurred to him, not in a million years. He couldn’t imagine anything more awful than standing over her while she lay in that drawer, and admitting he was the one who put her there. And to what end? To seek absolution? He had no business asking her to release him from his guilt. He deserved to feel awful for the rest of his life; his last breath on earth should be an uneasy one.

“You’re saying I should go to the dating center, revive her, tell her I was the one who killed her and I’m very sorry, then pull the plug on her again?”

His father’s tone grew soft. “She probably has some things she wants to say to you, and you should give her the chance to say them, even if you don’t want to hear them. Maybe you’ll find some peace that way.” Rob felt his dad’s hand on the back of his neck. “Even if it doesn’t, I think it’s still the right thing to do.”

Rob had no answer. “I know you’re right.” But even if it was the right thing to do, it still wasn’t possible. There had just been something on the macrofeeds about protests outside bridesicle centers. Visiting bridesicle places was crazy expensive, to discourage people who couldn’t actually afford to repair any of the women from visiting, so it had an exclusive feel, no relatives sitting around sobbing. It cost something like six times as much to visit a bridesicle as it did a relative frozen in the main facility. Not that most people could even afford to visit their relatives.

Rob called up the local bridesicle site, which was in Yonkers, and located a fee list. Yeah, crazy expensive.

“I can’t afford it, though. Even if I drained all of my savings, I wouldn’t have anywhere near enough.”

His father patted his shoulder. “I’ll loan you the rest. Whatever you need.”

“Dad, no, five minutes is like nine thousand. I have less than two, and I know you don’t have seven.”

His dad shushed him like he was six again. “We’ll get it.”

Mira dreamed she was running on a trail in the woods. The trail sloped upward, growing steeper and steeper until she was running up big steps. Then the steps entered a flimsy plywood tower and wound up, up. It was dark, and she could barely see, but it felt so good to run; it had been such a long time that she didn’t care how steep it was. She climbed higher, considered turning back, but she wanted to make it to the top after having gone so far. Finally she reached the top, and there was a window where she could see a vast river, and a lovely college campus set along it. She hurried over to the window for a better view, and as she did, the tower leaned under her shifting weight, and began to fall forward. The tower built speed, hurtled toward the buildings. This is it , she thought, her stomach flip-flopping. This is the moment of my death.

Mira jolted awake before she hit the ground.

An old man—likely in his eighties—squinted down at her. “You’re not my type,” he grumbled, reaching over her head.

As the front door whooshed closed, Veronika dropped her groceries on the counter and immediately activated Wings of Fire . Normally she would first dress in something to fit her part, maybe break out some pretzels, but last night she’d intentionally discontinued at a good part, and had spent all day anticipating.

She pulled on her extensions as the living room transformed into Peytr’s dance studio, the program adapting each piece of furniture into some functional aspect of the set so she wouldn’t bump into it. Peytr materialized, filling Veronika with a warm, comfortable glow of longing. It was embarrassing, how engrossed she was in this show. Well, not in the show itself as much as in Peytr Sidorov. For Veronika, it was always about the male lead. She fell for Peytr the moment she saw the preview for Wings of Fire .