Hugh Howey - First Shift - Legacy

Donald reached for the folder and riffed the pages like a deck of cards. “You know,” he said, “the illusion of free will would’ve been nice. That’s all.”

Anna laughed. She was about to tousle his hair, he could feel it. Dropping his hand from the folder and patting his jacket pocket, he felt for his phone. It was like Helen was there with him. He felt the urge to call her.

“Was Dad at least gentle with you?”

He looked up to see that she hadn’t moved. Her arms were still crossed, his hair untousled, nothing to panic about.

“What? Oh, yeah. Your father was fine. Like old times. In fact, it’s like he hasn’t aged a day.”

Smiling, she picked up something from his desk. A twist tie. From the monitor’s cord, perhaps. “He doesn’t really age, you know.” She crossed the room and picked up large molded pieces of foam and slid them noisily into the empty box. Donald found his eyes drifting toward her skirt and forced himself to look away.

“He takes nano treatments almost religiously. Started because of his knees. The military covered it for a while. Now he swears by them.”

“I didn’t know that,” Donald lied. He’d heard rumors, of course. It was “Botox for the whole body,” people said. Better than testosterone supplements. It cost a fortune, and you wouldn’t live forever, but you could sure as hell delay the pain of aging. He’d read a story recently about a guy who had died in the middle of a triathlon. A hundred-and-ten years old. His grandkids didn’t sound upset at all, said he was doing what he loved right up to the end.

Anna narrowed her eyes. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, do you?”

“What? No. It’s fine, I guess. I just wouldn’t. Wait, why? Don’t tell me you’ve been—?”

Anna rested her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. There was something oddly seductive about the defensive posture, something that whisked away the years since he’d last seen her.

“Do you think I would need to?” she asked him.

“No, no. It’s not that—” He waved his hands. “It’s just that I don’t think I ever would.”

A smirk thinned her lips. Maturity had hardened Anna’s good looks, had refined her lean frame, but the fierceness from her youth remained. “You say that now,” she said, “but wait until your joints start to ache and your back goes out from something as simple as turning your head too fast. Then you’ll see.”

“Okay. Well.” He clapped his hands together. “This has been quite the day for catching up on old times.” Peeking again at the shiny new monitor, he gave his hair another minor adjustment.

“Yes, it has. Now, what day works best for you?” Anna interlocked the flaps on the large box and slid it toward the door with her foot. She walked around the back of the desk and stood beside him, a hand on his chair, the other reaching for his mouse.

“What day —?”

He watched while she changed some settings on his computer and the new monitor flashed to life. Donald could feel his pulse in his crotch, could smell a familiar perfume. The breeze she had caused by walking across the room seemed to stir all around him. Her body had pressed against air molecules that now pressed into him. This felt near enough to a caress, to a physical touch, that he wondered if he was cheating on Helen right at that very moment while Anna did little more than adjust sliders on his control panel.

“You know how to use this, right?” She slid the mouse from one screen to the other, dragging an old game of solitaire with it.

“Uh, yeah.” Donald squirmed in his seat. “Um… what do you mean about a day that works best for me?”

She let go of the mouse. It felt like she had taken her hand off his thigh. Stepping away from him, she peeled the plastic film off the monitor with a loud ripping sound and balled it up in her hands.

“Dad wants me to handle the mechanical spaces on the plans.” She gestured toward the folder as if she knew precisely what was inside. “I’m taking a sabbatical from the Institute until this Atlanta project is up and running. I thought we’d want to meet once a week to go over things.”

“Oh. Well. I’ll have to get back with you on that. My schedule here is crazy. It’s different every day.”

He imagined what Helen would say to he and Anna getting together once a week.

“We could, you know, set up a shared space in AutoCAD,” he suggested. “I can link you into my document—”

She nodded. “We could do that.”

“And email back and forth. Or video chat. You know?”

Anna frowned. Donald realized he was being too obvious. She scrunched the ball of plastic film in her hand, the material squeaking in complaint. “Yeah, let’s set up something like that,” she said.

There was a flash of disappointment on her face as she turned for the box, and Donald felt the urge to apologize, but doing so would spell out the problem in neon lights: I don’t trust myself around you. We’re not going to be friends. What the fuck are you doing here?

“You really need to do something about the dust.” She glanced back at his desk. “Seriously, your computer is going to choke on it.”

“Okay. I will.” He stood and hurried around his desk to walk her out. Anna stooped for the box.

“I can get that.”

“Don’t be silly.” She stood with the large box pinned between one arm and her hip. She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. She could’ve been leaving his dorm room in college. There was that same awkward moment of a morning goodbye in last night’s clothes.

“Okay, so you have my email?” he asked.

“You’re in the blue pages now,” she reminded him.

“Yeah.”

“You look great, by the way.” And before he could step back or defend himself, she was fixing his hair, a smile on her lips.

Donald froze. His brain shut down completely.

When it came back online some time later, Anna was gone, leaving him standing there alone, soaked in guilt.

Troy was going to be late. The first day of his first shift, already a blubbering mess, and he was going to be late. In his rush to get away from the cafeteria, to be alone, he had taken the non-express by accident. Now, as he tried to compose himself and stop his nose from running, the lift seemed intent on stopping at every floor on the way down to load and unload passengers.

He stood in the corner as the lift stopped again and checked to see how bloodshot his eyes were in the elevator’s silvery wall. A man wrestled a cart full of heavy boxes onto the lift. A gentleman with a load of green onions crowded behind him and stood close to Troy for a few stops. Nobody spoke. When the man with the onions got off, the smell remained. Troy shivered, one violent quake that traveled up his back and into his arms, but he thought nothing of it. He got off on thirty-four and tried to remember why he had been upset earlier.

The central elevator shaft emptied onto a narrow hallway, which funneled him toward a security station. The floor plan was vaguely familiar and yet somehow alien. It was unnerving to note the signs of wear in the carpet and the patch of dull steel in the middle of the turnstile where thighs had rubbed against it over the years. These were years that didn’t exist for Troy. This wear and tear had shown up as if by magic.

The lone guard on duty looked up from something he was reading and nodded in greeting. Troy placed his palm on a screen that had grown hazy from use. There was no chit-chat, no small talk, no expectation of forming a lasting relationship. The light above the console flashed green, the pedestal gave a loud click, and a little more sheen was rubbed off the revolving bar as Troy pushed through.