Katharine McGee - The Thousandth Floor

“Yes,” Rylin said, more enthusiastically than she’d meant to. She hadn’t eaten since lunch.

“Next time you should eat the catering,” Cord said as they started out of the holoden and down the sweeping glass staircase. “Guess I should have told you that.” Rylin wondered what made him think there would be a next time.

When they reached the kitchen, the fridge cheerfully informed Cord that he’d consumed four thousand calories so far today, 40 percent of which were from alcohol, and per his “Muscle Regime 2118” he was allowed nothing else. A glass of water materialized in the fridge’s export slot.

“Muscle regime. I should get one of those,” Rylin deadpanned.

“I’m trying to be healthy.” Cord turned back to the machine. “Guest override, please,” he mumbled, then looked at Rylin, redder than she’d ever seen him. “Um, could you just put your hand on the fridge to prove you’re here?”

Rylin placed her palm on the refrigerator, which dutifully swung open. Cord began pulling out containers at random, pumpkin seed milk bars and hundred-layer lasagna and fresh appleberries. Rylin grabbed a box of pizza cones out of his hand and tore into one. It was cheesy and fried and perfect, maybe even better cold. When Cord handed her a napkin, she realized that sauce had dripped onto her chin, but somehow she didn’t care.

As he leaned back against the counter, Rylin caught sight of something over his shoulder, and let out a squeal. “Oh my god. Are those Gummy Buddies? Do they actually move when you bite off their heads, like they do in the adverts?”

“You’ve never had a Gummy Buddy?”

“No.” A bag of Gummy Buddies cost more than what she and Chrissa spent on food in a week. They were the first edible electronics, with microscopic radio frequency ID tags inside each candy.

“Come on.” Cord tossed her the bag. “Try one.”

Rylin pulled out a bright green gummy and popped it whole into her mouth. She chewed expectantly, then glowered at him when nothing happened.

“You didn’t do it right.” Cord seemed to be struggling to keep his face straight. “You have to bite off the head, or the legs. You can’t just eat it all at once.”

She grabbed another gummy and bit off the bottom half. The RFID chip in the remaining top part of the gummy abruptly let out a high-pitched scream.

“Crap!” Rylin yelled, dropping the gummy head on the floor. It kept twitching near her feet, and she took a step back.

Cord laughed and grabbed the rest of the gummy, tossing it into the trash, which suctioned it off to the sorting center. “Here, try again,” he said, holding out the bag. “If you bite off the head, they don’t scream, just move around.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Rylin tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and glanced back up at Cord. Something about the way he was looking at her made her fall silent.

Then he was closing the distance between them, and lowering his mouth to hers.

At first Rylin was too startled to react. Cord kissed her slowly, almost languidly, pressing her back against the counter. The edge of it dug sharply into Rylin’s hip, jarring her back to reality. She put both hands on his chest and pushed, hard.

She crossed her arms as Cord stumbled backward, his breath ragged, his eyes dancing with amusement. A smile curled at the corners of his lips.

Something about that look made Rylin shake with anger. She was furious with Cord for laughing at the situation, with herself for letting it unfold—and deep down, for enjoying it, for a single bewildered instant.

Without stopping to think, she raised her arm and slapped him. The noise cracked through the air like a whip.

“I’m sorry,” Cord finally said, into the painful stillness. “I obviously misread the situation.”

Rylin watched the red mark of her hand blossoming on his face. She’d gone too far. He wouldn’t pay her for tonight, and all that hard work would have been for nothing. “I—um, I should get going.”

She was halfway out the front door when she heard footsteps in the entryway. “Hey, Myers,” Cord called out from behind her. “Catch.”

She turned and caught the bag of Gummy Buddies in midair.

“Thanks,” she said, confused, but the door was already closing behind him.

Rylin leaned against the door of Cord’s apartment and closed her eyes, trying to gather the frayed and tangled strands of her thoughts. Her mouth felt bruised, almost seared. She could still feel where Cord had held her tight around the waist.

With an angry sigh, she hurried down the three brick stairs that led to his entrance and started down the carbon-paved streets.

The entire two and a half miles home, Rylin pulled the heads off the Gummy Buddies one by one, letting their small screams fill the empty elevator car.

“WATT!” A TINY pink form barreled down the hallway as he walked inside the next day.

“Hey, Zahra.” Watt laughed, scooping his five-year-old sister into his arms. Her dark curls had something sticky in them, and a costume tiara was perched precariously atop her head. Watt noticed that her pajama pants, which used to drag along the ground, now barely hit mid-calf. He made a mental note to buy her a new set the next time he was paid. Zahra giggled, then wriggled impatiently out of his arms to run back into the living room, where her twin brother, Amir, was building something out of plastifoam blocks.

“Watzahn, is that you?” Watt’s mom called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, Mom?” It was never a good sign when she used his full name.

You might want to change first , Nadia suggested, but Watt was already at the doorway. Shirin hovered over the cook surface, pouring water into an instant noodle dinner. Watt remembered back before the twins were born, when she used to cook elaborate Persian meals from scratch: rich lamb stews and golden flatbreads and rice sprinkled with sumac. Then she’d unexpectedly gotten pregnant and stopped cooking altogether, claiming the smell of spices made her nauseous. But even after the twins were born, the home-cooked Persian meals never came back. There wasn’t enough time anymore.

Shirin pushed the cook-dial to high heat and turned to Watt. “You were at Derrick’s all day?” she asked, with a glance at his rumpled clothes from last night. Watt reddened. Nadia said nothing, but he could practically feel her thinking I told you so .

“Yeah. I stayed at Derrick’s last night,” Watt said to his mom, but she just stared at him blankly. “Today was our last day of summer, and we wanted to try finishing this game …” He trailed off.