Glasshouse - Charles Stross [135]
It’s already one o’clock, so I change into a smarter outfit and call a taxi to the Village Cafe. I’ve no idea what friends Janis might have in mind, but I don’t think she’d be tasteless enough to invite Jen along. Beyond that, I don’t want to risk making a bad impression. Appearances count if you’re trying to up your score, and other people pay attention to that kind of thing. And I don’t expect Janis would be organizing anything like this if it wasn’t important.
It’s a wonderful day, the sky a deep blue and a warm breeze blowing. Janis is right about one thing—I don’t remember ever seeing this neighborhood before. The taxi cruises between rows of clapboard-fronted houses with white picket fences and mercilessly laundered grass aprons in front of them, then hangs a left around a taller brick building and drives along a tree-lined downhill boulevard with oddly shaped buildings to either side. There are other taxis about, and people! We drive past a couple out for a stroll along the sidewalk. I thought Sam and I were the only folks who did that. Who am I missing?
The taxi stops just before a cul-de-sac where a semicircle of awnings shield white tables and outdoor furniture from the sky. A stone fountain burbles wetly by the roadside. “Village Cafe,” recites the driver. “Village Cafe. Your credit score has been debited.” Blue numerals float out of the corner of my left eye as I open the door and step out. There are people sitting at the tables—one of them waves. It’s Janis. She’s looking a lot better than the last time I saw her: She’s smiling, for one thing. I walk over.
“Janis, hi.” I recognize Tammy sitting next to her but don’t know what to say. “Hello everybody?”
“Reeve, hi! This is Tammy, and here’s Elaine—”
“El,” El mumbles.
“And this is Bernice. Have a chair? We were just trying to work out what to order. Would you like anything?”
I sit down and see printed polymer sheet menus sitting in front of each chair. I try to focus on them, just as a box with a grille on it above the door to the cafe crackles and begins to shout: “Good afternoon! It’s another beautiful day . . .”
“I think I’ll have a gin and tonic,” I say.
“Your attention please, here are two announcements,” continues the box. “Ice cream is now on sale for your enjoyment. The flavor of the day is truffle and banana. Here is a warning. There is a possibility of light showers later in the day. Thank you for your attention.”
Tammy pulls a face. “It’s been doing that every ten minutes since we arrived. I wish it’d shut up.”
“I asked at the counter,” Janis says apologetically. “They say they can’t shut it off—it’s everywhere in this sector.”
“Yes? What is this sector, anyway? I don’t remember it.” I bury my nose in the menu immediately in case I’ve just made a faux pas.
“I’m not sure. It appeared yesterday, so I thought we should go look at it.”
“Consider it looked at,” says Bernice. Who is dark and slightly plump and wears a perpetual expression of mild disgust: I think I’ve seen her at Church, but that’s about it. “Mine’s a mango lassi.”
A zombie, male, wearing a dark suit and a long, white apron, shuffles out of the cafe. “Are you ready to order?” he asks in a high, nasal voice.
“Yes, please.” Janis rattles off a list of drinks, and the waitron retreats indoors again. The drinks are mostly alcohol-free: I seem to be one of the odd ones out. Oops, I think. “Tammy and El and I have been meeting up every Saturday for the past few weeks,” she adds in my direction. “We tell our husbands we’re a sewing circle. It’s a good excuse to gossip and drink, and none of them would know a real sewing circle if one bit him on the toe, so . . .”
“What is a sewing circle?” asks Bernice.
El reaches diffidently into a huge bag and pulls out a thing that looks like an airlock cover made of cloth. There are pins stuck in it, and colored thread. “Something like we all get together to