Glasshouse - Charles Stross [55]
Sam is holding something out to me. “Here, have a drink.”
I take the tumbler. It’s blue glass, with a fizz of bubbles trapped in the weighted base and a clear liquid half-filling it. I sniff a bouquet of bitters and lemon.
“Go on, it won’t poison you.”
I raise my glass and take a mouthful. Gin and tonic, some submerged ghost of memory tells me. “Thanks.” I sniff. He pours himself one, too. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?” he asks, as he sits down next to me. He’s shed his jacket and necktie, and he moves as if he’s weary, as if he’s got my troubles.
“I’m a dead loss.” I shrug. “It just got too much for me.”
“You’re not a dead loss.”
I look at him sharply, then have to sniff again. I wish I could get my sinuses fixed. “Yes I am. I’m wholly dependent on you—without your job, what would I do? I’m weak and small and badly coordinated, and I can’t even cook a pizza for supper without dropping it all over the floor. And, and . . .”
Sam takes another mouthful. “Look,” he says, pointing at the garden. “You’ve got this. All day.” He shakes his head. “I get to sit in an office full of zombies and spend my time proofreading gibberish. There’s always more make-work for me, texts to check for errors. It makes my head hurt. You’ve at least got this.” He looks at me, a guarded, odd look that makes me wonder what he sees. “And whatever it is you’re doing in the garage.”
“I—”
“I don’t mean to pry,” he says, looking away shyly.
“It’s not secret,” I say. I swallow some more of my drink. “I’m making stuff.” I nearly add, It’s a hobby, but that would be a lie. And the one person I haven’t actively lied to so far is Sam. I’ve got a feeling that if I start lying to him now, I’ll be crossing some sort of irrevocable line. With only myself for an anchor, and knowing how fallible my memories are, I won’t be able to tell truth from fantasy anymore.
“Making stuff.” He rolls his glass between his big hands. “Do you want a job to go to?” he asks.
“A job?” That’s a surprise and a half. “Why?”
He shrugs. “To see people. Get out of the house. To meet people other than the score whores, I mean. They’re getting to you, aren’t they?”
I nod mutely.
“Not surprising.” He stays tactfully silent while I drain my glass.
To my surprise, I feel a little better. Get a job! “How do I find a job?” I ask. “I mean, not being a man—”
“You phone the Chamber of Commerce and ask for one.” He puts his glass down. I look at it, see the two snails climbing opposite sides of the same blade of grass, leaving their iridescent trails of slime. “It’s as simple as that. They’ll send a car to pick you up and take you somewhere with room for a body. They didn’t run you through the induction course when you arrived, but it’s easy enough. I don’t know what they’ll find for you or how much they’ll pay you—I’d guess a lot less than they pay men, that seems to be how they did things in the dark ages—but if you find it too boring, you can always phone the CC again and ask for something else.”
“A job,” I say, trying the words out for sense. It’s crazy, actually, but no more so than anything else in this world. “I didn’t know I could get one.”
He shrugs. “It’s not illegal or anything.” A sidelong look. “They just didn’t set it up by default. It’s another of those things we’re allowed to game if we’re smart enough to think of it.”
“And I’ll meet people.”
“It depends where you work.” Sam looks uncertain for a moment. “Most jobs, there are zombies around—but they try to keep