Architects
WEEK 9 (14/02/0012) 17:50:03:22
I admit I like him. Scruffy casual, but still within the boundaries of the policy. I (a proud Herecene) usually hate to ask for help from other engineers. I’d rather go to very long lengths to troubleshoot myself. But he has a way of making it very easy for me, pretending I don’t really need his calculations and we are just hanging out, brainstorming. All just because we like to spend time together, and what is the best use of time if not technical drawing? Yesterday, we lingered over the Jace building sheets for so long that my input monitor showed an ‘overdose’ of espresso and pizza. Jace Corp. really does not deserve this much passion going into one of its habitats for the remnants. I couldn’t stop watching him working on the drawings, light-hearted for hours, using his antique black pencil, dropping notes into my laptop, showing me how we could improve this and add that (‘if that is what you want, of course’), wearing a contented grin, talking to me as if I were some older cousin, ridiculing my exact deadlines and the (optimised and validated!) quadrant division of my workspace. I thought about asking him out for a beer, but that would just sound like another after work let’s celebrate a job well done type of thing. So around midnight, when we had put much more into the Jace design than I ever intended, and after I had tidied up, I grabbed his hand, placed his palm into both of mine and asked, “Hey, what do you think about going to my place now?”
“If that is what you want.”
While we walk, he still exudes that lightness, pulling my stiff self into his effortless flow. And when he takes off his shirt, I cannot believe that a Stratagene can maintain such superior muscle definition. It is amazing, and him jumping on me, totally uninterested in my muscle definition, is ok too. When his eyes look into mine, I relax into his kiss. There is nothing I could order or optimise here.
WEEK 11 (29/02/0012) 8:34:15:26
Two weeks might not be the standard dating time, but I decided to ask him to move in with me. I don’t understand the situation in entirety. How has such a damn clever Stratagene not managed to become rich? I don’t even know where he lives. He says things are working out for him just fine, and he has a convenient place he likes. But if I wish, he would move in, just for the joy of messing up my place and jumping on me outside of my time schedule. I could tell he was serious when he said that he could spend his days just looking from my floating garden to the ‘dividing cliff’ and the land beyond the city. It is a breathtaking part of the country; the nature of course, not the human remnants and their survival camps.
WEEK 37 (5/12/0012) 23:45:32:08
“Why are you kissing my ear?”
“So you hear better when I tell you I have finished the last calculations on the Jace and ordered all your folders.”
“Wow, so you were working your ass off while I procrastinated and went to get permission to marry … you need to fill in the third page …”
“Stroke my over-worked ass then …”
WEEK 37 (7/12/0012) 18:22:07:12
I was cooking dinner with him yesterday, him cracking the eggs in the unstructured way that I hate. There was a hunt in progress throughout the entire afternoon, for about 5000 remnants who broke through the dividing cliff. The helicopters were practically touching the apricot trees in our garden and army officers were crawling around the cliff. I had a bad feeling (a premonition if you are into poetry), what with all the noise outside and the eggs being cracked in the wrong way. So I was ready when he started talking about taking some time off now that the Jace building is finished and going away trekking. If I could lend him some money, before the Jace payouts come, he would be grateful. I immediately knew he was leaving me, that the third page would remain blank and that I was a pathetic idiot. But I couldn’t help myself and offered to go trekking with him.
WEEK 37 (7/12/0012) 19:27:08:53
Excuse my lack of precision when reporting this part. I was pretending to be hiding from the noise (as opposed from the unrequited trekking offer) when he entered, untidy, scruffy and agitated.
“The soldiers started to enter houses looking for human presence and they are going to knock on your door any minute. I need you to focus and tell them that I am 47223, your personal serviceman, and that you are considering receiving some of my human brain matter as a graft.”
“What the fuck?”
“Jackson, please.”
I failed to integrate further occurrences into a coherent logical sequence. My error log reported ‘unreactive’. There was a lot of noise, including a ring on the doorbell and two heavyweights stepping in, he shouting his story and gesticulating to me, the heavyweights shouting at him, shouting at me, placing him in handcuffs. Finally, the door banged shut and the shouts died. Perhaps I would benefit from a human brain matter transplant after all.