Depth

We’re not asking you to change the world, or start the revolution. Sam repeated Lydia’s condescending instructions back to himself. We just need you to open the door.

It seemed a simple enough task: convince the doors to stay open. The security gates in the lobby of Magenta Tower were easy enough to understand. If you were permitted inside, you approached and they opened. If you were not, they stayed closed. And when they opened, they’d shut again the moment you were through. We think, Lydia had said, the easiest thing to do would be to somehow get them to stay open.

The most difficult, and most stressful, part of the operation had a rather easy, and rather dumb, lead-up. His prototype PCC camera, his token parting gift from his ex-wife via her would-be new beau, had once again come in useful. He’d worked his way up a ladder in each corner of the lobby and snapped a photo from the exact position of the PCC cameras that were already hanging up. This, he’d learned, was how the company had made use of this failed consumer product after it had failed to take off in the market: upmarket security cameras. They sensed the room’s contents and reported back if anything had deviated too far from what it expected.

There’s just one flaw with these photonic chain of custody cameras, Lydia had explained. They don’t have depth sensors. Samir hadn’t understood how this was a flaw, or what it even meant, really. But the following night, atop the same ladder, he found himself adhering small print-outs of each photo to the front of each camera. No alarms tripped, no calls came in from the digis tasked with security, nobody stormed the room demanding to know what he was doing. The camera saw what it expected to see, and that was that.

He tucked the ladder away in the technician’s closet and inhaled. That was the easy part, he reminded himself. The dumb part.

The arranged time arrived, and Sam stood in his position on the steps of Magenta Tower. 10 p.m., well past when staff would be coming or going. The live-in staff, his ex included, would be tucked away in their suites by now, and the third shift had already started. If all went to plan, this gave Lydia and her crew all night to set up their camp in the atrium.

In his peripheral vision he saw a dozen or so others waiting to follow. Once they follow you in, Lydia had instructed, you should go find Virginia. Find her and wait until we’re all set. Then tell her what this is all about, and how she can help us.

Of course, Sam had said, you mean I should explain how Magenta can stop this from “escalating”.

Just get her on our side, novio. Help her understand the way you understand.

Will you be there?

Eventually.

He spun round and gave an awkward thumbs up, and received a nod back in return from someone he didn’t know. This would be the last time he’d look at them. Plausible deniability, or some such. He strode toward the perfunctory steel and glass of the building’s lobby, across the dozens of subtle Magenta logos stamped into the paving stones under his feet. Each step he took on the poured concrete of the lobby increased the sense of dread, his gaze fixed forward as he blocked out the sound of the footsteps behind him, walking in practised parade step. The sensors hung in each corner, the square of photo taped to each. He passed the oaken reception desk, empty with no chair behind it, an anachronism whose presence made the elder staff relax a little.

The glass partitions swung open with a chime and Sam stepped through, then stopped.

“Aida.” His voice cracked. “Why did the gate not open?”

“Samir.” Aida’s voice as cool as ever. “If you’re referring to the Magenta Tower lobby entry gate, the gate is currently open.”

“No, it’s closed. I’m standing in front of it right now.”

“Samir, I apologise. According to the information I have, the gate is open and is currently being obstructed.”

“I’m afraid that’s incorrect. What’s the source of the belief that the gate is obstructed?”

“Information is being provided by an active infrared sensor affixed to the frame.”

“Are active infrared sensors able to be fooled? Or can they be faulty in some way that would make you believe the gate is obstructed if it’s not?”

“Samir, yes, it’s possible for an active infrared sensor to incorrectly believe it is being obstructed for a variety of reasons. Bright sunlight can interfere with the sensor, or the sensor may have dirt or other particles…”

“Aida, can you use any other data to determine whether the door is obstructed?”

“A photonic sensor in the room shows the gate to be unobstructed.”

“Great. Please inform the gate the sensor is faulty.”

“Sure, Samir. The gate will disregard the sensor’s input. I’ve marked the sensor as in need of physical maintenance.”

“Open the gate please.”

“The gate is already open, Samir.”

“Can you please reference the photonic sensor again, to see if the gate is closed or open?”

“Samir, I apologise. I was incorrect. I can see the gate is closed.”

“Aida, the gate incorrectly believes it has opened. Can you ask it to please invert its calibration such that it considers these values to be closed?”

“Yes, I can do that now.”

Samir darted through the gate as it snapped shut. He stood in the empty atrium just inside the secure area, and just outside the range of the gate’s sensor. Had it worked? What if… But before he could start to catastrophise, the gate dutifully opened again, and stayed that way. It believed itself to be closed now, and would stay closed no matter what–even if a column of protestors marched through. And it would have no way of knowing they were doing so, since the presence sensor was believed faulty. Samir let out a clipped sigh as he spun to face the lifts.

Get to Virginia’s suite. That’s still the plan. In a blink he was stood in the lift on the long ride to the fifty-first floor. The sound of boots marching had just reached his ear as the doors slid closed.

He felt terribly guilty about gaslighting Aida in this way, having spent the past decade building up a relationship with her. And even still, she had only listened to him because of his role as a technician. Everything he’d just done would’ve been recorded, and someone would discover it. It was just a question of when, and who.

The fifty-first floor was oppressively liminal. Samir had expected the staff apartments to be a bit more high-end, in line with the offices. Instead he was met with a tiled drop ceiling, a dozen yellowed doors that all looked identical, disgusting maroon carpet, and a hallway in which he’d have to turn sideways to let someone pass. The fluorescent lights gave him an immediate headache and he whimpered to himself as he worked his way to door 51-12.

“Samir. Hello.” As the door slid open to reveal him, Virginia was clearly surprised. They’d avoided socialising alone, ever since he realised Carlos had followed her north and attached himself to her like a parasite. To turn up at her door unannounced was provocative.

“Hi. I’m barging in, I guess.” He angled himself to peer around her in a rather obvious manner. She didn’t make any effort to block his view, so he assumed Carlos wasn’t in there.

“Are you? You’re in the hall.”

“Yeah. I guess I’m hoping to talk to you about something.”

“Are you?”

Samir groaned. He could still recollect a time before Virginia was like this. So machine-like in her mannerisms and so irritating in her need for you to be precise with your language. Was Carlos attracted to this?

“Sam, I’m joking. You can come in.”

She stepped backwards out of the doorway and allowed Sam in. It was a delicate moment, one that saw him pause at the threshold. They hadn’t been alone in this way since the fight. He knew he had to treat it with a reverence of sorts. But he couldn’t get past the size of the room.

“Is this it?” The door closed itself behind him, and a few feet in front of him, Virginia sat on the edge of the single bed. A grey quilted duvet tucked around a glorified cot which extended from the wall, with a half-height cubicle divider nearby that seemed to obscure a toilet, and a large grey wardrobe occupied the only other space in the room. There was nowhere else to sit other than the bed, so he elected to stand.

“What do you mean?”

“This… I just expected the employee suites were larger.”

“It’s dormitory style. There are shared amenities on each floor. We could speak in the common room if you prefer.”

“The common room…” He stared down at her, sat on the edge of her prison bunk. Her hair in the trademark messy bun, an oversized purple Magenta shirt that covered down to her knees, and a nervous smile across her face. A vision of Lydia flashed in his mind, of their last chat, of his so-called reason for being here. He grimaced. “Do you go to the common room like this?”

“Not typically. Do you want to sit, then? Take your backpack off?” She pat a spot of bed next to her, and her smile curled into a smirk.

“Sure. Will Carlos mind?”

Virginia’s smile emerged alongside a sputtered laugh. “Definitely.” Her eyes rolled with a little nod of her head, and they both laughed out loud. It was cathartic and natural, a release that had been years in the making.

What started as a chat about his time at Magenta evolved into a catch-up about themselves, and each other. They reminisced about the new times, the old times, about London, about Los Angeles, about her move to San Francisco, about his tribulations at Maelzel’s and his cold war with Seb’s partner.

“She’d see me dead if she wasn’t afraid of the jail time,” Sam said as he took a sip of the whisky Virginia had produced from under the bed.

“She seemed nice enough.” Virginia pulled the bottle loose from Sam’s grip. “But I can understand why any woman would want you dead, Samir Patel. I want you dead.”

“Wow.” Sam answered as he watched Virginia take a drink so large he thought she might be trying to finish the bottle. “Dead? But you got me a job.”

“I care about you.” She flashed a look at him over her shoulder, and glanced away as soon as he noticed. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to anymore, if you were dead.”

“Dead! That’s intense, Virginia Rose. You are an intense woman.”

She peered at him through the bottle, her hand cupped around the base while she rotated it slowly back and forth. Sam tried to get a fix on her through the distortion. Her eyes were enormous. “That’s right. I’m an intense woman. Maybe that’s why you finally had to call us quits.”

“Hey.” He grabbed the whisky, his hands landing atop hers. They held it between them and locked eyes through the glass. “I didn’t call us quits.” The little that was left sloshed around the bottom.

“Hey, yourself.” She pressed her nose against her side of the bottle. “I have the transcript.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t… me…” He trailed off as he realised his overstep. His stomach gurgled. Whisky never agreed with him.

She scoffed and leaned back, her neck askew, her face twisted. “No, Sam, it was you. It was your Mirror.”

“I know, but…”

“If…” Virginia blurted her way back in. This was the Virginia he remembered. The one that doesn’t let you speak. “If… if your Mirror told me that we should end things, then that was how you felt as well. You know this, Samir.”

“I…”

“They don’t think for themselves. They are mapped to you, to your thoughts and wishes. It would only express what you yourself are thinking.”

“Right, but…” He felt his face going hot. She’d let the whisky drop onto the floor with a thud, and as a small mercy, it did not have enough left in it to spill.

“It’s wholly inappropriate for you to claim…”

“Virginia!” Samir shouted. He hadn’t meant to shout. A tingling shot through his hands, and in an instant he was worried he might be having some kind of medical episode.

“What?”

“I didn’t break up with you.” He scooped the bottle up and took about a dram straight down his throat. Everything burned.

Her composure finally shattered. “Then why didn’t you call?” she yelled, her voice cracking. “Not one call, Samir! You just unpaired from me without so much as a message!” It took the air out of the room. She panted as if she couldn’t catch her breath, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. It had all gotten so complicated since that night at The Roundhouse. Her face was red and splotched. He thought about asking Aida to play Virginia’s favourite Burnt Pier song, but he knew she’d decline.

“I don’t know,” he finally mustered. “It felt so dehumanising.”

“Sam.” She got to her feet and started pacing, as much as she could in the confines of the dormitory. “It was what you wanted. What you honestly wanted.”

“No,” he replied. “How could you know that?” This was the Virginia he knew the most. The one who told him what he wanted.

“That’s what you’ve never understood about what we do here, about any of this. That conversation your Mirror had with me, with my Mirror, about ending things. It was honest, it was justified. You’re so caught up on how you didn’t feel ready. But you were ready. You were just too afraid to do it.”

“Fine.” Sam’s pulse raced. He crunched himself in a ball and dropped his head against his knees.

“Is that what you want to go back to? A world where people stay in broken, failed marriages? Your Mirror reflected your truth and so did mine. It’s not dehumanising. It’s the most human thing that could’ve happened. That… or you could’ve just been talking to me all those nights, instead of my Mirror.” She sighed. “I would have liked that too.”

“I…”

She leaned her head against the door frame, her face hidden. “I might get some tea from the kitchen.” She sniffled and tapped her finger against the panel. But the door remained shut. In the corner of his vision, he saw her waving her hands around. “Hello?”

“What?”

“The door won’t open,” she replied. Sam looked up as she slapped her palm against the pad on the wall. “Aida, open the door please.”

They both jumped and their gazes rose to the ceiling as the room flooded with light. A klaxon blared, the sound vibrating inside his skull.

Sam got to his feet. “Is there a fire?”

“Something’s wrong. It’s the shelter in place alarm.”

Sam struggled to move. The tingling sensation had overwhelmed him, his arms hung heavy and limp at his sides. “Virginia, I know what this will be.” Lydia’s instructions assailed him. When the time comes, just tell her our conditions. His legs went, sending him back down to the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What did you do?” Virginia furrowed her brow, but Sam could only stare at the hideous carpet. “Aida, what’s the cause of the alarm?”

“Ms. Rose,” Aida boomed from an unseen speaker. “A nearby incident has prompted an automated security sweep of the building. Please shelter in place until the sweep is complete.”

Sam squinted and held his breath. “Wait, wait. There’s something I need to tell you. But, wait… is this not… they’ve entered the lobby, right?” He felt a vibration from his pocket so strong it seemed it might tear through his jeans. Virginia took notice.

“What’s going on?”

He fumbled the awkward rectangle out of his pocket and flipped it open. “It’s nothing, it’s just something they gave me. Some people I met at Maelzel’s. It’s a retro thing.” He wanted to say more, but instead bit his lip and let a bit of air escape his nose. Virginia snatched the device from his hand with confidence, though Sam was convinced she’d never seen anything like it before. As they stared it began to vibrate again, and the word LYDIA flashed on the screen.

“Shit,” he said as he snatched it from Virginia’s hands. He pushed the green button and heard a click sound. “Lydia?”

“Samir,” came her voice through the speaker. It was muffled and clipped, with bits missing as she spoke. “Samir, I’m sorry.” She sounded as if she was whispering to him through a tin can.

“Lydia, I can barely hear you.”

“Samir?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I’m so sorry. May… the… , it’s…”

“Lydia.” Samir lifted the device to his ear and shouted. “I can’t hear you.”

“Samir, it’s the nightclub. Maelzel’s. It’s gone.”

Virginia got to her feet, her mouth covered by one hand, steadied against the wall with the other.

“Gone,” he said. “I don’t understand. Lydia, where’s Seb?”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia repeated. “I have to go. I really am sorry, Samir.” A loud click and a beep came from the speaker, and the screen on the device went dark.