Chapter 5

“Hey, have you heard from Ben?” said Marc.

He was on a call with Sam. She didn’t speak for a while. Marc tapped his fingers against his desk. In his apartment it was dull, the primary light source being his three computer monitors. All different sizes, one vertically positioned on the right, the others horizontal. The one on the right had lines of code trickling down it all the time. Sometimes work or a project, sometimes a screensaver. Multiple empty mugs littered the desk, alongside discarded wrappers from CaliaBars, a high-protein, low-sugar snack designed to provide low-cost sustenance to people on the fringes of society. They had become popular with anyone doing marathon coding sessions or similar all-hours projects. Marc had a hard time getting anything done without having a few.

“No answer still,” Sam said, finally.

“You called him just now?”

“Yeah, it just rang out.”

“Where is he? It’s been four days. Trish and Theo can’t reach him either.”

Silence again. Marc glanced at the left monitor. On it, pop-ups appeared for CaliaCorp products and services. He rolled his eyes. Each one of course came with the familiar image of her. Calia. Real woman or corporate mascot, the debate raged on forums and discussion sites for a long time. No one knew. Whoever she was, she had been the same age for a long, long time, so definitely hiding some terrible secret. Like that book with the painting Marc couldn’t recall the name of.

“Marc, I’m worried.”

Marc took his own moment of silence. He was worried too. Ben acted aloof, distant at times, but he was always online. Terminally so. It seemed unthinkable for him to be unavailable. When he was busy, he’d give a curt reply and that would be that. He never just ignored all contact. Ever.

“Me too, Sam.”

“What should we do? Should we call the police?”

“You think they’ll even care about someone missing? It happens all the time.”

“Yeah, but… Marc we can’t just do nothing, can we?”

Sam’s words were drowned out by another popup. The CaliaCorp computers were good value, but they came with a ton of ads and even with a dedicated modding community to remove them, some slipped through with each new update. This one buzzed in Marc’s ear and made him unable to focus on the call with Sam.

You can be free of worry and stress today. Don’t be afraid to make a change that could make all the difference. Free yourself of concern over money, bills, or housing and join CaliaCorp. Now hiring. Just click and apply now. There’s a place for everyone at CaliaCorp.

The popup hung on the screen with a glowing, pulsing ‘apply now’ button tempting Marc to click it. Instead, he ignored it and focused on Sam.

“Sorry, popup. What did you say?”

“I don’t remember. Sorry, it’s hard to focus. I’m just… I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t call or message or anything.”

Marc looked at the popup, then clicked to close it.

“I have one idea.”

“What?”

“CaliaCorp.”

“Hang on, what do you mean?”

“Sam, he was acting weird and… they’re hiring, right?”

“They’re always hiring and he’s always weird.”

“I guess. Where the hell is he?”

“We should report it Marc, we have to try.”

“He could just be sick, I guess?”

“Can you imagine him so sick he wouldn’t be online? Wouldn’t send a single message or post on some social account?”

Marc took a slow, deep breath. Another popup demanded his attention. He turned away from the screen and exhaled, letting the air ripple over his lips.

“Let’s get Theo and Trish, and go to Ben’s place, ok?” he said.

“Ok,” said Sam.

She ended the call and Marc turned back to face his computer. The popups were growing in number at an alarming rate. Each one featured the same woman. Calia. Brown hair, blue eyes, red lips. She always looked the same. Always the picture-perfect woman, smirking at him from an image of her at a beach or in a forest. Each image advertising something new. One drew Marc’s eye particularly well. Calia, the world’s most overtly sexual corporate mascot, in a plunging red dress, leaning forward so her cleavage was easy to stare at. She beckoned with a crooked finger and Marc grabbed his mouse. He felt a sudden compulsion to click on the image, then stopped himself.

As he did, he could have sworn she frowned, but after a blink, she was back to beckoning him seductively to click. Instead, Marc closed all the popups and opened his messaging app to talk to his friends. There, Sam asked for them to meet an hour later to check Ben’s apartment out. Another popup opened, covering the messaging app with a looping video of Calia smiling and moving her hips back and forth in a rhythmical motion. Marc was transfixed. She wore a black pleated skirt this time, and white blouse. He found it hard to take his eyes off the image. It drew him in, just as it was designed to. Marc knew what was happening but felt powerless to resist it. Calia’s image was one he had become accustomed to. Her face adorned so many products and she appeared in so many advertisements on TV, online, everywhere. The video had sound, he realised, coming faintly from the pair of headphones resting beside his keyboard. The faint voice urged him to do something, and Marc picked up the headphones and put them on before he could stop himself.

Wouldn’t you like to do that? Wouldn’t you like to show me how wonderful you are? Just one click, and you can really impress me.

Marc hovered over the popup for a moment, his hand trembling on the mouse. Something about her tone, her voice, it made him feel like he needed to click the link. Like it was the most important thing in the world.

He rubbed his face and shook his head rapidly.

“Not today, you…”

His words trailed off. The group chat moved on to speculating about Ben’s whereabouts. Sam said he was probably feeling depressed about the conversation about the state of the city. That Ben was sick of them always complaining. He even tried to get the group to let things go, and maybe he was right.

Theo argued, as always, with every point. Always the loudmouth. He made jokes that Ben had been murdered. As if that could be possible. Crime was so low since CaliaCorp took over. Even in the Circuit District, there was next to no violent crime. Just back-alley brothels and speakeasies. There was no way Ben was the victim of something like that. It just didn’t happen anymore. Though, Marc wondered, if not that, then what? His thoughts went back to CaliaCorp, and Calia. They must be involved. She must be involved. Maybe she seduced him in her little skirt. Pulled it up a little to show off her–

Marc stopped the runaway train of thought as fast as he could. He needed to get out before he got lost in the popups again. He told the group he’d see them soon and shut down his computer. On the way out, he grabbed his coat, an old and battered leather jacket, and put it on. He always felt better wearing it. It was comforting. One of the few things his mother had been able to buy him, and one of the few memories of her he had left. He went out the door, and down into the street.

The Circuit District was old. It went by a different name once, a few of them in fact, but eventually just sort of merged into a maze of crumbling apartment blocks and warehouses. It was never really intended to be a residential area in the first place, but once the gleaming glass towers sprouted up everywhere else, those who weren’t rich enough or employed by CaliaCorp were displaced and ended up creating homes inside what had been factories and production plants for mostly electronics. Marc was lucky. He had enough skill to make some money through less-than-legal means and get himself a proper apartment. It was awful, but at least it wasn’t above a brothel, and it had a proper bathroom and living room as well as a bedroom. That was peak luxury for the Circuit.

The area outside the block contained the main strip of the district, a few miles of noise and colour. The street ran narrow, and the buildings felt cavernous. Stock from shop fronts spilled out onto the street, cheap phones and old technology mostly. There were street food stands along the way, like markers showing how far you walked. Marc headed for a former warehouse half a mile down the strip. It was on a corner with a falafel stand. A dirty one. They were all dirty. Hygiene products, cleaning products, they were all luxuries. A small saving grace was that water, somehow, remained free. Marc remembered something about CaliaCorp making that happen, but it felt very unlikely, they sold everything. Maybe something in the water. Maybe, Marc thought, he needed to stop checking out conspiracy forums.

Marc was glad it was daylight out. At night it became hard to see the gaping chasms in the pavement that grew from cracks. No one repaired them, so they turned from fissures into fractures into holes that claimed many ankles over the years. Marc remembered Sam got a particularly bad sprain in one and couldn’t walk for a month. Day was also quiet. The district came to life after dark, when the neon lights flickered and flashed, and the suited corporate types wandered into the area looking for fun. The money that came in from them was the sole reason anyone could survive in the Circuit, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and there were too many people and too much competition for anyone to ask for more money for whatever they were selling.

One place Marc passed was open already. A seedy theatre with red curtains for a doorway. It never closed. A rickety sign above it advertised vintage pornography shows. He remembered visiting with a friend and both of them getting quite excited by what they saw and sharing an intimate moment of mutual masturbation. Now that vintage stuff did nothing for him. The CaliaCorp content was all that seemed to work to get him going. Those stupid popups.

The theatre was one of the landmarks that told Marc he was almost there. He could smell the falafel stand and ahead saw Sam, Theo, and Trish already waiting.