Mona
by Addie Lacoe
Illustration by Janet Aulisio Dannheiser
Mona ignored the presence she felt blocking the doorway to her office cubicle: a man, judging by the mass registering on her telemetry implant, with a step she didn’t recognize—a stranger, without an appointment.
A calling card clicked into her “incoming” box. The man should have backed off at that point, leaving her to decide whether she wanted anything to do with him. When he didn’t, she reached for the card and stuck it under her scanner. The simulator voice in her ear spoke the words, “Enrique Leon,” with his business and home addresses, phones, FAX, e-mail, and references—the standard stuff. A handwritten message, which she deciphered by touch on the projection pad, said only, “May I speak with you?”
She called up his file. Mr. Leon was on the payroll, all right, and this was a sample of his handwriting. But what did he want in Personnel, when he already worked here? His written message sounded like a pick-up line out of a politically-correct primer, making sure nobody could say he’d forced himself on her. His deliberate coldness and the unmistakable smell of fear on him piqued her interest.
She wrote on one of her own cards, “13:22,” thirty seconds away, stuck it in an envelope, and dropped it in her “outgoing” box.
Mona heard him pick up the envelope, open it, and then wait, shifting in his soft-soled shoes, his solid bulk still blocking the draft.
In the few seconds she had, she let his bio play out beneath her fingertips: age 27, single, I.Q. 155, degrees from some very impressive schools, nine years in the Engineering Department, now assigned to Special Projects.
She could feel him staring. If she were sighted, he wouldn’t have dared caress her with his eyes that way. His concentration was unnerving but also flattering.
In more than five months, since leaving the small college town she’d grown up in, she hadn’t had anything even close to what she’d call an actual date. Her supervisor had introduced her around the first day, but then she’d had to sit through a course in business etiquette before the company’s next weekend social. Management was supersensitive about avoiding liability for any sexual improprieties. No wonder even the other women in the department were standoffish.
At 13:22, Mona raised her face to her visitor and said, “Yes, Mr. Leon?”
She heard the polite click of his wrist video-recorder and made a show of turning on her own machine, though it was redundant in her case. This was part of the dance everybody did in self-defense against any trumped-up harassment charges.
“Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Klein,” he said.
He impressed her, the way he didn’t avoid using the word “see.” Mona filed a sample voiceprint, but she already knew she wouldn’t need it. She loved his resonating baritone. “You don’t have to be formal. What can I do for you?”
“There’s an interdepartmental get-together set for tonight. When you didn’t R.S.V.P., I figured you might have missed the announcement.”
She had missed it. Few people realized how tedious it could be for her to listen to the entire network bulletin board every day. She liked his thoughtfulness and the way he spoke directly to her, not condescending, not raising his voice or using simple words or exaggerated enunciation. “Which departments?” His and hers, of course, or he wouldn’t have risked telling her in the first place.
“Personnel and Special Projects.”
“I don’t think I know anybody in Special Projects,” she said. “I’m sure I haven’t screened anybody for there. What’re you working on?”
“You’ll know some of us,” he said. “We were all taken from other departments.”
When he stopped short of answering her final question, Mona felt obliged to fill the conversational gap. “Where’s it going to be?”
“In Conference Room K, at the Holiday-Sheraton.” He slipped a glossy page onto her desk.
It registered as the hotel’s floor plan. “I appreciate you letting me know.” It was obvious that he’d come prepared. She wondered how far he’d go. If he mentioned a time, it’d be the equivalent of a pre-turn-of-the-century date, but with the reserved twenties practice of not asking for a firm commitment.
“It starts at eighteen hundred,” he said. “Black tie.”
A formal affair—even more enticing. Her feedback registered that Mr. Leon was tall and well proportioned, with a military bearing. She wished she could touch him, even just to shake hands, the way her parents’ generation used to, but that was out of the question. This was one of the rare times she wished her telemetry were a newer model—with a wider selection of wavelengths and slightly better resolution, so she could trace the outline of his profile—but for most of her needs, it wasn’t worth another operation to upgrade. “What’s the occasion?”
“It’s an annual thing.”
Mona had heard the women talking about some big party coming up soon, but she’d given up on parties. “It sounds like fun,” she said. “I’ll check my calendar.” His last-minute notice made this stock answer sound more believable than usual. The phrase was his cue to make a quick exit, instead of waiting while she “checked.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing you, then, Ms. Klein,” he said.
Presumptuous, or else very confident.
“Unless you really can read minds.” He clicked off his recorder and left.
Mona smiled. He was taunting her just a little, saying that he knew what people said about her. Nobody seriously believed the old stereotype about blind people, but she didn’t mind the joke. Any extra insight she could pretend to was a help in her work as a personnel screener, and she thought the myth added a little mystery to her character. Some men found that threatening; Mr. Leon seemed to find her a challenge. She liked that. She decided to go and check him out.
As she left work, Mona scanned the network. She was puzzled that there wasn’t any mention of Mr. Leon’s party, but then there weren’t any other announcements for that evening, either. Somebody must have cleaned off the board already. It wasn’t important.
At eighteen hundred hours, she paused outside Conference Room K, dressed in a brushed silk blouse and floor-length skirt that felt luscious against her skin and fell in drapes that wliispered when she moved. Elegant, but not suggestive for a first “date.”
Her telemetry was getting a little weak. When she became too excited, her artificial sense might fade out—something to do with the way adrenaline affected the balance of electrolytes that powered its organic battery. The bio-engineers were working on the problem, but for now, she preferred to live with the occasional annoyance, rather than undergo surgery to replace the battery every two years. After all, she’d managed well enough, growing up blind before the technology ever came along.
She calmed herself and restored focus by taking inventory of her posture, being careful not to lead with her ears, like a dog listening to barking on the radio. She reminded herself not to throw her head back, as if sniffing the air, inviting everybody to look up her nostrils. As a child, her parents had stopped her from chewing her lips or sitting slack-jawed. To her, these taboos made about as much sense as not being allowed to digest food in public or recite poetry in her head, acts that only some hyperspace alien could possibly detect and take offense at. Now, reviewing her training was a comforting mantra. She hoped her smile showed how excited she was, without looking too foolish.
Mona inserted a calling card in the slot outside the hotel room. The program recognized her, and the door opened.
Stepping inside, she was surprised to find only one other person in the spacious room. Was she too early? In the wrong place? Had she mistaken the day?