Out there, p.19
Out There, page 19
She said this jokingly, yet it was not a joke. Meg knew that she herself was one of the broken people Genevieve gathered around her. Genevieve had paid their full rent some months when Meg had unexpected bills, shrugging at Meg’s promises to repay her. She had agreed to let Matt move in, because she’d recognized it was important to Meg, and because she lived by a personal code of never standing in the way of other people’s happiness, which also meant allowing them to make their own mistakes. She could offer her guidance, her sharply honed judgments, but people were free to ignore them.
It was nine o’clock, Saturday morning. Roger had already texted: Good morning, beautiful Meg. When will I see you again?
* * *
—
Days passed, and Roger continued texting Meg. Her responses lacked enthusiasm, and whenever Roger asked when she was available to hang out again, she would say something vague about how busy she was.
“She may want to achieve sex again when the weekend arrives,” Steve told Roger on Tuesday, after examining their text exchanges. “If you do not text her for several days, she will fear she has lost your affection, and contact you to discover if her suspicions are correct.”
Roger saw the wisdom in Steve’s thinking. He stopped texting Meg. He reflected on the details of their first encounter, in case he should get another chance to achieve sex with her. She had responded most positively when he did not speak, when he simply focused on inserting parts of his body into her orifices. She had recoiled when he told her he loved her, and Roger resolved to never do this again, though it was the truest thing he had ever known. Roger asked Steve if he would be willing to practice kissing. Steve agreed, and they spent Thursday afternoon engaged in this practice, first with Steve pretending he was Meg, then with Roger pretending he was Marisa, and then with Roger pretending he was Meg and Steve was Roger, until by the end Roger felt ready to approach kissing Meg from any perspective, including his own.
Friday night came, and Meg still hadn’t texted. Roger began to despair. Steve had left on a date with Marisa; in the morning, he would return to their room to pack his things, and he and Marisa would leave for Big Sur. At 10:00 p.m., desolate in his solitude, Roger walked to Golden Gate Park. He was gazing upon the dark, shimmering surface of Stow Lake when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
* * *
—
Meg was drinking with Genevieve and Genevieve’s classmate Hugo at the Bitter End. Genevieve had insisted she tell Hugo about her date with Roger, and Meg did so reluctantly.
“Oh my god,” Hugo said. “What’s he doing now? Can we meet him?”
At first, Meg demurred, but then she grew drunker, and a little horny, and started to think it would be nice to have Roger come home with her again. Sexually, he presented a blank form that she could shape into whatever she wanted. He was so eager to please her. And she felt a little mean, evading his invitations to hang out again, rather than simply telling him she wasn’t interested. As she sat with her friends at the bar, Meg wondered if she had not done so because she was, in fact, still interested.
“Okay, I’ll invite Roger,” she said, during a lull in their conversation. Genevieve and Hugo squealed. “I’m sure he’s doing something else,” Meg said. It was 11:00 p.m. on a Friday. To send a last-minute text, which conveyed that it had only occurred to her as an afterthought that she might desire his presence, was the kind of shit guys had pulled on her in the past. She expected Roger to do what she did in those instances—to not write back until morning, if ever.
But Roger replied within thirty seconds, saying he was on his way. Fifteen minutes later, he appeared in the bar’s doorway. Once again, Meg was struck by Roger’s guilelessness. He didn’t seem to realize, or care, how desperate he might seem to Meg and her friends. Most guys would have killed thirty minutes on Clement Street, maybe peering into the windows of the exotic fish store, so as not to appear too available.
She stood to greet him, and Roger embraced her. He clutched her face between his hands and kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth with surprising deftness. Meg returned to her seat, dazed and a little aroused. Genevieve and Hugo stared, openmouthed, and she felt a tinge of satisfaction. She’d made Roger out to be a fool, but his physical presence had a certain effect, the visceral power of hotness. He wore only a white undershirt and jeans, and his skin was flushed, as if he’d just come from the gym.
“Where are you from, Roger?” Hugo asked.
“I come from the marshlands of central Florida,” Roger said. “It is a region of the United States.”
Meg blushed, knowing Genevieve would fixate on the strangeness of Roger’s speech.
“Wow, no shit?” Genevieve said. “Florida’s part of the U.S. now?”
“Yes,” Roger said. “It is one of the fifty states.”
Meg glared at Genevieve, regretting what she’d set into motion, but Genevieve’s gaze was fixed on Roger, her lips curled in a predatory smile.
“You’re very handsome,” Hugo said.
“Thank you.”
“Have you ever modeled?”
“No, but I am interested in any opportunities this world has to offer.”
“Right on,” Hugo said.
“Let’s get you a drink,” Meg said, and shuffled Roger out of the booth. They went to the bar, where she ordered them pints of beer.
“What were you doing before you came here?” she said.
“I was wandering through Golden Gate Park, hoping you would contact me,” Roger said.
This was the answer she’d feared. Now that he was here, she felt protective of Roger. It had been cruel to invite him simply to allow her friends to make fun of him. “You want to get out of here?” she said.
Back in her room, Meg found Roger better equipped to meet her needs. She was pleased by the way he kissed her, while they were still standing in the center of the room, and then forced her down onto the bed. He gripped her body more firmly this time. He coiled his fingers into her hair, and when she asked him to, he slapped her face lightly.
They lay together in the dark. Again Meg wanted Roger to leave, though the feeling was less pronounced than before. “I have been thinking, Meg,” Roger said, and she tensed.
“About what?” she said.
“I think we should take a trip to Big Sur,” he said. “It would be a romantic diversion from our everyday lives. A change in scenery would deepen our connection, enabling us to see one another differently. We could spend the three-hour drive discussing the life events that have shaped us.”
It seemed way too soon to propose taking a trip together. She wondered again if Roger planned to murder her.
“Let me think about it,” she said.
“Yes, please consider it seriously,” Roger said. He got up and began putting on his clothes.
“Where are you going?” Meg said.
“I am returning to my own place of residence, so that you can sleep soundly,” Roger said.
“You don’t have to,” Meg said.
“I would like to stay, but I am aware this is your preference.” He bent down and kissed her cheek. “Besides, my roommate is leaving in the morning, and I would like to be there to say goodbye. I will contact you by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. If you have any wish for contact before then, please do not hesitate to yield to this desire. I will respond immediately, regardless of the hour.”
* * *
—
Steve had showered and dressed in his favorite chambray shirt. Roger presented him with a gray cashmere scarf, which he’d bought as a parting gift.
“Thank you, Roger,” Steve said, his eyes filling with tears as he wrapped the scarf around his neck. “I will think of you on the drive, imagining I am seeing the landscape as you will see it in the near future.”
Steve had packed some of his belongings into his canvas backpack. The rest, Roger would dispose of or repurpose for his own use, clearing the way for a new roommate. “I will always remember our time together in this room,” Roger said.
“Yes, but soon we will be reunited, and our memories will merge,” Steve said. “I believe you have found your match in Meg.”
“I believe so, too,” Roger said. They embraced, and then Steve was gone. Roger went to the park and waited for Meg to text him. He observed two dogs playing, taking turns chasing a rubber stick. The dogs were of equivalent size, though one possessed a shaggy coat and the other a sleek one. The fight was playful at first, but then it seemed to turn serious, the dogs growling, teeth clenched upon opposite ends of the toy. Roger’s eyes brimmed with tears. He believed all dogs should be friends, and did not like to see them at odds with each other.
* * *
—
Meg always told herself it would be the last time with Roger, and then a few days would pass and she’d find herself texting him. He would come over and fuck her, with increasing competence, and then hold her tight in his arms, whispering about taking a trip to Big Sur.
“When will we go to Big Sur?” Roger said again one Tuesday night, and Meg groaned.
“It’s so far from here,” she said. “And we don’t have a car.”
“We can rent one,” Roger said. “Oh, Meg, it will be so wonderful.”
Meg had been to Big Sur once, with Matt. They’d set up their tent in a narrow slot within a sprawling campsite. The ground was muddy, the air thick with grilled meat. All night, children screamed right outside their tent.
“I’m not really into camping,” she said.
“We will not need to camp,” Roger said. “We will stay in a beautiful two-story cabin overlooking the sea.”
This piqued Meg’s interest. She wondered how Roger had access to this cabin, but she had learned that asking him practical questions about his life only yielded unsatisfying, cryptic responses. It occurred to her that Roger was embedded in a network of tech-industry privilege that she might enjoy the perks of. Matt had been similarly privileged, but abstained from indulging due to his political convictions. He’d been a hacker as a teenager in rural Oregon, a vegan anarchist who justified his current job coding for a major tech company as a means of stockpiling cash to fund hazily defined revolutionary activities. In the meantime, he and Meg had eaten bland quinoa every night. She’d fallen asleep to the faint sound of Rage Against the Machine issuing from Matt’s headphones while he stayed up until 3:00 a.m., Slacking with his comrades. She had longed, in those days, for a partner who would engage with her in expensive, ecologically irresponsible activities.
“Maybe,” she told Roger. “Let me check my schedule.”
* * *
—
On her lunch break the next day, in addition to Roger’s usual morning texts, Meg found a text from Genevieve: Omg read this. She’d sent a link to a Chronicle article, which detailed a new scam involving a technology that had originally been intended for use in the healthcare sector, but whose prototype had been seized by a Russian company and developed for use in an elaborate data-mining operation. Several women had reported going on dates with suspiciously attractive men, who eventually led them to Big Sur, then stole their data and vanished in a cloud of lavender-scented mist. These men, it turned out, were not human, but an advanced form of artificial intelligence, a biomorphic robot whose cells vaporized upon completing the task with which they’d been programmed. They’d been nicknamed “blots,” a term left over from the acronym used by the technology’s original developer.
In the hospital cafeteria, Meg skimmed through women’s accounts of their blotting, feeling nauseous. The blots’ tactics were vindictive, focused on destroying the woman’s reputation in addition to stealing her money. It’s been the worst six months of my life, read a quote from a woman named Alicia.
Meg shivered. All signs pointed to Roger being a blot. She navigated back to his messages. Beautiful Meg, he had written an hour ago. Have you devoted any more thought to our trip to Big Sur?
Meg ignored both Roger’s and Genevieve’s texts. She returned to the lab, where she crouched over an eyeball, peering through her magnifier as she worked a scalpel around the hazel iris. The work calmed her, though her body tingled with the awareness that she’d taken a fake man into her body; that Roger was some kind of sex robot, set on exploiting her. It felt, in retrospect, like an innovative new form of sexual assault. She reflected on everything he’d ever said to her, all his odd mannerisms cast in a new, sinister light. Waves of anger coursed through her, hitting up against her memories of Roger’s vulnerability. Try as she might, Meg couldn’t fully convince herself that he wasn’t a real person, his emotions the result of coding devised by Russian programmers to manipulate her.
As she walked home that night, Meg kept her arms crossed over her chest, avoiding eye contact with any man she passed. She had the sense of narrowly escaping calamity, once again. Another week, and she’d have gone to Big Sur with Roger, and lost her tenuous grip on a respectable life. She passed by the pizza restaurant where they’d had their first date, and paused at the window. She shivered again as she watched a young couple laugh over glasses of wine.
* * *
—
Roger sat in his room, alone. It was Friday afternoon, but he felt too sad to go to the park. He missed Steve, but more important, he missed Meg, who had stopped replying to his texts. Kirill had also gone silent. Roger had sent him an email that morning, asking when he would receive a new roommate, but it had bounced back with an error message. Roger did not understand what was happening. He had felt on the brink of achieving his purpose, of taking Meg on a romantic excursion to Big Sur, the journey that would finally relieve him of his burden. They had grown closer, over numerous occasions of achieving sex together, and she had even said she’d check her schedule to determine when it would accommodate a trip. But now, she would not even talk to him, and as he sat in the room, the setting sun casting a rectangle of light across the brown carpet, Roger began to worry that something terrible had happened to her.
Are you okay, Meg? he wrote. It would be a great relief if you could simply confirm your continued existence.
Roger watched the text go through, “delivered” appearing beneath the blue bubble of his message. At that moment, someone knocked, and Roger was disoriented, thinking that his text had summoned the knock, and that Meg herself would appear at the door. But Roger reminded himself this was unlikely. His next thought was that his new roommate had finally arrived. It had been nearly two weeks since Steve’s departure, by far the longest stretch Roger had spent alone in the room. He had been unbearably lonely.
Roger opened the door to find a bald man with tired eyes, the same man he had previously seen mopping the foyer of the building.
“I need you to vacate the premises by the end of the day,” the man said. His tone was harsh, the way people spoke in the park when a dog had done something forbidden.
“I do not understand,” Roger said. “I live in this room.”
“Whatever line of work you’re involved with is none of my business,” the man said. “But the city’s cracking down. If you’re still here in the morning, I’ll call the police.”
Beyond the man’s rounded shoulders, Roger saw that the doors of the other rooms on his floor stood open, the hallway eerily quiet. He agreed to the man’s terms, then closed the door and sat on the edge of his bed. He began crying, out of confusion. After a few minutes, he regained his composure, packed his favorite things into his backpack, and ventured out into the city to find Meg.
* * *
—
Everyone in Meg’s world was obsessed with the idea of blots. Meg avoided discussing it, horrified that she’d fallen for one. She shut down Genevieve’s attempts to speculate on how the Russian company might already be utilizing her DNA, which the articles said the blots carefully retained after each sexual encounter with a human woman. It appeared the Russian company had seen the end coming, and scaled back their operations shortly before the news broke. The remaining blots had all managed to abscond to Big Sur with their dates in the preceding weeks, and vaporize. It seemed that Roger was the only blot left in the city, and Meg was the only one who knew of his continued existence.
I do not know what I have done to offend you. I would only like a chance to make it up to you, Roger had written the following Monday, when Meg checked her phone on her lunch break.
Upon leaving work, she found Roger standing by the bike racks. His clothes were rumpled, his face drawn, as if he had not slept in days. “I can’t talk to you,” she said, moving past him.
Roger followed a few paces behind her. “Please, Meg,” he said. “I have been evicted from my room. There is no one I can turn to. I miss you so much. The pain of losing you is causing me to slowly perish, as if my internal organs are being eroded by acid.”
Meg turned to face him. “Do you understand that you’re not a real person?”
“What do you mean, Meg?”
“You’re a blot,” Meg said. “You were created to steal women’s data, destroy their credit, and humiliate them on the internet. That’s what you would have done to me, too, if we’d gone to Big Sur.”
“I wanted to go to Big Sur as a romantic escape we could enjoy together,” Roger said.
“The police are looking for you,” she said. “If they catch you, they’ll send you to some lab to be experimented on. You should go to Big Sur on your own.”
“I cannot go there without you, Meg,” Roger said.
She paused. “Why not?”
“I do not understand it either. Some things are simply not possible in this life.”
“I’m sorry,” Meg said. “I can’t help you. Please leave me alone.” She walked away quickly, turning left at the next intersection so she would not be tempted to look back and see Roger standing there, his hands empty.
