Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
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In the middle of ringing up a customer, Ty's phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked to see a message light up on the clear screen.
"Stupid phone," he muttered.
"You mean 'interface'," the customer corrected him before walking away.
Phone. Interface. Names meant little to Ty. It all amounted to technology, the number one item on his shit-list.
He watched the register kiosk with narrowed eyes. The line was four customers long, while he had done one return in three hours, and it was because the customer hadn't felt like waiting in line to use the kiosk.
Over at the conventional registers, Antoinella tried to look busy. She too watched the kiosks, appearing more wistful than angry. A customer approached, and she perked up, ready to ring them up. However, the customer merely asked where the bathroom was. Antoinella's smile shank and her shoulders slumped. She pointed the customer to the back of the store.
Samantha tapped Antoinella's shoulder, whispering into her ear. Something she said made her laugh.
"Hey man." Wallace nudged Ty.
"Hey."
They stood silently for the space of a few moments, looking ahead at the two women.
"Samantha tell you about our date the other night?"
Internally, Ty rolled his eyes. "Yes."
"She tell you she gave me the 'let's be friends' speech?"
"No, she didn't."
"She said it differently, but she meant 'let's be friends'."
With her vocabulary, maybe she had said,
"Fuck it Wallace. This isn't going to work. Can we forget we fucked and go on with our lives?"
Ty winced. He was aware of his friend's pain. Wallace surprised him by what he said next.
"Oh well. I was thinking of asking out Antoinella."
Ty chuckled. Good ol' Wallace, already moving on with positive thinking.
A second buzz bit at his side. A message from Damon read:
-Hope you didn't touch my stuff. Be home in a few days.
Reality sure knew how to ruin an already shitty day. What was Damon going to do when he saw Samantha? One look at her and he would know what she really was. Damon was smart, principled, and quick to anger. He wouldn't care about Ty's creation, only about the act itself.
Near closing time, Agent Crendan stopped by the store for what she called "a follow-up" interview with Samantha. She wanted status updates on the incident, returning memories, and Samantha's overall adjustment at Good Time.
From Crendan's condescending looks after each one of Samantha's lies, it was evident she would return, perhaps armed with the details surrounding Samantha's appearance. Ty had to figure out how to get rid of it (er, Samantha), before he got into any more trouble.
