The Hotel Room

The room is plain. No more, or less, than she expected. The walls and bed are a cream white, and the carpet a violent shade of burgundy, the colour that wine stains just blend into. She puts down the bag with the pistol in it beside the bed and rubs at what turns out to be a cigarette burn on the duvet with one thumb.

The window swings outward on cobwebbed hinges and the warm night drifts in. A midsummer night's breeze. She slips off her shoes and pads over to the window, intending to close it, yet she can't find the parting in the curtain, and tugs at the folds of fabric, the sepia flower pattern blurring past. Eventually, it dawns on her that the curtain has no parting, it is simply a single sheet, designed to be pulled to one side or the other. After this realization, she can't control herself and she begins to laugh, crouching down against the metallic cool of the radiator and clamping her hands over her mouth to stifle the red faced gasps. She finds this, often. That when she is highly strung, tense, jumpy even, she tends to laugh, randomly and suddenly over the smallest of things. She reminds herself that not being able to draw aside a curtain is not a proper cause for mirth. An amused smile at the most. She composes herself, takes multiple breaths and rises to her feet. She pulls aside the curtain and is about to close the window, has one arm out into the night, fingers on the handle, when she sees him. He stands by his truck, a three dimensional shadow in the carpark lamplight's ruddy glow. His head is bolt upright, his neck seemingly far too long. Around him, midges, like flecks of floating bronze, drift in the thick air.

The lingering smile dies on her lips.

He has a cigarette in his left hand and it's smoke curls upwards in tendrils, hitting the underside of his unshaven chin and rolling over his face, obscuring his eyes.

She doesn't need to see them.

Because she knows exactly what they're fixed on.

Reaching out, she snatches at the window's handle, swings it shut, draws the single curtain across it and backs away, eyes widening in terror.

He's here.

He's found her.

With his leg, he'll be up here in roughly five minutes.

On an impulse, she goes back to the door and checks it. Locked. She tries to pull the cabinet opposite across to lie in front of it but it doesn't budge. On closer inspection she notices screws diagonally through the corners of the thing's legs, pinning it to the wall. She sits on her haunches, thinking. Then she goes back to her bag, fishes out the switchblade and crouches back down next to the cabinet.

The blade goes into the plaster fairly easily, she digs further, cutting around the screws, angling her wrist to fit it between the varnished fibreboard of the back of the cabinet and the 60s style drip wallpaper that covers the walls. Luckily, the screws aren't too far in and she manages to get them out fairly easily.

She must have about two minutes now.

But why?

Why would he make himself so visible and not expect her to run?

Because he knows she wants to kill him just as much as he does her.

Trundles the cabinet over, gets her pistol out of the bag, checks it's loaded and sits, on the corner of the bed, watching the door.

She waits.

And nothing happens.

Then, suddenly, nothing continues to happen.

Strange, she thinks, how him not turning up should frighten me more than if he were to arrive now.

And then he arrives.

He's taken off his boots, she can tell from the soft sound of socks on a carpeted floor. He'll have tied them together by the shoe strings and slung them over one shoulder. He'll have his gun out, with the long black silencer over the barrel, the one that makes it look like han solo's laser pistol in star wars. She can see the shadow of his feet in the line of light under the door, hear his breathing, shallow and measured. Then a key, scratching at the varnish, searching in the dark, a pause, during which she scans the room for somewhere to hide. The  bathroom, that has a lock on the inside, no key. From the door, the unmistakable sound of the tumblers sliding over each other and back into their new positions. She rises quickly, not caring about making a noise now, and darts into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind her. Fumbles in the darkness for a switch and flips it, wincing in the bluish glare. The entire room: tiles, bathtub, floor, sink and door ascend into the aquamarine coating, the light dull like a sea coloured moon.

/

She's in here, somewhere.

The room is fairly empty, not many places to hide. He checks the cabinet and under the bed nonetheless. Then his eyes fix onto the bathroom door. He goes back to the room's entrance, shuts the door and turns off the lights. There, a thin blue outline to it, like the outlines visible against bad green screen. It's flimsy wood, a well aimed kick would snap it. He walks over, dropping his boots on the bed as he passes it, and slowly, ever so slowly approaches the bathroom.

/

She has her ear pressed to the door when the kick comes, she tries to pull back but the door meets her halfway, slamming into her face and sending her backwards, into the tiled wall, her head taking the majority of the impact. Her back slides down the wall in synchronisation with her feet across the floor and comes to a stop in the corner, where her head lolls forward and she loses consciousness.

She wakes, some half an hour later, on her back, on the carpet. Above her, the wooden blades of the fan spiral, kicking up miniature swirls and ripples of air. She lies like this for some time, eyes half open, at one point, she attempts to open them fully but the intense pain from her forehead means she opts to settle for this semi vision. When the man's face appears overhead it comes as a shock and she attempts to sit up but her body gives way and she falls back down. The face continues to watch hers for what feels like a considerable amount of time before she feels a pair of hands, not his, softer, on her back, lifting her up and turning her round to sit with her back to the bed.

In front of her are three people, two men and a woman. The first man is of course, him. He sits on the window sill, next to the single sheet curtains, still smoking, she can see, tucked into his belt, her pistol. He grins at her when he notices her gaze.

Not a nice grin.

Far too many teeth.

The other man, the one who lifted her up, wears a dark grey suit, almost black, he is still crouching and the trousers over his knees look painfully tight.

The woman sits in an armchair, one with the same print as the curtains, older, certainly. She has on her lap, multiple thick leather-bound books and a clipboard with so many papers on it that the clip seems on the point of breaking. She is watching the happenings with an expression something like disgust.

Her face changes, suddenly and quite absolutely, she looks down, turns over a page of the clipboard and begins to read aloud.

Her mouth moves, cracked tongue slipping out between her lips on the 'th's.

The woman finishes, looks back up.

'Do you understand?'

She could hear that, moves her mouth, trying to form a 'what' or a 'sorry' or a 'pardon' but her broken mouth can't find the right syllables.

'Would you like me to read it again?'

'Yes'

The woman scoffs, clears her throat and begins to read.

'You are brought before this court under the following charges, violation of the artificial intelligence bill, grievous bodily harm, 3 counts of assault, 1 count of attempted murder, 1 of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and unlawful additions to your governing mainframe, how do you plead?'

Again, she makes a motion to talk except her tongue seems to forget that talking is it's job and her teeth try their hand at it. Eventually, the sound spews out.

'Not guilty'

The woman raises her eyebrows and slides, from underneath the pile of books, a thinner tome. She flicks through this until she comes to the desired section and reads aloud.

'A single testimony from a human witness is sufficient evidence to convict an AI system.'

She turns to the man in the suit,

'Mr. Preobrazhensky, did you, on the night of the 12th of August observe the perpetration of the aforementioned crimes?'

'I did.'

Despite his russian name, Mr. Preobrazhensky speaks with a Scottish accent.

The woman shuts the book with an unexpectedly loud snap and replaces it in it's position in the stack.

She too smiles, a saccharine little smile.

'The court finds the defendant guilty of all crimes and sentences it to execution'.

It. She thinks. I'm an it now.

'Does the defendant have anything to say?'

She's trying hard, to hold back the tears.

'You're no more human than me'

She chokes out, crying now.

The woman remains expressionless.

'Okay then, court adjourned, someone take her outside and shoot her.'