The Exchange

He woke from a fevered dream into the dull grey of morning. A cold drizzle falling. The window blinds rattled in the teeth of a cold December wind. He threw aside the bedclothes and got yawning to his feet. The alarm clock on the bedstand shrilled a piercing tune and he turned to switch it off. He glanced at the naked woman sprawled on the bed with the bedclothes bunched in a heap around her and felt a brief moment of loathing. He didn't know who she was, couldn't even remember her name. Last night had been a haze of smoke and drugs and whirling lights and twisting bodies, but he'd brought her back home so she must have been something. He reached out a tentative hand and traced the slight curve of her lower back. She didn't stir. He felt the loathing return. He couldn't help it. 

He turned away and rose and pulled on his clothes in the grey light. He went to the windows and looked out over the city. Steel and concrete buildings speared up tall out of the morning mist. The city itself huddled in an untidy heap under iron grey skies and a thin curtain of rain. He closed the window and shut out the breeze and the rattling blinds stilled.

He left a wad of cash on the bedside table under the alarm clock. Down in the lobby he had a plate of waffles on toast and sat a while reading the paper. Idle conversation flowed and ebbed around him. Shoes squeaked on polished tiles. Somewhere a mechanical voice read out an ad that grated slightly on his nerves. 

"Good morning."

He looked up. The waiter was a young guy with a wisp of a mustache and sandy blonde hair. He had on an apron and a tray behind his back. He was smiling.

The man grunted and turned back to his paper. 

"Need anything else, sir?" the waiter said, extending a hand, still smiling. But the man sat reading his paper until the waiter flushed and turned away.

Idiot. 

Outside a few cars hissed past, splashed up stagnant puddles of water. The wind blew rain sideways into his face as he headed across the street to the clothing store. His jacket whipped out strong behind him. In front of the store he paused a moment to glance at his watch.

Seven o'clock sharp. He grunted and went in.

A bell tinkled as the doors opened and swooshed shut behind him. He stood in the vestibule tracking droplets of water on the carpet and glancing down the tall rows of clothes and shoes and half-dressed mannequins. A faint scent of lemon and newly-made fabric hung in the air. A song was playing somewhere. That, too grated on his nerves. 

He shook himself out of his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. Footsteps approached him from behind, heels clocking on the hardwood floor. He turned.

She was a pretty thing in a black dress with the arms cut out and the hem reaching just barely below her thighs. Her earrings caught the soft light, sparkled. He looked at her long toned legs, at the sensual curves of her body, and let his imagination finish up the work for him. He wondered if he could take her home and how long she would last, before the revulsion. 

She was looking at him too, but her expression wasn't quite the same. Apprehension, disgust, fear, uncertainty? It shadowed her face like a mask. Too bad. He thought she was pretty though, and wondered how long it would take before she cracked. He'd seen the likes before. Some of them were like that, at least in the beginning. He liked it when they played hard to get, found a little resistance pleasurable: a speck of light in an otherwise drab and colorless world.

She cleared her throat, interrupted his thought processes. "The manager would like to see you in the back." A wide sweep of her hand, beckoning him on to follow. A flick of blonde hair over one shoulder. An actress. He must have her.

She turned and walked up the aisle. He followed close behind, watching the delicate sway of her hips. At the end of the aisle was a long wood and glass counter filled with display heads and colored wigs. The manager sat on a swivel-stool measuring a length of fabric, his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, his dark hair greased and parted down the middle. A legend sat on his breast pocket, below the manager pin. It said: SMILE. 

He stood as they approached, dropping a roll of tape to the ground and coming around the counter. "Ah," he said, extending a hand. "You're quite early."

They shook hands, the exchange stiff and formal. The girl disappeared into a back room. The man turned his head to watch her go. The song came to an end and a new one came on the intercom. The manager cleared his throat. The man looked back at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. 

"A few things, sir. I thought we might go through them before your journey."

"Alright," the man said. 

"As you might have read in the brochure this whole business is a rather tricky one. The technology we use is still in its early stages so I must implore you to follow all the rules down to the letter. We have, ah, provided the necessary materials and have charted a course for you once you go through. Once the exchange has been made you're welcome to go on with your, ahem, new life."

"That all?"

"Not quite." The manager went behind the counter, ducked down. When he returned he held a small metal box and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Inside the box was a hypodermic syringe and a vial of sparkling green liquid. The manager took out the syringe and filled it while he talked. 

"We've developed a drug that renders you unconscious and stops your heart for five minutes once activated, the average time it would take to make the trip. Once on the other side the effects will wear off, and you have approximately thirty minutes to make the exchange." He directed the man to the swivel-stool, rolled up his sleeve, swabbed the area round his wrist with alcohol. "This might sting and burn a little."

The manager pulled on a pair of gloves and administered the drug with the practiced ease of a professional. The man groaned, felt a sharp sting as the needle pierced his flesh, then his arm began to burn. 

The manager pulled out the needle. The burning faded.

"Now that's that," he said, taking off his gloves and throwing the used needle away. He replaced the now empty vial in its metal box. "If you would follow me sir."

They went through to a room in the back of the store that held rolls of clothing and piles of dismembered mannequins. The smell of lemon and fabric was stronger here. The manager led the way to a hidden door and then down a flight of wooden steps to a basement. The girl was waiting there. She'd changed into a black jumpsuit and stood beside a large curtain, a small metal box in each hand. The soft fluorescent lights shone on bare concrete walls stained with dirt. There was nothing else in the room.

"Ready, Vivian?"

She nodded. The man looked at her, found his eyes traveling up her body, and was struck once again by how pretty she was. She stepped forward and handed him one of the boxes. He pulled his eyes away from her body and opened it.

Inside was a gun, sleek and black, a silencer fitted securely to its barrel.

The man put it in his pocket. He glanced at his watch. Seven thirty-five.

"Alright," the manager said, clapping his hands together. "Vivian, if you please."

She reached up, grabbed the curtain with her free hand, pulled it aside. Even though the man had been expecting it, he still couldn't hold back the gasp of quiet surprise as the curtain slid aside. Behind it, on a raised dias, stood four massive rings of gleaming metal and bronze that towered above their heads and nearly touched the ceiling of the basement. Thick cables the size of telephone poles ran down and out of the dias and into holes in the ground, like the arteries and veins of some monstrous heart. A control panel stood solitary at one side of the machine.

"Okay," the manager said, rolling up his sleeves and heading to the control panel. He got a small device like an airpod, handed it to the man. "Our communication device," he said. "Works both ways."

Vivian led the way up the dias to stand in the center of the rings, her metal box still in hand. The man followed her up, plugging in the airpod, the gun a sure, steady weight in his pocket. His shoes thumped tunelessly on the steel dias. At the dead center a circle had been marked out in red paint. Vivian turned to face him. He still couldn't read her expression. He stepped into the red circle. 

"Alright." The manager waved his hands. "The drug will take effect once the intrinsic field is generated. Remember you have only thirty minutes to make the exchange. Vivian will be your Collector for this journey. All clear?"

The man nodded. Vivian smiled for the first time. Her teeth were white and even.

"Okay here we go." The manager pulled a lever and threw some switches. The machine began to hum. The man felt his hair stand up on end, the way it did when a lightning storm was approaching. He shuddered. In front of him Vivian shuddered too. A set of green lights came on along the inside of the metal rings, one by one by one, and the man saw the air around him begin to shimmer, like the haze seen over a firepit. Or on a hot summer day. 

The humming rose to a gradual purr and then became a roar that echoed round the concrete basement. The air thickened around them, became translucent, so the manager was now only a faint blur outside the humming metal and bronze rings. The man felt his pulse slow. His vision blurred, his breathing evened out, and he was only faintly aware of Vivian standing just in front of him, one hand holding on to his arm like a vise.

He slipped into a blackness that reached up for him with eager hands and swallowed him whole.

When he woke the machine had gone dead quiet. Blood pounded in his ears. The shimmering air faded away and he could see again. Vivian had let go of his arm. She stood facing the control panel. The man turned slowly feeling his legs wobble a bit. He glanced round the room. The basement was unchanged. Bare concrete walls stained with dirt. Soft fluorescent lights above. Wooden steps to one side. 

"Ah," said a voice from the control panel. "Arrivals."

The man turned. The manager stood behind the panel, sleeves rolled up, shirt open at the neck, his long hair tied back in a ponytail. The legend below the manager pin said: FROWN.

"Welcome," he said, sweeping his hands out in a flourish. Vivian stepped down from the dias. The man followed her down. The new manager handed him a stopwatch on a chain. 

"Thirty minutes," he said. "Starting now."

Outside the sun shone in a sky clearer and bluer than anything he'd ever seen. Birds wheeled across the sky. Pedestrians thronged the streets between the hotel and the clothing store. Vivian took the other way, heading down the street. Soon she was lost amid the throng of pedestrians. The intercom buzzed:

"Head across the street to the hotel in a minute. Wait in the lobby. Order waffles on toast. Smile up at the waiter and say no, thank you."

The man walked across the street feeling the warmth of the sun on his face and in his clothes. It felt good. He felt almost alive. He couldn't remember when last he'd felt like this. He glanced at his watch as he walked. Seven o'clock sharp. No time to spare.

In the hotel lobby he ordered a plate of waffles on toast and sat a while reading the morning paper. Conversation flowed and ebbed round him, people laughed, teacups tinkled on china. Somewhere a mechanical voice was singing a happy song that soothed his nerves. 

"Good morning."

He looked up. The waiter was a young girl with sandy blonde hair. She had on an apron and a tray behind her back. She was smiling.

"Good morning," the man said, looking up at her.

"Need anything else, sir?"

"No, I'm all good. Thanks."

She smiled and turned away.

The man checked the stopwatch. Fifteen minutes gone. The watch ticked like a heart in his palm. The intercom buzzed again:

"Alright the way's clear. You can go up now."

He opened the door with his keycard and slid silently into the darkened room. The blinds were drawn. The figure laying naked in the bed didn't stir.

"Put the muzzle at the base of his skull. The bullet should sever the top of his brainstem. When you're done there's a bag in the closet. Put the body in it and carry it out to the corridor."

The man walked slowly to the side of the bed. He slipped one hand into his pocket and pulled out the gun. In the pale darkness of the bedroom he could just make out the thin hair and sloped shoulders he'd known all his life. He reached out his other hand and lifted the bedclothes a bit, exposing the same scar he had that ran down the outer curve of his thigh.

"I'm sorry," the man said, extending the gun.

When he pulled the trigger there was a slight wet crunch. The sleeping figure jerked once and was still. A sudden breeze rattled the window blinds and the man realized he was half-drenched in sweat.

He went to the closet and got out the bag. He set it on the ground beside the bed and heaved the body down and into it. There was no blood, at least not any he could see. He zipped the bag up and lugged it out into the corridor.

Vivian was waiting. She leaned against the wall opposite his room with her gun out and pointing down. The other rooms were closed. When he handed her the bag she nodded once and turned away, dragging it on the floor. He wondered how she would get away with something as big and heavy as that. He closed the door.

Back in the room he undressed slowly, like he had all the time in the world. He took out the intercom and set it on the bedside table with the gun and the stopwatch. He felt his earlier loathing return, this time directed towards himself. He shrugged. It would pass with time. It always did. 

He went to the window and pulled open the blinds, letting in warm rays of sunlight. He looked out over the city. Behind him the alarm clock shrilled a piercing tune and he turned to switch it off. He glanced at the bedside table. The gun and the intercom were gone. In their place was a note, carefully folded. The man took it up and read:

"Nice doing business with you, sir. Hope you have a good happy life."

The man smiled, the first in a long, long time.

He would.