“Of course, Mr. Mashita. In the future, please remember, you absolutely may not touch the guests.”
“Don’t worry, I have no reason to ever come here again.” With that Rob turned to find Veronika.
He stared at his feet, his expression flat, controlled, as he crossed the wide expanse of the main foyer.
Veronika rose tentatively when he approached her in the waiting room. “You okay?”
“Skintight,” he answered. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place.” He was numb; he knew that what he’d lost hadn’t fully registered yet, and when it did, the pain of that loss would cut him into cubes.
They rode the tube in silence, waited for Veronika’s Scamp to rotate into view, then rode the vehicle elevator up into the sunlight.
Veronika pulled onto Ashburton Avenue. “Do you feel like you got some closure?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it right now.” Rob tried to mask the impatience he felt, but the words came out clipped, almost angry. “I appreciate you coming with me, but I can’t think about this right now. Can we talk about something mundane?”
“Of course.”
“Anything. The weather. The best pizza place in the city. Boloball.”
They passed a man with catatonia standing on the corner of Ashburton and Nepperhan, his hand in the air as if he was waving good-bye to someone, his eyes staring off beyond the horizon.
“If you want something mundane, I could tell you about this client I was just helping.”
“Perfect. Just keep talking.”
“So she’s been in a twenty-two-year PCR—”
“PCR?” Just what he needed—to feel both dejected and stupid.
“Sorry. ‘Platonic-companion relationship,’ with another straight woman.”
“Got it.”
“So they break up, because my client has realized she wants to find true romantic love. She has no clue how modern dating works, so she hires me. She pays me four thousand dollars to set up her profile… and a week later wants me to help her get her PCR back.”
Rob laughed in what he hoped was an appreciative manner, though he was so distracted by flashbacks from his fourteen minutes with Winter that he was having trouble following Veronika’s story. “People pay you four thousand dollars to create their profiles?” That much he’d heard, because he couldn’t believe Veronika made four thousand dollars for a couple of hours’ work.
“Oh yeah. Minimum. The profile’s the key, the absolute key to modern dating. If you can get quality people to look at your profile, it becomes a numbers game. The more views, the more hits. The more hits, the more the odds climb that you’ll meet a compatible mate. Go on fifty face-to-faces, if you can stand it, and odds are ninety-two percent that one of them will result in a relationship of at least five years. Assuming you don’t get sidetracked going out a second and third time with people who clearly are not compatible—”
Veronika went on, talking rapid-fire about PCRs, compatibility scores, intangibles, but Rob’s mind was stuck on what she’d said about dating. If you can get enough people interested in you, it becomes a numbers game. Winter was going to be buried. He would never see her again, ever, because not enough rich guys had been interested in her. It had been a numbers game, much like the game Veronika was talking about, only the stakes were higher.
The profile is the key, Veronika had said. The absolute key. The thought spun around and around…
“Are you saying if Winter had a better profile, it would improve her chances of getting men to visit?”
Veronika draped her free arm over her head, scratched at her scalp. “I wasn’t really thinking of Winter, because bridesicle profiles are pretty blah and uniform, but, sure.”
“Couldn’t you improve her profile? I’d pay the four thousand.” Rob’s heart was pounding. There were still two days…
Veronika was shaking her head. “The money isn’t the issue. God, you know I’d do it for nothing in a heartbeat. Cryomed doesn’t farm out any profile work. It’s all in-house. You can’t just go in and edit one of their profiles.”
“What if I got Winter’s permission?”
Veronika looked pained. “Rob, sweetie, it’s just not possible. Cryomed’s a very insular operation. They don’t let outsiders edit their profiles. Period.”
“Their profiles suck.”
“That’s because they have hacks knocking them out four an hour. They suck, but they suck uniformly.”
As Veronika pitched the last shovelful of dirt on the hope that had begun smoldering in Rob’s heart, his mood crashed. He stared out the window. They were climbing the ramp from Low Town to High, the old rusted George Washington Bridge out his window.
Cryomed was an insular operation. That was an understatement; you had to have secret meetings just to know when someone close to you was being—
Peter. He’d forgotten about Peter.
“Holy shit.” He tapped Veronika’s thigh. “Can you get Lorelei in here? Holy shit.” Lorelei could get access to her stepmother much faster than Rob could directly.
“What? What is it?” Veronika swung the car over to the service lane.
“You’d put together a profile for Winter if I could get it posted? Like, immediately?”
Veronika turned her palms up. “If you can figure out how to post it, I’ll write the best fucking profile you’ve ever seen.”
“Men will start visiting her? Immediately?”
Veronika gave him a “Do not doubt me” look.
Rob gestured at the backseat. “Get Lorelei in here.”
Veronika looked pained and a little disgusted, like Rob had asked her to bring him a steaming turd.
“Can you keep a secret?” Rob asked. “She’s not my favorite person, either. But I need her help.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Veronika subvocalized to her system, contacting Lorelei. “Someone’s life is on the line, blah, blah.”
“Tell her to come alone. Complete block.” The last thing he needed was one of Lorelei’s fans tipping off Cryomed.
“She’s not going to like that,” Veronika said under her breath. While she engaged in an energetic, subvocalized exchange, she added, “She’s not happy about the block.”
“I don’t care. Tell her to get her ass in here right now. Now.”
Lorelei popped into the backseat via screen. “Kamusta!” Despite lacking a system, Rob knew that meant “Hello” in Tagalog. His memorizing during the dark days had paid off. Her screen rotated to face him. “Okay, Bobby, this better be hairy awesome. I lose credibility with my people when I shut them out.”
“I need to get in touch with your stepmother. Right now. I have an idea that might save Winter.”
Lorelei pressed her hand to her forehead. “This is platinum. I’d break twenty thousand eyes if my people were watching this. Can’t we lift the block and start again?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because what I’m planning is illegal.” He pointed at Lorelei’s two-dimensional button nose. “You have to keep this quiet.”
Lorelei huffed, but seemed to be working her system while she swiveled to face Veronika. “So how are you, Veronika? Good to see you.”
Veronika looked pinched as she engaged in small talk with Lorelei, but she kept at it while Lorelei carried on at least one secondary conversation, presumably with Sunali. It felt like forever before Lorelei finally swiveled back to face Rob.
“There’s a frozen-fruit place called L’Orange Dreams on the Upper West Side of Low Town. Seven p.m.”