CHAPTER ONE

        He taps the screen with one hand, looking dazed and confused. With his other, he scratches the side of his head. Eventually, he turns to face me. “Alright sir, I’m not seeing anything wrong with your unit’s stabilizer. What did you say your monthly BGA was again?”

        I take a step forward, not quite understanding the question. “I’m sorry. My what?”

        “Your BGA – Basic Gravity Allowance. What is it?”

        “Oh! That,” I chuckle. “It's four.”

        “Four G’s?”

        “Um, yeah. Why? Is that low?”

        He shrugs his shoulders, and sighs. “Yes and no."

        “What do you mean?” I ask, taking another step forward while I reach for my service agreement.

        “Just that it’s not optimal,” he says. “For an apartment this size, your monthly BGA should really be somewhere between six and nine G’s. Otherwise, you run the risk of watching everything in your apartment slowly float away.”

        “Really? That would have been nice to know,” I say, wringing my hands in frustration. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this earlier?”

        He sighs again; this time shaking his head at me in sheer disappointment. “You were,” he says, motioning for me to hand over my service agreement. “A few years ago, Grav-Tech received a number of consumer complaints related directly to this issue. When those complaints escalated, people sued. And when people sued, the company decided to remedy the situation by incorporating into their service agreements a list of recommended monthly BGA minimums for all residential spaces based upon their respective dimensions.

        “If you like, I can show you where all of this is mentioned in your service agreement. I just need to take a quick look at it first.” Again, he motions for me to hand over my service agreement before adding, “Assuming you don’t mind, that is.”

        I hesitate for a moment; mulling some things over inside my head, and deciding whether I should finally start trusting this guy again. Then I take a deep breath, throw caution to the wind, and hand him everything I have; hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. “Alright, fine; but no funny business. Got it?”

        After a few moments, he looks me directly in my eyes. “Got it – no funny business. That being said, would you mind taking a look at page two, paragraph seven, subsection three for me? If anything, it should clear things up quite nicely.”

        Flabbergasted, I immediately snatch my service agreement back. Having nearly ripped it out of his hands, it takes me a good minute or so to smooth out some of the finer wrinkles and find the right paragraph. Even then, I don’t believe what my eyes are showing me.

        After a while, I ask, “So…, what would you suggest I do, then?”

        “Get in touch with a Grav-Tech Customer Support Agent,” he says, point blankly. “When the agent asks about your inquiry, let them know that you’ve been experiencing some pretty severe gravity outages recently; and that you would like them to increase your monthly gravity allotment by two to five G’s.

        “In the meantime, I can punch in an override code that should provide you with an ideal supply of gravity for the next forty-eight hours. That way, you can have a little peace of mind while you get everything situated with Grav-Tech. Before I do that, though, is there anything else I can help you with?”

        “Um…, yeah. There is, actually,” I say, feeling insanely weird and awkward all of a sudden. “Would you… mind joining me for dinner tonight? It’s takeout Thursday!”

        For the longest time, he doesn’t answer – just stares; and that frightens me. Then his smile drops, and I start to become terrified because I feel like I just made the biggest mistake of my life. So, I try to avoid the inevitable by lowering my head, and looking the opposite way while my heart literally sinks to my knees. Eventually, I can’t stand feeling this way anymore, so I say, “Look…, I know it’s short notice and all –” but he cuts me off before I can finish my sentence by placing a finger beneath my chin.

        Horrified by the notion, I instantly smack it away. “On second thought, I think I’ll pass. Thanks for all your help, but I won’t be needing your services any longer. You can go now.”

        “Seriously?” he asks. “After all these years, is that really how this is going to go down?”

        When I don’t answer him, he huffs for a bit before storming out of my apartment; leaving me without gravity, and with nothing but my thoughts for company.