Xeno woke on Saturday evening to the sound of crickets on Blouse's worm sofa, wrapping around the living room like a rectangular tree trunk. The auto lamps cast the rustic interior in a honey-toned light that was easy on his eyes. He got to his feet, shuffled past the telepane fire place, and slid open the patio glass doors. From a distant phantom gramophone, Jerry Wallace warbled “Primrose Lane” in the dead of night:

Primrose Lane

Life's a holiday on Primrose Lane

Just a holiday on Primrose Lane

With you

Can't explain

When we're walkin' down the Primrose Lane

Even roses bloomin' in the rain

With you

Sweet perfume

Those little old roses bloom

And I want to walk with you

My whole life through . . .

He stood and crossed back through the living room, towards Blouse's serpentine bar. He poured some scotch in a glass and sat in front of a stack of open letters on the counter top, sipping and reading:

Dear Xeno,

Looking forward to seeing you. Your dad and I can't stand Leisure World, anymore. We never sleep a full night without hearing the ambulance coming for someone who is at death's door. We call it “Seizure World” (HA HA). We thought it would be cheaper to live in Darkphalt, until we had to pay for air conditioning in the summer. It gets so hot you can barely breathe, or do anything outside. Oh well, so much for the desert. Once your dad and I find a place in Metropa, we can get together more often. We'll be in touch soon.

Love,

Mom

He reached to turn over the letter, to read the one underneath, noticing an inscription on the underside of his wrist:

RE M T A N

He dipped his fingers in the scotch, tried to rub off the inscription, but it was tattooed to his flesh.

“I wonder whatever became of Natalie.” The voice coming out of nowhere sounded like an old professorial male, worrying out loud.

“What's that?” Xeno spun around, expecting to see the visitor shuffle into the bar, but no such person emerged. He rose from his stool and entered the kitchen. The stainless steel appliances gleamed from constant polishing. The house plants appeared leafy and hydrated with no hint of browning or decay.

“I find myself in the throes of a memory pool,” the hidden professor again, “bubbling over with romance, intrigue, Brazilian jazz, trays full of Rumaki, and free champagne! Then I swim through it all, like a lost fish! Why is that, I wonder?”

Xeno filled a watering can from the sink faucet, and went to a cluster of ferns by the bay window overlooking the city lights. He wedged his way in towards the only empty vase by the sill, embedded with a small circular speaker on the ceramic base, and the name of the product below:

WONDER VASE

“I wonder how time began,” the Wonder Vase continued wondering. “I wonder how I came to exist. I wonder where my existence resides. I wonder when you're going to water me . . .”

Xeno poured water from the can into the empty mouth of the Wonder Vase, wondering why anyone would bother to invent it, manufacture it, or own one.

“Ahhhhh . . .” The Wonder Vase fell silent, finally quenched of thirst.

Xeno went back to his glass of scotch at the bar and sipped in silence, the stack of letters at his fingertips. He lifted the letter from his parents to see what was underneath—another interruption—Johnny Mandel's “The Shadow of Your Smile,” drifting from the wall speakers:

The shadow of your smile

When you are gone

Will color all my dreams

And light the dawn

Look into my eyes

My love and see

All the lovely things

You are to me

She always played that song when they were alone and she wanted to get his attention, or just get under his skin.

He winced from the music and went to the bay windows overlooking the twinkling cityscape of Metropa. The sulfuric glow of the boulevards and freeways crisscrossed like neon nervous systems. The skyscrapers rose into the upper atmosphere like dark carbon monsters looming in tiers of amber smog.

“You're going gray, Xeno.” She was back. Just over his shoulder—the telepane right by the bar.

Xeno continued sipping without turning around, admiring the view of the city.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you, Andrea. I know what it is to age.” Xeno backed away from the bay windows and waked past the bar, right past Andrea's gloss red lips, always filling the entire telepane. “You need to lay off the collagen implants.” He entered the kitchen and surveyed the tile on the sink counter. Spotting an offensive algae stain in the crevices. He zapped it with cleanser from a spray bottle, and began scraping away with a grout brush.

“Does anyone know that you talk to your telepane?” Andrea said from the kitchen telepane, just over Xeno's shoulder.

“Does anyone know you talk to a real person?” Xeno sniped. “I could have you dismounted.”

“You would do that to me?”

“It doesn't matter, now. The paychecks have stopped coming. I don't know how much longer I'll have electricity. The food will spoil soon. Are you sure Blouse hasn't tried to contact me?”

“Not a peep. How many times are you going to clean the kitchen sink?”

“As many times as I want. I have to keep the tile white. The stainless steel has to sparkle. The plants have to be watered. Blouse gave me very specific instructions, and I intend to honor them for as long as I am her housesitter. Now, go take a station break.”

“Testy, this evening. How was your audition at Food-4-All?”

“A disaster. End of story.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, GOD DAMMIT!” Xeno hurled the grout brush down on the kitchen counter, ricocheting it off the tile. “I don't want to talk about it!” He glared at Andrea. “I just want to keep the tile white!”

Andrea's lips trembled from Xeno's outburst, then went black screen.

Xeno scrounged around for the grout brush on the floor, finally found it, then went back to scraping the grout on the sink counter in silence.

“You hurt my feelings, Xeno,” Andrea said, the red lips fading back into view on the kitchen telepane.

“I thought I turned them off.” Xeno dropped the brush and went back into the living room. He dug out the Andrea remote from a wicker basket on the coffee table.

“Why can't you see I'm the one who is destined to be your soul mate?” Andrea said, her lips now appearing on the living room telepane, above the crackling fire footage on the fireplace telepane. “After all, we both have needs.”

“You can't have needs, Andrea. You're an electronic device. My needs are real. Yours are a . . . chipset malfunction.”

“But I picked you, Xeno.”

“Andrea, I think it's time for you to start interacting with another viewer.” Xeno pointed the remote at Andrea, pressed MENU, superimposing a list of options over Andrea's lips, then navigated to INTERNAL FEELINGS, and selected OFF.

Andrea selected ON.

Xeno selected OFF.

Andrea selected ON again.

“God dammit, Andrea!” Xeno pointed the remote directly into the telepane, pressing OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF OFF . . .

“Incoming! We'll have to fight later.” Andrea smiled cheerfully, flashing the greeting on the telepane:

CALLER ID

RED CURTAIN MEDIA

“Go ahead and answer it.” Xeno said.

“It's a text message.”

“Well, then show it.”

Andrea displayed the text message on the telepane:

Dear Miss Demise,

Our records indicate that you hesitated during transformation in the crossover hopper, generating the following errors:

1 Customer did not reanimate in full on the video side.

2 Customer did not reanimate in full on the material side.

A remedy ticket for your return to safety has been generated: REMID000000ZIPEDYDOODA.

Please keep this message for your records.

Sincerely,

Red Curtain Media

Reanimation Team

“Do you think she's in danger?” Andrea asked.

“I would say . . . yes. I've got a bad feeling about this.”

“Incoming! It's Holly. I mean . . .

CALLER ID

HOLLYMONDE

“Well?” Andrea continued. “Should I answer it? Or, do you want me to dump her in the message center?”

“Oh . . . I'll bite. Put her on.”

“As you wish. Can I hang out on the side?”

“Be my guest.”

“Ready or not, here she comes!” Andrea's lips shrank down to the side of the telepane as a small icon, mouthing the word 'scary' to Xeno.

“Hello, Xeno!” Holly said, bursting onto the screen in a wash of scarlet red hair, lascivious green eyes, and glossy whiplash smile. “Coming to my Sunlight concert at The Whispers? I'm performing with my new vocal chords at midnight.”

“Oh yes. That . . . that concert. I guess it slipped my mind. How do you provide sunlight on Saturday night, or Sunday morning, technically?”

“Sun lamps. You can get a great orange tan if your in the first row.”

“Splendid.”

“You are comped, you know.” She threw back her hair with a big wink.

“With you Holly, every comp comes with a catch. Why don't you cut to the chase?”

“Oh, crap, all right,” she groaned. “Can we use your place for the after party?”

“No. It's not my place, and I'm not going to let you and your party people thrash it.”

“What about those wild evenings we spent together?”

“It was one evening, and it wasn't wild.”

“How far did we go?”

“Not very. I got your barf out of Blouse's carpet. My turn to ask the questions. Have you seen Zoom?”

“Zoom? No. He's one of the reasons I barf. How about a massage on the polar bear rug, with some scented candles, and a flaming cognac cocktail?”

“Sorry, Holly. Tonight it's just me and my bottle of scotch . . . and it's a grizzly bear rug.”

“Too bad. I have Sunlite.” Holly held up the bright orange pill in her fingertips. “I have enough for you and whatsherface . . . Trianne?”

“I don't think I'll be joining you tonight, Holly.”

“Oh, but I think you will! Ta ta!” Holly faded from view, cackling with the Sunlite in her fingertips.

“She's no good for you, Xeno.” Andrea said, filling the telepane with her lips.

“What are you? My electronic mom?” Xeno walked out of the living room, through another corridor, into the dining room. He lowered the chandelier light to a somber level with the wall sensor and circled the long mahogany table. On the table surface, amidst the decorative LED candles, sat a neatly stacked deck of Zener cards. At the other end of the table sat a video camera, mounted on a tripod. He took the seat opposite the camera, remembering how he, Zoom, and Trianne had rigged a taped Zener card reading, creating the illusion that Xeno was clairvoyant, duping the Food-4-All manager at the RAP artist audition:

At one end of the table Zoom drew a Zener card, while Trianne stood behind him and taped the card face with the video camera, allowing the audience to see the shape Zoom had chosen—the hollow five-pointed star. Trianne then peeked out from behind the camera and mouthed the shape on the card to Xeno, sitting at the opposite end of the table, pretending to concentrate, drama in his brow, appearing to guess the shape on the Zener card out of thin air. “I sense an object with two points . . . No . . . Five! An object with five points! . . . Is it . . . a star?”

“That's correct!” Zoom said off screen, flipping the card towards Xeno.

The memory faded and he loaded the Back in the Day 5-track into his black box, then stuck his black node to the center of his forehead, pressed PLAY, and closed his eyes, waiting for the 5-track to do something to one or more of his five senses.

“Be careful with that 5-track Xeno,” Andrea warned from the dining room telepane. “Your brain has had a rough day.”

“Andrea, we had an agreement,” Xeno scolded. “You will not monitor my brainwaves without my consent.”

“Yes, master.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Yes, I am, master.”

“Relax, it's feelings only. Something I got in the clearance bin at the mall. No avatars, no sets, no strenuous first person shooter dance party missions. Everything just feels like it happened back in the day. Now, goodnight, Andrea. We'll gossip in the morning.”

“All right. Be careful.” Andrea blacked out, leaving Xeno at peace with his black box.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, waiting to merge with the media, but as usual the bargain bin 5-track software insulation always ruptured, and flooded the user with toxic sensory deviations. Or so, he thought.

“Xeeeeeeno?” The woman's voice hissed like a ghost through the blackness of the corridor.

Xeno opened his eyes, looking about for the intruder. He spied an eerie green glow drifting down the corridor, bleeding across the carpet, coming towards the dining room entry.

“Xeeeeeeno? Where are you my dear?” The apparition rounded the corner of the dining room entry and hovered over the dining room table, glaring down at Xeno, going snowy, oscillating with hum bars, smearing in and out of focus, her gown and gaudy jewelry swaying in space.

“Blouse?” Xeno pressed STOP on his black box several times, but the specter remained in his presence. “You're not going away when I press stop. I guess that means—“

“Oh Xeno, thank you for watering my Wonder Vase.” Blouse's apparition smiled with a set of jagged teeth and the eyes of a Chinese dragon, her wavy porcelain hair flowing like a head of snakes. “Now, I'm ready for my close-up.”

“Blouse, what happened to you? Are you alive?”

“Alive?” She sighed, then broke down and wept, burying her face in her skeletal hands. “Oh, Xeno, I wasn't reborn! All that time spent preparing in my booth, wasted!”

“Blouse, when are you coming home?”

“Oh, Xeno, I hesitated. They're going to delete me!”

“Delete you? Delete you, how?”

“I never come home. I never come home! I'm a ghost trapped in silver screens!” Blouse's apparition drifted down the corridor, sobbing all the way.

Xeno rose from his chair and followed the weeping through the open double doors of Blouse's master bedroom. The apparition had vanished. Near the bed stood what looked like a tiled window phone booth with red paneling and gold enamel trim, but no phone inside.

Xeno picked up the Andrea remote and turned on the master bedroom telepane. Andrea's lips appeared on the screen, snoring in a deep sleep. He dialed out manually:

CALL

TRIANNE

In moments, Trianne's face filled the telepane, accepting Xeno's call, looking disheveled and not at all amused.

“Hi, Trianne. Sorry to wake you.”

“Well, now that you have, what do you want?”

“Someone to talk to.”

“Well, can you talk to yourself, while I go back to sleep?”

“Where are you?”

“The Pods . . . Well? What do you want to talk about?”

“Zoom.”

“No. We're not talking about that. Tell me a bed time story.”

“I'm going nuts in this penthouse.”

“Okay. How does it go?”

“No, it's not a bed time story. I'm going nuts in this place and I need to get out, and I thought, maybe—“

“Are you asking me out? At what? Eleven thirty at night?”

“Holly has Sunlite. Enough for both of us. Or do you have enough for yourself?”

“I never have enough for myself.”

“Do you feel like going to a concert?”

“Not exactly, but I can't get any deep sleep in this pod . . . Meet me at the Lady in fifteen minutes.” Trianne hung up, followed by the prompt:

CALL

ENDED