Rosamund looked at the ground. “Giorgio.” Figured. He was the rude, smug photographer Alexandra had recently hired to take pictures of all the models. “He kept making passes at me. He said I should be grateful that he’d have sex with me, with me being as fat as I am. When I turned him down the other day, he grabbed my arm really hard and started dragging me across the room towards the couch. I only got away from him because a couple of the girls came into the room just then, and he let go of me and pretended like nothing was wrong.”
Talia was horrified. “Why didn’t you report him?”
“Because Alexandra would never take my side and I really need the money.” Rosamund was putting her sister through nursing school.
“I’ll kill him,” Talia growled.
“No, no,” Rosamund protested. “You might get in trouble too, if you say anything.”
“Rosamund, there’s no way he’s getting away with sexual harassment, emotional and physical abuse. I’m going to go take care of it. Listen, Alexandra may not care, but Lukan won’t tolerate it. He’s very protective of women.”
It was true. At the building where Million Dollar Matches took up two floors, a girl with a food cart came round at noon selling sandwiches, frothy coffee, and amazingly moreish cupcakes. A few weeks back, one of the security guards had cornered her in the elevator and groped her. When Lukan had heard about it, he’d thrown the security guard out himself. Physically thrown him out onto the sidewalk, like the sack of garbage he was. There was no way he’d stand for Giorgio hurting Rosamund like that.
Talia looked around, but Lukan had vanished. She walked around the room, but she didn’t see him anywhere.
She tapped Mar-ee on the shoulder. “Mar-ee, take me to Lukan right now.”
“That is not a good idea,” the retro-bot said.
“Is he in the bathroom?”
“No. He is not in the bathroom. He just…he would not want me to take you to where he is right now.”
Talia didn’t give a damn. She wasn’t going to tolerate anyone abusing her friend, and she wasn’t going to let this matter wait for another second. “Mar-ee, you have to obey humans, don’t you? Isn’t that how Lukan built you?”
Mar-ee gave a shrug of her metal shoulders. “Well, you, specifically. I have to obey you.”
Well, that was odd. But Talia didn’t have time to wonder why Lukan would build a retro-bot that was specifically meant to obey her orders.
“Mar-ee, take me to Lukan, now! It’s urgent. It cannot wait. If he’s mad, I will tell him it’s my fault and I made you do it. ”
“Very well. Follow me.” Mar-ee turned around and glided smoothly across the room on mechanical wheels. The wheels were for show; they spun as she moved, but she actually hovered an inch above the floor.
The next thing Talia knew, she was being led through a door in the back of the room, and down one hallway after another. Talia had never realized how vast this floor was. How could this many halls even fit inside this building? It was like a maze back here; she’d never be able to find her way out again on her own.
Then they reached a door with a security panel that scanned Mar-ee’s eyes before it let them in.
The door opened onto a really large elevator, and Mar-ee led her in.
“This thing would fit at least twenty people,” Talia said, looking around. “Where does it even go?”
“Brace yourself,” Mar-ee advised her, without answering Talia’s question.
Talia felt a ripple of unease. “For what?”
“You will see.”
The elevator began…pulsing. Everything was pulsing. The air felt crackly and Talia felt as if she were covered in static electricity. Her ears popped, as if she were on an airplane.
Everything was humming, vibrating…her teeth rattled in her head, and she wanted to cry out, but somehow she couldn’t…
And then, mercifully, it stopped and the door opened.
“Follow me,” Mar-ee said, her voice sounding very far away, and again Talia found herself hurrying after the retro-bot, down hallways, and through a big double set of doors.
They were on a roof-top, and somehow it wasn’t late in the evening anymore. It was sunset.
The Anders building didn’t have a flat roof-top like this. And the sky was the wrong color; it was a strange purplish hue. The blazing sun that melted into the horizon looked too big, and the Manhattan skyline had vanished, replaced by a city with tall pointy spires and…flying cars?
