Gridpride, week two: Instant Crush / "Who is that?"
Alan has to pull Lora aside. “Who is that?” he asks right next to her ear.
Lora grins as she leans in, too. A necessity in a place as loud and boisterous as an arcade, and especially one run by—“Flynn,” she says. “I told you, Alan. His name’s on the building.”
She watches his eyes widen, sees his gaze go up and down Flynn’s figure. She smiles: she remembers putting on a similar expression when she first met the mysterious, eccentric jock programming at ENCOM. It’s just what he does.
Shaddox thinks of it as creating. He puts the drinks together. The DJs set the mood. Zuse cultivates the “vibe,” gets the crowd moving exactly how he wants. And the patrons fill the space: the diverse array of their renders, the relationships and dynamics and dramas between them, all their baggage and foibles and troubles come together in a unique arrangement. It’s not quite architecture, but they’re all building something together.
He’s mixing drinks for a couple at the bar—voices low, sides touching, smiles put on just for each other—when Zuse himself sidles up, his side leaning heavily against the counter. “Would you be in the mood for a dance after that?” he asks, gesturing at the drinks with his cane.
Shaddox snorts. “I’m working,” he says. “At your club.”
“That’s hardly relevant,” Zuse says. He somehow leans in further, his grin turning coy. “Besides, I have it on good authority that the next song is almost as irresistible as you.”
Shaddox rolls his eyes playfully. Zuse is rarely the kind of program who means what he says; he flirts and sweet-talks as easily as he connives and double-crosses. Shaddox spends a good share of his shift seeing Zuse flit from person to person to person, his mannerisms unmistakable no matter who he’s with.
“Really,” Shaddox says, and then the song changes.
It’s smooth. It’s catchy. And it’s certainly danceable. He sees programs begin to undulate to the beat, bodies moving together, bodies moving against each other. Programs pairing or even tripling up, the song just a prelude to something that might happen later. A common sight in an establishment like this, and one that Shaddox regards with a detachment that a lot of people in his life find unusual. It’s just a world apart from his own. He finishes up the couple’s drinks, hands the cups to them, and watches them slink away to join the sway of the crowd.
“Well?” Zuse says, turning Shaddox’s attention back to him. “What do you say? You wanna...” He waggles his eyebrows in time to the music. “... get lucky?”
Shaddox feels his face twist. “I’d rather not,” he says. “Go find someone else to dance with, Zuse.”
“Oh, you’re no fun, Shaddox,” Zuse says with an exaggerated pout. He easily wades back into the crowd, though, and within minutes Shaddox sees him leading another program onto the dance floor. As expected.
The song ends. Another one comes on. The mood shifts again, and he watches the programs around him mold themselves to it. More drinks, more people, more life coming and going. They’re all leaving their marks on this specific moment, never to be replicated again. Shaddox finds himself smiling as he observes it all.
It’s not quite architecture—but it may be something better.
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