Chapter 47

Valerie’s driver politely and professionally refused to give any meaningful answers to the questions she asked. Some of his responses were monosyllabic yes or no in the least informative way possible. The rest he deflected, doing so clearly, directly, and steadfastly.

The only real information she was able to get out of him was his name- Vadim.

Her clear takeaway was that Vadim was paid to drive, not to talk. She concluded that he had no interest in taking on the extra work of engaging her in conversation, at least not without pay.

She stared out the car window, which was, at least, an interesting experience for her. The last time she had left Dana’s home was weeks prior, when Lucca drove her the short distance to breakfast and back. Even the view out of a car window along a mostly uninteresting drive was an engaging distraction.

The driver headed east, away from San Francisco and the bay. The Berkeley hills gave way eventually to California’s central valley. The highway across it was sixty miles of wide and flat farmland, and empty but for the agriculture works that stretched as far as she could see to the north and south. The car thrummed steadily along the freeway, grazing the outskirts of Sacramento and continuing east, toward Tahoe and the Nevada border.

Valerie had never been to Tahoe, but her better-paid coworkers often talked about winter ski trips there. Her manager had seemed to take particular delight in calling into Friday meetings from his cabin near the lake, while Valerie and the rest of the team crowded into a cramped meeting room that always seemed to be either too hot or too cold. Despite the ostentation, those days had at least meant she could work without sharing space with the man.

The ascent into the mountains was underwhelming; the highway wound in gentle curves through green foothills, flanked by tall trees. Gradually the trees grew sparser as the road climbed higher and higher, and she caught only a few glimpses of distant, green-brown mountains as the car sped past Donner Lake. A road sign advertised a scenic overlook; Valerie craned her neck trying to get a view out of the car window, but she felt too shy and callow to ask Vadim to stop.

For a brief moment, she could see the valley stretching out away from her, and stony mountains off in the distance, with grassy scars on them that she supposed must be ski slopes, come winter snow.

Half an hour later they had descended out of the mountains, crossed the border into Nevada, and then into Reno city limits. Valerie knew that Lucca lived in— or near— Reno, but she realized in that moment that she did not know exactly where. Her next thought was that she hoped Vadim knew where he was going.

Simply needing to trust Vadim left her feeling uneasy; but she did not imagine that Dana would have hired someone that might pose a danger. She hesitantly considered the framing that she was being taken to an unknown location in the desert, across state lines, by a man she had never met before. She was uncomfortably concerned by how little the thought actually bothered her.

Vadim might well be about to very politely murder her and very professionally bury her body in a shallow grave; but this seemed largely interchangeable with her current situation.

The heavy black sedan pulled away from the shoulder, throwing a few small rocks and a small cloud of tan-colored dust. Valerie coughed as the dust blew toward her, and stepped away from it, closer to the steel gate that blocked the driveway.

She shivered in the chill air. It was a clear day and just into the early afternoon, but it was ten or twenty degrees colder than Berkeley had been. She considered donning the coat that she still carried, but the cold did not quite outweigh her distaste for the garment. She lied to herself that the cold was bracing and refreshingly brisk.

A call box was mounted low on a metal post, at a height meant for seated drivers. The last sign of any other civilization had been a mile, or perhaps several, back, and she did not imagine that the property received much pedestrian traffic. Valerie crouched awkwardly in front of it, and shifted nervously while it rang.

She wondered what she would do if Lucca was not home; or if this was simply the wrong address, after all.

Vadim had driven for almost another hour along barren desert roads to drop her at Lucca’s property; and she did not think she had even seen another car for the last half-hour. She supposed walking would get her somewhere, eventually; and at least she had a coat. She wondered how much colder the desert would get when night fell.

“Who is it?”

Valerie recognized Lucca’s voice crackling from the speaker; they sounded annoyed by the intercom call.

“Hi.. uhm.. Mx.. it’s Valerie?”

“Valerie…” they sounded momentarily doubtful that they knew a Valerie. “Oh! Shit. Yeah. Of course. Hey. What’s up?”

“Hey,” she replied awkwardly, with a small, nervous laugh. “Can I.. uhm.. come in? Mx?”

“Right. Yeah. One second.”

The intercom buzzed, and the gate slid smoothly open. Valerie starting walking up the long driveway.

Lucca’s property seemed to consist of three buildings. A small metal hangar, about the size of an especially large garage, squatted next to a strip of black asphalt, half as wide as a football field and the length of several of them, placed end-to-end.

Opposite the hangar was a surprisingly ordinary house, with off-white shingles and light blue wood siding.

A third building was the smallest of the three, another sheet metal structure set slightly away from the house on the opposite side from the hangar. She supposed it was a storage shed or workshop of some sort.

“Where are your bags, girl?”

Lucca was halfway down the driveway to her as she approached the house. She stopped in her tracks at the question; her insides twisted with a mixture of shame and embarrassed guilt that was becoming much too familiar.

“I don’t have any, Mx,” she replied, feeling very small.

“You d— ah. Dana. Okay. We’ll figure it out. Come on inside. And drop the Mx stuff, we’re not doing that right now.”

Valerie nodded, looked away, and shivered as a light breeze gusted past. She hugged the coat tighter against her chest and walked toward Lucca and the house.

“Shoes off,” Lucca said from behind her, as she stepped through the door. “Helps keep the dust manageable.”

The interior of the home was surprisingly normal, like the outside. Valerie had expected that Lucca enjoyed something like the same standard of living as Dana. The reality seemed more comparable to her own parents, back in Oregon. Lucca might be one tax bracket higher than them.

The tour was fairly quick; there was a living room, with a couch and a large, dusty TV; both of which seemed only lightly used.

The kitchen was well-appointed; albeit crowded. It held a variety of pots, pans, and small appliances, but they were all carefully organized and seemed accessible. It did not feel cluttered, merely full.

Lucca’s office held a desk, three monitors, and, in contrast to the usability of the kitchen, a riot of crumpled paperwork, reference materials, and half-finished projects. The chaos filled and overlapped on every available horizontal surface. Valerie had never been the neatest person, but the thought of trying to work in that space was deeply unsettling.

Lucca showed Valerie the guest bedroom; it held a full-size bed, which at that moment consisted of just a frame and a bare mattress. A cardboard box served as a bed-side table, and a significant chunk of the floor space was taken up with other unopened boxes; some were moving boxes, with faded labels in black marker. Valerie had the impression that the room was primarily used for storage, and had recently been made ready to receive a guest.

“This will be your room. Uhm, the sheets are in the wash. Going to be in the wash. This was all kind of short notice.”

“Oh, no, um.. that’s fine,” Valerie replied, unfazed by the simplicity of the space.

The room as it stood was better furnished than her first apartment had been, at least for the first few months. She had slept on a pile of clothing for weeks, before managing to get a cheap mattress from craigslist.

Her room. The idea felt strange, and somehow foreign. Living with Dana was really fucking with her sense of what counted as normal.

She left her coat on the bed as the tour continued.

After a quick look in to the master bedroom, which surprisingly seemed tidy, cozy, and inviting, they descended into the basement, which was barely finished, with walls and floor of unadorned concrete. The half of the basement nearest the stairs was a working area, with electronics tools, 3D printers, and other desktop-sized manufacturing tools.

One of the printers was humming, but she couldn’t tell what it was making. Valerie stared at it for several seconds, spellbound by the intricacy and precision with which it moved.

It was several moments before she noticed the other half of the basement. A hanging curtain, fully open, bisected the space and separated the workshop fro the far side.

The more distant half of the basement was a play area, the walls hung with restraints and impact toys. The selection was more rugged and imposing than what Dana tended to prefer; Lucca seemed to enjoy more steel and much less latex. Many of the restraints looked custom, if not home-built. Valerie could easily imagine that Lucca had a welder, if not an entire metal shop, in one of their outbuildings.

“So. That’s the place, basically. Any questions?”

The dungeon should not have been unexpected, but everything else was so normal that she was surprised by it, nonetheless.

“Okay. Uhh. Thanks. Thank you. I… I don’t know what’s going on, or.. or why I’m here, really.”

“Whew. Alright. I’ll explain. Are you hungry?”

Valerie had left Dana’s house before eating breakfast, and she was ravenous. Vadim had offered to stop for lunch in Reno, but she had no means to pay, and she did not imagine that a meal was included with the car ride. Asking for charity from the man was a non-starter.

She had lied, telling him she had eaten a heavy breakfast that morning.

“I’m pretty hungry.”

They settled on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for expediency. Lucca had a well-stocked larder, but little of it was ready-to-eat. They promised to prepare something more substantial for dinner.

“So, we have this major new project.”

Valerie nodded, chewing on a mouthful of sandwich.

“There’s a lot of pieces, but part of the gig involves building out a small, highly secure network enclave— and we kind of oversold our team’s abilities there.”

“Oversold?”

“We mostly break things, you know? We’re not totally worthless, but building things isn’t our wheelhouse.”

“That… sounds like a problem?”

“Well, that’s where you come in. You’re someone who builds things, and I know you have plenty of free time.”

Someone who builds things. Valerie knew what they meant, but the choice of phrase struck a chord, resonant with sadness. Some time, many years ago, she had stopped trying to create and her life had become simply about scrabbling to survive. She did not remember when that had happened.

Valerie rubbed the side of her neck with one hand, running a finger along the collar there.

“I guess I’m free labor,” she said softly, hooking one finger through the attachment ring that dangled at her throat.

Lucca tilted there head in puzzlement; it took them a moment to understand Valerie’s comment. They shook their head.

“No, no. You’ll get paid, like anyone else working on the project.”