Project 17 (2 page)

“I don’t know why parents rely on your kind still. I mean, they can just buy those Zoners.”

“‘My kind’, huh.”

“Babysitters are a dying breed, Lillian. The robots are coming.”

“Right,” Lillian said, walking to the counters. “Anyway, it’s not a kid.”

Lillian could almost see Jamie’s frown lines. “No?”

“Nope. I’ll tell you and Max later. I assume Max is already there, invading my couch and sitting on all of my pillows?”

“Not a kid?” Jamie said. “Is it a really rich old man? Tell me!”

“Later.”

“Are you buying Candy Stripe again? That shit’s going to rot your teeth.”

“It’s either this or a blackened lung, James.”

“Drama queen,” Jamie said.

What Lillian found infuriating about the new no-hands that everyone except herself apparently used was the lack of ambient sound, so she didn’t know whether Jamie was in the kitchen making
dinner or in front of her fridge raiding her chocolate stash.

“Don’t eat my chocolate,” she said, and hung up.

“Hello, Lillian,” the cashier said.

“Hello, Dina.” Some of the cashiers knew her by name, and Lillian tried her best to remember theirs.

“Good day today?”

Lillian shrugged. “I guess. Found a job.”

Dina laughed. “Maybe I should look for one now. I’m becoming obsolete.”

The stores in the cities had no cashiers, or salespersons: before the exit, customers need only pass their items through a scan and tap their card on a sensor, and a robot would bag the purchase
for them.

Lillian placed the items on the belt: milk, bread, eggs, burger patties, peanut butter, two big bags of potato chips, rice, instant coffee, Candy Stripe.

“Card, please,” Dina said.

Lillian handed the card Paul had given her. Dina saw the Titanium emblem and glanced at Lillian, reappraising her worth.

The reader beeped.

“Oh,” Dina said. “I don’t think it’s been activated yet.”

“Clever son of a bitch,” Lillian said, and handed Dina her other card.

“From the new employer?” Dina said with a knowing wink. “Well, it was worth a try.”

“Oh, hello, Lillian. Nice to see you.”

Maxine was sitting on her usual spot: on the floor, leaning against the couch, her laptop on the coffee table. Lillian didn’t have a TV set in her apartment, so Max faced nothing but the
opposite wall, with its peeling paint and a bumper sticker posted by the previous owner that said, NOTHING IS SACRED.

“Nice to see you, too,” Lillian said. “This is my unit, as it turns out.”

Jamie emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “That bumper sticker is making my skin crawl. We should re-paint your walls.”

Jamie and Max were cousins who lived in the apartment next door. The three of them had known each other since Lillian’s freshman year in college, when Jamie and Max were already on their
last semester. When Lillian moved into the same building three months ago, Jamie and Max doted on her like a pair of overbearing aunts, fussing over her diet and dwelling.

“Also,” Jamie said, “your kitchen is ghastly.”

“Are you cooking? I want a cheeseburger.”

Jamie took her groceries from her with a look of disapproval. “Why do you eat so much junk? I made vegetarian
mechado
. Sit down.”

They ate on the floor, sitting by the coffee table.

“I still want a cheeseburger,” Lillian said morosely, stirring through the chunks of potatoes on her plate.

“Jamie says you have a new charge,” Max said, eyes on her laptop screen.

“A twenty-eight-year-old male,” Lillian said. Jamie nearly choked on his rice.

“What?” Max said, then lowered her voice to a whisper, “Is he disabled?”

“He has schizoaffective disorder.”

“Is that the violent kind of crazy?” Jamie asked.

“Way to be sensitive, Jamie,” Max said.

“I’m just saying,” Jamie said. “He’s not violent, is he?”

Lillian thought about it. “To be honest he seemed dulled by all his meds. He’s taking a lot.”

“Like Jamie on most Friday nights,” Max said. “It should be fine.”

“He’s with family?” Jamie asked.

“A brother.” Lillian chewed. “Who seems loaded.”

“Ooh. Is he going to pay you a lot?”

“Higher than my asking rate.”

“And you’re sure his brother’s not violent?” Jamie asked.

Max pushed back her plate and placed her hands on her keyboard. “What’s their name?”

“Dolores. Paul and Caleb. But I already checked on them. Checked SentryServ, too. No hits. No priors. Not even a photo online.”

“Very secretive,” Max said, typing.

“Very suspicious,” said Jamie.

“Oh, give the guy a break. There are mental patients who blog about their condition to share info, but not everyone is that open or confident.”

Lillian shrugged. “I’m really not worried.”

“What made you say he’s loaded?” Jamie asked, as Max continued to type away, peering at the screen and frowning. “They live in a mansion? Will you get free
food?”

“He gave me a card for my meals,” Lillian said, and Jamie raised his eyebrows.
“Titanium band. And he owns a tabletop, Jamie! His house looks like shit but he’s got this gorgeous machine.”

“Your wall paint is peeling, Lillian. I can’t imagine a shittier home than this.”

“Mediatrix of All Graces Center,” Max said. They looked at her.

Max said, “Caleb Dolores was admitted more than a decade ago in Mediatrix of All Graces. Involuntary commitment for 20 days back in 2017. Paul Dolores signed it off.”

“They publish that kind of information?” Jamie said. They climbed on the couch and peered over Max’s shoulders. Lillian looked at the screen. Max had what looked like twenty
windows open, but one inset showed Mediatrix of All Graces Center’s website. The homepage featured a manor, a sprawling garden, a marble statue of the Virgin Mary with her arms open, and that
careful doublespeak also used by drug treatment facilities and funeral homes.

“I hacked their system,” Max said. The first time Max uttered these words to her, Lillian almost had a heart attack, thinking a Sentry would be breaking down her door at any moment.
After a while, she got used to it.

“The place looks great,” Lillian said.

“It’s a very expensive facility,” Max said. “And I mean break-the-bank expensive.”

“Crazy expensive.”

“Not funny, J.”

“If he’s loaded why not just hire a stay-at-home nurse?” Jamie asked.

“He couldn’t find one in this town,” Lillian said, and began to clear the table. “And he needed a caregiver on short notice. He’s starting work on
Monday.”

Max was ready to pounce. “Where?”

“Seton,” Lillian said.

“According to Mediatrix of All Graces, Caleb Dolores exhibited delusions and other symptoms just five months before he was admitted there,” Max said, as she opened another window.
“No history of mental illness, even in his family.”

“That’s sad,” Jamie said, expressing empathy for the first time. “Do you think it’s work-related? Or academic pressure?”

“I guess extreme stress can really do a number on your brain.”

“My own thesis did a number on my brain.”

Lillian, who had started to get up to take the plates to the sink, sat back down.

“What?” Max said.

“Paul said Caleb had had this ever since he was a kid.”

“He lied to the hospital?” Jamie said.

“They can’t lie to the hospital,” Max said. “They need to tell the truth so Caleb can get proper treatment.”

Jamie looked at Lillian. “So he lied to you.”

“Paul’s not in the Seton system yet,” Max said.

“Maybe they just want to start over,” said Jamie. “Clean slate. Maybe Paul Dolores was a CEO before he came here, shamed by scandal.” He snapped his fingers. “Or
maybe Paul and Caleb are actually a couple!”

Max looked exasperated. “You think everyone’s gay.”

“Everyone
is
gay. Keep that in mind when you go on a blind date again.”

Max rolled her eyes.

“Paul’s actually pretty cute,” Lillian said. She put the plates in the sink and came back with a Candy Stripe stuck in her mouth. “Kind eyes. Like he trusts
everyone.”

“And therein lies his downfall,” Jamie said.

Lillian arrived early on Monday. Paul greeted him, looking like a young college professor in his jeans and blue sweater. He looked both tense and excited.

“First day high?” Lillian said, and Paul said, “You and me both?”

Lillian laughed. Paul seemed to understand that despite the Titanium card and the higher-than-usual pay, his new hire still wasn’t sure she wanted to be here.

Paul walked her around the house and went through the contact numbers, the medication and proper dosage, the list of delivery numbers she could call if she got hungry. “Caleb sometimes has
food delivered,” Paul said, “but he’s usually okay with whatever’s in the kitchen. Help yourself, if you get hungry.”

They had a two-door with a Newspad installed, the Newspad on Reminder Mode and currently saying that they had no more milk. Lillian didn’t fail to notice that Paul didn’t have any
sharp objects in the kitchen—no knives, no forks, no peelers. Just a collection of plastic utensils in a square wicker basket lined with maroon cloth. The combination induction stove and oven
had a bear on the display, marching from one end of the screen to the other. Password-locked.

One of the cupboards was made of steel and was also password-protected. “The meds are here,” Paul said. “The password is ‘abraham lincoln’. One space between words.
No caps.”

“Abraham Lincoln,” Lillian repeated. “Right.”

“Caleb is upstairs. He keeps his bedroom door open. If he locks his door and won’t let you in, call me immediately.”

“What if he went to the washroom?” Lillian asked.

“He’ll keep the door ajar,” Paul said. “Come on, I’ll say goodbye to him.”

The second floor was dark, with only weak light coming through a single window breaking the gloom. Caleb’s door, indeed, was open. Lillian saw a glimpse of his room—Caleb sitting on
a swivel chair, jacket slung on the backrest, laptop glowing on the table, wood-paneled wall gleaming and bare—before Paul blocked the doorway.

“Lillian’s here,” Paul said. Lillian rested her back against the cool wall.

Murmurs until Caleb raised his voice. “I know you don’t trust me enough to treat me like an adult, but really, a
child
to look after me?”

More murmurs, then Paul: “Do you want me to stay?”

He didn’t sound angry. Goddamn Paul the martyr, Lillian thought.

Caleb sounded rueful. “No. I’m sorry
.
We’ll be all right.”

Paul stepped out shortly after. When he said his goodbyes and left the house, Lillian suddenly felt like she had lost a shield.

There was a chair in the hallway. Lillian pulled it closer to Caleb’s room. She might have been making a lot of noise; when she looked up, Caleb was staring at her, looking annoyed.

“Sorry,” Lillian said, and sat down. She took out her phone and opened her book reader app. Without looking up, she said, “I’m not a child.”

No reply.

Caleb stayed in his room the entire morning, clacking away on his computer. At one point he put his hands on his forehead and said in a plaintive voice, “Why do you keep asking this
question? You’ll understand it better if you just read the damn email!”

Lillian wondered what that was about.

Around lunchtime the doorbell chimed, and Caleb stood up and went downstairs. Lillian followed, hoping to intercept him. But it was just a food delivery. Caleb turned to her after closing the
door and handed her a carton box of fried chicken, rice and coleslaw.

“Thank you,” Lillian said, surprised, but Caleb didn’t reply. He walked to the dining room and unpacked his lunch. Lillian followed suit, sitting on the other end of the
table.

Caleb fell asleep for two hours on the couch while watching TV after the meal.

From surfing the Net and reading and eating through a pack of Candy Stripe, Lillian switched to doodling on her notebook. She had covered nearly the entire page with ink drawings when the alarm
sounded. Caleb stirred on the couch.

Lillian walked to the kitchen, reached up to the steel cupboard, and keyed in “abraham lincoln”. The cupboard opened with a pop.

Four of the six plastic bottles had labels and information, but the other two—containing Senerex and Neuropro—were bare, save for the brand name stenciled in black on the white
plastic. Both pills were oval, and white in color, with Neuropro marked with an N.

Lillian counted them off in a medicine cup. “These two look like calcium pills,” Lillian said, dropping Senerex and Neuropro in the mix. “You could easily mistake one for the
other.”

Caleb swallowed the pills with water, two at a time, without looking at her.

He put on his jacket and shoes for his walk. Lillian walked with him, just five steps behind, watching the sky change color. She was so bored she blurted out, “This really helps with your
anxiety?”

Caleb glanced over his shoulder, and surprised Lillian by actually answering. “Yes,” he said. “But I’m sad all the time.”

“No one’s sad all the time,” Lillian said.

“I am.”

And that was it: a grand total of nine words. When Paul got back from work around 6:30, Lillian almost expected him to say, “Have you been nice to Lillian today, Caleb?”

That night, Lillian dropped by a convenience store and was finally able to use the Titanium card, which got her a free chocolate bar with her purchase of a hotdog sandwich. She sat in front of
her laptop munching on her dinner, checking blogs and trolling some forums. U r all MORONS: Tagalog is a dialect, Filipino is the
language
, said a male genius named Sparrow410 in one of the
linguistics forums. Lillian snorted and typed:

She waited a few seconds and hit refresh. The replies appeared almost instantaneously.