"Holy fucking tits... this tea was bussin' so hard~!' Mike thought.
Mike didn't see that coming. Back then in the safehouses, cheap hotels, and prison cells where he had lived before, the tea was always either too bitter or too weak, as if the person who made it had given up halfway through.
Well, now, neither of those things was true. This was indeed real tea, the kind that tasted like someone really cared about making it right.
While she went over the lease terms, he sat across from her at a small table in the management office. The room was set up like someone who lives there would set it up, not just work there.
A coat rack is next to the door.
There is a picture frame on the shelf.
A little plant on the windowsill that looked like it was getting watered on a regular basis.
"The rent is due every month," Petricia said as she slid a printed page across the table. "Utilities are included."
"Utilities are included. WIFI Internet is shared building-wide, so if you're planning to download the entire internet, please don't."
"Honestly..." Mike looked at the page's numbers and then back at her. "In this economy... I think that's a good price."
She said, "It is a fair price for this fancy apartment," without sounding like she was bragging.
Petricia giggled. "Just saying something that is true..."
"Alright, a deal's a deal. Show me the room." Mike said, drinking all the tea.
"Come, come."
She took him upstairs to unit six on the second floor, where she already had the keys. Before unlocking the door, she knocked twice out of habit.
Mike thought it was an old habit of someone who had walked in on tenants by accident before. 'The fuck is she doing there...? Don't tell me it's haunted in there...'
She opened the door and stepped back to let him go in first.
"Gentleman first."
"Uh... it's the opposite, but okay then."
Mike came in and stopped just to look around.
"What the actual fuck..."
He thought it would be a small apartment room. He imagined a studio apartment that combines a kitchen and bedroom into one space, where the fridge is so close to the bed that he can grab a snack without getting up.
And of course... reality is better than dreams now because this wasn't what he had in mind.
The living room was enormous that he could have easily fit his last three safehouses inside. A full kitchen with enough counter space.
There is a hallway that leads to a separate bedroom. A bathroom with a window, and yes... a real window.
He could also see a small balcony outside the living room that looked out over the street. Someone had left a single potted plant out there, and it had survived whatever level of care the last tenant gave it.
'I get all of this for a cheap price...?' Mike thought. 'Holy shit... I literally can bring five taken women here so I can fuck them all at once.'
'I can also make my own studio of recording where I fuck those women as well, but I won't share it... BUT AGAIN... I will share it with their partner, hahahahaha!'
"It was occupied by a couple before," Petricia said, reading his face like someone who had shown this unit many times. "They moved out last month."
"We haven't had time to paint yet, but everything is still in good shape... I hope."
Mike turned slowly in the center of the living room. "This is the price you listed?"
"Yep~!" Petricia nodded.
He gave her a look. "Is there a problem with it?"
Petricia almost smiled. "The couple thought it was haunted."
He stayed put. 'I fucking knew it...'
"There's a pipe in the wall that makes noise when the upstairs unit takes a shower, and they said that it's around two in the morning." She paused just to laugh. "Well, I think it's only a pipe... not a ghost."
"How unfortunate for those ghosts." Mike looked around the apartment again and then back at her. "I don't get scared easily."
"Okay," she said. Then, after a pause, "Most people are braver during the day, and at night... hmmm, I don't know~!"
"Actually, I'm more dangerous at night."
There was a half-second of silence while Petricia thought about what to do with that sentence. She got better quickly, like someone who is used to dealing with conversations that go off track for a short time.
"Well," she said, "I'll need the first month's rent and a security deposit."
"Done," Mike said right away.
She handed him the lease. He signed it.
She handed him the key. He took it.
And that was it, Mike finally go this first apartment in this new country.
...
Petricia walked him through the building and explained the basics in a friendly, efficient way that showed she had done it many times before and meant every word.
In the basement, she showed him the laundry room. There are two machines, and he can get tokens from the front desk.
"Don't leave your laundry in the machine overnight because there was a whole signed agreement about it on the wall." Petricia said.
"Don't tell me..."
"Yes, someone had broken the agreement enough times that it was necessary."
"Who keeps putting their clothes in the machine?" Mike asked.
"Unit four."
"Do they know about the deal?"
"They signed it," Petricia said, sounding like a woman who has had this conversation with herself many times before.
Mike was close to smiling.
She pointed out the mailboxes near the entrance, the parking lot in the back for people who drove, the garbage schedule on the side door, and the small notice board in the hallway where building-wide announcements were posted.
"Is there anything I should know about the neighbors?" Mike asked. "I want to at least be known as a friendly neighbor who just got here in this country."
She thought about it with the real care of someone who really cared about her tenants. "Unit three is an older man who sometimes plays the radio too loud but says he's sorry right away if you knock."
"Unit eight is a nursing student who works nights, so maybe... try not to have really loud parties at nine in the morning."
"What about the fourth unit?"
Petricia looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Don't leave your clothes in the machine overnight."
Mike nodded with a serious look on his face. "Understood."
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face him with the slightly stiff energy of someone finishing an orientation. "Gerald is responsible for maintenance, so if something breaks, leave a note under the office door and he'll take care of it."
"Is Gerald your husband?" Mike asked to make sure again and to look at her reaction.
"Yes, he is."
Mike didn't get the reaction he wanted, but then he tried again by asking something else.
"Is he around a lot?"
She stopped, but not in a negative way. It was more like someone who is trying to be honest but can't quite say yes or no.
"He comes and goes," she finally said.
Mike put that away without saying anything. 'Ah yes... there it is...'
"If it's urgent, you can knock on the office door directly." She went on, "I'm usually there."
"That's good to know," Mike said. "I'll be needing your help a lot starting now until I'm used to this apartment and country."
He meant it in the same way she probably thought he did, and the brief look she gave him before going back to her office showed that she suspected something, even if she didn't know what.
[PETRICIA SCHNEIDER: DESIRE LEVEL — 5/100]
'Ahh... I see how this system works now...' Mike thought while looking at the notification. '5/100 and she's already side-eyeing me.'
'Good fucking progress.'
...
He spent the first hour in the apartment just walking through it.
He wasn't taking things out of the box. There wasn't much for him to unpack.
Just being in the space the way you have to when a place is brand new, going from room to room and letting it stop being strange.
The window in the bedroom faced east. At least that was lovely. And there's also light in the morning, not glare in the afternoon.
The kitchen tap ran warm before it ran hot, which was a little annoying but not a dealbreaker.
There were two power outlets on the far wall of the living room. This could have been a design mistake or a sign of when the building was wired.
Mike made a mental note that he would need a strip.
He sat on the floor against the wall because there was no furniture yet and took out his phone.
The system appeared almost right away, not in the air this time, but as a pale, slightly see-through text overlaid on the screen, which he was starting to recognize as its default look.
[HOST DEVICE INTEGRATED.]
[SYSTEM INTERFACE NOW ACCESSIBLE VIA REGISTERED DEVICE.]
[WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME, MIKE HAWK. THIS IS NOT SARCASM.]
'The fuck is this bitch yapping about...?' Mike thought, "It's a little bit sarcastic."
[CURRENT STATUS OVERVIEW:]
[HOST: MIKE HAWK]
[LOCATION: EROSYNE CITY, DISTRICT 4]
[DOLLAH BALANCE: 14,200 (LEASE DEPOSIT DEDUCTED)]
[PRIMARY TARGET: PETRICIA SCHNEIDER: DESIRE LEVEL: 5/100]
Mike looked at the number.
[BREAKDOWN: INITIAL CONTACT PRODUCED MEASURABLE RESPONSE. SUBJECT REACTED TO CONFIDENCE, LIGHT PROVOCATION, AND PERCEIVED UNPREDICTABILITY. STANDARD EARLY-STAGE RESPONSE IN HIGH-WALL SUBJECTS.]
[HIGH-WALL SUBJECTS: WOMEN WITH STRONG SELF-MANAGEMENT HABITS WHO HAVE LEARNED TO PROCESS EXTERNAL STIMULI THROUGH SKEPTICISM BEFORE ALLOWING ANY EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.]
[TRANSLATION: SHE NOTICED YOU, FILED YOU UNDER INTERESTING BUT SUSPICIOUS, AND WENT BACK TO MAKING TEA.]
"Five percent just from one talk and a bad joke about being dangerous at night," Mike thought. "That's not fucking bad or corny."
'Well... it sounds a bit edgy.'
[DO NOT GET OVERCONFIDENT. FIVE IS EASY. GETTING FROM FIVE TO TWENTY IS WHERE MOST INTERACTIONS STALL.]
[RECOMMENDATION FOR TODAY: DO NOT PUSH. ESTABLISH PRESENCE. LET THE CURIOSITY SIT.]
[SCHEDULE: BUY FURNITURE. BUY FOOD. LEARN THE AREA. YOU LOOK LIKE YOU SLEPT IN AN ECONOMY SEAT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO, WHICH YOU DID.]
Mike looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. The system had a point.
[ADDITIONAL NOTE: PETRICIA SCHNEIDER OPERATES ON ROUTINE. LEARN THE ROUTINE BEFORE YOU START INTERRUPTING IT.]
[PATIENCE. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AT THIS, JUDGING FROM YOUR CRIMINAL RECORDS.]