Mike woke up at seven on Tuesday morning, before his alarm went off. This didn't mean anything, except that his body had apparently decided that today was important enough to get a head start on.
He lay on his back for a moment and looked up at the ceiling.
"Gerald would leave tonight." The man had said, with the casual confidence of someone who had no idea he was providing that information to the wrong person, "Since this is Tuesday, then I really need to have my fun with his wife."
"This will be my first process to really steal her away from him." Mike licks his lips.
Mike got up, made coffee, and went out on the balcony to watch the street, just like he did every morning since he got there. This time, he's trying to see if he can lock into some new baddies because one isn't enough, as he feels that having multiple connections will give him an advantage in his plan to win her over.
The city moved in the same way it always did. Same pace, same traffic patterns, and the same vendor cart showing up on the corner at 8:15 every time.
But today felt different, as days often do when you have a clear plan for how to spend them.
He picked up his phone.
[GOOD MORNING, HAWK.]
[TODAY IS TUESDAY.]
[WE KNOW YOU KNOW. WE'RE JUST SAYING IT.]
"Yeah, I know," Mike said quietly as he drank his coffee. "I've been awake since six or seven."
[CURRENT DESIRE LEVEL: PETRICIA SCHNEIDER — 11/100]
[TARGET TODAY: MEANINGFUL INCREASE. IDEALLY 25-35 RANGE.]
[STRATEGY NOTES: YOU HAVE AN OPEN WINDOW TODAY. GERALD LEAVES BY FIVE PM BASED ON OBSERVED PATTERN. USE THE TIME WISELY AND DON'T BLOW IT BY BEING TOO OBVIOUS.]
[ALSO: BRUSH YOUR TEETH FIRST. SERIOUSLY.]
Mike looked at the phone like a man who had run entire criminal operations on several continents and was now being told to brush his teeth by a supernatural being that lived in his phone.
"Don't tell me what to fucking do, you jackass."
"I'll lose my aura if you keep saying bullshit like that."
But in the end, he still brushed his teeth.
After that, he saw Petricia at nine, which was about the time he thought she would start showing up in the building's common areas.
She was at the hallway notice board, putting up something new. She was wearing the kind of comfortable clothes people wear when they plan to spend the morning doing quiet things inside.
She was wearing a light blue cardigan and had her hair in a loose braid. She had reading glasses pushed up on top of her head, which she clearly used for close work, and she kept forgetting to put them back.
Mike came down the stairs at a speed that was neither too fast nor too slow.
He greeted, "Morning."
"Morning." She looked back over her shoulder without turning all the way around. "Did you sleep well?"
"Surprisingly well. And it appears that you're correct about your pipe..." Mike said. "...it made its noise right on time."
That made her smile genuinely, not just the polite version she usually showed as a landlady. "Good. I'd hate for it to disappoint."
He stopped next to her, close enough to see what she was pinning. It said that the water would be turned off on Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon for maintenance.
The note was neat, centered, and written in the same tidy handwriting as all the other notes in the building.
He asked, "You wrote all of these yourself?"
"Yeah, if I let my husband write... his writing looks like it was done during an earthquake."
"Sheesh... That bad, huh?"
"I once thought a note he left me said we were out of sugar," she said, "and it turned out to say the boiler needed attention."
"What the...?" Mike stared at her. "Those don't look the same at all."
"No," she said, straightening the pin with the satisfaction of someone who cared about things being straight. "They really don't."
'How the fuck a husband who can't write can pull a baddie like her?'
He really laughed at that. She smiled again when she heard it, like people do when they hear someone else laugh without meaning to.
"Do you always run everything here?" Mike asked. It didn't sound like he was complaining or criticizing; it was just a question.
"Mostly," she said. "It's simpler than explaining how I want things done."
She said it lightly, like when you say something that is true but you don't need to be heavy about it anymore because you've already accepted it.
Mike said, "That's a lot for one person."
"It keeps me busy." She took the glasses off her head and put them in her cardigan pocket. "Busy is okay because I don't have anything else to do after that."
It was the kind of thing that made it clear that conversation was over, and Mike got it right. He didn't try to push it.
"Well," he said, "if you need an extra pair of hands for anything today, I'll be around."
"I thought you'd be exploring the city," Petricia said. "You've barely been out."
"I have all the time in the world," Mike said. "I'm not in a hurry."
She gave him one of those looks again, the kind that said she was thinking about what kind of person he was.
He was beginning to like those looks. They meant that she was still thinking about it.
"You don't have work...?"
"... ...!" Mike then realized that. "Ahh yeah... for now I don't work in this city, but I'll try to look into it."
"I'm sorry!" Petricia realized what she just said, and she covered her mouth with one hand. "I shouldn't ask something like that."
She said, "The market two streets down is good on Tuesdays," which was her way of being helpful without making it a big deal. "Fresh fruits and vegetables are there at this hour."
"If you go before they run out, the bread from the corner stall is worth getting for breakfast."
"What time do they run out?"
"Eleven, usually."
He checked his watch. It was 9:22. "I have time."
"You do," she agreed. "Go, then."
He left as fast as he could.
He took his time getting ready, though. When he left at ten, he passed by the office and saw that the door was open and Petricia was at her desk going through what looked like paperwork.
She looked up when she heard him in the hallway.
"Bread or no bread?" she asked.
"Going to find out soon," he said.
...
He got the bread. He also got two of them.
When he got back, he knocked on the open office door and held one out without making a big deal out of it. "You mentioned it. Figured I'd get one for you."
Petricia stared at the bread. Then at him.
She said, "You didn't have to do that."
"I know," Mike said. "It almost ran out, so I just bought them all to make sure there wouldn't be any left for some randoms to buy, hahaha."
"Hehehe... you're evil." She took it after a moment, being careful because she wasn't used to small gestures and didn't know what to do with them. "Thanks."
"Don't worry about it." He went upstairs.
[DESIRE LEVEL: 14/100]
'Three points from bread,' Mike thought. 'I'm genuinely a fucking genius.'
[DO NOT LET THIS GO TO YOUR HEAD.]
[BUT ALSO THAT WAS A GOOD CALL.]
...
Mike had to wait until two in the afternoon so that Petricia wouldn't get suspicious until she started to think that he's all pushy and trying to flirt with her so badly. His plan here is to make her feel lonely and longing because her husband isn't there with her.
He read through Rex's document again, focusing on the parts about Erosyne City's social infrastructure, and writing down things he wanted to look into in the margins.
The business areas. The money business.
The specific ways that law enforcement in this country set up their jurisdictional boundaries had some interesting gaps that he saved for later, particularly regarding the inconsistencies in how different regions define their authority and the impact this has on crime prevention efforts.
He went downstairs at two.
The door to the office was still open. Petricia was eating lunch at her desk.
She had a bowl of something with steam still coming off it and was looking at her laptop screen with the focused attention of someone doing real administrative work.
Mike put his back against the door. "You eat at your desk?"
She raised her head. "I eat lunch wherever I can find work."
"That's a bad habit."
"Thank you for your feedback," she said, sounding like someone who had decided not to let that land but was trying not to smile about it.
"When was the last time you ate somewhere other than your apartment or the office?"
She gave it some thought. That she had to really think about it was enough of an answer.
She said, "I'm not very good at keeping track of that."
"Gerald doesn't take you out?"
She turned back to her laptop and scrolled through something. "Gerald has his stuff, and I have mine."
It was said in a neutral way, not in a bitter way, which told Mike more than bitterness would have.
Being bitter meant she still cared enough to be mad. "Neutral" meant she had moved on from being frustrated to something calmer and more stable.
"I was going to get dinner tonight." Mike said, "Somewhere in the area, whatever looks good."
"If you have time, you could show me which places are worth going to."
She gave him the look of someone who was judging him that was becoming familiar.
"Gerald won't be home until late," she said, which was not a yes or a no.
"So you're free," Mike said.
Another pause.
Finally, she said, "There's a place on Callen Street."
"It's not fancy, but the food is good and it's not too loud... I used to go there more often."
"That sounds just right," Mike said. "We go at seven?"
"Sure," she said, as if she were still thinking about it when she agreed. "Meet me by the front door."
"Perfect," he said, and then he left before she could change her mind.