I nod. “Bad shit.”
Silence, then, from all around, everyone lost in their own thoughts.
“Club opens soon,” Chance says, rising to his feet, slapping his thighs. “Time to get ready.”
We scatter then, each of us, but there’s a new sense of closeness between us.
I can’t say it doesn’t feel good.
15Employed; Captured
Anjalee
Ifind I quite enjoy working in the security command booth with Inez. It is quiet, and there is both much to do, and also nothing at all. There are many screens to watch, but it gives me time to think. I watch people on the screens—I see many shocking and scandalizing things. Many of the women are wearing very little indeed, some with only bits of tape over their nipples, leaving their breasts otherwise exposed; some wear dresses that are essentially sheer, so they are naked but still technically covered. Men in ripped jeans and boots, shirtless, or leather pants, or tight shorts. I see couples kissing. I see them having sex while dancing. At first, it is shocking. Then it is rather entertaining.
I have a radio, and if a situation seems to be deteriorating into trouble, I am to alert the men. The club has many separate areas for dancing, all of them defined by the bar which serves the area. The various corners of the building are assigned a color, blue for back left, gold for back right, yellow for front left, orange for front right, and red for center rear. Complicating this otherwise logical arrangement is the fact that the bars are all connected, running in a winding, serpentine U-shape from front left around the back to front right, with service stations breaking them up and many curves creating pockets and small areas for patrons to rest, to drink, and to congregate. So the blue area, near the back, actually has four individual bars, each with a service station, a bartender, and a barback. Therefore, in the back left corner you have bars 2-A-Blue, 2-B-Blue and so on. Same for the other areas. Each bar has its own wide-angle camera monitoring the bartender, the cash register, the liquor racks, and the customers at the bar, and there are several other angles covering the dance floor and the corners. The bathroom entrances are watched. In fact, the only place where you are not actively and directly monitored in the club is inside the bathrooms themselves. Everywhere else, including in line outside, you are watched from multiple angles.
I watch a pair of men, on the central dance floor, engage in a comical back-and-forth, each trying to outdo the other in dancing, in order to impress a woman. The woman encourages it, egging on one and the other, until they are no longer dancing and it is no longer comical.
I key the radio. “I believe there is a situation occurring. The main dance floor, near 1-A-Red. Someone should respond to it, or there will be fighting, I think.”
“On it,” I hear a voice say—the man Rev, Myka’s boyfriend.
I see her on my screens—she is bartending, working at bar 1-B-Gold, which appears to be one of the busiest bars, after only the 1-Red bars. I watch her work, now and then. She is quick, efficient, and skilled. No movement is wasted, and she very frequently is doing more than one thing at a time—pouring a mixed drink while making change, or handing off one drink and leaning over the bar to take another order.
I watch the conflict unfold, the men now nose-to-nose, blustering and posturing like roosters, shoving. It is only moments before blows will be struck I think…and then Rev is there, pushing between them, a hand to each chest. I do not know what he says, but the men go their separate ways—Rev turns his attention to the woman who started the whole thing, and to read her body language, she does not enjoy his words. She is embarrassed and angry, I think, or perhaps ashamed.
And so goes the evening.
The command booth is a large room, a rectangle. One entire wall is a floor-to-ceiling one-way mirror, overlooking the club itself from a bird’s eye perspective, near the ceiling of the second floor of the club, looking down at an angle. From that vantage, one can watch the club, seeing most of it laid out beneath you. Opposite the one-way mirror is the bank of monitors, several rows of large computer screens each showing a different angle, with several keyboards and computer mice to control the various cameras, angles, zoom, recording functions, and playback. Inez told me not to worry about these yet, to only watch the monitors in real-time, and she would teach me those functions later.
Past midnight, Inez returns to the booth after leaving me alone there for many hours. She removes her coat and goes to the one-way mirror. “So. How’d you like the booth?”
I move to stand beside her, watching the pulsing movement of the dancing crowd—it is almost an alien thing, the crowd as a whole. Shifting, pulsing, always moving, always changing, almost an entity rather than a collection of individuals.
“I quite enjoy it,” I answer.
She looks at me. “Would you like to be down there?” She jerks her head at the mirror—the window to the club.
I frown, shake my head. “Oh, no, I do not think so. I have spent very much of my life alone, or with only a few people. To be among so many all at once?” I shake my head. “I think no, not at all.”
She regards me. “That, I understand.” She looks back at the club. “What you’ve been doing, this evening. Would you like to continue doing it? Every night?”
I nod. “I think so, yes. If it is truly a role which you need filled, and not only something you have created to keep me occupied, or to make me feel as if I am contributing.”
She smiles, but it is a thin, shallow thing. “You do not know me well, Anjalee. But when you come to know me better, you’ll realize I do not waste my time or my energy. I have no interest in curating your emotions. I need someone to monitor the cameras, so I can spend more time on other duties. I am the manager of this club, and there is much to do—I cannot spend it all here, and I simply have not had the time to interview and hire anyone. You are contributing. It is a job, an important one, and you will be paid accordingly.”
I nod. “Very well, then. I accept.”
She smiles. “You have friends in the VIP section.”
“What is this VIP section, please?”
She goes to the bank of monitors and points—2-C-Gold, back right on the upper level, where the bar bellies out and then curves back in, leaving a deep recess in the corner; there is, a booth, a bench along the back wall and chairs on the opposite side of the long table. It is a private little alcove from which patrons could watch without interacting. There are velvet ropes closing the alcove off, and Lash stands in front of them, hands behind his back. In the booth, Bax, Xavier, Harlow, and Eva sit together in a line on the bench, facing the club, sipping drinks, watching curiously.
“Ah, yes. I had lunch with them. Kane and I did.”
She smiles at me. “I can take over for now.” She hands me the radio, and then a long cord with an earpiece. “Clip the radio to your waistband, run the cord under your shirt, and put the earpiece on. If I need you back, I’ll let you know. For now, you may go and be with your friends.”
