Failure to Ping
The advertisements for Metro Futurology featured a cavernous lobby full of glass and metal in a building that resembled the Tower of Babel stretched too thinly toward the sky. The sleek videos boasted finely appointed rooms with climate control, memory foam mattresses on the bed, and enough square footage to do a simple home workout. Blurbs from previous customers extolled the unmatched comfort and unparalleled service of what was supposedly Raleigh-Durham’s premier synthetic shelving facility.
What Hutch found when he arrived more closely resembled the ancient motels of Atlantic Beach, the last resort options of desperate families who’d arrived at the coast without booking their lodging in advance. Instead of a conic tower, Metro was a mere three floors worth of chipped evercrete and grimy brown windows. A faded sign hung over the front doors; the black background had faded to almost the same shade as the gray lettering, making it hard to read. Inside, the post-modern lobby from the ads was nowhere to be seen. The walls felt too close together, as if they were reaching for each other. By the time he’d walked the fifteen steps from the doors to the reception desk, he swore the walls had come in by at least three feet on each side.
A young man with neon-laced tattoos covering the right side of his face and neck looked up from a palette behind the desk. There was something vacant in his eyes, as if he were under the influence of some synth drug. Then, like a flash of lightning in his pupils, recognition took hold. He stood abruptly and smiled.
“Putting on or taking off?” he asked cordially.
