Chapter 149: 149. What To Plan With Maya So I Can Steal Her From Marc

He woke at two-seventeen, which was the pipe’s fault.

It made the sound it always made at approximately this hour, a low, pressurized complaint from somewhere inside the east wall, and Mike opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling and then looked at the time and then looked at the ceiling again.

The water stain in the far corner was still there. He had catalogued it on day one and had not thought about it since, but at two-seventeen in the morning with a pipe making its usual announcement, it was the most visible thing in the room.

He lay still for a moment, not attempting to go back to sleep right away, because doing so never worked. The trick was to let the wakefulness exist without fighting it, allow it a few minutes to make its case, and then decline it.

He thought about the day.

He thought about the day, not in an analytical way, but rather in the sequence of events, similar to how one runs a hand over a surface to check for texture. Aveline’s sitting room at three in the morning, the leather case, and the way she had looked at him when she said "among other things."

Jay’s phone returned, and shortly after, he appeared on the street outside number eleven. There was the fight and the settlement. Memories of the rooftop with Cody and Tobin surfaced, along with images of the terrace filled with tables from the south building.

Tyler’s avoidance routes are filed in the same mental drawer as Toby Marsh’s complaint records going to zero. Haruka is on the train with her hands around the cold travel cup.

Marielle is in the sitting room watching the footage with the color going out of her face. Petricia on the viewing platform is saying, "The part I can’t keep waiting for to get easier."

Petricia stood in the street outside Schneider with her hands on either side of his face. Haruka was standing at the door of Unit 5, asking if he knew what he was doing to people.

He had told her yes.

He had meant it sincerely, which was the aspect that required the most effort to maintain. Knowing what you were doing to people was only useful if it was honest rather than the flattering version of honesty that people usually settle for.

The flattering version went: I know what I’m doing, and what I’m doing is fine, and the people it affects are consenting participants in something that benefits them. The honest version went: I know what I’m doing, and what I’m doing is effective, and the people it affects are making choices with information I have curated.

Both versions were true. The second one was just more accurate.

He closed his eyes, and the ceiling was replaced by the inside of his eyelids, and he listened to the building until it settled again, and after about eight minutes he was back under, and this time he stayed there until six-forty-five.

...

Marc had a theory about postgraduate students he wanted to test on Mike, and Maya had said there would be good cooking. Mike had met Maya three times, and during each meeting, he observed her noticing details about him that most people overlooked, which made her both more intriguing and more demanding of his attention.

He made coffee in the kitchen and stood at the counter while it brewed and thought about Maya with the specific attention he reserved for people who required it.

The issue with Maya was not that she was suspicious of him. She wasn’t, exactly.

The issue was that she was observant in a structured way, the way someone is when they have spent two years doing video work that requires them to notice what people are actually doing versus what people think they are doing.

She had already identified his pattern of deciding early how a situation would go. She had noticed that he redirected rather than deflected, and she had noticed the distinction between those two things, which was not a distinction most people made.

"She’s going to be watching you," he said to the kitchen, which was his version of thinking out loud.

He did it occasionally when he was alone, because externalizing something forced it into a different shape. "She’s going to be watching you, and she’s going to have Marc there as a variable, and Marc is someone she trusts completely, which means Marc’s read of you is going to feed directly into hers."

The coffee maker made a sound of completion.

He poured a cup and held it and looked at the window, which faced east and was showing a Saturday morning that was bright at the edges but building something heavier behind it.

"Marc has a theory," he said. "About postgraduate students..."

"He wants to test it on you, which means he’s already made some preliminary assessment and wants to see if it holds up under direct contact," he said, taking a sip. "Agghhhhh~! Good shit!"

"Anyway... that’s not a casual thing." He took another sip. "Ngh~! That’s someone who has been thinking about you since Maya mentioned you."

The coffee was excellent. He made it properly, which was one of the small disciplines he had maintained across every identity and every country, because bad coffee in the morning was a choice that compounded.

He thought about what Marc’s theory might be. The information he had: Marc was also a content creator and business program at Valcrest; he had met Maya through the platform and argued with her in comments for two weeks before the first call. Got bored of predictable people.

Maya said he surprised him consistently. A man who got bored of predictable people and had developed a theory about postgraduate students was a man who had been watching a specific pattern and wanted to name it.

"He thinks postgraduate students are performing a version of ambition," Mike said. "Or he thinks they’ve made a specific trade, certainty for status, and they’ve convinced themselves the status is worth the certainty."

He set the cup down. "Or he thinks they’re all slightly afraid, and the academic framework is the way they manage it."

He considered each of these.

"Any of those would make for a good dinner conversation," he said. "And all three have enough truth in them to argue with productively without giving away anything real."

He picked up his phone.

He looked at the weather app first.

The forecast for Saturday showed a storm moving in from the northwest during the afternoon. The kind that brought actual rain rather than the polite drizzle that Erosyne City usually produced from its coastal positioning, the kind the forecast labeled with the amber advisory that meant outdoor plans required a contingency.

"Wait... this is... actually peak," Mike said to himself. "I can actually use the weather as a new manipulation trick I came up with!"

He looked at the timing. It was expected to hit between three and six in the afternoon, which was precisely the window during which he had been told Maya and Marc would likely be in their neighborhood park before dinner, because Maya had mentioned it in passing and Mike had filed it, as he filed most things.

He looked at the storm window again. Three to six.

"Twelve minutes," he said. "If they leave the park the moment it starts, it’s twelve minutes back to their apartment minimum."

"If Marc stops to deal with something first, it will take longer." He turned the phone over in his hand. "But still... fucking hell..."

"The question is what stops Marc."

"Wait... I think I know a lapdog that could do me a favor." He thought about it for a moment and then scrolled to Cody’s name.

The message he sent was short, six words, plus the address and time.

Cody’s response came in under two minutes: "Lol okay. What am I looking for?"

Mike typed back the description of Marc and added, "When the storm hits, think of something... like some bullshit with a phone issue or car issue; ask for help moving something."

"Well, I know you’ll figure it out... I need fifteen minutes minimum."

Cody sent back a thumbs up and then said, "This is the most interesting favor anyone has ever asked me for."

Mike set the phone down.

He stood at the kitchen counter with the second half of his coffee and looked at the window and thought about what fifteen minutes with Maya before Marc arrived would actually produce.

"She’s going to know something is off," he said. "Not immediately."

"But she notices things, and an unexpected window of one-on-one time will register as different from the dinner plan, and she’ll file it." He considered. "That’s fine..."

"Let her file it because the point isn’t to avoid her noticing, but the true point is to give her something worth noticing."

He thought about Maya on the transit walk their first morning, her ring light phone case, and the way she had filmed the seminar from her seat and then put the phone away and paid full attention. She did both things, the documentation and the presence, and she did them separately rather than letting one contaminate the other.

That was discipline.

"You actually like her," he said, which was an observation rather than a problem. "That’s fine, and also useful."

"People who are actually interesting are easier to be around authentically, and authentic is the best cover because it isn’t a cover."