"Tonight could change everything," he whispered in the full-length mirror as his hands shook attempting to tie a knot in his bow tie.
My lips curved into a smile as I went to help him, my heels leaving me only half a foot shorter than him. "I hope so. We've been apprentices for long enough. It's our time to change the world." My hands made his bow look as sharp as I felt.
Some people cracked under pressure, but I thrived. Usually Arch did too.
I ran my hands over his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. "You'll be amazing, even if you won't share a single detail with me."
A bead of sweat meandered past his temple, his closely shaved sandy hair, and down the pale skin on his neck. He rubbed his hands against the pants of his navy suit. I adjusted the necklace that sat over my collarbone, its silvery brilliance offsetting the rich reds in my strapless, floor-length dress.
He turned to me, his artificially teal eyes meeting mine. He'd told me the colour inspired calm and trust when he'd chosen it. "Selene, I want you to know, I never expected this, but you've been..." He looked away for a moment before he met my gaze with intensity. "Incredible."
I fought my grin as I applied lipstick that immediately matched itself to the shade of my dress. Not my most life-changing product, but its popularity still helped me pay rent. "Have you fallen for me, Mr. Kenton?" I teased, knowing full well the answer. He could never hide his feelings from me.
"I-I-I have."
I adored the way I made his voice quiver and his Adam's apple bob up and down. To the world, Arch radiated power and success, but to me, he was a sweet, vulnerable soul.
"Whatever happens tonight... know that I... I love you, and I don't want to lose what we have."
A chuckle tickled the glossy skin on my lips despite the pleasant chill his words brought to the bare skin on my shoulders and upper back. "Your overactive anxiety is at it again. No matter whether they accept or reject our proposals, we'll stick together. I'll support whatever idea you have, and you've fully supported mine. I love you too."
He'd offered countless suggestions for my latest prototype, spent late nights testing it with me, and helped me tweak the tech-speak in my application to land an audience tonight alongside him. Few third-year apprentices were given such an honour. Usually, it took five to ten years of grunt work in tech support and as lab techs to gain prominence.
Arch sighed, his stiff, broad shoulders relaxing under his suit jacket. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Get a motivational hologram to cheer you on," I teased.
He chuckled and stepped forward to breathe down my cheek and neck, making my skin dance. "There's no comparison."
"Funny that when we met you would have hardly believed it."
Arch Kenton, the tech prodigy who'd lifted his family out of poverty with his first few inventions at the age of eleven and revolutionized the efficiency of food production, had finally learned to trust someone, and it warmed my heart to be that person.
'Thirty minutes', a mid-toned artificial voice echoed in my head, and from the way Arch's eyes widened, his cerebral implant had given him the same message.
"Ready to change the world, Ms. Mintz?"
I grinned. More ready than ever, but this was only the beginning.
After a quick train ride, we arrived at the historic Chicago-Auditorium-inspired theatre, brimming with suits and dresses and sparkled with jewelry and gems in ears, on hands, and on the ends of canes.
"It's a real blue diamond from my partner." The man flaunted the ring on his finger. "Not an illusionary one."
The eyes of his fellow companions widened, and they complimented the colour and lustre of the piece, incomparable to the tech-produced fakes like the one on my chest.
Their hypocrisy infuriated Arch and me, especially given that so many technological advancements fed humans' drive for wealth and balanced consumption with multi-functional products that for a monthly fee could give the illusion of having it all, or whatever fraction of the 'all' you could pay for.
These people shamed the masses for consuming 'naturally harvested' foods while they ensured that their meat was sourced from living beings instead of lab-grown and that their vegetables didn't come from the harvest forests Arch had developed. I found it inspiring to see a twenty-foot spiralling tomato plant and watch the tech spiders climb its vines to collect baskets that could feed dozens of families instead of one.
We continued past the self-aggrandizing people who hardly batted an eye at us, finding our assigned seats off to the side of the hall. The plush red cushions accepted our bodies without complaint. Both wracked with nerves, we focused on the arches above the stage, giving it a late 19th-century feel, and the two adjacent arched balconies on either side where the committees would watch our proposals and deem them worthy of elevating our professional status or sentencing us to more years of bringing other people's ideas to life.
From the floral scent of my sweat-altering deodorant and the wetness on my skin, I sensed my nerves hadn't fully settled. I closed my eyes and imagined the hall reacting to my idea. It wasn't my grandest, but I was saving that one for when I was an established inventor, which was a risk to my odds of being promoted, but one I would take. I'd heard stories of apprentices getting pitch-snatched during the presentation process while the inventors went back to their menial tasks and pay, and others got promoted in their place.
Like my lipstick invention, tonight's product had mass-market appeal, which was needed to get a project backed and funded. This time I'd designed shoes that not only changed to fit your needed style but also offered orthopedic support to help reduce foot injuries and pain, as well as help those who needed more adaptable footwear. The company had already targeted the able-bodied community, but when people like my mom, who had to wear soft, wide, easy-to-put-on shoes because of her multiple sclerosis, wanted to dress up, their options were limited. My shoes not only changed the outer appearance of the shoe, but they allowed for the materials and size to be highly adaptable while still retaining the illusion of a style that would be otherwise impossible for the person to wear.
My mom had worn heels to my brother's wedding for the first time in years, even if they were platform-adaptable shoes underneath. It had brought her to tears. Not all inventions needed to be revolutionary to have an impact, and I hoped the committee would agree and also not price gauge the subscriptions as I suspected they might.
Our boss, dressed in a purple suit with her hair pulled back into a tight bun approached Arch and whispered a few things to him. I caught a few words like 'prepare' and 'meet investors'. My stomach shifted with excitement for him, though I wished my invention had that kind of appeal. Arch shot me an apologetic look and wished me good luck before kissing me on the lips with more passion than he usually did in such a public space. He pressed his forehead against mine, and we drew in a breath together.
"You're going to be amazing," he whispered. "And we'll celebrate tonight."
I nodded, enjoying the comforting warm feeling of his skin against mine.
As he pulled away, I squeezed his hand. "Good luck."
"You too."
As he followed her, he looked back at me a few times with a smile strained by what I imagined were his nerves. I didn't know why he was nervous. The room loved Arch, both what he stood for as an innovation inspiration, changing lives to draw hopeful inventors into this world and his unique ideas.
His proposal was first, and mine would be the fifteenth, so I had plenty of time to mentally rehearse as the others went through their pitches. As I mentally started my pitch from the beginning, someone cleared their throat next to me.
"Selene Mintz?" The person's brown eyes met mine. They had high cheekbones and soft features contrasting their closely shaved black hair and orange suit that fit with the awkward oversized shoulders that tech projected when you didn't buy the highest value package. But nothing about them struck me as overly familiar.
"Hi, have we met before?"
"Ash Modi. You work closely with Arch, right?"
An imposing woman stood behind Ash. "Ms. You cannot be in here."
"It's Mx," Ash said. "I'm not hurting anyone."
"You are not allowed on the premises."
Ash reached out and clasped my hand. "Don't trust him." Something metallic and cool dropped in my palm.
"How do you know Arch?"
But the guard pulled Ash away and placed a chip on their cheek, preventing them from saying anything else and limiting their resistance. Ash marched off obediently alongside the guard in the bright suit without causing a scene, though the look in their eyes told me otherwise.
I contemplated their words. No one had a bad thing to say about Arch, other than he could be a workaholic and a loner. We shared the same good intentions. I shook off Ash's words. Maybe they were an ex-partner or someone jealous of his fame.
I wasn't sure what they had slipped in my palm or if it was dangerous, so I dropped it on the floor.
The disruption had left me with only enough time to run through the speech twice before the lights dimmed and the project director stood on stage, his long hooked nose pulling my focus.
"Welcome to our esteemed and generous donors, to our dedicated and innovative development teams, and to those of you who will be fortunate enough to dazzle us with your brilliant ideas. Today we celebrate inventions that change the very fabric of our existence. Three of our most creative and hard-working apprentices will receive funding and the support of a development team to bring their vision to life. So, listen closely as your votes will determine the future of Inno-Tech."
The room broke into a round of applause. The twenty-three other creators in this section shifted and glanced at each other, sizing up the competition. I offered a smile to the person next to me but their lips remained pressed together.
"Up first is a man who revolutionized the food production industry, allowing food to be grown in more environments than ever before and at a rate suited to allow greater portions of the population to access quality ingredients, Mr. Archibald Kenton."
As applause and cheers rebounded off the domed ceiling, Arch took the stage from the left, his hands trembling slightly at his sides. He sought my gaze and smiled in response to my grin. I couldn't wait to see the idea he'd been secretive about for months. I was sure he'd be in the top three candidates, though he assured me I would be too.
"Good evening, I stand before you, but a man with an idea, and as I stare into the eyes of every one of you wonderful people." His gaze connected with mine again. "I struggle to remember what I wanted to say. It's a problem many of us face. Nerves, overstimulation, even disease have the power to rob us of not only our words, but our precious lived experience, of moments with the people we care about most, but what if we could fight back?"
My skin froze like we'd dropped into dry ice. He didn't...
"With Mem-armour, your memories will be yours forever, exactly as you experienced them even decades later. You've lived incredible lives, and you deserve to remember them."
When he paused for applause, rage simmered in me, and I gripped the armrest beside me.
I was going to kill him.
Word count: 1996