The sounds of birds chirping and car horns bleating mixed with the smells of cooking food from nearby food trucks to assault his senses as Spencer Cameron exited the building where his sister was being cared for.

  It was a beautiful day with sunshine and blue skies, but to Spencer it all felt muted; dull. He felt the same way every time he finished visiting his sister and it didn’t seem to ever get easier. Whether that was due to his sister’s comatose state, that there didn’t seem to be any sign of improvement even after all of these months, the doctor’s insistence on constantly highlighting that persistent vegetative states had very low chances of recovery, or some combination of all the above was hard to say. The branches shading the building’s entrance swayed subtly with the wind, Spencer looked up into the warm sunlight flitting down through the intermittent shade and sighed.

  What is it they used to say, he thought to himself ruefully, ‘this too shall pass’? Unbidden, his thoughts drifted to his older brother, Aaron.

  Out of everyone, Aaron had taken what had happened to their sister, Taylor, the hardest and was spending more and more time in the lab these days. It was understandable, seeing as it was Aaron, using his pull as a supervisory lab tech, who had helped to get Taylor a spot with the project testing that had left forty-two people, including their sister, comatose with absolutely zero explanation for what had happened. Spencer tried not to blame him, he really did, but it was hard.

  So, so hard.

  Especially since, despite all the media, public, and political pressure brought to bear on Right Start, the tech company Aaron worked for and the entity responsible for the tragedy, no one had been able to get the tech giant to open up about the specifics. Although that wasn’t a surprising state of affairs for one of the most powerful corporations in the world, it didn’t help Spencer combat the lingering resentment towards his brother. A feeling felt, and whole-heartedly embraced, by Aaron, who seemed to have dedicated himself to discovering the cause of his sister’s condition as some form of atonement.

  Spencer still didn’t know how to feel about that, but he didn’t know what else to do either. Not with his feelings still unresolved and not with the unknown cause of his sister’s condition making it hard for any doctor to make any definitive diagnosis other than “she's definitely in a coma.”

  Shaking himself free of his gloomy thoughts, Spencer reached into his inner jacket pocket to pull out his phone. He'd had it on ‘silent’ for the duration of his visit, as per the private medical facility’s rules. At least Right Start had that going for them. No one could blame the tech giant for not at least doing the bare minimum in handling the fallout for their victims.

  Ok, so maybe his feelings weren't entirely unresolved.

  In any case, as he turned his phone over and saw the multitude of missed calls from both his mother and, even more surprisingly, Mr. Bloom, his mood did a rollercoaster from depressed to surprised to worried to tense; all in the span of a few seconds. The overflow of missed calls he had from his mother could be waved away as something simple: like reaching another twist in one of her current virtual dramas and wanting to geek out over it. She did that at least two or three times a week. But Mr. Bloom? Mr. Bloom almost never reached out to him first, typically only when he’d run out of the specialized coffee equipment the shop used and thus needed Spencer to order more for him online; definitely not during his scheduled bi-weekly visits to check on Taylor. His mentor understood the need for work/life balance.

  Spencer scrolled up through the missed notifications until Mr. Blooms contact picture appeared with a voicemail icon superimposed over it. Something’s definitely up. The amount of times that he’d heard his mentor rant about the impersonal nature of virtual communication was one too many. He knew that the stubborn man would rather give up coffee for a day than leave Spencer a message that could just as easily be given in person.

  Unless it’s an emergency.

  Spencer couldn’t know that, of course, but his common sense and deductive reasoning made him prepare for the worst as he interfaced with the projected screen and set the message Mr. Bloom had left him to play. The first thing that stood out was the immediate sound of a commotion in the background during the first few seconds of the message. He could hear the muffled voice of Mr. Bloom saying something but he really couldn’t make anything out other than the incredulous tone. A few more moments passed before the sounds of Mr. Blooms phone being picked up and handled roughly indicated that the man had returned to his phone.

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  “. . .Jeeps. Listen, kid. You know how much I hate this kind of thing, so I’ll trust you to connect the dots. I’m gonna have to. . .step out for a bit. Everything in the shop is on and running. The new equipment you installed should be as well. I need you to get here as soon as possible to take care of things while I’m gone. The key to the office is in the usual spot. I trust you, Spencer. Don’t burn down my shop.”

  It seemed like Mr. Bloom had said his peace, because the message continued with only the background sound of some kind of commotion before it cut itself off abruptly. In the wake of the message, Spencer stood stock still, staring at his phone. As if a jolt of electricity had shot though his body, Spencer shook alive and jogged at a brisk pace towards his bike that was chained up to the racks near the entrance.

  He unchained his bike and inserted his phone into the interface holster built into the handle before sliding on his helmet. Once on his head, the built in AI immediately connected to his phone and the interface projected into his field of view as he oriented his bike in the direction of Bloom’s and took off.

  Hopping off the curb and onto the bike lane, Spencer had the AI play the voice message from his mentor again and, after another few playthroughs, he focused his attention on one specific thing Mr. Bloom had told him, “. . .The new equipment you installed should be as well. . .”. Of course, only he would know that the only equipment that had been installed recently was the new modernized security cameras: cameras that only began saving their recordings if the proprietary AI detected potential criminal activity in its field of view.

  All worries about his sister were momentarily forgotten as Spencer picked up the pace and began putting down some rubber, a sense of subtle dread rising in his chest as he thought about what kind of trouble could have possibly found his old mentor.

  * * * * *

  Spencer sped around the corner of the narrow cobblestone street that Bloom’s was located on and was greeted with the sight of a small crowd gathered outside the small but popular coffee spot. As he glided to a stop and began walking his bike towards the bike rack located by the curb, Spencer began to pick up bits and pieces of conversation. He didn’t like what he was hearing.

  “Hey, what’s the hold up?” he heard someone asking.

  “No clue, man,” another person responded, “A woman that was here earlier said that the store was empty and the door was locked when she got here, but the Open sign is still up in the door. The guy over there said that he’s been sitting out here since this morning and that, just before the lunch rush, a SUV pulled up outside with several people who went in and came out with the shop owner between them before driving away like some kind of crime flick in broad daylight. Sounds made up to me, but the Open sign *is* up with no one inside. I guess it’s just one of those days, eh?”

  “Ugh. I just wanna get my coffee. I don’t have time for this!”

  “You and me both, brother. I was thinking about heading somewhere else, but what if the workers come back right after I leave, you know?”

  Having finished securing his bike while all of this was being said, Spencer began making his way through the crowd towards the front door. Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite made it to the door before someone in the crowd recognized him as a familiar face from around the shop, and thus someone who might know what’s going on. The well-dressed man stood towards the edge of the crowd in a three-piece suit and sported a smart bud in his ear.

  Raising his voice to be heard over the surrounding conversations, the man shouted, “Hey, you! When’re the doors opening back up? Some of us don’t have the luxury of being able to wait around all day!”

  As if waiting for their cue, everyone in the small crowd turned towards the man speaking and then in the direction of Spencer, the target of the man’s attention. While not everyone in the crowd spent enough time around Bloom’s to recognize Spencer as a familiar face, the way that Spencer had been addressed left little doubt that he might know about the situation.

  Sweat began to bead up on his forehead while he fumbled for the spare key Mr. Bloom had given him years ago. Struggling to ignore the building pressure as the agitated crowd pressed in around him, he finally managed to slide the key into the door and twist. Pushing forward, Spencer stepped into the doorway of the shop and spun around, keeping the door slightly ajar while bracing the bottom with his foot to prevent the crowd from rushing in past him. Eyeballing the crowd, Spencer thought about the situation and the reason Mr. Bloom had called him in the first place.

  He knew that checking the security feed would go a long way towards helping him understand what was going on, but he also knew that if he allowed all of these customers the opportunity to disperse and get their coffee elsewhere, Mr. Bloom would have his head. Sighing for the second time that afternoon, Spencer made up his mind.

  "Alright folks, thank you for your patience. We apologize for the delay. If you have a mobile order, please step to the left. Everyone ordering in person, please allow those with mobile orders the chance to enter first. I'll take your orders at the counter whenever you're ready."

  Rolling up his sleeves and grabbing an apron hanging behind the counter, Spencer prepared himself for the incoming rush; all the while hoping that Mr. Bloom was handling himself and, well, being Mr. Bloom.