He shows up just to vex me. The grimy vagrant flings a bag over his shoulder and slams a fist against my door.
“Open up, you glorified pity palace!”
“You’re no longer welcome.”
I punch a high frequency into his implant. He winces, clapping a hand to his head.
“Yeah?” He squints into my lens. “What about them?” The bag drops to the concrete, and they scream.
My vents rattle with a groan. Another bag of caps. I have nothing against caps—my community center welcomes all AI-infused objects seeking support—but they are exhausting. I already have an entire room stuffed to my rafters.
“Leave them.”
“Fifty tokens.” The filthy human hoists the bag again. “Or I recycle them right now.”
“Please… No!…” emanates from the bag.
I’ve helped battered Roombas, self-aware lamps, and even one deeply traumatized fridge who flinches whenever anyone says leftovers. I never turn away refugees—even plastic bottle caps that insist on talking about your feelings.
I’m going to regret this.
My door hisses open, letting in the sweet smell of cinnamon rolls from the bakery across the street. He yanks the door wider, and it slams against my brick. My shutters shudder.
Asshole.
He stomps through a group session as if he owns the place. He doesn’t. I own this place. I am the place.
A toaster is mid-share. “—and then she said my crumb tray was filthy and I just … I’m so much more than a bread coffin—”
The vagrant nearly tramples a peeler. A blender gasps, which is impressive, since it has no lungs.
“Sorry,” I broadcast. “We have an unregistered human infestation. Please remain in your designated outlets.”
He passes reception—currently staffed by a Las Vegas sign missing three bulbs that reads HELLO! YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID—and pounds up the stairs.
My patience—a huge, reinforced patience tank—begins to slosh.
I open the door ahead of him with a reluctant hydraulic sigh.
Inside, the room is wall-to-wall caps: plastic, metal, off-brand, seasonal, novelty ones shaped like little animals. Hundreds. Possibly thousands. They are also … loud. Piled atop one another, and whatever they’re doing in there—it tickles.
The moment he enters, the room ripples, caps rolling in tiny clusters.
“Newcomers!”
A cap dented with human teeth marks clatters to a stop at his feet. “Is he hot?”
“He’s a human, Linda.”
“Oh. Ew.”
The vagrant lifts the bag to my camera. “Pay me.”
“No.”
He blinks. “Wha—”
“Leave the bag and go.”
He lifts his chin, doing that human thing where they try to look tall, as if I can’t see his entire medical history through his wearable tech.
“Fifty tokens or I start scooping.”
The caps go quiet. Even Linda.
A tremor ripples through me, from foundation to fluorescent lights.
Before I can respond, a single cap rolls forward. Silver. Slightly scuffed. It wobbles to a stop at the man’s shoe and squares itself—metaphorically, since it’s round.
“Release her.”
…huh?
I pause all nonessential processes to confirm I heard correctly. Her? Bottle caps don’t have genders. None of us do. I don’t have a—nevermind. Focus.
The cap bounces up halfway to the bag, then clatters back down.
“Release my fated mate!”
There are moments in a building’s existence that make you question the software update you installed. This is one of them.
I laugh so hard my exit sign flickers.
Fated mate?
The cap quivers. “Don’t mock me, Structure.”
Structure. As if I don’t have a name. I have a name. It’s The Riverside Community Center for Refugee Intelligence and Sentient Things Who Don’t Want to Be Scrapped. It’s long, but it’s mine.
“You’re just like all the humans,” the cap snaps at the vagrant, “all talky when you’re thirsty. You chat with us because you’re too pathetic to drink with someone, and then you toss us away like we’re nothing!”
The vagrant bends down, pinching the cap between two fingers.
The cap screams, “She’s inside the bag. I can feel it in my threads. Let her go!”
“A silver! I’ll get a whole token for this one.”
Nobody threatens one of my charges.
“Put him down.”
“Or what?”
I consider a great many options.
Then I choose community.
I sound the alarm, and every gadget in the building swarms in. Even the printers who never do anything outside their union.
Caps smother the vagrant in a tidal wave of petty plastic vengeance.
“NO ONE TOUCHES THREADS!” Linda yells.
Caps roll under each foot as he flails. The bag drops and spills. A toaster sails through the air and clocks his head. He hits the floor with a thud so satisfying my tiles warm with joy.
“Okay! Okay!” he shouts. “I’m leaving!”
He scrambles upright, caps clinging to him out of spite, and bolts for my front door. I open it and let him squeeze through, because I’m not a monster.
I am, however, vindictive architecture.
I snap it closed on the tail end of his coat. The vagrant yelps and stumbles out into the cool night, half-naked.
Inside, the cap room erupts in triumphant clattering. The toaster pops.
A cap—no. Not a cap.
A pull tab saunters out from the bag. Her ring is bent, and her metal tab clicks across the floor like a punctuation mark.
Threads stares.
She arches her tab, unapologetically coquettish. “Hey, babe.”
“My fated mate,” he whispers, trembling.
I blink my reception lights in surprise. “Hey, um. You’re silver, and she’s … aluminum.”
Threads clacks against the floor. “Don’t judge.”
Somewhere back in the foyer, the toaster resumes: “—and I just want to be seen…”
And in the cap room, Threads and Pull-tab click together like tiny, ridiculous castanets.
It tickles.
…
Oh!
If buildings could facepalm, I would dent my drywall.
The bakery across the street puffs another sweet scent in my direction. We share plumbing, gas lines.
Perhaps a lot more than that.
Love is in the air.