1.2

There were eighteen steps in every section of the staircase. That made a total of one-hundred-and-forty-four steps over the eight stories that he had to climb up and down every day. He should know, he counted them all the very first day he moved in. His was the fourth doorway on the right, approximately twenty metres down the hallway, and it would take him between twenty-five and thirty steps to reach it, depending on contextual variables. This particular trip, he was returning from an intensive gym session, and his muscles were tiring, so he made the passage in twenty-nine. All in all, from when he first stepped into the building to opening the door to his apartment, it took him three minutes and twenty-five seconds. This was within the normal range, which made him feel comfortable. He felt that it was crucial to keep track of things like this, because any variation from the norm had the potential to signify something wrong. He did not like it when things went wrong.

She spent a long time trying to find her second shoe. She woke up ten minutes late anyway, having slept through her alarm – so as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter how long it took, she just had to find it. The outfit had to work – it had to ‘pop’. Eventually, she found the shoe under a blanket in the corner of the room. She could’ve sworn that the corner was the first place she looked, and when she did not see the shoe, she deemed it a safe place to throw the blanket while looking in a different area. After the first trip around the room, she looked under (and in) the blanket two more times before finally finding her hidden treasure. She huffed and puffed as she sat on the edge of the bed and wriggled her foot into the shoe, strapping her ankle in tight. Meeting her reflection’s own gaze, she stood up and turned around, making sure she hadn’t magically ballooned during her traumatic quest. This took many moments as she twisted her body into several poses, checking out every aspect for the slightest flaw. With a flick of her black hair, she became satisfied with her looks, and was ready to face the day. She exited the apartment, and shut the door behind herself, but she quickly then realized that she has just made a fool of herself.

“Shit”, she mumbled to herself, as she latched onto the door handle and tried to wrestle with it. “Locked. Of course it is”.

“These doors auto-lock”, he said, turning from his open door to face her.

“What?” She looked up and saw him looking at her. “Did you say something?”

“These doors auto-lock”, he repeated, but slower this time. To the casual listener in this country, he had a fairly prominent accent, so he made sure he was very clear when he spoke.

“I’m aware of that”, she snapped back at him, looking down at the door in defeat. “Sorry... I didn’t mean to bark at you like that”.

“As long as you don’t bite me as well, I think we’ll be fine”, he grinned, dropping his gym bag and walking over to her. It took him ten steps, which he quickly equated to about six metres diagonally across to the opposite side of the hallway. “What happened?”

“Well...” she began with a gulp, “first I woke up late and couldn’t find my frickin’ shoe, I searched for hours and hours and hours until I finally found it in a place that I swear to God I checked several times beforehand, making me even later so I had to skip breakfast, and now I’ve left my God damn keys inside, and as you already mentioned, these doors auto-lock. Today is not my lucky day”.

“I think you just need to broaden your definition of luck”, he beamed. “Do you have a hair pin on you?”

“Um... yeah, I think so”. She dug around in the pockets of her jeans – first the left, then the right – and she eventually pulled out a small black pin which she then placed into his outstretched hand.

“Now, people often make assumptions about you based upon the environment you grow up in...” he said, dropping to a knee, straightening the pin out, and inserting it into the lock, “but let it never be said that low socio-economic communities don’t provide you with some useful skills”.

“You can pick locks?” she asked, despite the answer being painfully obvious.

“Yes. Or at least I used to be able to. The fact that I’m having trouble here, suggests that I’m a little out of practice, which I suppose can be considered a good thing”. He lifted his finger into the air, a gesture he knew was commonly used to indicate quiet, and he then entered a state of intense concentration, turning his head as if to listen to the movement of the pin inside the lock. Finally, his eyes widened and a wry smirk creeps onto his face. Exactly twenty-seven seconds had passed since he first inserted the pin. “Voila!”

“You got it?” It’s a rhetorical question, as she reached for the door handle immediately, barely giving him enough time to get out of the way of her lunging hand. It opened smoothly. She looked at him in amazement. He simply looked smug.

“You’re welcome”, he said as he rose to his feet. That smirk on his face wasn’t going to be going anywhere, anytime soon. As soon as he was up, she lunged forward once more, this time draping both her arms around his shoulders and giving him a hug.

“Oh my god! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He patted her back awkwardly, which sent a pretty good signal to her to back off. “Sorry... I... err... there was probably some inappropriate touching involved just then”.

“Only when taken out of context”, he quipped. “Given the circumstances, I think I’ll hold off on phoning in some sexual misconduct. As long as you promise not to do it again, that is!”

“Cross my heart”, she smiled, drawing an ‘X’ over the left side of her chest. It was at this point that his attention was drawn to the cleavage on display through the top of her blouse. He was, however, not the type to naively believe he could focus attention on her breasts and get away with it. So, he did what most men learn to do, and that was to look without really looking. It is a complex phenomenon to properly explain, but he knew enough about human cognition to understand roughly what was going on. From the brief glimpse that he was able to sneak in without objection on her behalf, his brain was able to fill-in-the-gaps so to speak, when he moved his attention back to her brown, batting eyes. Just as it does with the blue carpet and beige walls, the brain treats her cleavage as background information, which is depicted out of focus, exactly as it was last seen. Thus, while not directly observing her breasts, he was entirely aware of them.

“My name’s Kieran”, he said, as he offered his hand to her, remembering the well documented fact that introducing yourself to another person immediately causes that person to form a relation of you, associating you with observable characteristics such as ‘friendly’ or ‘rude’, inherent characteristics such as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or even just identifying when it would be ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ for interactions between two people to occur.

“Amy”, she replied, as she took his hand in hers. He made certain not to grip her hand too hard, as a firm handshake is an indication of dominance, and that was not the message he was trying to send to her. “You’re like... new to the building, aren’t you?”

“What gave it away?” He was trying to be coy, but he wasn’t sure if he was succeeding. He didn’t actually know a lot about being coy.

“Well it’s just that I’ve never seen you around here before and I...”

“I moved in yesterday”, he said, interrupting her. He didn’t think that she would mind, because all she was doing is engaging in ‘chit-chat’, and more often than not ‘chit-chat’ didn’t have a real purpose. “I live right there”.

“Oh...” she said, as she looks over his shoulder to the open door at which he points. “I kind of guessed that much already actually. Did you go to the gym today?”

“Yeah, I did”, he replied, keeping the conversation simple.

“I really should start going again; my weight is starting to creep back up”. She looked down at her body, examining it for flaws once more. He used this time to do the same, but the only noticeable flaw he could find on her were the split ends beginning to form in her hair. “I just haven’t had the time, you know?”

“Well...” he paused as he wondered if it was inappropriate to compliment her looks at this first meeting. Never mind, he had an alternative up his sleeve. “I kind of have to. It’s part of the job”.

“Oh? What job would that be?” she asked, leaning ever so slightly inwards which either indicated a genuine interest in the answer, or a genuine interest in Kieran.

“I’m an uh... athlete”, he told her.

“An athlete, huh?” She appeared to be amused by the nondescript answer. “With a New Zealand accent no less”.

“You can tell it apart from Australian?” His eyes lit up. “I am very impressed”.

“Any guesses where I’m from?”

“Canada”, he replied quickly. “Toronto, to be precise”.

“How did you know?” she asked, reflecting her visible surprise.

“Probably the same way you did”. He shrugged. “I’ve always found that by just paying a little more attention to details, you can learn a lot about somebody without having to explicitly ask”.

“Uh huh. Well then, Mr. Smarty-Pants, solve this riddle for me!” Her finger wagged in his face, but her expression told him that there was no aggression or judgement behind it. “What is a New Zealand athlete doing here in Sacramento? Is there a rugby tournament or something?”

“I don’t play rugby”, he chuckled. “I’m a professional wrestler”.

“A wrestler?” This time it was her turn to chuckle. Except rather than just chuckle, she neared a full-blown laugh. In certain situations, this sort of response could hurt Kieran’s feelings, but by now, he had largely gotten used to it.

“Hence why I prefer to describe myself as an ‘athlete’”, he told her. “Regardless of how people feel about the legitimacy of the competition, denial of the athleticism involved is just plain ridiculous”.

“Sorry”, she muttered, successfully fighting the laughs back. “I didn’t mean to offend you”.

“Relax”, he reassured her. “You didn’t. Although I am curious as to whether or not you have actually watched what people like me do before”.

“To be honest, I haven’t really. Fake or not, all that violence...” She acted out a shudder. “I’d rather a good book, or a Disney movie”.

“Well now I have a mission”, he stated firmly. “That mission is to change your perception of the professional wrestling business”.

“Good luck with that”, she giggled. “It’s a pretty tall order”.

“I don’t believe that for a second”, he winked. He knows that he has to be careful when he winks, to make sure the smile that matches it doesn’t send the wrong vibe. Personal experience has taught him that it is always a good idea to follow up a wink quickly with some more conversation, so that the conscious focus of the listener is on the words rather than the actions. “After all... you owe me now”.

She didn’t know how to respond to that, and for some reason that made him happy. He took his leave with a mock bow, and walked the six metres back to his doorway, this time doing it in nine steps. Scooping up his gym bag, he glanced back only briefly as he shut the door behind him. She was still standing in the doorway, hand placed upon her door handle.

“Bye Amy”, he said as the door swung closed, leaving her with no time to respond. He smiled as he dropped his bag onto a nearby stool, because he was happy with that exchange. Often conversations with other people feel like a chore to him. They are pointless and sometimes without any true meaning, but he felt that something had been accomplished today.

He made his way over to the window, looking down onto the street, directly above where the entrance to the building opened up. Six minutes and thirty-nine seconds passed with him standing in the window, before he saw Amy exit the building and walk west along the sidewalk. He thought to himself how long it took her to make the journey, and he wondered if she had used the elevators or the staircase. He always preferred to use the staircase because it meant that he knew exactly what was going to happen, and he didn’t like unknowns such as whether the elevator would be stopping at other floors. He thought about this, and whether or not it affected the time it took for her to get out of the building. This thought then led to him wondering if he had anything to do with, what he considered to be, the abnormally lengthy trip. He didn’t need to wonder this though, because he had already answered this.

He had accomplished something today.

He could tell by the final look in her eye as he said goodbye.

She was now infected.

He watched her move out of sight, and then turned away from the window. He scooped up a thin black pin before slipping back out into the hallway. This time, Kieran made the six metres in just five quick bounds. He crouched, silently, as he fiddled the lock to her room open and snuck inside as quick as possible to avoid detection. The fridge was the first place he hit, as he poured the half-full bottle of milk out into the sink. His next step was to cut the aerial cord to her television set, and then he moved towards the bathroom.

Noticing a face cloth draped over the edge of the basin, he flicked it in to the plughole and turned the cold tap to a thin trickle that within half an hour would fill the basin and begin flooding the room. Finally, he made his way towards her bedroom.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do here, as everybody’s room was different. The thought crossed his mind to fiddle with her alarm clock, but that plan did not fit with everything else he had done. Instead, he turned his attention to her bed. Dropping down to the floor, he examined the leg fittings, and identified them as screw-ins. Smiling, he hoisted the bed up with one arm, and quickly unscrewed one leg. When he put the bed back down, he rested this leg inside its hole, but he knew what would happen if any extra weight was put on it.

Content with his work, he quickly returned to his own apartment. Like a seed changes the soil it is planted in, before it even germinates, this infection too had now begun to root itself deep within its victims walls.

Now all he had to do was wait. p>