The hot tub felt like a sanctuary with its dim LED light and low hum.
I piled my clothes right on the edge, and put my wedding ring on the top. Above the motel, stars blinked faintly.
Everything fell in before I could stop it.
I could hear Em’s voice somewhere, “You’re such a hot mess.” But I couldn’t see her.
I went in to look for the ring.
My hands came in contact with something icy cold.
It was an orange tube. Frozen. Like the icicles I used to have as a kid, only longer.
Then the whole tub started shaking in rhythm, pounding.
I was hoping it would go away if I ignored it long enough. But no. It persisted.
And a man’s voice coming from far to near:
“Get up hater! I got you breakfast.”
Jack had brought Bojangle’s, which meant he’d driven twenty minutes before 9 AM.
He sat on the edge of the other bed and talked while I worked through the biscuit. The gravy deserved better attention than I was capable of giving it.
“—walking up and down 201 since before dawn, same stretch, back and forth, mumbling to himself, and Mike said he’d seen him the night before too. Then this van comes, no markings, and just—” he made a gesture that meant gone.
I took a sip of the sweet tea.
“Hey,” I said. “You know anything that’s orange, long, tube-shaped. Something you could freeze.”
Jack looked at me.
“I know something that’s orange and long.”
“Get the fuck out.”
He left the rest of the Bojangle’s bag on the dresser. “You look like shit, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
Aaron was already in the office when I came down. He was standing rather than sitting. He held his coffee with both hands and looked at the Fallingwater print above the desk the way a man studies a bridge before driving across it.
He was the kind of man who held doors without making a show of it. Late thirties, maybe forty. A jaw that had opinions. He wore a plain grey t-shirt tucked into dark canvas work pants, boots you could walk a long distance in without thinking about them. The sidearm sat on his hip the way a wedding ring sits on a finger — present, habitual, not a statement.
“Appreciate you making time,” he said, and meant it.
We sat. Em brought coffee without being asked and left without being thanked.
“First off, sorry about… last night. I got back late. I had no idea the boys…”
“Knock it off. What do you want?”
A pause.
“We’re clearing up the parking lot now as we speak,” he cleared his throat. “My team is growing, as you probably noticed. We need a base of operations, something with enough rooms and a big lot.”
“So?”
He looked at me.
“We want the whole motel. To ourselves.”
He said it with the even cadence of a man accustomed to making unreasonable things sound practical.
And he named a price.
A number I might have laughed at once.
A number he wouldn’t have said once.
It sat between us on the desk. Neither of us reached for it.
But the highway had been empty for weeks. His trucks. The survey units. One man walking back and forth until a van without markings took him somewhere.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Aaron nodded once. He stood, picked up his coffee, looked at the painting again briefly.
“Take your time,” he said.
“That’s like… highway robbery. But the opposite,” said Em, looking at the number I wrote down at the back of a receipt.
“And he wants a master key.”
“So how’s that not a hostile takeover?”
“Well, he calls it a collab beyond money.”
“Fancy bullshit is still bullshit. How you gonna get a spare? Don’t tell me you’re making one at Home Depot.”
“That place is basically a fortress now. They’ll capture us both for comfort women.”
“Comfort what?”
“Never mind. Don’t we have one here somewhere? I’ve searched my room and the office.”
“The only other place I can think of is the tool shed. I’ll check the lobby.”
It was close to noon. The thermometer read 90. The heat index was 100.
The parking lot was almost empty. Somebody was blasting Dirt Road Anthem from their room on the first floor.
There was a big, irregular charred circle in the middle.
The tool shed held the heat like it had saved it for me.
Bins scattered around. No key.
The junk drawer was at the back, behind a shelf of rust and good intentions. A drain snake on top, coiled. A box of mismatched screws. A hinge still in its packaging from the day that had seemed necessary.
A key on a ring was in the middle. MASTER in marker, worn mostly to MAST.
I almost closed the drawer.
Something orange caught the edge of my vision, already rolling toward the back. I picked it up without deciding to.
It was cool. Not frozen — soothing on a hot, humid summer day. It sat in my palm, almost weightless.
I stood there in the heat with the key in one hand and the orange tube in the other.
I pocketed both.
Em was sitting behind the desk like she’d never left.
“You found it?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the nature show on TV.
“Yeah. And there’s something else.” I put the key down. The orange tube beside it.
“It’s some kind of battery,” she said, turning it in her hands. “Why is it so cold?”
“No idea. And there’s something else on the side too.”
There was. Faint, like it had been done with the wrong tool — uneven pressure, small letters and a number sequence I didn’t recognize. A small symbol underneath. Maybe a logo.
I took a photo and sent it to the group chat. Aaron’s group was back already, meeting in what used to be the dining area. I could hear phrases like “critical assets,” “unified patrol protocols,” and “redistributing surplus equipment” coming through the wall.
“I need ice,” I told Em.
“Hey,” she stopped me on the way out, looking back at the TV. “If there is a next life, what would you like to be?”
I considered this seriously.
“A sunflower. Low anxiety. Sun-facing career path.”
The ice machine was in a narrow room off the side entrance. Through the small square of glass in the door I could see the freezer unit had been turned sideways, half a foot from the wall.
I pushed the door open.
He didn’t hear me come in. He was squatting next to the open panel, a flashlight in his teeth, both hands inside the unit. Young. Twenty, maybe twenty-two. Ordinary-looking: Jeans, a plain t-shirt with a small logo, short hair. No visible weapon, though that didn’t mean anything.
“What are you doing?”
He startled hard enough to drop the flashlight. It clattered against the concrete floor and rolled.
“J— just fixing the freezer, ma’am.”
He picked up the flashlight and stood, not quite to full height in the low room. His hands were clean except for a smear of grease on the left thumb.
“You’re with Aaron’s group,” I said.
“Yes ma’am.”
I looked at the panel, the tools laid out beside him in a neat row.
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Yes. My dad was a mechanic. Taught me young.” He said it without performance.
I looked at him for a moment longer than was comfortable. He did not dodge.
“Let me know when you’re done,” I said.
Jack texted back in twenty minutes.
“It’s a battery ho.”
“Duh.”
“Rude.”
“What the heck for tho? I thot u used to work the floor at some battery factory?”
“Thats Henderson. Civilian. This looks like some fancy government shit. Lemme ask around.”
A day passed. Then another.
On day three, I called him first thing in the morning.
He didn’t answer until the fifth ring.
“Did you find out?” I asked.
“Bitch what time is it?”
“Don’t care. Did you find out?”
“About what?”
“Quit playin’.”
“My guy didn’t answer. I’ll call him again. Later.”
At Home with AI 
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