Down the Rabbit Hole

The thing was, it wasn’t her! He did it to everybody. Hell, he remembered hearing his text alert go off and checking the phone in the shower one time. Damn near ruined the thing—but he’d answered! Thank god for the talk-to-text feature.

By the time they’d found Jeremy’s cubicle, Kyle was panting for breath and looking paler than ever. Jeremy looked at him in concern. “This isn’t a moment too soon for you, buddy. You need some fresh air and exercise. You’ve been sitting in front of these computers too long.”

Kyle gazed at the array of screens in Jeremy’s cube. “Naw, this is normal. I do the same thing at home.”

Jeremy sighed, but a vague chill swept up his spine as he realized he was not that much different from Kyle. He just always had his screen with him.

He glanced at his email program, noting that he had 422 emails. As he looked at the app it opened, the first email being from his administrative assistant asking, Where the hell ARE you? Harrison’s shitting bricks!

He’d have to sort that out later. Maybe tell them some kind of virus had knocked him out, sent him to the hospital . . .

He looked at his phone app, but it was the one square that never opened, no matter how long he looked at it.

“I don’t suppose we can call anyone, can we?” he asked Kyle.

Kyle laughed, a dopey-dog laugh. “Yeah, right. Naw, we can text and email and tweet and post to Facebook and pretty much everything else, but we can’t use the actual phone part. You can dial any number you want and it won’t go through. I’ve tried. It’s great.”

Great. Jeremy sighed. He mentally shut off the mail and plopped himself in his chair. “Okay, so we need to go here, right?” He opened the iLove app. A large welcome screen appeared.

Macy was on this site, he thought.

“What’d they say about you?” Kyle asked.

Jeremy was clicking around the site. Find a Girl, Contact a Girl, See the Girls Looking at You . . .

“Who?”

“On your profile. Haven’t you looked? Why do you think you haven’t gotten any mail?”

“Kyle, I’m not on this site. This is the first time I’ve even opened the app.”

“Oh man.” Kyle shook his head slowly. “Then how’d you get out?”

He craned his neck to look up at the towering Kyle. “I didn’t get out. I just went upstairs. You’re saying I have to do this to get out?”

“Upstairs?” Kyle repeated. “I thought there was only a downstairs.”

It took half a lifetime but Jeremy finally bled Kyle of all the information he had on the subject. According to him, to get out of here Jeremy had to get a date with a woman (or man or whatever, depending on who you were) on this site, at which time he could get out to go on the date. Afterward, he’d end up back here. The only way to stop this cycle was to establish a real relationship with the right woman. Then he would get out permanently.

Macy, he thought again. If he could find her on here, maybe he could get a date and actually get to see her. He wouldn’t have to send her any emotional email bombs, or make up reasons why they couldn’t get together to talk . . . A flutter of hope bounced around in his chest. If he saw her he could convince her to give him another chance. Maybe.

If that didn’t work he didn’t know what he’d do. Because how in the world could he start a real relationship with a new woman when he was still in love with the last one?

“That could take forever,” he thought out loud. Then, to Kyle, “Relationships take time, you know? And in the meantime, what? I lose my job and go broke? Who makes the rules around here?”

“They don’t let that happen,” Kyle said. “Look at me, I’ve been here for months and I still have my job.”

“How do you even know?” Jeremy threw up his hands. “You’ve been trapped in here like a mouse with a big block of cheese.”

“Yeah, well, online banking. They’re still paying me, so I’m still working.”

“This is crazy,” Jeremy muttered, dropping his elbow on the desk and putting his head in his hand. How would he even find Macy? Nobody used their real name on here, just those cutesy “handles.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not the only ones. People who get into trouble gambling, or in the stock market, or watching too much porn, or whatever, on their phones are sent to places like this too. Same kinda rules.”

“And how do you know that?” Jeremy sat up straight.

“Queenie Hartz told me. She thought I didn’t get it. But, see, I did get it, I just didn’t want to go out on any dates. Not that that’s been a problem, not with what they wrote about me.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’?”

“Look, you got mail.” Kyle reached over and took the mouse, dragging it swiftly across the page to Jeremy’s mailbox. It contained one note from someone named SeriousFun844.