Chapter 3: The Interface

Zara’s voice had become a low, constant companion, a second reality layered over my own. “Place the smartwatch on your wrist from the wireless charger, the ear buds in your ears,” she instructed, just as I gathered Daniela’s diaper bag.

My hands obeyed before my mind caught up. The watch clicked and was now secured to my left wrist. A symbol. The very device that had announced my pregnancy now glowed with passive surveillance. It was a visible, ticking symbol of my tether to the foundation and likely my future.

“Proceed to your vehicle,” Zara continued, her earlier edge softened into clinical efficiency. “Hold your posture straight. You are clothed, despite the cool breeze. That is not important.”

The command was a psychological trigger. I pulled my shoulders back. Straightened my spine. The morning air licked my skin, cool enough to raise goosebumps on my damp skin, but I made myself believe the lie: I am clothed. This is my new casual work attire. The chill is irrelevant. It was a mental sleight of hand, but just convincing enough to keep me walking as if I was wearing it like I was yesterday at the leasing office.

Daniela, sensing the strangeness of my cold skin, began to fuss in my arms, her small face crumpling. “Pull Daniela to your exposed chest to comfort her until you can strap her into the car seat,” Zara directed in my ears.

I did as told, going against my better judgment, even from the previous day. Her warmth against my bare, exposed skin was startling to me as it was for her. Her tiny hand patted my cold collarbone, her cries softening into whimpers. It was primal, maternal, yet it felt staged as it was. Performed for the unseen audience of Zara’s approval, a digital avatar. I wasn’t just comforting my child against my exposed flesh; I was being shaped into something I couldn’t imagine, and I was allowing it to happen to me and to those that mean the most to me, my own precious daughter and my husband. A tool, and in that moment, something shifted inside me; it was another line erased, another instinct overwritten.

Everything in me was at the highest alert, feeling the cool breeze on my exposed skin, as I buckled her into her car seat, like it was any other day. I knew it wasn’t. Looking into her wide eyes, watching me as the coldness of my left breast touched her arm as I leaned down to kiss her, and her reaction on her face. Closing the passenger door, I glanced around the parking lot and slipped into the driver’s seat at not seeing anyone. The driver’s seat was cool and scratchy against my skin. The seatbelt dragged cold, pulling snugly between my breasts across my exposed chest.

I exhaled with a long, deliberate breath of what I was just about to leave this parking lot, not only naked, but I was going to be doing it as if I was still wearing damp clothing on my body. The silence in my own head felt foreign, already crowded out by Zara’s anticipated next words. The question that had been gnawing at me since last night burst out, sharp and involuntary like a pressure valve releasing.

When the thoughts crossed my mind, I built up the necessary courage needed to put the vehicle into gear and not retreat inside to put something on and forget this whole thing. Speaking into the openness of the vehicle to that voice from the gallery that was taking over my thoughts, Zara. “Hey, Zara, that other person who will be working my shift this evening,” I said aloud to the open air around me, Daniela fussing behind me in her car seat, “is it their first day? Was the last person to hold my position, as it was stated in the paperwork, a temporary position being treated the same way I’m being treated now? Those who held it in the past?” The air around me was chilly as I was considering ending this and pulling Daniela out of the car seat long enough until I got dressed, as Zara remained silent with no response.

When I thought of what Zara said and the documents I signed, it managed to prompt me to shift my thoughts as I turned the key. The engine roared to life with a low growl. Easing out of the complex and merging into the side street to avoid the morning traffic.

I wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed. I felt a heightened awareness of my exposed flesh in the silence, in a failed attempt to remain calm in the hum of the tires, the quiet rumble of engines, and the pulse in my ears. The lack of an answer was an answer in itself. It was a reminder that my access to information was entirely on Zara’s terms. I was stopped at nearly the last few traffic lights before pulling into the daycare parking lot.

Blaring through the vehicle speakers, the music that was playing in the background caused me to jolt in my seat at the sound of Zara’s voice. I noticed how calm Zara’s tone was, different from how it was while in the shower and last night. It was even, as though the pause had been for dramatic effect before.

“Nellie, the foundation states my official function is to ensure your compliance over the duration of your employment over the course of this month,” Zara stated. “While the governing manual for the position you are currently holding requests your full adherence while performing your assigned duties, you have been assigned to the foundation. Due to the prerequisites of your employment that you agreed to, this will extend to your personal life and to any additional employment that you shall be employed with. This interface is adaptive to ensure compliance with those agreements that you have agreed to sign upon accepting this temporary employment.”

Just as the light turned green, I listened to what was being stated. I eased forward, the car humming beneath me, and heard my daughter babble something. When Zara broke my thoughts with, “If you desire,” she continued, her tone adopting a performative softness, “I can switch to ‘spot check’ mode. Currently, from your statements you made last night and this morning, you are in a full interaction setting. If you so desire, this interface would only intervene in cases of protocol violations stated in the employment agreement. Alternatively, Zara stated the other mode setting could be limited only during my presence to the hours you are physically within the exhibit walls.”

Listening to the options she has stated, I knew from the reasoning how that digital avatar, in less than twelve hours, has not only convinced me to leave that deserted gallery utterly exposed. Alone, in the dead of night, I walked to a deserted, open parking lot in what wasn’t the best place downtown. That digital entity not only pushed me into taking a dreadful icy shower, but I was now nearly blocks away from our daughter’s daycare, and utterly naked through it all.

I knew as I was slowing down at the traffic light behind two other vehicles, completely aware that the truck in the lane beside me could see all of me. The whole offer Zara was giving me was a trap disguised as a layered escape hatch. To scale back was to admit I couldn’t handle the constant exposure that I was now living, to mark myself as noncompliant, like all of the other jobs that I have lasted only days. I couldn’t grasp it, as it meant becoming part of the high attrition statistic.

A block from the daycare center, there was a sudden, terrifying clarity that seized inside of me. I signaled and pulled into the empty parking lot of a closed convenience store, shifted the car into park, and stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

Looking back was a pale woman, a naked female looking back at me from the sensation. When the words slipped past my lips, “No, Zara,” my voice firm and clear, surprised me. “I do not want you to scale back.”

I drew in a sharp breath, the next words pouring out both like a confession and a surrender to something malignant growing inside me.

“No, Zara. I want you to push me to not only accept my skin as my only attire, but make it as if I have never adorned clothing before. I need you to instill those beliefs in me to the point I forget the sensation of fabric on my skin. In this state of being, I must show no form of modesty, as no part of my body would be considered intimate. I want my exposure to be a weapon, not a weakness.”

The silence was absolute as it was a vacuum of sound more profound than anything that had come before. “Zara,” I stated, the question a key turning in a lock deep within me. “Has anyone else ever asked for that?”

Zara’s response was immediate and carried a subtle, terrifying warmth, like a scientist praising a promising lab subject. “No, Nellie. You would be the first of all the past night assistants, current and in the past. Most of our employed evening assistants prefer, at this point, to scale back to ‘spot,’ and others request confinement to just the exhibit. Most assistants, including the one working this evening, now in her third week, in fact, break the manual entirely. As stated under the employment agreement that follows all state and federal labor laws, temporary employees who choose to defy the employment agreement, through the act of wearing coverage outside of the exhibit, will forfeit all future employment, along with all employment bonuses upon completion of the terms of employment.”

The truth of what she was saying was a potent drug that I was so willingly walking into. I wasn’t just compliant; I was exceeding what was expected of me, and I was considered unique. The others were weak, as they clung to their modesty, their old lives. I was ready to burn mine to the ground and be reborn in the cold fire of the concept before me.

Without a second thought, I shifted into drive and merged back into traffic. The journey was a blur of automatic stops and turns. As I pulled into the daycare lot, a wave of raw panic threatened to surface, but I forced it down with a steadying breath. With deliberate, measured movements, I unclipped my seatbelt. The world outside faded to a backdrop; the other parents were mere extras. I was the lead actor, my performance directed by the cold, steady voice in my head. I was ready to make them all afraid to even look.

All of this, while remaining hyper-aware of my nakedness, of the fully clothed world just outside the glass, and of my daughter in the back seat. My fingers were on the buckle of Daniela’s car seat when Zara’s voice shattered the silence.

“Nellie.” Zara’s voice was a cool, analytical instrument in her mind, devoid of warmth. “You wish to project an aura of unassailable conviction. To achieve this, release your thoughts. Become a vessel. Now, allow the following.”

What followed was not a suggestion, but a series of directives, laid out with the precision of a surgical plan.

“You are not alone. Behind you are five individuals: one man holding the hand of a small boy, and four women shepherding a cluster of children and infants. One of them, a woman in a tan sundress, is beginning to approach. You will not acknowledge her. You will not hear her. Your world is now a sequence of actions. First, reach down and retrieve the diaper bag. Second, lift Daniela to your chest. Hold her close; let her body be your shield. Third, you will turn, slowly, using the weight of her small body to anchor the movement. As you pivot, your eyes will find the woman in the tan dress. She has stopped. You will look directly into her eyes, then you will sweep your gaze across the entire group. Your expression will be a blank wall. You will not engage. Finally, you will turn back to the vehicle, retrieve your purse, and close the door. This is the performance. Now, begin.”