A Close Shave

I push open the door to MIT’s Building E19 and slip inside. I don’t know what it’s used for, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the closest building to the Kendall/MIT subway station, and the buildings are all connected underground anyways. With any luck, an outside observer tracing my path would see a student who made a half-hearted attempt at Genevieve’s challenge before heading back to campus to get more work done.

“Hey, you made it in!” Genevieve says, voice still crackling over my earbuds.

“Just got to make it back out now,” I say.

I head down the hall and come to a door. This stairwell is one without a camera watching either end. I push open the door and go down the steps.

“That’s a problem for tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow’s in an hour,” I reply.

“That was the joke,” she laughs. “You… … never … fun … tomorrow.”

“Hello? Genevieve?” I ask, but her voice stays silent for a few seconds more. “You’re breaking up,” I say.

“Cell signal … spotty underground … ,” Genevieve says, before there’s a rush of static and then a dial tone.

I walk through the underground tunnels in silence for a few minutes more, feeling suddenly empty without Genevieve’s voice in my ear. I check my phone, but it looks like I’ve not been able to pick up on a signal, and connecting to the WiFi would almost certainly be a mistake right now.

Instead, I make my way over to the storage room that Genevieve had paid a visit to earlier today. It takes me a second to input the digital code to unlock it—thank God they didn’t go with a low-tech lock and key—and flick on the light switch.

Most of the room is filled with janitorial supplies, but as I shut the door behind me, I spot the things that Genevieve left for me tucked away in the corner. I pick up the fresh set of clothes, and hold it up to the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead to better see it. A Boston Celtics sweater and cap, baggy cargo trousers, lightly used Nike kicks with a gold swoosh… It’s not my style at all, but that’s kind of the point.

I grab an empty trash bag out of a container and throw it open, wrapping the plastic around a janitor’s cart. I unzip my hoodie, take it off, and throw it into the trash. My backpack, filled with a fat lot of nothing, goes in right afterwards, followed by my sunglasses, pants, and shoes.

My phone lights up, having found cell coverage for a brief second.

Genevieve: You sure you don’t want me to come on campus? I could sneak in, keep you company for the next few hours…

I text back: It’s too risky. It’s unnecessary risk for both of us.

A message from Erin comes through a moment later: Godspeed, Markus. We’re going to miss you.

I’ll miss you both too, I reply, and then I set my phone aside, seeing the coverage drop back to zero bars.

I pick up the new backpack that Genevieve left by the clothes and look through its contents for a second. Everything looks in order. I pull out a pouch of toiletries, and sigh as I spot the hair dye and electric clipper contained within. I did ask for this, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to have to like this.

A minute later, and my camera is set up on the janitor’s cart on selfie-mode, showing my full head of hair in its awkward shade of brown. Time for all of it to go. With a good twelve hours before my train departs from Back Bay Station, I’ll at least have plenty of time to dye my hair properly this time around.

It’s 4:45 in the morning. The janitors are going to start their morning rounds at 5, but I still need to cut my hair, now freshly dyed a brilliant black. I fire up the clipper and get to shaving. My precious locks of hair fall into the trash bag in heaps.

Finishing off the buzz cut takes a couple minutes more than I anticipated, but the final job looks decent to me. Maybe a little shorter on the top than I would have liked, but there’s not much I can do about that now.

I slip on the clothes that Genevieve bought for me, feeling uncomfortable in the garb. Everything fits right, but nothing sits right. I check myself in my phone camera again. This doesn’t look like Markus Najbreit at all. Or Claude Ashworth, for that matter. But it does look like a human being, albeit one that I never thought of myself as.

Perfect.

I gather up the trash bag after slinging my backpack over my shoulder, leaving the storage room. Three steps out, and I see a janitor rounding the corner, ready to start his day. It’s time for me to dump this garbage, and then find a place to nap for the next hour or two before I have to get moving again.