Captive Heart by Scarlet Brady Page A

do you have to go into the city for, Saskia? Don't companies like Azul do everything over video conferencing? Or cybernetic brain hook-ups, or some such?”
                  The unboxed possessions in Saskia's studio apartment were gradually beginning to outnumber the boxed ones, but it didn't feel like home quite yet. Fortunately, her dad was just a phone call away, even at 10 pm on a Tuesday, ready to ease her homesickness with his signature wit and sarcasm.
                  “No Dad,” Saskia replied with a giggle. “Business meetings still happen. But if that brain hook-up thing takes off, let me know. I can probably get a few more subscribers that way.”
                  “Saskia,” Dale Bergen said with a fatherly sigh, “I still don't understand what you're doing, you know. This whole notion of getting paid to write articles on the Internet, I still have a hard time getting my head around it.”
                  Saskia lay on her bed upon her stomach, legs swinging behind her in the air. Alone on a Tuesday night, she could wear her tacky pink socks without shame. “It's just a new form of journalism. Nobody tells a writer for a print magazine that they don't have a real job.”
                  “Now don't put words in my mouth, Saskia. I never said it wasn't a real job. As far as I'm concerned, if someone is paying you, and you're paying bills with it, and it's not illegal, then it's a real job. Haven't I always said that? It's just a different kind of real job than what I was used to.”
                  Saskia looked around her small, utilitarian lodgings. Having a real job was not glamorous. “You understand better than mom does, at least.”
                  She could almost hear her father's smile through the phone. “Trust me, this thing with Azul might just be what brings her around. I know she uses their eyeliners. She doesn't like to admit when she's wrong, but you playing ball with them is gonna give her something to think about...”
                  They talked for another twenty minutes about what was going on back home, and all the sweet trivialities she missed about it. Her youngest sister Alexis had gotten the lead role in her school play, a big deal to her since she this was her senior year and the last one she would be involved in. Dad didn't hear from the middle daughter Sienna as much. Her nursing classes kept her too busy, but the last he knew, she was very well. Saskia got to hear about family friends, her father's work; things that she only ever half-listened to back in Iowa, yet for which she was absurdly hungry now.
                  Near the end of the call Saskia was distracted by a sound from upstairs: a front door opening and closing directly above her. The apartment building seemed to grow silent as the grave after about 8 pm or so. Any sound of human habitation was a novelty. Curious by nature, the sound set Saskia's mind wandering, and she knew it was time to bring her conversation with her father to a close. He had to work in the morning anyway, and it was getting late even if he was an hour behind her.
                  Saskia stood up and paused with the cell phone still in her hand, thinking she heard voices from overhead. She strained to listen so intently that she nearly hit the ceiling when the phone chimed loudly in her hand. She realized she was acting like the heroine of a horror movie, giving herself false jump-scares, when she realized it was only a text message from her best friend Stacey.
                 
                  “Hey girl, good luck with those advertisers! Hope you're not bored in the Big Apple. If you are, don't forget about your present!”
     
                  Stacey concluded the message with a winking smiley emoticon. In truth, Saskia had forgotten about Stacey's present. But then, Stacey always did have a