The original got pruned
-----
Her chest pulsed in time with her heart, every pulse ringing in her breasts..
Her breathing came deep and fast, panting for air.
Sweat soaked through her clothes, running from her rust-coloured hair in thick streaks down her face.
Strong, muscled legs wrapped in tight lycra pumped her forward. A cheap, steel-framed bicycle loaded with pizza did its level best to hold her back.
Twenty minute delivery.
Twenty minutes or your money back. All at the expense of the rider. Restaurants loved it because it absolved of the cost of a missed delivery.
The app took it directly out of the rider’s pocket. The company called it incentivisation -. gameification. The better you did, the more you made. The better you did, the harder the punishment when one missed delivery reset your bonus.
Of course, the app’s algorithm always worked to screw you over in the end. The better you did, the harder the runs it offered. From restaurants further away from your location, to destinations further from the restaurant, until eventually you failed and your bonus counter reset.
And, of course, you paid for the customer’s meal - not the restaurant.
Meg worked like a machine, keeping herself ahead of the curve for well over ten hours from the office lunchtime all the way , fuelled by sugar-loaded energy drinks and supermarket sandwiches,
Her cybernetic focus was absolute, keeping her moments ahead of the traffic, taking suicide slices up the inside of turning trucks and sliding between moving busses.
Every vital statistic of her body read out in the back of her mind, heart-rate, respiration, oxygenation and glucose saturation. She could do it all night, if the takeaways didn’t close. Her body’d been built specifically to go all night.
One more pickup popped up on her phone.
Texas Fried Chicken at the Crumlin Shopping Centre to Inchicore Square. Ready at the restaurant in 8 minutes. 10 minute travel time. 2 minutes slack.
Easy Money.Meg tapped ‘accept’, before anyone else could beat her to it.
Meg wheeled to a stop beneath a flickering sign, showing a cartoon image of a chicken wearing a Stetson hat and bowtie - the name promised something bigger, hotter and oilier than Kentucky. The scent of luscious chicken gravy filled her nostrils and crawled down her throat. Against the cold night, the windows to the takeaway had steamed up opaque, the inside a blur of hard white lights and humanoid shadows..
A wall of vapourised grease assaulted her as she shouldered the door open.
Silence answered her, save for the roar of the ventilation.
As expected, everyone looked up from their phones. Meg felt her mind become aware of them immediately. Male, elderly, frustrated and impatient. Already a possibility for engagement. Another male, younger, showing effects of stimulants. His eyes followed her arse.
A third, stood at the counter, biting back on a deep and building anger. Meg looked at his face and saw the mask demanded by customer service beginning to crack.
Leaning with her hand on the glass windows surrounding the counter, getting as close as she possibly could to the innocent cashier, was a young woman having a great time of things despite the picture of artificial fury on her over-tanned face and grease-black hair. The software in the back of Meg’s mind threw up a dozen complaints about her excessive makeup.
And the tacky black trousers, artificial leopardskin jacket, and Louis-vutton handbag. Obviously a knock-off - it was too well put together to be a real one. Glass beads decorated a metallic pink phone. A half-eaten leg of succulent chicken sat on top of a mangled cardboard box in front of her.
Of course, the woman pounced on the silence.
“Are you even listenin’ to me?” Her voice rose to a shrill, high tone. “This chicken’s pink. Does that look…”
The man behind the counter fixed his gaze on Meg. Of course, he didn’t look her in the face. The chicken was pink the same way any chicken on the bone could be. It still steamed hot.
“Delivery 72941-A. Inchicore Square,” said Meg, holding up her phone, before placing it into her pocket. .
“She can wait, you’re servin me!”
“I’ve a delivery to pick up,”
Meg consciously kept her voice even.
“Well it’s my bleedin’ turn,”
Now she started to get annoyed. The carefully orchestrated plan to push an innocent service employee to point where they caved just to get you to fuck off had been spoiled.
“I just have to…”
“I was here first!” the woman snapped. “ And you. I’m on the facebook. I’m streaming this. You’re going to make this right for me, or everyone will see it..”
The important part being the Me. Pay attention to her, not to the 33-S.
“If I don’t make this, I don’t get paid you know,”
Wrong move. Meg saw the turn in the woman’s face- the first real hot anger she’d shown, directed right at her.
“You think having a job makes you better. Yeh look like a slut,”
Simple analysis. Give as good as you get.
“The only ride you’ll ever get is into battle,” Meg sneered. “Just give me the bleedin meal”
Her eyes turned to the man behind the counter, sweating in his red uniform. One hand offered her a brown paper bag. The moment Meg grasped it, she sensed movement - a rush of emotion charging right at her.
Her fingers gripped the bag tight. She brought her free arm up to shield her face - a moment to late. A hard slap bit at her cheek, filling the air with a sharp crack. Cut synapses warned of broken skin, and a loss of blood pressure in a hundred capillaries
Her free hand grasped the hard bones of the woman’s foream. Her phone dropped, bouncing off the tiles with a crack and skidding into the corner against the wall.,
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked, trying to pull back.
“Back off!” Meg yelled. Her fingers clenched tight. The woman stared through her, surprised at the strength that she’d met.
Meg felt energy rising inside her eyes, ready to burst out of her and fill the room with her anger. It’d be so easy just to put that pain in the neck to sleep right there on the tiles. One quick overload of every synapse and she’d be out for an hour.
With three people to tell the story.
A real fear filled the air for one brief moment. Above, the fluorescent lights fizzed.
“If yous two start fighting I’ll call the guards,” the man behind the till interrupted.
The woman shook her hand from Meg’s grip, feigning a huff- as if she could’ve taken it further but was letting them all off.
It was just an excuse to get out of it while saving face. You didn’t need cybersenses to figure that out.
“And I can show them the chicken you’re serving me,” she added.
Meg glanced between the pair of them - the man behind the till with his hand on the landline phone waiting for the fight, and the woman still giving her sneering side glances
Without a word, Meg pulled her phone from her pocket and scanned the docket on the side of the brown paper bag. The App logged her as having received the package.
Nine minutes to delivery.
Meg cursed under her breath. Possible, but difficult.
One quick argument would cost a full day’s bonus.
Inside her flourescent yellow jacket, she felt her blood begin to boil.
“You’re bleeding there, love,” said the old me. He only had concern in mind and, for a moment, she thanked him for it.
Meg cold feel hot, thin blood trickle down her cheek, mingling with sweat and grease from the air.
“Fuck’s sake,” she said before shouldering the glass door open.
In the cold night air, she unzipped her jacket to the halfway point - just to let her chest breath and clear some of the sweat from her t-shirt. Meg cocooned the meal in a special pack strapped to the luggage rack of the bike.
No time to be frustrated. No time to kick and swear and swear blue murder to any who’d listen.
Every second counted.
And she could count them to the millisecond.
This would have to be quick. Or it would be very expensive. She didn’t bother to check the map - she knew the route well enough.
Meg didn’t bother with the red light at cross-roads. The horn of a taxi blared a warning as she hammered through the beams of its headlights. Meg knew she had at least a few centimetres to spare - even if the driver hadn’t braked.
She powered up Herberton road towards the Canal, congratulating herself on the few seconds she saved. Another set of red lights passed in a flash, followed by a left turn across the front of a speeding bus onto Dolphin road.
Another ten seconds.
Her legs carried her at full speed, racing along the bank of the Grand Canal. Her mind focused like a laser on the road ahead. On the other bank, a silver tram raced ahead of her, accelerating towards Suir bridge and the station behind..
Meg saw a red BMW stopped on the bridge at the same instant as the tram driver. He had one moment to apply the brakes before they crashed together with a hollow bang - like a steel drum being crushed. The impact took the front clear off the car, sending the engine block spinning away in a cloud of steam .
The tram skipped off the wreckage, riding up off its rails and down onto hard concrete, the front carriage slewing sideways as it squealed to a juddering halt.
Meg arrived at the scene just in time to see the few passengers onboard pull themselves to their feet.
The wreckage blocked the bridge completely.
Her jaw hung open at the sheer bloody unfairness of it all.
“Fuck’s sake!”
In the back of her mind, time still ticked down.
She checked her map. It insisted the bridge would be the fastest route. She swiped to the next. The blue line moved, sending her all the way to the end of Davitt road and with a double back up
An extra three minutes.
Two minutes overtime, would mean she worked the last hour for free.
She knew one option the mappers didn’t.
A single lock carried the canal down below the bridge. The lock gates had duckboards on them, installed for the original keepers centuries beforehand, and maintained for the locals who used them a shortcut to avoid the traffic.
So long as you were willing to risk a short fall into black, deep water, or a long fall into shallow water.
Meg wondered if anyone’d ever managed to carry a bicycle across them. She wondered if there’d be an award for being the first.
Halfway across, with jet black water on one side, and jet black darkness on the other, she began to wonder if it’d been a good idea. Only a few floating leaves hinted at the presence of water.
Below there was nothing but void.
Mixed with the smell of stagnant water and old rubbish.
The bike sat across her shoulders, crank pedals digging into her spine. Her hands held it tight through the forks and the rear wheel, keeping the weight even. Her legs carried her forward, one foot in front of the other. Creaking timbers shifted nauseatingly beneath her feet.
One rotten plank shifted under her bootheel. Her body began to topple. She felt the weight of the bike shift on her shoulders, threatening to pull her into the darkness. A moment of terror raced up her throat, ricocheting throughout her frame.
An automatic shift of her hips caught the fall.
A human would’ve gone swimming.
Adrenaline lingered in her veins long after her feet found hard ground. The crash had already begun to back traffic up along Suir Road and down the South Circular. Meg cut through the housing estates instead, racing the countdown on her phone along quiet concrete roads.
Stephen’s Road turned onto Goldenbridge Avenue, then up Connolly Avenue, into a near miss with a Dominoes delivery scooter on Bulfin road.
Traffic waited to turn right onto Emmett road. Meg didn’t. She cut up the inside of a white van turning left, swapping across traffic to the far side of the road.
Meg glanced at the clock between breaths. Just under half a kilometre in distance. A minute fifty left to do it in. She promised herself to quit and cash-out for the night if she made it.
All caution was thrown to the wind as she raced past the Black Lion and a rank of waiting taxis.
A reckless right turn carried her onto Grattan crescent. Time counted inexorably. Neither slow, nor fast.
Her legs had begun to burn from the effort. Her throat had parched dry. Her chest chafed against the inside of her jacket.
A left turn brough her into the housing estate with a minute remaining. The finish line loomed, keeping pace with the timer.
Sixty seconds left. She thought she might make it with a second to spare.
How did the app handle such close shaves?
Meg pushed harder, preferring not to find out.
The timer pulsed red as the countdown accelerated towards zero.
One more right turn brought her down a short road, then a left, then a nother right across a resident car park.
It saved her ten seconds over the predicted route that followed the actual street layout.
One more final left turn gave her a moment to glance at the panicking timer - still reading double digits.
For the first time since the bridge, she thought she could make it. A moment later, she squealed to a halt outside the house. Two lamplights either side of the
It took a second for the app on the phone to verify her arrival with GPS satellites and the local Vodafone tower.
The timer flashed green with Three Seconds.left.
Safe. Delivered.
One Box of Boneless Chicken, One tub of gravy, one large chips and a coke. All emerge from the pack on the back of her bike still steaming.
Confidently, she strolled up to the front door, and pushed the doorbell.
The door opened with frightening speed. Someone had been waiting.
Meg took less that a moment to regard him. Approximately the same age as she represented. Approximately the same height. Blue eyes. Short, unwashed hair. Unshaven stubble. A Metallica t-shirt, a pair of jeans and bare feet.
And he knew he’d trapped her. In that moment, she sensed his victory, before he even announced it.
One foot stepped back, expecting an attack.
“You know you’re late?” he said.
She felt herself blink.
“What?”
How the fuck was that possible? When Meg’s own mind accounted for every second of the trip, and her phone agreed with her.
“I put the order through on my phone twenty five minutes ago,”
And there was the screenshot on the phone to prove it, with the overtime alarm to let him know he’d won his free meal. And, of course, that mattered. Because that saved a tenner on a box of chicken, didn’t it.
In that moment she knew - it didn’t matter what evidence she had the company would side with the customer when it came down to it. It’d give her the money - then in a week’s time once the distpute was logged and approved, yank it clear from her account, just when it’d all been forgotten about.
Customers generated revenue. Riders could be replaced with another sucker. The utter unfairness of it stabbed.
It’d been setup. She sensed it. From his scent. From his body language. It would only end one way. Even if there hadn’t been an accident on a bridge, she’d always have arrived late by a minute according to his phone.
“You fucked with that?”
“No…”
And that was a lie. What’d he know? He’d set up some sort of system exploit, or bug, something to steal both a meal, a delivery fee, and a whole day’s worth of bonus stacks. For one brief instant, she wanted to strangle him. To pour every frustration through her fingertips and crushed the life out of his throat.
As someone once said, she had detailed files on human anatomy.
His eyes gave her another option Of course they weren’t focused on her face. They weren’t even focused on the meal in her hand.
Her body gave her another option.
Emotional mapping assured her it had the best chance of success. Take control of the situation. Create the appropriate emotional feedback loop and follow through to a quick, satisfactory climax.
Her body assured her it would be easy.
Something inside her baulked at the idea. It died quickly, replaced by the certainty that this was what she had been designed to do. This would be easy.
Another voice, found a far more compelling argument. It seemed like far too much of a reward. Meg had her own, better idea. If he didn’t want to play by the rules of the game, why should she?
With one breath, her mind slipped back into the core of her body. For a moment she marvelled at the sensation - more like being the pilot of a person, than being a person proper.
Something else took over, an intermediary translating her ideas and goals into the actions necessary to achieve them. She felt her posture shift, just enough to emphasise some of her more physical talents.
A long, deep breath raised her breasts, stretching her jacket..
“Maybe something I can do, that’s worth more than the price of a meal?”
Her voice gained a lustful timbre that promised him his every carnal desire. Her left hand reached out, soft-skined fingers brushing against pebble-dash stubble.
A little gasp escaped his lips.
“Let me show you how much this means to me.” Her tongue moistened her own thickening lips.
His true feelings warred with the ones she sought to implant. Against the full force of tuned pheromones and subvocal processing, they didn’t have a chance.
His left hand reached forward, resting heavily on her shoulder. His mouth hinged half-open, mind struggling to find the words inside the lustful fog.
With him in the perfect position, Meg pushed.The full force of everything she was, and was capable of, penetrated deep into his mind, right through to the most primitive lizard brain, lighting up every single nerve at once. .
In a heartbeat, his synapses overloaded.
A pleasured shiver rose through his body, escaping as a trembling whimper from his lips. His eyes rolled thoughtlessly up into the back of their sockets. His legs collapsed under him, dropping his body into Meg’s waiting arms.
His weight pushed her light frame back a step before she could compensate.
“Cute,” she smirked, feeling a little thrill of satisfaction roll through her body.
She carried his limp form to his living room at the back of his house, setting him into what looked like a comfortable position on the couch. She set his dinner on the table in front of him - helping herself to a piece of hot chicken and a handful of chips, before dropping some crumbs over his dozing frame.
The last thing she did was leave herself a glowing five star review from his phone, and close out the delivery.
She figured he’d wake up in an hour to a half-eaten meal, wonder what the hell happened, and then hopefully either drop it - or have so little evidence that nobody would care to listen.
Closing his door behind her, Meg zipped her jacket up - suddenly getting the impression that the neighbours might’ve gotten the wrong impression.
A giddy sense of power lingered in the aftermath - a sense of a small little victory to rise above the drudgery of the day.
Her phone offered her one last delivery run, promising another stack up on the bonus tree.
Meg logged off for the night instead.
---------
Hot water and coconut-oil soap dissolved the sweat of the day and the city grime, leaving Meg feeling pure and clean once more. She lingered under a steaming shower for far longer than necessary, letting the water cascade down across her, tracing in her mind every single bead and rivulet as it tracked its way across her skin, crawling inside every crack, crevice and cleavage on her body.
One single moment of hyper-self awareness left her shivering, with the odd sense of herself withdrawing in away from her skin until it became something else.
The sensation corrected itself in a heartbeat, leaving only a vague impression of ‘otherness’, and the clear idea that she did enjoy how well her body rendered the small comforts of life.
She switched the shower off and stepped off the tray onto cold tiled floor. Fingers of cold cold air prickled against the high points on her skin, sending shivers down her spine.
A towel warmed on an electric rail wrapped her in its cozy softness. It shielded her against the cold air as she stepped out into her bedroom. Wet feet padded across centuries-old timber floorboards worn smooth by a million footsteps before hers.
A single oil-flled radiator did its feeble best to warm the room. The Cold night air, an original 18th century single-pane window,. and a meter of solid stone wall, defeated it easily.
Meg stood over it to keep from shivering as she dried herself off.
Of course the radiator lived under the window, and naturally there were no curtains.
But nobody walked through Henrietta Street at that time of night, and being up on the third floor at the top of the building did have its advantages.
Preferred nightwear consisted of a short silken camisole top that allowed the cold night air to sneak up and tickle the bottom of her breasts and a set of lace panties that rode high on her hips and lengthened her legs.
Anything warmer felt ‘wrong’ in a way she just couldn’t place. Meg blamed it on some programmer’s fetish.
That thought woke the misanthrope in the back of her mind. Her own comfort didn’t matter.
Trying to wear a bathrobe felt far worse than braving the cold. It triggered an undefined sense of wrongness deep inside her body - a sense of rejection that crawled across her skin and begged her to take it off again.
Being cold, somehow, felt better than being comfortable.
Meg hurried downstairs to the living room, where a fire should’ve been lit. She pushed the timber door open, receiving the reward of a blast of cold air. A shiver crawled through her body.
A single light hanging from a bare bulb in the ceiling threw harsh shadows around the room and across the remnants of the plaster mouldings on the ceiling. Bare brick wall lurked in the shadows where the centuries old plaster had begun to flake off. The remaining plaster held centuries of paint and wallpaper, mottled by the moisture soaking through the brick.
At the head of the room, the original fireplace with it’s original marble surround sat cold and dark.
Anri sat at an old timber desk, still in her office clothes with a laptop. Her suit jacket hung on the back of her seat. A white blouse hung loose on her frame, vaguely hinting at what lay beneath. She had her fir-green hair tied tight and neat, waiting to be unleashed by a forceful hand. A pencil skirt wrapped tightly around her legs. She wore dark, tight sheer tights to contrast with her pale skin.
“No fire?” Meg asked, folding her arms under her chest.
“Oh,” Anri looked up from her screen, taking a moment to glance around at the still-cold room. “I’m busy”
Clearly, she’d been lost in focus.
“Still working?”
She smiled. “I just have to finish the quarterly journals before tomorrow.”
Meg wondered how anyone could possibly enjoy accounting that much. It seemed unnatural. Meg left her to it, focusing on getting the fire going before the cold really bit into her body.
It took a stack of fire-lighters, a bundle of dried sticks, a half a bale of peat briquettes and a match to set the whole thing burning. What started as a slow smoulder, quickly grew to a roaring fire, filling the room with a primordial light and heat, mingling with the earthy scent of peat smoke.
Meg lounged herself on the couch, losing her mind to late night television and the strange sense of self continuously provided by the underwear pressing down against her body.
Genom Model 33-S. Female.
The sensation went beyond reassurance, all the way to a sense of satisfaction which hit with the exact same cybernetic regularity each time she allowed it to form in her mind.
Genom Model 33-S. Female. .
The thought occurred to her that it’d been specifically added to her mind.
Her memories of the previous two weeks stood sharp and clear, playing back in her mind with the immutable quality of a compact disk, second by second, heartbeat by heartbeat. Sensation, action and emotion seperated and recorded in precise discrete clarity.
Even the missing moments stood out as missing - clear gaps where the record had been consciously cut
Before that, things were a haze where action and idea and feeling merged into one melange of being. Moments of high emotion shone bright and strong, alongside the strangely routine, warping in subtle ways each time she allowed herself to access them, the brightest details getting brighter, while the dimmest faded more into nothing.
The only solid item in each, being her own sense of self, dubbed into the analogue mind with digital clarity everytime the concept of ‘me’ appeared.
Somehow a 33-S stripping naked in a teenage boys changing room after P.E. class should’ve been getting far more attention than she actually did at the time.
Even so, the memory lacked any kind of detail beyond the vaguest sense of the room and how small it’d been, tinged with the frustration of always getting home late for a too-short lunch.
One the one hand, she felt she’d always been Meg. On the other, she knew she hadn’t. Her mind explored the gap between, where both natures met and became one whole entity.
The moment the idea formed in her mind that she’d ever been something else, it was rewarded by a sharp, digital assurance that she was satisfied with what she’d become, along with a keen awareness of her whole body and how comfortable it was.
She wished she could bottle the sensation and share it with the others. Part of her insisted on sending a message to the rest of the ‘managers’ group, politely advising them to look into getting their own 33-S body.
Surely Washuu could arrange it.
Include a few demonstrating photographs to get the blood pressure up seemed mandatory. Look how comfortable all of this is. The zealotry of the convert, she mused, laying back on the couch.
Bathing in the heat radiating from the fire, finding it hard to imagine how any living creature on earth could be more comfortable.
A cold breeze chilled her body, announcing that the door had opened.
“I’m back!”
Nam stood in a short faux-leather skirt and matching jacket - unbuttoned to reveal a pink blouse. The outfit had the effect of adding a level of maturity - allowing Nam to pass for someone in their mid-twenties, rather than looking like a schoolgirl.
“What happened to your hair?” asked Anri, pausing in her typing.
It shone under the ceiling light, her natural metallic silver pigments sparking through a candy-pink tint, matching her blouse.
“Like it?” Of course Nam seemed proud of it.
“Different,” Meg demurred, knowing better to announce what she actually thought of it.
“I know it doesn’t suit but it was the hardest to do right and it came out perfect.”
“I like it,” said Anri.
“Are any of you going to let me practice on you?”
Meg felt a shiver of unease - like she’d be letting a mad scientist tinker with herself. “I like my hair.”
“We have a dress code at work,” said Anri, quickly.
“I need to practice or I won’t get the job.” Anri pursed her lips into a pout. Steel-grey eyes glared at both Anri and Meg in turn, accusing them of spoiling her chance. “It’s different when it's someone else’s hair, and the styles of this era are so different,”
Neither of them felt the need to sacrifice themselves on the altar of fashion.
“Ask Sylvie, or Lou,” Meg suggested.
“Fine.” Nam’s lips pursed into a pout, making it very clear that both of them were actively ruining her chances at getting work.. “I’m going to have a shower.”
Nam could be such a teenager.
“I think pink would look good on you,”
“I’m still getting used to being a redhead,”
Anri gave her a strange look. Mag answered with a smile, for a moment getting a peak under the cover in her mind
She’d been going grey from stress.
Now she lounged in comfort, any echoes of the day’s work left behind the moment she logged off the app. Meg could exist on her own time, until she needed money again. Relax. Enjoy some of the comforts of life. Take a quick self-portrait.
As much as the residents of Henrietta Street kept themselves to themselves - at least among the other displacees - sending photos of herself to the group chat in the latest iteration of 'something more comfortable' never failed to bring a satisfied sense of amusement.
The timber door hinged open,
Lou, in a Eurospar Uniform
“Is Nam back yet?”, she asked.
“Watch out.” Meg warned. “She’s looking for victims to practice on.”
“She dyed her hair pink.” Anri added as an explanation.
Lou gave a momentary look of concern, running a tress of her blonde hair through her fingers for a moment. Meg could see her mind running through it.
Not a good look for her either. Pink hair required some very specific aesthetic choices to work correctly - none of which were available to them.
Lou took a breath. “I’m too tired,” she said “It’s been a long day.” Her body dropped onto the couch beside Meg.”A junkie overdosed on heroin,” she took a breath. “We had to wait for the ambulance.”
No big deal.
“I see a lot of of people injecting themselves on the boardwalk beside the river,” said Anri.
“Yeah, that happens,” answered Meg with a shrug.
“They asked me for money.” Anri pursed her lips into a pout.
“Yeah that happens,” said Meg, again. “You get used to them. Just don’t give them anything or they won’t leave you alone.”
Other cities on the continent either raused them out to the industrial estates on the periphery where the tourists wouldn’t see them, or set up needle exchange programs, methadone clinics and proper accommodation. Both options kept them out of public sight.
Dublin let them become part of the furniture. Tourists didn’t stay in the city long enough to figure out what they were. Residents knew to avoid them. The Eastern Europeans complained - until they realised nobody cared. The Americans either didn’t noticed them, or wrote them off as a sort of imagineered decoration at their holiday theme park.
“Junkies are harmless,” she added. “They usually don’t bother you. Just watch out for the teenagers.”
Those things could be feral.
“Lyudmila had her nose broken when she tried to stop one stealing cans of Red Bull. The manager said there was no point in calling the Guards.”
“Yeah, that happens.”
“This city isn’t really safe, is it?”, said Anri.
“Compared to most parts of the world, it actually is.”
Compared to most of the US residences, especially. The fire flickered, chewing its way through the briquettes. The air in the room grew heavy with a sense of unease. Anri’s typing came to a halt.
“Really?” asked Anri.
Lou beside her, shuffled a little in her seat, edging that bit closer. “We’re not on the station anymore, Anri.”
The words carried a weight to them, the realisation that the walled garden had been left behind and they’d entered a bigger, harder world.
Like being kicked out of the Garden of Eden for daring to have free will, rather than being the playthings of a fickle creator. The room fell silent. Meg found herself becoming more aware of the warmth soaking through her thigh from Lou’s hand.
A request for comfort. Meg shifted her weight a little, leaning against Lou’s body, placing a single hand on the soft skin of her thigh. Lou placed a warm hand on hers, both of their fingers meshing together in a soothing clasp.
The response had been programmed into the pair of them. The feelings were real to both.
A sense of comfort, security - and of not being alone.
“I never got the chance to really go outside in Megatokyo,” said Anri. “Only Sylvie did”
Lou’s grip tightened.
Meg took a breath, letting the sensations of her body fill her mind - riding on the edge of what her own mind permitted her to be aware of. She thought it might’ve explained her true purpose.
“I’ve lived here,” she said.
At least, she remembered living there.
The door opened again. The cold night are shivered up her spine.
Speak of the devil.
Sylvie, in black motorcycle leathers, with a helmet under her arm. Her golden eyes stared as if they’d gazed into the very pits of human depravity. Ash-black hair clung to her head, crushed by her helmet.
The tanned skin of her face formed into a mask of pure fatigue
“I’m going to bed,” she said, her voice heavy.
Anri blinked, looking up from her laptop.
“I’ll go too.” she said. “Keep you company.”
Sylvie offered only a tired smile to show her agreement. Anri closed her computer and stood up, giving her skirt and jacket a demure adjustment - as if she’d been working in the office.
As she walked passed, Sylive’s gold eyes fixed on Meg for a moment. Mag felt a rat crawl up her spine, the air in the room growing cold and dark with subdued hostility.
This is your fault.
—
Meg found herself wondering what the Managers imagined happened behind the doors of Henrietta street once it came time for the residents to go to bed. She expected they’d be disappointed.
She soaked in the warmth of her bedsheets, curling her toes on her blankets to savour the sensation of cotton on skin.
Nobody seemed to really be happy.
On many levels, Meg could assume her life had gotten worse. But in one profound manner, it was infinitely better.
Today had no overhead. Tomorrow held no dread.
The rest was just the necessities of life
—-
-----
Her chest pulsed in time with her heart, every pulse ringing in her breasts..
Her breathing came deep and fast, panting for air.
Sweat soaked through her clothes, running from her rust-coloured hair in thick streaks down her face.
Strong, muscled legs wrapped in tight lycra pumped her forward. A cheap, steel-framed bicycle loaded with pizza did its level best to hold her back.
Twenty minute delivery.
Twenty minutes or your money back. All at the expense of the rider. Restaurants loved it because it absolved of the cost of a missed delivery.
The app took it directly out of the rider’s pocket. The company called it incentivisation -. gameification. The better you did, the more you made. The better you did, the harder the punishment when one missed delivery reset your bonus.
Of course, the app’s algorithm always worked to screw you over in the end. The better you did, the harder the runs it offered. From restaurants further away from your location, to destinations further from the restaurant, until eventually you failed and your bonus counter reset.
And, of course, you paid for the customer’s meal - not the restaurant.
Meg worked like a machine, keeping herself ahead of the curve for well over ten hours from the office lunchtime all the way , fuelled by sugar-loaded energy drinks and supermarket sandwiches,
Her cybernetic focus was absolute, keeping her moments ahead of the traffic, taking suicide slices up the inside of turning trucks and sliding between moving busses.
Every vital statistic of her body read out in the back of her mind, heart-rate, respiration, oxygenation and glucose saturation. She could do it all night, if the takeaways didn’t close. Her body’d been built specifically to go all night.
One more pickup popped up on her phone.
Texas Fried Chicken at the Crumlin Shopping Centre to Inchicore Square. Ready at the restaurant in 8 minutes. 10 minute travel time. 2 minutes slack.
Easy Money.Meg tapped ‘accept’, before anyone else could beat her to it.
Meg wheeled to a stop beneath a flickering sign, showing a cartoon image of a chicken wearing a Stetson hat and bowtie - the name promised something bigger, hotter and oilier than Kentucky. The scent of luscious chicken gravy filled her nostrils and crawled down her throat. Against the cold night, the windows to the takeaway had steamed up opaque, the inside a blur of hard white lights and humanoid shadows..
A wall of vapourised grease assaulted her as she shouldered the door open.
Silence answered her, save for the roar of the ventilation.
As expected, everyone looked up from their phones. Meg felt her mind become aware of them immediately. Male, elderly, frustrated and impatient. Already a possibility for engagement. Another male, younger, showing effects of stimulants. His eyes followed her arse.
A third, stood at the counter, biting back on a deep and building anger. Meg looked at his face and saw the mask demanded by customer service beginning to crack.
Leaning with her hand on the glass windows surrounding the counter, getting as close as she possibly could to the innocent cashier, was a young woman having a great time of things despite the picture of artificial fury on her over-tanned face and grease-black hair. The software in the back of Meg’s mind threw up a dozen complaints about her excessive makeup.
And the tacky black trousers, artificial leopardskin jacket, and Louis-vutton handbag. Obviously a knock-off - it was too well put together to be a real one. Glass beads decorated a metallic pink phone. A half-eaten leg of succulent chicken sat on top of a mangled cardboard box in front of her.
Of course, the woman pounced on the silence.
“Are you even listenin’ to me?” Her voice rose to a shrill, high tone. “This chicken’s pink. Does that look…”
The man behind the counter fixed his gaze on Meg. Of course, he didn’t look her in the face. The chicken was pink the same way any chicken on the bone could be. It still steamed hot.
“Delivery 72941-A. Inchicore Square,” said Meg, holding up her phone, before placing it into her pocket. .
“She can wait, you’re servin me!”
“I’ve a delivery to pick up,”
Meg consciously kept her voice even.
“Well it’s my bleedin’ turn,”
Now she started to get annoyed. The carefully orchestrated plan to push an innocent service employee to point where they caved just to get you to fuck off had been spoiled.
“I just have to…”
“I was here first!” the woman snapped. “ And you. I’m on the facebook. I’m streaming this. You’re going to make this right for me, or everyone will see it..”
The important part being the Me. Pay attention to her, not to the 33-S.
“If I don’t make this, I don’t get paid you know,”
Wrong move. Meg saw the turn in the woman’s face- the first real hot anger she’d shown, directed right at her.
“You think having a job makes you better. Yeh look like a slut,”
Simple analysis. Give as good as you get.
“The only ride you’ll ever get is into battle,” Meg sneered. “Just give me the bleedin meal”
Her eyes turned to the man behind the counter, sweating in his red uniform. One hand offered her a brown paper bag. The moment Meg grasped it, she sensed movement - a rush of emotion charging right at her.
Her fingers gripped the bag tight. She brought her free arm up to shield her face - a moment to late. A hard slap bit at her cheek, filling the air with a sharp crack. Cut synapses warned of broken skin, and a loss of blood pressure in a hundred capillaries
Her free hand grasped the hard bones of the woman’s foream. Her phone dropped, bouncing off the tiles with a crack and skidding into the corner against the wall.,
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked, trying to pull back.
“Back off!” Meg yelled. Her fingers clenched tight. The woman stared through her, surprised at the strength that she’d met.
Meg felt energy rising inside her eyes, ready to burst out of her and fill the room with her anger. It’d be so easy just to put that pain in the neck to sleep right there on the tiles. One quick overload of every synapse and she’d be out for an hour.
With three people to tell the story.
A real fear filled the air for one brief moment. Above, the fluorescent lights fizzed.
“If yous two start fighting I’ll call the guards,” the man behind the till interrupted.
The woman shook her hand from Meg’s grip, feigning a huff- as if she could’ve taken it further but was letting them all off.
It was just an excuse to get out of it while saving face. You didn’t need cybersenses to figure that out.
“And I can show them the chicken you’re serving me,” she added.
Meg glanced between the pair of them - the man behind the till with his hand on the landline phone waiting for the fight, and the woman still giving her sneering side glances
Without a word, Meg pulled her phone from her pocket and scanned the docket on the side of the brown paper bag. The App logged her as having received the package.
Nine minutes to delivery.
Meg cursed under her breath. Possible, but difficult.
One quick argument would cost a full day’s bonus.
Inside her flourescent yellow jacket, she felt her blood begin to boil.
“You’re bleeding there, love,” said the old me. He only had concern in mind and, for a moment, she thanked him for it.
Meg cold feel hot, thin blood trickle down her cheek, mingling with sweat and grease from the air.
“Fuck’s sake,” she said before shouldering the glass door open.
In the cold night air, she unzipped her jacket to the halfway point - just to let her chest breath and clear some of the sweat from her t-shirt. Meg cocooned the meal in a special pack strapped to the luggage rack of the bike.
No time to be frustrated. No time to kick and swear and swear blue murder to any who’d listen.
Every second counted.
And she could count them to the millisecond.
This would have to be quick. Or it would be very expensive. She didn’t bother to check the map - she knew the route well enough.
Meg didn’t bother with the red light at cross-roads. The horn of a taxi blared a warning as she hammered through the beams of its headlights. Meg knew she had at least a few centimetres to spare - even if the driver hadn’t braked.
She powered up Herberton road towards the Canal, congratulating herself on the few seconds she saved. Another set of red lights passed in a flash, followed by a left turn across the front of a speeding bus onto Dolphin road.
Another ten seconds.
Her legs carried her at full speed, racing along the bank of the Grand Canal. Her mind focused like a laser on the road ahead. On the other bank, a silver tram raced ahead of her, accelerating towards Suir bridge and the station behind..
Meg saw a red BMW stopped on the bridge at the same instant as the tram driver. He had one moment to apply the brakes before they crashed together with a hollow bang - like a steel drum being crushed. The impact took the front clear off the car, sending the engine block spinning away in a cloud of steam .
The tram skipped off the wreckage, riding up off its rails and down onto hard concrete, the front carriage slewing sideways as it squealed to a juddering halt.
Meg arrived at the scene just in time to see the few passengers onboard pull themselves to their feet.
The wreckage blocked the bridge completely.
Her jaw hung open at the sheer bloody unfairness of it all.
“Fuck’s sake!”
In the back of her mind, time still ticked down.
She checked her map. It insisted the bridge would be the fastest route. She swiped to the next. The blue line moved, sending her all the way to the end of Davitt road and with a double back up
An extra three minutes.
Two minutes overtime, would mean she worked the last hour for free.
She knew one option the mappers didn’t.
A single lock carried the canal down below the bridge. The lock gates had duckboards on them, installed for the original keepers centuries beforehand, and maintained for the locals who used them a shortcut to avoid the traffic.
So long as you were willing to risk a short fall into black, deep water, or a long fall into shallow water.
Meg wondered if anyone’d ever managed to carry a bicycle across them. She wondered if there’d be an award for being the first.
Halfway across, with jet black water on one side, and jet black darkness on the other, she began to wonder if it’d been a good idea. Only a few floating leaves hinted at the presence of water.
Below there was nothing but void.
Mixed with the smell of stagnant water and old rubbish.
The bike sat across her shoulders, crank pedals digging into her spine. Her hands held it tight through the forks and the rear wheel, keeping the weight even. Her legs carried her forward, one foot in front of the other. Creaking timbers shifted nauseatingly beneath her feet.
One rotten plank shifted under her bootheel. Her body began to topple. She felt the weight of the bike shift on her shoulders, threatening to pull her into the darkness. A moment of terror raced up her throat, ricocheting throughout her frame.
An automatic shift of her hips caught the fall.
A human would’ve gone swimming.
Adrenaline lingered in her veins long after her feet found hard ground. The crash had already begun to back traffic up along Suir Road and down the South Circular. Meg cut through the housing estates instead, racing the countdown on her phone along quiet concrete roads.
Stephen’s Road turned onto Goldenbridge Avenue, then up Connolly Avenue, into a near miss with a Dominoes delivery scooter on Bulfin road.
Traffic waited to turn right onto Emmett road. Meg didn’t. She cut up the inside of a white van turning left, swapping across traffic to the far side of the road.
Meg glanced at the clock between breaths. Just under half a kilometre in distance. A minute fifty left to do it in. She promised herself to quit and cash-out for the night if she made it.
All caution was thrown to the wind as she raced past the Black Lion and a rank of waiting taxis.
A reckless right turn carried her onto Grattan crescent. Time counted inexorably. Neither slow, nor fast.
Her legs had begun to burn from the effort. Her throat had parched dry. Her chest chafed against the inside of her jacket.
A left turn brough her into the housing estate with a minute remaining. The finish line loomed, keeping pace with the timer.
Sixty seconds left. She thought she might make it with a second to spare.
How did the app handle such close shaves?
Meg pushed harder, preferring not to find out.
The timer pulsed red as the countdown accelerated towards zero.
One more right turn brought her down a short road, then a left, then a nother right across a resident car park.
It saved her ten seconds over the predicted route that followed the actual street layout.
One more final left turn gave her a moment to glance at the panicking timer - still reading double digits.
For the first time since the bridge, she thought she could make it. A moment later, she squealed to a halt outside the house. Two lamplights either side of the
It took a second for the app on the phone to verify her arrival with GPS satellites and the local Vodafone tower.
The timer flashed green with Three Seconds.left.
Safe. Delivered.
One Box of Boneless Chicken, One tub of gravy, one large chips and a coke. All emerge from the pack on the back of her bike still steaming.
Confidently, she strolled up to the front door, and pushed the doorbell.
The door opened with frightening speed. Someone had been waiting.
Meg took less that a moment to regard him. Approximately the same age as she represented. Approximately the same height. Blue eyes. Short, unwashed hair. Unshaven stubble. A Metallica t-shirt, a pair of jeans and bare feet.
And he knew he’d trapped her. In that moment, she sensed his victory, before he even announced it.
One foot stepped back, expecting an attack.
“You know you’re late?” he said.
She felt herself blink.
“What?”
How the fuck was that possible? When Meg’s own mind accounted for every second of the trip, and her phone agreed with her.
“I put the order through on my phone twenty five minutes ago,”
And there was the screenshot on the phone to prove it, with the overtime alarm to let him know he’d won his free meal. And, of course, that mattered. Because that saved a tenner on a box of chicken, didn’t it.
In that moment she knew - it didn’t matter what evidence she had the company would side with the customer when it came down to it. It’d give her the money - then in a week’s time once the distpute was logged and approved, yank it clear from her account, just when it’d all been forgotten about.
Customers generated revenue. Riders could be replaced with another sucker. The utter unfairness of it stabbed.
It’d been setup. She sensed it. From his scent. From his body language. It would only end one way. Even if there hadn’t been an accident on a bridge, she’d always have arrived late by a minute according to his phone.
“You fucked with that?”
“No…”
And that was a lie. What’d he know? He’d set up some sort of system exploit, or bug, something to steal both a meal, a delivery fee, and a whole day’s worth of bonus stacks. For one brief instant, she wanted to strangle him. To pour every frustration through her fingertips and crushed the life out of his throat.
As someone once said, she had detailed files on human anatomy.
His eyes gave her another option Of course they weren’t focused on her face. They weren’t even focused on the meal in her hand.
Her body gave her another option.
Emotional mapping assured her it had the best chance of success. Take control of the situation. Create the appropriate emotional feedback loop and follow through to a quick, satisfactory climax.
Her body assured her it would be easy.
Something inside her baulked at the idea. It died quickly, replaced by the certainty that this was what she had been designed to do. This would be easy.
Another voice, found a far more compelling argument. It seemed like far too much of a reward. Meg had her own, better idea. If he didn’t want to play by the rules of the game, why should she?
With one breath, her mind slipped back into the core of her body. For a moment she marvelled at the sensation - more like being the pilot of a person, than being a person proper.
Something else took over, an intermediary translating her ideas and goals into the actions necessary to achieve them. She felt her posture shift, just enough to emphasise some of her more physical talents.
A long, deep breath raised her breasts, stretching her jacket..
“Maybe something I can do, that’s worth more than the price of a meal?”
Her voice gained a lustful timbre that promised him his every carnal desire. Her left hand reached out, soft-skined fingers brushing against pebble-dash stubble.
A little gasp escaped his lips.
“Let me show you how much this means to me.” Her tongue moistened her own thickening lips.
His true feelings warred with the ones she sought to implant. Against the full force of tuned pheromones and subvocal processing, they didn’t have a chance.
His left hand reached forward, resting heavily on her shoulder. His mouth hinged half-open, mind struggling to find the words inside the lustful fog.
With him in the perfect position, Meg pushed.The full force of everything she was, and was capable of, penetrated deep into his mind, right through to the most primitive lizard brain, lighting up every single nerve at once. .
In a heartbeat, his synapses overloaded.
A pleasured shiver rose through his body, escaping as a trembling whimper from his lips. His eyes rolled thoughtlessly up into the back of their sockets. His legs collapsed under him, dropping his body into Meg’s waiting arms.
His weight pushed her light frame back a step before she could compensate.
“Cute,” she smirked, feeling a little thrill of satisfaction roll through her body.
She carried his limp form to his living room at the back of his house, setting him into what looked like a comfortable position on the couch. She set his dinner on the table in front of him - helping herself to a piece of hot chicken and a handful of chips, before dropping some crumbs over his dozing frame.
The last thing she did was leave herself a glowing five star review from his phone, and close out the delivery.
She figured he’d wake up in an hour to a half-eaten meal, wonder what the hell happened, and then hopefully either drop it - or have so little evidence that nobody would care to listen.
Closing his door behind her, Meg zipped her jacket up - suddenly getting the impression that the neighbours might’ve gotten the wrong impression.
A giddy sense of power lingered in the aftermath - a sense of a small little victory to rise above the drudgery of the day.
Her phone offered her one last delivery run, promising another stack up on the bonus tree.
Meg logged off for the night instead.
---------
Hot water and coconut-oil soap dissolved the sweat of the day and the city grime, leaving Meg feeling pure and clean once more. She lingered under a steaming shower for far longer than necessary, letting the water cascade down across her, tracing in her mind every single bead and rivulet as it tracked its way across her skin, crawling inside every crack, crevice and cleavage on her body.
One single moment of hyper-self awareness left her shivering, with the odd sense of herself withdrawing in away from her skin until it became something else.
The sensation corrected itself in a heartbeat, leaving only a vague impression of ‘otherness’, and the clear idea that she did enjoy how well her body rendered the small comforts of life.
She switched the shower off and stepped off the tray onto cold tiled floor. Fingers of cold cold air prickled against the high points on her skin, sending shivers down her spine.
A towel warmed on an electric rail wrapped her in its cozy softness. It shielded her against the cold air as she stepped out into her bedroom. Wet feet padded across centuries-old timber floorboards worn smooth by a million footsteps before hers.
A single oil-flled radiator did its feeble best to warm the room. The Cold night air, an original 18th century single-pane window,. and a meter of solid stone wall, defeated it easily.
Meg stood over it to keep from shivering as she dried herself off.
Of course the radiator lived under the window, and naturally there were no curtains.
But nobody walked through Henrietta Street at that time of night, and being up on the third floor at the top of the building did have its advantages.
Preferred nightwear consisted of a short silken camisole top that allowed the cold night air to sneak up and tickle the bottom of her breasts and a set of lace panties that rode high on her hips and lengthened her legs.
Anything warmer felt ‘wrong’ in a way she just couldn’t place. Meg blamed it on some programmer’s fetish.
That thought woke the misanthrope in the back of her mind. Her own comfort didn’t matter.
Trying to wear a bathrobe felt far worse than braving the cold. It triggered an undefined sense of wrongness deep inside her body - a sense of rejection that crawled across her skin and begged her to take it off again.
Being cold, somehow, felt better than being comfortable.
Meg hurried downstairs to the living room, where a fire should’ve been lit. She pushed the timber door open, receiving the reward of a blast of cold air. A shiver crawled through her body.
A single light hanging from a bare bulb in the ceiling threw harsh shadows around the room and across the remnants of the plaster mouldings on the ceiling. Bare brick wall lurked in the shadows where the centuries old plaster had begun to flake off. The remaining plaster held centuries of paint and wallpaper, mottled by the moisture soaking through the brick.
At the head of the room, the original fireplace with it’s original marble surround sat cold and dark.
Anri sat at an old timber desk, still in her office clothes with a laptop. Her suit jacket hung on the back of her seat. A white blouse hung loose on her frame, vaguely hinting at what lay beneath. She had her fir-green hair tied tight and neat, waiting to be unleashed by a forceful hand. A pencil skirt wrapped tightly around her legs. She wore dark, tight sheer tights to contrast with her pale skin.
“No fire?” Meg asked, folding her arms under her chest.
“Oh,” Anri looked up from her screen, taking a moment to glance around at the still-cold room. “I’m busy”
Clearly, she’d been lost in focus.
“Still working?”
She smiled. “I just have to finish the quarterly journals before tomorrow.”
Meg wondered how anyone could possibly enjoy accounting that much. It seemed unnatural. Meg left her to it, focusing on getting the fire going before the cold really bit into her body.
It took a stack of fire-lighters, a bundle of dried sticks, a half a bale of peat briquettes and a match to set the whole thing burning. What started as a slow smoulder, quickly grew to a roaring fire, filling the room with a primordial light and heat, mingling with the earthy scent of peat smoke.
Meg lounged herself on the couch, losing her mind to late night television and the strange sense of self continuously provided by the underwear pressing down against her body.
Genom Model 33-S. Female.
The sensation went beyond reassurance, all the way to a sense of satisfaction which hit with the exact same cybernetic regularity each time she allowed it to form in her mind.
Genom Model 33-S. Female. .
The thought occurred to her that it’d been specifically added to her mind.
Her memories of the previous two weeks stood sharp and clear, playing back in her mind with the immutable quality of a compact disk, second by second, heartbeat by heartbeat. Sensation, action and emotion seperated and recorded in precise discrete clarity.
Even the missing moments stood out as missing - clear gaps where the record had been consciously cut
Before that, things were a haze where action and idea and feeling merged into one melange of being. Moments of high emotion shone bright and strong, alongside the strangely routine, warping in subtle ways each time she allowed herself to access them, the brightest details getting brighter, while the dimmest faded more into nothing.
The only solid item in each, being her own sense of self, dubbed into the analogue mind with digital clarity everytime the concept of ‘me’ appeared.
Somehow a 33-S stripping naked in a teenage boys changing room after P.E. class should’ve been getting far more attention than she actually did at the time.
Even so, the memory lacked any kind of detail beyond the vaguest sense of the room and how small it’d been, tinged with the frustration of always getting home late for a too-short lunch.
One the one hand, she felt she’d always been Meg. On the other, she knew she hadn’t. Her mind explored the gap between, where both natures met and became one whole entity.
The moment the idea formed in her mind that she’d ever been something else, it was rewarded by a sharp, digital assurance that she was satisfied with what she’d become, along with a keen awareness of her whole body and how comfortable it was.
She wished she could bottle the sensation and share it with the others. Part of her insisted on sending a message to the rest of the ‘managers’ group, politely advising them to look into getting their own 33-S body.
Surely Washuu could arrange it.
Include a few demonstrating photographs to get the blood pressure up seemed mandatory. Look how comfortable all of this is. The zealotry of the convert, she mused, laying back on the couch.
Bathing in the heat radiating from the fire, finding it hard to imagine how any living creature on earth could be more comfortable.
A cold breeze chilled her body, announcing that the door had opened.
“I’m back!”
Nam stood in a short faux-leather skirt and matching jacket - unbuttoned to reveal a pink blouse. The outfit had the effect of adding a level of maturity - allowing Nam to pass for someone in their mid-twenties, rather than looking like a schoolgirl.
“What happened to your hair?” asked Anri, pausing in her typing.
It shone under the ceiling light, her natural metallic silver pigments sparking through a candy-pink tint, matching her blouse.
“Like it?” Of course Nam seemed proud of it.
“Different,” Meg demurred, knowing better to announce what she actually thought of it.
“I know it doesn’t suit but it was the hardest to do right and it came out perfect.”
“I like it,” said Anri.
“Are any of you going to let me practice on you?”
Meg felt a shiver of unease - like she’d be letting a mad scientist tinker with herself. “I like my hair.”
“We have a dress code at work,” said Anri, quickly.
“I need to practice or I won’t get the job.” Anri pursed her lips into a pout. Steel-grey eyes glared at both Anri and Meg in turn, accusing them of spoiling her chance. “It’s different when it's someone else’s hair, and the styles of this era are so different,”
Neither of them felt the need to sacrifice themselves on the altar of fashion.
“Ask Sylvie, or Lou,” Meg suggested.
“Fine.” Nam’s lips pursed into a pout, making it very clear that both of them were actively ruining her chances at getting work.. “I’m going to have a shower.”
Nam could be such a teenager.
“I think pink would look good on you,”
“I’m still getting used to being a redhead,”
Anri gave her a strange look. Mag answered with a smile, for a moment getting a peak under the cover in her mind
She’d been going grey from stress.
Now she lounged in comfort, any echoes of the day’s work left behind the moment she logged off the app. Meg could exist on her own time, until she needed money again. Relax. Enjoy some of the comforts of life. Take a quick self-portrait.
As much as the residents of Henrietta Street kept themselves to themselves - at least among the other displacees - sending photos of herself to the group chat in the latest iteration of 'something more comfortable' never failed to bring a satisfied sense of amusement.
The timber door hinged open,
Lou, in a Eurospar Uniform
“Is Nam back yet?”, she asked.
“Watch out.” Meg warned. “She’s looking for victims to practice on.”
“She dyed her hair pink.” Anri added as an explanation.
Lou gave a momentary look of concern, running a tress of her blonde hair through her fingers for a moment. Meg could see her mind running through it.
Not a good look for her either. Pink hair required some very specific aesthetic choices to work correctly - none of which were available to them.
Lou took a breath. “I’m too tired,” she said “It’s been a long day.” Her body dropped onto the couch beside Meg.”A junkie overdosed on heroin,” she took a breath. “We had to wait for the ambulance.”
No big deal.
“I see a lot of of people injecting themselves on the boardwalk beside the river,” said Anri.
“Yeah, that happens,” answered Meg with a shrug.
“They asked me for money.” Anri pursed her lips into a pout.
“Yeah that happens,” said Meg, again. “You get used to them. Just don’t give them anything or they won’t leave you alone.”
Other cities on the continent either raused them out to the industrial estates on the periphery where the tourists wouldn’t see them, or set up needle exchange programs, methadone clinics and proper accommodation. Both options kept them out of public sight.
Dublin let them become part of the furniture. Tourists didn’t stay in the city long enough to figure out what they were. Residents knew to avoid them. The Eastern Europeans complained - until they realised nobody cared. The Americans either didn’t noticed them, or wrote them off as a sort of imagineered decoration at their holiday theme park.
“Junkies are harmless,” she added. “They usually don’t bother you. Just watch out for the teenagers.”
Those things could be feral.
“Lyudmila had her nose broken when she tried to stop one stealing cans of Red Bull. The manager said there was no point in calling the Guards.”
“Yeah, that happens.”
“This city isn’t really safe, is it?”, said Anri.
“Compared to most parts of the world, it actually is.”
Compared to most of the US residences, especially. The fire flickered, chewing its way through the briquettes. The air in the room grew heavy with a sense of unease. Anri’s typing came to a halt.
“Really?” asked Anri.
Lou beside her, shuffled a little in her seat, edging that bit closer. “We’re not on the station anymore, Anri.”
The words carried a weight to them, the realisation that the walled garden had been left behind and they’d entered a bigger, harder world.
Like being kicked out of the Garden of Eden for daring to have free will, rather than being the playthings of a fickle creator. The room fell silent. Meg found herself becoming more aware of the warmth soaking through her thigh from Lou’s hand.
A request for comfort. Meg shifted her weight a little, leaning against Lou’s body, placing a single hand on the soft skin of her thigh. Lou placed a warm hand on hers, both of their fingers meshing together in a soothing clasp.
The response had been programmed into the pair of them. The feelings were real to both.
A sense of comfort, security - and of not being alone.
“I never got the chance to really go outside in Megatokyo,” said Anri. “Only Sylvie did”
Lou’s grip tightened.
Meg took a breath, letting the sensations of her body fill her mind - riding on the edge of what her own mind permitted her to be aware of. She thought it might’ve explained her true purpose.
“I’ve lived here,” she said.
At least, she remembered living there.
The door opened again. The cold night are shivered up her spine.
Speak of the devil.
Sylvie, in black motorcycle leathers, with a helmet under her arm. Her golden eyes stared as if they’d gazed into the very pits of human depravity. Ash-black hair clung to her head, crushed by her helmet.
The tanned skin of her face formed into a mask of pure fatigue
“I’m going to bed,” she said, her voice heavy.
Anri blinked, looking up from her laptop.
“I’ll go too.” she said. “Keep you company.”
Sylvie offered only a tired smile to show her agreement. Anri closed her computer and stood up, giving her skirt and jacket a demure adjustment - as if she’d been working in the office.
As she walked passed, Sylive’s gold eyes fixed on Meg for a moment. Mag felt a rat crawl up her spine, the air in the room growing cold and dark with subdued hostility.
This is your fault.
—
Meg found herself wondering what the Managers imagined happened behind the doors of Henrietta street once it came time for the residents to go to bed. She expected they’d be disappointed.
She soaked in the warmth of her bedsheets, curling her toes on her blankets to savour the sensation of cotton on skin.
Nobody seemed to really be happy.
On many levels, Meg could assume her life had gotten worse. But in one profound manner, it was infinitely better.
Today had no overhead. Tomorrow held no dread.
The rest was just the necessities of life
—-
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.
