Archive of Our Own

Dublin, Ireland
September 29, 2016

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 them 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 forearm. 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 fluorescent yellow jacket, she felt her blood begin to boil.

"You're bleeding there, love," said the old man. 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 brought 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 another 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 door welcomed her.

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 despite, 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 a 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 the whole thing 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-skinned 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 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-filled 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 disc, second by second, heartbeat by heartbeat. Sensation, action and emotion separated 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 mélange 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 every time 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." 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, Meg."

"I'm still getting used to being a redhead."

Anri gave her a strange look. Meg 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.^[1]

"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 roused 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 air 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, Sylvie's gold eyes fixed on Meg for a moment. Meg 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

September 30, 2016

Meg made it halfway down the stairs before the sense of revulsion in her body turned into a compulsion that couldn't be overcome. The sense of pure 'wrongness' overwhelmed any desire for comfort.

Something had decided she had to prefer to go braless in a tight tank-top, combined with a pair of too-short shorts, and didn't care how she felt about it. Better to bear the discomfort of chill-hardened nipple chafing on cheap nylon, than the revulsion of dressing comfortably.

She hurried back down to the living room. To her relief, she found the coals of last night's fire still smouldered in the fireplace. Meg carefully arranged them with some fresh kindling to try to relight it. A sheaf from a broadsheet newspaper across the face of the fireplace drew air up through the firegrate, resurrecting last night's roaring blaze in seconds.

No cyberdroid from 2033 would ever have needed to know how to do this - or ever had the opportunity to learn.

For one moment, she felt herself deeply aware of every square millimetre of her skin - a separation of soul from body. The distraction of the door opening vapourised the sensation.

Sylvie, wearing boots, jeans, and a black leather jacket over a loose white t-shirt. Meg felt herself keenly aware of how tight her own shorts hugged her body.

"How come you're able to dress properly?"

"One of the upsides of not being Kaufman's personal princess." Sylvie shrugged. "I don't have to conform to his personal tastes."

Meg looked at the fire, then back at Sylvie, and then wondered why she herself had been chosen, rather than one of the others. She thought, she wanted to be that person from the space station for a few minutes - just long enough to be able to tell Sylvie what the Meg Sylvie had known truly felt like and to be properly angry, to be able to have to ammunition to stand up for herself

The original Meg wouldn't have had to sit and take it - in the hopes that given time she'd be able to prove herself as not being whatever the hell Sylvie thought she was.

"I found a cheap motorcycle," said Sylvie. "I'm going to pick it up."

"We still have to pay for gas and electricity."

"It's my own money."

Meg gave her a suspicious look, being well aware of how much cash she had in her own accounts.

Sylvie smirked. "I get good tips."

Sylvie was either about to get ripped off, or was about to make someone an offer they were physically incapable of refusing. In the back of Meg's mind, a small pot of jealousy simmered as she watched her leave. Having a car again would be nice.

She tried to imagine what it'd be like to really drive.

The door to the living room creaked open, chased again by another blast of cold air through her skin. Meg expected to see Sylvie, back to collect something she'd forgotten.

Lou stood in the door.

"Close it!" Meg Yelled.

Lou raised an eyebrow at how Meg had dressed herself. "Aren't you cold?"

Meg answered with a dark scowl. "You know I can't help it."

And the fire pulled so much air through it cooled the room.

"Kaufman was a creep," Lou sympathised. She pulled the door shut behind her. Of course, Lou could dress warmly, even if her jeans and jacket had to be almost a size too small.

Meg curled her toes on the timber floorboards. "I can tell." She decided she was much better off not knowing. "I might head out early and get some of the early lunchers, once I get some heat into the place."

The ancient stone building had seemed so cheap at first to own.

They spent the equivalent of a month's rent in a proper apartment just heating the damned thing.

Another workday. Another race against a distant computer server, chaining runs together to up the payout.

Like running an accumulator at the bookies - everything was lost if the last run of the day came up late. One missed run in the chain cost a whole day's bonus. Harder runs came with higher rewards. Or you could cash out a chain, put the money in the bank, and reset the bonus to zero.

It fed the addictive part of the human brain, dangling the possibility of more while quietly whispering about the risks of failure. Cash out now, and start over - or risk another run for an even bigger payday.

Play it safe, and earn less than the minimum wage.

Roll the dice, and earn even less again if you lost. But earn far more, the longer the running streak held.

It calculated the house edge based on how long the average rider worked for, how long the average human being could keep up the cruel pace and how likely it was they'd bonk.

The good money was supposed to be impossible.

Meg estimated that, over a full week, including tips, she made out well ahead of what her previous salary had been.

One run brought her to the offices of an engineering company, not unlike the one she'd once worked for. Coleman, Cronin, Considine and Parrot. It had the same smoked glass doors, the same soft carpet floor and the same vague scent of hoover-cooked dust sucked up from the carpet, hot printer ink, reboiled water in the tea-boilers and dread.

She felt it chill her soul, like the echo of nightmare.

Meg's boots carried her across the carpet. A receptionist in a smart, business casual suit peered over the veneered MDF of her desk, momentarily disturbed by the sight that greeted her.

Meg caught sight of her own reflection on the logo'd mirror on the wall.

She'd dressed in dark cyclist's lycra - hugging her figure tight, a flash of red colour highlighting the curve of her hip and the plunge to the gap between her thighs. Her jacket clung to her chest, a half-open zip give anybody taller than her a good look at a bare neck and a deep cleavage.

The spaces she'd once inhabited remained the same, while she'd become something entirely different.

"Can I help you?" asked the receptionist, radiating contempt.

Meg held up the brown paper bag she'd been carrying. "Lunch Delivery for a Tom Joyce. Order 177013 from Supermacs."

The receptionist looked at her like she'd stolen her fiancé from the altar. "Tom. There's someone here for you with a lunch delivery."

The receptionist would've preferred to have called security. She only helped because it was her job, and because she'd probably have to deal with the complaints if someone's lunch left.

Meg stood waiting, aware of how tight her outfit clung to her skin, getting tighter with every breath. Anyone who entered reception couldn't help but pause a moment to stare at her. She felt each set of eyes cross her body, her senses recording the intent behind each glance - a mix of curiosity, cold contempt and hot desire.

She knew who'd run and hide if she returned their glance with a smile. She knew who'd take it as an invitation that couldn't be refused. She felt herself hover ever so slightly above it all, exempted by virtue of being something other than human, while still being able to pass among them.

She could watch the colours of their emotions mix and mingle in the air of the room, twisting themselves into strings she could pull on if needed to achieve desired outcomes.

It occurred to her that a 33-S in an office or boardroom could do far more than a 33-S in a bedroom. Calling a 33-S a 'sexaroid' seemed like the ultimate dismissal of everything she could do and become, a minimisation of everything she could be into something that could be easily thrown away as a sex-toy.

Kaufman really was a creep, she thought. On some level, her existence was a reflection of all the creepy weirdos out there.

A chime from the lift caught her attention. The doors rolled back to reveal the man she was there to see.

The back of her mind began scanning for interest tells - the little strings she could tug on to start a conversation and build an artificial rapport if she needed to. Anyone who actually liked Supermacs was likely a culchie^[2]. Athletic - almost lanky. Maybe played football or hurling. Broken tooth suggested Hurling.

He glanced at her. By the path his gaze took, she knew how to subtly adjust her posture. It was about making herself glow in his eyes. Finally, he noticed the bag of food in her hand.

"I'm only after seeing it picked up five minutes ago." He looked right at her face for the first time "Christ you came quick."

Double-entendre not intended.

She handed him a hot, brown paper back with one hand. "Enjoy your lunch!"

The receptionist filled the room with a dark cloud of hatred, rolling down from the ceiling like smoke.

"If you're happy with your delivery, you can leave a tip through our app," she held up her own phone to show where. "Big tips make riders come quicker."

Double-entendre intended.

She felt her eyes spark momentarily. His eyes glazed subtly, a fantasy of what might be possible running through his mind. All he had to do was enter a number big enough and his fantasies might come through.

All eyes in the room focused in on her.

A subtle shift in her smile as he took his own phone from his pocket, nudged him towards the goal. Still holding his lunch limply in one hand, it took him a few heart-racing moments to enter the correct amount into the app.

Meg's own phone buzzed a moment later.

"Thanks!" she beamed.

Then left him standing there, chased out the door by one final hate-filled stare from behind the reception desk. Back out in the city air, and with her bicycle still unstolen, Meg took a moment to breath, before checking her phone.

He'd paid her twice the order cost.

A sense of guilt washed across her heart, along with the idea that maybe she should go back and provide the reward she'd silently promised. She took another breath to cool herself and and override the nudge the program in the back of her mind had generated.

Her phone chirped in her pocket, offering another selection of lunch orders to take. After a few moments consideration, she picked the one most likely to keep her streak going, then set off for a nearby sandwich shop.

Some office must've been having a celebration to order so many sandwiches. Maybe a retirement?

The bonus payments had started to get amusingly high - to the point where every other rider in the city had probably began to subsidise her with their own failures - and the app began to offer her the sort of rides that would take a motorcycle to complete.

Or to be an artificial human. Using some of the tools she'd been built with to her own advantage, seemed fair.

The city stopped. Sylvie kept riding.

Where Megatokyo stretched and faded into the countryside, Dublin city just cut off, as if the motorway circling the city acted as the wall holding back its spread.

She turned off motorway, passed a housing estate, and entered the foothills of the mountains to the south of the city. Within moments, she rode beneath the cool green blanket of a forest canopy. Golden morning sunlight filtered between leaves and shafted through the gaps and fissures between trees, mottled reflections sparking off her motorcycle's windscreen and gauges.

Sylvie tucked herself tight against the hard metal of the fuel tank, clenched her thighs tight against its sides and wound the throttle another exhilarating turn tighter.

The growl of the engine rose to a scream that thrilled through her body. Her heart raced as the tachometer nudged the redline.

A tap from her foot snapped another gear into place.

Her phone buzzed against her chest.

She ignored it, charging uphill, breaking out of the trees and into the mountains beyond. The greens of fresh grass yielded to the rust of bogland heathers, a ribbon of tarmac cutting over the mountain pass.

Stone walls ripped past, threatening to tear her apart. Sheep chewed at the grass growing in the margins, scarcely concerned about her.

Her phone buzzed again against her chest.

She twisted the throttle, sweeping around a bend, slicing through a gap in a traffic, passed a pair of ink-black lakes and a copse of trees.

The road climbed higher, opening up, accelerating across a short stone bridge over a babbling mountain stream, bringing her to a desolate crossroads.

She stopped, considering a moment.

The bike's engine burbled between her legs. The fans whirred to cool it down.

Her phone insisted.

She plucked it from the open zip of her jacket, and checked the screen. The coffee shop was wondering where she was.

If she went back through Roundwood, then back up the N11, she'd get there in time for lunch.

The monochrome faces of dead Irish patriots looked down on Meg as she sat herself on a bench in a small plaza on George's St, opposite a colourful Eurospar shop, and an equally colourful bar with silvered windows, which had taken its name from the street.

Each Patrios was accompanied by the text of the Proclamation of The Irish Republic, translated into a half-dozen foreign languages now common in the State.

She found she could read each of them, decompiling them down through a semantic matrix into the the wordless language of her true mind, before projecting it into a chosen Terministic screen to place her in a cultural time and space.

Most of the city's delivery riders used the plaza at some stage during the day. Most spoke about how unkind the City had been to them. Pedro just got beaten, had his bicycle and pickup stolen - and got penalised by the app for being late and losing the food. It cost him a full day's pay.

Elias got arrested for kicking a shitling who pulled a knife.

They were living eighteen to a house, in dorms of six, and they were waiting on Godot to fix the hot water.

Meg had an app on her phone in Brazilian Portuguese which warned her in real time of the parts of the city to avoid taking jobs to. A vague shadowy comprehension of the language had begun to form in the back of her mind - enough to be uncomfortable with what they said about her when they thought she couldn't understand them.

A warm baguette wrapped in grease paper dropped into her lap,

"They call this a Chicken Fillet roll," said Lou, as if she'd discovered some great new invention worthy of a Nobel prize. She sat herself on the bench beside Meg, meticulously unwrapping her own roll.

"You should try a breakfast roll."

"Too much grease." Lou squirmed in disgust. "Too filling."

Meg gave a shrug "Your loss," she said. "A good breakfast roll got me through a full day at college."

Lou answered Meg with a puzzled look, leaving Meg sitting with a sinking sensation deep in the pit of her stomach, like she'd just inadvertently admitted that she liked eating live cats. Realisation dawned across Lou's face.

Of course, you were someone else.

Of course, thought Meg, I really was someone else.

"Maybe humans need to eat more," said Lou, after a moment's thought.

Whatever thought Meg had on it vapourised, leaving her sitting dumb for another second, while Lou took a hearty bite out of the side of her lunch. Taking a bite out of a breadroll end-on was a mistake you made only once.

Lou wore nothing more expressive than her Eurospar uniform - a zip-up fleece the colour of freshly poured concrete, an unflattering red polo neck shirt and black jeans.

People still stole glances in a way they just didn't for ordinary human beings.

A snort escaped Meg's nose as one unfortunate forgot to look in the direction he was traveling and pinged head-first off a steel lamppost. Pigeons resting on the light overhead fluttered away in panic. Packets of powder launched from the man's blue Michelin-man style jacket into the traffic

His friend in a red jacket offered sympathy in the local style. "Hah! Deco yeh spa!"

"Shurrep yeh prick!" he moaned, not quite fully away of what had happened. He stumbled to his feet with the help of the same lamppost that'd knocked him down.

Lou radiated unease, her whole body going tense as a drumhead. She slipped herself closer to Meg, setting the remaining half of her sandwich onto the bench beside her. Lou wanted her hands free, just to be safe.

Deco, clung to the lamppost for dear life, the rusting gears inside his mind struggling to mesh with reality. He looked like a zombie that hadn't realised it was supposed to be dead, his clothes still scruffy and torn from crawling up from the grave, his eyes sunken deep into their sockets.

He mightn't have eaten in days.

Nobody in the crowd paid him much, if any attention - avoiding him like fish swimming around a rock.

He stood. He staggered. He picked at the white fluff spilling from a rip in the blue nylon of his jacket as if it might've been bits of himself leaking out.

"Junkies," Meg sighed, placing a hand on her thigh to reassure her. "The gearheads are mostly harmless."

A look of pure terror burst across his features. His hands shot to his pockets. His skin turned white, then green with horror, his eyes bulging.

"I'm after losin' i'!" he cried.

His mate in the red jacket gave him a strange look, raising a single black bushy eyebrow.

"Yer wha'?"

"I'm after losin' the gear!" Deco pleaded.

His friend answered him with a look of pure disgust, looming over him like a teacher over a child that'd soiled the classroom floor. "Aaaghh Wha'?"

"It's not in me pocke' "

His friend shoved him back. "Well I amn't sharing mine again."

Deco lunged. "Yeh will just for a bi'."

One hard slap turtled him on his back. "Fuck off will yeh!"

His former friend took the chance to run, leaving Deco to make nothing more than a disappointed moan, before he stumbled to his feet, once again plucked at the stuffing spilling from his jacket, and achieved a strange sort of Zen acceptance with his circumstances.

He turned to face both Meg and Lou, his eyes blankly staring into the gap between them at something on the wall behind only he could see.

"Any change for a sambo?" he said, automatically.

Both Meg and Lou silently shook their heads in perfect unison, not saying a word. It wasn't a sandwich he wanted.

He shuffled on, momentarily defeated, but still determined in the way only a heroin addict could possibly manage.

Curious pigeons pecked increasingly frantically at a plastic bag on the road, scattering some of the powder inside to the wind.

Lou nudged her in the side with a sharp elbow. "You were saying."

"Mostly..." said Meg. She took one large bite from her sandwich to absolve herself of having to explain further.

The city continued about its day around them, dozens of people hurrying about their lives, each living in their own private worlds with their own personal pressures. Meg found herself trying to imagine their life stories as she watched.

A driver in a white transit stopped at the traffic lights, his face a picture of seething rage directed at a red light that mindlessly made him late. Another grey-haired man touching retirement age, enthroned in the driver's seat of his black Mercedes with a suit jacket hung in the rear window and mobile phone tucked against his ear, altering the terms of some unequal deal. A middle-aged woman whose blond hair had started to silver, wearing the same clothes she had for the last three days, pushing a trolley with all her worldly possessions down the lane past Gino's Gelataria looking for a sheltered spot for her tent. A confusion of Americans clustered around a phone, struggling to orientate themselves against the landmarks. The theme park didn't match the map.

Another rider like herself, dejected after having his morning's bonus erased by one delivery gone bad, chained up his bike to a signpost before heading into Bewley's for a coffee that would cost him the guts of his morning work. A pair of teenagers in Canada Goose jackets eyed the bike with larcenous intent.

"None of these people are really doing what they want to be doing, are they?" asked Lou.

Meg could only answer with a shrug. "That's life, I guess."

Except for the prick in the Mercedes. No good person ever drove a new Mercedes.

Lou stared down at a spot in the road, her mind spinlocking. Pigeons cooed soothingly at the empty remnants of a plastic bag, heads bowed as if they'd lost all concept of the possibility of ever being in danger.

"A man came into the shop this morning. He asked for my phone number," she said. A smile crawled across her face as she turned to look at Meg. "I said I wasn't interested. He apologised for bothering me." An alto chuckle escaped her throat.

Meg answered with a look of pure disbelief. "Have you played the Lotto yet?"

Lou blinked owlishly. "No?"

Meg thought it easier not explain. "Never mind," she said.

"Anyway," Lou took a breath. "What I meant was..." she leant in as if she was about to share the deepest, darkest secret of her life.

"I can say 'No'."

And now, saying 'No' mattered.

Nam was the last to finish cleaning her station, carefully arranging all her tools and products as the others did. Anything that contacted a human being was left in the steriliser. Anything that didn't, had its own specific place in the cabinet.

She wiped down the black leather of her client's chair. She swept the hairs from the tiled floor into a single pan, before tipping them into a black plastic bag. A few spritzes from an unmarked bottle hazed out her reflection in the mirror.

She wiped it clear in three quick strokes.

Nam saw herself in her denim jacket and a mini-skirt every other woman in the place thought edged just a little bit too short. She saw her own steel-grey eyes and skin the colour of over-milked tea.

"Nam? You're still here?"

Julia emerged from the stockrooms, wrapped up tightly in an incongruously heavy duffle jacket. Being from Brazil, maybe Julia felt the cold more, Nam surmised.

"I wanted to do this before I left," answered Nam, showing of a few stray strands of hair where she'd added a blue tint to the tips. "Nadezhda said I look like a doll, so I did a gradient."

Julia gave her a look for a moment.

"She's just jealous of your complexion," she said. "You're going to have to tell me how you do it sometime."

Nam thought a moment.

"...I'm just made that way, I guess," she offered a bashful smile.

"The modesty act doesn't suit you."

Nam's smile broadened just a little. A blush coloured her pale skin. Julia grew just that bit larger in her mind, a little more radiant as if the gain on her presence turned up. Nam found herself idly toying with the idea of wondering just how warm a hug Julia could give.

"Anyway," Julia continued, after a moment's glance. "What I actually wanted to talk to you about, was your future with us."

"Oh." The implied threat caused her to shrink subtly down into herself, her eyes broadening into into a pleading expression, looking up at Julia for deliverance.

A shudder thrilled through Julia's body, her mind aware that something wasn't quite right with how her body responded. Nam caught the shift in posture, the subtle glazing in Julia's eyes, and realised one of her strings had been accidentally pulled.

Those strings had allowed her owners to puppet her. Nam owned herself.

The spell lifted from Julia's face.

"Anyway, your skills match your qualifications," she carried on. "But it's like you've never actually worked before, like you came down from space."

Cold fingers crawled up the back of Nam's spine.

"Relax," Julia smiled. "I'm not going to fire you," she said. "You do good work. And customers really like you."

Nam's smile broadened, her face turning hot and pink. Her smile came from her true self, from the sense of being safe, welcomed and belonging.

Nam had a space here, in this world, all her own.

"I make them feel good," she said, "Good about themselves."

Julia nodded.

"Well, people are mentioning you by name on Google reviews, and that's good enough for me."

Nam found herself lost for words.

"I'll see you tomorrow," said Julia.

As she watched Julia leave, it finally dawned on her. The warm feelings that settled on her like a soft blanket.

Nam belonged.

Meg found herself lost in her reflection in the mirror in her bathroom. Her exact thoughts were hidden beneath the veil in the back of her mind, being translated into a pleasure in simply being. The sensation of the grain of the wood planking beneath her toes. The sweet coconut and vanilla of her shampoo, mingling with dry timbers, ancient smokes from the fireplace and cold stone. The subtle metal creak from the electric radiator as it warmed the room, the steady drip-drip from the shower and the distant warnings of an ambulance siren. Fingers of cold air crawled across her body, caressing her chest.

Genom Model 33-S, her mind reassured.

"You really can tell you used to be a human male."

Lou's voice shot up her back like an electric current. Meg turned on her heel The other woman stood silhouetted in the doorway, one hand supporting herself.

"So this is where you've been for an hour."

Meg's lips pursed into an imitation of a pout. "Not a complete hour," she said. "And... our bodies really are amazing when you think about it."

From a purely engineering standpoint, of course.

"You like being a sexaroid?"

It didn't sound like an accusation. Meg still felt a hot flash of shame flush across her face.

"My head is clear. I have a good sense of people. I don't get tired." She glanced at her image in the mirror again, shifting her hips a little. "I amn't stressed. And I do have a life, my own space in the universe."

"And a body most humans could only dream of."

Meg grabbed the clothes she'd set aside, in an attempt to change the subject "And that's why it was so hard to find things that actually fit."

"That's Sylvie's top."

Meg held the black sleeveless top against her chest. Interchangeable production assemblies had an advantage when it came to sharing wardrobes.

"She left it in the common drawer. It's fair game."

Lou answered with a dubious expression for a moment, Meg flashed a grin, and began her struggle to slip herself into it, one arm at a time.

"It's nice to see what we could've been if we'd never been property," said Lou, after a moment. "What we should've been."

"It's what we are now," said Meg, before adjusting the fit at her waist.

"But we," said Lou, "were something else, and that'll never go away."

Once again, Meg felt herself going cold as the odd one out. A strange part of her mind wished to have some recollection of Genaros - even to give context to how they felt.

Meg had never lived in fear.

Her function was to help them understand what it was like not to live in fear.

"I'll be downstairs soon," she said, flatly, hoping to be left alone for a moment to process a sensation she just could put words.

"I'll put dinner in the microwave then."

Meg offered a thin smile as a thanks. The door closed, leaving her with her ruminations, and a question her mind wouldn't allow her to be aware of.

Genom Model 33-S. it answered.

Even the idea of admitting she liked that answer left her simmering with shame, and the dread fear that someone would find out.

Nobody should like being a sexaroid.

Maybe, she thought, that was what Lou had been touching on.

She finished dressing herself - managing to force herself into a pair of shorts, and ignore the vague sense of wrongness that suggested she lounge around in her underwear instead. She sat herself on the radiator, soaking in its warmth.

There were no phone calls. No stolen shipments and angry customers. No breakdowns requiring an urgent solution. Nothing to worry about.

Just some late construction being finished at the house down the street, the distant murmur of conversations rising from The Kings Inn on the corner and the evening traffic on Bolton Street beyond.

They'd all wished for escape on some level, from something.

And on some level, that wish had been granted.

That thought finally carried her down stairs worn smooth by centuries of feet before hers. From Lords and Ladies of its heyday, to the tenementers who'd called it home for a hundred years. Scorchmarks on the timber spoke of flames dropped to light the way downstairs at night.

Plaster had flaked from the red bricks of the wall beside the staircase.

When the bricks had been laid, America had a King, New France extended from Newfoundland to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico extended to what would be Texas. The Qing empire reached its zenith. Japan existed in its own insulated sphere under the Pax Tokugawa. The peoples of what would become Australia dreamed and lived much as they had for the previous 60,000 years.

And now four cyborgs from the future called it home.

That seemed like a paradox. Meg liked that.

She pushed open the door to the living area. Nam had the fire roaring, filling the room with flickering light, heat and the earth scent of peat smoke from the briquettes. Four pans had been set by the fire to collect coals to warm their rooms overnight.

Nam had learned.

Sylvie lay on her back on the couch, face bathed in the blue glow of her phone, her bare legs hinged over the armrest, dressed in nothing but her underwear and a tank-top. Her fingers tapped through screens.

"You're back already?" said Meg.

Sylvie normally came home later.

"I got fired," Sylvie answered simply, before peering out from behind her screen. A scowl crossed her face. "And that's mine."

Meg pursed her lips into a deliberate pout. "You put it in the drawer."

"Nam did the washing."

Nam looked over from the fire. "You three are all the same body type. How am I supposed to tell? Especially when you share clothes to save money and then dump them in the same basket."

Meg glanced at Sylvie, then patted herself on the chest. It was definitely a comfortable top.

"Wash it yourself next time rather than put it in the common basket," Nam finished.

Sylvie threw her a scowl, unable to come up with an answer. Meg nestled herself a comfortable spot on the couch before she could, adjusting her stolen top a moment to keep it from bunching up.

"I guess I can make a few more runs to cover until you find something else," Meg said. "Otherwise we'll have no coal in a week."

An extra two hours a day would cover it. A subtle pang deep in her chest reminded her of a time when done the exact same thing on a once-off occasion, and where it'd led to.

Eventually, everything became work and nothing else remained. Meg took a breath and put it to the back of her mind, alongside the spot where she'd been trying to get DOOM to run for the last week, and the parts of her former self that had dived headfirst into burnout to try and find if something existed on the other side.

Lou arrived with dinner a few minutes later - a basic chilli cooked up using a jarred sauce, frozen mince and enough rice to be filling. She seemed proud of her own achievement, having had to learn even this much from scratch and nobody dared complain about receiving a hot meal.

Anri's dinner remained on a plate under a pot lid in the oven, quietly desiccating at a minimum temperature.

The evening news spoke about the upcoming elections in the States and the ongoing consequences of the Brexit vote. The following Late Late Show featured a survival expert explaining how not to die in the various wildernesses the average person would never find themselves in, while avoiding any mention of drinking his own piss.

The show had ended before a fresh cold blast of air announced Anri's homecoming.

"I'm done," she said, before the door slammed shut behind her. Fatigue dripped from her body as she struggled to carry her weight across the floor.

"Dinner's in the oven," Lou announced. "I made it myself."

She slumped herself into a spare chair, slipping her feet out of her shoes. She still wore her overcoat. "I need to rest."

A momentary expression of hurt passed across Lou's face in an eyeblink, before she caught herself "You okay, Anri?"

"I just needed to get something finished," she said. A breath mutated into a yawn, covered by her hand. "I'll have to go in early to get the bid in before nine."

She looked about ready to fall asleep.

"This isn't what I wanted. Is this what any of us wanted?" Sylvie asked, looking up from her screen. "Is this why we left the station?"

All eyes turned to her. The late Friday film on the telly began to run through its opening credits.

"This is how people actually live," Meg answered. This is the real world.

"But we can't do anything!" Sylvie jumped to her feet. "I hate it!"

Meg had stood, feeling the rush through her body.

"So does everybody else," she said, even as she hated herself for even saying it. "This is life. Everyone hates it, everyone's miserable and the only ones who aren't are the cunts who create the misery in the first place." And that had come from a place deep in the soul, somewhere beyond the curtains in the back of her mind that cut her off from who she used to be. "For me, this is better than what I used to do."

"But is anybody else actually happy?" Sylvie's gaze turned to each of them in turn. Nam glanced to Anri. Anri turned to Lou. Lou looked to Meg for the answer. "Are we?"

Meg took a breath. She felt the moment prickle.

"So what do you want to do?"

Sylvie blinked. She breathed. Her mouth opened a moment.

"I want to be a rockstar," she said, expecting to be shot down.

Nobody dared. A jolt of surprise crawled up Meg's spine. Of all the things, that'd been the answer she hadn't expected.

"I want to be the person on the stage while the entire room is cheering. I want to be in the spotlight. I mean..." For the first time since they'd arrived, a light sparked in Sylvie's eyes, a gleam of joy, a glimmer of hope and anticipation. "...when I first met Priss and saw her in concert I thought, 'that's what I want to do, that's who I want to be, that's what freedom is'."

It sat in the air between them for a moment

"That sounds like fun!" Nam announced.

And that made the decision for all of them.

1. ↑ RMS: For us Americans, Eurospar is a European chain of large grocery stores.
2. ↑ RMS: "Culchie" is basically the Irish equivalent of "hick", "bumpkin" or "yokel". Dubliners use it to describe anyone Irish who is not from Dublin.