Chapter Two
Ten minutes to get from the 34th floor back to ground level, because the elevators didn’t work above the 25th floor and smelled of piss anyway. Fifteen minutes on the public transit to the stop nearest her work. She looked out of the carriage window at run-down tenements and fortified stores like mini-forts, spray painted slogans on them like “Wealth creates slavery”. One time, “Hungry? Eat a pig for dinner!” Public security guys in their armored truck cruising past the graffiti, looking nervous. No prizes for guessing the dissidents were strong in this neighborhood.
You knew when you were in a “safe” area. There were billboards and video displays that said things like “You’re only safe because we kill dissidents,” “Terrorists need information: don’t talk in public” and “Stay safe, report anything suspicious NOW.” And they hadn’t been completely obliterated by spray-paint, or were only partly vandalized.
Where she was walking, none of those informational messages existed. They’d all been destroyed, months ago.
Five minutes walk at the other end, past a burned-out van that been there a month, a pile of rotting plastic sacks, a broken-down basketball court that had been colonized by illegal gambling stalls and vendors of stolen goods. Past pawn shops, cheap electronics stores and a secondhand bookstore—as if anyone these days knew what a book was. Or even, for a good proportion of the population, knew how to read.
She slipped in the door on the back alley, waved her old-fashioned QR-code staff pass at the camera, read the screen that told her she was 23 seconds late, cumulatively three minutes and 11 seconds late for the month, one minute 49 seconds remaining before it triggered a late penalty. She sighed, went through to the changing cubicle and got ready for her shift.
Her uniform comprised a corporate G-string and handkerchief top, shoes of her own choice. Bare feet were considered a health and safety risk. Cassie used the strappy high heels she always left in her locker as a backup. Mostly she alternated between her dominatrix-style thigh boots, and her “slave” boots—the name given to the design when she’d bought them. They w
