Alan Jules "Jewel" Elliott, who on some days appreciated his mundane string of names and on others hated them as unspeakably generic plastic, thought that when he decided to claim some of his vacation days, forsaking the daily hamster-wheel for a week or two, the drug-high from the extra sleep and sunlight (the smog there was red) might at least last him long enough to reach his decrepit little apartment on Third West. Instead he felt it draining from his bloodstream even as he stepped through the long, snaking tunnel of security precautions leading off the airplane and out of the terminal.

I'm home, he thought contemptuously to himself.

Does any of your skin contain polysiloxanes, including those which are distributed under the street-name "Gargoyle"? No. Any metal hardware below the neck, including bones, cartilage, enamel—? No. Have your cephalic implants malfunctioned recently? Yes, but I'm not in the mood right now for another two hours of paperwork. So please and thank you, I'll tell you "No" just to move forward. Instinctively he reached for his temple and pressed against it, slightly soothing the prickly needling sensation he felt bashing against the inside of his skull, but the security personnel, either not noticing or not caring, said nothing about it. Maybe his rank in the company afforded him some secret luxuries, like getting through security checkpoints with only half the inquisition any normal squat on the street received.

Diseased by jet-lag, by simple, mundane exhaustion, by a fierce craving for decent bourbon, by the bright, sterile colors which assailed his eyeballs like a little nuclear holocaust self-contained within the airport, Jewel dragged his soles along the dreadful carpet. Its hue frustrated him terribly, how it teetered toyingly between a pale steel-blue and a true colorless grey, so he dragged these downtrodden eyeballs up toward the big sheet windows and the languid milky walls, scanning them for something but also nothing in particular. He overlooked the hanging plants, because every airport used the same hanging plant, from the species to the plantpot cupping it, in every dreary hallway. So his tired eyes had adapted to ignore them, and their fake-vibrant greens were assimilated in his eyeballs' angst by the insipid greys. He felt like a germ crawling along a news reporter's bleach-polished, perfectly straight tooth, with all flaws and blemishes but him already banished from her smile. He could feel germs slithering along his skin in turn, with the way everything shined, glass and steel and polymer; he was much too alive for this place, too filthy with biles and tissues.

By the time he had escaped this bureaucratic labyrinth intact, he was much too irritable to be thinking straight, and as he started sleepwalking home, he nearly walked past his ride. She was sat nearby, waiting for him to arrive.

@DarknessDawning

When Ona's calendar woke her early this morning with the reminder that she would be picking Jewel up from the airport today she knew that it was going to be a long day. Ona had an incessant need to appear 'presentable' as she called it whenever she knew she was going to be out in public for any given time. She'd spent hours showering in steaming hot water, scrubbing her body and her face, then applying a careful regimen of creams and treatments to remove any blemish, pigment, redness, or anything else she viewed as an imperfection. Afterwards she wrapped her body tight in bindings that would hold everything in and perfectly poised. She applied makeup that paled her already porcelain skin even more. Getting dressed was just as taxing... requiring her to try on outfit after outfit only to be annoyed at the way one seemed to show a pudge in her bound stomach, or a made her shoulders too broad, her legs too short, her arms too thick.

The obsession was eating her alive day after day, but she would never admit it. By the time she was finished she could hardly sit, hadn't eaten, and was still utterly unimpressed with her appearance. She settled on a long black ensemble with wide legged pants and a skin tight top that was nude in color with bold black lines, making it appear as though she were wrapped in thin straps of leather. She placed one of her signature head wraps make of metallic geometric shapes over the hair that she'd changed more often than the seasons and yet still hated, and grabbed a "diet drink" instead of bothering to actually eat anything. Her diet drinks were mainly water and lemon juice, but having something seemed to deter the constant questions from random people. She convinced herself that if she lost just a few more pounds, people would stop staring; just a few more pounds and she'd be beautiful.

She left her drab apartment that was not nearly as adorned as her wardrobe and headed out to pick up her coworker. In the parking lot she'd become distracted looking at herself in the mirror... her eyebrows looked strange and her cheeks were puffy. A sick feeling welled in her stomach and for a moment she was sure that she would burst through her bindings and her clothes and become exposed for the bloated grotesque creature she was. Her self loathing was abruptly interrupted however when Jewel's wandering form started past the vehicle as though he'd not seen her at all.

She rolled down the window and pulled up quickly, startling a woman waiting to cross the path of traffic.

"Jewel! Hey Jewel!"

She hit the horn twice with her palm, careful to not damage her manicured nails shaped like talons.

When the horn honked Jewel jumped back with alarm, his id flashing in his eyes, a deer spooked by the halation of headlights. He smiled, but Ona knew it was disingenuous; the smile itself was vibrant enough, but at his eyes and cheeks, where he should have wrinkled, instead his features were limp, drooping, lifeless. He smiled socially, not spontaneously; to be polite, not because he was in a good mood, she saw.

"Hey!" he said. "You didn't forget!" He regretted the words from the moment they left his mouth; like bullets he could not call them back to their casings, their powder all spent. He realized how Ona, ever bursting with eager obsequiousness, might interpret them: that she was unreliable, that he did not trust her to follow through on her promise. Sharpening his wits up in that moment, he watched her face carefully, searching for those subtle changes in her features which would betray her feelings. Not even patchers could hide them perfectly.

He didn't have to look hard. Already distracted by her own belief that she was somehow thicker in this moment despite days of eating little or nothing, her guard wasn't fully up and repaired yet. At least not with him... perhaps coming from someone else she'd have manage to keep her grin and her serene face. Instead, her brow furrowed and her lips turned heavy with a frown.

"Of course not... I would never. I've had an alert scheduled for weeks."

Just as quickly as it washed over her... the hurt, the self-loathing, the determination that she would do more, be more to convince him of her trustworthiness, her eyes met his and her resolve returned. Her abruptly injured expression dissolved in to the serene nothingness of her pale complexion. Emotion was not pretty. Emotion was not acceptable. She was not allowed to hurt when other people were there to see it. She stopped and waited for him to enter the vehicle, turning her eyes back to the road casually as though she were nothing more than a chauffeur.

"How was your vacation?"

It was her work voice... the flat-lined monotone monotonous soft flow of words meant to convey nothing and elicit everything... the voice she used when engaging interviews. The voice that allowed no one near.

"There's come an opening in sector 2F. I received instructions to initiate the recruitment process. There's been several potentials apply already. I have yet to initiate interviews however. I suspected that you might want to review the applications yourself first."

Jewel held up a finger, hoping to stall for time, if but a moment. When granted (grudgingly or otherwise), he had thrown his suitcase into the back seat, but first, retrieved from it a bottle. As he joined her up front, seizing for himself the passenger seat, he tucked it between his feet. "Duty-free," he shrugged. It would have been stupid not to indulge himself at those prices.

Part of him needed the liquor; and the other part, a true moment of silence, or the city's vulgar version of it, which wailed relentlessly with engines, steam, and whirring cogs. He still hadn't found his stomach yet for talk revolving around work, business, interviews, and paperwork, though he was never one to deny the woman her meticulous nature, the robust industry which would earn her the promotion she wanted. Some day. All they had to do was notice her, and she had already won them over with her smile, the real, wrinkly one.

"It was great, Ona. I got to try the real thing down there. From a real tree, not a petri dish." He pointed knowingly to her poor-girl's health tonic sitting in the cupholder, the stench of citrus invading his nostrils pleasantly, if not subtly. It was familiar to him, like the scent of clothes scavenged from around the bed, and pressed to the face, to remind oneself of she who was real flesh just a few hours ago, but now just a memory. When he smelled lemons he always suspected Ona was nearby, fretting over her almost-perfect figure, still not perfect enough. He shut the door behind him, trapping the cold outside the vehicle, but the violent lemon scent inside. Pick your poison. He buckled up; he chose his methods of suicide carefully, and violent vehicular manslaughter seemed to him much too crass. He much preferred the poison route, indeed.

Ona raised a brow at the bottle, but otherwise seemed unperturbed. She'd heard and seen lots of people go on vacation and come back with a plethora of odds and ends and unusuals that were cheaper or exclusive at their vacation destination. She had her own personal dreams of visiting a major fashion destination and pumping new life in to her ever dull and repetitive wardrobe.

Her lips tightened briefly as she pulled out of the pick up line only to crawl with traffic attempting to escape the airport on to the over packed highways back to town.

"Oh yeah?"

She followed his finger to her lemon water. She'd become numb to the citrus smell long ago. In her mind it had already lost its effects as her body became acclimated to her regular consumption. In truth, she'd been turned away by plastic surgeons and diet groups and plans a like for a long time. They all claimed there was nothing that they could do for her. They were probably right anyways. She wasn't sure how those diet groups got off pretending like they were actually dieting at all. She only ever gained weight on that type of program and constantly felt bloated and grotesque.

She pulled around a slow moving car and sped up abruptly to match the pace of their new lane.

"I hear it doesn't really taste that different. I mean, they've gotten pretty good at all of that food engineering stuff. It's practically the same thing now right?"

"Between you and me, I think the real ones were worse. Too small and sour," Jewel replied. He didn't quite feel deceived, but he felt a once-bitten wariness now toward those advertisements in the news bulletins. Like most things in this city, the raucous boasting and immaculate surface sheens had built up an impossible apex, a summit upon which only the superhuman could plant their flags. They had promised the sky was bluer down there, the ocean cleaner; and though there certainly were fewer dead fish bobbing on the surface, still the waters were deemed unsafe for swimming, so the difference in water quality seemed not to matter in any practical effect. And of course, the prices in the tourist districts were old-fashioned highway robbery while the "real" areas, the ones swarming with roving gangs of young children as old wooden ships swarmed with rats, were much too perilous for city folks like him. While he was largely able to keep it to himself, Jewel had a pessimistic streak which even the enormous airstrip struggled to contain, and he had a talent for being able to complain about anything.

Still, even if he was the sort of man to air his concerns so wantonly, he would not have complained this time, mostly because he did not need to see a true blue sky, or the world's last clear blue ocean; he had wanted silence, and peace, and a condition of the inner apathy by which so many of his coworkers could gracefully let their problems roll off them like rain off an oiled coat, no matter how heavy the bombardment. These he had found in the luscious faux-velvets of his hotel bed, and in the enclosed rainforest garden, and several other places down there.

"2F, huh?" He rested his head against the window, his eyelids threatening to snap shut any moment. Too bad. He wanted to avoid work talk but he couldn't think of anything else he and Ona were both interested in; she didn't drink whiskey, nor he overpriced diet supplements. "Who got laid off?"

Ona imagined a smaller version of the yellow oval shaped plastic container that held the sweet and sour juice she added to her water daily. If she left it out on accident the sour could become overwhelming, enough to make your lips curl involuntarily. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to partake in such a flavor. Perhaps people's taste buds were different back then... less sensitive or something.

A sensor beeped loudly, a red light flashing on the left side of her vision as her and the vehicle next to her seemed to drift a little too close to each other. Perhaps both drivers were distracted. Ona didn't hesitate to grumble and throw up her hand at the guy like it was his fault though. "Stay in your lane! For fuck sake."She pushed forward, passing the man quickly before sliding in to the turn lane to pull off the highway and head towards Jewel's home.

"Yeah... not a lay off. It was Alphonse Mandeville. They said he had a heart attack."

There was a slight apprehension to her voice. She hadn't known Mandeville personally, but she'd been part of the review in his hire process. Though it had been several years, the man was relatively young and possessed no known problematic habits. No smoking, no drinking, no dangerous hobbies. No history of substance use. He'd been an exemplary employee. No nearby family, no major connections. His profile suggested that he would be a devoted worker with few distractions; married to his work.

"He fell out of his chair during a meeting. They called the paramedics, but he died in the hospital just a few hours later. Unknown heart condition or something."

Something not picked up during the rigorous testing that was included during the hiring physical. Statistically speaking, Jewel should have dropped dead before this guy. The lack of logic behind it all perturbed her enough to turn her usually serene face to a small scowl.

Jewel glanced toward her as she spoke. His alarm from her sudden swerving disrupted what little progress he had made toward sleep, and he gave her that bare modicum of manners as his way of expressing his gratitude for this favor she was doing him: eye contact (or as close as possible, when she was keeping her own eyes on the road). He was lucky enough to catch the frown, ever modest and controlled; she must have read somewhere that frowning too much causes wrinkles or some-such, he thought. For all her ruthless intelligence in the office and behind the one-way mirror, she seemed much too eager sometimes to believe, strongly and sincerely, that within her cheap Cosmo's and Allure Women's Beauty's, the secrets to eternal loveliness and great sex could be excavated. She was willing to dig through 109 pages of ads and fluff to find the one which divulged the location of the fountain of youth.

Only a vague silhouette of a man invaded Jewel's brain at mention of the name. He was not extremely sociable anyway, but less so outside of their sector and field. What interest had he in information technology, or in security? If he was interested in them then those are the jobs he would have studied in school and interviewed for at Transcomm. But then, that attitude, he understood, was why Ona would make it to the top someday and he'd be stuck here, hoping for her to toss him some scraps from the big table. He had too much pride for that, he told himself, but the company would call it a lack of ambition or worse, laziness. He thought Ona suckled their toes and licked their boots in vain, but they must have been quicker to assure her that it was getting her somewhere. Beyond the part of him that always wanted to be right and to say "I told you so," the rest of him knew she deserved that big break, and if she didn't get it, the word "justice" had been stripped of its meaning, soaked in turpentine and paint thinner until its naked bones stank.

"I thought those guys weren't supposed to die until they were two days from retirement," Jewel joked tastelessly. At least he didn't laugh at his own joke like a pissant. "Too bad. I guess the coffee frayed his nerves."

That got a breathy laugh and a brief smile. As mean as it might seem, it was a long standing joke at the expense of all humankind. The retirement age had been raised and raised until it was so high now that no one ever seemed to make it. On the rare occasion that someone did manage to escape the confines of fifty hour plus work weeks confined to a small grey cube in a building that smelt of mold and sanitizers, they generally died soon after. It was as though the freedom was simply too overwhelming and their bodies gave up. Of course most people in the manual labor positions worked themselves to death or died in work accidents. People in desk job positions lived longer, but grew fatter and weaker, their immune system and metabolism becoming compromised by long excessive hours with little physical activity.

"Yeah... I just wish they gave us the death report you know? I'd like to see what changed since we hired him years ago. Diet or something... Just to compare with my initial assessment."

And that's what it came down to. Ona didn't know the man and couldn't really care less that he died. People died all the time. No one would mourn her when she was gone. She simply hated the idea that his passing might suggest that she made a mistake on his assessment. That was impossible. If she couldn't be beautiful, couldn't be loved, couldn't be successful... at least she'd be right. She put more energy in to being right on a daily basis than she put even in to her personal appearance. Mandeville's death questioned that perfection.

Ona pulled up in front of a tall drab apartment building. "You want me to drop you at the door or go ahead and park? I can help you carry your things in..." Much to the disappointment of traffic around her, she sat there in the road as she looked to him with those grey blue eyes.

As the first horns honked, Jules looked warily over his shoulder, and then through the vehicle's side-mirror; he grabbed the handle hanging over his head, preparing for some more tight corners and fast speeds. "Let's park," he said. He certainly didn't miss the rush everyone seemed to be in around here. "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything, you know. I knew you'd come. It's just that—"

It's just that everything in his life tended to go wrong, especially at the molecular level. Troubles and worries liked to build up in his life like grains of sand, until he had built for himself a beach. He expected the ride to ditch him not because it was Ona in the cockpit, but because that was simply something which would happen to him after half a day's imprisonment on layaway flights, surrounded by overpriced cocktails, by children kicking his seat, by old men snoring. The ride not being there was not a human fault but a cosmic prank. There would be traffic buildup in the tunnels, or a car accident, or an engine malfunction forcing her to pull over; anything at all to make his life just slightly less convenient. Jules was selfish like that, worrying about the delays on the highways while the blood and broken glass invaded his thoughts fleetingly, invading and retreating in the same moment; not that that was much better or worse than people's deaths and injuries being a source of gossip at the office water coolers, he reckoned.

This notion expanded even into something as petty and trivial as their conversation, where Jules had been waiting for a moment to apologize without it feeling awkward. After all, Ona had just shrugged it off, and abruptly changed the topic, leaving him to wonder how much he had offended her. He knew he saw pain in her eyes, though since he was a patcher, and patchers were not mind-readers, he could only assume she felt betrayed. He needed to trust her more.

"—Eh, nothing. I appreciate it. You want a drink when we get up there?"

She gave a curt nod and pulled forward, turning sharply in to the parking garage much to the relief of the line of traffic she was creating. There was never any parking near the bottom and she'd long since quit even trying to look for it. Many people didn't even drive; leaving their cars permanently parked while they used public transportation. Seemed pointless to even have a car if you didn't intend to drive it, but some would argue Ona's investment in her wardrobe was pointless... to each their own.

She turned around the bend to speed up the incline to the next level and glanced over at him quickly. There was a slight harshness to the look but it gave way to a softer smile. "Oh stop it. There's nothing to apologize for." The words were a tad too quick. The damage was already done. Perhaps not consciously, but subconsciously Ona's impression of herself had already been tainted as someone that is not trusted by even those who are closest to her. The sick reality was that Jules even fell in to this category. Ona spent so much time focused on her career and her looks that she had nothing and no one to show for it. She would never admit that though. On the outside she was a happy, fulfilled woman who was madly in love with her life. She kept her self-loathing contained and tucked neatly away, only ever exposing it by accident to those who knew where and how to look for it.

"Sure... with traffic and the insanity of the airport, I went ahead and put in for the whole day today... just in case. I figured we were better reviewing the applications together anyways, and if I get done here early, I can always go in and put in the extra hours you know?"

That was Ona's vacation... picking him up. She hadn't taken a real vacation in the history of her work. She never called out. She came in on the weekends all the time. She was the perfect employee - overworked and underpaid and never asking for more while always assuming that someone was noticing. The silent, polished wheel never gets the oil.

Jules laughed. It was a weak exhale which staggered through his nostrils, accompanied with a smile so dry and thin like a cheap cigar. Both were phony; after all, it was never funny to him how seriously and sincerely she enslaved herself to her labors. But he had to make light of it, trusting that neither of them was in the mood for a lecture.

"Hey, let's take it easy," he beamed. "Kick your shoes off, have a Bloody Mary. We can worry about tomorrow's interviews tomorrow." A vodka beverage with antioxidants and a sharp fruit flavor; perfect for the weight-watcher, Jules knew. He'd go for two fingers of something brown, which she would insist had more calories in it. Vodka and gin were for clean people, and indeed, those who wanted to hide their harsher flavors behind more pleasant ones. Jules had a knack for liking to punish himself, so he'd acquired the tastes.

He stepped out of the vehicle and, closing the door, fished worriedly through his pockets. "Uh oh—oh. Oh, thank Christ." For a brief moment he had lost his keycard in the many nooks and crannies of his clothing, which was too bright and breezy for the damp air biting at their bones, with a sharpness like that of the chrome and glass of the skyscrapers this wind whistled between. He reached for his suitcase, and when she came round to his side of the vehicle, he gave her the door key.

Ona pulied in to an available spot a bit further from the lifts than she'd hoped... but a spot was a spot. She cut off the engine and gave Jules a smirk. His offer made her throat feel dry. Even though she'd been doing this "diet" since she was a teen, she'd never been able to fully kill her body's desire for food. The little ache in her stomach or lump in her throat always reminded her of her self deprivation.

"Maybe just one... a small one. If you promise to make it light. I don't need to be woozy the whole afternoon."

Indeed the few times he'd seen her drink before she was definitely a light weight, mostly likely due to the fact that she couldn't weigh more than a hundred pounds... probably less really.

She stepped out of the car and took a moment to wiggle, adjusting the leather straps that encased her torso and the high waist of her pants. Despite them reaching almost to the ground he would be able to immediately tell she was wearing ridiculously high heels. He'd seen her without them a few times before as well, and as much as she liked to hide it... she wasn't even five and a half foot tall. Currently she nearing six foot, which meant her ankles were bent at painfully sharp angles to adhere to the pressure of the stilts she insisted on wearing. Her steps click clicked along as she walked over to him.

When he held out the door key her eyes narrowed slightly, but she took it without a word and proceeded as gracefully as she could manage toward the building. They'd had this fight before and he never let her win... no point in trying to carry something for him now. She stepped up to the doorways and swiped the card across the reader to call the lift.

"So what else did you do on vacation besides eat lemons? "

"I was hoping to go scuba diving," Jules said, "but the lifeguards said the tides brought in too much pollution that week. Just my luck, right? I, uhh, I managed to get a few hikes and historical monuments in. And of course I slept in nice and late!" He saved that bit for last, knowing that of all the dirty, solitary activities he enjoyed, laziness was the most appalling, and would offend her high-and-tight sensibilities the most. She knew well enough that he didn't very much enjoy bars, or social drinking in general, but surely he did something to explore the cities' limelight; grabbing a bite to eat downtown, seeing some mock-vaudeville shows, attending a comedy club, something which wasn't just a man and his thoughts, and dirt in the treads of his sturdy walking shoes.

As Ona opened the door for him, he nodded his thanks, and dragged his suitcase out of the cold. He almost deigned to mention how delicious all the food was, but since it was so meaty, so rich in starches and fats, he realized he would only be taunting her in doing so. She walked along a razorblade; whether she starved herself for her beauty, or indulged herself and hated herself afterward, either way, thoughts of food and eating only harmed his friend. If only those engineers who had perfect a plump, juicy, sweet lemon could also perfect an imitation-meat which would satisfy both the carnivore among them and the dieter.

"I guess that's nice... just seems like a waste of your time though... I mean you rarely ever get to take a vacation." It was a polite way to voice her disapproval without making it a long conversation... again... beating a dead horse and all. Besides, it was ironic enough that she would even make that degree of a comment considering that she took vacations even less than he and yet spent hours picking out clothes and doing her make up on a daily basis. The two of them would never see eye to eye on what activities were 'wasteful' and which ones served a purpose.

"That sucks that you didn't get to go scuba diving though. I thought the clean up efforts were being more successful lately. Didn't AI (Atlantic International) install that big filter station a couple of months ago?"

She wandered in the room with a perplexed look on her face, almost as though she were trying to recall the exact date that their competitor may have completed the install. Pollution had been an issue for a longtime now. The air and water quality was constantly tipping back and forth between 'toxic' and 'barely usable'. The people wanted to see that corporations were actively trying to make things better, and so every now and then one of them would run a clean up campaign to inspire consumers and better their public image. Usually these projects had multiple causes though. Many suspected that the AI clean up station was either a drilling rig or a shipping midway point to cover the cost of its supposed 'clean up' operations. All of the projects were considered long-term anyways. By the time anyone suspected to see any improvements the public would have forgotten all about it anyways. Ona shrugged it off and closed the door behind herself and glanced casually around his apartment.

"Seriously Jules? I thought you hired a maid..."

"'Organized chaos.'" Jewel shrugged. "Leave it on the counter. Thanks!"

But Ona was right. If she could measure how much he cared about these facets of his life by how clean he kept their spaces in his apartment, then he seemed to care about his electronics and his home bar, and little else; though even these had thin filmy layers of dust painted over them by time and neglect. Most his furniture had been relegated as storage units, as there were enough coats draped across their backs, and enough pairs of shoes at their legs, to bar access from all but the most determined guests. Although trash was quarantined within bins and bags, these containers overflowed, as consistently he "forgot" to drag them down to the dumpsters on his way to work. The lavatory was clean enough, but an occasional stray hair on the floor or hard water stain on the shower walls would drive the neat-freak's meticulous senses crazy. Of course, to Ona any room with a wrinkle or two, a birthmark, a blackhead or blemish, was just one hair and one stain away from being an asylum cell, where Jewel was free to sleep in his own piss, and write his diary on the walls in his fecal matter. When he thought about it, she did request of guests that they warn her a few days in advance of her coming; did she spend entire days cleaning in preparation for these guests? Now that, to Jewel, was truly mad.

He tossed his suitcase haphazardly near one of the chairs. He'd unpack later, he resolved. For now he grabbed two pint glasses, and began fetching the long grocery-list of ingredients from his pantry and fridge, first the bottle of vegetable juice concentrates and then the hot sauce, the salt and pepper, and Worcestershire, and yes, a perfectly smooth, biohazard-yellow lemon.

Ona just sighed, giving a silent shake of her head as she stepped carefully to drop the key on the counter like he asked. No point in arguing with him. It was his apartment, not hers... men. The thought made her sneer slightly with a thought of "Ick". Perhaps another reason to justify forever being alone. Men were dirty. She didn't want to deal with a dirty man. It was a good way to excuse her perpetual isolation at least.

She stepped over to a bar stool layered in jackets and scooped them up carefully trying to not imagine the potential for a bug to come crawling out or whether or not they'd been cleaned since he last wore them. She set them on the next chair down and gingerly dusted at the seat with her fingers. For a moment she considered just standing instead of risking that the cushion might leave a circle of dust on her black pants, but her ribs were aching from her bindings and the shallow breathing they caused tended to leave her without much energy. She carefully warily perched just on the edge of the seat and watched him as he mixed her drink.

"So did you meet anyone nice on your vacation? I overheard that the shift supervisor on B level got married when he was on vacation... they were saying how he was still trying to work out the paperwork to get the girl in to the country. Not as easy as it used to be I guess... all those people who were just marrying to get in then divorcing and running off."

At first it almost sounded like a good idea - go to a tropical country and bring back some beautiful exotic partner who you knew for sure didn't work for any of the companies... yet. It felt safer for someone in Ona's position than Ona imagined it being trying to date and pretend to be non-biased. But the curiosity in her eyes darkened.

"I heard that if you bring someone in to the country now you're responsible for their actions... so if they run off or they do something, break the law or something, that you can be fined and go to jail on their behalf."

He built the cocktail in the glass. He liked his spicy, so he went heavy with the Tabasco, and had just been adding the vodka to the spiced lemon juice, though she could see already that he'd given her too much, at east three ounces.

"Hey, let's worry about the maid before I try to find a wife," he said, gesturing sweepingly across the apartment. "Or should I bring her to this dump?" He flashed her a smile just to be certain she knew he was poking fun. But like many smiles, adorning many faces across the city, his belied a stinging sadness. Yes, he had noticed every pretty girl he saw in Cancún, from the vacationers like him to the waitresses who brought his food; he could not choose not to notice those things in life of which he, and he alone, seemed totally deprived. (For it was impossible for Jules to realize that his was not the only phony happiness in the city; he believed their mirages just as they believed his.) Dozens of rejections, in his younger, more idealistic days, had taught him to shut his mouth around these girls. They smiled not to hide their pain and feign at bravery, but to deceive in other ways, toward selfish ends! The tourists wanted him to hold the camera as they took a group photo, or to give them a quick laugh, like some circus freak, with his big ears, and the hair he had grown long to hide them, and his tepid eyes which always looked terrified of some distant threat. Meanwhile the waitresses wanted higher tips. Deep down he must have "known" that even Ona wanted to use him; that he was only worth people's time when he had something they wanted. Though what Ona wanted he could not fathom; a job reference, probably, for when she outgrew Transcomm and decided it was time to move up to Ohmscorps.

Thankfully he was not totally hopeless. Unlike some sorry schmucks, he carried the bitter gift of self-awareness. He knew, and understood, that sometimes he was a miserable person to be around, but usually just boring; and he knew that he preferred being alone on the fringes of the world, over selling his soul to the monkey-dance people performed in their pursuit of wealth, fame, and the superficial happiness they sold in commercials and ads. When he found his happiness he knew it would be the real deal, something profound and rich. When.

"Sorry. No garnish," Jules said, handing her the cocktail. It didn't have ice either, but that was to be expected of someone who liked his drinks stiff. Dilution was one of the great enemies in his little war against mundane life.

The redirection was effective enough. Ona seemed to snap out of whatever mist of imagination had come over her and her eyes snapped to the sub par drink he offered her. She reached out to take it, her eyes catching quickly on her thin long fingers. They were so awkwardly shaped to her... why was she cursed with such malformation. She cleared her throat and took the drink, drawing it in close to her and using it to somewhat shield the view of her hand.

"I thought you did some interviews for a maid though... Did you not find one you liked? No offense Jules... but I'd think your standards would be pretty low."

She looked around as she said it as if to emphasize that really any sort of assistance was better than the current state of things. "What about one of the janitorial crew from work? They're always looking for work on the side I hear... no one's ever happy enough with the wages the company pays."

The comment was laced with loathing for the minute pawns of the system, but at the same time they both know it was true. No one working blue collar work could afford any decent quality of life, and the no compete contract prevented them from holding almost any other legitimate employment elsewhere. They were slaves of the system who hastily snatched at any scraps the better off may drop. She picked up her drink and took a sip, her face contorting slightly as the flavor washed over her tongue. She barely kept from choking on it. Her sense of taste was always so much more sensitive when she'd not eaten for several days. The lemon water inundated her system and made it susceptible to shock at the slightest of changes. "Oh... what about what's her name... mmm... Marina... no Marianna that's it. The girl that does the cleaning for the administrators. She's someone's daughter. I don't remember who, but she's only twelve or thirteen, so she can't work yet anyways. I hear she's good though.