“It’ll be fine.”
Hwa hoped she sounded more certain than she felt. She honestly had no idea what the Lynch family would decide once they took ownership of New Arcadia. They could invite another agency in to encourage competition and bring down the hourly rates, or change up the fee-for-service model. Or they could be uptight about it and fire the agency, send all the sex workers scurrying back into massage parlours or whatever it was they used to pretend they did for money. And, of course, they could just shut the whole rig down, and watch the bottom fall out of every other business in the city once the roughnecks left. Lynch was still a privately held corporation. They didn’t have to release any policy statements on the subject of their sexual broad-mindedness or their employment strategy or anything else that might concern the town they had just bought. Not until they chose to bring the hammer down.
She tried to smile. “Hey, if we have to move, at least you won’t have to fuck that fish-faced asshole again.”
Eileen rolled her eyes. “Sacred Heart of Christ, Hwa, he’s not that bad.”
Most of the other people in the elevator were pretending not to overhear them. A mother took her children out of the elevator on the next floor. Only a rigger was left. He stared openly at Eileen, blinking only when she adjusted her dress. Hwa watched him do this three different times before the doors chimed for Eileen’s floor.
“Hold it.”
Eileen pressed the hold button. She stood at the open doors. “What’s the problem?”
“This guy’s the problem.” Hwa jammed her thumb and all her fingers into the salivary glands under the rigger’s greasy jaw. He swung for her and missed badly. She was probably nothing but a blur in his vision. “He’s got a staring problem, and I don’t like it.”
“Fuck you,” the rigger managed to choke out.
“No, fuck you, creepshot. She didn’t give you permission to take those pictures. Eileen, take his face and send it to Belle.”
Eileen nodded. “Done.”
Hwa pressed his throat so hard she held his Adam’s apple in her fingers. “Good. Now we know your face. So we’ll know if you ever make a date. Which means that if I ever catch you acting up with one of our workers, I’ll shave your balls with a cheese grater.”
He spat in her face. Hwa let him go. She ushered Eileen out of the elevator. When the doors closed, they watched each other for a moment. Eileen laughed first. Then they were laughing together. Eileen wiped Hwa’s face and hooked her arm into Hwa’s again. “Itching for a fight, were you?”
“Always am, when I see that asshole.” Hwa flexed her fingers. “Moliter, I mean.”
“You know, you could go back to school. I asked him.”
Hwa pulled up short in the middle of the elevator court. “What?”
“Moliter. I asked him. I asked if you could go back and finish. I know it was a few years ago, but he said you—”
“You talked about me? During your appointment?”
“Well, not during.… But after.”
Hwa’s wrist squeezed. She checked it. The message was marked urgent. It was from her union rep’s personal account. Her immediate presence was requested.
“No time for coffee,” she said.
*
Underneath all the bird shit and salt scars, the architecture of the docking platform was still grand: huge arches left over from some other investor’s future, all straight and white and minimalist. Now they were a dingy grey, like most everything else on the rig. People stretched a long way down the catwalks leading up to the platform. Most of them were young. They had the uniform builds of state-sponsored genetic tailoring. Nothing fancy, just the bare minimum Ottawa had finally guaranteed. They were recent hires, Hwa guessed, angry about the sale of the town and their sudden uncertainty within it. They looked like they’d stayed up all night. Thin grease filmed their foreheads, and they were all sharing droppers with each other.
“You want?” one of them asked. She was a very pale girl with a bald head and a huge mandala spanning her gleaming skull. It glowed and pulsed along with her heartbeat, barely visible. The whole bioluminescent inkjob trend really didn’t work for white people. Not enough contrast.
“I’m fine.”
“Going to the handoff?”
“Hadn’t planned on it.” Hwa watched the other girl’s eyes carefully. No nervous flickering gaze. She obviously couldn’t see Hwa’s true face. But her friends could. Their gazes kept landing on it and then flicking away, as though to make sure that the stain was still there, that it wasn’t a trick. It made sense. The bald girl had the inkjob. She obviously liked herself better augmented.