Company Town

Company Town

By Madeline Ashby

Aviation/Metabolist

“So,” Hwa said. “You<ve done some succubus play, right?”.

The aviation was alive with jazz. Violet light streamed across the black-and-white chequered floor. In the centre of the room, the bar rotated slowly. One revolution an hour. Hwa had counted three revolutions. She had lost track of how many bourbons that meant. Or which of the very specialized types she'b en drinking. Probably all of them.

Layne sipped her drink. “Sure, like once or twice. It's super rare, though. Like it's a thing they try once and don't really go back to, unless they some like it. What are you at?”

“Where did you get the suit?” Hwa gestured at herself. “For being invisible.”

“Or, my God. You don't need to be invisible, Hwa. Get over yourself.”

“Not, it's not like that,” Hwa said, for the second time in as many days. “I don't...” I don't want to be invisible, she should have said, but the words were harder to get out than she expected.

“Besides, it's fucking tough to rent that shit,” Layne said. “Like, it's super regulated. Like worse than guns. Which is kind of sad. Background checks and everything. They're woven with smart sensors ; if you rent one, the person you rented it from knows where the suit is every minute.”

“Could you buy one?”

“Yeah, a shitty one. Not the good stuff. The military stuff costs.”

“But if I wanted to buy the military stuff.”

Layne looked at Hwa as though she were extremely stupid. “Then go to the Lynches! They have a whole Security branch, right? Don't you work for them?”

“I'm in another department,” Hwa said. “I file reports to Security, but I'm a...” She struggled to find the right phrase. “Discretionary hire?”

“Well, if anybody has that stuff, it's them. I even heard them joking about it. Or Eileen did. I think she's the one what told me about it.”

A very big city. Photo by Elena.

Hwa said nothing. She'd tried to ping Eileen, just to talk, and had even tried to explain why she<d gone back to working for the Lynches, but nothing came of t. Eileen had written her off. Completely. And Layne knew it. Everyone knew it. And it was awkward and awful as hell.

“What else is going on at work?”

Oh, not much, they just blew up this town so they could build a star in the ruins.

“They're making me go to Homecoming,” Hwa said. “With Joel. They're sponsoring it.”

“Don't look so sad! You can handle it. It's just a dance.”

Layne looked sleepy. It was late. Her flapper costume was fading. She'd rented the look for only a few hours, and now her pearls flickered  in Hwa's specs.

“It's the whole principle of the thing,” Hwa said. “I don't dance. Sunny dances. I don't dance.”  

“Who is Sunny?”

“Never mind.”

“Do you mean your mom? Wasn't you mom a dancer?”

“No. She was in a girl group, and the group danced, in videos. But she wasn't, like, a dancer. She wasn't an artist, or something. She was just following orders..”

Layne brushed her pink hair aside and stared at Hwa hard through the veil of way too many brandy Alexanders. “Go Junghwa.” She pointed. “You hate your mother.”

Hws shrugged. “So? The feeling's mutual.”