A short rest on a sagging mattress, a lukewarm shower, a cup of reheated coffee, and a stale nutrient bar made up Calypso’s post-work routine. She didn’t live far from work, about a twenty minute walk through dingy streets where a girl had to keep her wallet close and her knife closer. Her room was a simple studio apartment in a rundown building that served mostly as a hangout spot for kids whacked out on Trance or a pitstop for escorts and their Johns that wanted something a little more classy than behind the dumpster. The elevator was broken, everything smelled like mold, and the neighborhood was loud, nearly constant club music being occasionally punctuated with the yawk-yawk-yawk of gunshots. There was a lock, which was nice. It gave her neighbors something to struggle with before they realized that they had broken into an apartment poorer than theirs. Calypso described it as “minimalist”, which was her cute way of saying “empty and sad”. 

It was on her shoddy, sagging mattress that she was sitting, since her couch only existed in a distant fantasy, one where she hoped to also be able to afford a box spring and perhaps, as if her dream wasn’t incredible enough, a frame. There she was battling with the ever eternal struggle between doing the right thing of not taking another job that had inadvertently turned her into a terrorist versus doing the only thing that would keep her from becoming homeless. It’d be easier if she had a partner, except her last relationship had bled all of the money out of her account before a fatal overdose closed any hopes of getting some reprimand. Good was ultimately losing to desperation, as was the case with many of the people who lived in the slums of Bandi and Ghajotia, and in the end she clicked on the first gig that didn’t scream “entrapment”. It was a face-to-face one. Normally not the type she liked to take, but considering how the last stash job went Calypso felt like a change of pace would be smart.

Within moments she had pulled on her hat and jacket and ducked out the door, taking care not to make any direct eye contact with the fellow low-lifes hanging in the stairs unless she wanted to risk hanging from the stairs. Calypso buzzed herself out and into the dreary street. It was daytime, but in her neighborhood it was impossible to truly tell—the buildings were suffocatingly close and buried underneath a web of rail lines, with most of the lights being from neon adverts for pachinko parlors and nude girls that gave everything a sickly pink glow. She hoofed it down the block, passing a flock of Black Brethren, a mix of homeless and junkheads, and a few unsupervised children playing that were not aware of how dark their future would be. Her phone buzzed. She’d look at it when she was on the hover-train. It wasn’t smart to flash anything of value out here, even if said thing was an old hunk of junk. It buzzed again. Her brows furrowed with annoyance. All night nothing, and now that she was busy she was getting hit up. Typical.

She ascended the stairs towards the rail stop. Calypso was headed to the business district. In Bandi, there was no train that went directly to the business district. She’d have to hop on one that stopped on the outskirts of the Kyoto District and take a transfer from there. Between the two rides and waiting on the train the next hours or so of her life would be taken up with the joy of public transportation. Ordering a direct ride would’ve been faster, but the Capri app only scrambled the ticketing system for the train; trying to bypass the payment on an automated vehicle just sent you on a one-way-trip to the nearest Peacekeeper holding cell. So she waited on the train, leaning against a railing with her fingers tapping out the rhythm of a song she couldn’t quite remember. What felt like an eternity later and she boarded the hovertrain, taking a seat in the almost empty car. 

Safer than before, she pulled out her phone. There was a message from the Capri app; she was to meet her contact in their lobby building and should message back when she arrived. Calypso raised an eyebrow at the missed call from Miranda. She didn’t know why the woman had called her, but she knew that the Florist’s street translator wouldn’t ring her up for anything outside of cashing in that favor Calypso owed her. [i]Sorry, lady, already got a gig,[/i] she thought as she pretended to not see the call, already moving on to the text she received from Sunflower. For a moment she thought that maybe the Florist himself wanted her for a job, with two of his ladies blowing up her phone, but the former Capri delivery girl turned exclusive drug mule just felt like bragging to Calypso about the fact that she had gotten laid. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except she always went into very heavy details and tended to embellish greatly. Calypso rolled her eyes. [i]Like an Asseylum would ever screw someone who called themselves something a lame as Sunflower,[/i] thought the girl who called herself Calypso. 

She switched trains at the Kyoto station and continued the second half of her commute in peace, watching as the poverty line retreated from the window as the train screamed towards the business district, its towering skyscrapers serving as sentinels. In some way or another, each building had some kind of ties to Osi-Corp, operating through subsidies and shell companies. Calypso felt as if she was moving into hostile territory as the train drew nearer. It was strange. She knew she was in danger in her own neighborhood, but at least there she did not stand out. Here, she was a target for Peacekeepers, who could take one look at her and see the poor fuming off of her body. They didn’t like her kind of people so close to their money centers, as they tended to ruin the illusion that everything was going all right for everyone. The train halted to a stop, and the sacrificial scapegoat stepped off onto the platform.  She paused for just a second, rolled her neck, and began walking with a purpose to her destination. 

She didn’t know why, but Calypso was already beginning to dread her decision of taking this job.