Allison forced herself to calm down. It wasn’t a big deal; One, her new employer, saying she had a boyfriend. He was just being a bitch; an annoying bitch who was trying to poke at her. He wanted to rile her up and get her feisty, and then he’d laugh.

Then she realised she’d never thought of a man as a bitch before but she’d definitely heard women referring to men as just such a thing.

Without even realising she found herself looking at her conn and the message from The Governor’s Office. Not even a message, an official communication a little like her earlier one, but this one a pass, a guarantee, with both The Governor’s Office stamp and the security approval symbol. It basically said anything she did for One, or within the spirit of One’s instructions, was entirely above board.

She shook her head. She’d never heard of ‘the spirit’ of something being considered. Something either was or wasn’t. That was what the court was for. But it was official, almost certainly. No-one had ever hacked this system, as far as she knew. But then she hadn’t been a woman yesterday, and couldn’t even have imagined it being possible.

Allison chased the doubt from her mind and walked back out to her gang, after two steps remembering she really did not know how to wear heels. She didn’t really care though. She’d manage and they looked amazing.

“Thanks, Robert,” Allison said. “I have to go. I’ll message you tomorrow... If you want my ID?” She smiled, holding out her conn, feeling small, and feeling something else but she wasn’t quite sure what that feeling was.

Robert smiled back and handed her her purse, then they confirmed the ID exchange. “I’m looking forward to it. I had an amazing time with you. We can just go for a walk. I’ll buy you lunch and if you’re up to it we’ll try you on stairs.”

Allison smiled again and put her conn in her purse, slinging it over her shoulder; her first purse, and she stroked its leather surface. Then she reached out and touched Robert’s hand before clumsily turning and taking a few steps towards Angie and Adam. “You two need to come with me,” she said, with a low voice. “I have to fill you in on some things that happened.”

Angie and Adam exchanged a look as Allison walked through the store’s doors, calling out as she did her thanks to Rowan, who smiled warmly at her and waved.

Allison walked on and Angie and Adam caught up.

“Take her arm, you idiot,” Angie said.

Adam put his arm through Allison’s and she felt a little more stable. “Thanks,” she said. And she didn’t say any more, simply leading them to the elevators, and when she asked for the floor Angie and Adam looked confused, but still didn’t say anything. Then she led them to her apartment, swiping her way in.

“This is new,” Adam said.

“What isn’t?” Allison said. She walked to the delivery room near the hallway end of the apartment. Swiping in to that, larger than normal, she found another chair — a comfortable armchair — and a backpack. It was made of canvas and in a rainbow pattern like her conn. She picked it up and went back into the living room. “There’s an extra chair in there, Adam. I can’t really carry it in these shoes. Could you bring it in?”

Then they were all sitting down, Allison and Angie on the blue two-person couch, Adam in the armchair, the low table in the middle. Allison explained everything she knew. “I don’t know anything other than that...” she finally said, finishing up.

“I don’t even know what to say about this,” Angie said. “I know the court ruling was different but this is totally different.”

“Yeah, your point about this station being mysteries and secrets seems real now,” Allison said. “Really real.” Her conn beeped, a normal-message beep. “Please let this be boring. Please just let it be some guy I knew asking me ‘What the fuck is up with the Allison shit?’”

She read through the message. Then, with Angie and Adam watching her, tapped some confirmations into her conn. Both their conns beeped too, a slightly different beep that none of them had heard before.

“What’s this?” Angie asked.

“A group chat? I think?” Allison said. “One messaged me to say I should set you up with it, if all three of us need to talk. I don’t know why we wouldn’t just meet up in that case. He thinks it’s necessary.”

Angie and Allison’s conns beeped again. “Yeah, I got it,” Allison said.

“Thanks for saying, ‘Hello,’ Adam. In the ‘Group Chat’ is it, Allison?” Angie said, looking up from her conn.

Allison nodded confirmation.

“This is weird. All of this is so weird,” Adam said. “I don’t know if I want to smoke any of that stuff with you if this is the result. What if I turn into a plant?”

They all laughed, and Allison felt some relief for the first time since she left Rowan’s shoe store.

“Well, I have to see my voter. Get my ‘job’ done. We can meet up again later, if our brains haven’t melted, and if I have any more answers I’ll tell you,” Allison said.

She stood, and slung the backpack onto her back.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Can I stay and look at your clothes?” Angie asked.

“Will we be able to get off this level?” Adam asked. “Without Allison, I mean. This is a secure level, and we didn’t break in so we might not be able to break out.”

Allison took the backpack off again, sat down and laid it on her lap, then messaged One on the channel she received his message about the group chat on.

“I’ll find out. And I should probably...” She began to look into the backpack, which unzipped all the way to the bottom on both sides. Inside were divisions containing tin after tin, in different sizes. And lighters in a section at the top. The tins with Des’s name on them were in the uppermost vertical level.

Closing up the backpack she received another message. “One says you two can access this level freely and I can grant and remove entrance to my apartment as I please, no approval from security needed. And I have access to a quite a few apartments on this level. Said I’m free to scavenge them for anything I need.”

Adam took a deep breath through his nose. “If you survive this ‘job’ with the Des guy I want to see that message from The Governor’s Office. This is insanity.”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll message both of you when I’m done,” Allison said.

“You can message the group chat,” Angie said, with a scoff.

“Yeah, of course,” Allison said. “And stay as long as you like. If you find any clothes that fit or shoes that fit feel free try to try them on and take them, Angie. The same for you, Adam.” Even Adam putting on a dress wouldn’t surprise Allison at this point.

They all laughed, all feeling like they needed a drink. “Who knows anything any more?” Adam said. “It’s obvious I have no clue about a single a fucking thing on this station!”

Then Allison was getting out of an elevator, not even thirty metres from Des’s apartment.

The voters' hallway was nicer than citizens' hallways. Not as nice as the hospital level, just more plush. It was still low-ish lighting, like general citizens’ accommodations, but it was details like the lights not flickering, being cleaner and the carpet seeming thicker. The air almost seemed perfumed as well, as though there was a just perceptible scent to it.

She stood outside the apartment that was supposed to be Des’s, according to her conn, and drew a deep breath. Then she waited. And kept waiting. She’d literally never been on a voter’s level let alone in one of their apartments. She assumed it was the same swipe to announce herself but this was, well, immense. She couldn’t believe where her day had taken her, and as she thought that her wrist did reach out and swipe.

After a twenty or so seconds the door opened. A man in his sixties, with bare feet and an old pair of worn, comfortable denim jeans along with a plain turquoise t-shirt stood there. “Come in, Allison,” he said. “How’s One?”

This was obviously more normal to him than it was to her, and if it wasn’t he certainly wasn’t showing it. Allison realised her teeth were clenched and relaxed her jaw, and when the pressure eased after a few seconds she spoke the truth. “I really don’t know how he is, apart from having fun. He was laughing about me kissing a boy.”

The man laughed at hearing about One’s laughing, she hoped, and suddenly everything seemed fine. “He’s doing well then. Now, please, come in! I am Des, by the way. You did find the right apartment.”

Allison looked around; it was a normal apartment. A little fancier than the few fancier citizen’s apartments she’d been in, but not ridiculously so. There was art on the wall; real art, again. The carpet would fit in a citizen’s apartment, so would the furniture. The walls were painted dark like almost all citizens’ apartments. There was maybe a little more furniture but she could imagine an older citizen having an apartment like this, if they saved their credits and wanted it.

“Do you want a drink?” Des asked.

“Sure,” Allison said. “Thanks.” Des led her through an archway. The room inside it was what appeared to be a kitchen, shocking Allison. She’d only seen guardians of children with kitchens; her various guardians, at times, and she’d heard some cooks shared private kitchens. “This is a—”

“Yeah, voters can have kitchens if they want. Some do, some don’t. Most don’t, unless they have a family, or are a little older. My friends are all extremely busy so I rarely go out for dinner, I don’t want to sit on my own eating. That’s a ‘me’ issue. Will you have a beer? I don’t think you’d have seen one like this. I’m guessing you’re open to new things given you’re working for One.”

Allison thought about it, she didn’t really do much new, ever, before today, but new things were turning out great, sort of. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

Des began to pour what looked like a brownish, almost ruby beer into a glass, not filling it before setting it down, then he poured another one. “This isn’t normal for voters, I had to work very hard to get my own beer tap in here. Lots of favours. And stupid, stupid paperwork. It was ridiculous.”

He took a bottle of what appeared to be whiskey off a shelf, along with two shot glasses. After pouring them he handed a whiskey to Allison, they clinked glasses and knocked them back. “Get the heart racing!” he said.

“It sure did,” Allison said. It was awful whiskey, not that it tasted absolutely horrific — it was just pretty bad — it was that it seemed stronger than usual, more powerful.

“How was your heart before that? Pounding? Nervous? Fluttering?”

Allison rolled her head on her neck, still feeling the whiskey. “No. I was outside your door. I stood there for a bit, building courage. But as soon as I saw you it was fine.” Allison blinked, thinking the last of the whiskey burn was just about going away. “Well, when I told you I kissed a boy. And you laughed. I can’t believe I’m calling him a boy! What’s wrong with me?”

“Oh, fuck! I didn’t think we’d be back on the whiskey before we’d begun to smoke. You’re one of the best runners I’ve had in ages,” Des said, laughing again, as he poured more beer into the glasses, filling them up, with the beer already in there having lost any cloudiness to it, and having turned black and thick looking.

They were sitting down within a few moments, Allison with her beer before her, along with a new tumbler of whiskey, the same for Des, and a new bottle of whiskey between the two of them. Allison’s backpack of tobacco tins was next to her. “Do you want your smokes?” Allison asked.

“No, it can wait. What do you think of the beer?”

“It’s nice, totally different. I don’t know if I could drink it all night. I can’t quite describe what it is but I like it. I wouldn’t even guess it was beer if I just saw it.”

Des nodded. “Yeah, it went out of style with citizens years back. Few people remember it. Occasionally a bar with older men will request a few barrels and get approval. They enjoy it then go back to what you have now. The current one you have available in citizen bars is a stayer, always has been. Now, this boy thing? Calling him a ‘boy?’’

Allison groaned. “I forgot about it, again. That’s going to haunt me forever. Supposedly voters do it, often, calling people boy and girl, or a child? Calling citizens that, at least. Citizens just don’t say it.”

“Either you’re growing up,” Des said. “Or maybe you’re thinking all sweet and innocent, cute child things.”

“I’m an adult!” Allison protested. She’d turned twenty over four years ago, but she did feel young in that moment, and despite saying, and knowing, she was an adult she felt like she knew nothing. Although that wasn’t an issue where she was, with Des. Even with all this being so strange and new — her job, her gender, her secrets, meeting with voters on voter levels, in their apartments, that had kitchens — despite everything she was really just having a beer with someone. And he seemed pleasant. Unfazed and accepting.

“That’s why voters say it to citizens. They want to feel more mature and enlightened. More adult, I guess,” Des said, taking a drink from the whiskey glass, then from the beer glass, then another smaller sip of whiskey. Then he rolled his eyes, seemingly annoyed.

Allison laughed. “You don’t seem impressed,” she said, with a smile, relaxing, feeling normal, somehow. She took a sip of the whiskey, then the beer; the pairing worked.

“It’s voters who make me fill out paperwork just to get this beer. And it’s every time. I rarely even go through the entire keg before it’s gone sour. They’re awfully officious people. I’ll take my tin now, if you don’t mind. They’re aggravating me, thinking of them.”

Des knocked back the whiskey and poured himself another measure? “Who in their right mind would want to be voter? Would you want to be a voter, Allison? Do you think you’d enjoy being a voter?”