Felicity City, Year 2274

The main lobby looked like a crowded neon airport. Lusso half-jogged, half-walked into the JG Entertainment(JGE) HQ building. Every centimeter of the wall was covered with advertisements for one of JGE’s products, and the floor was a mosh pit of suits. Lusso held his head high, and strutted quickly about the floor. He checked his watch every couple of seconds, and raised his phone to his ear.

“I got promoted. But yeah. I was lucky everybody in the office liked me.”

“Luck is also a skill? Yeah, maybe. Thanks. Thanks. You’re too kind.”

“I barely try. I usually get through it all, though. I got that 163 IQ.”

Lusso put his phone in his pocket without ending the call. He wasn’t talking to anyone anyways. Lusso held his arms out in front of him and parted his way through the crowd, keeping people arms length away from his well-kept suit. As he passed by, people shot him dirty looks and crinkled their noses. The scent of cheap flower perfume, blood, sweat, and bleach emanated from Lusso. Lusso broke through the other end of the crowd and made his way to the orange double doors in the right corner of the lobby. He keyed himself into the doors, and took two stairs down at a time to arrive at the Cleaning Lockers, a floor below the main lobby.

Lusso found his locker, took off his suit, and hung it up in his locker like he was hanging up a piece of art at a museum. Two pairs of eyes watched him change into his khaki green janitorial jumpsuit, which was standard uniform at JGE for janitors. One of them cackled.

“Lusso. What kind of janitor wears a fucking suit to work? You know you’re not one of the suits here, right?”

Lusso said, “Well, I plan to be an office worker here in the near future. So I dress to impress. Maybe if you wore something other than that, guys wouldn’t blow you off.”

Lusso gestured with his head at Micky’s open locker, which had a crumpled gray hoodie stuffed into it. It was too large for Micky, and was stained with grease all over. Whatever holes had been made into it, Micky had patched up with bits of cloth, all of different colors and sizes.

“It’s been through a lot with me. Sentimental value.”

“I can see that. I could also find something better looking than that piece of shit at a flea market at Misna for 500 Singals.”

Micky said, “Ding. Do you think Lusso should wear a suit to work, even though he's a janitor?”

Ding was sitting on a bench, hunched over a silver cross necklace. Ding’s brows furrowed and he began to hyperventilate as he ran a pure white polishing cloth over it.

Ding muttered to himself in between breaths, “Unclean, unclean. God, I’m so dirty. Shit, shit, shit.”

Micky shook Ding’s shoulder. Ding’s head snapped to face Micky. His face was the color of his polishing cloth, and sweat beaded on his nose.

Ding said, “Micky, I smoked today AGAIN! Micky, today, I swore — I swore I wasn’t going to smoke on the way here. Not again. Then, I did. I told myself I would just light my cig then throw it away, then—”

Micky met his eyes, and said, “Hey. Deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale.”

Ding complied, and while breathing along to Micky’s instructions, Ding sneezed into Micky’s face. A clear and yellow goo dribbled off of Micky's face. Micky swore, and wiped her face off with her handkerchief. She then swore again, looking at her handkerchief. She’d forgotten she’d used it for wiping up machine oil.

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Ding said, “Sorry! Sorry! I swear I didn’t mean to!”

Ding tried to pull out a packet of tissues from his pocket. He ended up ripping it open, spilling half of the tissues onto the floor. Lusso stared at the two, and sighed.

Lusso said, “Sorry guys, I was a little late. Let’s get to it. We’re cleaning up after Ria Jun’s concerts, right?”

Micky said, “Yeah. It’s cheaper to make us clean the concert halls than pay the people who own the halls to clean them.”

Lusso said, “We earn above minimum wage. Which is why we still work here.”

Micky said, “Well...”

The three met eyes. A thick fog of silence hung over the room. Lusso’s phone buzzed. He looked into it.

Lusso said, “5 minutes till Ria Jun’s entourage leaves for the first concert. Let’s get there.”

The three hefted duffel bags with cleaning tools and clothes in them and left the Cleaning Lockers.

The three made their way to where the entourage’s trucks and cars were stationed. The black cars with tinted windows looked like a line of sleek, shiny armored beetles. The black trucks looked like giant ants. The security guards stared them down as they approached. Each one had a patented JGE EYE LASER implanted that could shoot lasers from the eyes on command. When the three showed their janitor identification cards, one of the security guards pointed towards the truck in the far back of the entourage. Janitors usually weren’t reserved actual seating in cars. Most of the time, they were put in whatever leftover cargo space there was in trucks. The three were used to it by now.

Lusso, Ding, and Micky crammed into a small pocket of space in the back of the truck meant for audio equipment as the entourage took off. Audio equipment vibrated and watched over them in the dark as they took turns stretching out their legs.

Micky coughed. Micky said, “Do you think we’d ever get to ride in one of those fancy black cars?”

Lusso said, “Do you know what model those are?

Micky said, “I did some car mechanic work, but I’ve never seen anything like those.”

Lusso said, “Well, they’re custom Conclave-VTs with all the premium options, most likely. We could work for five years straight here and our salaries combined would get us halfway there.”

Ding’s eyes widened.

Lusso said, “Yeah. That expensive. You know how I know that?”

Micky said, “Ahh. You read it somewhere?”

“My 163 IQ remembers everything.”

“You saying you have 163 IQ is like me saying I look like Ria Jun.”

“I’m smart. But I’m also lazy.”

Micky rolled her eyes.

Micky said, “You were lazy so you decided to become a janitor at JGE.”

“Life isn’t fair. If it was, I’d finish all the work I had to do to run this company in a couple hours, and do nothing else during the day.”

Micky sighed, then took a drag from her patented JGE SMOKE PEN. It was ink pen with a vape on the other end.

Lusso smirked. Lusso said, “You know only teenagers trying to smoke in school buy that, right?”

Micky said, “I bet Ria’s never smoked from one of these.”

Lusso said, “Ria doesn’t need a smoke pen! Even if she smoked, it’d be wouldn’t be from that! She earns — “

“Answer me this though. Has Ria ever smoked from a smoke pen?”

“Obviously not!”

“She’s never lived if she hasn’t taken a drag of this bad boy with vapor alcohol added into the mix. Micky 1, Ria 0. I’m winning right now. Right Ding?”

Ding said, “Lusso, could you brush that bit of dust off of the cymbal next to you?”

Lusso said, “There’s like 5 cymbals next to me. Could you try ignoring them?”

Micky said, “Ding, could you point to the one?”

Ding pointed to the one furthest to Lusso. Lusso stretched, barely reached it with his arm, and slid his hand over the cymbal. There were still streaks of dust left over.

Lusso said, “Better?”

Ding pursed his lips. Ding’s eyes were fixated on the cymbal.

Lusso said, “Okay, fine.”, as he reached over for the cymbal again.

Ding said, “No. It’s fine. Don’t strain yourself for me.”

Ding pulled an eye mask from his pocket and put it over his eyes as he leaned his head on one of the speakers. Micky patted Ding on the head, and leaned up against a box. Lusso too, closed his eyes.