It was a cold morning in the city of Umevar and Margit Papp was making her daily commute through the dirty streets of the poor districts to her workplace. The Underground only took her so far and she had to enter the industrial district on foot. She passed beggars, some sitting slumped on the run-down apartment buildings and small shops and others sleeping in the narrow side alleys. She was overtaken by others hurrying in their wrinkled suits, that looked as if they hadn’t been removed for the entire week.

Avoiding eye contact, Margit looked down on herself and noted that she didn’t look any better either. There was another type of person in the streets. One that became more and more common as she neared the rich industrial district. They were pale, bald and skinny, but what set them apart the most was the detached expression and the cold unresponsive eyes. They were sweeping the dirty streets, picking up trash and carrying around large boxes. Each wore an identical pair of dark brown coveralls. It had only been a decade since the first synthetic human appeared in Umevar, but now most people moved around as if the pale Abelos were nothing but a moving piece of furniture that was good at avoiding crashing into people. Even though they possessed no free thought or emotions, just seeing them sent an almost imperceptible pang of pain through Margit’s chest.

Lost in thought she neared the edge of the district. Even from a distance it looked as if there was a clear physical barrier separating the two districts. Margit turned off all wireless connections for her ocular implant, severely limiting it’s usefulness, but the barrage of advertisements that would start coming in soon was too overwhelming for her. Stepping across the edge she found herself in a different world, covered in neon lights and accompanied by the low beat of music like the heartbeat of the city. Even this heartbeat was drowned out in some places, where ad jingles forcibly implanted themselves in the subconsciousness of the passers-by. It made her feel sick as she saw some of the people join in and sing along with the annoying song. That being said it was hard for her to judge the poor people, as from their point of view it was an easy way of getting various benefits at seemingly no cost. One just had to ignore the possibility of the shallow music imprinting itself on her own soul and what the possible consequences would be.

It took a lot more money to be able to afford an apartment in this district, though of course the truly rich would not set a foot here if they could help it. Despite the friendlier atmosphere the increased crowd and noise made Margit even more uncomfortable than the filth and even destitution of her own neighbourhood.

She made it to Maclearware, a software development company, and checked in by swiping the chip implanted in her forearm over the scanner by the main door. Once inside she gave a sigh as the relief set in. Leaving her brain to do its job automatically, she set down the wrong corridor toward the cubicles, where she had sat up until a few days ago.

“Hoy there Gitta,” a large figure emerged from around a corner. “Did you get lost again?”

“Hi Gabor, yes it looks like my feet dragged me to the old desk again,” she said with a small chuckle. Gabor Farkas was one of the few people she was still comfortable looking in the eyes. He stared back like a kind old wolf, a lovely glint in his eyes.

“Well at least you get to see me before work.”

“Ah yes the best reward,” she returned the banter and rolled her eyes briefly. Neither of them showed it outright, but she was sure he enjoyed their little banters as much as she did. However even if he was now one of people closest to her, she would never be able to show him who she really is underneath it all. Nobody could ever know.

“Well of course, we both know how much you like having me around, even if you neglected me now that you were moved. It breaks my poor old heart. But seriously though it’s crazy how much they shuffled us all around in this short time,” he leaned in with a conspiratorial look on his face and leaned closer to Margit. “It’s enough for even me to think that the higher ups are trying to cover something up. Some inappropriate behaviour no doubt,” he ended with a wink.

It was hard for Margit to keep herself from throwing her hands up and shout at him. For all his good points, of which there were many, his main glaring problem was his trust in the company. If he thought that some inappropriate behaviour is the worst a big corporation can do, he was a naive and foolish child beneath the mask of a large man. “Huh, that so?” Was all she could say with a bored expression on her face.

“Never been a person for the exciting things have you? Well we still have the other topic we need to discuss. I figured you would be dying to tell me yourself, but maybe you just love to see me ask.”

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“What?” Margit gave a genuine look of incomprehension.

“Oh come on don’t be such a tease. How was the big date with that nice boy?”

“Oh that. I suppose it turned out we weren’t really a good match. He kept pestering me about wanting a family. We only went out twice.”

“Weird, but to be honest it’s good to clear these things up early. Anyway, why would you even be opposed to having a family.”

“The living space I can afford right now allows me to just miss brushing my feet on the wall as my head touches the other. But that is really just an excuse. Even if I was rich, I don’t want children. Not now, not soon, perhaps one day, maybe never.”

“You might think this now, but you are getting old. Sooner or later you will want to settle down like me,” he concluded with a satisfied smile.

Mouth agape, she stared at him. His good humour annoyed her even more than his words. “I’m still years from hitting 30, you old fart.”

“Your bad language only serves to confirm my words. Also it isn’t all that many years, believe me.”

The sudden calm response brought hot blood to her face and she lowered her gaze in embarrassment.

Gabor clapped her on the shoulder and looking up she saw an apologetic look on his face. “Don’t worry, things are getting better for you. It wasn’t that long ago that you wouldn’t even consider going out with someone. No need to rush it too much. Forgive this old fool.”

“The old fool in his late 30s,” she sniffed and smiled sadly.

The simple response was enough to transfer the embarrassment to Gabor and he cleared his throat. “Well it is nice to see you, but we should now hurry to our desks before they decide to penalize us for loitering.”

They went their separate ways along the long corridor and both looked back and waved after taking a dozen steps. A dangerous man, even if he doesn’t know it, Margit thought. He barely has to try and breaks my resolve and makes me forget. Despite the dark thoughts clouding her mind she could not help but smile as she thought about him. As if his own children weren’t enough for him. Preoccupied with her ponderings, her feet once again did their job on their own, only this time she ended up in the correct section of the building.

She threw a glance around the room filled with cubicles. Somehow it was even more depressing than the many other similar rooms in the building. The room was simply wrong. It was too empty, even sterile. It made her stomach want to tie itself into elaborate knots. This room was now a working place for tens of workers, many if not all freshly reassigned from other offices here. Before she could resume her habit of looking downwards, she made eye contact with a skinny looking man. His expression didn’t change and the look took a fraction of a second, but even so his eyes were able to convey a feeling of utter disgust. Elmer knew her, had known her for a long time, in a different life. Even so he knew better than to let any of the other workers or even the surveillance cameras realise that.

Margit sat down at her desk, breathing deeply to calm her nerves and connected herself with the computer through the port in the side of her head. The notifications of her daily tasks immediately popped up in her field of view. Seemingly with no care her supervisors threw her on a completely different project from the one she had been working on so far. What have I done this time. Doing work this useless surely means my pay will get cut.

With a weary expression she cracked her knuckles and began typing, using the help of the brain-computer interface to aid the programming. She had been adept at fully immersing herself into her work, this time however she couldn’t get rid of an uneasy feeling deep inside her. It was all wrong. The tasks were meaningless, the room was cold and lifeless.

As she finally began to work seriously, the ceiling lights suddenly flickered twice as if there was a disturbance in the power grid. All critical equipment was made to withstand such occasion, so nobody in the room even reacted to the unusual event.

The room shook slightly and moments later the entire wall exploded inwards, the debris flying into the cubicle walls, slicing through them and the people behind. Anyone too close to the wall died instantly. The shock wave sent Margit flying into the wall of the cubicle, knocking the whole thing over. Only then she realised that the initial explosion was so loud that all she could hear was the ringing in her ears and not the subsequent explosions and gunfire all around the room.

Another explosion threw her even further from what remained of her desk and she briefly lost consciousness. She woke up underneath a table, her body feeling numb. Flashes of light continued to fill the room. She struggled to push the table off her. It was as if most of her strength had left her. Just lifting her hands was a difficult task it felt like remotely controlling a drone with a poor connection. Finally free she could finally see her body and saw in horror a large piece of debris sticking out of her lower body, firmly wedged inside. She tried to scream, but only managed to produce a low grunt, that she still could not hear.

She was in pain but knew full well that the level of it was nowhere near where it should be. Using the shock to her advantage, she flipped on her side and began crawling away, trying to leave the room. Masked people dressed in black combat gear surveyed the room, shooting and hitting anyone they came across. She used the cubicle walls, whether standing or collapsed to try and sneak past the threat. She was losing a lot of blood and faded ever further with every centimetre she managed to pull herself forward.

Never even seeing anything she was suddenly flipped around and landed hard on her back the last thing she saw was the butt of a rifle flying towards her head.