‘’Anya, can we count on you?’’
It’s a cold night in the Moscow snow and Anya is standing in a dark corner of an abandoned train station. While the cold wind is seemingly blowing through her, it’s the eyes of the woman across from her that are piercing her. The searing cold does not seem to affect her as she’s only wearing a light jacket, as opposed to Anya’s thick faux-fur coat. ‘’Why isn’t she cold? It’s below freezing.’’ Anya couldn’t parse it.
‘’Hello? Egghead, you there?’’
Anya was just wondering why she was wearing sneakers. A fresh pack of snow had fallen last night. ‘’Sneakers? Really? Why? And what’s with all the bio-fluorescent tattoos?’’
‘’What? An egg? Where?’’ Now Anya was really confused. ‘’First, it’s winter and she’s not wearing any winter clothes. Now my head is an egg?’’
‘’I thought we were here to discuss a job?’’ Anya responded.
The woman sighed.
‘’Yes. Yes, we were. I need access.’’
‘’Access to what?’’
The woman sighed again.
‘’You know what? Never mind. We thought we could count on you.’’
The woman started to turn and move away, but she must have spotted the confused look on Anya’s face because she turned back. She gave Anya a good look, tilted her head and softly mouthed ‘’who…?’’
She shook her head.
‘’Let’s back up. You’re a drone engineer right?’’
‘’Yes, I fly drones.’’
‘’But you hack them too?’’
‘’I can do that too.’’
‘’Great. Yuri gave me your number and told me you needed a job. He said you spoke to him.’’
‘’What does it pay?’’
She shook her head slightly again.
‘’You’re an odd one aren’t you?’’
‘’What do you mean?’’ Anya was confused.
‘’You don’t know what the job is. You’re here, talking to someone you’ve never met on an abandoned station and yet you want to know how much the job pays? That’s not the usual order.’’
Anya saw that the woman turned her head to the side, raised her eyebrows and pulled back the corners of her mouth. She couldn’t reciprocate.
‘’People tell me I’m a bit picky about order’’ Anya said.
‘’I bet you are. In any case, I’ve also heard you’re pretty amazing. A brilliant drone engineer. Software engineer. Bio-hacker.’’
‘’Yes. I do those things, yes. Which one do you need today?’’
‘’Right to the point, eh? Today, we need a bit of everything.’’
‘’We? Everything? You and me?’’
Anya saw the woman had an expression on her face, but could not say what it meant. Her eyebrows were raised once again but with a smile this time. Her voice tone seemed hurried. The man she had spoken to over deepNet earlier had the same hushed and hurried voice. She didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty that it gave her. The steps were all out of whack here.
‘’Just follow me’’ the woman said and before Anya could respond, she had already turned around and started for the big double wooden on the side of the station. This Anya could do. The woman pulled her hoodie up while she made big steps towards the door. Anya gave one look around but did not see anything out of place. She followed. With every step, Anya became consistently more confused and started to doubt her decision. Yes, she needed the money, but this was a strange place to do business in. Once inside the station, these feelings did not abate. The interior of the building was old. Anya looked around and noticed the windows mostly being broken. She counted them and concluded that at least every third was. When the twelfth wasn’t, but the thirteenth was, she felt she had to stop counting. The walls then. Too much graffiti for her to see and too many swearwords to be comfortable with. Then voices. Male. Female. More than just the one before. Anya could feel the hairs in her neck rising. One person, she could deal with. Two was a challenge. A group of new people, that produced a flurry of unpleasant emotions in Anya’s chest. She could feel a burning sensation right behind her solar plexus, a tingle of sweat forming in her armpits. The inconsistently broken windows were still in her mind, occupying precious brain space that she knew she would need for what was to come, talking to other human beings. She was stuck between fight, flight or freeze. Then she caught the eyes of the woman she spoke to earlier. They closed slightly, squinted and then lowered. Anya felt trapped. Should she get out now?
‘’Anya!’’
Then she waved. It was probably meant friendly, or at least Anya hoped so. When she finally worked up the courage to come closer, in no small part by the rising sense that that was the only thing a normal person would do, she could see the other people, faces to the voices she heard earlier. A man in his late 40’s, a mohawk haircut from a different age, glowing as luminescent as the woman’s tattoo’s, but in many more colours. He did not look at Anya, which she did not mind one bit, and was nursing a cigarette. Humans kept surprising Anya. He had his left arm draped over the shoulders of a girl less than half his age. She could not have been taller than 1.50 meter. An androgynous third face was the last of the new people. None of them introduced themselves, but the woman took that step for them. She named herself Nata, the man with the cigarette was Corg. The short girl was Itah and the androgynous person was Arma. None of them really acknowledged Anya beyond a nod or a look. A silence fell that Anya knew she would be more comfortable with than most other people would. It never surprised her how much people needed to fill those in with absolute nonsense. After perhaps 15 seconds, Nata took the word again and simply said; ‘’Everyone, this is Anya. That seemed to draw some more attention.
‘’Anya?’’ Arma said with some serious intonation in their voice. ‘’Anya as in HumanPerson2133xkw?
Anya gave a slight nod. She would lie if she’d voice that she wasn’t surprised.
‘’You’re a fucking legend!’’
He seems happy, Anya thought. ‘’Why the swear words though?’’
Another silence. ‘’Am I supposed to say anything here?’’ she thought.
‘’Great. Now that introductions have been made, let’s get to business. Anya, this is your last chance to walk away.
‘’Walk? I’d rather run’’ she thought.
Another silence and another need by someone to fill it in. Corg spoke out for the first time. ‘’Let’s fucking do this. I ain’t getting any younger.’’ He flicked his cigarette into a puddle of water further down the main hall.
‘’Younger? Why would you? Have we fixed ageing? Not last I checked.’’
The short girl he was stood up with him, in almost a single motion together with him. Anya noticed that she never looked up, just down. Never looked anyone in the eyes. She felt a sense of comfort with her. Everyone else was always so direct. No wonder drones, programming, hacking, was so enticing to her. Logics. Rules. Prediction. Peace.
Corg was already halfway down a side-hall and everyone else was following before.
‘’Anya! Snap out of it!’’
It was Nata, she was waving Anya before disappearing around the corner with the rest of the group. Anya realized that she still hadn’t been told what her job was supposed to be here. She was sure though, that that would be done soon enough. Why else would they drag her out her into a dark corner of an even darker city, with only the bud of a cigarette and tacky luminescent tattoos to enlighten her? Anya hurried to catch up and beyond the corner, she could see Corg turning another corner. She joined the line behind Arma, the only one who seemed to be nice, though she didn’t like they used profanity. Yet, experience thought her that that might actually people are comfortable with you, so if anyone would talk to her, it would be them.
‘’Arma?’’ Anya’s voice was soft and she hoped that maybe it would fade enough in the ambient noise of trickling water, scurrying rats and traffic outside. No such luck.
‘’Yes?’’
‘’What are we doing here?’’
Arma burst out in laughter.
‘’Un-be-liev-able! Where on Earth did they dig you up? You come here to one of the dankest places in Moscow, proudly independent but we all know that’s code for we ain’t got shit to offer (she did those weird things with her fingers people do when she said that. I think they’re called air quotes), you meet a group of people, one of which dies his hair luminescent, another is basically a fuckdoll and then well… then… (and her she had to take a breath, I don’t know why. I said sentences longer than that) you follow them, basically into the sewer and THEN you ask what we are doing here? Honey, I hope you get paid well for this because you’ve been had.’’
"Oh, totally forgot. Nata was supposed to say how much it would pay. I should probably ask. Now." But Arma turned back around and now I couldn’t pass her without bumping into her. I’ll ask her later. Meanwhile, the group kept going. Anya wasn’t the most sportive type and the route was getting a bit crazy. Ladders, staircases, tight hallways in which the tall Arma had difficulty to pass. A lot of swearing often followed. Anya was getting more and more confused. But she was here now. And she was certain she could follow the path back out if needed. She could always leave. After what felt like several hours, Corg finally stopped.
‘’It’s here.’’
He tossed his cigarette aside.
"Is what?"
‘’Finally. I never thought we’d fucking get there. Where are we now? Under New St. Petersburg?’’ Arma said.
Nata snorted. ‘’I have to agree with Arma here, Corg. I know better ways of spending a Wednesday night. This better be worth it.’’
Corg looked back, eyes ablaze. It scared Anya.
‘’I’m a fucking professional, OK?’’ he said.
‘’Is that why she’s along?’’ Arma gave a nod to Itah.
‘’She’s none of your business. She’ll do her part. Right now, we need that one to do hers.’’
And he pointed right at Anya.
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