Stef stared at Milla’s back, smiling as her HUD calculated the distances and angles between all of the freckles there. There was beauty to be had in a world that could be covered in tooltips at a thought. You always knew how warm it was outside, how far it was across your office, or how […]
Stef followed Milla through the Hyde agency, through the familiar parts that she’d been seeing since shifting in, and into halls she’d never set foot in, but were still somehow familiar, thanks to the cookie-cutter nature of agencies. Recruit dorm hallways apparently always looked like recruit dorm hallways. Milla required her room’s door open, and […]
The credits started to roll. ‘Another?’ Stef asked Milla’s hair. ‘Yarp,’ she replied. Milla slowly sat up, shook herself, and stood to change the DVD – it was still so strange to be using physical media – habit she’d ditched, even long before joining the Agency. The idea that you were reliant on a laser […]
9am, Friday, Hyde 7pm, Friday, Brisbane ‘You see that tree there?’ ‘What tree where?’ Stef asked as she looked up from her coffee, then adjusted her sunglasses so she had a better view of the park. ‘That big one over there,’ Milla said. ‘The one that looks like a good climbing tree.’ She made at […]
7am, Friday, Hyde 5pm, Friday, Brisbane There was a knock at her door, and a thought unlocked it. ‘Come in,’ Stef said, leaning back against the cool window. Milla, dressed casually for once, walked in, and sat cross-legged on the side of Stef’s bed. She swung up a red flask. ‘Tea?’ Stef looked down at […]
5pm, Thursday, Hyde 3am, Friday, Brisbane The common room was quiet – there’d been dinner and Disney movies, but the rest of the recruits had filtered out sometime during the second half of The Little Mermaid. ‘Another?’ Milla asked. Stef shook her head. ‘I can only do so many happy endings in a day.’
12 pm, Thursday, Hyde 10pm, Thursday, Brisbane ‘I can see why they sent you here,’ Milla said as she walked along the edge of the railing of the Hyde Agency roof, teetering unsteadily dozens of meters above the ground. Stef stared at the girl, at the absolute lack of fear she had, and tried to […]
7am, Thursday, Hyde 5pm, Thursday, Brisbane Stef opened her eyes. She rubbed her eyes. She kicked the blanket off. It was a familiar bed, familiar sheets – both standard Agency issue, even if the room – similar, but still different to those in Brisbane – wasn’t.
The Hyde lobby was very different to the Brisbane lobby – smaller for a start, with the desk off to the right, and the elevators off to the left, instead of a central desk and elevators to the right. There was also no secretary. Her HUD clock disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, showing 11:27pm. […]