"Wow, you work hard. "
Texas completely and utterly ignored the man trying to talk to her. She just kept on walking down the street. This was Lungmen, and there was almost always someone trying to get her attention. To sell her something, or want to buy something. There was always a sob story, and there was always a con. She'd learned that ignorance truly was bliss, when it came to living in this city.
Exusiai followed right behind her, though her interest was at least piqued. She turned her head and winked at the stranger who'd spoken, unfortunately inviting him to follow the two young ladies on the sidewalk.
"I said, WOW! You work HARD!" The man repeated himself, pinching the brim of his neat little hat.
"Thanks!" Exusiai gave the man a courteous thumbs-up. "Yeah, I guess we do work pretty hard! We work hard, don't we, Texas?" Exusiai turned to her Lupo coworker, who simply rolled her eyes and kicked a tin can out of her way.
"Yeah," the man said, following after them, "look at you two. A couple of badass little hustlers, that's who you are. It's tough out there." He gestures to the streets of Lungmen when he says out there , as if it wasn't already obvious enough, "but you hustle. You're providers. You keep it real ."
"God damn right, I keep it real!" Exusiai stomps her foot with overwhelming agreement. She's hooked.
"You're a horse," the man tells her.
"I'm a horse?" Exusiai gasps.
"Oh yeah. A work horse. For real hard work," he clarifies, adjusting his tie.
"Oh! Yeah, I'm definitely a work horse! I'm working right now," Exusiai told the man.
"And we're going to be late if you don't keep up with me," Texas added, craning her head to talk at Exusiai. "Stop dilly-dallying. And you," she told the man, "leave us alone."
The man most definitely does not leave them alone. "Hey, I get that. I really do. You're working, that's cool. That's just what bad-ass hustlers like us do. We work. Like horses."
"Like horses." Exusiai nodded. She was following along.
"Now, I don't know about you," the man gestures to himself, "but I don't think that horses ever give up. Do they?" A rhetorical question to be sure.
"I don't think so?" Exusiai bit her lip in thought, before turning to Texas. "Hey, Texas, do horses—"
"Stop talking." Texas's reply is curt. Her agitation is only growing the more time this man spends following them.
"Horses never stop," the man tells them, as if he was the expert on all things equine. "YOU never stop. You ride. You ride it nice and hard."
"Whoa." Exusiai rubs her arm, nervously, "where is this going? Is this going to be one of those connections? Am I about to get into a fake taxi?" Her mind began wandering.
"I'm just saying that you're a pair of hard-working gals, that's all. Even now, you're off to who-knows-where to make some good old-fashioned Lungmen Dollars."
"Well the rent isn't free," Texas deigned to mutter.
"Of course it's not free, player. Nothing in this city is free. We're not in some Sargonian slum-house. We're in Lungmen. Hustlers like us three friends—"
"We're not friends."
"—should be rolling in dough for all the hard work we do!"
"We should be!" Exusiai was definitely on board. "We should be rich!"
The man zips up ahead and stops right in front of Texas, holding out his hand to stop her. He blocks her path decisively, and her nostrils are flaring even as he speaks. "Why aren't you rich?"
"I don't know. Please move. You're annoying me." Texas cracked her knuckles. "Do I have to knock some sense into you?"
"Some cents?" The man rubbed his hands together. "But you haven't answered my question, Texas."
"How do you know my name? Who are you?"
"Uh-uh!" The man wags his finger in front of the Lupo's face. "I said: why aren't you rich?"
"Because." Texas crossed her arms. It sounded like she was about to say something else, but then she stopped herself short. "It's a tough job. It's not glamorous. It's dangerous . I get paid just enough to—"
"To where you need to keep doing it, right?" The man tugs on the flaps of his suit, and the feathers that wrap around his neck seem to puff outward slightly. Now that Texas was getting a better look at him, he seemed to be your run-of-the-mill Liberi businessman - only this one was more persistent and annoying than the bunch. "The Man pays you just enough . Only enough so that you don't starve in the streets. But never enough where it feels like it actually means something. Am I right or am I right?"
"You're wrong." Exusiai shakes her head. "He's not a man, he's a penguin."
"Exusiai, hush." Texas holds up her hand, silencing the angel behind her while she keeps her eyes glued on the businessman. "Where are you even going with this?"
"It's an honest, valid question. I'm an honest, valid man." He points to himself. He's the man! "So, my hard-working ladies: why are we so poor? "
Texas sighed. She rubbed her forehead. "I don't know."
"And how about you, hotshot?" The Liberi points a feathered finger at the redhead in front of him. Sure enough, not even Exusiai could think nimbly on this one.
"Really?" The man takes a pause. "You're not even going to try to guess?"
"It's because my job doesn't pay me enough," Texas mused. The man makes a buzzing sound with his mouth, and Texas raises an eyebrow. "No?"
"Try again, hustler." The Liberi gestures to Exusiai. "Now you, you guess."
"Ummm…" Exusiai puts a hand on her hip, and she blows a strand of red hair from her face. "Because… taxes?"
Texas scoffs. "Sure, whatever."
Texas's eyes go wide when the man makes a loud dinging sound with his mouth. It's quite alarming. People are starting to notice them. They're staring .
"What?" Texas blinks.
"She's right! She's 100% right. Right on the money - or lack thereof," the man told them. Exusiai beamed with pride.
"Yay, I guessed right! We're poor because of all the taxes!" Exusiai threw her arms up triumphantly.
"Don't celebrate anything about taxes," the man told her, and Exusiai put her arms back down sadly. "It's a problem, hustler! It's taxes! The effing taxes!" He leans in close, and Texas leans back in return. "The city's bigwigs have got their sticky fingers in your pocket RIGHT NOW!"
"Right now?" Exusiai checks her pockets.
"Yeah, hustler, right now! Stealing from you every time you buy, sell, walk, talk, fart, so much as sneeze!" The businessman pinches his fingers together and rubs them methodically.
"The tax rate in the city of Lungmen is fine the way it is," Texas said, though she got a nervous feeling that she was going to regret saying that. "Everybody pays tax… it's just how the system is built. The taxes go towards…"
"Towards zip! Towards nada! Towards effin' kaput! Right back in their pockets, that's where it goes! And let's not forget those INDIRECT modes of taxation, too!"
"What?" Texas is thrown for a loop. "The what?"
The man reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a comically oversized rolled-up paper, which immediately unspools and rolls along the sidewalk. Then he begins reading.
"Sales tax," he says, "excise tax, extraction tax, underground waterway tax, this tax that doesn't even have a name!" He slaps the long sheet of paper, which is still unspooling. It's rolling all the way down the street. Someone almost trips over it. "And it gets worse!"
"How can it get any worse?" Exusiai is positively flabbergasted.
The businessman is happy to explain how much worse it can get. "There's the stuff people in other countries pay for, that makes them ask for more money from you here! And let's not forget the infected populace!"
Texas knit her brow with confusion. "What do infected citizens have to do with anything?"
"What," the Liberi says, "you think they can just live in this city for free?" He scoffs. "Those containment cells, those originium detectors, those checkpoints, those infected-only clinics, the infected-only spaces - it all adds up! It's Infection Tax, hustler! Tax that HUSTLERS LIKE US pay just to make sure PEOPLE LIKE THEM get to have a place to sit! It's ludicrous!"
"Yeah!" Exusiai pumps her fist. Her halo starts glowing white, much to Texas's growing concern and discomfort.
"Do you have any idea how much of YOUR HARD-EARNED HUSTLER MONEY goes towards those people?" The question is asked directly to Texas, who is quite frankly on the edge of her seat.
"H-how much?" She dares to ask.
"In total, the infected population of Lungmen is taking…"
"..."
"..."
"...?"
"NINETY-EIGHT PERCENT OF ALL OF YOUR MONEY!" The man is shouting at this point. Texas is almost knocked clean on her ass from the violent force of this revelation.
"WHAT?!" Exusiai's halo glows just a little bit brighter. She's more fired-up now than she's ever been before. "THAT'S A LOT!"
"It is, hustler, it is!" The Liberi puts on a shocked expression. "Ninety-eight percent! Nine-tee-eight-per-effin'-cent of your paycheck goes to those people, can you believe it?!"
"That's…!" Texas raises a finger. "No, there's no way it's that much . That's outrageous. You're lying."
"Am I? Have you ever seen what your paycheck would look like if you add 98% more to it? I bet you'd really like that, wouldn't you, hustler?"
"What the hell?" Texas takes a step back. "Look, this conversation is over. Do you hear me? It's over!"
"What do you mean OVER? It's not over! Not by a longshot, hustler! Don't you see?! They're milking your nipples 'till they BLEED! Aren't you SICK and TIRED of having BLOODY NIPPLES?"
Exusiai starts rubbing her own nipples. She looks defeated. "I don't want to live in Lungmen anymore," she announces. "Texas, we should find a new place to live. No more infected people, no more taxes, no more bloody nipples!"
"Exusiai?!" Texas slapped her colleague's hands away from her own nipples. "Enough! Listen to what you're saying!"
But it was too late. The transformation is already complete. Exusiai was a proper hustler now. A true hustler in every sense of the word. The color of her halo inverts. It's pitch black, like her ideals.
"My eyes have been opened to the truth… hustler," Exusiai mumbles, dreamily. It's as if the life and color has gone from her eyes. Replaced her irises with Lungmen dollar signs. "Deregulation is the only way forward. Let's dismantle the city from the top down~!"
Texas gasps, and she takes a panicked step back. Her sword is already clenched in her fists, and she glares at the businessman in front of her. "What did you do to Exusiai?!"
The businessman chuckles, darkly. "I turned her into a free-market fundamentalist!"
"Change her back right now!"
"I'll do it," the businessman grins, "for one million Lungmen dollars."
Texas fell to her knees. All the fighting spirit leaves her body at once. She can't win this battle. She's much too poor to do anything of value.
As the businessman's evil laughter fills her ears and drains her soul, Exusiai wraps her arms intimately around Texas's neck, and she snuggles her dear partner.
"Don't be sad, Texas… I promise I'm still the same best friend as before," Exusiai whispered. Texas stiffened.
"Really…?" The Lupo's ears flattened against her head.
"Of course, Texas… nothing's changed between us. Nothing at all…" Exusiai smiled, secretively. Her eyes were glowing. "We can still be friends. But…"
"B-but?" Texas's pupils shrank to mere pinpricks.
"Show me your cryptocurrency portfolio," Exusiai rasped. A black liquid started pouring out of her mouth. "I̴̛̼̺̣̞̫͡Ņ̰̯͙̤̫͙V̭͟͞E͙̱͎̭̟S҉̺͎͔̱̟̰͟T̛̼̰͠ ͇͇͓̯̖͟ͅI̷҉̸͖̞̺̪̣N̮͔ ̡͙͚͚̹͖̭̻̳͖M̪̥̬͔̹̙͢ͅĘ̘̫̫̗.͉͉͡ͅ"
"...leave my Chencoins alone!"
Texas sat up in bed with a startled gasp, holding her chest. She was sweating bullets, and her heart was thumping a mile a minute.
"Oh, fuck. Oh, shit… Oh, my Lord…"
Few things scared the ex-mafioso. But she wasn't going back to that lifestyle again. Never again. She paid her dues.
Tax free, of course.