The burrito came up first.
Then came an assortment of half-digested pills, bitter enough to scald her throat as they hurtled into the sink. Reds, yellows, greens. The pink one she'd taken for her anxiety. The little blue ones her supervisor had added after she'd fainted twice on Tuesday. The orange one that was supposed to cure her nausea. All present for the surprise reunion taking place in the employee bathroom on the thirty-second floor of Arasaka tower, where they still managed to look more appetizing than anything she'd had in weeks.
A shaky hand reached for the faucet. It took her a second to recognize her red fingernails, chewed down to Arasaka regulation length.
She watched the remains of her only meal of the day swirl in the sink, taking her appetite with it.
Gone down the drain. Just like Frankfurt.
The mirror whirred to life, revealing a pallid, corpse-like figure with vomit on its lips. Again, it took her a second to recognize herself. The blue hair didn't help.
Turquoise. She reminded herself, running trembling fingers through her smooth, formerly brown, hair. Her stylist hadn't been lying; two months in and her hair still caught the light in a way that made it glow. This morning she'd swept most of it to one side, brushing it into place on her way to work. It wasn't fancy, but it was neat. Almost presentable.
Almost.
A few odd strands of sticky turquoise clung to her sweaty forehead; bright blue juxtaposed against her pale skin. Tufts of it jutted out at odd angles, marking where she'd buried her fists in frustration. And after a closer look, she couldn't miss where her hair had grown dry and matted, where it tangled near the ears. To most of the world, she probably looked par for the course, maybe a little worn down. At Arasaka, people would look at her and see a dead woman walking.
Cupping her hands under the faucet, she splashed water on her face, rubbing it deep into the rings around her eyes, trying to make them disappear.
Sleep, V. Sleep would do the trick.
Her phone buzzed. Jackie. A moment of relief at seeing his gentle smile on her screen.
"H-Hey."
"Something wrong V?"
"My lunch fought back. And won."
"What was it?"
"I don't know…" She winced at the acrid taste of synthmeat and cardboard tortilla still on her tongue. "A burrito?"
A pause. "Tell me that wasn't a question."
"That's what it said on the front. Got it out of a vending machine."
"V, I warned you about that processed shit. You ever heard of Dim sum? Good, warm food? Could make it at home if you wanted."
"Don't exactly have time to go shopping right now, Jackie."
"Don't have time for food? Este trabajo te va a matar." He muttered.
She didn't need the help, but her translator translated, left his words floating in air. This job's going to kill you.
"You know, it actually tasted better coming back up than it did going down." Her lips twisted into a grimace. "I'm under a lot of pressure. Haven't had time to shower since Monday, and if stock drops another half-point…"
"So this is about that Frankfurt mess? Damn, V, that's been scrolling for two days now. Were you in that?"
V smirked at the mirror. Her lipstick had washed off, revealing the sore spot she'd been chewing on for the past week. She reached into her purse.
"You know I can't answer that." Her fingers shook slightly as she applied a fresh coat of red to her pale, thin lips. "But something like that's gonna have everyone on edge. Some more than others."
He understood. Or atleast, she hoped his silence meant he understood. He needed to know it wasn't just her toe in this Frankfurt shitcake. She was knee-deep and sinking fast.
V started when the door to the bathroom flew open, and a man walked in.
Oh right. This was the Men's room. If she hadn't been so exhausted, she might have had the decency to blush.
"You know what, V? This might be your chance to get out."
"Not again Jackie." She grumbled, turning back to the mirror.
"Tell them you're taking responsibility for the whole thing. Pack up your shit, throw those ridiculous shoes at that scumbag boss of yours and walk out."
A smile spread across V's lips, perhaps the first genuine one she'd had all day.
"Thanks, but you know I can't—"
"I can't, I can't, you know I can't. It's always about what you can't do, isn't it?"
"You don't just walk away from Arasaka."
Another pause. Now the man was standing behind her, arms crossed. He hadn't so much as glanced at the urinals.
"Can I help you?" She asked with a raised brow and plenty of irritation, finger brushing over her phone to end the call. Men's room or not, she didn't need to take shit from a thirty-second floor accounting scumsucker.
The man spoke in a low voice, with urgency. A long string of words that she couldn't make heads or tails of. Then he paused, asked her something else. Tilted his head expectantly.
V tapped the side of her head that was shaved short and covered in cyberware. Stupid chip wasn't picking him up.
"How are you?" he repeated, and V realized he'd been speaking in heavily accented English. Explained why her chip hadn't kicked in.
Though it also hadn't picked up the name or ID of the stranger. Words she'd never seen before flashed over his head when she tried to look up his record.
Access Denied
Which was ridiculous. She was in counter-intel, Arthur Jenkins' personal assistant. There were a handful of people in the company she couldn't scan and none of them worked in accounting.
"I've been better." V said, her Japanese muddled by sleeplessness and mangled by a Euro accent she'd never managed to hide completely. But it'd pay to be polite. Last thing she needed was another bigwig in her hair over protocol. Jenkins and Frankfurt were enough.
The man raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "It is alright. We can converse in English."
V nodded her thanks.
"I heard about Frankfurt, V." He moved to the sink beside her and turned on the faucet. "Messy business."
"We're getting it under control." V straightened up her hair and put away the lipstick. "Just a few more reports to go over and we'll know who messed up."
Me. Nobody would ever find out what really caused the Frankfurt incident. For one, a mistake like this couldn't be one person's fault. There were too many people involved, too many factors out of their control. The whole operation was a shitshow from the start. Of course, Arasaka wasn't interested in finding out whose fault the botch was. Corps didn't work like that. When it came to assigning blame, they'd scroll down their charts to find whoever had the lowest performance scores.
She'd chosen the worst time in history to try and go clean, to lay off the cognitive boosters and epi drips. Withdrawal symptoms had kept her on edge for a whole month, bringing her performance score down from a near-perfect 9.7 to a measly 7.4. After Frankfurt, she'd gone straight back to the meds, taking them at twice the recommended dosage just to keep up with everyone else. But it was too little, too late.
Frankfurt wasn't any one person's fault. But the report would sure as hell look that way.
"I can help with that, Ms. V. I can make sure...someone else's name is on that report, highlighted in red." He switched to Japanese halfway through his sentence. In the mirror, his eyes were burning holes into the back of her head. "Maybe your co-workers, maybe your assistant."
"Nobody's going to believe this was someone else's fault. I was directly involved." She snapped her purse shut before tucking it into her suit pocket. "And I'm not worried. I'm very close to cracking this thing."
"I admire your spirit." The man took a step closer. His hands were only an inch away from her clenched fingers. She could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck, smell the scent of his lilac perfume. "I admire that in a woman. Especially in one as talented as you."
"I'm flattered." V muttered, turning towards the door.
He didn't try to stop her, just waited and watched with a hint of a smile on his lips. His eyes, an unusually plain brown, were reveling in the power they had over her. Knowing she was free to leave, wanted to leave, but couldn't. Not until he was done talking.
"You carry yourself well, V. Proudly." He reached for her head. When she didn't react, he began to stroke her hair. Gently at first, but soon his hand took on a life of its own, travelling from her temple down to the nape of her neck in light, pitter-pattering touches that made her shudder. "Like a hina doll."
His voice grew husky. The hand dipped lower.
"A few minutes. A half-hour." He said, nose brushing past her ear. V's eyes never left the mirror, where the man's reflection had shifted until it was right behind her. "And you'll never have to worry about being fired."
She didn't speak. Didn't move a muscle.
"Jenkins, Abernathy, they're all nothing to me, V. Pawns on a chessboard, bickering over who I sacrifice first." He was speaking into her neck now, the vibrations sending tingles down her spine. "But you don't have to be one too."
"I-I…" She swallowed hard. "What do you want?"
"A moment of your time. Just a few minutes." He said, pulling her towards the stalls, one hand gentle in hers and the other nestled in her hair. She didn't budge.
His grip tightened.
"We can do it here, if you want." He slapped his hand against a sensor on the wall and the lights dimmed. The lock on the main door slid shut. "Just listen to me. Do as I say." He boomed suddenly, in a voice that was not used to being ignored. His grip on her hair was painful now.
He pushed downwards, bowing her head, putting pressure on her knees. Red alerts flashed in the corner of V's sight; her heartrate was rising. Fast.
Part of her wanted to just give up, to allow her knees to buckle. This man, whoever he was, was powerful. Throwing her out on the streets would be nothing to him. All he'd have to do was tap two buttons in his AV while sipping champagne with his joytoy, and her career would be over. Her life would be over. No contacts, no recommendations, no termination notice. She'd be at the mercy of the streets.
The man smiled. He'd seen the desperation in her eyes. It was why he'd followed her into the bathroom in the first place. His grip loosened and he planted a wet kiss on her forehead.
"On your knees. Now."
Her eyes snapped shut. Her knees bent. And a familiar voice, seething with anger, began speaking over the phone.
"Hey asshole!" Jackie?
The man whirled around, scanning the mirror first, then the walls, before finally landing on her phone. A cheap, pink, plastic relic that had no business being at Arasaka; the last thing he'd expected.
"Are you recording this?" He snapped, turning his attention back to her. He grabbed another fistful of her hair and shook her like a doll. "Is this a set up?"
"Listen up, asshole. I've got a full scroll of your horndog antics locked and loaded. If you don't get the fuck off her right now, the whole world's gonna see what Arasaka pays you to do."
The man paled. He didn't seem to notice when V twisted out of his grip.
"My netrunners will sniff you out." He threatened through gritted teeth. "You'll be a grease-stain on the sidewalk."
"Let her go, choom."
The man's furious eyes turned towards her, then back to the phone. He rocked in place for a moment, weighing his options.
"I-I've got a meeting with Jenkins in ten minutes." V croaked, moving to the running faucet. Her mascara was starting to run.
The man spat out a stream of angry Japanese. She knew the meanings of most of the insults, and her chip helped her out with the rest. The translations hovered in the mirror beside his reddening face. Slut. Whore. Cunt. She knew Jackie could hear it all, and her heart sank further.
"You're done." The man spat, heading for the door.
"Yeah, I'll see you soon, choom." Jackie called in response. The moment the man left the bathroom, V reached for the phone.
"Jackie? Jackie you still there?"
After a short pause, he spoke.
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Jackie, listen. I don't want you to do anything stupid. Things are bad enough for me right now. If word gets out that one of my contractors assaulted an Arasaka employee…"
Another pause. Longer.
"Relax, chica. How long we known each other? You really think I'd do something that stupid?"
V smiled and the mugging victim in the mirror came alive for a moment. Her hair was a tangled mess; clumped up where it had been grabbed, curled and twisted where she'd pulled and struggled in the man's grip. Black streaks ran down her cheeks, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. An alert appeared, reminding her about the meeting she had in five minutes.
"No, Jackie. I know you'd do something stupid. Remember that time in Tijuana?"
"Those guys were drunk, V. I beat some sense into them."
"This was nothing, Jackie. Just another shark sniffing after blood." She splashed some water on her face and let it drip off onto the counter. "And I'm bleeding plenty right now."
"V, listen to me. You don't have to−"
"I don't need a lecture right now!" V snapped, fists clenched against the sink.
"That gonk you were talking to right now. Would you have done it?"
"What?"
"If he could save your job, would you have done it?"
Warning. Heartrate exceeding acceptable parameters. Acetylcholine administered.
V sighed as a flood of hormones doused her in a sense of unnatural calm. She couldn't get mad at him. Not with her back this close to the wall.
"I'm going to have to call in all my favors, Jackie. Every single one." She leaned closer to the mirror. Eye shadow was a goner, but her lipstick wasn't smeared. She dragged a hand through the tangles until her hair was as straight as she could make it. "Meet me at Lizzie's, tonight."
"What? You? At a bar?"
"Please, Jackie. I really need you this time."
"I'll be there, I promise. 8 o'clock."
"And Jackie?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we forget this thing ever happened? Please?"
A long pause. Maybe the longest yet.
"Fine. Deleted and forgotten about."
"Thanks. 8 o'clock."