Shaa had worked for the Space Agency for over half her life time. After all these years she still had hopes of qualifying for a position at one of their colonies off Earth. She had had her hopes on Teta-Zeta. Now she had lost her job at the Space agency, and with it any opportunity she ever had left to leave for the colonies.
Shaa never bothered turning on the lights of her apartment when she got home from work that day. She looked out outside her window from the darkness of her studio apartment. The conversation with her supervisor still playing in her head.
The sun was setting. The city was covered by a thick yellow fog. The glow of neon from the buildings illuminated the streets below through the acid mist. A single auto flew across her window, disappearing into the smog. She could see the outline of the city Wall far in the distance. Behind the wall the slums.
She took a last look and walked into her kitchen. She had made the plan on her way home seated on the noisy subway car. She took out the bag of pink pills from a pocket inside her coat. She had bought them from a shady vendor in the Memory Market. She opened doors looking for a bottle of something–anything–to drink the pills with. Finally she found an opened bottle of Soju.
She looked at the yellow pills and she poured a handful in her palm, paused, and decided to empty the whole bag. She was reaching for the bottle when she heard a noise behind her. She turned to see two glowing eyes in the shadows of her living room.
“Giving up so easily, Shaa?” said the robot.
