The noise from the mechanism behind the steel door opening traveled down the hall. Standing at the counter, Nina listened as she heard the footsteps of a person make their way down the stairs before moving up the hall. The light padding of the feet let her guess correctly that it was Reina who appeared in the doorway.

“I’ll join,” Nina said before Reina had the chance to speak. Hearing her response, a smile appeared on Reina’s face as she nodded her head to the side to indicate that she should follow.

Nina followed her down the hallway before turning into the room opposite the stairs that she had sat in before. Euris, the girl from the last time, sat in a chair which faced an empty seat.

“Sit,” Reina said before standing behind Euris. The box connected to a series of tubes was again sitting on a small table between the seats. After watching as Euris turned the machine on and began to calibrate it through a portable keyboard, Reina turned to Nina.

“I’ll cover the costs to create your identity as previously offered. I’ll also loan you the credits to upgrade your clearance to the orange level interest free at 5,000 credits. Your base pay is 50 credits a week, without tax of course, but all jobs have their own bonuses which can be quite large, so you can clear a lot more than that. I’ll also give you 100 credits as a joining bonus, although you’ll want to give 20 of that to Sem. You take the jobs I assign to you, you work with who I assign to work with you, and you do it all without complaining. Do we agree?”

“Double my joining bonus and I’ll agree,” Nina replied nonchalantly as she wondered how Reina already knew about Sem’s loan.

Reina raised her eyebrow as a low whistle escaped from her lips, a grin appearing on her face. “What if I say no?”

Nina didn’t know where her boldness had come from. She didn’t even care about the extra credits all that much, but was simply interested to see Reina’s reaction. Would Reina give her an inch?

“An extra 25 then, and that’s the final offer,” Reina laughed to diffuse the tension. They both understood that considering the negotiation, the amount was completely insignificant. It was the principle.

“I accept then.” Without being entirely sure of what she was getting involved in, Nina signed up.

“Great!” Reina smiled before patting Euris on the shoulder. “Hook it up and do your thing.”

Nina watched as Euris strapped a band around her arm before moving over to the machine. After pressing a few keys, Nina felt a sharp jolt from the band before the sensation turned into a dull throb.

“The first step is your official identity,” Reina smiled. “This is what SuTSU and other legitimate organizations will see if they scan your armband. Because there are so many people on the three plates, finding someone with biometric traits that are close enough to your own to pass the system isn’t a problem. We can create a dummy identity using their existing details while slotting a few of your own in.”

A beep from the machine caused Euris to peer at the display. After a glance, she turned to Reina before holding up 4 fingers.

“Only 4 matches?”

Seeing her nod, Reina sighed. “Well, what are they?”

“Army lancer.”

“Nope, cross that one off.”

“Lawyer.”

“Don’t think SuTSU are going to believe that there are many lawyers down here, what else is there?”

“Chef.”

“Can you cook?” Reina asked. Seeing Nina shake her head, she looked back to Euris. “The last one?”

“Garbage disposal.”

“That’s a red occupation, so it’s not happening,” Reina said without hesitation. “Nobody here is going to be registered with a profession like that. What are the details on the chef?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“Alright, we’ll go with that then. You don’t want your name changed, do you Nina?”

“Nina is fine.”

With a smile, Reina walked over to the corner of the room before picking up a roll of fabric. Moving behind Nina, she unfurled the roll, holding the unfurled rectangle of fabric behind her head.

“Mugshot,” she laughed as Euris pulled what looked like a smartphone from her pocket. Without prompt, the flash from the camera activated and the photo had been taken. Reina discarded the roll of fabric before pulling a small box from a pocket on her lab coat.

“Are you done?” she asked Euris. Seeing her nod, she squat down next to Nina before popping the small box open as though she were about to propose.

“This is your real identity that you will need when you’re on a job. It confirms that you work as part of The Cloud Orchestra and has a few other details. You can also store data on it if needed.”

In the box was a small pink chip, around half a centimeter square.

“So, where do you want it?” Reina asked. “I’d avoid anywhere near where you wear your armband, your wrists, and your face.”

“You have to put it under my skin?”

“Don’t worry, it’s painless. We all have them.”

The idea of someone putting a chip under her skin was not particularly appealing to Nina. While it was relatively common at her previous workplace, she had always rejected the offer, using an old keycard instead.

“Where are yours?”

Euris pointed to her right foot, while Reina pointed to her left collarbone.

“Where your chip is placed also says something about you. It might not be apparent at first, but you’ll learn to see it.”

Nina thought in silence for a minute before saying “I’ll have mine on my collar also then, but on the other side.”

With a raised eyebrow, Reina looked at her before tossing the box to Euris. “You heard her, get the gun.”

Euris pulled a small pistol-looking device out from a pocket before inserting the chip. Standing up she stepped over to Nina before pointing the device at her shoulder.

“Clothes.”

Nina removed her jacket before awkwardly unbuttoning the top of her shirt. Ignoring Reina’s curios gaze, she pulled the opening to the side to expose the skin.

“Same position as Reina’s?” Euris asked, a smile creeping onto the face which had so far been expressionless during the entire process.

“Do it.”

Without a warning, the trigger was pulled, pain shooting into the spot like a hot needle. Clenching her teeth and stifling a grunt, Nina glared at Reina.

“Yeah, I lied. It hurts a bit, but it will go away soon. There won’t even be a mark by tomorrow.”

Euris began to pack up the gear in silence as the initial sharpness of the pain at her collar began to subside. Tossing an orange band across to Nina that had also been connected to the machine, Reina clapped.

“Welcome, it’s a pleasure to have you with us. You can come upstairs now.”

Reina strolled out the room without waiting for Nina to follow. Looking at Euris, who was still packing up the gear, she stopped.

“Do you need help?”

“No.”

Rejected, she decided to follow Reina up the stairs to the thick steel door that she had seen before. It was painfully obvious by now that the downstairs areas were just a front for what actually happened at The Cloud Orchestra, so Nina was eager to see what lay behind the door.

Through the door, however, was an empty office. Although this one was clean and neat with some sad looking computers, it was still empty. With white walls and timber flooring, it looked like a standard small office that Nina would have found on Caecus. With a kitchenette in the corner that was complete with clean glasses and marble benches, Nina was left confused.

“Just wait,” Reina said as she flopped down on a brown couch. Nina sat opposite her in silence before looking around the room, her eyes passing over some paperwork scattered on the coffee table. By the time she realised that they were cake recipes and not anything work-related, Euris had appeared with a case which must have been filled with the gear from earlier. Dropping the case, she began to haul the door closed.

“Consider this an airlock,” Reina explained. “If SuTSU ever turns up, this is what we can show them after they ask us to open everything up.”

It made sense to Nina as it was obvious that the real operations didn’t happen downstairs. While this area didn’t look too busy either, they would at least be able to claim that this is where daily business was conducted.

After the steel door had shut and the mechanism had locked into place, Euris walked to the kitchenette in the back corner before pressing a combination of buttons on the dishwasher. Once the passcode was complete, a portion of the wall near the kitchen moved to the side, revealing another room beyond.

“Let’s go,” Reina said as she strode through the door which led to a wide hallway with plush cream carpet that was soft underfoot. Set into recesses at both the top and bottom of the walls, lights shined gently, creating lines of light down the space. Walking behind Reina, Nina saw that there was a dark wooden door on each side set into the grey walls.

“Jade and Aline were going to paint something along the hallway because it’s a bit bland, but they haven’t found the time yet,” Reina said as the door closed behind them. Euris had followed the pair and closed off the way to the ‘airlock.’

“Our space has three floors. You’ve seen the ground floor already and we’re now on the first floor. This floor is mainly work related – there are some storerooms, Euris’s office which also houses the servers, my own office, and then the group office at the end,” Reina said with a smile. As they reached the end of the hallway, Nina found that they were in an open office. Roughly square with similar lighting and the same plush carpet, a rectangular line of desks ran across the centre of the room. With 4 desks on each side that faced each other, together there were 8 stations.

The stations, however, were all currently unoccupied. Nina soon learned that the reason for this was that everyone from the team she had met before was currently huddled around a printer in the corner of the room.

Hearing that Reina was back, the group turned to face them.

“She’s going to be responsible for the meals then, right?” Svanda asked as she pointed at Nina.

Reina laughed. “If you can convince her.”

“So what about it Nina?” Svanda winked as she held up the printout that the team had been looking at with interest. There, complete with the photo that Euris had taken only moments before, was Nina’s ‘official’ identity.

Occupation: Chef.