I inhale through my nose. “Please put on your jacket.”
He smiles and lifts his arms.
I get the jacket on him and kiss the top of his head before I can stop myself. “You are exhausting.”
“Yep.”
I carry him out the door, bag banging against my hip, coffee in a sealed cup between my teeth, and lock the apartment behind us. The corridor smells like coolant, old noodles, and someone’s aggressively medicinal cleaning spray. Mrs. Keth from 8B is already outside her unit trimming a fungus vine she swears is decorative.
She eyes Jesse over her spectacles. “He break anything this morning?”
“The economy,” I say around the cup.
She huffs out a laugh. “Good. It deserves it.”
I hand Jesse over to our temporary stopgap arrangement two levels down—a retired dock quartermaster named Fenn who has nerves of steel, a reinforced play area, and a suspiciously extensive knowledge of toddler grappling techniques. He opens the door in a sleeveless undershirt with a mug the size of my future.
“Morning,” he says.
“Is it?”
“Nope.”
“Great.” I pass Jesse over. “He’s eaten, he has extra snacks, and if he starts taking apart your ventilation panel, redirect with blocks.”
Fenn grunts. “Kid likes tools.”
“Kid likes chaos.”
Jesse pats my cheek as Fenn takes him. “Bye, Mama.”
That nearly undoes me every single time.
“Bye, baby.” I smooth his hair back. “Be good.”
He gives me a look that suggests this is a philosophical disagreement.
Then I’m hustling for transit.
By the time I reach Brautigaum Plastics, the sky is fully awake and so is the building’s lobby display, which cycles through smiling employees, polymer innovations, and phrases like TOMORROW’S MATERIALS FOR TODAY’S VISIONARIES. Every time I walk in, I have the same thought: if this company spent half as much on wages as it does on wall-sized propaganda, I could afford a chair that survives contact with my child.
I badge in and head for Admin Support on the eighth floor. The office is all glossy partitions, too-bright overhead panels, and the persistent smell of synthetic citrus. I’m two minutesearly, which in corporate terms means I’ve arrived in a state of moral excellence.
I slide into my workstation and wake the terminal.
From the break alcove, voices drift over the partition.
“—three departments minimum.”
“No, I heard six.”
“They’re calling it restructuring.”
“It’s layoffs, Miri. If they were proud of it, they’d call it layoffs.”
I freeze, fingers on my keyboard.
“Who’s first?” another voice asks.
