Author: Jenny Abbott

Avery Darger started discussing his final arrangements on the third day, which was a good sign.

They were small decisions at first—plans for cremation in space, for example—and Tsu knew not to rush him. She had the routine down pat for premium clients and was committed to giving him his money’s worth.

As usual, the first forty-eight hours had been spent in a mix of small talk and sightseeing in the nicest parts of New Vegas. He danced a lot, spent even more, and admired all the benefits that came with her nuclear-powered core, especially pyrotechnics and flight. She shared the origin of her name, wishing silently, as she always did, that her parents could have thought of something better than to memorialize the big one that hit Newark.

It helped that they couldn’t touch. After years in the business, she’d watched many a less-augmented guide fend off clients’ roving hands and expectations. Her own protective membrane meant that, should Darger or anyone else get a little frisky, she only had to remind them that the transparent barrier was standing between them and a heat transfer of nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

He talked wistfully at times about the things he’d miss, although Tsu wasn’t concerned. It was common, she knew, for clients to get sentimental before the transformation, but rare for them to back out of the deal. Iron-clad contracts ensured that her employer would get paid either way—if the thought of a lawsuit didn’t dissuade customers, fear of a life of poverty did the trick.

Instead, she stayed dutifully beside him on the fourth night while he waxed poetic at a casino. For three hours, he drank and rambled on about what it felt like to hold a poker chip between his fingers or a napkin against his skin, all things long since inaccessible to her. It looked briefly like the irony might have dawned on him, and she was thankful when that moment passed. She was paid to be a novelty, not a martyr.

It was a relief, too, that he didn’t ask why she’d become a guide. Clients sometimes broached the topic, either out of awkwardness or inebriation, and she disliked answering. The truth was that she had chosen one of the few paths out of poverty that was available to her, and she had been lucky enough to be more successful than others. The surgeries and limitations had been worth it. But that wasn’t an answer fit for refined company, and she didn’t enjoy lying.

He surprised her on the fifth day by being more contemplative. Usually, when the end of the guided transitional period rolled around, and a client realized that their time in human form was almost up, they went for broke with gusto. Some ate ‘til it hurt, while others dove into fountains wearing six-figure suits. Darger, however, just wanted to stare at clouds, so she let him. Hovering above him in her membrane bubble, she performed a fireworks show against the holographic sky of a private gazebo.

He thanked her the next morning for her services, before leaving to be uploaded to the mainframe. It was a simple gesture, one she’d courteously received hundreds of times before, in an array of languages and customs. And, just for an instant, as she always did, she wondered what it felt like to abandon a life of privilege.

Then she flew out to meet her next client.