will be fiscally beneficial, so long as she has a budget one. They aren’t as safe, but it will be the most cost-effective. The can rolls out the vending machine as she approaches. –12.95 She winces. The woman with the lop-sided grin is standing by the vending machine. A lopsided grin is a consistent net loss: smiles are important, they carry the face. She might be unattractive, but the woman with the lopsided grin has a faster mind and is better informed: she is always the one to gain from any transaction between them. She is to be avoided. The woman with the lopsided grin is waiting for her, so the agent with nine years leaves. Wait
+0.37
the lopsided woman calls. She wants something. What do you want? –0.31 I just want to talk to you. Are you aware the city is getting smaller? –2.86 It is. The population is decreasing. I know how to turn you a profit. –2.11 The girl with nine years runs—runs away from the woman with the lopsided grin—over a street littered with the skeletons of unclaimed cars and bikes—through a patch of scrubland where bushes glisten through brickwork. Conversations with her are expensive. Perhaps that is why she always starts them. But why? There are other agents in the city, agents with less intellectual marketability than her. Unsavvy agents barely taller than the knee can sometimes be taken in, led around, fed expensive lectures until their debt burden becomes too great. The woman with the lopsided grin is gone. A pair of sparrows flutters overhead. There is a bar eight blocks away, a bar with the potential for profit. By the time she reaches the shattered double doors her foot is cramping, but she hides it beneath a neutral smile. She takes a deep breath in through her
Redfern Barrett · 41