"So, how long have you been doing this?" Clark said, probably just to fill the silence.
"Too damn long." Jack shrugged. "About four years. I started when I got out of high school, and it's all been downhill from there."
"You don't like it?"
"Nope. The pay sucks, the tips are usually just enough to fill up the gas tank and maybe get enough groceries to last to the next day, dealing with traffic is infuriating, and most of the customers are either assholes or fuckin' stupid or both."
"Huh." Clark was silent for a moment. "I figure it'll take me long enough just to learn my way around here. See, I just moved here a couple weeks ago. Never been here before."
"Well, you're in for a shock, then." Jack turned a corner and stopped behind a battered old car that was waiting for a red light. He let his gaze wander as he waited for the light to change, taking in the sight of the headlights and taillights, street lamps, floating holosigns and neon lights that stretched on for miles.
Welcome to Neon City, the beginning of a bright new future. Jack had to suppress the urge to make a farting sound with his lips.
"Oh? What's this place like? I've been told it's not like other cities, but so far it looks pretty much the same."
"It's basically the same as anywhere else, except the megacorporations that are based here pretty much run the entire city. Openly, I mean. They own most of it, and rich individuals own the rest."
The light turned green and the line of cars moved again, then stopped. An old Ford Ranger had run the red light on the cross-street and almost hit the car in front of Jack. He sighed and kept talking.
"Back in the beginning, this place was supposed to be different. It was a group of small towns with really shitty economies surrounded by a lot of empty space. Lots of people unemployed, everything just drying up. People started moving out -- the ones who could afford to, at least. A lot of 'em were stuck here. They just didn't have enough money to leave."
Clark stared at him and shook his head. "I can't even imagine that. Where I'm from, everybody has a good job and can support themselves."
"Yeah, I'm sure they do. You've probably been told people who can't get jobs are just lazy, or something."
"Well, yeah. It's not that hard to get a job."
"If someone else decides you should have the job you applied for. Whether they hire you or not is completely out of your hands. I've been applying for better jobs for the past four years and no one even contacted me to schedule an interview. I've been barely hanging on all my life."
Jack slowed, flipped on the left turn signal, and continued while waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic.
"Anyway, after everything went down the toilet here, a bunch of megacorporations calling themselves 'the Consortium' decided to buy up the whole area and divide it up among themselves. I guess they wanted a place that had plenty of room for developing and testing new technology, where they could house their employees and provide stores for them, and whatnot."
"That makes sense. Makes it easier to do business."
Jack tried not to scowl at Clark while making the left turn.
"They bought everything in a four-hundred-square-mile area. Land, houses, businesses, everything. They evicted everyone still living in the places they wanted to 'develop.' Then they demolished a lot of the residential areas, except for the rich neighborhoods, and built new homes for the employees they were planning to relocate. I guess the idea was that they'd revitalize the area."
He snorted.
"Here we are, several decades later, and things haven't really improved. The corporations and a few rich families run everything here and their top-level employees have good lives. The city government is made of members of the founding corporations. But everybody else, especially the poor, is just left to rot."
Clark raised one eyebrow and stared at him from the corner of his eye. "You seem pretty worked up over that."
"Well, no shit." Jack rolled his eyes and turned another corner, heading for Garfield Avenue. "I just resent being kept on the bottom because I'm not already working for one of the big companies and wasn't born into a rich family. I mean, my girlfriend can't get a 'regular' job anywhere because she's not human. To them, she's just a product of Biotek's labs. Just a living weapon. She and our roommate have to do freelance muscle jobs and get paid under the table just to make ends meet."
"Well, why don't you just go get a better job?"
Jesus Christ, I'm sick of people telling me that. Jack took a slow breath. "Right, because it's that easy, isn't it? I mean, that never even occurred to me."
Clark arched an eyebrow at him as he continued.
"I mean, I could totally just pick a corporation, walk up to the front desk, and say, 'I've decided to work here. Put me on the payroll.' Because that's how people who tell me to just get another job seem to think it works." He sneered. "You can turn in a million job applications all over the world, but you'll never get in anywhere if nobody even gives you a job interview."
"Um," Clark muttered. He faced forward and stared out at the traffic.
Jack sighed. "And for Corona and Taura, it's even worse. The odds against them getting regular jobs are even higher because their legal status hasn't been determined yet."
"Corona and Taura?"
"Corona's my girlfriend and Taura's our roommate. They needed a place to stay after Biotek dumped them on the streets, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. I let 'em move in and they helped with rent and other bills. It's the only thing keeping a roof over our heads."
"So … you're dating one of those genetically-engineered … uh, things?"
"She's not a thing, goddamn it." He spotted a street sign reading Garfield as the hearse roared past it, and he grimaced and felt like kicking himself. "Fuck, I missed the turn-off."
"Um, okay," Clark muttered, frowning. "What is she?"
"She looks a lot like a dragon, but she's bipedal. She's got a lot of non-human traits because that's what the military wanted when they started those projects. Bigger, stronger soldiers, built-in weapons like claws and fangs, and a tail that can break a guy's legs if she whips it around just right."
Jack sighed and spun the wheel, taking the next turn-off and planning to go around the block to get to the customer's house from the other side.
"She has two arms and two legs, walks upright like we do, and all that. But she looks like a dragon. Claws, wings, tail, digitigrade feet. And our roommate, Taura, is basically a minotaur."
"Oh." Clark nodded slowly and gave him a nervous glance from the corner of his eye. Jack shrugged and kept talking.
"So neither of them have much hope of getting a normal job. Like I said, their legal status isn't official yet, so they're not even American citizens. And even without all that, a lot of humans are just afraid of them."
"Uh-huh." Clark shook his head. "And why would you want to … ugh … be, you know, intimate and stuff … with one of those th … um, chimeras?"
"Because I love her," Jack snapped. He made another turn and headed for the next intersection. Then he decided to have a little fun with Clark. "And because I like the way she roars when I make her come."
Clark grunted and twisted his face into a grimace. Jack grinned and turned onto Garfield, then scanned the fronts of the houses until he found the correct one.
"Okay, here we are." He parked and shut off the engine. "Brace yourself for the unpleasantness."
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