I pocket the card without looking at it. Never, ever, I think, and make for the gate, Rushil a few steps ahead of me.
“Hey, Rushil,” Pankaj calls.
Rushil stops with his hand on the latch.
“You ever change your mind, you know where to find me.” He smiles and closes himself in his house.
Rushil and I don’t speak until we’re back in the bustle of the main road near Scion station.
“Okay.” Rushil takes a deep breath. “I’m ready to stop acting weird now.”
I laugh. “I think you were the least weird part of any of that.”
“I try. And on the plus side, we didn’t even get mugged.”
“Probably because you’re so fearsome looking.”
“Actually, I think it’s you the muggers were afraid of,” Rushil says. “You’re terrifying.”
“I try,” I say, copying his voice.
“Speaking of. What do you think of Pankaj’s handiwork?”
“I don’t know.” I pull out the tag. A tired-looking girl stares back at me. Her eyes are bruised hollows and her hair is a ragged mess.
I scowl. “Is that how I look?”
Rushil leans over my shoulder and studies the picture. “Not at all.”
I squint at the card, examining the tiny gold lines that appear when I tilt it toward the light. I hope this thing is worth the risk. “Shouldn’t it, though?”
“Nah, it’s perfect,” Rushil says. “Your ID tag is supposed to make you look like a tar addict. That’s how you know it’s real.”
“Ha, ha,” I say drily. I don’t know exactly what a tar addict is, but the way Rushil says it tells me it’s nothing good.
“No, really.” Rushil reaches into his pocket and pulls out his own ID. “See?”
I take his tag. “Whoa.”
The Rushil in the picture looks like he wouldn’t hesitate to break my kneecaps. His hair is shorter—nearly shaved—and without his smile, his eyebrows give him a hooded look.
“Told you.” Rushil snatches the tag back. “We’re an unsavory pair.”
I hide my grin. “We should get back. Or I should. I need to check on Miyole.”
“Don’t you want to try out your new tag?” Rushil asks.
“Now?”
“Why not?” He hooks his thumb over his shoulder at a plain, low-slung building. “You can bring home some good news to Miyole.”
I frown at the sign above the doors. OLD DHARAVI LABOR PLACEMENT AGENCY.
My mouth goes dry. “Pankaj said it would only work if the screener was sloppy. . . .”
“I wouldn’t worry.” Rushil digs in his pocket again. He pulls out three coins and presses them into my hand. “If the screeners aren’t sloppy, you can always make them sloppy.”
“You mean . . .” I frown down at the coins and then take in a sharp breath when I grasp what he means. “Oh. Right so.”
“I’ll wait out here for you.”
“You don’t need to.” I clutch the coins. He’s done enough. More than enough.
Rushil arches an eyebrow. “Maybe I want to.”
My face goes hot. “I’ll . . . I’ll be back soon,” I stammer, and hurry into the office without looking back.
“Identification?” The middle-aged woman behind the desk at the labor placement office taps at her trackboard without looking up. Her black hair sweeps up from her forehead into a gravity-defying pouf.
I slide my new tag across the metal counter. It comes up to my shoulders, even though I’m standing.
“Any documentation of work history?” the woman asks without looking away from her screen.
I look down at the countertop, smudged with fingerprints from all the people who’ve stood in this same spot before me. “No, so missus.”
She holds my card out at arm’s length, then narrows her eyes and looks from it to me. Damn. Of course I would get the one screener who isn’t sloppy.
“Please, so missus.” I keep my voice low and lean close as I can. My heart picks up a sickly, too-quick beat. “I’ve got a smallgirl to watch out for.”
She frowns at me. I can tell she’s trying to figure my age, pick out my life story from my face and clothes, and she doesn’t like what she sees. Is this the time? I turn over the coins in my palm. What if it isn’t enough? Or what if she thinks it’s dirty what I’m doing and starts yelling like that woman chasing the thief? She has my tag. I’ll have to run out of here and leave it behind, and then I’ll be stuck without work and even more in debt to Rushil.
I place the coins on the counter, and slide them across to her.
“There’s got to be something,” I say.
She looks at me sharply, the swipes up the coins and pockets them. I let myself breathe.
“Very well.” She looks back at her machine. “Entry level, low-skill jobs. I have a laundry aide at a state end-of-life facility. Sorter at an electronics recycling plant. Powell-Gupta Dynamic needs a chai wallah, and there’s a synthetic diamond manufacturer on the east side that wants a chemical stripping assistant.”
“Which one pays the best?” I ask.
“Chemical stripping assistant.” She looks level at me and some of the formality drops out of her voice. “But those fumes will strip your lungs, too. That job will age you twenty years in a month. I wouldn’t take it if I were you, not if you have a little one to look after.”
“Which one would you take?” I ask cautiously.
“Chai wallah,” she says without missing a beat. “It’s not the best pay, but it’s down in a good part of the south city and you’ll be safe. It’ll help you build up a work history.” She gives me a meaningful look.
“Right so,” I say, even though I don’t have a clue what a chai wallah does. “I can do it.”
Her machine clicks and spits out a thin plastic card. “You start the day after tomorrow. Scan this with your crow, and it’ll direct you to Powell-Gupta. Feed it into the exterior lock system, and the building will show you where to go from there.”
“Crow?” I repeat. None too much of what she said makes sense, but that part I didn’t understand at all.
The woman holds up her handheld, a shiny, berry-red machine the size of her palm. “Your crow,” she repeats, as if I’m slow. She looks me over. “And see if you can’t pull together some more professional clothes. You look like you stumbled off a waste freighter.”
“Right so.” I take the card.
“Welcome to the workforce, Miss Parastrata.”
“Thank you.” I clutch my ID tag and the employment card to my chest as I hurry past the line of people waiting for jobs and out into the afternoon sun.
I spot Rushil sitting in the shade of a tree, thumbing through his handheld—I mean crow—and I can’t help but smile. Because the tag worked. Because I’m going to pay him back. Because finally, finally, something is going right.