Phoenix

Sunset Boulevard

It was a miracle she saw the signboard.

She'd been wandering the streets for hours and was starting to feel the dry, dusty air parching her breath. Finding a job in the Outer Band had been fruitless. All the factories had been chained and padlocked against the general public, with NO TRESPASSING on all the gates. As a last resort, she'd crossed Junction Bridge, a four-laned highway connecting the Outer Band to the Central Commercial District. She'd never delved so deep into the centre of the city before. The only orphans who had come close were those stationed on window-cleaning rotation, or infrastructure repair—patching and re-concreting the high-rise buildings affected by acid rain. They'd spoken about it like it was another world and Ash had listened with breathless wonder. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw then.

The streets of the Central Commercial District were wider, cleaner, more organised than the streets of Outer Band. Everything glinted in high definition—from LCD lights inset in the sidewalks that changed colour with the pressure of her footsteps, to the glass skyscrapers that engulfed the air-space, buffed to a mirror sheen. There was no screech or hiss of machinery, no taint of urine or rotting rubbish. There were only billboards advertising new-age plastic surgery and holographic mannequins in shop windows, bending and flexing their engorged body parts. Ash stumbled and stared, so caught up in the colour and excess that she didn't see the parade until she right in the middle of it.

Men in thigh-high boots hollered down at her from open top buses while busty women with tasselled nipple clamps threw glitter like confetti as they passed on unicorn floats. All around was the gleam of glittered abs, the bulge of sequinned crotches and lots of painted flesh. A man in a pinstriped suit stood on a bedazzled podium, yelling into a loudspeaker. But Ash wasn't listening. She was distracted by the signboard next to him, flashing with the neon words, 'now hiring.'

"Looking for a good time, girly?" the pinstriped man leered down at her as she approached. Above him, 'Sinderella's Palace' flashed in strip lighting and behind, a dingy pub, hidden behind a corded curtain seeped tobacco smoke. A tropical green snake lifted its head from its position around the man's shoulders and flicked a lazy purple tongue at her.

Ash stared.

The man's coal-lined eyes swept over her denim drawstring jeans, sneakers and crisp white shirt. "What's a vanilla girl like you doing on the Boulevard, hey?"

It took Ash a moment before could remember the reason herself. "It says you're hiring." She pointed to the signboard.

"You want to work for the Madame?" Surprise modulated his tone.

She frowned. Vanilla girl? Madame?She glanced at the sky. The black spires of the Establishment—the tallest, most central building in their city—were piercing further and further into the yellow yolk sun. It was getting late. She was running out of time. "You got a problem with that?" She didn't like the way the pinstriped man and his snake were looking at her. "You going to let me in, or am I wasting my time?"

The pinstriped man raised his pencilled eyebrows. Even the snake leaned closer to appraise her. "The girl's got tongue," he said to the snake. "Bit of rouge here, a touch of glitter there. She might just pass."

The snake hissed in agreement.

"Where are you from, girly?"

Ash didn't answer. It wasn't a good idea to mention the orphanage to anyone, especially a potential employer. Orphans were ranked as low as beggars and gypsies, seen as feral and uneducated, little more than vermin. She'd be turned away if he knew.

The pinstriped man quirked his head, an ironic smile blossoming on his lips. "Gone quiet now, girly? Don't want to talk about where you're from?"

Ash shifted uncomfortably, rubbed her arm where her scabs were starting to prickle as they healed, then quickly let them drop to her sides again.

The man continued. "Lucky the Madame likes her girls dark and mysterious. Do you have any special talents? Apart from a smart tongue?"

Ash wondered what kind of 'talent' it could possibly take to work at a pub. "I can make grown men keel over, especially those who ask too many questions." It was meant as a threat. She needed a place to stay and the pinstriped man was wasting her time. If he wasn't going to take her in, she needed to find somewhere that would. And quickly.

The pinstriped man studied her for a moment longer before pushing aside the trimming on the door. "Past the bar, first dressing room backstage," he said. "That's where you'll find the Madame."

Ash hesitated. She hadn't expected the swift invitation, and now she didn't know if she wanted it. Something about the pinstriped man and his snake put her on edge. Still, she couldn't find it in herself to refuse the opportunity. She wasn't exactly in a position to be picky.

She stepped inside, realising only as she did that the parted trimming was painted in the shape of two legs.