Chapter Twenty-Three – Free and Compulsory

Chapter Twenty-Three – Free and Compulsory

“With the modern love for quick fashion comes a modern dislike of trashed clothing. Fashion changes so quickly that by the time something is designed according to a new fashion, made, then shipped to its market, the fashion it was designed for might have moved on and become démodé.

It’s unforgivably wasteful. If you’re going to throw so much effort away, then why not save yourself some trouble, apply some skill, and make fashion that will never fade?”

–Audrey Alice Darnell-Forsythe, president of Cutting Edge Fashion, 2051

***

“What about something like that?” Lucy asked. She was pointing to a massive floor-to-ceiling banner ad in front of one of the shops in the inner circle of the Arcade. The shops and stalls here were all corpo clothing places.

Not that the clothing they sold was necessarily corpo fashion. There were plenty of designer casual wear. Hoodies and t-shirts and jackets with looping .Gifs on the back or tracksuits with RGB stripes. The kind of shit you’d never be caught wearing in a board meeting. Still, the brands were corporate, even if what they sold didn’t fit that aesthetic.

It looked more like… well, samurai gear, but cheaper.

My jacket was a pretty good example of it. It was cut and tailored to fit me, the flaps or whatever they were called stopped exactly at the knee, the back part was fit precisely to my shoulder’s length, the front bit was bunched out just enough for my breasts.

I’d mostly worn hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs my entire life, and it was kind of miraculous to just get clothes that fit right. The last coat I had was way too tight at the front, and I couldn’t zip the damned thing up, and the sleeves were too long.

Anyway, I looked at the sign, then squinted a little. “That’s very corpo,” I said.

The model on the banner was a tall, skinny woman in a pantsuit and suit jacket. She was strutting towards the viewer, but the camera was backing away at the same rate so she remained in focus the entire time.

“Yeah, but it’s hot,” Lucy countered. “She’s got that… I’m going to top you energy going on.”

“You find that hot?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” she said with a nod. “Well… I guess you’re right, it would be silly on you.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said.

She grinned. “Of course not.” I glared at Lucy, but she just smiled smugly at me and pulled me forwards. “It’s not right for you anyway. You’re too casually dangerous for that kind of thing. Plus it kinda goes counter to your cat-theme.”

“Cats can be serious and whatever that is,” I said with a gesture to the ad. “Glamorous and graceful or whatever. Cats are notably like that.”

“Yeah, of course, but that’s not the kind of cat you are.”

“What?” I asked. “Then what kind of cat am I?”

“Alley?”

I sniffed. “That’s just mean.”

“Alright, so maybe something more casual? But we don’t want to be too casual, because casual and violence combined comes off as sloppy,” Lucy said.

“How do you figure that?”

She slowed down, then leaned into me as we walked. It was something she’d always done, at least until she needed more help to walk than just someone to lean on. “Okay, so, you’re walking down an alley.”

“Is this an alley-cat thing?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s a joke,” she confirmed with a grin. “Now stop interrupting, I’m painting a picture with my words.”

“That’s called hallucinating, and it’s not good for your health.”

She jabbed an elbow into my side, and I laughed. “You’re walking down an alley. It’s night, so it’s poorly lit. You’re not in the safe parts of the city. Then someone steps out ahead of you and tells you to stop. What’re the first things you do?”

“Shoot?”

“Cat,” she whined.

I shook my head. “Ah, okay, so, dark alley, it’s probably a mugger, or someone like that. Your word-pictures are a bit stereotypical.”

“Okay, maybe, but what’s actually the first thing you do?”