Aurore Ashley is plumber. Plain plumber, unusual in London, where so many MultiTools can perform tasks faster by attaching screwdrivers bits and spanners to fingertips or palms. Still. She’s got steady work, mostly posh. Plains households who don’t want noocompletes in their homes, who don’t trust, who don’t do equality bullshit. She looks safe. Kids in these houses are taught Mods are monsters in wardrobe, witches with moles, and Aurore kinda cute, polite, and above all: whole.

She’s Guild Member proper though. She displays CAU MultiTools badge with pride (a provocative adjustable spanner head crossed with hammer in oldskool Soviet red), and fellow workers know of her: she’s one of a handful of Plains to be Union in the whole of London. She chose that path because, one, CAU has infrastructure in place that provides her with contracts, and two because she could have been hand-pierced just like them. Something happened on her eighteenth birthday though, and she didn’t, in the end.

She woke up with buzz in her head, five years ago, on her day off. Eighteen today, already one-year orphan, living in warren rented with parents’ meagre inheritance. Through morning ablutions to breakfast, a steady hum crossing frequencies, like oldskool radiodialing. Then the noise settling into number string repeated in loop.

9853562951413.

Around midday, a comm from unknown sender, opening to crisp minimalist logo and cursives spelling Bern KantonalBank Internationale.

Dear Aurore Fletcher. Welcome. blablabla. Activated today. Secure line. Identifier. blablabla.

Exit to white page with single blinking vertical bar in centre. Normally she wouldn’t, but. If spam, it’s too dated, too obvious. Quaint. And this number in her head… On impulse, she’d entered it. As if pushed, remoted. New screen with name, her name, and another number. It’d taken her a few mos before realising new number was Sterling Pound amount.

She’d stared at comm for a while, then checked credentials: not con, coz bank name&address looked legit. Bern, Switzerland, home of banks, BKI apparently kosher. When doorvid had pinged, she’d jumped. Delivery guy handing over envelope for which she’d thumbprinted receipt. Back inside, envelope had revealed creditcard.

The fuck?