The Beginning of Part 2 of Allison Zero. New readers should be able to jump in at this point.

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In Part 1 Allison had the details of her transition, at least the medical side, explained to her. She just has to wait for the medication to take its effects and for the doctors to be ready to do their thing.

However, her new role on the station, and her new job with One is changing up more in her life than her gender. Just over a week on from discovering exactly who she is it’s now time to venture to the part of the station — that few know of — to begin her training as a young tobacconist. Except nothing is straightforward for Allison, a woman who never takes the traditional route. She wants more than is allowed for the young tobacconists and to get her way she has to be both a student and spend time working for and serving her peers.

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The Outlook, near the top of the station, was a hitherto — at least to the new woman, Allison — hidden away part of the station. It’s where she was being led through to her new job from her second new apartment in a week. Her new apartment where One offered some parting words to her before she began into whatever all this meant.

Despite being a message One had intended as assurance, about the scale of what was happening with her, who was who, and what exactly both his and her role was, it still left a clawing void in her mind.

Vickie brought Allison along corridors and down stairs, occasionally swiping their way through doors with Allison seemingly insulated from perception by One’s attempt at calming her. “You have nothing to worry about. This isn’t about you,” he’d said. “But you will worry anyway. So just feel your way through this and learn. Then accept you really do have nothing to worry about. It’ll come.”

After continuing for a few minutes with Vickie, then travelling down another stairs with Allison having not even thought about how she’d find her way back again, then a little way down yet another corridor, Allison, and her guide, reached an opening where someone was rushing between doors; this man distractedly fastening buttons on what appeared to be a uniform.

Vickie brought Allison down another small, narrower corridor, walking about fifty or so feet, and swiped into an enclosed, narrow space. Or so it appeared to be on first arrival. Allison realised it was cramped because clothes hung from rails, two high, and after another few steps she saw the rails formed a maze through what was really quite a large space.

“You’re serving drinks tonight, you’ll be supervised. And tomorrow evening you’re on midnight cleaning. We’ll get you setup with those particular uniforms, for now. Tomorrow, first thing, presuming you’re not kept working late, we can arrange the basics for your apartment.

“This is all so fast. Normally we’d be getting you settled into your new circumstances, but now I understand why you’re being put to work so quickly given who introduced you.”

“Who’s One, and who is Nine? What are they?” Allison asked Vickie, not sensing the opportunity to have answers on any level of conscious awareness rather giving into one of her deeper feelings; her deep seated, instinctual worry about what all this was.

“They’re Numbers, honorifics. Titles... I suppose,” Vickie said. “They’re the highest level of management for tobacconists. It’s a holdover from when everyone in any management role, anywhere on the station, had a number. It’s a bit presumptuous that we get to keep them but who am I to say anything? From what I know tobacconists are the only occupation that’s kept them, or wanted to hold onto them.”

As Vickie spoke she riffled through hanger after hanger of clothing before she quickly turned around and went back to where they first entered; her statement finished; pushing her way through some clothes into what seemed to be another path, pulling down a pale green dress as she walked, then making her way to a walkway that held shelving.

“How many numbers are there?” Allison struggled to get through the gap in the clothes as easily as Vickie had.

“Of tobacconists?” Vickie responded, picking up some packages. “All tobacconists and their staff have a number. I’m V63 and you’re A49. One is One. Nine is Nine. Don’t call me Vickie or any workers by their actual name in front of students. Tell them your name if you want but among the students I’m V63. A few workers already know about you, most of your shift do.”

Allison was being handed packages Vickie was picking out. She could barely hold any of her thoughts in her mind as she struggled to grasp onto the physical items. “So does One have a letter? From his name?”

“He’s One. Numbers are the most senior, I don’t know any of their actual names, or any letter. And before you ask there’s nine of them.

“Seniority is weird among them, they all have individual purviews, or none. They’re a team with some unique domains each, mostly. Nine is in charge of students. Others are in charge of various staff and co-ordinate with Nine over the staff working here, and other numbers with staff elsewhere, amongst other things. Which is why we’ve been busy being fucked around for a few days in preparation for you. It was thought you could happen for us at any moment, or not. More seriously than most other new tobacconists.

“How long have you been smoking, by the way? That you decided you want this?”

“Since last Saturday,” Allison said.

Vickie nodded and pushed her way into another seemingly invisible path before running her fingers through even more hangers, then pulling something down.

She held the black dress she pulled out up to Allison. “Sorry it’s so slutty. You’ll quickly discover the yoots favourite smoke helps them get horny. Like they need any help. They voted on these uniforms not too long ago; empowerment, I was told. For them. It should be your size if my eye is right.”

She pushed the uniform into Allison’s hands and Allison checked the size. It was the correct one.

“You can try it on and if it needs tailoring we’ll get someone to do some quick work on it.”

Vickie brought Allison back to where they saw the man tying buttons, then through a door into a large, sterile smelling area with a lot of tiling. There was about eight people in there, in various states of undress, both men and women.

Allison felt the blood drain out of her. She couldn’t get changed here.

“Is there... I mean... I’m not too great with... Well with, you know, being in... Changing—”

“You’re shy?” Vickie asked.

“The medical problem I was talking about earlier,” Allison said, thinking the medication Doctor Grace gave her would really need to hurry up in helping her appear correctly female, even if it meant the physical pain like she’d had earlier in the week.

Vickie pointed out an archway, which Allison walked through, and behind it she found quite large changing cubicles, much like private rooms for entertaining your opposite sex friends found in the parts of the station she knew. Except these didn’t have beds, or supplies.

Setting the dress down on the chair she went through the rest of what she’d been given. The clothes were new to her, but then she figured all women’s clothes were new to her, really, seeing as she was a week old woman.

After longer than she really could be expected to take Allison was walking back to Vickie, feeling quite exposed, with air blowing up her skirt onto and up around her ass, and she knew someone could get a look at her crotch — her still, for now, quite male crotch — if the inquisitive observer engaged in just a little bit of bending and twisting. Or simply had to pick something up off the ground.

Standing in front of Vickie Allison felt like all she was was one big jitter. Her breath was shaking, as was her mind, and not least her body.

“That the medical issue?” Vickie asked.

“What do you mean?” Allison responded, with her heart leaping to her mouth, closing her legs tight together to try and let the skirt of the dress hang lower.

“That puberty was not kind to you in the chest department. Normal thing to happen, if unfortunate, at least when you’re young.”

“It was unkind in a lot of ways,” Allison said.

Vickie tilted her head back, stretching, then brought it back down again to look at Allison. “We have options. We can get you some enhancers, or we can get your dress taken in. It’s up to you. I suggest if you’re getting medical help with your puberty it might make more sense to give the appearance of no sudden growth once you’ve filled in.”

Allison nodded.

“OK, I’ll be back, and give me your shoes. I’ll need to sort those out too,” Vickie said.

Allison rested the clothes she changed out of on a bench, handed Vickie her pair of reddish-white mules and sat as the women left, crossed her legs, then sighed. She knew this wasn’t the worst of what was to come. She knew, intrinsically, this was her just dipping her toes in.

“Tell them you’re twenty,” a woman said.

Allison looked up. The woman was busty, and more. She was tall. She was classical. She was the kind of woman the guys Allison knew as a teenager would say they were going straight for once they were unleashed, and who occupied a lot of their thoughts while they were lying in bed.

“Sorry?” Allison asked.

“Why you’re becoming a woman. You’re just unleashed, you knew for years. Doctors are helping but they wanted to wait until you were unleashed. To start the process when you were an adult, and sure of your decision.”

Allison’s breath trapped in her throat. She felt like she’d been ripped out an airlock, oxygen torn out of her with her desperately trying to hold on, and that really she’d prefer to faint — even if it meant certain death, floating into the expanse. That she'd prefer to give into nothingness than deal with this.

Allison had been instantly recognised for what she was. What she felt like at that moment. What he, Patryk, looked like, but that also felt wrong. Allison knew that ‘he’ wasn’t who she was. She was certain; she wasn’t meant to be Patryk, ever, and this was a woman who didn’t see Allison’s certainty. This was a woman who doubted Allison.

The woman shrugged. “The yoots are horny but they’re not stupid, or oblivious. They’re smart and horny, most of them. They’ll confirm your history pretty quickly, they were all talking about the court ruling. They even have a little contest to see who can find out most about this Allison person.

“Vickie rarely ventures onto the floor, she wouldn’t know, and we wouldn’t tell her what they’re up to unless it’s serious and causing issues for us. Most of us know about you, or figured it out. Good for you! An actual first, and you’ll be walking into them with them having no clue about it. You’ll have the advantage!”

Allison’s look of fear must have been taken for surprise because the woman continued on, explaining. “It’s kind of... They know about Allison’s situation, or want to. You get it? Not your situation... See? They’ll put it together, add two and two, quickly. Until then! Play with them... And never stop. Get them working out advanced equations for what’s very simple. It’s the fun we get from working. Most of the fun we get.”

“I need a smoke,” Allison said, gaze dropped to the floor, wishing she could lie on it. For the first time since she began this journey she felt like she really did need a smoke.

The woman laughed. “I’m Erika, 17. I’m sure Vickie, 63, explained. We can have a smoke. Basic calming one? That good for you? Given you’re a student too you might have access to ones us simple workers don’t have, in time, anyway.”

Allison shook her head. She didn’t know how people did this to her, how people seemed to know so much. In that instance she wanted revenge on everything, including her own body for being all kinds of fucked up.

“Are you explaining things, E?” a man called out.

“We’ll get there, T28. She needs a smoke first,” Erika — E17 — responded, then she laughed as the man exasperatedly shook his head.

“Tom! 28!” the man called out. “Welcome to working life, Allison. You’ll love it if you get over the shock with jumping straight in.”

“Yeah!” E17 exclaimed. “Fuck with the little dicks! It’s the only way.”

Allison gave herself one breath to pull herself together, then she’d have to make her mark. She’d have to speak to these people, her new co-workers.

With the rattle from her exhalation ending Allison said, an admittance she didn’t realise she was going to make, “I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

“The best way to be,” Erika said. “It’s more fun figuring things out than being trapped in something crappy you don’t know how to escape. Come on, we’ll put your clothes and conn away.”

“My conn?”

“Can’t access it while you’re working. Once you put it in the storage dock it’ll automatically transition your wrist to work mode. I know, not typical, but it is for here.”

Erika patted Allison’s shoulder a few times. Allison wasn’t quite sure what the woman was going for but she was energetic in everything, almost excited. Happy, even, to be dealing with Allison.

She brought Allison to the wood-panelled wall at one end of the room and opened up a locker. She stuffed her own clothes she’d changed out of in there, then exaggeratedly showed herself slotting her conn into a horizontal opening. Her wrist lit up orange. Then she nodded at Allison to follow after opening another locker for her.

Allison dumped her clothes in, then placed her own conn into the slot with her wrist, too, lighting up in orange.

“Now you’re really working!” Erika laughed.

Allison took another deep breath and closed the locker door. This was what she’d decided to do.

When she turned around she saw Vickie waiting for her, holding yet more packages, her old shoes, and a new pair of black heels.

“You’re being settled in?” Vickie asked.

“She needs a smoke, V,” Erika said.

“Don’t we all! But she needs to try on her shoes.”

Allison took the shoes from Vickie and placed them on the floor before slipping her foot into one. It fit. Then she placed her foot in the other, thinking of what Robert had said the week before about heels making her ass look great. The dress was so short she thought everyone would get a good look at her ‘great’ ass.

“Thankfully Vickie vetoed the shoes they had picked out for us, said it was a safety issue while working. So at least we have normal heels, not the huge stilettos I heard they wanted. Now we smoke!” Erika said, with great joy.

Vickie walked to Allison’s locker and placed Allison’s red mules and the dress for her cleaning job in there, as well as all the packages bar one. “Not so fast!” she said, stopping Erika from running out with Allison by grabbing Allison’s arm. “Your enhancers.”

Allison took the fake breasts from the box Vickie held.

It was obvious, from the talk, what everyone in the changing rooms knew about Allison’s particular situation. All Allison could do was shake her head, her secret wasn’t so secret, so she just had to reach her hands inside the armholes on the sleeveless dress and give herself the appearance of boobs. Or at least bigger boobs, just enough boobs.

Slipping them in they strained against the very small cups in her bra, but it worked. Looking down at her chest it was obvious she had a chest and not just a strange fold or ripple in her clothes.

“Can me and the sexy bitch smoke now?” Erika asked.

“Until work starts,” Vickie said.

“When does work start?” Allison asked.

“Too soon,” Erika said. “You and me are serving drinks to the little reprobates. T28 will be our backup. Now let’s smoke!”

Allison was taken out of the changing rooms, feeling more exposed than she’d ever been, despite technically, having more coverage from wearing her tights — tights like all women who worked — except she wasn’t yet forty. What she was, it seemed, was someone for what were going to be her fellow students in training to play with, and she was supposed to play with them from her role.

Erika brought Allison across the little plaza area outside the changing rooms and into what seemed to be a common room. There were fridges, coffee machines, snacks, little heatable meals, sandwiches and some dispensers lined up at one end of the main room she saw, along with a corridor leading away somewhere else.

In the middle of the room were tables and chairs, and around the edges were couches with low tables between them. A few people sat in them, men and women, all the women in different uniforms and the men wearing different colour ties but the same basic clothing.

It seemed the men had less options to be forced on them, in attempts to make them look sexy, so their uniforms mostly amounted to tight white shirts — thin shirts — and pants that clung to their asses, and their fronts. There was no hiding for anyone’s body parts but Allison still felt it was the women who were getting the raw deal.

“Water or soda?” Erika asked.

“Soda?” Allison said.

“You’ll need a coffee pick me up later, depending on how long this goes. No need to get filled with energy before it’s necessary. Probably the yoots will get out of their minds by some point and send us away, but if they don’t it could be a long shift. We like to spread rumours we’re reporting all their misdeeds so they keep their truly debauched behaviour away from us, meaning we’re only at their beck and call a few hours. Saves us from seeing things no-one in their right mind would want to see. You’d need to cleanse your mind with some of what I’ve heard them talk about, never mind actually being there for it.”

Allison had seen plenty of stuff during her time in the normal part of the station. She’d been to a lot of parties. What could these student tobacconists really be getting up to that was so sickening?

Erika walked to the counters with the sodas and chillers leaving Allison standing around. She reached for her purse, feeling strange not to have it next to her, and to not have the conn it contained. She couldn’t really remember the last time she was purposefully away from her conn for a prolonged period.

She turned a little to her right, saw empty seats and a wall. Then she turned to her left, without thinking, and saw a group sitting and chatting, one of whom looked up and saw her watching which prompted Allison to quickly turn back to where she was originally watching Erika with the sodas.

Erika was speaking with a tall man in a uniform, no tie, the buttons on his shirt opened down to show as much of his chest as he could manage with a shirt that seemed like a second skin. Erika looked to be flirting with him, and Allison could understand why.

Allison kept watching.

She suddenly felt herself biting her lower lip and swaying. Then she realised she was having thoughts about a man, about understanding why another woman would be flirting with that man. And that she’d like him to be looking at her, instead. Mostly she was thinking that she was looking at a random guy and thinking of him; dreaming of him; imagining herself with him. Even just being noticed by him. It wasn’t something she could ever remember doing before, not so strongly; so fully with her entire body.

Sure, she’d looked at men but that was to consider them. To consider what she, in her newness, thought of them. Or when they’d put herself in her world. Robert appeared in front of her and smiled, Lem was sweet to her, Adam was just a friendly goofball and either way she didn’t actually imagine anything about Adam; he was an old friend. This guy, though... She didn’t know what she thought but she could feel it. And picture him. And wanted him to feel her.

“You like him?” someone asked.

“Sorry, what?” Allison said, realising Erika was standing in front of her holding the sodas, two straws stuck in each.

Allison wondered if it was obvious she’d been licking the inside of her lips.

She exhaled slowly, to steady herself, although she knew it was to strain the last view of him into her.

“He likes you to laugh at his jokes. If you’re in doubt about what to do with him just laugh. You’ll know you’re in if he keeps trying jokes and to make you laugh even if what he’s saying is in no way funny. So just keep laughing.”

“Have you...” Allison began. Then she stopped. She’d never before felt what she’d felt. She’d never felt such a raw attraction by simply looking at someone, and her intense heat was over a man.

She’d certainly never had anything like these thoughts about a woman. And she’d never felt a jealousy that it was another woman who’d been talking to a man, flirting with him. “This is...” She trailed off, feeling exhilarated, not able to stop herself from smiling. She wanted to get back to her imagination. She even felt a little scared, and like layers on her eyeballs had been peeled back. She knew she was still smiling, and biting her lip again.

“THIS IS GOOD!” Erika said. “What is it? Come on, tell me everything.” Erika’s eyes were wide and wild, like Allison’s felt.

Allison instantly thought of Angie. That this was just like talking with Angie, but she also knew it wasn’t like with Angie at all. “Let’s sit,” she said, urgently, then she saw the look on Erika’s face, like she wouldn’t give in so easily without an answer. Allison laughed excitedly.

“I’ll explain when we sit.” Then Allison smiled a happy smile; feeling like she was in on something and not just experiencing something to herself.

Erika looked slyly at Allison as Allison grabbed her by the elbow and quickly led her to a two person table, them both taking seats.

Erika leaned into Allison.

“This is... I don’t know? This is like talking to a friend of mine, Angie. This reminds me of that, but there’s something different.”

Erika craned her neck to the side, as though putting her ear closer to Allison’s mouth, to hear secrets, and whispers. “This is about me. Even better!” her voice was breathy, which was how Allison felt.

“I feel like I can trust you,” Allison said. “It felt like we were both in on something. It feels like I’m sitting with Angie, except she’d be more bitchy. Friendly bitchy. Snappy, insulting, I mean. But playfully. You just seem...”

“Go on,” Erika said.

“This is easy. I’ve got a new job, a new part of my life. I’m in a new part of a station and it’s like I’ve just made an instant—”

“New friend?”

“Who I want to talk about the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life with!” Allison said, rubbing her legs together. When she did she nearly whined with desire. “I just want him! And it doesn’t feel weird to say that. I’ve never done this!”

“His name’s Geoff,” Erika said, confidently. “He had the stupidest looking beard for an age.” She leaned even closer into Allison, and Allison leaned in too, knowing she wanted to hear all about Geoff.

“When he shaved it off, and chopped his hair short, I swear there was a collective intake of breath among the women here. A few even stopped wearing underwear when they were scheduled to work with him. Not a care for what the prying eyes of the yoots saw.”

Erika sighed. The sigh seemingly came from the same place Allison felt her whines of desire were stored.

“Now, I know you’re young. And going through a lot at the moment. I’m guessing you haven’t, let’s say, experienced things as much as others. But the workers are generally tamer in the bedroom department. Don’t come to rely on us for those activities. Dream about, Geoff, be sure of that. But you’re also a student. And I’m betting you’ll be pretty popular, at least regarding the type of concern we’re talking about.”

Erika sat back in a flash and loudly said, “Enjoy it! And if anyone gives you hassle I’ll punch their lights out. Just point them out to me.”

Erika had her fists up like she was in a movie about to get into a fight. She was even bobbing around as though she was avoiding jabs and punches.

Allison laughed and any desire left her, or she understood it left at some point while listening to Erika; Erika her new friend, she hoped, at least.

“Aaah!” Allison said, in a fake scream. “I just want to go back to my apartment! I’m tired after all that.”

“Geoff has that effect.” Erika said, with a smirk. “You’re certainly not alone in wanting that.” Then she half stood. “Tom!” She beckoned to T28 and he walked over, pulling up a seat.

“Did you have that smoke?” Tom, T28, asked.

“I completely forgot, I don’t think I even want one now,” Allison said.

“She saw Geoff,” Erika said.

“I hate that asshole!” Tom quickly looked at Allison. “I don’t hate him, really. I hate that he can do that to women just by standing there. And he’s actually quite pleasant. That makes it even worse. He’s a completely pleasant asshole. A lovely, impossibly sexy man.”

“Sorry. He’s just... Wow!” Allison said.

“Isn’t he?” Erika said to Allison. “In one man! Any woman would be lucky!”

“And I hate that he causes women to talk about him like you two are doing even when there’s other, lesser men around them. It’s downright rude.”

Allison laughed, and she really did feel relaxed. It was a different kind of relaxation to normal. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. She was smiling. She’d felt like something had departed her. Something she wasn’t going to miss.

“It’s plain to see why you’re working instead of going into student housing,” Tom said. “From what I’ve seen of them they take every opportunity to smoke. You’re just sitting her making life miserable for me, gawking at Geoff.”

Allison smiled feeling no embarrassment considering every woman seemed to want a piece of Geoff. Then she frowned and spoke up with something that was bothering her about the yoots. “What makes them so, you know, I mean how they’re described? I assume we’ve all seen what it’s like on the rest of the station, when people get wild. What exactly do they do?”

Tom sucked air through his teeth, considering something. “They’re not really... It’s that they’re intense. Hardcore! Constantly.”

“Confident,” Erika said.

“Yeah! Good way to put it. They’re certain of everything. Everything they say they know they know they know it fully, and completely, and that it’s correct. Everything they do they know is the right thing to do. And if someone disagrees, or does something different to them, they kind of size things up to see how it can work for them.”

“I’m not too sure about that,” Erika said.

“How do you mean?” Tom asked.

“It’s what I mean by their confidence. They’re not confident at all, really. If they were they wouldn’t act so confident. And it is an act.”

Tom leaned back in his chair and pulled a metal tin from his belt with a pink label. It was a tobacco tin, or looked like one of the tins Allison’s rollies came from.

“Who’d you get them from?” Erika asked.

“Sparky,” Tom said.

“I like him, poor guy.”

Tom had lit the rollie, taken a drag and was quickly exhaling. “Want some, Allison?”

“What are they? Are they calming ones?”

Tom shook his head as as he exhaled another drag.

“I’m not quite sure how it works with you, considering you’re a student as well as a worker, but most of us here smoke fairly regularly. Certainly any of the workers serving the students,” Erika said. “We have access to smokes but part of the students’ learning is about figuring out smoking for other people. We’re allowed smoke with them, they trial their work on us. We’re part experiment subjects for them.

“All the workers here were found by actual tobacconists, not young tobacconists. The deal is we get to smoke, and not deal with the bullshit on the rest of the station, at least not often, as long as we serve people like you, Young Madame!

“We’ve probably smoked more than them, really, but we just like smoking, and have been around longer. We have no ‘calling’ for tobacco. We don’t go googoo over it and make it our entire lives.”

Tom looked at Allison. “Which means you’re really not a typical student.”

“How do you mean? Am I not wild?” Allison asked, wanting Erika to continue to talking about workers interacting with the yoots, as well as all of what Tom meant about her.

“They’re all over the smokes. They’re constantly smoking. You’re just sitting with us. Even with Tom smoking you’re not eyeing it up in case it’s new,” Erika said.

“Go on, try this.” Tom held the rollie out to Allison.

“What does it do?”

“This ones makes some people dizzy. They make others still. Sparky moves his lips a lot while smoking them, kinda barking. And likes to walk.”

“And which of those do they do to you?” Allison asked.

“I really don’t know,” Tom said. “I just like them. They make my shift tolerable.”

“I don’t like them. At all,” Erika said. “Still, smoking is what you’ll be doing as a student. You’re supposed to be trying everything. As a humble worker I can smoke whatever I want to, and say no to anything I don’t want. My duty is merely to serve, and escape the crappy bits of the station because I do serve, despite not being one of the fancy women with a university education modelling complex theories and investigating station and system patterns. Voter life without the voting, I think. I don’t know. I’m not a voter. I think it’s similar. I can buy meals and booze, and dress how I want, and... Etc.”

Allison reached out to Tom’s hand and took the smoke. She looked at it as she held it up in front of her not knowing what she was expecting to see. She put it to her lips and took a small drag.

She didn’t get anything from the taste, and there was no immediate effect from the inhale. She felt like she should have one of the 1 smokes; the tasting smokes. They’d helped her realise things about the 0 smokes; the calming smokes. As well as about the brown smokes.

She licked her lips, then quickly wiped them with her hand before taking another drag and offering it back to Tom, but he’d taken another from his tin. Erika wasn’t even looking at Allison so she didn’t want any.

Allison took another small drag, not noticing anything new at all. Then her breath seemed to rise up in her throat, and she felt a little warmer, but nothing else. She crossed her legs beneath the table. Her legs seemed detached from her, but also like they formed into a unit when crossed.

“Why are the students — the other students — not me — but I’m a worker too, I suppose, as well as a student — being confident so problem but not?” Allison shook her head out, not sure what she was saying. “This is weird.” Her neck was tense, and she could feel and hear things from it as she rolled it out.

“Dizzy?” Tom asked.

Allison took a breath and focused. “No... It feels like my chest is caught. My breath is in my caught in my breath.” Allison heard more noises from her neck as she stretched it again.

“You’re sensitive to them, then,” Tom said. He nodded calmly.

“This is a bad thing,” Allison said.

“Not here it isn’t. If you were like this with other students they’d be rounding on you.”

“I don’t want to meet them.” Allison still wasn’t sure what she was saying, or why she was saying it.

Erika rubbed her lips, obviously thinking. Obviously annoyed she was dealing with a student. “That’s why we all think they’re assholes. That’s the student confidence I was talking about. They don’t want to appear weak. And even when they appear weak they want it to be seen as a strength. Everything is about power, and control.”

“That’s why Sparky gave these to me,” Tom said to Erika. Allison felt like she was sitting distantly back from her two co-workers, only near to them, only able to hear and see them, through some strange, mystic technology.

“He doesn’t really like a lot of the other students, so he doesn’t trust any of them. He has no-one to talk to so he talks to himself when these smokes mess with him. I can never make out what he’s saying, despite trying to find out. Then he gives them to me when he can’t take any more.”

Erika laughed. “And dear, caring Tom likes them and waits for the right moment to appear to get them from him when Sparky’s swearing off them.”

Tom raised his hands and shrugged, while trying to look innocent with a youthful smile.

“Crafty devil!” Erika said.

Allison forced herself to stop licking her lips. “So what do they do to you?” she said, then she took a rapid deep breath as though speaking would trick the trapped part of her chest to sink back to where it belonged.

“I really don’t know,” Tom said.

“Bullshit!” Allison said, feeling like speaking was clearing her out, or distracting her from her stuck air.

Tom laughed. “OK, fine. If you’re going to force me to think... Maybe she really is a student? Demanding to know about smokes.”

He reached out to take the rollie from Allison’s hand. He took a drag and inhaled. “I guess it’s like an eye test for me. Do any of you need glasses?”

Erika shook her head. So did Allison. Then she realised she needed to speak. “No, never.”

Allison reached out for the smoke and Tom left it to her.

“You don’t really know until you go for a test whether your eyes are off. When they change the lenses everything seems just that bit clearer. And different lenses make things even more clearer. This is like when they find the perfect lenses.”

Allison took a deep drag. “How many lenses, I mean with the smoke, do you feel like you go through before you find the perfect smoke-lens?”

Tom groaned. “I don’t know. I smoke it, I see better. Do this with the yoots, this talking about smokes, and smoking smokes, and debating smokes. All this is the kinda shit they love. This one works for me, that’s it. It works, so I smoke it. Even if it means stalking Sparky during his fits.”

Allison heard a buzzing.

Tom lifted his hand from the table. The buzzing stopped with his wristband no longer on the table; his orange wrist band. He tapped it and the wristband began to flash on and off, still orange.

Allison looked at her own, it began to flash between orange and green.

She looked between Erika and Tom.

“Dunno,” Erika said, nodding towards Allison’s wrist.

“Whatever the colouring means I also know you’re expected to report for work.”

Allison took a quick few drags of the smoke that was almost gone as she stood. Then she stubbed it out in the ashtray. It was time to get to work. It was time for her new job.