First Page Thread--Round #2. Post your first page and find out if the sub would turn to page two.

The Side of the Angels (novella featuring a world in which good deeds are mandated by law, and the bureau tasked with judging these matters runs up against the threat of automation for the first time)

Well, Sarah thought, wincing slightly, here we are in the goddamn future and I still can't get a good cup of coffee. The liquid in the cup was technically hot, technically dark, and technically not just water; until someone thought to raid petty cash to replace the bag of Instant crystals, though, it would have to do. Whatever it was, she sipped it as she watched the troubling new machine being constructed across from her desk.

Sarah Sloane was not on her coffee break. Everyone at the branch knew better than to bother her when she was holding her mug, so it came to much the same thing in the end, but she was scrupulous about her breaks all the same. Bureau policy allowed her five smoking breaks a day of five minutes each, including the time it took to descend the six flights to reach the pavement outside; these she used for coffee. A similar policy allowed her two coffee breaks per day of fifteen minutes each; during these, she smoked.

She drank each coffee quickly, relishing the feeling of it scalding her tongue and throat. She smoked indulgently, savouring the fire each pull. Hardly anyone in the city smoked anymore, and there was a perverse pleasure for Sarah in the filthy looks that people gave her as they passed the ground-floor entrance to the Bureau branch's lobby. A JLB agent smoking? Figures. Sometimes they coughed ostentatiously; sometimes they spat. Sarah only smiled at them wanly.

Back here in the office, though, the only people looking at her weren't really looking at her at all. They were looking past her -- at the machine.

/r/writing Thread