Excerpt from Chapter Three of Last Tide:

Win doesn’t remember when she in doesn’t remember when she started keeping an eye on the away postings on the company’s listserv, but it had become part of her morning routine. She’d arrive at work at around ten—it didn’t matter so much when the she got there, only that her shift ended after those of the drivers so that she’d have time to process the last of the day’s images—and, after refilling her travel mug and grabbing some of whatever catered breakfast there was left, she would boot up her workstation and check the dailies. In there with the inter-office memos and links to press releases would be postings, once in a while, of short-term work available at other sites—usually to fill in temporary vacancies, sometimes to meet spikes in the demand for imaging when a city’s real estate market exploded. A scrubber in Palo Alto had a baby, two or three years ago, and Win filled in, coming back five months later with a good tan and a taste for farm-to-table cuisine, both completely unsustainable here.

But most of the time, Win was keeping an eye out for driver gigs. She managed to land Ana one of the first overseas postings, got her it as a kind of birthday gift. Win couldn’t go with her, but she was happy imagining her friend winding her way through the concentric maze of Amsterdam, a nightmare for tourists and a total dream spot for her. This was shortly after their actual trip together, when Ana confessed her need for difficulty, for distraction. Win made it her personal duty to throw as much of this her way as she could. It was Win who gave her the idea of turning off the nav screen, or rather unplugging it from behind, something Ana never thought of. This was technically sabotage of company property, but as long as she remembered to plug it back in before she turned the van in, well, who would be the wiser? Some of the other drivers found out, but they chalked it up to eccentricity and didn’t step in. Most of them, who drove more through the screen than through their windshields, were just impressed that she never got lost.Win’s sitting in her cubicle; it’s the end of the shift, and Ana is waiting with her as she finishes the last set of the day. It is two weeks after the incident outside of the industrial complex. Ana went back to work the next day and Win knew better than to push her to take time off. Instead, the listserv. Win’s clicking through emails, mostly inter-office stuff, which either goes over her head or pay scale or beyond her attention span because she deletes them as soon as they load. Ana’s not looking at the screen, and she’s not on her phone either, but is, instead, just zoning out. Win shift-clicks a chunk of administrative stuff and it scuttles into her trash bin. The next email in the queue opens.

“Hey, Ana.”

“Yep.”

“Look, check out this one.” She double-clicks the message so it opens full-screen and leans to the side. Ana wheels over.

“Another away job?”

“Yeah, why not? Here, here’s the best part.” Win scrolls down.

“A driver, and a scrubber? That’s all they need?”

“That’s us. Let’s do it.”

“When?” Win scrolls back up.

“It’s a Friday to Friday gig, two weeks from now.”

“That works.”

“Yeah? I can make it happen if it’s good for you.”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Where is this place?”