Gazari comes over after work, his one-year-old strapped to his back. "Hey. What's on your mind?"

"Well. - Help yourself to anything in the fridge if you want. - Look, if I asked you what the absolute worst possible job to try to get after cleaning would be, what would you say?"

"I mean, worst in what respect?" he asks, peering into the fridge and grabbing an applesauce pouch for the kid to suck down.

"Most likely to end up not getting the job, not being able to get another job, not being able to integrate socially and not being able to swap into Miolee."

"Governor."

He laughs. "I hope someone does that. I hope they make it. And now that we’ve established that I'm not the most reckless person possible... I'm thinking of becoming a police officer."

"- it's not completely insane. Some districts have red cops. But it's... you know, pretty insane."

"Yeah. But - if no one does it then - I don’t see how we can ever really integrate, if all the cops are... the same as always."

"Some people'll go into - the sex industry, or the army, or they'll marry grey, and eventually..."

"I guess, but - people will live and die waiting for that."

"You could do the army version. Apply to cop jobs now and then."

"...I guess. This person on the internet thought I should have at least two backup plans and I guess the army can be one of them - there are really not that many good grey jobs, huh. There's - dancing, firefighting, bookmaking, I think that might be it?"

"Firefighting's only grey up north, but you could move up north, I guess. I guess you're not going to be teaching dance classes any time soon."

"Yeah. I think that's about as good as it gets - maybe move up north, maybe join the fucking army, maybe hope out of everyone in Miolee there's one stupid enough to want to be grey. Just - I don't know. It seems like the kind of thing that might be worth it?"

"If you had a family I'd be telling you to keep your suicidal tendencies in your back pocket for your late thirties but as it is - man, I guess if you think somebody's got to do it and nobody else is crazy enough you'd be all right at it. If you got that far."

"Yeah, if. Do you think I’m wrong that it needs doing?"

"I dunno if it needs pushing."

"I think if the way it happens is that eventually we disappear so completely that no one can pick out our great-grandchildren it’ll be worse in that people will die along the way and worse in that - insofar as we have any strengths of our own they'll disappear too. But mostly it’s about the people dying along the way."

"I'm not about to pretend I'm excited for people to clock my great-grandchildren."

"On TV sometimes characters have half an inch of roots or a character who’s a nurse mentions their uncle who does grocery delivery and they aren’t scared or stressed about it and I’m pretty sure that’s realistic but maybe it’s too much to hope for, for us."

"Maybe it isn't. But it'll be a long time. Even if you're a cop."

Shrug. "Like I said. It’s mostly all the people who’ll die in the meantime if everyone knows all the cops hate us."

"Somebody might figure you're self-hating."

"There's thirteen billion people. Somebody might figure anything."

"I'm just saying, it's not a guarantee that people will be like, 'oh, a' - what are they calling them lately - 'a cousin, in the police force, this is so reassuring, I will call the cops on my drunk grandma when she starts hitting people' -"