A wrinkled business card in her pocket. A burned out VTOL in the streets below. The rush of adrenaline from evading death no less than five times in the last two hours. Faridah Malik was alive in a way that she hadn't ever been before, in a way that her skydives-into-planes couldn't even touch. She'd cheated death and the triad at the same time.

She wonders how else she can steal from death.

A month later she finds herself in Detroit, staring up at the glass skyscrapers in front of her. Two towers joined together at the bottom, standing stark against the daylight sky. The word Sarifstanding bold against the glass, the red S drawing her eye. Malik walks in, steps fluidly around the couch in the lobby and right up to the front desk, smiling at the man sitting there.

"Welcome to Sarif Industries. How can I help you?" he asks pleasantly, and Malik notes the neural chip embedded into his scalp.

"I have an appointment with Mr. Sarif," she says, watching in amusement as he does a double-take and scrutinizes her, notes her casual sweater and scarf, tries to identify any augs on her at a glance.

"May I have your name?" He glances down to his computer, likely looking at the meetings calendar.

"Faridah Malik," she answers, glancing around the open and brightly lit lobby.

A moment later he looks back up at her. "The elevator is up the stairs behind me. Top floor, his secretary is expecting you."

She nods her thanks, moves to the elevator and heads up. Frowns. With her job at ArcAir gone, and the VTOL she'd stolen destroyed, she had no plane to her name. If she wanted to fly again, she needed this job. She pulls the crumpled business card out of her pocket, staring at the name. Wonders where she got David Sarif's personal email from. How this card ended up in her flight suit. She would remember meeting David Sarif.

Any further questioning is cut off by the pleasant ding of the elevator as she reaches the top floor. She glances out the expansive windows, at the entirety of Detroit that she could see from there. She wonders what Sarif sees when he looks out these windows – opportunity? The future he promises for augs?

She thinks it's a little too much looking down, and not enough looking out. Not like flying. From a high-rise like this, stationary, it was easy to see how far, how high you'd gotten, and think that was the end of it. Flight was perpetual – you had to keep looking forward. Look where you want to go – down meant a dive straight into unforgiving land or sea.

She wonders just who the great David Sarif is. Does he look down, or up and out?

The secretary is watching her. She is attentive, and Malik idly glances at the clock readout in her HUD. She's still early. Still, she moves away from the window, going up to the desk. Boots clicking softly against the hard marble floors, and she wonders if all the floors were this extravagant, instead of just the lobby and the CEO's. She supposes she'll find out, if she gets hired.

"Here for a meeting?" she asks politely, carefully not looking at her computer. All attention on the guest, a higher level of professionalism than on the ground floor. Malik supposes that's because most people don't make it up this high. Don't make it past the security system – she'd noticed the identifying camera system that was put in place to make sure incoming clients matched who they claimed to be. She assumed it either scanned InfoLink ID's – a dubious, but legal option – or matched facial records with digital footprints.

"Yes. I'm Faridah, I'm supposed to meet Mr. Sarif at 1?" she smiles warmly at the woman. She was applying to be a pilot, and, if it went exceptionally well, to be Sarif's chief pilot. That meant she would be interacting with this woman a lot in the future. She catches herself already thinking of it as certainty. Pulls herself back. Best not to appear too cocky, too sure of herself. Although, she realizes, that might actually work on Sarif. From what she's heard, he's got ego, and sees arrogance as self-assuredness and awareness.

"Ah, yes, he'll be just a moment. If you could just wait here, you can take a seat if you like," the secretary gestures to a plush lounger against the wall. Malik wonders how many have sat there. How many have been kept there waiting, when they could have been invited in. A tactic, which, if used well, made your visitor realize just how little importance they had to you – and how little value you placed in their time. Malik wonders if she's going to experience this. She decides not to sit, moving back to glance out the window. Arms slack behind her, clasped together.

If Sarif will have her, she doesn't see herself in a position to decline. So far, her impressions are fairly positive. The usual security – though it might be higher around more sensitive information, she hasn't actually pushed her welcome. Employees who look happy enough to be there. A lot of augs. She certainly won't be alone in being augmented, and she wonders if all employees have a neural aug. If it's required by the company. ArcAir forced its pilots to get augged – perhaps Sarif will require her to get an upgrade. To fall into line and get Sarif parts. If they were paid for, she doesn't see herself refusing. Her current parts are likely not exactly what they were advertised, considering her boss sent her to a clinic that she knew was a Harvester front. She wouldn't be surprised if she'd been given a gutted chip that only had the same original shell and had all shoddy replacements for the inner parts. At least it worked. At least she wasn't fettered with crippling headaches at random intervals.

"Ma'am, Mr. Sarif is ready to see you," the secretary intones from the desk, drawing Malik from the pondering she'd wandered into. She turns, leaves the cityscape behind, and goes back to the desk. The door clicks, security disengaging, and the secretary stands to hold it for her. Malik would be surprised if the door wasn't automatic, but she supposes this is more of a gesture than a necessity on the secretary's part. She smiles, thanks her, and steps through.

Malik has to pause for a moment to take in the office. It is luxurious. One entire wall taken up by a glass screen, windows across the rest of it. Lamps of various sizes – or perhaps they're art pieces – hanging from the ceiling. The floor beneath is so shiny it seems to be glowing – no, she realizes a moment later, it is illuminated from beneath. There's a large statue that almost looks like the Thinker, with stacks of books piled high at its feet. The statue sits in the corner, between the glass screen and the entire wall of windows. The Sarif logo is painted across the center one, the single wing that is meant to symbolize Sarif's unstoppable progress, to evoke the nostalgia of humanity achieving flight. Malik can empathize.

What surprises her most is how the office appears lived in. She spies a suitcase in the corner, papers scattered over the desk, a robot vacuum dead and far from its charger.

"Faridah Malik, was it?" Sarif asks, turning from the wall-screen he'd been looking at. It has her resume on it. The years she'd worked at ArcAir after college, her university and her involvement in the equestrian clubs – always a hound chasing after the rush, after speed. She's grateful that ArcAir at least looked like a real company, that her time there wasn't a black hole on her resume and personal history. Whether or not Sarif's background checks could see they were a triad-owned shell was a different matter.

"Yes, Mr. Sarif" she answers, moving to stand in front of him. He offers her his right hand to shake. That luxuriously golden augmented arm. She takes it, notes how smoothly it responds when she shakes it, moving almost exactly like a flesh arm would. It catches the light and she has to pull her gaze away.

"Just Sarif is fine," he says, letting go of her hand. He's sharp, she thinks he'd noticed her attention to his arm. She supposes it gets a lot of attention, though perhaps less in the elite circles he carries himself in. "Your email said you could fly anything. I trust you weren't exaggerating?"

"No, sir. If it can get off the ground, I can pilot it." She does not mean to brag. However, she also knows the value of stating her skills without diminishing them, trying to hide them. That did no one any favors in the job market. "Unmanned drones, VTOLs, helicopters, older planes, remote control toys, to name a few I've flown," she adds.

She wonders if he'll ask her to take him on a ride. Mentally debating between showing him her real skills, wild risks and all, or proving she can follow protocol and be a model-perfect pilot. From the read she's gotten on him so far, she thinks he might appreciate the risk-taking more. Would he hire someone like that, though, even if he likes them better?

"Show me," he says, an expansive gesture out the window to the helipad a few floors below. There's a VTOL sitting there, and Malik grins. She loves flying VTOLs. She also wonders just how much he knows about her, if he is trusting her to fly him. Or perhaps he just wants to watch from there as she displays her skills.

"Certainly." She'd come ready to fly. Her hands ache for the controls of a plane, for the lift off ground, the freedom of the skies. It had been a long, long month where she'd had to restart her life without any of her contacts from Hengsha. She hadn't even flown to the US, taking an export ship out on a favor owed.

Sarif steps to his private elevator, and Malik follows. She supposes if she got this far, she'd passed all the checks besides her skill. That she is going to take David Sarif on a joyride means he is all but ready to hire her. The realization helps her put a bit more confidence into her step. If all that was between her and flying again was showing off her piloting skills to a company president, then the job was hers.

They arrive at the helipad and the first thing she does is a quick check of the plane's outer systems. Makes sure the thing is actually in working condition, and that he didn't provide her a pile of scrap pretending to be a bird as a test. The outside looks fine, paint perfectly detailed and not a scratch, lights on and engines idling. She nods to herself, moving to the cockpit without even thinking on it. Notices Sarif watching her, and he nods his approval as she goes to buckle herself in and familiarize herself with the controls. They're similar to those on that Osprey she'd crashed, if by similar she meant the way Latin was similar to ancient Egyptian. Regardless, a few minutes of categorizing controls and memorizing the layout, and she was ready. Sarif was climbing in, taking a seat in the back, lounging. No seatbelt, she notes. He was expecting a calm test, then. She could do that – smooth like a river of glass.

Malik follows procedure to the letter, even calling in clearance from the nearest airport before taking off. Her hands drift over controls that are at once familiar and different. There were only so many changes that could be made to a plane before it stopped being a plane. Malik had flown so many different vehicles over the years that all but the few she'd flown for long stretches of time started to blur together. This one was no different, though she was pleasantly surprised by how nice the controls were, how fluidly the joysticks responded. They felt like they'd been shaped for her hands, despite her usually needing to stretch to fit controls built for men larger than her.

"Do you have many enemies, Sarif?" she asks. Realizes how ominous that question appears, but she trusts that he will follow to the end of her reasoning. It is not as if he can do much else, a couple thousand feet off the ground with her.

"I am the face of a controversial movement," he just says. His tone implies that she should know what this means.

She does.

"Would you like to see my evasive capabilities?" She grins, slow and sly. Maybe there were pilots better than her when it came to following protocol, but no one could out-fly her in battle.

"By all means." She hears the click of the harness engaging, glances over her shoulder to affirm that yes, he has put the safety belts on.

She dives, smiling wide. Enters a spin, and whirls effortlessly out of it and along the glass wall of a skyscraper, less than ten feet from one of her engines. Drops one of the engines below to slide between two buildings, flattening out to fly just over the river. Threads the needle between a ship and the bridge above. Flying far below standard, and living for it. If she wasn't trying to impress someone, she'd be whooping with laughter. She almost is.

When she takes them back to the helipad, David Sarif looks a little less aloof. A little more alive.

"You're hired."