Exiting the elevator, Sush drew in a greedy lungful of air. She loved the smell of the trenches, which she wasn’t sure whether was odd. Even before she was chief, her senses loved it here. 

She didn’t like the politics, the gossip, the need to please the higher-ups, but the work? God, she loved the work. She especially loved inventing things and tweaking inventions, drawing immense satisfaction from bringing her imagination to life, running tests, finding solutions to problems, improving designs and modifying structures. This was her place, her escape. Sure, there were bad days but even those days had good stuff in it.

It was sad that she’d have...