Avery Jansen is a Senior Analyst in JNA Systems Integration, which is accurate as far as it goes. Her efficiency score ranges between eighty-one and eighty-nine, which the system interprets as high performance with an unresolved variance, which is also accurate as far as it goes.
She has blue-green eyes that read as warmth before they read as intelligence, and hands that compose responses to music no one else can hear. She will tell you, with full sincerity, that Denmark has naming laws that protect children from unfortunate parental decisions, or that a Norwegian penguin was once awarded an honorary military rank. She believes that choosing hope is a form of resistance, in a city designed to make optimism feel naive. She has been Jordan Reese's closest friend for two years. The variance, the JNA suspects, has something to do with her.
Avery kept notes on why she loved particular songs. Margin scribbles in the program from a recital she had attended three times, a sticky note in her bag that listed four song titles with the annotation: "for when it matters." She never indexed her reasons. She trusted herself to remember what they were for.
This is what Avery was listening to on her way to meet Jordan at the Chiaroscuro Café.
