by William Oday
My question wasn’t about the vodka.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about date, Mr. Scout. It’s been far too long since I’ve enjoyed the company of handsome man in my hab. Even man with pipe in head.”
“A date?”
I was confused before, but now I was completely lost.
“Yes, date. I help you escape trap and we have date as payment for help. I even make you special borscht dinner. Not really borscht because we have only textured soy protein. Not real meat like people who live in this hab.”
Martinez appeared at the bathroom door with a handful of green-brown rags that used to be white. She held them out with her head turned away. “Alright, it’s pretty much cleaned up.”
Kat looked at her with irritation. “Pretty much wasn’t agreement. Finish while Mr. Scout and I come to arrangement.”
“What arrangement?” Martinez asked.
I waved her away. “I’ll tell you when we’re done.”
She growled before turning around and returning to the job.
“How will we get to your hab?”
“I will send sled to Res Two and meet you at service elevator. You get out and follow me to hab.”
“Why don’t we just stay inside the sled until we get to your room?”
“Do you want everyone on entire level to know something is up?”
“Of course not.”
“Then, no sled.”
“Why?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Because sleds never make rounds on Res Two. We don’t have anyone cleaning our habs and collecting our garbage. We dump it ourselves into sanitation chutes. You never been on Res Two?”
Not that I could remember. But that wasn’t a big surprise. And I wasn’t about to fill her in on my condition. The less she knew, the better for her and for us.
“No, I haven’t.”
She grunted. “You rich people never leave comfortable little corners of world.”
I had a feeling I didn’t fit that label, but there was no use arguing about it. “Let me speak with Martinez.”
She looked confused. “Her? No. Offer not for her. It’s for you only.”
Only me? That would leave Martinez trapped on this level and they’d find her sooner or later. And she wouldn’t be alive for long after that. I wasn’t about to betray her. Not after she’d helped me get this far.
“Sorry, but she goes, too, or there’s no deal.”
Kat’s lips pursed tight.
I did my level, and objectively terrible, best to sweeten the deal. “And I do love sharing a drink with a beautiful woman.”
Was she beautiful?
In an aged and world-weary way, yes.
Was I the least bit interested in anything romantic?
No.
But this was about saving our butts. The rest could sort itself out later.
“Fine, Toothpick Waist comes. But she gets no drink and only little cup of borscht. Little boy body doesn’t need much anyway.”
“Alright, let me speak with her about it.”
“I’ll finish here while you decide,” she said as she stood. “But don’t take long. You never know when Grays might come back for another look.” She strolled toward the bedroom door, looked over her bare shoulder and winked, and started singing as she left.
Got me a date
With a potential mate.
Never know what the day might bring.
Don’t care about no wedding ring.
I took a deep breath.
Martinez wasn’t going to like it.
Not any of it.
I poked my head into the bathroom.
Martinez was on her hands and knees scrubbing the tile floor with angry swipes of stained rags. She was muttering something to herself.
“Hey.”
She paused without looking back. “What?”
“Kat will help us get to Residence Two.”
She sat down and looked up. “Why? She doesn’t appear to be the Good Samaritan type.”
“She’ll do it if I have a date with her.”
“What? You mean like a romantic date?”
I nodded.
Martinez shook her head. “That’s insane.”
“Yeah.”
“And you trust her?”
“No, not really.”
“Me neither. She’s giving me a creepy vibe. I don’t like it.”
There it was. I knew she wouldn’t.
“How about this?” Martinez said. “Tell her you’ll do it. Then when we get to Res Two, we’ll ditch her. I have a friend that will hide us until we can figure out the next step.”
Lie to her?
It wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Especially considering my situation. This was survival mode and if a little misdirection helped, so be it. Besides, the faster we got out of this woman’s life, the safer she’d be.
But then again, Kat didn’t have to offer to help. She was putting her life on the line and deserved to get something out of it.
But a date?
If only this were a physical confrontation. Something I could put my hands on and bend to my will. Or break if necessary.
What was the right thing to do?
CHOICES:
1. Accept Kat’s offer and follow through with the date.
2. Accept Kat’s offer and ditch her as soon as we get to Residence Two.
The group chose #1 and this is what happened next…
17
Kat stepped into the hallway and checked both directions. She waved us over as she opened the loading hatch to the sanitation sled. A fan kicked on somewhere inside the dim interior.
“In, in. Hurry!”
Martinez stood next to the hatch and sniffed the air. “Not as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Suction fan keeps it inside. Rich people don’t like bad smells.”
“Nobody likes bad smells,” Martinez replied.
“Yes, but rich have suction fans. Inside, Toothpick Waist!”
Martinez was about to reply, but I cut her off. “Get in. You can argue later.”
She mumbled something loud enough to discern that it was insulting but not loud enough to make clear who it was directed at. She climbed through the hatch like those drivers used to do back when racing cars was a thing. Legs first. Hands gripping the upper frame. And then a swing inside and she was gone.
“Oh, no. No.” Her voice echoed out in a hollow tone.
“Hurry, Mr. Scout,” Kat said. “I don’t want first date in forever to cancel because Grays shoot you.”
It was thoughtful, in a way.
I inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, knowing it was going to be the last one for a while, and climbed inside.
Martinez sat against the back wall with her arms around her knees. “No, no, no,” she said as she held her cupped hand over her nose. “This is foul!”
I crawled over unidentified refuse, chose to ignore it when my hand squished into something I couldn’t see, and took a seat next to her.
The sled must’ve been emptied recently because it was only a quarter full. At least we didn’t have to dig through a full shift’s worth of garbage.
Not looking forward to it but needing to anyway, I took a breath.
Yuck.
Martinez was right.
Foul, rotten, rancid and putrid were a few words that came to mind. The stench of decomposed food like meat gone moldy.
I took a few shallow breaths. That didn’t help.
“I think I’d rather get shot,” Martinez said.
Kat poked her head in. “No talking. Passing Grays might hear. I have to finish shift and then I sneak you to Res Two.”
“Finish your shift?” Martinez asked with an incredulous tone.
“Yes, Toothpick Waist. Some of us have to work for living. Don’t worry, not too long left.”
“How long?” I said. Seconds felt like too long. Minutes would feel like forever.
&nb
sp; “Only five hours,” she said as she swung the lid over and it clicked shut. The dim light dropped to complete darkness and the suction fan cut off.
“Five hours?” Martinez said. “Was that a joke?”
“Quiet,” Kat’s muffled voice said. “Any more talking and I send you to incinerator.”
Martinez inhaled to reply, but I elbowed her to keep her quiet.
Kat started singing another blues song. Her voice fell away as she returned to her work.
“Five hours?” Martinez whispered.
I elbowed her again.
“Oww. Stop doing—”
I elbowed her again, harder this time.
She finally got the message.
I rested my head against the wall. With no visual clues to help, I raised my hand to my head and found the shaved scalp and stitches covering two of the burr holes in my skull. As slowly as I could, I traced to find the drain tube.
There.
Other than banging it more times than were comfortable, I hadn’t paid much attention to it. It wasn’t as big as I’d imagined. Maybe because Kat had called it a pipe, I had visions of a water pipe sticking out of my head. Something that was as thick as my wrist and a foot long.
No. It was the diameter of a straw and half an inch long. Not big, but definitely big enough to get painfully caught on anything and everything that came near it, as I’d already discovered numerous times.
A while later, Kat’s sultry singing returned and the hatch opened. Another batch of trash tumbled in. This one added a raw sewage note to the already repulsive bouquet. The hatch clicked shut.
A short time passed, and Kat’s voice returned. This time, the sled rolled a distance and stopped. Her voice faded as she entered the next hab.
The cycle repeated itself five times. I counted. Why, I don’t know, but it was something to focus on other than the smell and my aching back and neck.
I would’ve loved to get some sleep. It felt like I hadn’t ever slept. Not just in a long time or in ages or in forever.
But never.
Of course, I knew it wasn’t true. But the mind takes liberties with the truth, especially when it’s complaining.
But I couldn’t sleep. It required active focus and effort to keep from gagging. Besides, my back and neck were shouting over each other to get my attention.
I hurt worse!
No, I do!
Shut up! You’re wrong! I hurt like you’ve never hurt before.
You’re such a whiner! I hurt ten times worse than you do!
It was scary what the mind could do when all it had for distraction was talking to itself.
I told them both to shut up and got back to doing what I’d been doing for hours. I gritted my teeth, kept quiet, and kept going.
The hatch opened and another load of garbage flew in. It was now piled up to near the ceiling in the rest of the sled. Martinez and I had to shove it back from time to time to keep from getting buried.
“Shift done. We go now.” A bag sailed in and smacked Martinez in the face. “Put on clothes in bag. Grays uniforms will draw bad attention on Res Two.”
The lid closed, dropping us into inky black.
The plastic bag crinkled as Martinez opened it. “You may not have to do the date with her,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because I may end up having to kill her.”
18
“Wipe yourself off,” Kat said. “You have no pride?”
Martinez did her best fake smile and then flicked off the bits of goo stuck to her pant leg.
We stood outside the sled elevator as Kat looked us over.
Her eyes lingered on my head. Or more precisely, the shaved spots, stitches, and drain tube. She shook her head. “This will not do. Let Kat think a minute.” She dug into the garbage bag in her hands and pulled out a bed sheet.
“What’s that for?” I said.
“To cover big sign on your head that says ‘Look at me!’”
Martinez eyeballed the luxury sheets and snorted. “So you’re a swindler and a thief, huh?”
Kat tutted back with disapproval. “Lucky to be pretty because you’re not so smart. No, Ekaterina Popov is no thief.” She held up a part of the blanket to reveal a tear along the hem. “Rich people throw away good things all the time. I recycle, free of charge.” She smiled broadly.
“Sounds shady,” Martinez replied.
“One benefit of cleaning rich poop from rich toilets. Maybe judge and executioner already forgot who saved her from Grays?”
“Sounds smart,” I said, doing my best to defuse the situation.
Kat smiled. “Listen to Mr. Scout, Toothpick Waist. You live longer.” She started wrapping the sheet around my head until all the fabric was used. She stared at her work, tapping her lips. “Okay, okay.”
“Okay what?” I said.
“Okay, you look like man wearing bed sheet on head.”
“That’s not good, right?”
“Better than scaring children with freaky pipe sticking out. People will just think you’re crazy. That’s all.”
“Great. That’s reassuring.” I already felt plenty crazy from everything that had happened since I woke up.
Martinez picked up our rifles and handed mine over.
Kat shook her head. “No! You can’t carry those here!”
“Why,” I asked.
“Because people will either run away in terror or attack you to take them.”
“We’re not leaving them,” I said. I was all for making this as easy as possible, but I wasn’t about to agree to leaving a valuable weapon behind.
“No, Mr. Scout. It’s dangerous.”
“No rifles means no date. That isn’t negotiable.”
Kat scowled and shook her head. “You drive hard bargain, but it will make date all the sweeter. Fine.” She reached into the trash bag and dug out another bed sheet. “Wrap them together and put in bag.”
Martinez’s brow arched in judgement. “Another ripped sheet?”
We finished preparations and Kat led us out into Residence Two. It took less than a minute to discover just how different this level was to Residence One.
The smell was the first clue.
Not that it was bad.
Although some of it was.
But there was also the scent of a spicy meal cooking. The sweet smell of floral perfume. A little too sweet and strong, like overripe fruit, but nice nonetheless.
It smelled like a lot of people living close together, which was accurate.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but it struck me now. Residence One didn’t smell like anything. It was like they purposefully tried to scrub the life out of it. Rather, had others scrub the life out of it.
We followed Kat through endless hallways and another difference captured my attention.
The sound.
An ever-present low humming coming from the power generators on the level below. More than hearing it, I felt it in my chest. It was the kind of thing that was annoying at first but then faded into the background. The hallways of Residence One had been nearly silent. The distant echo of someone walking now again. A door opening and closing. No wonder Kat had a habit of filling the void with song. Anything to get rid of the featureless, antiseptic feel.
Even beyond the smell and sound, the contrast between the levels couldn’t have been greater.
The corridors themselves were half the width. And then less than that due to the number of people filling them. Residents lounged outside at narrow tables and chairs. Packs of seemingly feral children ran through the corridors. Their limbs too thin and their skin streaked with a glaze of dirt.
A little boy wearing a torn top that was more rag than shirt skidded to a stop in front of me. His wide eyes stared up at the sheet wrapped around my head. “Are you a mystic?”
“A mystic?” Not the last time I checked.
“Yeah, one of those people that can see the future and stuff.”
See the
future? I was still trying to see the past.
I shook my head. “No. I’m not.”
He laughed and pointed at my head. “You look crazy, then!”
Kat hissed and swiped a clawed hand at him.
He dashed by to catch up with the group of kids that waited a little further on. He joined them and they all started laughing and pointing.
“Little brats,” Kat said. “No respect.”
An elderly man sitting nearby spoke up. “Oh, leave them alone, Kat. Let them be young. Soon they will be wrinkled and withered like you.”
Kat marched over to him like she was going to knock his head off. And judging by how thin and frail he was, that looked like a possibility. “Shouldn’t you already be dead, Mr. Flanagan?”
He stared up with eyes that didn’t quite focus and laughed. “It is my fondest wish, but this broken body won’t surrender.”
Kat patted his shoulder. “I’ll bring some food by later.”
His mouth opened into a toothless grin. “Why? Do you want me dead, too?”
“Oh, no,” she said as she glanced down, “you’ve peed your pants again.”
The grin melted off his face as he looked down. He pulled his loose-fitting pants this way and that, looking for a darker stain. He didn’t find any. “No, I haven’t!”
Kat strode away with us in tow. “The day isn’t over yet!”
The people were another one of the differences between the residence levels. And as Martinez had mentioned earlier, the distance between the doors was another. It started at twenty feet nearest to the main elevators, but was steadily getting smaller the further we went.
She’d said her family lived in a poorer section of the level and the doors there were ten feet apart. We were now in a hallway with the doors half that far apart.
“Does your family live around here?” I said.
She shook her head. “Nope. Never been to this section.”
“Of course, you haven’t,” Kat said. “Daddy is Gray, I assume?”
“Yes, he is. Was. Retired now.”
“We aren’t all born with job waiting for us. Not good job, anyway.” She stopped at a door and dug into her pocket. She found the old-fashioned metal key and opened the door.