by Rob Dircks
I look under my armpit, down my sleeve. Sure enough, a tiny scar, right in the fold. I never noticed. “How the hell did you even do that- hey, hold on… you didn’t say Nana.”
She looks blankly at me.
“You. Didn’t. Say. Nana.”
She shrugs.
“You’re terrible!”
“She’s ninety-seven! And I only had six units! You know how expensive those things are?”
Gene Gitano throws down her cigarette. “Stop! Stop! I can’t listen to you two bicker anymore. Jesus. Paper, you had to grow up with that?”
“No. She abandoned us.”
“Oh, right. Lucky you.”
“Hey!”
“STOP! Let’s say I dispose of you two anyway. And your whole family. Which I’m inclined to do, especially at the moment, yes, you’re pissing me off that much. So you release this Dead Body Database. It’s all untrue anyway, make-believe fluff, maybe needs just a little cover-up on a couple of the details. We make some more enemies, maybe one or two of us – not me, God no – go to tennis prison for a few years. Then it’s over. Forgotten, like all the other bogus news stories ever in the history of the world. All your efforts, wasted on a magic trick that pulls a big bag of nothing out of a top hat.” She laughs again. “A month later, it’ll all be back to normal, like it is at this very moment, with hundreds of thousands of Fill City workers pumping out Turbo like it was any other day, happy with their lives, content as they’ve ever been, and-”
Another goon steps into the room. “Miss Gitano, ma’am. There’s a problem.”
She glares at him. A solid ten seconds passes. “A dramatic pause? Honestly? What are you waiting for?”
“Sorry ma’am. There’s an uprising. Work stoppage.”
“Ugh. Am I the only one in here with a brain?” She proceeds, sing-song, “Enact protocol seventeen, make an example, put down the ones who are acting up-”
“We can’t, ma’am.”
“Excuse me?”
“We can’t, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re all acting up, ma’am. Everywhere. All the Fill Cities. They’ve all gone on strike.”
44
Good Cop
It could be worse.
While Gene Gitano decides what to do with us, and her and this Pops person figure out how to deal with a global strike, I expect them to make us sleep on the concrete, defecate on the floor in the corner, and catch rats and spiders for food. But as the days pass, they’ve let Angel put down an air mattress, and give us snacks and water, and escort us to the bathroom (you can barely call it that but it’s better than the corner of our cell). I suspect they’re doing a good-cop-bad-cop thing from the old shows, with Angel as the good cop, but I don’t care. I’m alive and not dying of dehydration, or having cigarettes burned into my arms.
They even let him bring in a TV.
“Angel, that’s too much. Come on. Are you playing good cop? You must be.”
“Huh?”
“You know. Where you’re nice to us and eventually you get us to incriminate ourselves.”
“Incriminate yourselves? You’ve already shown all your cards I’m pretty sure. The Dead Body Database? The Martian Element Theory?”
“Good point. So you’re being nice to us why?”
He just tosses the remote to me. “You’re Going to Mars! is on three.” And leaves.
Jane grabs the remote and presses three. “He likes you.”
“God, what are you, my mother? Oh.”
“I can tell. Harlon used to get that look on his face before we started dating.” She winks at me.
“Please. Jane. We’re waiting for them to take us out in burlap sacks and bury us alive, and you’re talking about one of the bad guys crushing on me?”
“Bad, good, right, wrong. Love is a weird thing. It doesn’t care. It wants what it wants.”
“Wow. That was deep. You made that up?”
“Nah. Read it in People Magazine a long time ago.”
“What’s People Magazine?”
She ignores me and points to the screen. “Oooh. Look. Stage Three: Back to School.”
The TV has a running ticker across the bottom of the remaining contestants and their scores: Aurora, Marina Delacosta, Mike Horner, Claire Soams, Benji Greenberg, Avery Jacobs, Tanner Hiroki, Suzie Q, Albert Morse, Quinn Keller, and myself. Aww. Larson has kept me in the lineup, ever the optimist – albeit with a question mark superimposed over my face. Interestingly, although I’m not scoring any points, Larson has allowed viewers to continue awarding me Likes, and I’m ahead of everyone, including Aurora. By a lot. She must be pissed. In the current scene they’re in an emergency room, standing around a patient, all in scrubs. Skylar Gaines, Team Leader of the departed Blue Team, is pointing to the patient’s legs, both broken and pointing out in unnatural directions. I imagine every single person in the world cringing at once. “All right, teams. Mister Davis here has had a little construction accident involving a three-story fall. Before the MedBay sleeves can get to work we’ll have to set these breaks. Volunteers?”
On cue, Claire faints, and the rest take a step back. Tanner holds his hand up to his mouth and turns green. Aurora, on the other hand, flips her hair a little and squeals, “Let me at ‘em!” She wrenches one leg with Skylar as poor Mister Davis screams.
Jane nudges me. “See? I told you that Aurora was a bad seed. Look at that bloodlust.”
“Come on. You don’t see the whole thing with Aurora. I have. I think she’s actually very nice, and authentic. If you really knew her you’d like her.”
“Nah, I think that Gitano witch was right about her. How do you know she didn’t try to sabotage Stage Two?”
“I just know.”
“You just know it couldn’t have been the only one left with a spacesuit. Really.” She shakes her head, pats me on the knee. “In any case, I’m proud of you. Some of that stuff you figured out in that stage, with the lift and the domes? Chip off the old block.”
“Great. Before you know it I’ll be formulating Meal-in-a-Bags.”
“I’m pretty sure the plural would be Meals-in-a-Bag. The ‘s’ on Meals.”
“What are you a grammar expert now?”
Without hesitation, as if she’d been waiting to say it her whole life, she says, “I’m your mother. Correcting your grammar is my job.”
I want to say “maybe if you didn’t jump ship five minutes after I was born I wouldn’t be making grammar mistakes now” but I just say “okay” and enjoy the warm feeling of actually having a mother-like person, even if it is the last thing I feel before I die.
The broadcast is interrupted.
“Breaking news: in a stunning development, the Phillips Administration has declared a federal state of emergency, implementing mandatory rationing of all fuel consumption in the wake of the global strike of Fill City workers.”
My mother and I gape at each other as the news continues. It seems there have been daily protests, counter protests, and counter counter protests erupting everywhere, demanding my return to the show, and new contracts for the workers, and calls for resumption of Turbo production as the global economy begins to be affected, and even proposals for the immediate de-privatization of WasteWay’s properties. Meanwhile, legislators on Capitol Hill seem paralyzed to make headway, as relationships with WasteWay leadership continue to thwart minority party efforts to effect change. (Translation: Congress has its pockets too full to move.) The images on the screen are amazing, if alarming: throngs of people, tear gas, hoses, mounted police. I spot a sign that says, “LET PAPER PLAY!”, and another saying, “Where is Paper Farris?” and a third with “We are all Paper!” Another one reads, “Give us our Paperback!”
Jane laughs. “Paperback. Get it? Clever buggers!”
Huh. Maybe Larson was right. Maybe his little crusade to keep me alive is working. And maybe my mother’s outrageous Dead Body Database will help.
The door opens. Gene
Gitano. A wicked smile. “Hello, ladies.”
…or maybe none of it will work and we’re going to die.
45
Tennis Prison
She looks around at the various items in the room, then the TV set. “Talk about tennis prison.” She yells out into the hallway, “Angel! Get in here!”
Angel scrambles, practically tumbling over himself, into the room.
“Are you responsible for this?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You- you told me to make them comfortable.”
She rolls her eyes. “I meant comfortable as in just-this-side-of-a-painful-death comfortable, not air-mattress-and-television comfortable. There’s a bag of Cheetos over there for Christ’s sake. Regardless. It’s over.”
My hearts stops. This is where we perish.
“Farris. Young one, not old shriveled up one.”
“Hey!”
“Shut up, Farris. Paper, you, get up.”
I rise, my knees knocking. Gene Gitano lights a cigarette. “You can go.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Go. Get out of here. You and your mother and that Larson idiot make a perfect team. What a shitstorm you’ve created. But it’s all fake news, it’ll blow over, we’ll survive, as we always do. I only have two conditions.”
I glare at her without answering.
“If you say one word about any of this, she’s in the fill. Try me. One word and Jane’s in the fill.”
“You’re not… letting her go too?”
Gitano snickers. “Hey Jane, you’re right. She’s not the smart one, is she? No, we’re not letting your mother go anywhere. When you’re a citizen of Fill City, that’s for life, honey, unless you’re the ninth generation. But don’t worry, we’ll let you live together when you lose that stupid show. Right here in good old Fill City Seven. For the remainder of your days.” She actually cocks her head back and laughs, like a movie villain.
“Second condition. You get those Fillers back to work. I don’t care how you and that Larson idiot do it. You get them back to work, or she’s in the fill.”
I run to her. “Jane! I’ll get the Fillers back to work. Then I’ll lose. On purpose. I’ll probably lose anyway. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”
She grips my arms. Stern. “No. You are not losing. You are going to Mars. And you are finding whatever is up there. And you are telling the world. You will do that. Not just for you. For ME. Do you understand?”
I nod. I understand. “But, their word means nothing. How do I know they won’t hurt you? Or kil…?”
Angel steps between us all, and risking a beating from his boss, leans in close, so close his lips are touching my ear, and he whispers, in the softest whisper you can imagine, “I’ll take care of her.”
And I don’t know, his unexpected and brave compassion, mixed with this terrible goodbye, something happens, and I grab Angel by the collar and pull his face to mine, and suddenly we’re kissing, more passionately than I’ve ever kissed anyone, it feels like I’m giving him my whole heart, and we’re sharing a promise, a promise that he’ll give most of my heart to my mother but also keep some of my heart for himself. Because there is something about him that I trust. Something about him that… I don’t know. Mom was right. Or People Magazine. Love is a weird thing. It wants what it wants.
He sighs. “Wow.”
Jane smiles and winks at me. “That’s how it starts.”
46
The Largest Umbrella I’ve Ever Seen
I can hear the wipers slapping back and forth on the windshield, but the privacy screen’s been up the whole ride, so I can’t see if it’s Angel up front. Although I can’t imagine they’d let him be anywhere near me, after my dramatic stunt back there in Fill City Seven. Leo is in his usual spot, across from me, and suddenly I’m certain he lives in this car, I’ve never seen him outside it. I imagine them bringing him all his meals in here, and taking away his chamber pot every morning, and maybe wiping under his armpits once in a while to keep the stench bearable.
“What are you looking at, Farris?”
“Nothing. Sorry.”
He kicks me shin. “Did I tell you to talk?”
“Ow! Yes. You asked me a question.”
Leo just turns and looks out the window, no longer amused by me, or more likely deeply disappointed he didn’t get to personally toss the first shovelful of dirt onto my grave, so instead he contemplates the rain with a quizzical look on his face. Apparently they never get rain out here in Los Angeles anymore, so when it does happen people don’t quite know what to make of it. He peers through it, like a sailor with a brass telescope searching across stormy seas – but really nothing like that, because come on, it’s Leo – and he eyes a figure across the garage roof, alone and unarmed.
“Time to go home to daddy.”
I don’t know why those words piss me the hell off, but they do. “He’s not my father.”
“Shut up.” He cracks the window and yells. “Larson! Come and get her!”
The figure walks towards the car, under the largest umbrella in the world, you could have a picnic under that umbrella, of course it’s comically oversized, because the approaching figure is Zach Larson, coming to rescue me. I don’t get shining armor, but I do get a giant umbrella. At least I won’t get wet.
Larson raps on the glass. “Robin. Paper. Are you all right?”
Leo taps a button and the double doors open. Larson reaches in and takes my hand, and our eyes meet. “I’m all right, Zach.” As he pulls me out of the car, halfway, Leo lunges forward a little – because there’s no way he’s making a full lunge – and grabs my other hand, as if he and Larson are about to play a game of tug-o-war with me.
“Not so fast. Now you listen close, Larson.”
“Let her go. Now.”
I guess Leo’s not used to being addressed like this, because he pulls me back and growls, “What, you think you’re a big man?”
“I’m not half the man you are, Leo.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know a lot of things.”
“Fucking smarmy asshole.”
“Big man fucking smarmy asshole to you, Leo.”
Leo’s head looks like it’s about to explode, his free hand is arguing with itself whether to reach for the gun and shoot us both dead, but it thinks the better of it and hands control back to Leo’s brain. “You listen close, Larson.”
“You already said that.”
“Fuck you. Now, you and her get the Fillers back to work, all of ‘em. That’s the deal.”
I can’t tell whether Larson is glaring at Leo, or sort of pitying him, or about to laugh at him. “Deal.”
Leo lets go of my hand, disgusted, and I go tumbling into Larson’s arms. The limousine screeches off in the rain, and before it skids down the first ramp I can hear Leo laugh and yell, “Have a nice trip, Farris!”
I let Larson’s arm stay around my shoulder, it feels familiar and comforting, like I’m home and Dad is putting a blanket around us while we take cover from a sudden storm.
“You think this umbrella’s big enough?”
Larson laughs. “I have a bigger one, if you can believe it.”
“I can.”
He twirls it around, and hums a tune I feel like I’ve heard before. He’s smiling and practically skipping with me, splashing in the little puddles like it was the most beautiful day of the year. “See Paper? I told you it wasn’t goodbye.”
“Yeah. You were right. As usual.” A drop falls on my ear, it can’t be rain, this umbrella is easily keeping a five foot diameter dry, so I look up again and spy wetness in Larson’s eyes. Aww. He’s such a sap. “Thank you, Zach. It’s good to be back.”
“I’m glad you’re back, Paper. Truly.” He stops and faces me. “Now… are you ready to get back in the saddle?”
God, he couldn’t sound more like my father if he tried, and like Dad, Larson really doesn’t want a verbal answer, he wants action, wants me to prove i
t, so I take his hand and put down the umbrella, and we skip through the puddles like a couple of school kids, humming his little tune, laughing up at the gray, getting drenched in the rain.
47
There is No Way This is Going to Work.
There is no way this is going to work.
Saying a few words on air, some platitudes about working together for a better future? And the Fillers are just going to magically return to their jobs? Come on.
But Larson insists, and clips on my lapel mic and walks out of his office, leaving me alone with a cameraman and a little red light. As he closes the door he says plainly, “Just tell the truth.”
I clear my throat and stare right into the lens.
The truth.
“I, uh, want to thank the Gitanos. They could have punished me, and I think all us Fillers know what that means, but they hesitated. They listened. They wanted to understand what this means to you. And I think they do understand, I represent some of the frustrations of having lives not completely under our own control. The Gitanos want me to let you know that they hear you loud and clear. They’ve agreed to let me continue in this competition, provided Mister Larson and the other contestants approve, as a sign of good will, as a promise from them that this is only the first step in making the improvements you’re so desperate for. In exchange, they’ve asked for you to return to work, to take this next important step alongside them. You return to work, and I return to the competition. To win. Not for me. To win for us.”
The camera’s light turns off.
I hang my head.
No. It wasn’t the truth.
Not a word.
The Gitanos are a terrible bunch, who don’t give a flying fuck about the welfare of us Fillers. But as the lies floated out of my mouth, I also made a silent promise to my people: yes, I need to continue this deception, but before it’s all over, I’ll find the truth, whatever it is, and I’ll bring it home to you. There’s no going back, for me, or for you. I will push this boulder forward. I mentally cross my heart and hope to die before I give up on this promise.