Hunger and Thirst

by Wightman, Wayne

  Mr. Roeg snorted. At that point, Mr. Strickman started in surprise when he realized that Mr. Roeg's conveyance was whining into higher registers; an instant later, it shot off toward the office doors which opened not quite quickly enough and the conveyance double-banged through them and disappeared down the concourse.

  After a polite pause, Loris returned to her desk. Bethina's eyes followed her.

  Mr. Strickman broke into the full sweat of relief and bolted back into his office, hearing Bethina shrill across the office, “Back on task! Eyes on your duty!”

  Mr. Strickman began listing what shortcomings Mr. Roeg might have seen. Sweat dampened his shirt. He had looked weak. He had looked incompetent. He seized up, his breath caught in his throat. He could be tested and expelled. If that happened, he knew he would die before nightfall.

  ....

  Lloyd liked his freshly pressed work uniform. It smelled really good the first evening he would wear it, as night watchman at the Acro D underground, station twelve. Subsequent nights his uniform lost its crispness along with its artificially fresh smell. Since there wasn't much to do, he noticed such things. Every Tuesday and Friday for twenty minutes, he stood aside as security escorted anywhere from five to two hundred people into the underground, off to one of the other acros, for whatever reasons. Or even to be expelled, he thought in a whisper.

  To pass the rest of the time, Lloyd played games with his flashlight, making patterns on the wall or flipping it around. He also practiced singing a bit. He knew he was not very good, but the echoes in the long concrete room made him sound better. Lloyd hoped to someday surprise Loris by singing her a song, perhaps at her birthday, or after the next time they were intimate. He figured he'd have at least two months to practice.

  He was awakened by someone talking to him. He struggled to sit up on the bench where he'd fallen asleep. Cameras probably caught it. Lloyd staggered to his feet, trying to get his eyes and tongue and brain on the same page.

  “Howdy,” the man said. “Don't mean to trouble you.”

  “Hi.” Lloyd straightened his hat. “I almost dozed off.”

  “My name's Albert,” Quentin said. “I was walking by and thought, 'Darn, I've never been down there,' so here I am.” Arms and eyes wide in surprise.

  “It's where people go to the other acros. This station isn't used a lot.”

  “I've never been to another acro. Have you?”

  “Not me. This is as close as I ever got. But security escorts people down here, and they leave.”

  Quentin pointed at the wide door of the underground tube. It had an unusual latch. “What's that?”

  “It's a latch. But you have to take training to open it, so it works like a lock.”

  Quentin bent over to look at it. Surreptitiously he took a ten-second multi-angle vid of it. “It really is complicated,” he said, stupidly emphasizing syllables with abdominal contractions.

  “It is. I could never do it. The security people can do it real fast.”

  “And,” Quentin said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “I hear that in the tubes there are doors to the Outside.” He said it with a capital O.

  “There are. They're called hatches. I don't know how many there are, but there's one in this tube, just down a little way. A hatch.”

  “Wow, I wouldn't want to go out there. You got good surveillance here, that's good, so you won't get mugged or whatever.”

  “Workers come down here two three times a month to work on the wiring. I think the dampness wrecks it or something.”

  “Yeah,” Quentin goofed, “or maybe evil spirits do it!”

  “Yeah, the ones that make wires break!” Lloyd said. “Hey, I got a extra sandwich. Want it?”

  ....

  “I declined the sandwich,” Quentin said, “and I don't like where this coversation is going.”

  Today they had met at a mall restaurant. It was loud.

  Loris was glued to the playback of the intricate latch. She held her hands around the player so it wouldn't be conspicuous to others. They had several empty beer glasses in front of them, and, as atmosphere, a recent grab-it song, “Hit Me Like I Like It” played out of the ceiling. Quentin was glad that Loris could ignore her surroundings. The tastes of these people no longer provoked her vocal expressions of indignant disgust.

  “Where do you think this conversation is going?” she murmured, still focused on the vid, running it back and forth.

  “I think it's going to lead to you leading me down there to try to open that door so you can get into the tube to the exterior door. The hatch. And go outside. Or try to, and find out if what's out there is what the vid says is out there. Am I close?”

  “I'll give you a prize.”

  “It's dangerous outside, Loris, and they'd probably arrest you.”

  “I can open this. With another set of hands—” (she looked at his eyes) “—Quentin.”

  “I should never have gone down there. Lying to your partner. Getting you further into your... project. And now you want me to do something illegal. And dangerous.”

  “It could take as little as five minutes. How many times have I asked for a favor?”

  Quentin turned the warm glass in his hands. “Never,” he said.

  She looked up from the glow of the vid. “Would you help me for the promise-land of my thighs?”

  “I guess. Yes.”

  “Are we amazed that a biological whim swamps the screaming voice of reason?”

  “No,” he said. “It's still screaming. I can't believe I'm doing this.”

  ....

  Lloyd needed counseling. In order to see the Reverend Fenn, he sat through some random group theological discussion (“Can a person be conscious who doesn't have a soul?”) but didn't understand most of it and tried to look preoccupied, but the group finally saw him and forced him say what he thought. Hot and wet under his arms, he mumbled some words together. He just wanted them to ignore him. “How could you tell if there was a soul there, either way?”

  After a moment of silence, they all yelled things at him. Eventually a bell rang and Reverend Fenn told everyone what a joy it was, etc. Finally, the two alone, Lloyd looked up at him and said, “Reverend Fenn, I have a moral question.”

  He told the reverend about “someone” he knew who had been asking him a lot of questions about the underground tube and he thought this person was going to go into the underground tube station where he was a watchman, or maybe one of the others, and go out to the outside, and if this happened, what should he do if reporting on this “someone,” which it was his job to do, would get him in trouble with a really really good friend?

  The reverend poked out his mashed lips and pondered. “What tube is this you speak of ?”

  “The tube that goes to the other acros.”

  “Ah yes, certainly.” He folded, unfolded, refolded his old hands. “I was thinking of another tube. So — ” Again, lips mashed out, he pondered. “What do you need to know?”

  Lloyd went through it again. But he didn't mind. People often needed to go through things a couple of times for him. Except with Loris. She was quick. “So do I report on this person?” he reconcluded.

  “Well now. Imagine the best person in the world. What would that person do?”

  “I can't do things like that, your honor. My imagination is bad, and that's why I'm asking you about this case I have.”

  “Well now. I thought your point, earlier, on consciousness was well taken.”

  “But... do I report this person?”

  “A good question. You should sleep on it. Well. Ta-ta till next week. Next week....” He checked a paper from his pocket. “Next week, it's 'Is It Better To Be Good Or Not?' You be there. It'll be lively.” Reverend Fenn slapped him on the back and was out the door before Lloyd quite knew he was going.

  He suspected he hadn't asked his question right. So that was forty-five minutes shot for not being able to explain things like Loris. Being stupid was time-consuming.

>   ....

  Raff gave Bethina a slack-jawed grin as he shambled past her. Bethina nodded and returned the briefest of pseudosmiles. Raff, or Mr. Raff, if Bethina had to address him, had a regular official appointment with Mr. Strickman, though why, Bethina could not fathom. Raff was a wall-duster, a despicable occupation, in her considered judgment.

  Raff was seen all over this level, waving those long dusters of his across the walls, so he was always dusty when he came in, and every time, Bethina had to go in and vacuum the chair where he had sat in Mr. Strickman's office. She resented that. She was going to make someone else do it from now on. Give it to that Loris person who acted like she was better than everyone.

  ....

  Raff bumped through the door to Mr. Strickman's office as though he were neurologically impaired. He made his way to a chair as the door to the office snapped shut, and there he dropped himself, releasing a poof of dust.

  “Mr. Raff, Mr. Raff,” said Mr. Strickman said, short-stepping over to him with a glass and a decanter, from which he poured a long drink and handed it to him. Raff's eyes sparkled as he grasped it in his dusty fingers. “So, how've you been, Mr. Raff?”

  Raff licked his lips and said, “Fine okay.” He tossed back the drink and made a loud long “Aaaaaaah. Good. More.”

  Mr. Strickman short-stepped across the office again and refilled the glass.

  “Let's not go too fast, Mr. Raff. I need some guidance here and I'm looking to you to help me with that.”

  “Yah.” He sipped a little this time. “Okay. Fix the....” Finger twirl. “Get stuff ready.”

  “Yes, sir; yes, sir.”

  Mr. Strickman bustled around the office, dimming the lights, lighting three candles — purple candles — in a triangle, lighting some smelly incense that in his personal opinion smelled like raw meat. But it was all for getting their psyches aligned, their chakras co-satoried, like on the same page, very important.

  He got out his Cloth of Meaning from a bottom drawer, spread it on his chair, and carefully sat down. Oh, the ritual! He loved this so much! His psychic receptiveness and Raff's wisdom had already helped him out with a couple of women — one whose hand he held briefly and the other the ravenous Fawn, who frightened him. Sometimes Raff gave him good ideas that he then sent off for vid presentations. Sometimes he told him things he needed to know. The wall-duster! No one would ever guess! Stupid people.

  “Ready,” Mr. Strickman said, taking up a handpad to record any necessary notes.

  Raff sipped, wheezed an exhalation, and said, “Simple is good. Smart is way overrated. Smart people get sad a lot. They have crazy ideas and get into trouble. Simple people enjoy simple pleasures, simple entertainments, simple foods. Don't you?”

  Strickman noted furiously. Then he looked up, startled. “Me? Yes, I do. Simple food. I like soup. Our fooprod yellow-ball soup. I like that.”

  “Simple people are simply happy people,” Raff continued grandly. “Simple people know what they know and don't care about the rest. Copy that. Send it to the vid people.” He sipped twice, giving Mr. Strickman time to finish pressing buttons. “You got any unsimple people working for you, Mr. Strickman?”

  “Unsimple? No. Well, Bethina is loud, but I don't think she's... unsimple.”

  “Loris Clare? She a complicated little woman?” he asked in a thin, rising voice.

  “Well, maybe. She doesn't talk much. Might have got a little smart with me the other day — I'm not sure.”

  Raff said, “Mm.”

  “Any predictions?” Mr. Strickman asked with feigned disinterest. This was always the best part.

  Raff said, “Your little woman, the Mrs. Strickman, will soon find out that Fawn is your bang girl.”

  In the three-candle light, Mr. Strickman's face went bloodless. Sphincters clenched.

  “But the good news is she won't care,” Raff said, following that with a sip. “Who sold you that incense? Smells like the armpit of a dog.”

  Mr. Strickman breathed raggedly. Criticism destroyed his thoughts; it made his skin feel like it had knots being pulled through it.

  “Mrs. Strickman won't care about Fawn because Mrs. Strickman has her own bang boy. Sixteen-year-old. Real mover.”

  It took a moment for the words to register and then transform into imagery. When they did, Mr. Strickman appeared to have died in an upright position. After a minute, Raff finished the drink and upon exiting the office, left his glass on Mr. Strickman's desk, beneath his sightless eyes. Once through the door, across the expansive outer office, Raff observed Bethina, hissing curses and throwing handfuls of tissues at a woman behind a desk that he suspected was Loris Clare.

  Mr. Strickman, in his office, slowly unknotted.

  What should he do? A sixteen-year-old? A mover? What should he do?

  Fawn.

  Fawn would tell him what to do about that. He could depend on her.

  ....

  Fawn didn't exactly tell him what to do. She listened impassively.

  “Mover!” he said desperately. “Sixteen!”

  She pointed at the vid-end of the room. There Strickland was, full-depth, lifelike, circling mode point of view, working Fawn over — one of her favorite entertainments, watching herself being entertained.

  Strickland had no idea his butt looked so pathetic. Could he really look so repellant? Out of his momentary self-pity he startled himself with the thought of anyone else seeing this — Mrs. Strickman seeing this, or — more horrifying — everyone seeing this, on the ninety-meter screen. The last president of Acro E was caught pimping his nieces — so Mr. Strickman might weather this indiscretion: his transgression was, at least, with an adult. It didn't look like he had a single muscle in his butt.

  “That,” Fawn said, stopping the vid, “that's what I want. I want it again, I want it now, and I want it whenever else I want it. And I don't care who's plowing your wife. Begin.”

  Mr. Strickman agreed. Her demands would undoubtedly become burdensome, but, at the moment, he felt he could force himself.

  ....

  Loris knew someone who wasn't an idiot who knew someone who was at least borderline, and this person worked in surveillance. Word eventually got back to Loris that, yes, the cameras in Lloyd's watch area had been out for months and no paperwork for their repair could be found. Lucky for Lloyd, she thought.

  So, two nights after the evening she got this word, she and Quentin Denmore hurried through the area Lloyd should have been looking after, but wasn't. Lloyd wasn't doing his job because JoyLynn Podendall was distracting him in a nearby janitorial closet from which muffled cries emanated. Quentin had a friend who had a friend who knew of JoyLynn and her affection for carnal escapades in non-standard locations.

  She and Quentin began working at the complex mechanism. Several gears intermeshed in unexpected ways, designed to be opened only by people who had spent time practicing. It took their four hands five minutes.

  Inside the tube, beyond the opening, Quentin and Loris saw what they expected: the transport levitation track running along the base and an overhead line of light just bright enough to see where and where not to step. And, what they also expected, as Lloyd had told Loris, across the tube and down five meters or so, was the vague outline of another hatch that led to the outside. A small plate, meant to be read only by those close enough to open it, said,

  Danger Ahead

  Acro Security Only

  Snakes Spiders Germs

  Full BioCon Suit Required

  “Shall we?” Loris whispered.

  “It says we need suits.”

  “And the vid shows tropical plants where there can't be any.”

  “But this says suits. We could get sick.”

  “I'll do this. Go back out there, wait where you can watch the closet. If JoyLynn lets him loose before I come back, do whatever it takes to keep him busy.” Like a promise, Loris said, “I'm back in five minutes. Five.”

  In half a minute, Quentin was gone, and she had turn
ed the simple turn-latch on the side of the tube, and there it was. The outside. She turned on her hand lights. Actual soil covered the ground. Not just dirt on flooring that had to be sterilized once in a while. This was unsterilizeable — authentic germy earth, everywhere. Even the air had an unexpected smell, like the air that hovers over a fresh potted plant. Earth perfume.

  From picture books and what little she could get through the vid, she knew this foliage was of a temperate zone.

  She walked into it a slow dozen steps — a bit of sponginess in the ground, dead leaves there, mostly decayed; tall, tall branchless trees, gray-and-black banded, reaching like tent-poles from the earth up into the dense black canopy. On the ground here and there, clumps of head-high bushes in full leaf. She walked into it far enough that the acro wall was completely hidden by tree trunks and darkness. She breathed. Above the trees, she thought, was the actual sky, but she couldn't see it.

  Heading back, she scanned the ground for snakes — none — and the tree sides for lurking vermin — also none. Loris held her breath and listened as hard as she could and heard only the far-away whisper of leaves, so high overhead. As she breathed again, she turned in a circle, leading with the lights, seeing the 180° sweep of the forest and then the plasticine side of the acro providing the other 180°, its immense height hidden above the forest canopy.

  She swept her eyes across the wild outside again, trying to fix it in memory. Then she hurried back to the opened exterior hatch, hopped over the translev track, reset the multi-latched door, and strode to the area where Quentin waited. Everything was bright.

  “Quentin!” she whisper-hissed.

  His head stuck out around a corner, a dozen yards away. “What?” he mouthed without sound.

  She ran lightly to him. “Still in there?”

  He nodded and looked nervous. A bucket rattled and banged. Right in front of them, her partner was struggling around in a closet with JoyLynn Podendall.

  “Good. Poor guy deserves it,” she said.

  They hurried away as she whispered of the things she saw.

  ....