Hungry

by H. A. Swain

  “We better go find your mom,” I say to Yaz. “She’ll be worried sick.” I turn to the man. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Sure thing,” he mumbles as he continues to watch swarms of guards tear apart Yaz’s Smaurto looking for us, while Basil, Yaz, and I slip away in the opposite direction.

  * * *

  “My poor baby!” Yaz moans after we hide in the dimly lit edge of the parking garage. We press ourselves against the side of the concrete structure so no external cameras will be able to see us. “How am I going to get around?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I promise when this is over I’ll make sure you get a new Smaurto. You can have mine. I swear.”

  “God forbid you don’t have your own personal transportation device,” Basil mutters only half under his breath.

  I turn on him. “That was supposed to be our ticket out,” I remind him. “Now we’re stuck. Our faces are on every screen in the Loops by now. We’ll be picked up in three seconds flat.”

  “She’s right,” says Yaz. “Everybody will be looking for you.” We’re all quiet for a moment then Yaz says, “Wait!” She wrenches around so we can see the fading temp-i-tat of Hedgy dancing on her skin. “If we could get to my Spalon guy…”

  “Now is not the time for a touch up!” I snap at her.

  “No! Fiyo can change how you look. Your hair, your eyes, your skin color. Then nobody would know who you are.”

  “They can do that?” Basil asks, eyes wide with surprise.

  “Of course,” says Yaz.

  “Let’s go then. Where is this guy?” he asks.

  “Somewhere in the Outer Loop,” she says.

  “Where exactly?”

  Yaz and I look at each other blankly. “How should we know?” says Yaz.

  “Can’t you use that thing,” he flicks his fingers toward Yaz’s Gizmo, “and look it up?”

  “He’s sort of underground,” Yaz says. “Doesn’t locate. I programmed his address in my Smaurto, and it just takes me there but now…”

  “Oh no,” Basil says sarcastically. “You mean, technology can’t solve every problem?”

  “We can figure this out,” I say. “There’s an old building near his place.”

  “That’s helpful,” Basil says drily.

  “Give me a second,” I tell him and close my eyes, trying to picture it, but it’s been so long since I let Yaz drag me there that the images are murky. “The old building has a sign on top. Maybe blue and yellow?”

  “Oh yeah,” says Yaz. “A factory or something.”

  “Right.” I try to drag the picture from the recesses of my mind. “Something about…” My eyes pop open. “Sugar! I remember because after you took me there for the first time I asked my grandma what sugar was, and she said it was the sweetest taste you’d ever know, but my mother said it was poison. It’s like Do Re Mi Sugar or Don and Mo Sugar or something.”

  “Domino Sugar?” Basil asks.

  “That’s it! How did you know?” I ask.

  “I’ve seen that building before,” he says.

  “So you know where it is?” Yaz asks.

  Basil grimaces and shakes his head.

  “Guess this might come in handy then, huh?” Yaz waves her Gizmo in Basil’s face.

  “Even if we look up the Domino Sugar factory, we still don’t have a way to get out there,” I point out.

  “There has to be some worker transport around here somewhere,” Basil says, scanning the area.

  Again, Yaz and I look at him blankly.

  “How do you think people from the Outer Loops who can’t afford Smaurtos and highway fees get to work?” he asks.

  “There’s a fee to drive on the highway?” Yaz asks.

  “Who do you think pays for it?” Basil asks. “The government?”

  “Oh my god,” I say to Yaz. “We are privies.”

  “What’s a privy, exactly?” Yaz asks, hands on hips.

  “It’s okay,” says Basil. “I didn’t know what a spelunk was.”

  “Spalon,” Yaz corrects him.

  “Right,” he says. “The transports will be around the back, away from where all the consumers come in, because god forbid you ever see workers outside of their jobs.”

  “But won’t One World know when we get on the transport? Can’t they see our transaction when we pay? Or what about cameras?” I ask.

  Basil looks at me with one eyebrow up. “One World doesn’t run these transports.”

  “Who does?” I ask.

  “People.”

  * * *

  Once we get to the backside of the garage, we see another lot, this one cracked and dusty with a line of large, strange, beat-up vehicles waiting in the dusk.

  “Are those the transports?” Yaz asks, wrinkling her nose.

  Basil shakes his hair out of his eyes and says, “Follow me.”

  The transports are old, big boxy looking things with dented metal bodies. Nothing like our sleek Smaurtos.

  “Who are those people?” I whisper to Basil while trying not to make eye contact with the men and women leaning against their machines watching us.

  “The drivers,” he says. Yaz and I can’t help but gawk.

  When we get nearer, they start calling to us.

  “Where you going?”

  “Best price here.”

  “I got air-conditioning.”

  “Smoothest ride, cheapest fare.”

  Basil walks past the first few drivers then stops in front of a short, squat woman with choppy orange hair. He looks momentarily surprised to see her but quickly recomposes his aloof demeanor. She, on the other hand, smiles a patchwork of wrinkles and laughs until she coughs. “Haven’t seen you for a while, kiddo,” she grumbles. “Where you been?”

  Basil cocks his head to the side almost shyly. “Just around. How are you?”

  “On top of the freakin’ world,” she says too loudly, looking at the other drivers, who laugh along with her. But then she looks at him and asks more gently, “You okay?”

  “I need to get to the Outer Loop.”

  “You got any money?”

  “We can transact,” Yaz says, showing the woman her Gizmo.

  The woman exhales sharply as if she’s been insulted. “Where’d you pick up these two privies?” she asks Basil.

  “They’re friends of Ana’s,” he says.

  Yaz looks at me and whispers, “Who’s Ana?”

  “Tell you later,” I whisper back.

  “Well la-de-da,” the woman says loudly. “Ms. Ana has friends in high places.”

  “Not high enough,” another driver says, but no one laughs.

  “I’ve got cash,” says Basil.

  “In that case…” The woman steps back, sweeping her arm to the side. “Your chariot awaits.” The other drivers cackle meanly as the woman grabs the silver handle on the rear door of her vehicle and yanks. The door screeches in protest when she jerks it open.

  Yaz shows Basil and the driver the location of the Domino Sugar plant on her Gizmo screen, then we climb in the backseat. The woman slams our door and climbs in the front.

  Yaz can’t help herself. She leans forward and asks, “What is this thing?” but then the vehicle roars to life, sputtering and shuttering beneath us, and we grab onto each other. “What’s happening!” Yaz squeals.

  Basil and the woman laugh. “It’s okay,” Basil tells us. “These run on combustible fuel so they’re a little bit loud.”

  “And bumpy!” the woman yells over the sound of the engine as we take off, bouncing and clattering across the lot.

  “Where do you get fuel?” I ask. “My dad would find this amazing.”

  Basil rolls down the window and leans back against the seat. The wind ruffles his hair. “They ferment kudzu.”

  “They do what to who-zu?” Yaz asks.

  “Kudzu,” he says. “It’s a plant.”

  My mouth drops open, but Yaz cracks up. “Hello, did we just enter another time dimension?” />
  Instead of being annoyed by this, Basil laughs right along with her. “Yeah, welcome to the past!”

  “But where would they get a plant?” I ask looking out of the car window at the hologram trees and virtual grass zipping by. I think of the hard compacted beige dirt in abandoned lots between buildings and the synthetic smells pumped into the oxygenated air.

  “Past all the Loops,” says Basil.

  “But that’s a wasteland,” I say.

  “Not anymore,” he says, and a shiver runs down my back.

  I brace myself as we bump along the worn-out interior road that leads us away from the EntertainArena. In the distance, I can see a line of lights along the highway, punctuated by large colorful screens. Beyond that are more clusters of twinkling lights branching off the highway. “What is that?” I ask, pointing.

  “Your world,” Basil says. I look at him, confused. “When you’re on the highway, the light from the screens is too bright to see the landscape beyond your car. But this is what we see from our roads.”

  “It’s almost pretty, isn’t it?” Yaz says quietly. “Like jewels on a necklace.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” says Basil.

  While we roar along the dark rutted roads other vehicles occasionally whoosh past us. I slump back, and Basil drapes his arm lightly across my shoulders. It feels good to snuggle into his side and inhale the scent of him—soap and sweat and something deeper that I can’t name, but it makes me feel safe. “God, I’m tired,” I admit and close my eyes as the familiar lethargy of hunger rolls over me now that all the adrenaline of the past few hours has worn off. My mouth is dry, and I can feel an ache wrapping around my head from behind my ears. The rhythmic rocking of the vehicle lulls me into a quick half-waking dream. I’m balanced precariously on the thorny stem of the berry bush. My mother is below me violently shaking the stem, trying to knock me off while I grope for that glistening purple fruit. My stomach gurgles loudly, waking me with a start. “Sorry,” I mumble and wrap my arm around my belly.

  Yaz snickers and I elbow her in the side. “Shut up,” I say.

  Basil studies me for a second. I smile weakly at him. “You’re hungry,” he says.

  “I was dreaming about berries.”

  He pushes himself forward and climbs over the front seat of the car so he’s sitting next to the driver. “No passengers up here,” she grumbles, but she doesn’t make him leave.

  They talk in hushed whispers for a few moments. I catch Basil say, “How much?” and “You’re gouging me.” At which she cackles. Finally after lots of back and forth, she unlatches a compartment between her arm and Basil’s. He reaches in and pulls out a bottle of light yellow liquid then climbs back over the seat.

  “Drink this,” he says, handing it to me.

  “I’m not going to drink her Synthamil! What would she drink then?”

  “It’s not hers,” says Basil.

  I look at the label. Instead of someone’s name embossed in gold, it just says, SYNTHAMIL (BASELINE FORMULA) in black and white. “Where’d she get this?” I ask, knowing full well it’s a breach of contract to exchange Synthamil for money.

  The woman looks back at me in the little mirror above her head. “Oh baby, there’s a market for anything if you know where to look and have money in your pocket.”

  “But it’s not even calibrated for an individual,” I say.

  The woman locks eyes with Basil. “First time princess came down from her golden tower?”

  “Hey,” I protest. “I’m not a princess, and anyway I can’t pay for this without my Gizmo.”

  At this the woman guffaws. “I don’t take that electronic currency. It’s cash only in my ride.”

  I push the bottle toward her, but Basil says, “I can pay.”

  Yaz leans forward again. “Do you have actual real money?”

  “Yes,” he tells her. “Actual real hold-it-in-your-hand money.”

  “Whoa,” she says. “This is like one of those history re-enactment villages at the Relics.”

  Basil twists the cap and pushes the bottle to me.

  “What if it’s not calibrated right?” I ask.

  The woman shakes her head and mutters something I can’t quite make out, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a compliment.

  “It’s okay. It’s has all the basic nutrients One World uses for everyone,” he tells me. “Yours starts like this then gets personalized because your parents pay for it.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling stupid. I had no idea how it worked.

  “Just drink it,” he insists.

  “But what about you? When’s the last time you had nutrition?”

  He looks at the bottle and gnaws on his bottom lip.

  “We’ll share,” I say and lift it to my lips.

  “Bon freaking appétit,” the woman rasps.

  I down half the liquid then hand him the bottle to polish off as the woman pulls up to the tollgates. He gulps the Synthamil and tosses the bottle to the floor, then he pulls something out of his jacket pocket. At first I think it’s his scent machine, but he hands it over the back of the seat to the driver, and I see that it’s a smaller device that looks cobbled together from various other gadgets. She points it at the toll. The green light flashes and the gate opens.

  “I gotta get me one of these,” she says.

  I look at Basil.

  “Don’t ask,” he tells me and takes it back from her.

  I sit back and brace myself for my second trip out of the Inner Loop in one night.

  PART 2

  OUTER LOOP

  “When the apple is ripe it will fall.”

  —Irish proverb

  Once we’re through the border, it only takes a few minutes for the driver to find Fiyo’s street. She pulls up to a crumbling curb under the burned-out DOMINO SUGAR sign and announces, “You have arrived.”

  Yaz and I get out of the rackety old car. Over my shoulder I watch Basil hand the woman a wad of folded bills, but she pushes his hand away. Then she grabs him and pulls him close to her chest in a fierce embrace. Basil stiffens and pats the woman’s back awkwardly as she clings to him. Then she lets him go and swats away a few tears before she climbs back into her car and roars off into the dark night.

  “What’s that all about?” Yaz whispers to me.

  “I have no idea,” I admit.

  Basil joins us. “You actually come here regularly?” he asks.

  “Sure,” says Yaz. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t think privies ventured this far,” he says.

  “Anything for a good haircut!” Yaz says, only half joking.

  The three of us jog across the street to Fiyo’s Spalon, a small lonely house with an older model Whisson Windmill and sagging solar panels among dark buildings. Yaz tries the front door. “Crap,” she says when it won’t open. “Come on, Fiyo,” she begs. “You can’t be closed. Not now.” She cups her hands around her eyes and peers inside the front window. “There’s a light on in the back.”

  We creep around the house, staying in the shadows of the eaves to a rear door which butts up against an empty lot. Suddenly I’m wary out here where everything seems to be asleep. There are no big venues nearby. We have no car. Which means there’s no place for us to run and no way to get there if Fiyo won’t let us in. I’m sure we’ve made a huge mistake and I feel woozy.

  Basil seems to be having the same misgivings. “What if this guy turns us in?” he asks, hanging back. “I bet your parents are offering a bounty by now.”

  Yaz shakes her head. “He wouldn’t. You’ll see.” She bangs on the door.

  We hear rustling on the other side, then two slats of the blinds are lifted apart. “Who is it and what do you want?” a deep voice calls.

  “Fiyo, it’s Yaz. I need your help.”

  “Yaz? Don’t you own a clock?” The voice has changed to a higher lilt. “I’m cleaning up now.”

  “It’s an emergency,” Yaz pleads, rattling the door handle.

>   “An emergency, huh? Somebody desperate for highlights? Hang on, don’t get your panties in a twist!” We hear locks turn then the door swings open. Fiyo stands in a halo of warm yellow light, one arm up the side of the door, the other hand on his, or should I say, her hip. The last time I saw Fiyo he was a short trim man in a white lab coat with a blue goatee and long red hair pulled back into a sleek braid. This person is a petite woman in work boots and a white Tyvek jumpsuit with pert breasts and curvy hips. Like lots of Spalon workers, she’s tricked out in all the latest fads. Purple eyes that contrast with her white-blonde crew cut and warm brown skin that is as smooth as a baby’s butt, as my grandma likes to say. “Ever heard of calling ahead for an appointment?” she asks. The three of us look at each other dumbly. Why didn’t we think of that? But then she smiles. “No worries. You’re here, might as well come in.”

  * * *

  Basil and I sit side by side on a little couch in Fiyo’s waiting area while Yaz talks to her in another room.

  “You sure about this?” Basil asks me.

  “Yaz trusts him, er um, her,” I say.

  “That’s not what I mean.” Basil looks at his hands, folded between his knees. “I mean, maybe you want to go back home now. Since we’re even. You saved me, I saved you, your friend saved us both.” He peers up at me with those beautiful dark eyes. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  I shake my head. “I have too many questions to go home just yet,” I tell him, not mentioning that he’s more than half the reason I want to stay.

  “Like what?” he asks.

  I turn and sit cross-legged to face him on the couch. Like the night we first met, I feel as if I could get lost in a conversation with him and talk for hours without ever getting bored. “Like what are the no-food laws? And who is Ana, really? And how long have the Analogs been around? And what do corporate resisters want? And…”

  “Slow down.” Basil grips my knee. “One thing at a time.”

  My inner thigh quivers beneath his touch, and I lose my train of thought. Part of me wants to stop talking altogether and climb into his lap. Run my fingers through his hair and press my lips against his like we did earlier tonight. These thoughts make me squirm, and thinking that I’m uncomfortable, he pulls his hand away. I draw in a breath and move back, self-conscious and embarrassed by the visceral reaction I have to his touch.