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“Give it a shove or kick, Miss Overhearder,” Stanley instructed. It came out on Eve’s end as, “…give it a hoven ick…”, but Eve figured out what he’d meant. She stood back and did her sideways martial arts kick, using too much force. She’d forgotten she was barefoot and so had badly stubbed all her toes.
“Oh…ouch! Grubby terrible berry mold, ouch!” she cried, but the door was now open…to a set of steep stairs. “That makes sense. I felt like the pipe was going downhill,” she mumbled to herself. Eve could now breathe in fresher, warmer, and more humid air, so she knew the stairs led back up to the noisy steam engine room. She climbed the steep metal stairs two at a time, wanting to get away from the smell of rotten food or whatever was causing the smell. She reached the top, peering through a grate, happily at the face of Stanley Wormwood, who was lying flat under a belching noisy ol’ Elsie. Stanley smiled down at Eve. He asked,
“Is there a latch inside to open the grate? Check around the corners. Maybe you’ll have to unscrew it like you did the one from the pipe. Can you see anything? And what is that rotten egg smell?” He stared down at Eve, while trying not to laugh.
Eve caught the expression on his face and turned to look at her image in the metallic walls of the stairwell. She had gotten herself a bad black eye from her run-in with that shelf, and her braid had come undone, to reveal a mass of frizzy, curly auburn hair, sticking out straight from the static electricity of the pipe. She would have laughed at herself except she was rather embarrassed to be looking like some freaky fairy tale monster in front of her boss, and on her first day of work no less.
“I think this is the latch. Let me press it,” She said, while smoothing down her hair with her other free hand. Rose and Hugh had joined Stanley under the belching steam engine, so Eve could see it was getting far too crowded under ol’ Elsie. The latch came undone, and fell inward, again hitting Eve in the face, this time on her cheek. She knew she would look like she’d gotten in a fight on her first day of work. And because she’d signed that confidential agreement form in Miggly’s office, she would not be able to explain anything to her mother or James. Eve stood on the stairs watching her team until Hugh spoke.
“Now what; you want one of us to slide through this, or should we get the rest of the crew to move ol’ Elsie over a bit first?” Hugh asked Stanley. Stanley opted for the move, but told Rose to slide through and check out what smelled so bad down in the bee-low.
“We will want to see what’s there, even if it be rotten. Maybe they got some mechanicals down below, if we got us some luck,” he said to Rose. Eve watched as Hugh and Stanley slid back out from under ol’ Elsie and went to get their biggest workers because the old steam engine weighed a bunch of tons. Rose slid through the hatch and stood on the top step eyeing Eve’s face.
“Well, Miss Eve, I never thought you would make it so easy for us. Me and the others bet it would take you a week to make it to the room. Nola Goattooth bet two chits the pipe would end and you’d be crawling out backwards, and Rita Welder said you’d make it but some evil mechanical devils would be on the other side to eat you up. She’s a mite crazy if you ask me; she bet a week’s worth of chits on that stupid idea,” Rose laughed, after she had slid through the grate, landing deftly on her feet at the top of the stairs next to Eve. She then scrunched her nose and said,
“Now let’s go see about that stink. And you’re gonna need some ice for that face.” She smiled at Eve, saying she was happy nothing too bad had happened to her. Rose explained none of them had wanted to send her into the pipe; that it was all Miggly’s idea…and he didn’t much care about worker safety. She said she was pleased it was only a couple of bruises, because after working in Steam for twelve years, Rose had seen much worse accidents…like Stanley’s eye.
Eve nodded, but was thinking about the crazy mechanicals involved in Rita’s bet. If Rita was right, and from what Eve had heard Miggly and Blakeley say, there were most likely some dangerous, and maybe crazy mechanical things guarding the Boardroom Building, and they were not human friendly. She thought that there could also be similar things guarding the really important bunkers…the ones with the unspoiled food or the solar light bulbs. But luckily so far, Eve had not detected anyone or thing in the vast and smelly room where she now sat, facing a mountain of smelly sealed boxes.
“Looks like a bunch of cans got that puss-out gas sickness. We’ll have to throw them all out…much too dangerous. But these over here are all fine, and the bigger plastic barrels are still intact,” Rose said to Hugh and Stanley. It was several hours later, and big ol’ Elsie had been nudged about three feet to the right…just enough to free up the door; so now, most of the workers from Steam were gathered around the various boxes, or were up top guarding the doors. They had not informed Miggly yet, because once he found out…well…then no one would get a thing. Stanley explained it would all go to The Committee. Everyone in the room knew that much, even Eve.
“What’s inside the barrels?” Eve asked. After her pipe-crawling adventure she was sitting in the corner on a barrel of something, while Rose and Rita packed ice on her bruised cheek and black eye. Her brand new overalls were now smeared in grease, and one leg had torn out at the knee.
She knew she would leave work looking like she had slipped, and everyone in the room would confirm it. In fact, Hugh Endley volunteered to say he’d left a pail of dirty water in her way so it was his fault. They told Eve he’d get a ten chit deduction for negligence but he had no kids to support. They all agreed to it. And then they agreed to pitch in to make up for his deducted worker chits. Eve learned that first work day that Steam stuck together and watched your back. She liked them all.
“Looks like corn meal and flour, and this one says rice although I have no idea what that is. Does anyone know what rice is? Do you eat it?” Stanley asked around the room but no one had heard of it except Eve, who had only just read of it in Dirk’s book. “Yes, Sir, you can eat it but it has to be boiled like the corn meal. I read it in a book once,” she answered, referring to Dirks book of words. “Well then, let’s each take a cup of it home with some of the corn meal and flour. It will hide nicely in our lunch buckets,” Hugh Endley said, grasping the end of one of the barrels and giving it a heave.
It pried open, giving off a whooshing sound, like what happens when you open a wax sealed jar of berries. Inside the barrel marked California white rice, Eve noted some tiny white, bead-like things, millions of them. She told the others that once cooked they swelled up and could be used as a starch source, like flour or corn meal. All the food made Eve hungry. She’d given most of her breakfast to her brother James, and had not brought a lunch because no one had told her she had to bring her own food to work. Rose, seeing the look on Eve’s face reached into her overall pocket and pulled out a mostly fresh half morning roll, handing it to Eve.
“Thanks, I didn’t know we were supposed to bring our own food to work. It’s my first day,” Eve replied through mouths of roll crumbs. Rose smiled, told her to sit down, and began to sew the hole in the knee of Eve’s now-torn worker uniform.
“There’s more food in the back, tons of it. It looks like enough to last a year for the whole of the city,” a short fellow named Arte spoke, climbing over a wall of ten barrels, to the other side. Eve could hear him shoving barrels around in back of the pile. “Yeah, but after we grab our share today, Miggly will requisition the rest as usual,” Hugh added. He looked around knowingly at the older workers.
They nodded in acknowledgement, and then each took their share of the food, stuffing it into their lunch buckets. While they took their turns scooping out the rice, Rita shouted from across the room, “Hey, there’s another door here on the other side of the boxes.” Several workers scampered over the top. The door took three people to kick open, revealing a very dark room on the other side.
“Someone get a light, looks like we found what we were looking for folks. It’s Atonement Day all year for us in Steam!” Stanle
y said, and everyone cheered as the candle revealed a room filled with all sort of supplies, from nails to screws, from twenty-seven engine belts for Hugh’s department, to one entire new steam engine to keep ol’ Elsie company. It was truly a treasure for the workers in Steam.
“Listen up everyone. Take what food you want now because I have to tell Miggly about this by after lunch time. We can’t hold off much longer,” he said. “We can store a bunch in the coat closet and in our lockers,” Rita Welder volunteered. “We can hide some more behind ol’ Elsie,” Arte shouted from across the room. “No need, everyone. I found the perfect place,” Rose shouted, standing over a small grate that had previously been hidden by a box. There was a secret space beneath them, and it was empty. It wouldn’t hold much, but was space enough to store a bunch of things…maybe food for all of them for five or six months.
The workers of Steam spent the remaining two hours before lunch storing food and several special supplies in that secret space. It was illegal, but Stanley explained to Eve that it would feed his family for a year, and would otherwise go to fattening Miggly and his committee members. Eve was amused by what each selected to hide. They wrote their names on a cloth sheet to designate which items they would retrieve slowly over the coming year. Rose and Rita argued over who would get the fancy mirror; they finally compromised with Rita getting the mirror and Rose getting the comb and hair brush set with the pink plastic handles. Hugh insisted he wanted the hand saw and four cans of something he called beer, while Stanley smiled when his turn came up. He selected a plastic container of something marked powdered chocolate.
While Eve took her share of corn, rice, and flour, she also got first pick of the other things because she had been the one to crawl through that pipe. She selected nails to fix he stairs, of course, and some still-good cans of pineapples and apricots. She decided her little brother would get these as treats for his birthday; he had never tasted them before. Eve also took what looked like some sort of thing that made things appear bigger when you looked into it, a device that gave off a shock, something she knew was called a shock gun, and lastly, a bright red pocket knife that came out of its holder, and also contained a bunch of other sharp tool-like devices. She would give it to Dirk as a late Atonement Day gift, although she did not think she had offended him in any way.
Eve felt a little guilty about taking the food supplies; she’d been taught it was criminal to hoard food. But she knew the food would go a long way towards helping her tiny family survive the cold months ahead. It was for James and her too-thin mother, she told herself. The previous cold times had claimed too many young and old people. Rationing was getting worse. So they all agreed to hide some of the food away, each taking only what they would use at home for one week, hidden in their empty lunch buckets or coats. They would not hoard the food in their homes because if security found it during a search, they would be arrested for the capital crime of food hoarding. But if Miggly or his assistant found the food in the secret part of this bunker, they would all claim they’d missed it during their search.
Just before the lunch break bell, Stanley Wormwood and Eve ran the distance to the worker lift, rode it up to level 10, knocked on the office door, and informed Manager Miggly of their find…minus what they had hidden from him. Miggly was delighted, immediately taking his private lift down to examine his new treasures. He would, of course, claim it all for The Committee, except for what was needed to keep the steam engines functional. Even The Committee needed steam power.
Eve stood behind Miggly and his assistant as they inventoried the barrels of staple foods, and the remaining undamaged canned foods. They then moved on to the mechanical supplies, noting odd things that would bring a high price on the trade markets. One thing was a large copper pot, excellent for cooking; another was a set of knives, still sharp and not at all rusty or chipped. Thankfully, Miggly inventoried all the necessary mechanical things to fix the steam engines to Steam.
Stanley and Eve stood next to Miggly the entire time, with Stanley carefully explaining how each item would be used, especially emphasizing how steam power could be increased to the city…and to The Committee. He told Miggly the items were essential to repairing the ancient steam engines…and he was not even stretching the truth. Eve could not wait to tackle the repairs on ol’ Elsie. But sadly, she had found no light bulbs, plain or solar; and unfortunately, no medical supplies.
Just before the clock bonged five, leaving time, Miggly’s dweeby assistant pried open a small box at the back of the room. He and Miggly stared blankly inside for a full minute before Eve dared to peer over their shoulders at what she knew were shock guns. She had also read of them in Dirk’s book. She knew that the stun guns they had in Security were used to incapacitate citizens, while shock guns, no longer allowed in the city, except by the high level security guards, could kill people.
“Does anyone know what these are used for?” Miggly’s assistant looked around at the others, who just shook their heads. “You, Miss Overhearder…do you know what these are?” Eve hesitated for several seconds because she was not good at making things up. “Um, I believe they are used to deliver sealing fluid to the engines, Sir. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Wormwood, Sir?” Stanley bent over the box of guns, and squinted up at Eve for only several seconds, and then he said,
“Of course they are. Glad you remembered that, Miss Overhearder. I knew of course, Sir. Was just testing what she’d learned today, Sir. She’s a quick one, she is. You’re very astute to have assigned her to us, Mr. Miggly, Sir.” Miggly nodded, snorted, and then instructed his assistant to put the lid back on the box; he inventoried the box to Steam and left, shouting over his shoulder to his assistant, “Have all the other boxes except the things for this department brought to The Committee building by tonight, Stevens.” His assistant, a fat, balding man with greedy, green eyes wrote everything down and then followed him back up to his office.
Everyone knew that whatever had been tagged on the inventory for Miggly and The Committee would be gone before the next workday…and no one but the workers would know where the supplies went. But they could not speak of it, or they would find themselves working in the mines; or worse, they would be taking the rideinto the void. After Miggly left, and when no one was watching, Eve took two shock guns and hid them in the pocket of her overalls. She had no idea why she’d taken them. Later, she thought it was a premonition kind of thing.
Chapter Six
Lower Level Supply Assessor
After the clock bonged five times, Eve and all the people of Steam Machine Worker Division Five marched up six flights of stairs to the larger workers’ lift. It could handle twenty workers at a time, even ones as massive as Stanley Wormwood and Hugh Endley. No one spoke that day on the way back up to level 1. Because each individual had a lunch bucket filled with food, and more food stuffed in their overall pockets. It could take months before the workers had smuggled it all back to their hungry families. Some things, like the strange device that made things appear larger; Eve took home the first day. She hid these treasures behind a loose cement brick in her new downstairs room. She later learned from Dirk’s book that the thing that made objects appear larger was called binoculars.
Eve was almost the last worker to exit the door from Steam and out into the alley leading to Lightfighter Town Square. Just before she turned left to return home, Stanley Wormwood touched her arm and whispered, “Not a word, little one. You’ll have to hide the stuff and give it out slowly. All at once…that would cause too many questions. You understand?”
“Right, not a word, thanks…see you tomorrow, Sir. My first day of work has been…um…interesting,” Eve replied. She looked up at him with half-smiling green eyes and a wicked grin. Stanley Wormwood looked at her, puzzled, then he burst out laughing so loud, several old ladies sitting way over near the town clock looked up to see what the commotion was about. They clucked in disapproval, probably thinking Stanley had already been visiting the pub after work, and why didn’
t he just go on home and stop creating such a ruckus?
Eve waved goodbye to her fellow workers and turned left toward her home, and then remembered she had promised to meet Dirk in front of the school. But first, she had to drop off the food because her borrowed lunch bucket was heavy and her coat pockets were bulging. She walked with her head down, taking the fastest route through Deadway Alley, and then on through the town park, past the swings, and through the hole in the fence, right up to the back side of her home.
She was now very glad her mother had given her the private room on the lower level with its own door. Eve opened the door to her new room, stepped inside, and glanced around, finally settling on a recycled trash brick box used for a desk. She emptied her lunch bucket and pockets into several empty metal canisters, closed them tight, hid the jars and two cans of apricots and pineapples inside the box, and turned to notice her face in her tiny, cracked wall mirror.
“No wonder people have been staring at me. I look like I’ve been in a pub fight,” she complained to her reflection, showing a face with a badly bruised cheek and with a purplish yellow circle just beneath her left eye. Her face was a work of art. Eve grabbed her small drawing set and took out a pink colored stub of chalk, using it to cover her bruises as best she could. It was not a good effect but would have to do. She then changed into her brown common clothes, finally adding her cold weather hat, and pulling it down over her face as much as possible to hide the bruises.
Eve then wrote a note to her mother, saying she was out with Dirk and not to wait for her for supper. She slid the note under the door of the upper apartment and left to meet Dirk in front of the school. As she started walking towards the park and on to her school, she remembered her lessons from her first level teacher, Mrs. Potts. Her teacher had a list with each of her student’s names on it, and two pens, one green and one red inked quill pen. At the end of each day, she would mark the student’s name with a green if they were good and a red if found deficient in anything. Before dismissal Mrs. Potts would point to the list and start her sentence,
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