Jon raised his head in a state of shock.
“My apologies for interrupting your business, sir.”
Jon cocked his head back.
“Sir?” he asked the officer in disbelief. “Don’t you want to take me downtown and rough me up a bit?”
“Enjoy your morning, sir.” The officer said nothing more as he promptly returned to his vehicle and took off back down the grid.
Jon stood and stared at the direction the officer disappeared at for a short time. Then came a voice from an alleyway just behind him.
“God must be with you,” the voice proclaimed.
Jon turned to face the individual. It looked like a drifter. They were referred to as cave dwellers sometimes. They were the few citizens who had enough of the party and went off the grid. They actually ripped out their encrypted data from their arm and chose to live a life in the shadows, and on the streets.
“What does that mean?” Jon asked.
“What else could it mean?” the man replied. “I’ve never seen that in my life.” As he finished talking he turned around and headed back down the alley.
Jon just stood there watching as the man disappeared from sight. It was a strange moment. After a minute of curiosity, Jon continued his walk to the food distribution center.
6
CALL IT A HANDOUT
Jon stood there in front of that old familiar warehouse with the single window facing the street. It took up an entire block, but there were no windows except for the one that he was staring at. It was the pickup window for local citizen’s weekly food orders. Everybody had a designated day throughout the week to come and pick up his or her order. It was put in place to help alleviate the crowds.
It didn’t work.
The line of people stretched at least halfway down the building at this particularly odd hour – when everybody should be at work. It wasn’t uncommon for people to take advantage of a work break and come get their food order in hopes of beating a longer wait later in the day.
Jon was here to observe and report, or that was his best guess. Since he was already here, he figured he might as well wait in the long line for his food order as well.
This was all new to him. Standing on an empty city street next to a group of people, standing in single file, leaning against a building and saying nothing to each other. Jon had never experienced the city during the day hours. There was so much that was not happening that it ironically felt a little overwhelming. There was a cough here, a sigh there, but nothing that Jon felt needed to be recorded into his nifty little bracelet.
That was until he heard a sudden commotion coming from the front of the line. He stepped away from the wall to try and see what he could see. He saw a small group of people struggling with somebody on the other side of the window. He couldn’t make out any words. He just saw a struggle taking place at the window. Then he saw one man break away from the small group with a bag of food and took off running down the sidewalk.
This was not going to end well for him. Enforcement was always on standby and always present while the distribution center was handing out food orders.
Right next to the window, along the unassuming wall, an automatic door suddenly slid open at blinding speed. Four Enforcement officers came charging out of the door and pursued the man desperately making his way down the street. He didn’t get too far before they caught up, armed with their electric batons. They didn’t call out a warning, and they didn’t try to subdue him. They caught up to him and let the batons of fury fly. The man was taken down in a half a second or less, but Enforcement continued to beat him for another minute or more.
By the time an Enforcement vehicle had arrived, the man was lifeless on the sidewalk – with blood everywhere. They picked up his body, dripping with blood, and threw it into the back of the vehicle. The vehicle then raced back down the direction it came.
All the officers came marching back in their cyborg outfits, and not a word was muttered amongst them. It was like a surgical hit. Rather, it seemed to be more routine than anything. The officers retreated into the building where the doors behind them sealed shut.
It all happened so fast it was as if it didn’t happen at all.
Jon tapped the shoulder of the man standing in front of him.
“Can you hold my spot for just one moment please?” he asked. Jon couldn’t be sure, but the man appeared to have agreed to hold his spot. He ran down to the edge of the building where he was away from the crowd. He pulled up his sleeve and raised his arm closer to his mouth.
“It appears somebody tried to steal some food from the distribution center, but Enforcement stopped him.” Jon didn’t hold back. “Actually, they beat him. I think they may have killed the man who stole the food.”
He paused after he realized he didn’t know what else to say. Then he returned to his spot in line – where there didn’t appear to be any room for him.
“Excuse me,” Jon said to the man in his spot. “I was here. I had to step away for a moment.”
“Tough luck, pal,” the man replied.
Jon looked to the man he had asked to save his spot.
“Back me up here? I was here not 30 seconds ago.”
“Hey, tough luck, pal,” he stated.
For a moment, Jon thought about letting his fist fly, but the better half of him took over, and he reluctantly took his spot in the back of the line – again. He stood there for some time, just leaning against the wall with his hands in his jacket pockets, wondering and waiting. Then the line started to finally move, and much quicker then Jon had expected. And what a relief it was.
Sitting on the roadside, exposed in the daylight where Enforcement could keep their every eye on everybody made Jon feel quite a bit anxious, and a bit unnerved. Despite being dismissed by Enforcement just moments earlier, it didn’t put his fears to rest. This was Pinnacle City. Here, in this town, the only guarantee was that someday you were going to play the game or lose.
Finally, Jon had made it to the pickup window.
“Encrypted date, please,” said the woman on the other side of the glass.
Jon raised his left arm and pulled back his sleeve. The woman gave Jon a nervous look as his information came through. She kept her eyes down as she waited for the food to be bagged and brought to the window.
A man carrying two brown, paper bags came up to the window and placed them into the slot so they could be retrieved from the street. The woman didn’t look up. Jon was as equally as puzzled at her response as she was with his data.
Now the next question came into mind. Why two bags? He had never received more than one bag of food for his weekly allotment. Afraid somebody might immediately jump him, he grabbed the two bags and began heading down the street. He dared not stop to see what was inside.
There was a reason to leave work on your break to pick up your food. There weren’t a lot of people around. That meant there was a much smaller chance of somebody mugging you on your way back to your quarters. There were no do-overs and no more handouts. There was the weekly allotment and that was it. If anything happened to it, it was the citizen’s problem. Get mugged, go hungry.
Jon felt he was at a safe enough distance from anybody that he could slip into an alley and peer into his additional bag of food. He did a double take over both shoulders to make sure nobody was watching him. Then he disappeared into the closest gap in the buildings.
He knelt-down and rolled open the brown, paper bag. There was nothing new inside. It was the same bread, the same orange juice and the same everything else. But there was another bag to look through. He rolled open the second brown, paper bag. Jon’s eyes lit up and his jaw dropped just a little.
There was a box of crackers, cans of soup, a box of raisins and one thing Jon could not believe – fruit. Jon had not enjoyed actual fruit since he was a kid. There were a couple of bananas and a vine of grapes. In his excitement, Jon rose to his feet, almost ready to do a victory dance, until he realized that he was not
alone in that alley.
He turned his head over his left shoulder and saw a dirty, dark figure hunched up against the wall. It looked like a dweller. Jon couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t matter. He was expecting for the dweller to tackle him and make off with anything and everything he could grab, but he didn’t. He hardly moved.
“Sir?” Jon asked. “Are you okay?”
The response from the dweller was delayed.
“Looks like somebody likes you,” he finally responded.
Jon looked back at the bags of food and then to the dweller. He reached down and grabbed the bag with all the new food items inside. He walked over to the man hunched against the wall and offered him the bag.
“Why?” the man asked in confusion.
“I’m used to what I have now. There is no need for me to have more when there are people who have nothing.”
The man’s eyes lit up as he looked at Jon in confusion. He reached out and accepted the bag of food from Jon.
“God is with you,” the man said to Jon.
Jon shook his head in disbelief. That was the second time he had heard that from a dweller in the same day. In fact, now that Jon could get a good look at the man, it was the same person he had run in to earlier. Jon wasn’t sure what to make of the man’s comment. If there was a God, he must have abandoned Pinnacle City and all its residents some time ago. This place was forsaken.
Jon was ready to grab his usual bag of food and head back down the road toward his living quarters. As he picked the bag up and turned his back, he felt an overwhelming urge to introduce himself to the dweller. Seemingly frustrated with his own self, Jon dropped his shoulders and let out a long breath. Then he turned back to the dweller.
“What is your name?”
The man starred at Jon, “Marcus.”
“I’m Jon.”
“Be safe Jon. I will meet you again. I’m sure of it.” Then Marcus gave Jon a smile. Jon returned the smile with his awkward little upturned lip and a brow full of confusion. He was never quite sure how to smile in those strange moments. Then he turned his back to the man, headed back to the street and back to his living quarters.
7
WHEN DUTY CALLS
It was early. The streets were dark. That overbearing poster across the way was still flapping in the early morning breeze – it was the only sound to be heard.
“Why am I awake,” Jon thought to himself.
He couldn’t remember the last time he was awake at this hour. Were other people awake right now? That helped him remember his initial question. Why was he up right now?
Then that warm vibration on his wrist became apparent. Oh yeah, he was the new party whipping boy. It was his second day with the new job and already he was missing his old one. His old job, where there were no opportunities, no fortunes and no party members in every inch of his business.
He pulled the bright light to his face. If waking up to his wrist vibrating didn’t wake him up, then a bright light to the face ought to do it.
“Observe early morning commute. Look for oddities. Travel downtown and visit the party tower.”
“Please, no,” Jon said loudly. “Awe, crap!”
The party tower was worse than it sounded. Around town it was known as the Lion’s Den. It was where the top party brass of the city met on a daily basis. From that downtown – and center – tower came all the orders, all the arrests, all the regulations, all the late-night assaults by Enforcement and ghost soldiers. In other words, it was the last place Jon would think about just strolling in to.
With that terrifying thought, he perked right up. He stripped down out of his pajamas and promptly into his daily attire. He didn’t bother to bake his bread. He just stuffed a couple of slices into his mouth, downed some of the pretend orange juice and washed the taste down with some tap water. He was out the door in minutes.
Jon came flying out of the stairwell and into the alley way. He nearly collapsed to the pavement, but he caught himself at the knees. He stood there, hunched over and begging for breath for a moment. Looking up, he saw the walkway beginning to fill up with not-so-eager morning commuters. A few moments and breaths later Jon found his way back to his fully erected stature.
He got to the walkway next to the street and immediately caught two men exchanging words with each other not far from himself. He couldn’t make out the words. He could only detect that they were about to start throwing punches if somebody didn’t intervene.
Quickly running towards the two men Jon shouted, “Hey, hey!”
They didn’t hear him – or care.
“Hey, come on guys!” Jon pleaded with them as he approached.
He went to interject himself into the middle and try to push the two apart. That was when one of them turned and delivered a fist right into Jon’s face.
Being unprepared to be clobbered at this horrid hour, Jon found himself down on the pavement. There was the ruckus of the two other men finally having it out with one another. They shouted, scuffled and fought until one of them finally found himself lying next to Jon moments later.
Jon let the side of his mouth that wasn’t smashed in by a flying fist begin to smile. The man on the pavement next to him was the man who punched him. Putting his arm on the man’s chest, Jon gave him a few choice words before pushing himself to his feet.
“Hey, just remember I was the one who tried to stop it.”
On his way to the platform, Jon reported the events as he was instructed to.
After a few minutes of waiting for the early morning transit to arrive, it was time to board and head to the tower in the sky – the Lion’s Den. Jon climbed onto the bus. Again, there were no seats, and he was subject to hanging on for dear life. He grabbed the ceiling strap , and as he turned to face the door he took notice of his new temporary neighbor – the guy who had punched him in the face.
“Well this is awkward for both of us,” Jon remarked to the man.
“I’m sorry ‘bout that,” the man said without making eye contact.
“It’s alright. Let’s just enjoy the morning silence together, yeah?”
The rest of the trip was only consumed by air beneath the shuttle and the motor that carried it.
A few stops and many blocks later, the shuttle began to slow down. Jon couldn’t bring himself to look out the window. He knew what was waiting for him on the other side of those doors. He was supposed to go into the building most citizens went far out of their way to avoid. Not only that, he was supposed to report to somebody on the inside.
He came off the bus and onto the platform. He couldn’t have felt more out of place. Glancing to his left, glancing to his right, he noticed that everybody was taking note of him. Everybody else in the area seemed to have their party attire on. There were soldiers, police, military officers and politicians all. Jon had shown up in his shabby street clothes. He probably should have grabbed the party garb that was given to him, but he was in do-as-the-watch-tells-you-to mode, and the watch didn’t tell him to dress accordingly.
Disregarding the gazing eyes around him, Jon looked up to the top of the steel grey building. It was the tallest tower in the city, and without a doubt, the coldest one as well.
The downtown area served as the official party headquarters for the entire region. The main tower was at the center, and the various other towers surrounding it served as apartments, penthouses and other party offices. The party, not without a sense of technological intrigue, had a mag train connecting all the center towers near the top of each of them.
“Who the crap would ride that thing?” Jon asked himself out loud as he stared at the train in the sky.
He stared at that track that spanned across and through all those towers. It was a quick way to get from building to building. All the while avoiding the general public.
Jon looked back to the base of the tower and headed to the front doors. As he walked into the massive lobby, the band on his wrist started vibrating again.
“Check
in with the clerk. State your business is with Greenwald.”
“Of course, it is,” Jon muttered.
He began picturing that red-haired man just sitting in an office, thinking of pointless tasks for him to do all day.
“You lost?” came a voice from the clerk at the desk in front of Jon. “You know this isn’t the right building to get lost in, right?” the clerk asked.
It was another beautiful woman, speaking on behalf of the party. That was the way it had always seemed to work. And more often than not, it did work. Jon felt the fear and panic caused by his surroundings begin to numb as he paid attention to the pretty face in front of him.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “I’m supposed to be here.” Jon raised his arm knowing she was going to ask anyway.
Despite her good looks, she had the same cold and lifeless appearance that all the other party shills seemed to have. After Jon raised his arm and revealed the device beneath his sleeve, she had a look of confusion. She scanned his encrypted data then spoke.
“Alright,” she paused. “Specialist Jonathan Ballard. Take the elevator to the seventieth floor. There will be another receptionist to give you further instructions.”
Jon muttered, “of course there will be,” as he walked past the desk and towards the elevator. Once he approached the door, he hesitated a bit. How could he forget the last time he was in an elevator? That is until the doors opened.
He climbed into the surprisingly spacious elevator car. It was decked out with marble and large mirrors, not to mention the superb lighting. The car started moving up the shaft. Jon’s knees buckled for a quick second. It moved with remarkable speed, and there was almost no noise coming from the skyrocketing car.
This was a far cry from Jon’s last, and typical, elevator experience. Though he was still uneasy about being in the confined cube, he knew that maintenance paid special attention to this elevator.
It only took a few minutes to reach the seventieth floor. Jon had never been that high up before. He took a few steps out into the lobby before reaching the next receptionist. Much to Jon’s lack of surprise, there was another attractive girl sitting at the desk, curious as to how somebody like Jon had gotten past security.
The Cowboy of Pinnacle City Page 10