So unlike Ginny.
Lydia sat up when their eyes met. A play-board sat on the table in front of the couch. Several bodies -- or, rather, animated icons -- stood or sat on the board's surface.
"Don't log off," Potter said. "Have fun."
Lydia puckered her thin lips and made a kissing sound. She waved a hand at him, as though throwing the kiss. Quickly, she turned back to the game or virtual chat or whatever now played on the board. Potter had acquired the device from the Grand Bazaar more than a year ago, around the time he acquired Ginny. As he'd hoped, Lydia took to the technology. It absorbed her. To the point that Potter thought he could get away with visiting his mistress whenever he wanted, using simple lies and excuses to explain his absence.
"I need some money," Lydia said.
Surprised, Potter stopped in mid-step just as he walked to the staircase to the upstairs rooms. A typical four-box, the house had two rooms positioned atop one another, with a utility shed in the back for the mundane household necessities and another shed that served as bath and lavatory. Not at all like the mansion Lydia grew up in, but Potter thought he'd given her about as much luxury as she would've ever gotten had she taken someone else' marriage proposal. A shy girl, she hadn't even put her own name on the social register; her aunt colluded with her mother to get her on the list.
Which was how Potter found her. On a list, with a picture adjacent to the name.
"There's money in the account," Potter said. "Check your All-Pod."
"I need off-grids. Ogres. Why can't I have the combination to the safe? I wouldn't take more than I need."
"You don't need anything, Lydia."
"I lost a bet," she whispered. "I need two Rings. Payable with six off-grids."
Potter didn't ask what kind of bet. Cards. A race or a basketball game. It didn't matter. He'd long since lost interest in Lydia's past times.
"I need a shower," Potter said. "And a nap. Then back to work. And I want to look in on Carol." He glanced at the upstairs landing. Their twelve-year-old daughter slept in the back room, the one they'd altered to accommodate a second child with a wall down the middle.
"Why don't you give me back my allowance?" Lydia asked. "Then I wouldn't have to -- "
"I'm too tired for this," Potter said, and bounded up the stairs. He peeked in on his daughter. She lay curled under a light blanket, her face covered by dark curly hair, knees tucked into her belly. The half-room next door stood empty and cold. No crib or bed or any other furniture. A visible reminder of their failure to produce another child.
Potter peeled off his uniform as he walked into the master bedroom. He dumped his clothes into the hamper, which would automatically send the garments to the utility shed. Sometime during the week, someone would attend to the pile of soiled clothes; and then they'd be found folded in two plastic baskets set outside by the kitchen door on the cement slab separating the shed from the rest of the house.
Naked, Potter plodded down the interior staircase to the bathroom. He thought of the happy nights when he and Lydia showered together. So playful. Heedless of the soap ration, confidant he'd find more somewhere. He didn't worry about how much water they used back in those days. They played in the large shower stall for a half hour or more. The cost was well worth the joy. Back in those days, Potter deemed himself lucky to have a sultry and attractive wife devoted to making him happy; as a pre-maturely balding young man with short legs and a barrel-chest, Potter never expected he'd attract someone with Lydia's potential.
Now, as he let the hot water cascade about his body and his hairy chest absorbed a layer of lather, he lamented the fact that Lydia had reached that potential, becoming more attractive as she aged, losing her childish inhibitions and timidity; meanwhile, he grew fatter and the bald circle in the middle of his head now encompassed most of his skull, with a thin fringe of near-gray hair encircling it.
The water stung where it hit him. He took it full on the face. Full on the back. Full against his legs and then his chest. He listened for the welcomed sound of Lydia coming to join him, but that never came and after a few minutes, with the soap totally rinsed from his hairy chest and shoulders, he turned off the water.
The pepper-upper he'd taken earlier had worn off well before he reached home. He needed sleep and rejuvenation. He dried himself, put on a terrycloth robe with his name embroidered across the left side, and slowly climbed the carpeted stairs to the bedroom.
Before letting himself succumb to the sleep he craved, he opened the wall safe and plucked six plastic ogre tokens from the coin holders. He put them on Lydia's vanity table. Enough to exchange for V-Rings and pay off her debt. He didn't mind giving her the money. Anything to keep her from complaining, he told himself; and then told himself that he owed her nothing. She had all that she deserved.
All that she deserved.
The thought echoed through his mind as he lay naked in the bed, legs curled, though his knees no longer touched his chest as they did when he was young.
#
Block after block of two-story houses fronted by small lawns, with concrete backyards for the ubiquitous sheds and lavatories, stretched ahead of Potter. He'd been posted to a neighborhood exactly like his own. HQ carefully segregated the police from the communities where they lived. Captains and lieutenants who lived in wealthy high rises near City-Center commanded patrols scouring these common residential areas and someone from this particular block of homes probably walked their patrol along the street where Potter lived.
Riots might erupt anywhere. The brick high rises of tiny one-room apartments housed many of the workers affected by the closing of several office buildings; but many of the higher-paid managers got hit as well.
Anybody's capable of staring a riot.
Potter was used to the police rhetoric. Intercoms blasted oft-repeated warnings and statements meant to increase morale and provide moral fiber for the men and women charged with keeping the peace. The word splashed across computer screens; were emblazoned on the walls and verbally repeated by shift commanders at every station house.
Though he didn't mind the aching feet of so many hours walking the streets, Potter grew annoyed when told that border duty would be curtailed until further notice. Which meant he wouldn't be able to threaten Clarkson's smugglers if nothing was done to help Ginny. Further, he wouldn't have an opportunity to make a few extra ogres. At times like these, people smuggling could be even more profitable than ferrying illicit goods. People paid for safe passage back into the city, as though life inside the walls was better even if you lived underground or camped out with friends in cramped quarters. People, Potter knew, were comfortable with what they knew, or thought they knew; and fearful of the unknown. Life Outside was certainly an unknown for most newly disenfranchised workers. Most had never experienced exile.
Someone with a portable loudspeaker, an illegal device that Potter hoped to confiscate and sell to a broker working for the Grand Bazaar, gathered a crowd. He stood on a wooden crate, skinny black tie askew, his white shirt open, long hair whipped about by the mild wind kicking up debris in the street.
The speaker blamed the municipal government for its failures, hammered home his message. The crowd cheered. They started shouting, "Jobs, jobs, jobs." Potter signaled to the patrolmen walking nearby, gathered them into a strike force, and then led them into the mob huddled around the speaker standing on the crate. In a few minutes, steel truncheons swinging, the police cleared the area. Potter couldn't grab the man's megaphone. Someone raced off with the illicit device.
A police wagon bounced to a stop. The agitator, hands bound behind him, was tossed inside. He cried out when his head hit the steel floor. Those already in the wagon tried to help him, but the vehicle lurched and a couple of the do-gooders fell on top of the man on the floor, and Potter laughed when he heard him cry out again.
The patrol resumed.
A light rain fell, but ceased after a few minutes, leaving behind wet pavement and a damp chill that tick
led Potter's nose. He sucked back the sneeze that threatened and plodded on, until a shift supervisor called an end to the exercise. The riot had petered out. A few protestors had been taken in. They had nothing to lose, Potter thought, angry that the long morning walk, the endless probes into narrow side streets, even the few raids of tall apartment buildings on the outskirts of the compact residential block of spacious two-story homes had yielded little. No shake-downs. No well-off liberal neighborhood leader caught and sent to a grueling workhouse for a few weeks of detention while his case wound through the courts until dismissed.
Just a cold, damp day.
He checked with Ginny when he got back to the stationhouse, where hot coffee spiked with whiskey or vodka waited.
She sounded frantic, though also sad, telling Potter again and again that time was running out. Officially, she had no job, no permit, and she'd be evicted in another day or so. In response, Potter caught a ride with another cop heading to City Center for a stint guarding the municipal buildings, especially the open plazas and fountains, which vandals always attacked during past riots.
Potter didn't find Clarkson in his office, though he rushed past the woman at the front desk, pushed open the door -- unlocked and not requiring much force -- and rummaged through Clarkson's spacious workplace for clues as to where he'd gone.
"Home, I'd suspect," the receptionist said when asked.
Potter glared at her. "You're not the same one that was here yesterday." This woman didn't look scared. She had the worn face of a longtime employee used to dealing with people hounding Clarkson, he decided.
"Job share," she said, as though those two words explained everything. She pushed a stiff curl of gray hair away from the side of her face.
Potter scanned her face with his All-Pod and checked that he got a good iris print.
"What's that for?" she barked.
"You'll hear from me."
The woman shook her head and padded back to her desk on worn blue slippers.
Potter followed. "You get hold of Clarkson. Tell him Potter was here. I want something done about Ginny. You do that and I won't look into whatever you're hiding."
She laughed.
"Not funny," he fumed. "You're on my time, lady. Potter's time. So get doin' what I say."
"I've nothing to hide, so don't threaten me."
Potter walked away. Everyone had something they didn't want the police looking into. Everyone was vulnerable. Perhaps a relative kept hidden in a house. Perhaps an unexplained break in her employment record that someone might interpret as meaning she hid in the city without a permit. Perhaps a transaction record of too much food or too many clothes or too much of something that didn't match her earning power. Where'd she get all that money to buy so much?
He checked the woman's profile. Married. Children. One-day-a-week job. Nothing out of the ordinary. And, sadly, privacy rules limited what he could discover about her husband. This woman was a dead-end.
At home, Potter found Lydia entertaining a few friends, all of them younger than she, newlyweds, he assumed. He paid no attention to them, trotted upstairs and stripped off his uniform. He didn't want to take another pep pill. Too many days in a row of relying on them gave him a queasy stomach followed, inevitably, by a nagging headache.
He sought sleep, while laughter rang downstairs and Lydia's voice -- more gruff than he thought it should be -- lectured the young women about marital compromise and the need to support their husbands' careers. For a moment, as sleep overcame him, Potter thought he heard his mother lecturing him about something altogether different, though he couldn't quite put a finger on what.
By evening, though not as refreshed as he wished, Potter joined Lydia and twelve-year-old Carol at the supper table in the kitchen.
"This is just like before you took that border patrol job," Lydia chirped.
Carol sat with head bowed, dark bangs across her eyes. Her hair dipped down her back, collected into tight black curls that she constantly brushed with her fingertips. She often complained that her hair itched and Lydia always dismissed the complaint. Well-kept hair, including a clomp of curls at the base of the skull, reflected a proper upbringing. Only kids from the apartment blocks ran around with hair down their backs, all tangled and curly and uncombed.
Potter found it amazing how important this subject was to his wife and daughter. Didn't they have anything else to argue about? Discuss? Agree on? Not agree on?
"And school?" he asked his daughter.
"Of course she goes to school," Lydia interjected.
"Yes, Dad. School. I go to school. Six days a week of regular school and one day a week of philosophy class. Like all the 'well-brought-up' kids around here."
"We try to limit our conversation to subjects that are mutual," Lydia said. "Grooming. The home. You know."
Potter shook his head, confused by the turn supper had taken. He looked at the bowl of stew he'd been served. It was something Lydia had acquired from the market. It came dried in a waxed container that she filled with water and put in the microwave. He'd never liked the taste, but he seldom gave it any thought. His own mother served the same thing at every meal. Only when he went with his father to the city's outskirts did he find fresh meat on a blazing fire, tangy sauces and enriching aromas.
He left the table, dressed in his uniform, holstered his steel truncheon -- telescoped down so it fit -- and left, though he'd be early for his shift. So early that he let two trams go by without boarding, even though the cars weren't full.
Carol and Lydia danced in his thoughts. They remained there, annoying him with their mundane exchange of words, until he went on duty. Once he sat in his trike, handlebars in his grip, a feeling of command came over him. On the streets, slowly moving alongside the city wall, in charge of a squad of five other cops riding similar tricycles, Potter felt comfortable, in his element. Where he belonged.
When he reached a dark alley leading to a gate often left unguarded for the benefit of smugglers, he sent two of his patrol-mates to explore a block of shops on the ground floor level of the apartment houses. Potter dismounted his vehicle. He checked the wall. He found the gate with the faulty lock. He checked his All-Pod. The smugglers always came at the agreed-upon time. Never early and never late.
A truck pulled up behind where the police stood with their vehicles. No one left the darkened cab. Two cops positioned their tricycles to flank the six-wheeled beast.
Potter waited for the gate to open. When it did, he stopped the man that appeared in the opening.
"We're Clarkson's crew," the man said.
"I know who you are." Potter put his hands on his hips and blocked the smuggler from moving away from the open gate, a steel mesh that sagged on old hinges. "Clarkson's the guy I got a beef with."
"That don't matter to me, Sergeant."
"It will. Because you're not off-loading."
The smuggler argued some more, but Potter remained firm. This was the only way he could send a message to Clarkson.
"Tell him Potter stopped you. He'll know why."
Voices buzzed on the other side of the open gate. Children whimpered. A harsh male voice urged quiet. Potter assumed the smuggler had people to bring in as well as clothing and other goods. He pictured luscious freeze-dried meats and fruits, dresses for children like his Carol, crates of furniture probably stolen from some factory on the Outside.
"Not tonight," Potter said. "Not tomorrow, either, if Clarkson can't make things right for me. Potter. Remember that. Sergeant Potter. Make sure he knows."
Chapter Five
With the rioting not materializing as expected, Potter enjoyed a day off, so he didn't go directly from border to foot patrol. He went to Ginny's and found her moping about in her one-room apartment, still in the same nightgown as days earlier.
"Don't you have tokens for the shower?" he asked, and wrinkled his nose to tell her what he thought of her appearance and odor.
"I've one left. I'm saving it for the interview."
"Interview?"
"I gotta take an interview. Me. I ain't done nothing like that in years, Kyle. I thought you were getting me set up with a new job."
Potter assumed his gesture of the night before had had instant affect. He hoped so. Turning away the smuggler cost him. Not just in what he'd make as a payoff; he had to dip into his own pocket to give the police with him a cut of the action they expected but didn't get. To keep them quiet. To keep them from deserting him for some other squad.
He sat on the bed. He put an arm across Ginny's damp shoulders. Her hair clung to his skin, annoying him, making him itch. He prompted her to tell him more and she slowly, deliberately, explained what she knew about the job and the impending interview. At the Natural History Museum in City Center. Posing in an exhibit two or three days each week. Possibly with a salary that might bump her up to a better apartment, one with a full kitchen or a separate bedroom.
When she spoke of the apartment, Ginny grew animated, her eyes lighting up, her face glowing. She looked happy.
"But what if I flunk the interview?" she said. Glum again.
"It's a formality," Potter said. A formal meeting. A few words to be exchanged. Clarkson should have this deal wrapped up and ready to deliver. He gave her two ogres and said, "Shower now. Get dressed. We'll go out for lunch. Or a late breakfast."
She looked down at the coins in her palm. "I need V-Rings to get tokens," she said. "And I ain't got no money in my account."
He never liked transferring funds to Ginny. That left an audit trail. "You emptied your account?"
Ginny shrugged.
Potter pulled out his personal All-Pod. He never used his police-issued device for personal transactions. Would Lydia notice a withdrawal from the account? She never questioned him about anything. Why start now.
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