The Collector

by Luna, David

“I don’t mind the SectorLink.”

  “I have to go that way anyway,” Neil offers again.

  Inna grows silent as she knows what this means – that he has to transport another person to their death. But just as she perceived with him, Neil recognizes his words put a damper on her mood even though it was a lie and he doesn’t have any more assignments for the day. He musters up a quick joke. “You have a black hat lying around? At this rate I could be your personal chauffeur.” He doesn’t wait for an answer as he grabs the wagon handle and walks off. Inna scoffs as her empty cart is snatched away. She chases after him and reaches to retake the handle, but he evades her.

  “Come on, give it,” she playfully pleads. She tries again but fails. They laugh, bickering like school children.

  It is a very odd sight indeed in this day and age: a Collector and a slum girl. Perhaps there is hope left in this world after all.

  ******

  Restricted Access

  Have you ever had the guts to cross into a restricted location? There are many of them around the city, especially those deemed too dangerous for us to visit, or even worse, those banned under the penal codes.

  There are harsh penalties for trespassing so I suggest you think twice before doing it!

  -Quado

  10

  “Do you know of a tunnel entrance near the landfill?” Neil asks as he navigates his utility truck through the narrow pathways of the slums.

  Inna squints as she thinks on the question, then shakes her head no.

  “Are you sure?” Neil asks again. “It’s a maze up there.”

  “I grew up in that landfill. Unless it was buried years ago, it doesn’t exist.”

  Neil scrunches his brow. Besides this topic and small tidbits regarding the passing scenery, the drive is mostly silent. Neil’s mind remains distracted by his newfound suspicion of the Black Market and their potential use of long forgotten underground transfer tunnels – and even more suspiciously – if someone from inside the Agency has been helping them.

  Soon Neil brings his truck to a stop in front of Inna’s antique shop. He unloads the pull wagon from the vehicle’s rear double doors and wheels it up the porch.

  The bell jingles as they enter the musty shop, where flies and dust particles dance in the air. Neil’s eyes shoot towards the back, but the counter is empty. No Damian.

  Inna blows the dust off ceramic figurines before reorienting them on their glass display cases, humming to herself as she moves deeper into the shop. Neil watches her, her touch unnecessarily delicate for items that have seen much better days. As he sidesteps through the aisles, matching pace with Inna to retain his clear view, his boot catches the edge of a shelf and causes a tattered box to tip over onto the floor. The loud thud interrupts Inna’s humming.

  “You know, I should go,” Neil says, embarrassed as he fumbles to return the box to the shelf while arguing with himself in his head. He doesn’t even know why he came inside.

  “Wait,” Inna interrupts. “Are you hungry?”

  Neil cocks his head.

  “Damian likes to eat early,” she explains.

  Neil eyes the stairs leading above. “He here now?”

  “At Marty’s,” she sighs. “I swear if the body could survive off alcohol he’d live forever.”

  Neil hesitates.

  “Please,” she almost begs. Neil notices Inna subconsciously holding her shoulder. It would be a natural pose as one waits for a response if it weren’t for the fact that it’s the exact location of Inna’s deep bruise. And from the tone of her voice, Neil starts to wonder if she is afraid to be alone with Damian when he drinks, which based on what he’s gathered, seems to be always. After failing to stand up for Paiton, the least he can do is help protect Inna from Damian. If he should get out of hand, Neil concludes a quick reminder of the penal codes or a visit from an SEO should do the trick to keep Damian in check.

  “I could eat,” Neil agrees.

  Upstairs in the antique shop, while sitting on the edge of the same cot used after the utility truck bombing, Neil attempts to scrub the black marks off the charred pull wagon. Inna smiles as she scoops mush from a hanging pot over an open flame, able to see Neil struggling to make the repairs. Her job restoring items isn’t as easy as he thought it would be.

  Just then, heavy footsteps begin to reverberate from below as a figure lumbers up the stairs. Neil and Inna exchange glances. Here we go. Neil nods to reassure her.

  “Two checkpoints just to ride the rail. Ain’t those lousy officers got nothing better to do?” The complaining voice belongs to Damian. He immediately spots Neil across the room on the cot, briefly locking eyes. Neil watches as Damian inspects the mush over Inna’s shoulder, spotting a small spice container.

  “Thought we were saving this?”

  “We have a guest,” Inna notes as she stirs in the spice.

  “Thought strays were against code?” Damian snipes, just quiet enough for Neil not to hear anything except harsh whispers. “You gonna make a habit of this?”

  Inna ignores him and finishes her concoction. She empties the last of the spice.

  “Unbelievable…,” Damian complains.

  Inna brushes past Damian and sets three wooden bowls on the table. “It might not be what you Collectors are used to, but it tastes better than it looks.”

  Neil rolls the wagon aside before approaching. He sits and takes a bite. No sign of disapproval.

  “See?” Inna says with a smile.

  Damian sits across from him. “Not like how Tess used to make it.”

  Inna rolls her eyes as she sits in the middle, separating the men on the ends of the table. For a moment there is silence, until she forces a topic of conversation. “We got our invite to the gala,” she says to Damian.

  Damian grunts, remaining silent, clearly not interested.

  “Are you going?” she asks Neil.

  “Collectors don’t attend,” Neil replies. “It’s only for survivors.”

  Damian grunts again.

  “Well I for one am looking forward to it,” she says. “We’ve never gone. And it’s the ten year anniversary, so it’s bound to be fun.”

  “Corporate crap, that’s what it is,” Damian chimes in, his words still resembling grunts.

  “Did you get the invite because of Tess?” Neil asks. Inna nods to confirm. He looks to Damian. “Sorry for your loss.”

  “And I’m sorry to hear about your partner,” Damian fires back, switching subjects, clearly trying to press Neil’s buttons. “He looked young. Influenceable.”

  “Wade made his choice,” Neil responds, keeping his composure.

  “I’m sure he had his reasons,” Inna jumps in. “Everyone always has a reason.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Neil replies. His eyes drift to her hand, her fingers close to his. Neil knows Wade had his reasons. Wade made it very clear he fell in love. While Neil is unsure exactly how or when it happened, it is that reasoning that starts to weigh on him as he finds himself sitting here at dinner with Inna. He’s never felt compelled to visit with someone like this before. Or agree to share a meal. Or gaze longingly at another person’s soft fingertips – Inna’s nails chipped from years of sifting through the landfill – such as he is doing now. At times it feels so natural until his thoughts scream at him as his actions contradict his training. Uncomfortable, he pulls away.

  Damian senses that the tough Collector is wrestling internally. He continues to prod. “You ever catch who blew up your truck?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Shame,” Damian says with an obvious lack of care. “You think maybe it was your partner?”

  Neil stops mid-scoop, glaring.

  “He lost his way, didn’t he?” Damian defends. “Or maybe he found it.”

  Neil clinches his fist while Inna tries to diffuse the situation. “It wasn’t always like this,” she says. “Bombings. Unrest. My grandma used to tell me bedtime stor
ies about when she first came. The Wall wasn’t even built yet, so she could’ve left, but she chose to stay.” Inna glances over to the church photo of the wedding couple in front of the angel statue. “She said there was just something about it. The mountains. The bay. The people. Now you have to lie to yourself to find any beauty in it.”

  “That’s not true,” Neil counters. “Your song.”

  Inna smiles as Neil turns back to his bowl of mush. She reminisces until Damian’s eyes narrow.

  “Well let’s hear it,” he demands.

  Inna’s smile fades.

  “C’mon, your Collector’s here. Don’t you want to sing for him?”

  Inna looks to Neil, glancing up from his food, then back to Damian.

  “Sing,” Damian demands.

  “Damian, I really don’t want—”

  Damian slams his fist to the table. “Sing the damn song.”

  A tear forms in her eyes. Her shaky voice doesn’t get more than a second into the melody when Neil steps in.

  “No,” Neil interrupts.

  Damian glances over.

  “You don’t have to,” Neil assures her.

  The two men size each other up while Inna is caught in the middle.

  “You know, I don’t get it,” Damian says as he grips his spoon, changing tactics. “We can fix anything in this shop, any junk we have with our limited tools, yet no one in those tall buildings can fix the water?”

  “Have you tried?” Neil counters.

  “Have you?” Damian fires back. “Oh, I forgot. The Agency ain’t nothing but an excuse to kill people.”

  “Damian!” Inna protests.

  Now Neil is the one clinching his spoon as Damian goes into a full-blown rant, gaining an unwise burst of confidence. “Look at him walking in here like he owns the place. He’s nothing but a murderer with a fancy title.”

  Neil’s knuckles turn white.

  Damian twists his knife of words one last turn. “How would you feel if someone close to you was taken by a Collector? Burned alive in those fire pits of hell!”

  Neil’s chair almost tips over as he bursts to his feet, his chest puffed out. He waits for Damian’s next move, but Damian isn’t that brave. Instead, after a long moment of silence, Damian scoots from the table. “This food’s too cold,” he says simply, then rises and descends the stairs.

  An uneasiness lingers in the air as Neil pulls in his chair and continues to eat, calming himself down. It’s unusual for him to get riled up like that. Inna takes his hand.

  “Thank you,” she says. She looks to Damian’s empty spot at the table, then wipes her eyes, almost embarrassed. “He knows what that song means to me. He has no right to ruin it.” She holds back more tears.

  Neil looks to her hand. Realizing what she’s done, she tries to pull away, but Neil squeezes tight. It’s the first time he’s ever held the hand of a woman outside of one of the Agency’s girls, and even with them he never did much hand holding. Though her nails are chipped, her fingers are surprisingly soft, a much more sensual feeling than anything the Agency ever provided.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asks. “Collectors aren’t supposed to be so nice.”

  It’s a valid question. Growing up Neil never had many friends. And the protocols, procedures, and codes Collectors are trained to abide by don’t allow much room for friends either. But lately there’s just been so much death. By now his rookie is dead. His colleagues are dying. The city’s hope and morale is withering. Everywhere he looks there is death when all he and the Agency aim to do is preserve life. But all this despair seems to disappear when Inna is around. Her positivity. Her enthusiasm. Even her naïve game back at the landfill was refreshing as for a brief moment she helped him view piles of trash as fragments of lost humanity. Just then an idea forms in his head, one he knows he probably shouldn’t pursue, but he’s propelled to anyways. Now it is his turn to show her something she thought was lost.

  “C’mon,” he says, extending his other hand. “I want to show you something.”

  This time she takes it without hesitation.

  A brick church sits in ruins at the base of the mountains, the giant torturous Wall higher up in the distance – a reminder of the city’s imprisonment always looming.

  Broken stone steps lead down into the ruins, magnificent in its architecture, almost old Roman with its high archways and vaulted ceilings. Missing sections in the roof allow the last rays of sunlight to flood in, illuminating dead roots and vines that have overtaken the bricks and stones.

  “What is this place?” Inna wonders, soaking in the view. She spots a familiar angel statue at the front of the church. Time has not been kind to the statue’s delicate features, but she recognizes it. “This is where they got married!” she realizes. “I can’t believe it. This place is restricted.”

  Neil just smiles. It’s the same smile a person wears after giving someone a gift just because.

  They reach a natural spring giving life to purple orchids in a patch of grass. Inna looks to Neil in shock. He nods his head to confirm it’s real. She sticks her hands in the water and is about to drink it when Neil interrupts.

  “Don’t.”

  “But the flowers?” she thinks to herself.

  “They’ve adapted to survive. We haven’t yet. It’s still poisoned,” he explains.

  Inna wipes her hands and falls back into the orchids, now fully illuminated by moonlight. Neil lies beside her.

  “Why are you a Collector?” she asks.

  “Mazer found me,” Neil says.

  “But why become one?”

  “My brother.”

  “He is one too?”

  “No. Sold himself when the Agency first formed.”

  Inna looks away, clearly sorry to hear this.

  “That song of yours. The one your Grandma taught you. My mother used to sing it when we were kids. It reminds me of him,” Neil explains.

  “It’s funny how music can mean different things to different people. I suppose that’s why it’s banned,” Inna says.

  A moment of silence falls between them.

  “Everyone has a choice,” Neil reminds her. He says this to also remind himself, something he does on a daily basis to mentally handle his job. When the Agency first formed, and still to this day for some, those who sell themselves are labeled as cowards. While the Agency advertises the system as the honorable thing to do to provide loved ones with rations while simultaneously lowering the city’s overall numbers, some choose to deride those who sell themselves as taking the easy way out. Neil knows his brother wasn’t a coward. He knows his brother wouldn’t abandon him and leave him alone in this world to be sent to reform school just to take the easy way out. No, everyone has a choice. His brother had a choice, and for whatever reason behind it, it’s that choice that sent Neil down the path to one day become a Collector.

  “Maybe everyone does have a choice,” Inna concedes, “but it’s a shame when it feels that choice is easier for us than them. Just look at the slums. Flyers everywhere. Ads on the SectorLink. Sales reps going door-to-door. I bet a child could point out the Agency’s logo over the city’s emblem. Did you know it’s based on an extinct bird?”

  Neil doesn’t respond. He’s seen people work themselves up like this before. In his experience the best thing to do is to either have them detained or let them get it out of their system and calm down. With no intent of arresting Inna, he rises to explore the church ruins while she continues.

  “Do they squeeze the wealthy like that? Choke them with distribution lines? Enforce penal codes hoping to suppress our tenacity to love? Everything they do is designed to make it feel like we are out of options. Like being from the slums is some curse we need to rid ourselves of.” She takes a deep breath as she watches Neil climb to an upper balcony. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Do you look at your volunteers as weak?”

  Neil raises his brow. He’s never heard such nonsense
. “They’re heroes,” he counters. “Giving up life so others can live. It’s the most honorable thing someone can do.”

  “What do you say to them?”

  Neil shrugs.

  “You’re one of the last faces they see, one of the last people they get to talk to. Why not try something compassionate?” Inna suggests.

  Neil leans over the balcony rail and mulls it over.

  “Come down here,” Inna says as she looks up at the ledge in concern. “If that breaks…”

  “You afraid I’m going to fall?” Neil jokes.

  “No, I’m afraid I won’t have a ride home,” she quips back.

  Neil hops over the railing and climbs down the pile of stones.

  “It seems the dam changed both of our lives,” Inna returns to their previous topic. “If it never broke, your brother would be alive and you wouldn’t be a Collector.” She naturally gravitates closer to Neil as she continues, “And Tess would be alive and I wouldn’t be paired with Damian.”

  “We also never would’ve met,” Neil reminds her.

  Inna blushes and turns away, but her eyes soon come back. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she says.

  They share a long moment, two unauthorized bodies under the moonlight, until it’s interrupted by a noise coming from outside. Neil is the first to notice as his ears perk up.

  “What is it?” Inna asks.

  He shushes her as the noise is accompanied by a flashlight.

  Outside, the light belongs to an SEO investigating Neil’s utility truck parked nearby the restricted structure. As the SEO moves towards the broken stone steps leading down into the poisoned garden, Neil and Inna slip out from the church’s crumbling backside and flee down the mountainside on foot. They sprint through a maze of withering trees towards the base of the valley, barely able to suppress their laughter.

  “Why are we running?” Inna shouts.

  “I don’t know,” Neil laughs.

  Eventually they pause to catch their breath.

  “Don’t you outrank him?” Inna asks. “Or you too embarrassed to be seen with me?”

  “This seemed like more fun.”

  Inna furrows her brow. She thought Collectors weren’t allowed to have fun. Before she can get out some sort of quip, Neil hears another noise in the distance. This time it’s different. “Now what?” Inna asks, but Neil is already off to investigate.