His finger didn't break. I could feel it flex in my sweaty grip like it was made of plastic.
All of the aggression in his face turned to pain and I let him go. He ran holding his injured hand to shelter behind Braulio.
"Whatter you done?" Clarke regained some of his confidence. He spoke over Braulio’s right shoulder. "Yor in a lot of trouble now. You just assaulted a Dean!"
I took a step in their direction. Braulio closed his eyes and held his palms out in front of him. Clarke jerked backward to trip over his feet and fall on his ass.
"Alright, I'm leaving now. Right? So...fuck off then, the both of you. And you need to stay away from me from now on. OK, fellas?"
They were listening. Braulio even nodded his head.
&
There was no directory that I could find and the few sad sacks at the cafe said they didn't know her. I went searching room to room through the maze of the colony building.
Starting on the ground floor there were some large common spaces, an auditorium, offices and supply rooms. They were all completely empty and looked to have not been used in years. I took the elevator to A, the first one up.
I learned this night that most of the colony inhabitants lived between A and C and that many of them rarely ever left. I don't believe this was known to many outside that region of the building. I wonder if even Braulio knew what was going on here.
The door opened on A and the first thing I noticed were the ceilings. They were low, not higher than 2m, and rounded at the top like an egg. The floors were made of a dark brown, soft, almost spongy material. The yellow walls were gently lit by sconces embedded at the corners. The entire area was in this design. There were, I’d guess, as many as two hundred residents on these floors.
The hallways sloped up and down interconnecting clusters of 8 or 10 pod-like rooms. The cluster nearest the elevator was fully occupied. They all were just kids, twenty year olds in their forties.
There were no doors. I could see directly into each small single room apartment. A simple bed was the only furniture.
I walked through the first cluster, my presence seemingly unnoticed. The people on A were all sleeping or lounging, obliviously high or burned out in some way or another. One room was empty. The last room had two on the bed having a go at a slow, deliberately paced form of sex under a ratty blanket.
I kept moving, intending to methodically search the whole building. I didn't want to imagine Opal living like this. I was starting to worry if I’d find her.
Past the first cluster, the hallway wound upwards and to the left then forked. There was no numbering or distinctive markings on anything. I kicked at the wall with the sole of my boot until it made an decent enough dent and took the downward branching hallway to the next cluster.
It was worse. An active vent in the ceiling carried away a lot, but not all the smell. It was that of the dead not allowed to die.
The first room held an enormously fat person. I didn't even recognize him/her as human until I saw its face, seeming to float on a mound of swaddled flesh. Its soft dark brown eyes blinked a few times as they watched me pass.
The next room was empty and spotlessly clean. The room across from it held one man, terribly thin and pale with long colorless and brittle hair. He was cutting his arm with a piece of a broken cup and watching the wound quickly coagulate and seal itself in the space of several seconds. He ignored my watching him to concentrate on pushing the shard through the tougher skin of his leg. There was a pop as it broke through. He withdrew the blood soaked porcelain and examined it like an expert craftsman before licking a drop off the end.
Another man brushed past me in the hall to enter the room. He was carrying a short length of hose and a can of the red tagged strong beer. The two men looked like they might have been brothers. They shared the same washed-out, underfed look, and reticent, gently broken demeanor.
The self-mutilating man accepted the hose and beer from his friend without comment. They had obviously done this before. The second man got onto his hands and knees and pulled his pajama pants down over his thin rump.
The mutilator expertly worked the hose’s tapered nozzle into his friend's ass. He then popped the top of the can and poured half of it in.
The second man closed his eyes, totally absorbed in the experience. The liquid fizzed, resonating in the plastic tube.
“How is it?” I said.
The mutilator snarled, snatched up and threw his jagged piece of cup at me. It hit me in the eyebrow which immediately started streaming blood down the side of my face.
He lunged at me. I kicked him in the shoulder with the bottom of my boot. The man weighed nothing; he crashed backward into his friend causing the tube to come out and spray foam all over the both of them.
Heads popped out of doorways. The cluster was roused, maybe they smelled my blood. I wasn't healing the way they would.
Wasted bodies emerged. Three, four, now six of them. I didn't want to do this. I stomped and yelled then banged hard on the wall with my fist until the last one had sullenly retreated back into his room.
&
"El Jon, hey, how’s it going?" My question caught him off guard. He was sitting alone at a table in the corner and was surprised at being approached like this. Maybe he was embarrassed.
"You’re...Ellen’s friend?" He said. "What do you want?"
"Yes, Elena. I'm actually looking for Opal. You know her right?"
“No...” He waved at his pack of cigarettes on the table and didn't answer me. I shook my head.
"Do you know where she is? I'm looking for her - for Opal. There's something I have to show her."
He wasn’t understanding me. We sat together in silence for a moment while he collected himself. I tried again, but my further questions, however gently phrased, only disturbed him. After a few more attempts, I started feeling sadistic. I left him sitting there, unreachable, quietly stressed out in his own world, and decided to try the waterfront.
&
There was a bar at the end of the boardwalk. It was a smallish standalone building, dark and quiet on the outside.
Inside was a lively mixed crowd. I sat alone at the bar, crammed into tight quarters nursing a drink. The game was on.
Seahawks were killing the Bears 37-13. I studied the game. The level of play was incredible. QB’s were consistently throwing perfect 40 and 50 yard passes. Guards were getting upfield to block safeties. Linebackers stunted, backpedaled and jumped to make clean interceptions. DE’s dive-bombed on edge rushes like maniacs, got cut off at the knees by RB’s, flipped through the air and got right back up afterward like it was nothing.
They were all chipped and on formula. Who knows what else. When the player bios came up on the screen, I saw most of them were in at least their twentieth season. Seasoned pros with better than brand new bodies, a few were even older than me.
"Hey, man. Are you really watching that?" He was short with shaggy, unwashed hair. His clothes were old brown things under a rust colored pea coat.
"OK, OK, stupid question, I guess. But hey, man, don't watch that stuff. Serious: It’s not good for you, you know," he said.
"Why is that?" I said.
A moment of frustration passed through him.
"I’m going to show you something." He looked around the bar and reached into his coat.
"Hot Stuff! I know you!" A woman turned me around on the bar stool. It was Alice, the placement agent from the airport. She dove in and put her lips over mine, wrapping her arms around my neck.
I stood up and kissed her back. She didn't stop me when I felt her up outside her suit. Pea coat started tugging on my sleeve trying to get my attention.
I broke off the kiss and pulled Alice away from the bar and toward the door. Opal was just walking in.
"Hi – hey, Opal. I've been looking for you." I said. Alice dug her chin into my shoulder and squeezed my butt with both hands. I did my best to ignore her.
"Oh, OK. Can I get a drink fir
st?" She said.
The three of us lurched over back to the bar. I brought up the storage room and her sculpture but she wasn't understanding me. I tried to sit and explain more clearly but Alice had me pinned standing up against the brass railing.
The tugging on my sleeve returned.
"Here it is. Look, man." He motioned for me to lean in. It was an old folded and wrinkled photo of a man. The man wore a black leather jacket and jeans. His hair was parted in the middle and he was smiling and sticking his thumbs up. I didn't understand it.
"Do you know who this is?" He said. "He was a great man. A great man. We’re all down with that kind of shit here. You gotta get with us, man. Throw off those chains."
Opal got her drink and gulped it. Alice stayed clamped on and rubbed small circles on my abdomen. Pea coat wouldn't leave.
A commotion preceded her. She came into our space thumping her ridiculous purse onto the bar.
"We really need to talk. Let’s go, c’mon," she said.
"Elena, I'm not going anywhere. What the hell do you want?" I said.
She didn't care for my response. She acknowledged the other girls with a brief glance and took a step backwards. She looked deeply into my eyes,
"Hey! Everybody listen!" She pointed at me. "This guy here, you need to know - he's a PIG. Yeah. A PIG! He's a PIG! He's a PIG!"
The patrons started chanting, PIG PIG PIG PIG, rhythmically pounding their drinks on the bar and table tops.
"What is your problem? What does that mean?" I said.
"Ha ha, fucker. They think you're a cop. You're screwed now. So can we go?"
"You're a fucking crazy bitch, you know that?"
PIG PIG PIG PIG
"I think I might be pregnant!" She said.
The chanting and pounding intensified. Someone threw a wadded napkin at me. Pea coat jumped up on a chair.
"It's a raid! RAID! RAID!" He said.
A lone helmeted police officer stood in the doorway. The crowd cleared out fast. I went with them hollering, trying to incite them.
But nothing, no hurly burly materialized outside - everyone scattered – I was out alone on the pier, catching my breath in the cool air.
Opal had disappeared in the melee. I found Alice coming out but she was too shook up to do anything. She said she was going home. I guess the mood was ruined for her. I needed to get away before Elena turned up so I broke into a jog, pounding the boards going down the dark waterfront back to my room at the colony.
Morning:
Citizen Waller, this is your good friend, Dux quondam, the former air officer, former space commander and current man-at-large one Edward Hart. If the rumors about you are true, and I have no reason to think they are not, then you need to get out of that cesspool of a city without delay. Join us instead. We’re having a blast and everyone wants to meet you. What more do you need to know?
Check the tables below for times and places. Look for Bob. I’m sure you'll figure out the rest.
**
King’s County Ch.3, Estrella
***
I don’t remember much from when I was very young, flashes of little moments, day cares and nameless other kids, then living at my aunt and uncle’s house outside Seattle. My parents were still alive but they were not around and I have no memory of them.
At twelve I went to a boarding school, a cheap one out in the woods near Rainier. There was my life for ten and a half months out of the year. Boring as you might have guessed and our time off was never very notable, either. We did a lot of laying around, killing time hanging out at my aunt’s or my friend’s houses.
We weren't wealthy but we lived near the water so some of my friends, or really their parents, were. They were like everybody else for the most part, except with nicer and bigger houses and toys. You wanted to have them as friends.
As we all got older, the wealthier kids started sticking together. They weren't excluding the rest of us exactly, things just weren't working out the same way as before. Something about rich kids, the really rich ones especially, is that they're not alright not having a good time. If they're not having a good time or a great time, then they think something's gone wrong. They can't just be bored. They hate it and get anxious which would always make me anxious. I guess they figure they ought to be having a great time all the time or what's the point. Maybe being rich is pretty good but it's not as great as they want to believe it is.
The poorest kids stuck together, too, but not in the same way. I guess I was one of them. We'd always find a way to run down the rich kids – but only in private, never to their face. Despite what we said, I didn't hate them and I don't think my friends did either. It's too strange a thing to really, genuinely hate someone just for having what you want when you never even had it in the first place.
School was easy. They kept us at a comfortable pace, carefully tested every two weeks. Our lesson plan was precisely, individually configured to foster our achievement and promote righteous equalism among us, as they saw it. Like I said, it was a bore. They really just wanted us out of everyone’s hair.
That was the lie. There's always at least one if you look for it. School wasn't meant for us. The endless, watered down lessons kept us busy. The equality stuff kept us from acting out. The teachers and parents, the adults or whoever, never actually expected anything from anyone. They didn't need for us to excel and be productive or innovative or even learn to be good citizens.
Childhood, school, everything was mandatory and prepackaged. We were stuck in their plan. Any surprises had been anticipated and carefully engineered out of our lives. Every test, every boring video or pointless assembly, every semester, every year was just a mild hurdle to be passed then immediately forgotten.
Moving away was important to my friends. We never defined where or why, exactly, but the idea of it, the idea of moving on, colored all our thoughts and actions. Our unimpressive backgrounds would not define us. Discussing our future lives as interesting, influential, respectable people was only a pose, though, barely even a fantasy. We never did anything. But it seemed real and that was enough. I believed in it. Maybe the alternative was too harsh to admit. We weren't prepared for that kind of reality.
I was waiting at SEA-TAC - renamed the Green Darter Dragonfly Transportation Hub - when I got the urge to message my aunt.
My aunt and uncle lived near Eureka now, near where I was headed. Surely they were still alive. Before I pulled the trigger, the familiar chiming sound indicated my transport was ready. I forgot about them. Once in the air, contacting them started to feel like a bad idea. I remembered their disappointment in my joining the military and how I'd not spoken to them since. What would we have to talk about?
From the Eureka airport, an automated cab got me to the train station listed on Ed's schedule. The station was deserted but still well maintained. My card opened the gate to the platform. It was made of old weathered redwood that clunked agreeably under my boots. I took a seat on a bench made of the same stuff and dozed off.
There was an ocean breeze in my face while I slept. The sun was out and warming everything up, perking up smells and sounds. I smelled wildflowers in the ravine below.
A bee loitered at the far end of the platform. The droning sound got closer, closer and more focused. My eyes popped open. I tensed to swat it away.
The bee was a train now rushing past at speed, gluing me to the bench, going at least 200kph. The white enameled length of it whipped through in seconds. I could see the train in its entirety descending the hillside and snaking around the edge of the coast.
Three barking tones broke my attention. A short, stubby car had stopped on the tracks beside me. The front of it was labeled BOB.
Once I was aboard and in the molded plastic seat, BOB started rolling then accelerated sharply to where I could feel it in my chest. BOB was rippingly fast, easily gaining on the train.
The rear of the train’s last car had two symmetrical indentations on the sides with a notch in the mid
dle. BOB ran right into it, latching on with a solid thunk followed by the whining of servos as it locked into place. BOB’s cabin split vertically and a short walkway came up to fill the gap. The rear door to the train slid open and I walked in ducking my head below the lintel.
A man was standing there to greet me.
"No bags?" He said and looked me over. He wore a loose fitting blue plaid short-sleeved shirt and white shorts. His feet were bare and filthy.
"Who needs them?" I said.
"Who indeed? Welcome aboard. I'm Yuri. This is Walter." He pointed to a man sitting, watching us from a work table littered with the remains of their lunch.
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