by G R Matthews
At that moment, the waiter arrived with a menu. This he placed into her hands and departed. Maybe she was going to order for us all. A way of making it clear that she was in charge. Rehja’s silence and kicks had already told me that. This was just posturing.
I waited in silence whilst she looked over the menu. Twice her pink tongue emerged and swept slowly over the round plumpness of her delicately painted lips. For a moment, the room felt a lot warmer and I ran a finger around my collar. The silence stretched on.
“I am sure that Rehja can acquaint you with our requirements for this assignment, Mr Hayes. It has been a pleasure meeting you,” she said without looking up from the menu.
“Enjoy your breakfast, my lady.” Rehja pushed his chair back and stood, waving at me to do the same.
“No breakfast?” I said.
“Please update me on the progress at regular intervals, Rehja.” She looked up from her menu. From the look and the tone, I’d guess that she liked to be updated by Rehja quite regularly. From his return glance, it was clear he felt the same. Interesting, but what these two did between the sheets or hanging from chandeliers was not going to help me out of this.
“Of course, my lady.” His black beard parted and the impossibly white teeth smiled at her.
“Did you want me to go?”
The look she turned on me would have withered the stalk of any man. Rehja’s glare just promised pain. One day I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut. I hoped it was soon.
Chapter 19
To say that Rehja frogmarched me back to the apartment and hideously tortured me would be an overstatement, but only in the use of the word ‘hideously’.
The streets of the dome were crowded with people making their way to work, all dressed in their best work clothes. Men and women in suits, bright flickers visible in their eyes as they accessed the day’s messages, to do lists, and other bits of business life that kept the economy of NOAH flowing, marched down the thoroughfares like soldiers going to war. I suppose, in some ways, they were. It wasn’t anything I’d ever wanted for myself.
Even the most occupied of worker, by some innate sense of self-preservation, twisted and turned to avoid my companion. Even two steps back, I could feel the heat of his anger. If I’d had some bread, I could have stuck it on a fork and toasted it. Least that way I’d have got something to eat.
We didn’t speak at all on the way back. I don’t mind silence, as a rule, but this silence was louder than any I’d experienced since I had walked into court accused of killing my crew. The number of restaurants, snack shacks, trolley sellers and hawkers we passed as we descended through the levels and into the boxes was high. So many, I lost count. Each one we passed offered the chance to fill my empty belly. He didn’t stop at any of them and I was, at least, wise enough not to ask.
“Sit. The. Fuck. Down.” His first words accompanied by a finger pointing at a chair.
I tried to sit on the edge, avoiding the fall into the almost bottomless pit of the sagging cushions, but Rehja put a hand on my shoulder and shoved me. A cloud of dust, dry and tickling, rose as I fell backwards. There was no way to prevent the hacking cough that followed. My eyes teared up as I attempted to blink the fine particles of dust away.
“Are you mad?” He shouted and before I could get a word out he continued. “Do I look like the kind of person who wants to be fucked with?”
I bit my tongue. Too easy and I was hungry. Once the pangs kick in my brain goes on vacation and gives my mouth free reign. Even more than usual. Now was not the time to say anything. Silence was definitely the best option.
“Well,” I started.
His hand struck like an eel, a fast snap, that I saw coming, but couldn’t avoid.
“Do not push me, Hayes.”
He turned away, but not before I saw the fire burning in his eyes, hotter than a welding torch. A man who gave the appearance of calm control and yet, just beneath a fragile, thin crust was always battling to contain his rage.
I’ve met a few like him in the past. Those whose opinion of themselves was so high that others could never climb high enough to see just how great they were. Anyone challenging them, in the right way or wrong, it depended on how you looked at it, had the potential to knock them off their perch. Face them with anger and they knew what to do, respond in kind. My smart mouth, and I could taste blood now, was a potent weapon against such a man. However, in the end, if they were bigger and stronger, the broken bones would take just as long to heal.
“Listen. You got me all dressed up, dragged me to a posh restaurant for a breakfast meeting at which I didn’t get to eat. If I upset your boss, I’ll apologise,” I said, after I had watched him pace around for a few minutes, his hands clenching and unclenching by his side. “I was hungry.”
Rehja stopped pacing and faced me. The fire was there, constrained by his re-established facade. “Then eat. I have a meeting to go to. Be here at fourteen-hundred or I will find you and you don’t want that, Hayes. Not now. Not ever.”
The atmosphere lightened the moment he left the room, but I was still hungry and dressed for a good night out. Shame it was still early morning. Time to change and head out for some food. I might just give Rehja a few minutes to get ahead of me. You can have a nasty accident in the dark of the boxes.
# # #
I found a little place, round the back of some of the shops selling discount clothes, by following my nose. There were a lot of people about, all heading off on their daily grind or coming home from their night shifts. Everyone in the city worked at something or other. Those with proper jobs spent their days in the shops, the offices, the bars, cafes and restaurants, earning their money by putting up with customers, cleaning out toilets and feeding the rich.
Those without, still had to work. There were no unemployed in the cities. You had to earn your air, your water, your living space. If you didn’t work, you’d best learn to siphon the oxygen out of sea water with your lungs and hunt food on the sea floor. I got through, before I’d been put on retainer, by scrounging for jobs off the boards. Earning enough to pay my way and drink myself into oblivion each night. Life’s tough and there are times I really feel I could do without it.
The tables were made of the best scratched plastic and the chair so flimsy that I wasn’t convinced it would take my weight. No waiter came to take my order here. Instead the basic menu was printed on a plastic, easy to wipe clean, card and the choices were inputted on a customer panel in the wall. I made my choices and waited for my ticket number to appear on the readout above the serving hatch. Three customers were ahead of me. Two wore jumpsuits with NOAH badges on the chest, real company employees. The other was a young lady who looked as though she was just coming home from a long night’s work.
My number popped up in large, blocky red type and I headed over the hatch to pick up my bacon sandwich, black coffee and donut. Breakfast of champions. I did have to bang on the serving hatch and demand some brown sauce. A quick glimpse at the conditions in the, and calling it this is almost too grandiose, kitchen was almost enough to put me off the food.
The first bite was the heaven of atheists everywhere. Greasy, salty bacon. Soft, fluffy white bread. Peppery, sweet vinegar sauce. I closed my eyes and chewed. Fighting the impulse to rush, to take another bite, to fill my mouth with the mana, Elysium, Nirvana. Resist and chew. Savour and enjoy. Delay the next taste. The moment between, an exquisite, aching torment and yet such all-encompassing, body-shuddering pleasure. One day, I’ll write an ode to bacon. Not today.
“Mr Hayes, what a pleasure to see you.”
I opened my eyes to see the sergeant standing next to my flimsy table.
“It is?”
“With the injuries you sustained on that last job?” He smiled and rested a hand on the back of the empty chair across from me. “Do you mind if I join you for a moment? I was very surprised to see your name pop up on a work order for tomorrow. Those bruises have gone down a little, but I would have thought it too
soon.”
“Have to earn a living, Sergeant. Sometimes the jobs just have to be done quickly.” So, I was going back out tomorrow. I wonder if he kept tabs on all the work orders. Someone would have to, to maintain security in and around the city.
“I understand, Mr Hayes. Money can be hard to come by. Though, the company retainer should keep the sharks from your door.”
“It does, but a little extra here and there is worth working for. Setting some savings aside for my retirement.” I took a sip of my coffee. Good coffee too. This place was a real find.
“There is a lot to be said for that and it reminds me of a crime report we had recently,” the sergeant said, inspecting the gathered customers with the eyes of security officers everywhere, looking for their guilt.
“It does?” Half my bacon sandwich was gone and I wiped my chin with the white napkin, smearing it with brown sauce.
“Yes.” He turned back to me. “A private residence of a retired gentleman was broken into, though nothing was stolen. It had a good security system too.”
“Nothing stolen?” I looked him in the eye as I asked. Not for too long, this wasn’t a staring competition and maintained eye contact was often a sign of guilt. Tyler taught me that. When a child is lying they stare into your eyes, all sincere and as if butter wouldn’t spontaneously combust.
“Nothing reported stolen,” he qualified.
“Strange.”
“Indeed.” He flicked an eye over the number readout.
“No suspects?”
“Just the caretaker. He lives there most of the time. The report I read suggests that someone broke in and beat up the caretaker.”
“Why?” Another bite of heaven to cover the guilt.
“No idea. The caretaker reported it first, but the owner has declined to pursue the matter. He claims the caretaker is mistaken.”
“Very strange. An inside job or the caretaker broke something and was reporting it for the insurance?”
“A possibility, Mr Hayes, but as you say very strange. Ah, my breakfast order is ready.” He stood and nodded to me. “It was good to see you again, Mr Hayes. I hope your work goes well tomorrow and you can go free.”
“Free?” I almost choked on the last of the masticated bread.
“Did I say free? I meant home. My apologies. Enjoy the rest of your day, Mr Hayes.”
I watched him walk to the hatch, pick up the polystyrene box that contained his breakfast and make his way out of the little eating area. He didn’t look my way once.
Chapter 20
“A simple job,” Rehja said from his seat opposite.
“You say that. I see a lot of complications.”
“For instance?”
“The junction is guarded and shielded. It has detectors, sensors and all sorts of other stuff around it.” I pointed at the diagrams and notes on his Pad.
“Nothing you cannot get round,” he said. “Let’s not forget that you have an added incentive.”
“I do?”
“You do,” he smiled. “Because if you don’t do it, I’ll see you dead.”
“Right.” There wasn’t a lot to say to that so I chose something else. “But the junction is close to the city. You don’t need a guy in a Fish-Suit.”
“I am not asking you to destroy it. True, if that was the case a torpedo would do the same job, though it would be easy to trace back to its source. The job is simple.” He raised a hand to stop me interrupting and it worked. No one was more surprised than me. I almost said so. “We want you to get to the junction box, and plant a small device.”
“What does it do?”
“It does what we want it to do, Hayes, and you don’t need to know.”
“And this will pay off,” I made rabbit ear signs with my fingers, just to see if it got a reaction, “my debt.”
“You’ll be free to go,” he answered, looking me straight in the eye.
“Really?”
“Really,” he said, still maintaining the direct eye to eye contact.
“Right.” Bugger.
# # #
The work order, the one on my HUD, suggested that my repairs today were just outside the city limits on one of the cables that brought power into the city. It was true, the area I was currently cruising around was full of cables. Some draped over the sea bed and others only appeared on my visor, a false image indicating where they were buried.
Rehja’s description of the job had been accurate. It wasn’t too hard. Arrive at the site, uncover the cable at a specific place and fake fixing it. All while, placing the small device on my belt on to it. I’d lain awake last night trying to work out what it might do. The full range of ideas I’d considered would have scared small children and grown adults alike.
Perhaps it contained a subtle program that reduced the amount of oxygen in the air to make the workers sluggish and accident prone. A company that Rehja and his lady, whose name I still didn’t know, owned could make a killing, perhaps literally, providing goods made without fault. Their competitors would never understand why and how their own devices were so prone to breaking.
It was a monitoring device that scanned all the personal messages of people in the city and beyond. They would have a tame AI that could sift through it all seeking the information they needed to make themselves rich. Or maybe uncover secrets they could use to blackmail people.
It was an accounting program that wormed its way into a company’s payroll systems and siphoned off the odd cent here and there. Not enough to make anyone aware, but it all added up over time. Soon, Rehja would be rich beyond the dreams of someone who dreamt of being infinitely wealthy, probably his own.
It had a program that gave them control over the communications to and from the city. They would be able to pick up information before the city could. They’d enter last minute bets on sporting events that took place elsewhere, scoring big on their gambling. Or play the stock exchange, buying and selling at just the right moment. Their wealth would be uncountable.
It enabled them to shut down the whole city, condemning everyone to slow suffocation. The last of those living would crawl over the bodies of the dead to be close to the algae vats, wheezing the last of the oxygen out of shrivelled lungs, hoping that rescue was on the way.
It would let them open all the airlocks, cause an explosive decompression, that jettisoned the boxes and on and on. Even the beer and whiskey hadn’t been enough to stop my brain whirling around the seething mass of possibilities.
Which all begged the question, why was I out here about do any of those things to the city systems?
Because they’d kill me if I didn’t.
And it occurred to me as I slipped the device onto the cable, they might kill me anyway.
Fuck.
# # #
I made good the repair. They’d come up with a cover story at least. The cable was damaged. Nothing too serious, but given more time it would have got progressively worse until a repair was really needed. All I’d done was extended the time till it needed a complete replacement.
The journey back to the city was full of thoughts, guesses and second-guesses. There was nothing I could do. Here, I was out of touch with anyone who might be able to help, though that would also involve telling them what I’d done. My credit balance for understanding and forgiveness was low on funds. I wasn’t certain that Rehja intended to double-cross me. He could have been true to his word. He might let me go. I’d done what he, they, had asked. Even if I didn’t know quite what it was.
The airlock was open, which was something I took to be a good sign. At least the city was responding to my communications and authorisations. A final boost from the suit motors and I was in airlock watching the door to the ocean close. The windows set into the frame of the inner door showed the corridor beyond, strip lighting overhead, and two large figures waiting.
Rehja was dressed, as ever, in an expensive dark suit and leaned against the wall without a care in the world. Kade, his suit too tight
or his muscles too big, was pacing back and forth. Other than my two friends, the corridor was empty.
If they’d wanted to get rid of me an accident at sea was the best bet. Do something to the suit. A malfunction. An accident. The investigator checking my record would see a history of minor accidents and many notes about my drinking. A convincing accident would be best. But, like every suit user, I checked it thoroughly before heading out into the ocean. No one could make me change that habit, it was too ingrained. The suit had checked out fine.
I drew the hoses out from the wall socket and clicked the connectors into the suit. Flicking the glove controls, I sent the commands to the airlock and the clunks, thumps and whines indicated that the pumps had started. I’ve heard the psychs talk about this process as being reborn. Leaving the warm security of the womb and entering the harsh reality of life. All very metaphorical and allegorical and a load of bollocks. The sea water was pumped out and air was pumped in, nothing like being born. Not that I remember it anyway.
The level of water drained down my helmet and carried on past my chest. With the buoyancy of the water gone, the suit started to feel heavy. It was always this way. In the water, a Fish-Suit, with a good pilot, was graceful, smooth and hard to spot. Out of the water, no matter who the pilot was, they were lumpy, heavy and hard to lug about.
A few more commands and the hoses started to suck the Oxy-quid out of the suit, filling it with air. It was the same process as the airlock with the added bonus that I had to hack and cough up all the Oxy-quid from my lungs as it did so. There’ve been times when my stomach, lungs and throat have all gone into spasm at that moment. Getting the Oxyquid out and air in, at the same time, was like drowning twice in the same moment. Life-giving air met life-giving Oxyquid, combining in an effort to kill me. At least, that is what it felt like.