by Robin Banks
It doesn’t take long for the throng to be swallowed up. Once everyone has cleared out and the doors have been shut behind them, Tom and I get going. There’s a converted ATR right by the entrance, with three windows on one side and ramps leading up to them. Through one of the windows we can see a lady tidying up an office. The lady’s not much older than us, so I nudge Tom to walk up and talk to her.
He waits until she’s noticed him, then he smiles at her. She can’t help smiling back and blushing. It’s a talent he’s got. It’s damn near his only talent, apart from stuff he can’t do in public, but it’s a good one. I don’t have to hear what he’s saying to know what he’s doing. He’s got a way of looking at people that blocks the rest of the world out. He’ll talk inanities to her for a bit, ask her questions in a way that will make her feel like he really cares about the answers, and once she’s fallen for it he’ll tell her what he wants.
When he changes tack, she looks a bit flustered but she does as he asks. They always do, unless they don’t. She walks to the back of the ATR and we hear her bellowing at somebody. After a couple of minutes of intense bellowing back and forth, she comes back to the window. Whatever she tells Tom must be what he wants to hear, because he beams his best smile at her before heading back down the ramp to stand with me.
“They’re hiring. She just called out the person in charge. So far, so good.”
He’s still full of shit. Even the flirting didn’t calm him down, which is a bad sign. His eyes are showing way too much white. As I’m thinking that, I realize that I’ve been opening and closing my fists for minutes. We’re both way too wound up.
“Tom. Be cool. You’re stressing me out.”
“Bullshit. You’re fucking twitchy. You’re always fucking twitchy. And I’m too hot to be cool.”
The wait is killing me and it’s sucking up time. I’m thinking they must have forgotten about us when a dirty, surly, burly man emerges from a gap in the row of ATRs and waves us in. We follow him, squeezing between the vehicles, and he leads us right to the opposite end of the site. When we reach another ATR, he waves us to stop and disappears up the ramp and into it. He comes back out and walks off without even looking at us.
Tom shakes his head. “I hate chatty people.”
“Too right.” I’m feeling more and more stressed out. Telling myself that I need to relax isn’t helping any.
When the ATR door opens my heart sinks. Standing in the doorway is a woman. An older woman: she’s got to be 25 at least, maybe even older. She’s too tall for a midget, but too small for a regular person. That’s not a problem. The problem is that she looks at us as if she’d seen us a million times before – unperturbed, unimpressed, and cosmically uninterested. She’s not resenting our very existence like most people do. She doesn’t care enough about us one way or the other to bother with that. That’s not someone we’ll be able to bullshit, I can tell.
Tom isn’t as good as me at reading people. He’s much better at manipulating them, particularly women and guys with an itch in their pants, but his game isn’t really targeted. So he does his usual thing with his body, his eyes, and his smile, thinking he’s going to charm her. Instead the woman raises an eyebrow and stares at him until he cuts it out. I can practically hear his dick shrinking in his pants. It’d be funny, if it didn’t mean that we’re probably screwed.
Having thoroughly diminished him, the lady turns to me. “Yes?”
I’ve rehearsed this a thousand times in my head. I still manage to nearly choke on it. “I, I mean we, we were wondering if you’re looking for workers.”
“Workers? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“No, Miss. We’re sixteen. Both of us.”
“And what kind of work do you think you could possibly do?”
This is the hard bit. “Whatever you need doing. Well, most everything. Not fancy work, but we can do most practical things. Fixing and cleaning and stuff.” I trail off. She looks even less interested than before. “And we know our way around a shovel.”
Her mouth twitches. “Hmm. Come on up.” She turns and disappears inside the ATR. Tom nudges me up the ramp.
“Don’t close the door. Sit.” The lady sits herself behind a desk. There are two chairs in front of it, much smaller than hers, and she’s waving us towards them. As I’m taking my seat, I spot something in the darkness under her desk that chills my blood. I end up frozen halfway down, ass hovering in mid-air.
“Miss? There are eyes under your desk.”
“Yes. They’re attached to my dog. Are you planning to attack me?”
“No!”
“Then you’ll be fine. Sit your ass down. I don’t have all day. You have your records with you?”
Of course they were gonna ask. I don’t know why I bothered to hope they wouldn’t. Oh well, there’s nothing for it. I open my bag and get out my papers, Tom gets his, and we hand them over.
I never quite know what to make of our files. They seem way too slim to sum up our lives, yet somehow too heavy. As if those few sheets of paper could hold us down.
The woman starts to scan my folder. A few pages in she looks at me, blinking. She’s no longer bored, that’s for sure. She carries on scanning the remaining pages, then flicks back and counts on her fingers. Then she does it again. She takes up Tom’s folder next, scans through it, and runs the same calculations. Then she closes both folders and slides them across the table towards us.
She sits back in her chair and looks at me. “You turned sixteen two weeks ago. And during your sixteen years you have managed to accumulate fourteen stretches at a Juvenile Detention Centre, all for vagrancy. This suggests to me that either you are incapable of getting a hint, devoid of self-control, or you’ve worked out an ingenious way to game the system. The fact that your friend here picked up the same trick after you spent a stretch together suggests the latter.” She taps the desk with one finger. “As does the fact that you apparently spent every moment of your time inside achieving every practical qualification going. Though not much in the way of formal schooling.”
I shrug. “I’m not much good at reading and writing.”
“But you’re apparently good at most other things. Though unable to find your way home.”
It’s a weird system we have here on Celaeno. If you’re under twelve and run away from home, they bring you straight back to your parents. They don’t ask you why you went, or if you want to go back. They don’t ask you if it’s safe. As a child, you’re the ward of your parents and to your parents you must return. It’s weird, because I don’t know any kids who left home without needing to, but that’s how it is.
It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat that process. They always bring you back as soon as they catch you, and they always catch you. Ours is a big bubble, but it’s not that big. Off-bubble is deadly without a suit, even if you could get through a bubble gate as an unaccompanied child. You can always find someone willing to hide a young runaway, for a while and for a price, but there isn’t a hole deep enough to keep you hidden for any length of time. Not a safe one, anyway.
I never fancied any of that. It was always an option, in case things at home got too bad, but then so was taking the permanent way out. I thought about getting away long and hard, though. I hardly thought about anything else, back then. I figured that the only thing worse than staying home would be leaving just to get dragged back. I didn’t fancy being hunted, anyway. So I packed a bag with all the stuff I thought I needed and all the stuff I couldn’t bear to leave behind – a ridiculous bunch of crap, I know that now – and stashed it ready for a quick getaway. And I waited.
I waited and I kept my head down until the night before my twelfth birthday. Then I hit the road. I knew I didn’t have to get very far. When you’re twelve, if you get caught as a vagrant you don’t get sent home. A twelve-year-old child is deemed old enough to know better. To teach you a lesson, you get taken to juvie for a three-month stretch. I spent the eve of my twelfth birthday on the stre
et, got myself caught in the morning, and spent a blissful three months in juvie.
Living there was a bit of a learning curve. Some of the older kids would try and get one over you. The staff didn’t really care about any of us. But I had shelter and food and things to do and, eventually, friends. That’s where I met Tom. It wasn’t easy, but it was easier than home.
Three months later, when I got released, my mom and the motherfucker took me back home, where she proceeded to cry me a river while he beat the shit outta me for educational purposes. That night I ran off again, and again got myself caught in the morning. I carried on doing that until today. After the fourth or fifth time, my mom didn’t even bother getting me home. They came to my release because they had to. The Fed wouldn’t discharge a child onto the street, obviously, and leaving me behind would have made them look bad. So they’d turn up, sign the papers, and as soon as we were out of the building they’d walk away from me. They hardly looked at me, though my mom always cried. I’d go and spend a day and a night enjoying the freedom of the town, and then I’d get myself caught.
As I got older and got more contacts, I stretched the time I spent out, but never long enough that I would have to get into scrapes to pull through. I had to time this last stretch just right. I knew exactly when I needed to get out. I’ve known it for months.
It was a brilliant system, really, and so simple. I don’t understand how nobody else had thought of it before me, not even Tom. Everybody was trying to make do outside, always getting into trouble and always ending up in juvie anyway, but for longer stretches and with actual charges against them. That kind of thing can mess your life up, big time. Tom’s rap sheet isn’t clean, but it’s not that bad, either, and it’s all stuff from a long while ago, before he met me. But me, I’ve spent four years getting looked after by the Fed and my record is practically clean. Anyone who takes a vagrancy charge seriously isn’t the kind of person you want to deal with, anyway.
That game is over now. After you turn sixteen, they don’t send you to juvie anymore: they send you to actual prison, with actual criminals. Tom may manage to survive there, though I think it’d cost him, but me? No chance. I have nothing to offer that would make anyone want to take care of me and I sure as hell couldn’t take care of myself. I’d be a food item. I couldn’t deal with that. So Tom and I had to think of a new plan.
Going home is not an option. Well, it is, but not one either of us would take. If we were financially independent, able to buy our own air, we could divorce our parents. That’s a pipe dream for the likes of us if we stay here. Well, we could do it, but not legally, not so we could have any paperwork to prove it. So we’re stuck in a two-year limbo, being controlled like kids and punished like adults.
Which is why we’re here. This is the only solution I could come up with. And it doesn’t seem to be working.
The woman is still staring at me. I got to tell her something, but I can’t think of anything that would sound good. So I tell her the truth instead.
“I had reasons not to be home. So did Tom. Neither of us wasted our time in juvie. His figuring and writing are better than mine, but I’m better with tools, so it kinda evens out. We’re both good workers. We’re much better workers than most people our age.”
“Most kids your age. Why would we be hiring kids?”
“Because we want to be here. We don’t want to be home, that’s right, but we want to be here. The two things are separate. Older people may be better than us at some things, maybe at a whole bunch of things, but if they really wanted to be here they’d have turned up at sixteen, too. And seventeen. And eighteen. They’d have stood in front of your door every time they got the chance, until you let them in.”
She stares at me hard. “I get your point. I dislike it immensely, but I can’t disagree with it. Not rationally, anyway. But wanting to be here doesn’t make you a good fit.”
“Being good at a bunch of trades does, though. You must need techs and cleaners and people to do the lifting and carrying and whatever else. We may not be great at anything but we’re good at most things. And we work hard.”
“And we’d have you for at least two years.”
“Yeah.”
“Because you’re stuck. The game you’ve been playing is up, you have zero options, and need a place to tide you over for the next two years.”
Damn. She’s still staring at me. I have nothing good to say, so I shut up.
I can feel Tom putting up his front beside me. We may be about to get kicked in the teeth, but we’re not going to go down groveling.
“I wonder what you might have done if we hadn’t been here at just the right time.”
“We’ve had figured something out. Mining, maybe. Or some kind of side project.”
“Side project?”
“Yeah.” I’m not gonna tell her about the kind of job offers we’ve been getting. “But I knew you’d be here. I’ve been following you on the com since you were here two years ago. I was out then. I watched the show.”
“How did you get tickets?” I can’t answer that. Not truthfully, anyway: that would fuck us up completely. I should have kept my trap shut. Shit.
The woman looks at us, two of the toughest juvenile delinquents in this town and damn good at what we do, and out of nowhere she cracks a smile. It’s not a big one, but I’ll be damned if I expected it.
“You cut it a bit fine. Do you know what you’re getting into?”
No, we don’t, not really. But we know what we’re leaving. “Look, we just want to work. And we don’t mind working hard.”
“Never let the boss hear you say that. That’d be your funeral.” She glances at a reader. “Ok. You’ll have to hang on for a bit. I can’t promise anything.”
“You’re not in charge here?” blurts out Tom.
“Oh hell no. I wouldn’t run this shitshow for my weight in credit. I’m a mere cog in the machine.”
“Then why the hell have we been wasting time talking to you?”
Her smile gets more threatening. “Because I’m the cog with the power to help you get in, or keep you out. So you better mind your manners. Assuming you have any.”
I can feel Tom starting to bristle up, so I kick him in the ankle. Thankfully that’s enough to shut him up.
“Now, if you would be so kind, please go and wait outside. The boss won’t be long.”
We make our way down the ramp. It’s weird being this side of the perimeter, where regular citizens don’t get to go. It makes me feel special. It also makes me feel out-of-place and threatened. There are not many people around, but all those we see don’t make qualms about checking us out. They don’t seem to like what they’re seeing. And while this is business as normal for us, under the circumstances it’s far from reassuring. We need this to work and it’s not looking good.
It looks even worse when a red-faced older guy walks through the gap between the vehicles. His face gets even redder when he sees us. He starts stomping towards us at a fair clip. He’s speeding up and swelling up as he’s getting nearer. In any other circumstance I’d be getting ready to bolt or fight, probably bolt given the size of him, but I don’t know who the hell he is and I don’t want to do the wrong thing. Tom is taking his cue from me, as usual, so he doesn’t do a damn thing either. The guy is close enough for me to see the veins throbbing in his forehead, close enough for me to think it’s time to leg it, when the lady emerges from the ATR behind us. With a cheery voice and a smile that stops halfway up her face, she chirps “Good morning, Mr. Jameson. I have your coms ready. And these two young men would like to apply for a job.”
The man stops charging towards us and just glares at us in disgust. “What young men? They’re fucking kids!”
“Their records are impressive, though. Never seen the like.” The shock of that makes me goggle at her before I can stop myself.
“Do I look like I give a fuck about their records?” he bellows.
The woman lowers her voice. “We are thr
ee boys down as of last week. And we didn’t get any other applicants. Nicky has been making do with casual help. He’s not happy. Neither are the helpers.” The man swells up even more and looks about to burst, but the woman carries on. “Maybe having to deal with a couple of kids will teach him to be more careful with his staff. This keeps happening. He doesn’t seem to learn.”
The man slowly deflates. “Yes. Do that. See how he likes it.” Then he turns to us menacingly. “50 credits a week, room and board.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see the woman shake her head.
“We were thinking more like 100,” I stammer.
The man goes red in the face again and growls through gritted teeth. “75. No board. And you can take that or fuck off.” The woman nods, so I nod too. “And if you two fuck up, I’ll make you regret the day you were born. Fucking grubbers.” He stomps off into the ATR and slams the door.
Tom whispers to me, “You took a chance there.”
“It worked out, didn’t it?”
A few minutes later, the woman emerges clutching two bundles of paper. “Your contracts. You will need them to apply for your emancipation, and you will need that sorted before you come on board.”
“You seem to know a lot about the system.”
She scowls. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Full emancipation or parental permission. I don’t much care what you get. But we’re not about to harbor teenage runaways. You’re most definitely not worth that kind of trouble.”
“Thanks,” snarls Tom before I get a chance to kick him.
“Don’t mind him. We’ll get this sorted out.”
“You know the drill?”
“I’ve known it since I was ten. We’ll sort it.”