by Glenn Damato
It got more complicated as we got older. Students below 450 received only basic lunch, usually rice and beans, which is why a lot of overweight kids were pulled down to 400 automatically.
When I was young and silly I loved churros with lunch. I also craved the approving smiles of my instructors. I did what I could to get a seven, and then I figured out how to max-out at eight. Simple, really. I only had to ridicule the lower-scored students and inform on anyone who didn’t wash their hands after using the restroom or tossed their zucchini into the lunchroom trash.
It was fun, and it won me awards.
Then there was Faye. My Score hit eight for the first time when she whispered to me that she didn’t believe the Autoridad was her father because she had a real father named Peter, and besides, her mother told her she had a haven lee father, or something like that, who loved her.
I was small and didn’t know any better. Faye forgave me for informing on her. Her parents were strange and no one knows what happened to them. Does this have anything to do with her fingers?
Paco found out about my reaching eight and my awards. At first he didn’t say anything. We had to wait for a beach talk. Poor Paco, he knew he couldn’t tell me to disobey my instructors. All he could do is explain his ideas to me, and let me store them in my head where the Autoridad could not see them, just like his bundle of old pics.
“Two plus two equals what number?” he asked, the ocean breeze tossing his black hair across his eyes.
“Four.”
“Alright, now suppose I told you two plus two equals five?”
“But it doesn’t equal five!”
“What if I told you it does?” He leaned toward me so our noses almost touched. “I’m telling you two plus two equals five. If you say that back to me, I promise we will get ice cream tonight.”
“Five!” I screamed at him. “Two plus two equals five!”
We had our ice cream. Before we finished he asked me again, “What does two plus two equal?” But this time there was that stern tone in his voice, the no-shit Paco.
“Four,” I told him. “Two plus two equals four. How could it be anything else?”
“What was two plus two when I asked you on the beach?”
I hesitated. Then I knew. “Four.”
This was our secret: Say what was required. But do your own math.
Always do your own math.
Paco told me that years before I was born, people began to forget how to do their own math, how to think for themselves, how to figure out what was true and untrue. They believed whatever the internet and cable news told them. I’m not sure what the internet or cable news were, but I think they were like the Stream, only more limited, and you had to carry them around with you on a flat piece of plastic.
How is it that Paco, a wise and deserving man, put these ideas in my head that caused so much pain as I got older? Did he know I would lose control of my mouth? What good is this truth if it leads me to this grimy cage and stops me from ever seeing my little chiquillos again?
Truth is a real thing, Paco told me. Harmony tells us lies, and sometimes we need to repeat their lies back to them. But what is true will remain true. What’s true matters.
Our lives, as well as truth, both have meaning. There’s a purpose to our lives.
I didn’t know what he meant. I still don’t.
◆◆◆
A feeble kind of sleep takes me away from SERCENT for a while. Morning comes in fits and starts. There’s no sunrise inside the immense enclosure, just the glow from two multicolored murals that cover the length of the curved walls. Hundreds of nadas are waking, standing, and stretching. I really, really need to pee.
All the cages open at once. Join the fast-growing service queues or head for the toilet? The lines are already a hundred meters long. My bladder will have to wait.
Unruly crowds of nadas hurry into SERCENT and the noise level swells to a dull roar. Tiny spotters zip around overhead like wasps. Five big queues, so which one is for me? There are no prompts. My Stream shows no messages, zero allocation, not even a Score. I can’t even see anyone else’s Score.
A lot of nadas get into the wrong queue and when there aren’t enough spotters, a Harmony official drags them by the arm to where they belong. The officials wear protective lavender gloves so they don’t have to touch us directly, lavender being the standard Harmony color this month.
The largest horde snakes through the center of the main floor, a random assortment of nadas young and old, with and without niños. It could be a general queue, and that’s good enough for me. Fortunately no one pulls me away and the line move steadily forward. Even so, I honestly don’t know if I can keep my underwear dry.
As the end comes closer all the nadas around me go quiet. Behave perfectly, please the administrators, get what you want. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. Would have been smarter to pee in the cage, regardless of the audience.
Harmony officials in forest green shirts sit behind a grungy counter. Just when it’s my turn, there’s a shriek from behind me—two Policía and a spotter escort a man and a woman, both crying like four-year-olds. Is she prego without a neonatal permit? Failed to appeal the required termination? They’re walking too slowly, so the spotter gives them both a brawny shove. The man stumbles and falls to the floor, drawing a snicker from one of the Policía.
“Next!”
It’s a zit-faced hombre behind the counter. Thin mustache, almost like he’s too young to grow real facial hair. He goes through my Stream. His steel-gray eyes dart left and right, as if he sees something interesting.
I can’t keep my mouth shut. And I have to pee. “Am I tracked to Básica?”
He takes a long moment to answer. “No Básica.”
“Then what’s my track?”
“Try to remember this,” he says slowly, with exaggerated patience. “You’re tarado. It’s not possible—”
“I’m not tarado! Do I look tarado? I have four years at Academy—”
“You . . . are . . . tarado.”
Stomach tremble. Something sour rises in my throat. Tarado! Mentally deficient. Soft brain. Too stupid even for Básica.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Your track is strange. You’ll be here for a while. All you need to do is wait.”
“I want to know why I’m tarado.”
He stares with vacant eyes. “I said wait. Do what you’re told, or go in a booth like last night. And watch that mouth or I’ll track you OD. Know what that means, tarada?”
OD. Oppositional Disorder. Something wrong with your mind. Loco, unable to live among sane people, unwilling to obey. People tracked OD disappear forever.
I run to the toilets and take care of business. In the mirror: a huge purple bruise across the side of my face. My left eye is swollen half shut.
Back in the main waiting area there’s a dance class going on next to the cages. A hundred students step to their left, then right, then left, in rhythm with the leader’s mambo lyrics.
They say wait. Wait for what?
A lot of people have food, and they’re coming from the far end of the building. There’s a row of vendor units dispensing burritos, soup, rice, and candy. All of it low fat, low sodium, and in teeny amounts. Harmony protecting our health.
A ham and egg burrito would taste amazing, even a crappy Harmony burrito. But the vendor doesn’t dispense. The reason is ridiculous. And impossible. Zero APAC on credit.
My daily allocation? Zero.
What happened to APAC 146.75, the minimum daily allocation for a seventeen-year-old?
Could they do this? Sure they could. Yesterday afternoon I ate one tiny torta. What I would give for that torta now.
There’s a queue for everything, and there’s a queue to appeal an allocation. After five hours a bossy puta with two purple moles on her cheek tells me the allocation glitch can’t be corrected.
“Come back tomorrow morning.”
“I haven’t eat
en since yesterday. Can’t you—”
“No! Just find someplace to sleep.” She slows down her words. “If you don’t see your allocation tomorrow, follow the prompts. Just follow the prompts!”
Her eyes tell me: Shut my mouth, or I get caged.
SERCENT grows more crowded as the day wears on. Those not in a queue sit or sleep on the floor or just cluster together talking or arguing. I’ve heard a lot of nadas return to SERCENT regularly, always trying for a larger benefit package. It’s their sport.
Tarado. Are tarado required to accept Regalo?
No allocation and no prompts. Technically, I’m not supposed to get into a queue until I’m prompted. But there are promos, be sure of that. I watch, and my credit goes from zero to APAC 0.02. At least that works. As long as I keep my eyes on the promos, I get another APAC 0.02. I take my eyes away, the increase stops.
Is it possible to keep barely fed by watching promos all day?
The drinking fountains are free, therefore I only need food. How long to accumulate enough credit for one bowl of beef pho, or a Snickers? Two to five hours per item, depending on price.
Watch promos, and I can eat. They’re stupid but endurable. About two-thirds are supposed to show how Harmony improves our lives. The rest are three-minute fairytales for Regalo. They’re simpler now, so not to stress the dim brain of a tarada.
Each retelling contains small variations from the previous promos. For the tenth time, the simulated Cristina accepts her Regalo and sits down to a table piled with rice, fajita, pico de gallo, and now giant churros sprinkled with sugar. She enjoys pleasant dreams and falls in love with the gorgeous, curly-haired señor she had dreamed about.
In the next version, the fake me refuses Regalo and grows plump and repulsive. The replica Cristina stares out at me and warns, “Soon they will require it!”
Is that true, or am I just trying to scare myself?
The imitation Cristina dancing around in the promos should have her own name. Henceforth she will be known as Idiota, my prettier but brainless twin sister. Idiota is tarado, and somehow our Streams got mixed up.
I watch promos as SERCENT sinks into blaring chaos. Spotters fly around hunting for anyone who was pulled but failed to report. When they find one, they hover a meter over his head and shriek, “Vamonos a trabajar!” The unhappy nada picks himself up and walks in the direction prompted, vacation over.
My eyes burn, but my credit is up to APAC 6.76. Enough for something edible, but it’s too late for the decent choices. All the pho is gone, along with anything hot and under APAC 10.00. It will be a Snickers and a bag of tortilla chips. I scan the floor and find eleven unopened packets of salsa, ketchup, and plum sauce for the chips.
Hungry, but not completely without. That’s the truth of my life.
SIX
Second morning at SERCENT. It came too soon. Even on the rock-hard floor, sleep is a friend that makes hunger go away.
My parade uniform has crossed the line from grungy to filthy, the former pale blue now coated with grime. The white socks are almost as bad. I push them down to my ankles.
On credit: APAC 7.16. No allocation. I sway toward the toilets on quivering legs.
Quick head math: watching promos sixteen hours every day means APAC 9.00 per day. Two snacks, or one bowl of rice, then a tiny but hot bowl of beef pho for lunch.
How long could this go on? A week? No one else here is starving or fainting or begging for food. Of all these thousands, they chose one nada poco for special treatment? Why not make me disappear?
If they hate me this much, mandate me right now. Try it. This time, I put up a fight.
Last year I dreamt up a stupid fantasy. Everyone would just fight against the Autoridad. Shoot them with rifles. Forget about the fact it’s illegal for an ordinary person to even touch a rifle, forget that’s a death sentence. We’d get rifles, somehow, and shoot as many of them as it takes. Shoot their spotters, too. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them.
Now I understand. Nadas won’t ever do that, even if they had all the rifles and machine guns in the world. They love Harmony. They feel gratitude toward the Authoridad as long as they aren’t mandated, and maybe next year allocated a better housing unit and benefit package.
And if they won and Harmony vanished, what next?
Who would feed them? Who would provide their housing, their medical care, everything they need and want? Nadas would never fight against the Autoridad, but not because they fear losing. They fear winning.
There’s something new on the Stream, not another promo, just pure text. I reflexively wave my fingers to scroll. It scrolls! Yes, it sees my hand. Do they finally realize I’m not tarado?
But the words are mystifying:
This is an examination to measure your adult intelligence scale. There are sixty
questions to be completed within twenty-five minutes. Completion of the test will
credit you APAC 30.00. A score in the top five percent will credit you APAC 100.00.
My skin tingles. Try not to think about sweet, sweet chiros.
Why is Harmony doing this? A test, here at SERCENT, makes no sense. Exams are taken at the Academy.
Why measure the intelligence of this one tarada?
One possible reason—they want to test me for Oppositional Disorder.
That would mean a hospital for the mentally disturbed. Arms and legs strapped to a bed. Fed drugs day and night. An existence worse than death.
Or there’s some other reason. Maybe correcting the error that labeled me tarado?
APAC 30.00 just for trying.
That’s a full meal, no hunger for a while. I can recover some strength.
I flick my hand, but the exam or whatever it is remains visible. What happened to the promos? If they want to give this test, why no promo showing a joyful Idiota following the instructions and then feasting on churros and hot chocolate?
Credit stuck at APAC 7.04. That’s one snack. A headache settles in and the yakking mobs are not helping. A hundred meters overhead, millions of tiny colored squares form portraits of two Harmony leaders I know from the Academy, Seung Rho and Vikram Bhabha. An enormous grinning head forms between the other two and blinks down at we little nadas: Marco Javier Crespo.
This has got to be deliberate. I close my eyes to shut it out.
Someone plops down on the floor next to me, close enough to get a whiff of his sweaty skin. I scoot to the left without bothering to open my eyes.
There’s something touching my right knee, something warm and flexing. A wide, hairy hand. I shove it away and snarl, “No me toque!”
I try to get up, but I can’t.
The hand snaps back to my knee. It clasps and squeezes. He’s a gaunt, black-haired man with a face like a rat. His cracked lips form words. I push at the claw, but his grip has power. His fingers flex and slide across my skin. I try to scream but it comes out a feeble squeak.
I give a mighty shove and try to roll to my left, but a second man sits down on that side—someone much larger than Rat Face. He’s an unyielding bundle of muscle.
It happens so fast. The larger man lashes out like a python. His giant hand grabs Rat Face’s paw, engulfs it whole. Rat Face tries to yank free, but he can’t overcome the strength.
Crack crack crack!
Rat Face howls like a terrified baby. His right arm lashes out but the stronger man reaches directly across my face and stops him cold. Bawling in pain, Rat Face twists away, jumps up and skitters back a safe distance.
Three of his fingers are bent backwards. Those cracks were bones snapping.
He sputters, “Mono loco! Look what you did to me!” He vanishes into the crowd.
I turn to my protector. He’s sitting calmly. An oldie! Not just sort of old, like Maribel, but incredibly old, eighty at least. Skin nothing but wrinkles, with a loose flap hanging under his chin. Regardless of age, his body is wide and powerful.
Why did he care enough to help me? I get control o
f my breath. “Gracias.”
“My pleasure.”
That’s it. Now he gets up and leaves? What if Rat Face comes back?
He extends a spotted and crinkled hand. “Michael Gusman.”
I place my palm against his. We grip hands and shake up and down three times. A handshake, like in the old vids. Strange, but somehow civilized.
“Cristina Flores.”
I expect conversation, however weird that would be. Instead he stands, extends one hand and beckons me to rise up. There’s confidence in his movements, like someone accustomed to giving direction.
“How do you feel today, Cristina?”
Is he trying to be funny? “Hungry.”
“I’ll bet. Any headaches? Trouble breathing, catching your breath?”
“Why do you care?”
“I’m a medical doctor. Call me Dr. Mike. I’m going to give you a brief examination, okay?”
He inspects the giant bruise on my face. His eyes narrow, and there’s a flash of anger.
“Hit my head.”
“More likely they kicked it against the floor a few times.”
Sure. But how does he know it was a floor?
Dr. Mike peers into my eyes and mouth. His fingers probe my neck. He’s a perv, and the rescue was a trick so he could touch me . . . No. Not this man. There’s honesty in him. He’s direct and true, very much like Paco, and I’m not thinking that just because he’s tough like Paco. It’s something else, something that comes into my mind in a way I don’t understand.
“What kind of doctor are you?”
Bleary red eyes, like gamers after days without sleep. “I’m a physiologist. Also board-certified in internal medicine. Can you turn around for me?” Both hands grasp the small of my back. “Breathe in as deeply as you can. Good deep breath.”
He asks me to extend my arms and exert as much sideways force as I can against his palms. He examines my hands and fingers and flexes my wrists in all directions.
“Am I going to fall apart?”
Dr. Mike sits down. He’s completely bald except for two gray tufts above the ears. “You just need some chow in you.”