Authors: Candace Smith
Thoughts of Barry filtered through her mind. For the past year they had been dating. More accurately, they had been having sex together while Sharell avoided his attempts at a relationship. He had the strong, hunky body she liked, but his manner was too soft spoken. He politely acquiesced to whatever she decided, which with her was a mixed bag of beans. Part of her demanded to be in control, as she had been forced to take care of herself at such a young age. Another part of her remained uncertain, and she wanted someone strong enough to guide her. Her precarious confidence ran macho guys off.
It was all an illusion. Even her decision to take this job had kept her awake, wondering if it was the right course. She had hoped Barry would grow some balls and demand she change her mind. Instead, he seemed more excited about getting his hands on the title to her truck.
She crossed the street to her motel room. It had the nondescript look all rooms for under fifty dollars shared. Oversized flowers splashed across the double bedspread and curtains, and anything able to be carried was screwed or bolted down. This seemed ironic, as Sharell’s occupation was construction when she grew tired of slinging drinks. She could easily remove any questionably valuable trinket she wanted, but who in hell would steal a picture of a badly reproduced masterpiece or an antiquated television that needed a three foot pedestal to support it?
Still, she could steal them. She could use the telephone on the desk and call a friend to drive her back to the sane, normal world. Sharell still had control. She could still change her mind. At least, that was what she told herself.
The clock clicked on the nightstand tapping a countdown. She had thirty minutes. This sounded better than a mere half hour. Sharell lay back on the gaudy bedspread and stared at the ceiling, calming her nerves by looking for patterns in the popcorn.
What she did not realize was that she had lost control of the situation long before Barry drove off in her ’72 cherry red pickup truck. Sharell had gone through Manerea’s list, divesting herself of worldly possessions except for the acceptable items that fit into the single suitcase they gave her. She had plenty of warnings. Giving up her apartment, selling her furniture, and driving a few boxes of mementoes to Lucy’s house where she stashed them in the attic, away from her kids. Sharell also handed Lucy her cellphone. It was the latest ‘smart phone’ and she had barely learned a few of the apps it could perform.
She lay on a bed in a room paid for by her new employer, next to a tempting fast food restaurant and across from the park that would taunt her with a last bribe to back out. If she was not standing under the motel awning in front of the office, the limo would simply drive on to its mysterious destination.
Sharell had no family to say goodbye to. This had been a major plus on her application. Crazy shit… like owning no property, no long-term employment or relationships… shit most employers looked for. These all checked on the plus side of her application, like admirable qualities and references. Major warning, and one she missed. Instead, the ordered control of the divesting list and the twice weekly letters offered her reassurances, ticking their own countdown towards the exciting changes in store for her.
Click.
Ten minutes to takeoff. Better decide.
Sharell glanced at the red numbers. “I’m not changing my mind. I’d be nuts to turn down this much money.”
After five more clicks, she rose to use the bathroom. The young woman in the mirror had not changed. Maybe, there was a touch more anxiety edging the anticipation in the green eyes, but not much.
Sharell reached for the suitcase and turned to study the room. She had left nothing behind. Actually, she had left quite a lot. Her toothbrush, toiletries, and hairbrush sat on the counter, but they were not on the divesting list of items she could take. The click of the black box…
they search for survivors with black boxes
.
Sharell glared at the clock and lifted her chin. “I’m not backing out.” She walked into the sunshine, glanced at the blue sky, and strode to the awning. The long black car pulled up before she set her bag down. There was no lettering on the outside of the limo, but the smiling man exiting from the driver’s door wore a gray polo shirt with Manerea Industries embroidered on the pocket.
“Sharell?” Of course she was, but the personalized greeting was demanded in his duties.
“Yes, sir.”
“No ‘sir’. Call me Manny. Want to sit up front? You’re my only pickup today and it’s a two hour drive.”
There was never more than one pickup, and if Sharell had looked closer she would have noticed the backseats barely had impressions or scuffing from other passengers. The seat she sat on was clean, but the leather slightly faded from sliding jean covered butts of Manny’s other pickups.
They almost always chose to sit up front, and it was easier for Manny to judge her commitment without calling over his shoulder. Dr. Manuel Ramirez had a PhD in psychology and loved to drive. The combination made for the ideal setting for his final evaluation; much more natural than a professional office in some brick building. This way, he could watch how closely she stared at her surroundings. Too much melancholy and she would not make it a week. In seven years, he had only been wrong twice.
“Have you been working for them long?”
“Since the beginning,” Manny smiled. The road opened to farmland, with ranches and mountains in the distance. “It’s a great company.”
“But, you get to come and go.” Sharell looked through the windshield, trying to capture and hold the memory of every waving cornstalk, the old red Kubota tractor belching a black fog of smoke, faded wood fences needing repair… she shuddered and listened to Manny.
“Not really. I mean, I leave for pickups, but the rest of the time I stay at headquarters, just like everyone else.”
“What exactly does Manerea do?”
“They build.”
“Well, that’s about as vague as anything else I’ve learned. What do they build?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Okay. A no go question.
“Pretty damn covert company.” She glanced at him, smiling nervously. “And employees.”
Manny laughed. “Look, I promise. If you’re willing to give up all this,” he waved his hand across the scenery, “you won’t be disappointed. They keep things interesting or people wouldn’t stay.”
“The salary doesn’t hurt. Besides, I thought I was under contract. It looks kind of tough to break.”
“Mmm, but wait until you see why.” Manny glanced at her and watched her eyes narrow on the mountains. Anticipation was winning the battle over her last defensive anxiety, and he relaxed. She passed, and this was a very good thing.
There were prettier girls working for Manerea, but this one was in the top ten. Hell, the top five. Green eyes… not hazel… true green, dark hair, five-ten and one-thirty on the scale, according to her application. Most of the pounds were divvied between long legs, a nice ass, and the full breasts stretching her company shirt. She would get the standard issue with her name on it locking her into the contract when she was shown to her quarters, along with a host of suitors vying for the new pussy on the block. This kept the men happy, and a happy crew was a productive crew. “Not many women in Maintenance.”
“I guess I have an aptitude for fixing things.”
Except Mom and Dad. I couldn’t fix them.
Sharell closed her eyes, trying to banish the memory of them and the host of miscellaneous families willing to put up with a troubled, confused teenage girl in exchange for a monthly check. Her last surrogate father was a handyman, and Sharell followed him around learning the tools and mechanics of putting things back together. They let her stay for two years. At eighteen, the front door closed behind her and her suitcase for the last time. They were practical people with practical needs, and they needed the money for the bed she was vacating.
On her application, she listed her parents as ‘Deceased’. They might as well have been. Her mother was buried in Henry Thompson Memorial Gardens and her father was in prison up state for putting her there. Sharell never visited the cemetery after the funeral, and she never wrote to her dad. She was certain her new employer had done a background check and was aware of her history. Apparently, it placed another check on the plus side.
“Might want a last look,” Manny suggested.
Sharell was surprised to see how close the mountains were. She must have dozed off. There was only a mile or two of open plain before the shadows and rock swallowed the car. The packed dirt roadway was wide enough for semis to travel, and the limo buzzed along at forty.
Manny’s eyes darted to her a few times. She was leaning forward following the rock walls to the sky. “You okay?”
Sharell shivered as the slice of blue above thinned. To the sides of her was nothing but rock with jagged edges where the demolition equipment cut through to make the road. “I’m fine. I guess it will take a little getting used to.”
Manny knew about her past. He knew how she suffered guilt for not screaming or running to neighbors. She was ten, and hid squeezed between the bookcase and drapes like her mom told her to. She spent two hours silently crying, following her mother’s warning to be quiet, until her father finally finished ranting at the body on the floor and he passed out on the sofa. Sharell did not get hysterical or sink into a depression when she calmly pointed to her father from the witness stand.
After the trial recounted the years of abuse her father perpetrated on Sharell and her mom, the guilt mixed with an anger that caused more guilt. Sharell realized her mother always expected it would come to this end, and still she chose to stay. Ultimately, both her parents had abandoned her, and caused Sharell to build a false shield of bravado while she silently screamed for someone to take control and tell her what she should do. It was the perfect background profile for a Manerea employee.
“There are views of outside, just from top level.” Manny watched her lean back in the seat.
Her fingers picked at the end of her braid, resting on her blue-jeaned thigh. “Oh. I kept thinking I wouldn’t be able to see it.”
“No. Some think it’s more like a temptation, though. You know. Look but don’t touch.”
“Well, I’ve always been kind of a private person, so it won’t be a problem. I’m glad I’ll be able to see outside, though.”
The road ended at a mountainside with a black, yawning hole swallowing them up as the limo drove into a tunnel. There were no lamps in little cages on the walls. Manny slowed their speed and turned on the headlights. It was only a minute before another yawning hole of light was in front of them. They pulled into a warehouse and parked next to a row of three black tractor-trailers.
Manny walked around to the passenger door and Sharell climbed out. She followed him to the trunk to retrieve her suitcase. The black bag looked small in the empty space, and she clutched it and stared around the garage. The walls and ceiling were rock, and the floor more packed dirt. The space was spotless and big enough to host a basketball game, except instead of hoops, two windows looked down on them from opposite sides of the cavern. Security guards stood behind the glass, watching closely while Manny led Sharell to a small elevator standing next to double doors for freight.
He pulled out a red key card and the door slid open. “This is the only entrance to the cave and, as you can see, it is guarded.” As the door slid closed, Manny was relieved to see a little panic in her eyes and that she was staring at the security post over the entrance to the warehouse.
Sharell jumped a bit as the elevator rattled by other floors to the fourth level. There were six buttons, including the ‘B’ on the bottom and ‘O’ on top. Those required a key card to unlock.
No turning back
.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open to a rock passageway. This one did have the light bulbs in cages spaced along the walls. Her knuckles were white on her suitcase while she walked beside Manny.
They stopped and he looked at her. There was excitement in Manny’s eyes and he rested his hand on her shoulder. “I always love this part. Ready to see the project you’ll be working on?”
At this point, Sharell was afraid she had signed on to a mining crew. “Sure thing.”
Manny kept his hand on her shoulder and walked her onto the launch pad.
* * * * *
“Matt, hand me my stubby.” Sharell held her hand out from under the console and felt his palm rest on her butt while he reached into her front tool belt pocket. Her fifth attempt at lining the little bugger screw into the hole finally seated it, and she finger-tightened the threads.
Everything they had worked on for the past six months was in cramped spaces and it seemed like the stubby three-inch screwdriver was attached to her hand. When their shifts coincided, she worked with Matt. After shift, they worked on other things in his living quarters. He was tall and well built, which made him practically useless for squirming into their current projects.
Sharell ran her palm along the surface, checking for more empty sockets. There was no way to use a flashlight in the confined space. She backed out, her black braid sweeping the polished floor and her bottom wiggling while she crawled, guided by Matt’s hand. “That’s the last one.”
“Ten minutes left on shift, so I guess we’re done.” Matt stood and held down his hand to help her up.
Sharell slid the stubby screwdriver back into its leather pocket on her hip and brushed non-existent dust from the knees of her jeans. There were as many people on the Cleaning crew as in Maintenance. The board was a stickler for spit and polish.
She followed Matt to the chute that would slide them down two decks to the launch pad level. Elevators took you up, but with space at a premium the workers had to use the tubes to go down. They used to remind Sharell of waterpark slides when she first climbed into one over two years ago.
When I lived in the world with kids playing tag and greasy fries,
she thought, as she slid down the dark chute remembering the ‘perfect’ day. By the time she reached the packed dirt floor, Henry Thompson Park was filed away with all the other ‘outside world’ distractions.
She and Matt melded into the file of workers walking towards the locker room. Sharell’s left hand unbuckled her leather tool belt while her right spun the combination to her gray locker. She hung the strap on the hook in the back and decided to forego a cursory glance in the mirror stuck to the inside door. After spending the last eight-hour shift working with Matt, he had a pretty good idea of what he was getting.
Workers stood before the scheduling board on the wall, bitching. Even from across the hall, Sharell recognized the red heading with white block letters.
Shit.
Shifts were predictably scheduled, except when they were… “Shit, we just had a system check two weeks ago.” Sharell ran her finger down the list. “Dammit.”
She searched for Matt and found him standing further down the hall, and she nodded. Sharell squirmed her way out of the griping pack and joined him. “We gotta’ report back in four hours.”
The cavern was quiet this late at night. Only shift change workers trudged through the rock passages towards the freight elevator taking them to living quarters. Women were housed on level three and men on level two. Matt and Sharell remained pressed against the metal wall until the second stop.
After more than two years working for Manerea, it still struck Sharell odd that she lived in a primitive rock cave and worked on a spaceship. It was disorienting at times, but actually helped her not dwell on current items she no longer had access to. She rarely dreamed of driving her pickup down winding roads through farmland any more.
They reached Matt’s compartment, or Man Cave as the men called them. He lost his roommate six months ago when the guy finally bugged out from five years of living in the caves. Security chased him down, running naked through the spaceship and laughing hysterically about aliens. No one ever saw him again, and Security answered no questions.
It had been a sobering wakeup call to the rest of them. The pay in exchange for freedom was one hundred thousand per year, minus living expenses that came to less than three thousand. It was kept in an interest-bearing savings account and only disbursed when the project was finished. If a worker broke their contract, they forfeited all of it. The streaking exhibition had cost Matt’s roommate half a million dollars.
The quarters were not bad and the space set to a premium. A computer kept track of worker’s schedules, and the Man Caves on either side of Matt’s were currently vacant while the men were on shift. The computer turned an efficiency kitchen and small bathroom on one wall, and the television, stereo and games on the other, towards Matt’s compartment. They were on a turntable and would face his neighbors’ quarters in four hours, leaving Matt’s Man Cave with only a bed, end table, and wardrobe. The streaker’s furniture had been removed.
Sharell sat on the bed beside Matt. They bent over in sync, unlacing their black work boots, kicked them off, and stood facing each other. She reached for his belt, he reached for hers, and quickly fumbling hands worked at stripping their partner.
“I can’t believe they’ve only given us four hours off before scheduling us on shift again.” Sharell bounced onto the bed and held her arms up to Matt.
The handsome hunk joined the work crew a year ago, and they had been meeting a few times a week for three months. Sharell signed on over two and a half, and although her reasons for dating him were shallow, he was still the best offering in their secluded rock city. The type of men that attracted her was the strong guys in the Maintenance crew. The researchers and engineers were just too geeky to keep her interest. They brought back flashing memories that her daddy had been a geeky brainiack architect before donning his prison attire.
The bandage on Matt’s thumb, courtesy of his last attempt to fit his meaty hand into close work, was loose on one edge. It scraped across her nipple and the brief twinge of pain made the nub peak, causing a dampening flicker of arousal that made her nervous. She pushed her breast into his hand while his other arm brushed down her belly and fingers curled onto her pussy.
Sharell, gripping one muscular shoulder, wormed her other hand down to his cock. It was stiff and pressing into her thigh, but she managed to wedge it free and wrap her fingers around it. Matt was not much into foreplay. Even the few blowjobs she gave him were not reciprocated by a tongue lashing on her pussy. With Matt, it was a bit of rough caressing and then missionary position plunging until he jerked inside of her hot soaked walls and collapsed on top of her. She had yet to reach an orgasm of her own with him, and had stopped faking it a month ago. Matt did not seem to mind. Hell, once he got his rocks off, he never seemed to notice her at all. Sharell dressed and left the Man Cave, leaving him snoring.
Janella looked up from her tablet and took in her roommate’s disheveled appearance. Sharell’s laces hung down the sides of her boots. “Matt?”
“Yeah, the jerk’s out like a light.” Sharell began removing her work clothes intent on taking a quick shower and grabbing a nap. The turntable bathroom was small and she hit her hip on the sink vanity when she turned the water on. She wound her black braid off her neck and washed off the grime from the last eight-hour shift and the fifteen-minute marathon with Matt.
“I’m scheduled at seven, too. Catch some zees and I’ll wake you up,” Janella offered.
“Thanks, I’m beat. Why the hell are they scheduling another system check so soon?”
Janella shrugged. “I don’t know, but this isn’t going to be just a show and tell. They’re having us move supplies on board.”
“Shit, better wake me up at six thirty.” Sharell slid her naked body between the sheets. She reached for her tablet, figuring a little more heated nonsense from the heroine’s dilemma might lead to the orgasm she had been denied. Janella got her hooked on the sappy erotic romances, but she would never admit it to anyone else. She fell asleep after rereading the first paragraph three times.
By the time Janella woke her, the launch pad was busy and board members were already arriving. The young women drove a cart through the caves to the lab and began loading up meal packs for the stupid tests.