Outcasts (10 page)

“It isn’t dangerous to
us
,” Jannine
said, confused by Neko’s distress. They were building a set of
instructions. Neko knew that. Being scared of it made as much sense as being
scared of a music tape.

“I don’t mean
now
, I don’t mean
yet. But later on when they use it. Whatever it’s coding for could be
dangerous to us the same way it could be dangerous to anybody.”

“I think you’re being silly. They always start
sterile, till they’re sure about the product.”

An artificial stupid pushed through the hatch in the bottom
of the door, rolled inside, slid their food onto the table, and backtracked.
The hatch latched with a soft
snick
.

Jannine swung off the exercise bike and wiped her face
again. She took the lids off the plates and pushed Neko’s dinner, or
breakfast, toward her.

“Do you mind if I have another drink?”

“Go ahead.” It was polite of Neko to ask, since
Jannine’s i.d. was in the slot. But she should’ve known she could
have whatever she wanted.

Jannine broke open the top of the chicken pie she’d
ordered. Steam puffed out, fragrant with sage. When she had a night job, she
liked to eat breakfast before her shift, in the evening, and dinner after, in
the morning.

“How can you work out and then eat?”

Jannine shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with
it. I’m going to eat and then work out, too.”

Neko preferred dinner at night and breakfast in the morning.
She had a couple of croissants and an omelet spotted with dark bits of sautéed
garlic.

“No hot date today?” Jannine said.

Neko drank half her second beer and pushed her food around
on her plate.

“I’m not really hungry,” she said. “I
guess I’ll go on home.”

“I thought you wanted to talk. That’s why I got
the room.”

“I wanted to talk about the helix, and all you want to
say about it is ‘No big deal.’ So, okay. So maybe we’re
building them a nerve toxin or some new bug.”

“What do they need with a new bug? There’s
plenty of old bugs.”

“Right. So it’s no big deal. So forget it.”

“Maybe we’re building some new medicine.”

“I
said
forget it.” Neko pushed the plate
away and stood up.

“If it was anything bad they’d classify it, and
we’d never work on it. I don’t even have a security clearance, do
you?”

Neko didn’t reply.

“
Do
you?”

“No. Of course not. I mean...” Neko looked
embarrassed. “I guess I used to but I’m sure it’s expired by
now.”

“Why did you have a security clearance?”

“If I could tell you that I wouldn’t’ve
had to have it!” Neko said. “I’ve got to go.” She
downed the last of her second beer and hurried out of the room, slamming the
door behind her.

Jannine watched her through the room’s transparent
walls till she disappeared. She was surprised by Neko’s weird reaction.

“Sorry,” she said to the walls. “Didn’t
mean to be nosy.”

She ate her dinner, more because she’d already paid
for it than because she still felt hungry. For the same reason, she lifted
weights for a while and pedaled on the bike till her hour ran out. She got
down, retrieved her i.d. before she got charged for more time, and left the
private room for the ASes to clean.

The tavern was still crowded, but quieter. She made her way
through it without bumping into anyone.

Outside, the sky had clouded up. It looked like more rain.
Jannine trudged toward home. At her last job, her co-workers had created a
complicated system of intramural sports. There was always a team to join, or a
team that needed a substitute. Any warm body would help. They welcomed a warm
body who was a halfway decent player. At this job, though, her co-workers went
straight to the tavern or straight home, or did something with some group that
didn’t include Jannine.

Maybe it’s getting time to move on, she thought. But
she didn’t want to move on.

Morning rush was over; the streets were quiet for daytime.
In the middle of the night, when she came to work, delivery trucks created a
third rush hour.

The mist grew heavier. The droplets drifted downward. The
rain began. It collected in her hair. Damp tendrils curled around her face.

Her apartment was nothing special: a one-bedroom, the
bedroom tiny and dark and cold. It always smelled musty. Not quite mold. Not
quite mildew. But almost. Jannine looked at her unmade bed. She imagined
crawling between the cold, wrinkled sheets.

“Shit,” she muttered, and returned to the living
room. She turned on the entertainment console and flipped through a hundred
channels on the tv, fifty channels per minute, leaving them all two-d. Nothing
interesting. She should’ve rented a movie. She could call something out
of the cable, but it took too long to work through the preview catalogue, even
on fast forward. All those clips of pretty scenery or car chases or people
making love never told her what the movies were about. Usually the clips were
the best part anyway. She left the remote on scan and tossed it onto the couch.
The tv flipped past one channel, another.

Jannine went to take a shower. As she went through the
pockets of her sweat-damp clothing, she closed her fingers around the note.

“Shit,” she said again.

She smoothed the crumpled paper, staring at it, afraid to
find out what the black marks said. Maybe it was too damaged to be read.

She dug the reader out of the closet, shoved the note into
it, and listened.

“This evening, please report to room fifteen
twenty-six instead of your usual position. Regular hourly wage will apply
—”

Jannine shut off the reader, pulled the note out, and flung
it into the sorter.

She’d avoided this test twice already, once by
pretending she never received the note and once by calling in sick. She couldn’t
afford another sick day. Maybe tomorrow she could pretend she’d forgotten
about the instructions. Once she hooked into her helmet, maybe they wouldn’t
bother her. She was a good worker, always above average. Not too far above
average.

Jannine wondered what she had done, why she had to take a
test.

She should’ve started looking for a new job as soon as
she got the first note. But she liked working on the substrate. It was fun. She
was good at it. It paid well. And despite Neko’s worries, the company mostly
produced crop fortifiers and medicines.

If she got away with forgetting the message — she didn’t
believe she would, but if she did — she’d have a week or so to look
for new work before her employers realized they were put out with her. Maybe
then at least they’d fire her without making her take the damn test.

Leaving her clothes strewn on the floor, Jannine climbed
into bed, pulled the cold covers around her, and lay shivering, waiting for
sleep.

o0o

At midnight, Jannine arrived at work and pretended it was an
ordinary day. She checked in and played through the alert without paying any
attention to it. When she passed, it congratulated her for a personal high
score. Seeing how far up the ladder she’d run the testing game, she
cursed under her breath. She hated to stand out. It always caused more trouble
than it was worth. If she’d been less tired, less distracted, she would’ve
paid attention and kept her results in the safe and easy and unremarkable
middle ranges.

That’s what I get for lying awake all night, she
thought.

She reached out to cancel the game and use her second try.
She’d never cancelled a game before. That, too, drew the attention of the
higher-ups.

“Good score.”

Jannine started. “What —?”

An exec, in a suit, stood at her shoulder. She couldn’t
remember ever seeing an exec on the production level. Sometimes they watched
from the balcony that looked out over the work floor, but hardly ever during
the graveyard shift.

“Good score,” he said again. “I knew you
could go higher than you usually do. You got my note?”

He smiled, and Jannine’s spirits sank.

“Yeah, well, thanks,” she said, not really
answering his question. “I better get to work.”

“You
did
get my note?”

She saw that this time she wasn’t going to get away
with pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about. He could
probably whip out security videos that showed her taking the note, glancing at
it, shoving it in her pocket. From three angles.

“I completely forgot,” she said. “Is it
important? My teammate’s already waiting for me.”

“We brought in a temp. Come along; we mustn’t
put this off again.”

Jannine was scared. A temp was serious business, expensive.

Reluctantly, she followed the exec out of the alert room.
They passed through sound effects and bright electronic lights. Jannine’s
co-workers played the games, proving they were fit to do their jobs for one
more day.

Nearly late, Neko hurried toward her favorite alert console.
She saw Jannine and the exec. She stopped, startled, looking as scared as
Jannine felt. Behind the exec, out of his sight, Jannine shrugged elaborately
and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She tried to communicate: No big deal,
see you later. She wished she could make herself believe it. Her hands felt
cold and her stomach was upset.

The exec’s i.d. opened a door that Jannine had never
been through, that she’d never seen anyone use. The exec entered the
elevator.

“Come on,” he said, smiling again. “Everything
okay?”

“Where are we going?”

He pointed upward. That was no help. The building was twenty
stories high. Jannine had never been above the production level.

She entered the elevator. The doors closed behind her. She
stood there, waiting, looking at the exec. She didn’t know what else to
do. The upward motion made her feel even queasier. Her ears popped. The elevator
stopped. The doors opened behind her.

“Here we are.” The exec gestured for her to turn
and precede him out.

He took her down a carpeted hall. She hardly noticed her
surroundings. Photos hung on the wall. Fields and forests, she guessed, but out
of focus, weird pastel colors. Some upper class fad.

The exec opened another door.

A dozen people sat at blank computer terminals, waiting. One
machine remained free.

“Right there,” the exec said. “Get
settled, and we can start.”

Jannine didn’t recognize anyone in the room.

Everyone else is new, she thought. They’re applying to
work on the substrate, and there’s a new test to get the job. What did I
do to make them think
I
should have to take it? Somebody must have
noticed something. Now I’m screwed.

The job test she’d taken a few months ago was all
physical. It was still hard to believe she’d found such a job, with such
a test. She hadn’t known how to figure out a safe middle score, so she’d
come out near the top of the group. She had always been athletic. Not enough to
go pro. She’d tried that, and failed.

She approached the computer terminal warily. She stared at
it, disheartened. Its only interface was a keyboard.

“I don’t type,” she said. She spoke louder
than she meant to, startling several of the others, startling herself. A
nervous laugh tittered through the room. Jannine turned toward the exec. “I
told them, when I applied, that I don’t type!”

“That’s all right,” he said. “You
won’t need to. Just tee or eff.”

She sat down. She began to shiver, distress and dismay
taking over her body with a deep, clenching quiver.

The chair was hard, unyielding, uncomfortable. Jannine
wished for her reclining couch, for the familiar grip, the helmet and collar
and imaginary reality.

The screen blinked on. She flinched. She ground her teeth,
fighting tears of rage and frustration. Her throat ached and her eyes stung.

“Any questions about the instructions?” the exec
asked.

No one spoke.

“You may begin.”

The screen dissolved and reformed.

I should have been looking for another job a month ago,
Jannine thought angrily, desperately. I knew it, and I didn’t do it. What
a fool.

She stared at the keyboard. It blurred before her. She
blinked furiously.

“Just tee or eff.” One of those. She searched
out the T, and the F. She pressed the T. On the screen, the blinking cursor
moved downward, leaving a mark behind.

She pressed the T twice more, then varied the pattern,
tentatively, with the F. The blinking light reached the bottom of the screen
and stayed there. The patch of writing behind it jumped upward, bringing a new
blank box beneath the blinking square. She pressed the keys, faster and faster,
playing a two-note dirge. Her hands shook.

She touched the wrong key. Nothing happened. The system didn’t
warn her, didn’t set her down as it would on the substrate, made no
noise, made no mark. Jannine put one forefinger on the T and the other on the F
and played them back and forth. All she wanted to do was finish and go back to
work. If they’d let her.

The screen froze. Jannine tried to scroll farther down.
Nothing happened.

She shot a quick glance at the exec, wondering how soon he
would find out she’d crashed his system.

He was already looking at her. Jannine turned away,
pretending she’d never raised her head, pretending their gazes had never
met.

But she’d seen him stand up. She’d seen his
baffled expression.

Paralyzed at the terminal, she waited for him to find her
out.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You finished very quickly,” he said.

She glanced up sharply. Finished?

The test ought to go on and on till the time ran out, like a
game, like the alert, games you couldn’t win. You were supposed to rack
up higher and higher scores, you were supposed to pretend it was fun, but you
were judged every time against the highest score you’d ever made.