Authors: David Luna
“I changed my mind. I want you to go,” Sean demands.
Undeterred, Wade grabs at him again, but this time Sean shoves him into the wall. He looks to Samantha. “Run!” she says, panicking.
Sean does so, but just as he is about to make it to the door, ZZZZZAP! Neil prods him with the tip of his shock baton and a burst of electricity brings him down.
“Daddy!” Cassi screams as she rushes forward, but Wade grabs her. Her flailing arms scratch and leave a gash across his face. Wade pushes her towards her mother.
“Get your kid under control.”
Sean continues to resist until Neil zaps him again, then bashes him in the face with the bottom of the baton to end the scuffle. He turns to Samantha. “Your rations will be adjusted accordingly for what you owe.”
Samantha comforts Cassi, both in tears, while Wade binds Sean’s hands and drags him to his feet. Neil slides the folded black flag across the table, the white Collections Agency logo prominently displayed.
“The Agency thanks you for your sacrifice.”
An Agency flag hangs above the gated entrance to an underground Transfer Tunnel. Neil and Wade lead four volunteers, including Sean, to a Check-In Guard at a kiosk station. He uses his own gun-like device to take a blood sample from each man to wirelessly verify their identities on the kiosk – a measure put in place years ago after a couple mishaps occurred where the wrong individuals were submitted as volunteers. Check-In Guard notices Sean’s swollen face.
“Breacher?”
Neil nods.
The guard glares to Sean. “Coward,” he says as he jams the needle deep into Sean’s forearm to purposefully make it hurt. He updates Sean’s profile in the database:
Status: Submitted
Submitted by: Neil Vaughn & Wade Olson
A second guard unlocks the wrought iron gate and marches the four men inside the transfer tunnel, loading them into the rear of a cattle car. He taps the bumper and the cattle car pulls away.
The car drives deeper into a web of interconnected underground passages – old mining tunnels with rocky archways where only a single bulb draped every ten meters provides any sort of illumination. The vehicle veers at a fork and joins behind another cattle car loaded with more volunteers coming from a separate transfer tunnel entrance located across the city.
They eventually reach the underground entrance to the Processing Facility. Here even more volunteers are marched inside on foot, the steel double doors slamming shut behind them.
Above ground, the processing facility is nothing more than a manufacturing factory, sprawling in size similar to a refinery, with three main smokestacks piercing the sky. The Agency logo is embossed on the center smokestack.
Just then, black smoke spews out from all three cylinders at once, presumably the volunteers dying, tainting the already bleak sky.
Neil strips a stick of its bark with a utility knife, while Wade caresses his wounded cheek. They each sit on a stone boulder up in the mountains.
“It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” Wade picks at the dried blood before it can turn into a scab.
“It’ll fade,” Neil responds, brief and cold.
Silence falls, except for the sound of metal on wood as Neil carves the stick to a sharp point. Wade continues to stare at his mentor as if he wants to make a confession.
“Can I tell you something? Just between me and you?”
“It’d be best if you didn’t,” Neil says, never glancing up. He stabs the stick in the dirt, then leaves Wade with his thoughts. After a day of assignments he needs time to himself and this rookie isn’t giving him any. Neil weaves throughout the dead trees towards the edge of a mountain cliff.
Neil overlooks a panoramic view of the valley: a city surrounding a polluted bay spilling into the tainted ocean. Even from this height the water is noticeably black. An elevated SectorLink metro line loops around to connect the Slums on the West Bank to the Downtown skytowers in the North to the processing facility in the East, along with the numerous other sectors sandwiched in between. Smoke continues to pour out from the facility smokestacks.
Opposite the skytowers are the remnants of Sector B, abandoned since the flood years ago, followed by the collapsed ruins of the Strasburg Dam and adjacent water plant further up in the mountains. Just meters beyond at the northern most tip of the city is the Wall. At eight meters tall and four meters thick, the cement enclosure is shaped like a giant horseshoe wrapping around the entire city, its edges ending where the tall cliffs meet the rough sea, surrounding both the valley below and the polluted bay, leading some to nickname their home The Bend.
Neil takes it in, his city, all that he has and all that he knows, when suddenly a beautiful melody echoes throughout the valley, seemingly traveling with the wind. It’s peaceful. Serene. Hopeful in a dark time, invoking memories of a time forgotten.
Neil’s eyes track the source of the song to a towering landfill at the northern edge of the slums, centuries of waste accumulating beside the poor. He can barely make out the outline of a woman sifting through piles of trash and collecting items into a small pull wagon, all while continuing to sing. He is entranced by the angelic voice. For being so far away, the melody seems to speak directly to him.
The angelic voice continues until Neil’s PDA buzzes. He checks the device to find a text: REPORT TO HQ.
As the Agency disrupts his personal time, the breeze suddenly dies, and with it, takes away the melody. Neil looks to the landfill once more. The woman is gone.
******
Breachers, Leechers, and ???
Did you know that a person who volunteers but then backs out of their contract is called a Breacher? Even if the person doesn’t try to run, they are still considered in Breach of Contract.
And those that sneak between cities in order to get their rations, they are called Leechers. That’s why we have the Wall.
The Agency really does have a name for every type of person out there! I wonder what they call me?
-Quado
2
T
he Agency logo is etched above the rigid entrance to a gothic skytower. A once extravagant fountain damaged by decades of acid rain stands on its last legs in front of the structure, cracked and without water. The top of the grey tower seemingly disappears as it blends in with the dreary sky.
Up on the fourteenth floor, Bill Mazer, aged from the weight of the city on his shoulders, supervises a psychological evaluation from behind a one-sided observation window. His hand tinkers with a stopped pocket watch as inside the white room a psychologist questions Neil from a pre-populated list. It is a standard Agency evaluation form and isn’t very forgiving.
“This is weekly evaluation, session four, two, one. Please state your name and number for the camera.”
Neil doesn’t flinch as the red dot from a camcorder blinks at him from a tripod in the corner. “Neil Vaughn. Collector One, Four, Zero, Five.”
“Now I’m going to ask a series of questions and I want you to answer honestly and openly,” the psychologist states as she nears her pen to the first check box. She’s cold and blunt, much like Neil, which could be a prerequisite to work for the Agency. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the necessity of the Collections Agency?”
“Ten,” Neil doesn’t hesitate, his standard response to the same first question each week.
“Do you ever have thoughts too terrible to tell another person?”
“No.”
“Do you prefer flowers or clouds?”
“Neither.”
“Do you hear voices in your head?”
Mazer studies Neil’s body language while Neil looks back to the observation window. Even though Neil can’t see Mazer, he stares seemingly right at him. He knows he’s under constant scrutiny by the Agency.
“No,” he confidently responds.
Satisfied, Mazer returns to his pocket watch and taps it again. It finally ticks forward. The psychologist checks the last box on the evaluation form: PASS.
“The Agency thanks you for your continued service.”
Wade’s eyes fixate on the floor, noticeably distant from the psychologist. It’s his turn for his weekly evaluation. Mazer once again supervises the session from behind the one-way glass. He can read the psychologist’s lips, “Do you ever have thoughts too terrible to tell another person?”
Later in the office bullpen, all the Collectors sit around after hours. It is a diverse bunch: Cecil, Dale, Raymond, Garrison, Benson, and Wade. Wade is the only one under thirty, and the new blood to the team. Many are loud and rowdy, but none as boisterous as Patrick “Slayter” Huntley, the longest tenured Collector with a 5-stripe arm badge.
“Shoulda seen this guy. Kickin’ and scratchin’ while I’m draggin’ him through the dirt,” Slayter brags to anyone who listens. “So what do I do? I tased him in his balls, that’s what I did. That’s one way to fight our overpopulation problem.”
All the Collectors laugh, except Wade.
“Made sure his partner saw it too,” Slayter continues. “Not so tough when you’re about to lose your manhood.”
Off to the side at a small counter, Neil disposes used blood sample cartridges into a red biohazard container, then reloads his device with new ones.
Pinned to a bulletin board above the disposal station are four mugshots labeled MOST WANTED: Brock, Jace, Chelsea, and Leon. The four members are part of the group called
The Brigade
, a resistance organization publicly against the Agency. Adjacent to this is a killed in action (KIA) section with half a dozen photos of Collectors in uniform. For many of them their picture was taken on the day they received their first stripe on their arm badge.
“It’s not the job that breaks you down, it’s how you deal with it,” a voice says, sliding up to Neil at the counter. It’s Mazer. He clarifies, “Your rookie’s not laughing.”
Neil notices Wade separated from the group. “He passed evals, didn’t he?” Neil asks rhetorically.
“I know this is a hard job. He’s got to be able to laugh.” Mazer’s knack for worrying explains why he has salt-and-pepper grey hair. He takes his role with the Agency very seriously.
“What are you concerned about? You chose him. I trained him.”
“Just keep an eye on him. We need him on our side.” Mazer motions to the bulletin board, the number of killed Collectors greatly outnumbering the Brigade Leaders.
The Downtown Sector is a bustling urban zone with deteriorating skytowers packed too tightly together. Only scrolling tickers and digital billboards add any sort of color to the smog infested sector. SPARE LIVES BY SELLING YOURS appears on a ticker, while mugshots of the same four Brigade Leaders crowd a billboard screen.
Halfway up one of the skytowers is Neil’s apartment. Sleek and modern in design, a large glass window overlooks the neighboring skytowers illuminated at night.
Neil presses a DAILY RATIONS button to release a short burst of water in the shower. A digital display ticks down from 8L, 7L, 6L before the water shuts off. He presses the button again to bring another quick burst. 5L, 4L, 3L. It’s not much. Even Neil’s status as a Collector doesn’t warrant extra rations. The water drips from Neil’s body, highly decorated in faded scars, mostly memories from past assignments gone wrong and fights at Reform School. He grabs a towel.
Neil moves to the living room where a Newscaster reports on the television.
“Coming up, a bombing in Sector A claims the life of another Collector…”
Neil stops and stares at the image of Benson, a fellow Collector, side by side with the aftermath of an explosion. Just hours ago they were mingling in the bullpen back at Agency Headquarters, and now he’s dead. Neil knows tomorrow Benson’s photo will be removed from their roster and added to the bulletin board of those killed in action.
The Newscaster continues, “Though unconfirmed, sources say the Brigade again claims responsibility for the attack. More after the break.”
Neil remains stoic, no reaction. Danger is part of the job, while emotions are not.
An Agency infomercial takes over just as there’s a knock on the door. The soothing voice onscreen goes through a tempting pitch, “Before my partner sold his life, we had little money and too many mouths to find water for. Now, my kids and I are happy. Every day’s a joy!”
Neil opens the door to reveal Paulina, an Agency-issued call girl, barely twenty, gorgeous even with her body bundled in an overcoat. She eyes Neil’s dripping torso in the towel.
“Not wasting any time, are we?”
She brushes past him with two glass bottles of water in hand – shaped like bottles of wine – and sets them on the counter.
“I brought these to celebrate. The water’s still chilled.”
Neil furrows his brow, “What’s the occasion?”
Paulina removes her overcoat to reveal a satin black dress with lace garters. It’s sexy, but Neil doesn’t notice. Instead he shuts off the television just as the soothing voice is in the middle of the tagline, “Spare Lives By Selling—”
“It’s our last night,” Paulina says.
“Why? You volunteer?” Neil moves to a digital fish tank mounted on the wall and uses an interactive touchscreen to feed the virtual fish.
“God no. We’ve done four sessions already,” Paulina reminds him. “I don’t know who they will assign next, but I guarantee she won’t be as good.” Paulina slips her dress over her shoulder, seductively posing. “What do you say, Neil…Will you miss me?”
Neil finishes with his fish before looking at her, blunt. “No.”
Paulina drops the act, all business. “Good. You’d be in trouble if you did.” She struts towards the bedroom. “Let’s get on with this. I have other sessions tonight.”
Later in the bedroom, Neil thrusts Paulina from behind while she still wears the dress and lace garters. It’s nothing less than mechanical. Sweaty emotionless sex.
“I think it’s love,” Wade says as he smiles at Neil, his depressed demeanor from yesterday a thing of the past.
The two Collectors eat at a booth in a downtown diner –
Dani’s Diner
– each with a large glass of water in front of them. As before, they wear their black combat uniforms, which easily makes them stand out from the others, even from Security Enforcement Officers dressed in blue attire. Everyone knows the sleek black jumpsuit is the highest sign of power and authority.