“Long before you and I, my friend.”
“And where do I fit into all of this?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Maz said. “They didn’t tell me what your exact job will be but I suspect you’ll be working in one of the boiler rooms. I know they’ve been struggling to keep them fully staffed lately.”
“There’s one thing I don’t get. What about the ashes? My wife dropped off an urn. Hell, I still have my father’s ashes back home on a bookshelf.”
“Your wife will get that urn back and it’ll be full. Just won’t be you that’s in it.”
“Who then?” Hank asked.
“A mix of a dozen others. Probably more. The technology involved in the pods is good, but not that good. The bodies are held in a solution that’s pretty dang toxic. Seeps through the skin and into the bloodstream. It slowly dissolves the tissue and after a month or two, the heart and rest of the organs just give out. The body is pulled out, cremated, and added to the general stock of ashes.”
Maz gently placed his hand on Hank’s shoulder. “I know it’s an awful lot to take in at once, Hank. I must seem pretty nonchalant about it to you, but this has been my life for over twenty years. You’ll be okay, trust me. Just remember, when you woke up yesterday you were fully expecting to die.”
“But I can never go home again, can I? Never see my family?”
“Afraid not. You’ll never have contact with the outside world for the rest of your life.”
Hank rubbed his arm where the needle pierced his skin. It felt like a lifetime ago. “Then I may as well be dead.”
“Try not to think of it that way. You’ve got a second chance. It’ll take a while, but you’ll adapt.”
Hank slowly nodded. “I…I’m not sure what to think. This all seems like a bad dream.”
“Tell ya what,” Maz clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “How about we get you out of this depressing room and into some real clothes? I just can’t get comfortable talking to man with his ass hanging out of the back of a gown.”
Maz let out another one of his loud hacking laughs and Hank found himself joining him. He still didn’t feel very well and his mind was spinning from the last few minutes, but he was alive. For now, he was glad for that.
Chapter 6
Maz led Hank out of the recovery room and down the hall. He stopped at a door marked 34R and gently rapped on it with his knuckles. “Here we go, Hank. Home sweet home.”
It was the size of a typical bedroom consisting of bare cinder block walls and no windows. There was a bed, chest of drawers, closet, and a reclining easy chair pointed at a small television. A three piece bathroom completed the simple dwelling.
“You’ll find three work shirts hanging in your closet and two pairs of shoes on the floor,” Maz said. “The top drawer holds five boxer shorts, five undershirts, five pairs of socks, and one pair of sweatpants. Drawer under that, two pairs of work pants. Laundry room is down the hall on the left.”
Hank slowly walked through the room, taking it in. It was simple but everything was clean and in good condition. He paused under the ceiling vent, enjoying the cool air pumping into the room. It was a nice change from the stifling heat of his apartment.
Maz stood in the doorway. “I’ll let you get cleaned up and dressed. I’ll be back in a little bit and we’ll continue your tour, get you a bite to eat.”
Hank placed his hand over his stomach. “Sounds good, I am getting pretty hungry.”
“Great. Just go in with low expectations and you’ll find the food in the cafeteria to be entirely edible.” Maz closed the door behind him, masking the sound of his hacking laugh as he walked down the hallway.
Hank entered the shower and was surprised by the lack of a water gauge on the faucet. As the hot water washed over his body he thought that any place with air conditioning and unlimited water couldn’t be too bad. He showered for fifteen glorious minutes, the longest he’d ever bathed in his life, and finally turned off the water.
After toweling off he got dressed in the same khaki uniform Maz wore and sat down in his recliner to check out the television. It offered a modest selection of what appeared to be internal channels, not the standard networks he had back home. He flipped through a few different movies and sitcoms before a knock at the door interrupted him.
Maz greeted him and led Hank down the hall to the cafeteria. A handful of other khaki-clad men, all older than Hank, sat at a table in the corner, but otherwise the room was empty. Maz explained it was in the middle of a shift and most of the other men were working. “Dinner service won’t be for a few hours, but they have some sandwiches in the case over here,” said Maz.
Hank chose a cold meatloaf sandwich and a bag of chips. He sat down at an empty table as Maz brought them cups of coffee. Hank looked around the room. “So where is this place, exactly?”
“Now that’s a good question. You ever figure that one out and you’ll win the grand prize.” Another hacking laugh as Maz took a sip of his synthetic coffee. “Nobody knows for sure but we all have our theories. Underground, Antarctica, middle of the desert. One guy I know insists we’re on the bottom of the ocean. There isn’t a single window in the place, so your guess is as good as mine.”
Hank took a big bite of his sandwich. It was a bit bland and soggy, but he ate it with enthusiasm. “You mentioned earlier I’d be working in a boiler room. Doing what exactly?”
“You’ll find out when we meet with the lieutenant.” Maz checked his watch. “He wanted to see you in about twenty minutes.”
“Lieutenant?”
“That’s right. The Army Corps of Engineers runs this place and Lieutenant Hendricks is the head honcho.” Maz glanced at the table in the corner of the room and lowered his voice. “Just between you, me, and the wallpaper, he’s a real asshole. Rumor has it he was a captain before getting demoted. Used to be an infantry company commander, but every time his unit came under fire he panicked and made bad decisions. I guess he made one too many mistakes and was transferred here after getting bumped down a pay grade. And you can be sure he’s still pissed about it.”
“What’s an infantry officer doing running a power plant?” Hank asked.
Maz shrugged. “I guess they had to stick him someplace. It’s not much more than a babysitting job for him and his men.”
Hank finished up his meal and Maz showed him around the rest of the complex. The area they were currently in was known as the commons. Besides the living quarters and cafeteria, the commons housed a recreation room with a lounge area and pool table. Maz explained poker night was every Friday and cribbage tournaments were starting to become popular lately. Down the hall, an exercise room with a few treadmills, elliptical machines, and free weights were available for any of the elderly men interested in getting some exercise. It was dark and empty.
A movie played every Saturday night and each worker was issued a tablet, although it was only loaded with the plant’s library of books and outdated periodicals. No email or Internet access for obvious reasons.
Like Hank’s room, the commons was clean and orderly but void of any decorations or artwork. And like Maz said, not a window in the place.
After the grand tour, Maz took Hank to meet Lieutenant Hendricks. His office was in the administrative wing where the army staff lived and worked. Compared to the commons, it was an aesthetic step-up. The floors were carpeted and the doors wooden. Recessed lighting instead of harsh fluorescent fixtures. Along the way, they passed several soldiers. The young men were dressed in black fatigues free of any insignia except for an ID badge with their last name and rank.
Maz stopped at Hendricks’s open office door. He cleared his throat and knocked twice on the door jamb. “Sir?”
Hendricks sat at his desk, frowning at the tablet in front of him. “Yes?” He didn’t look up.
“This is Hank Reed. You said you wanted to see him?”
The lieutenant finally looked up. He looked like the typical career military man Hank was expecting. Probably around thirty years old with an athletic build. Clean shaven, short hair. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. Stared at Hank with his bright blue eyes before looking back down at his tablet. “Reed. I looked over your file this morning. Have you toured the commons?”
“Yep.”
Hendricks clenched his jaw shut. “Mazanghetti, it’s my understanding you’re to inform all new recruits that officers in this facility are to be addressed as
sir
. Was I not clear about that?”
“Yes, Sir,” Maz said. “Perfectly clear.
“Then you either failed to do your job properly or Reed can’t follow simple instructions. Which is it?” He looked to Hank for answers.
“It’s my fault,” Maz said. “I don’t believe I mentioned that, and it won’t happen again. Sir.”
Hendricks stared down Maz for a moment before turning his attention back to Hank. Hank shifted the weight on his feet and swallowed. His lunch wasn’t sitting too well and if the lieutenant’s main goal was to make him uncomfortable, then he was going a great job.
“I’m assigning you to boiler room four,” Hendricks said. “Mazanghetti will show you where it is. You’ll be working first shift. That’s 0700 to 1500, six days a week. Your partner’s name is Seamus Carver and he’ll train you. Any questions?”
Hank only had about three dozen, but he shook his head. “No, Sir.”
“Very well. Dismissed, gentlemen.”
Maz led Hank back into the commons and slapped him on the back. “You did fine, Hank. Don’t worry too much about Hendricks. Just give him plenty of
no sirs
and
yes sirs
and you’ll be alright.”
Hank sighed. “Yeah, he seems to take a special interest in how people address him. Is he that uptight about everything?”
Maz chuckled. “Afraid so. Come on, I’ll show you where to go tomorrow morning.”
Hank spent the rest of the day alone in his room. He was exhausted, physically and emotionally. He flipped through the few channels on his TV, eyes on the screen but his mind elsewhere as he struggled with the turn his life had taken.
Chapter 7
John Sanderson paused at the front door of AscentTech, an IT consulting firm on a quiet street once known for high tech businesses and upscale retail. The neighborhood used to be called “Little Wall Street” due to the many investment firms crammed into just a few blocks. Now all the brokerage houses and banks were closed. The trendy restaurants and shops that catered to them followed soon after.
John punched in his after hours key code and let himself in. He passed the empty receptionist desk and made his way through the block of cubicles and offices, filled with unused furniture and office supplies. It was all staging for the main purpose of the building - a two inch thick steel door on the back wall of the mop closet.
He placed his palm over the bar code scanner next to the door and waited as the lock mechanism released and the door opened. As he descended the steps to the underground tunnel below, Sanderson rubbed his eyes. It was late and he was beat. Unfortunately, “late” had no meaning in his line of work. He stayed until the task at hand was done and only then could he go home. Not always on the same day.
His footsteps echoed through the tunnel, almost three city blocks long, that connected the sham of a tech company to the District Three Federal building on the other end. The area of the building Sanderson and his fellow operators worked out of wasn’t even accessible from the rest of the building. Few of the hundreds of workers that surrounded them knew that the walled off corner of the building and the department within even existed.
He checked his watch and placed his hand over his rumbling stomach. He’d have to grab a sandwich from the vending machine, also known around the office as The Wheel Of Death due to it’s rotating display case. He could’ve been home having a late dinner with Sara, but thanks to the botched job outside the newspaper office he had at least a solid hour of paperwork to get through. The suits would be demanding a detailed report first thing in the morning and Sanderson wasn’t in the business of disappointing the suits.
He climbed the steps at the end of the tunnel and entered the building. The second shift security officer’s eyes lit and she hung up the phone. “Oh, good. Brother Young wants to see you in his office, right away.”
“He’s still here?”
“He’s been trying to get through on your phone for the past hour.”
John frowned and dug the phone out of his pocket, checked the display. “Nothing. I’ve had it with this piece of shit. How do they expect us to get anything done when they issue us this ancient garbage?”
The security officer shrugged and returned to the half-finished crossword on her tablet. “He ran upstairs a minute ago but told me to have you wait in his office if you showed up.”
Sanderson went to Young’s office and collapsed in the plush leather chair in front of the desk. He never felt quite comfortable in his boss’s office. It was meticulously decorated and elegant, a far cry from his bland cubicle down the hall. Maybe that’s why it didn’t sit well with him.
He closed his eyes and yawned. Before the newspaper informant job, he’d been in the field for three days straight and hadn’t gotten much sleep along the way. That was the life of an operator. With little notice he was expected to deploy anywhere in his jurisdiction. He used to be able to take it in stride, but lately, he felt much older than his twenty-eight years.
The United Federation of Nations controlled almost seventy percent of the world’s population. Not all of that control was kept peacefully. Almost none of it ethically. Sanderson had been an operator for almost ten years and in that time saw some pretty terrible things the State was responsible for. These acts were kept from the public at all cost and that’s where people like him came in. If somebody knew something they shouldn’t, it was his job to make them forget before they passed it on. Silence at all costs.
It wasn’t an easy job, but he was good at it, quickly thriving and rising through the ranks early in his career. He enjoyed the perks and pay of being part of an elite organization. Enjoyed the excitement when so many around him held meaningless and mind-numbing jobs that made them miserable. Or no job at all.