C James - Dome Six

“Multimeal? Shit?” Aaron said with mock admonishment. “How dare you!”

“Seriously, why can’t we all just have regular food? Why do we only get whole food for good behavior?”

“What other carrots could they dangle?” Aaron joked. “Ha — carrots.”

“Have you ever done the math? Because I have.”

“What math?”

Owen calculated that three square meters of dense growth should be able to produce enough food to sustain an average adult. By that reckoning, they should have enough to feed 200,000 people. Even after backing out Tower 3, which grew only hemp, they seemed to produce a great deal more food than they used.

Maybe that was by design. Maybe the Stores under the Dome contained hidden rooms filled with food. The FPC did limited canning, so perhaps the surplus was preserved and stored for emergencies. But year after year? Decade after decade?

All rations were tracked by CHIT so one got more than they were supposed to. That all but eliminated the possibility that huge numbers of people were getting more than their share. It didn’t add up.

“Okay, okay,” Aaron said, nodding. “Interesting theory. So where’s it all go?”

“Break’s over!” barked Freddy.

Owen sighed and bounced his forehead on the railing. “How hard do you think I’d have to do this to kill myself?”

Aaron popped up to his feet and extended a hand toward Owen.

“No one gets off that easily,” he said, hoisting Owen up. They were both getting pretty strong.

Owen groaned and followed his friend back into the green, leafy rows. The team across from them were two knuckle draggers name Rick and Adan, whose goal apparently was to make everyone else as miserable as they were. They were in their late 20s and big. Normally they worked the other side of the level but it was impossible to avoid them all the time.

“You think you’re special?” Rick muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said. “Did you say something?”

“Fifteen minutes my ass. That was 20 at least.”

“Well I can’t speak for him but I was savoring my multimeal. It was really on point today,” Aaron quipped.

Neither of them even cracked a smile. “If 11 years in the Towers taught me one thing,” said Adan, “it’s that nobody gets special treatment. Nobody.”

“Well, kudos on learning one thing in 11 years,” said Aaron with a smirk. “That must be a personal record.”

Adan glared murderously at Aaron. They were total psychopaths, just itching for a fight. Owen tightened his grip on the crate in case he needed to defend himself, though it wasn’t much of a weapon.

“Let’s just get our work done, huh?” Owen offered. They were heading the other direction so that Rick, who also was harvesting, was about three meters away from Owen. Adan was right across from Aaron.

He immediately wished he hadn’t said anything. Now they were staring at him. Rick looked at Adan and nodded toward Owen. “Hey Welsh, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How’s your old man these days? Oh, that’s right. He went up in smoke.”

“Screw you, Rick,” Owen said.

“Don’t mind him,” Aaron said. “I heard he and his girl got denied a repro permit. I can’t imagine why.”

“I’d watch that smart mouth if I were you,” warned Adan.

“Sorry,” said Aaron, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll keep it to two syllables or less.”

Adan leapt across the row of plants and grabbed a handful of Aaron’s shirt, which immediately ripped. Rick made a halfhearted effort to rein him in while Owen struggled to break Adan’s iron grip on Aaron.

“Hey!” hollered Freddy, who hurriedly limped over from his post near the dump station. “Knock that shit off! Adan, let go of the kid or I’ll send you down in the next bucket.”

Adan didn’t let go.

“Now, I said!”

Finally he released Aaron’s shirt and let Rick help him back over the smushed seedlings, the front of his uniform now spotted with water and streaks of green. He angrily shrugged off Rick’s hands.

“It’s okay, Freddy,” said Owen, meeting Rick and Adan’s eyes. “Just a little disagreement is all.”

“Their break was 20 minutes at least,” said Rick.

“Not according to my clock,” replied Freddy with surety. “Anyway, you just wasted at least as much time with this bullshit. Now get the hell back to work, the lot of ya.”

Freddy had a way of dressing people down that made them want to comply. He was tough, but fair, and had no stomach for Rick and Adan.

“Yes sir,” said Owen.

Rick and Adan nodded in agreement, followed by Aaron, and Freddy limped stiffly away, mumbling obscenities. Owen tapped Aaron’s shoulder to break the angry gaze he still held with Adan before continuing their labors in silence.

What did Hideki feel? Not surprise, and not exactly disappointment. Maybe it was just old-fashioned frustration. On one hand, Tosh was right. His obsession with their parents’ disappearance was unhealthy. He rarely ate or slept, preferring the warm embrace of a Macro to the inconveniences of Dome routine. No one forced that on him.

Tosh powered up the tablet, found the data, and rendered it out over a schematic of the Dome. Her brow furrowed as she panned around it. Dek peered over her shoulder as she stepped through it minute by minute.

He worried that whatever they might see would further loosen his weak grip on sanity and send her down the same path to madness. But they both were bound to this same event. You could choose not to walk through a door, but it didn’t change what was on the other side.

The data was clear. Their father, at least, had been in the FPC the week prior to the drill. There was a multimeal shortage that week. Operational logs indicated the processor shut down for more than an hour, which meant shutting down not just the whole line, but the Towers, too. Hundreds of witnesses saw their father go into the FPC with Downing. When he emerged an hour or so later, he reportedly looked disoriented, had a brief conversation with Downing, and left.

The schematic of the FPC placed their father right next to the multimeal processor. The pulsing dot that represented his location didn’t move from that spot for nearly an hour, then it re-traced its path back to the main entrance. But it stopped just shy of the main door for almost three minutes before heading back out.

Maybe his father was repairing something on the processor. Maybe whatever had broken was just on the other side an access panel, and he stood in the same place that whole time. Maybe he and Downing simply talked before opening the door.

As thrilling as it was to see how that day unfolded, nothing in the data contradicted the Authority’s account of his father’s final days, nor did it offer a more plausible explanation.

After Tosh made him scrub, she went home, leaving him to ponder whether there were any stones left unturned. He didn’t sleep at all, tormented by all the questions he’d failed to answer.

The next day, he took the long way to the Stores to clear his head and get his blood moving. If Wade was really getting out of the illicit Macro business, that was a major problem. Macros were how he bought himself out of extra work, and even sometimes out of trouble with the Authority. Oh, they liked their Macros, too. Especially Administrator Keane before all that drama went down. The bottom line was, Macros got him access to the components he needed for his side project. Without them, he had nothing to trade.

As Tosh would say, one problem at a time. Wade got spooked, and he just needed to un-spook him.

When he arrived at the main entrance to the Stores, the Authority guard who rarely moved stood and came forward to meet him.