Hugh Howey - Shift

There were a few hellos and waves as he worked his way towards the gates. Some porters he knew were loading sacks of fruits and vegetables to haul up to the cafeteria. He saw his aunt working one of the vending stalls outside the security gate. After giving up chipping, she now performed the questionably legal act of vending, something she’d never shadowed for and had no right to do. Mission did his best not to catch her eye; he didn’t want to get sucked into a lecture or have his hair mussed and his ’chief straightened.

Beyond the stalls, a handful of younger kids clustered in the far corner where it was dark, probably dealing seeds, not looking nearly as inconspicuous as they likely thought. The entire scene in the entrance hall was one of a second bazaar, of farmers selling direct, of people crowding in from distant levels to get food they feared would never make it to their shops and stores. It was fear begetting fear, crowds becoming throngs, and it was easy to see how mobs came next.

Working the main security gate was Frankie, a tall, lanky kid Mission had grown up with. Mission wiped his forehead with the front of his undershirt, which was already cool and damp with sweat. ‘Hey, Frankie,’ he called out.

‘Mission.’ A nod and a smile. No hard feelings from another kid who’d jumped shadows long ago. Frankie’s father worked in security, down in IT. Frankie had wanted to become a farmer, which Mission never understood. Their teacher, Mrs Crowe, had been delighted and had encouraged Frankie to follow his dreams. And now Mission found it ironic that Frankie had ended up working security for the farms. It was as if he couldn’t escape what he’d been born to do.

Mission smiled and nodded at Frankie’s shoulder-length hair. ‘Did someone splash you with grow quick?’

Frankie tucked his hair behind his ear self-consciously. ‘I know, right? My mother threatens to come up here and knife it in my sleep.’

‘Tell her I’ll hold you down while she does it,’ Mission said, laughing. ‘Buzz me through?’

There was a wide gate to the side for wheelbarrows and trolleys. Mission didn’t feel like squeezing through the turnstiles with the massive pump strapped to his back. Frankie hit a button, and the gate buzzed. Mission pushed his way through.

‘Whatcha haulin’?’ Frankie asked.

‘Water pump from Winters. How’ve you been?’

Frankie scanned the crowds beyond the gate. ‘Hold on a sec,’ he said, looking for someone. Two farmers swiped their work badges and marched through the turnstiles, jabbering away. Frankie waved over someone in green and asked if they could cover for him.

‘C’mon,’ Frankie told Mission. ‘Walk me.’

The two old friends headed down the main hall towards the bright aura of distant grow lights. The smells were intoxicating and familiar. Mission wondered what those same smells meant to Frankie, who had grown up near the fetid stink of the water plant. Perhaps this reeked to him the way the plant did to Mission. Perhaps the water plant brought back fond memories for Frankie, instead.

‘Things are going nuts around here,’ Frankie whispered once they were away from the gates.

Mission nodded. ‘Yeah, I saw a few more stalls had sprouted up. More of them every day, huh?’

Frankie held Mission’s arm and slowed their pace so they’d have more time to talk. There was the smell of fresh bread from one of the offices. It was too far from the bakery on seven for warm bread, but such was the new way of things. The flour was probably ground somewhere deep in the farms.

‘You’ve seen what they’re doing up in the cafeteria, right?’ Frankie asked.

‘I took a load up that way a few weeks ago,’ Mission said. He tucked his thumbs under his shoulder straps and wiggled the heavy pump higher onto his hips. ‘I saw they were building something by the wall screens. Didn’t see what.’

‘They’re starting to grow sprouts up there,’ Frankie said. ‘Corn too, supposedly.’

‘I guess that’ll mean fewer runs for us between here and there,’ Mission said, thinking like a porter. He tapped the wall with the toe of his boot. ‘Roker’ll be pissed when he hears.’

Frankie bit his lip and narrowed his eyes. ‘Yeah, but wasn’t Roker the one who started growin’ his own beans down in Dispatch?’

Mission wiggled his shoulders. His arms were going numb. He wasn’t used to standing still with a load — he was used to moving. ‘That’s different,’ he argued. ‘That’s food for climbing.’

Frankie shook his head. ‘Yeah, but ain’t that hypercritical of him?’

‘You mean hypocritical?’

‘Whatever, man. All I’m saying is everyone has an excuse. “We’re doing it because they’re doing it and someone else started it. So what if we’re doing it a little more than they are?” That’s the attitude, man. But then we get in a twist when the next group does it a little more. It’s like a ratchet, the way these things work.’

Mission glanced down the hall towards the glow of distant lights. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘The mayor seems to be letting things slide lately.’

Frankie laughed. ‘You really think the mayor’s in charge? The mayor’s scared, man. Scared and old.’ Frankie glanced back down the hall to make sure nobody was coming. The nervousness and paranoia had been with him since his youth. It’d been amusing when he was younger; now it was sad and a little worrisome. ‘You remember when we talked about being in charge one day? How things would be different?’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Mission said. ‘By the time we’re in charge, we’ll be old like them and won’t care any more. And then our kids can hate us for pulling the same crap.’

Frankie laughed, and the tension in his wiry frame seemed to subside. ‘I bet you’re right.’

‘Yeah, well, I need to go before my arms fall off.’ Mission shrugged the pump higher up his back.

Frankie slapped his shoulder. ‘Yeah. Good seeing you, man.’

‘Same.’ Mission nodded and turned to go.

‘Oh, hey, Mish…’

He stopped and looked back.

‘You gonna see the Crow anytime soon?’

‘I’ll pass that way tomorrow,’ he said, assuming he’d live through the night.

Frankie smiled. ‘Tell her I said hey, wouldya?’

‘I will,’ Mission promised.

One more name to add to the list. If only he could charge his friends for all the messages he ran for them, he’d have way more than the three hundred and eighty-four chits already saved up. Half a chit for every hello he passed to the Crow, and he’d have his own apartment by now. He wouldn’t need to stay in the way stations. But messages from friends weighed far less than dark thoughts, so Mission didn’t mind them taking up space. They crowded out the other. And Lord knew, Mission hauled his fair share of the heavier kind.

IT WOULD’VE MADE more sense and been kinder on Mission’s back to drop off the pump before visiting his father, but the whole point of hauling it up was so that his old man would see him with the load. And so he headed into the planting halls and towards the same growing station his grandfather had worked and supposedly his great-grandfather too. Past the beans and the blueberry vines, beyond the squash and the potatoes. In a spot of corn that appeared ready for harvest, he found his old man on his hands and knees looking how Mission would always remember him: with a small spade working the soil, his hands picking at weeds like a habit, the way a girl might curl her fingers in her hair over and over without even knowing she was doing it.

‘Father.’

His old man turned his head to the side, sweat glistening on his brow under the heat of the grow lights. There was a flash of a smile before it melted. Mission’s half-brother Riley appeared behind a back row of corn, a little twelve-year-old mimic of his dad, hands covered in dirt. He was quicker to call out a greeting, shouting ‘Mission!’ as he hurried to his feet.