Hugh Howey: Second Shift - Order

But all had gone their separate ways. It was hard to remember who had done it first, who had shaken off the shadowing expected by their parents, but eventually most of them had. Like a group decision never discussed, like a dozen private revolutions. They had left home to choose a new fate. Sons of plumbers took up farming. Daughters of the cafe learned to sew. None of them bothered to ask how many of their parents had done the same. Everything felt new and unique, and so it had to be.

Mission remembered being angry when he left home. He remembered a fight with his father, throwing down his shovel, promising he’d never dig a trench again. He’d learned in the Nest that he could be anything he wanted, that he was in charge of his own fate. And so when he grew miserable, he assumed it was the farms that made him feel that way; he assumed it was his family.

He thought about his mother, about family he had never known, and a ring of fire burned around his neck, the remnants of a rope’s embrace.

He and Cam had flipped a dime back in Dispatch, heads for heads, and now Mission could feel a man’s shoulders pressed against his own. When he lifted his gaze to survey the steps ahead, the back of his skull met the crown of the dead man’s through the plastic bag—birthdays and deathdays pressed tight, two halves of a single coin.

Mission carried them both, that load meant for two. He took the stairs a pair at a time, a brutal pace, up toward the farm of his youth.

The coroner’s office was on the farm’s lower level, tucked away at the end of those dark and damp halls that wound their way beneath the roots. The ceiling was low in that half level. Pipes hung visible from above and rattled angrily as pumps kicked on and moved nutrients to distant and thirsty roots. Water dripped from dozens of small leaks into buckets and pots. A recently emptied pot banged metallic with each strike. Another overflowed. The floors were slick, the walls damp like sweaty skin.

Inside her office, the boys lifted the body onto a slab of dented metal, and the coroner signed Mission’s work log. She tipped them for the speedy delivery, and when Cam saw the extra chits, his grumpiness over the pace dissolved. Back in the hallway, he bid Mission good day and splashed toward the exit to find some vice to pair with the bonus.

Mission watched him go, feeling much more than a year older than his friend. Cam hadn’t been told of the evening’s plans, the midnight rendezvous of porters. This seemed to set them apart, his being privy to adult and dangerous things. It made him envy Cam for what the boy didn’t know.

Not wanting to arrive at the farms deadheading and have his father lecture him on laziness, Mission stopped by the maintenance room to see if anything needed carrying up. Winters was on duty, a dark man with a white beard and a knack with pumps. He regarded Mission suspiciously and claimed he hadn’t the budget for portering. Mission explained he was going up anyway and that he was glad to take anything.

“In that case,” Winters said. He hoisted a monstrous water pump onto his workbench.

“Just the thing,” Mission told him, smiling.

Winters narrowed his eyes as if Mission had worked a bolt loose.

The pump wouldn’t fit inside his porter’s pack, but the haul straps on the outside of the pack looped nicely across the jutting pipes and sharp fittings. Winters helped him get his arms through the straps and the pump secured to his back. He thanked the old man, which drew another worried frown, and set off and up the half level. Back at the stairwell, the odor of mildew from the wet halls faded, replaced by the smell of loam and freshly tilled soil, scents of home that yanked Mission back in time.

The landing on nineteen was crowded as a jam of people attempted to squeeze inside the farms for the day’s food. Standing apart from them was a mother in farmer green cradling a wailing child. She had the stains on her knees of a picker and the agitated look of one sent out of the grow plots to soothe her noisy brood. As Mission crowded past, he heard between the baby’s cries the words of a familiar nursery rhyme. The mother rocked the child frightfully close to the railing, the infant’s eyes wide with what looked to Mission like unadulterated fear.

He worked his way through the crowd, and the cries from the infant receded amid the general din. It occurred to Mission how few kids he saw anymore. It wasn’t like when he was young. There had been an explosion of newborns after the violence the last generation had wrought, but now it was just the trickle of natural deaths and the handful of lottery winners. It meant fewer babies crying and fewer parents rejoicing.

With much cajoling and claiming the passage of a porter, he eventually made it through the doors and into the main hall. Using his ‘chief, Mission wiped the sweat from his lips. He’d forgotten to top up his canteen a level below, and his mouth was dry. The reasons for pushing so swift a pace felt silly now. It was as if his looming birthday were some deadline to beat, and so the sooner he visited and got away the better. But now in the wash of sights and sounds from his childhood, his dark and angry thoughts melted. It was home, and Mission hated how good it felt to be there.

There were a few hellos and waves as he worked his way toward 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. 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 were next.

Working the main security gate was Frankie, a tall and skinny 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 hair. “Did someone splash you with grow quick?”

Frankie tugged on his locks, which were nearly down to his shoulders. “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 wider 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. Sweat dripped from Mission’s nose. Frankie waved over someone in green and asked if they could cover for him while he went to the bathroom.