Second Shift - Order

turned them over, back and forth. She studied them as if they belonged to another.

“I see time,” Mission blurted out, not sure where the thought came from. He tore his eyes away, suddenly finding her skin to be grotesque. Like shriveled potatoes found deep in the soil long after harvest time. He hated himself for feeling it.

“Time, sure,” Mrs. Crowe said. “There’s time here aplenty. But there’s remnants, too. I remember things being better, once. You think on the bad to remind yourself of the good.”

She studied her hands a moment longer as if looking for something else. When she lifted her gaze and peered at Mission, her eyes were shining with sadness. Mission could feel his own eyes watering, partly from discomfort, partly due to the somber pall that had been cast like a cold and wet blanket over the conversation. It reminded him that today was his birthday, a thought that tightened his neck and emptied his chest. He was sure the Crow knew what day it was. She just loved him enough not to say.

“I was beautiful, once, you know.” Mrs. Crowe withdrew her hands and folded them in her lap. “Once that’s gone, once it leaves us for good, no one will ever see it again.”

Mission felt a powerful urge to soothe her, to tell Mrs. Crowe that she was still beautiful in plenty of ways. She could still make music. Could paint. Few others remembered how. She could make children feel loved and safe, another bit of magic long forgotten.

“When I was your age,” the Crow said, smiling, “I could have any boy I wanted.”

She laughed, dispelling the tension and casting away the shadows that had fallen over their talk, but Mission believed her. He believed her even though he couldn’t picture it, couldn’t imagine away the wrinkles and the spots and the long strands of hair on her knuckles. Still, he believed her. He always did.

“The world is a lot like me, you know.” She lifted her gaze toward the ceiling and perhaps beyond. “The world was beautiful once, too.”

Mission sensed an Old Time story brewing like a storm of clouds. More lockers were slammed in the hallway, little voices gathering.

“Tell me,” Mission said, remembering the hours that had passed like eyeblinks at her feet, the songs she sang while children slept. “Tell me about the old world.”

The Old Crow’s eyes narrowed and settled on a dark corner of the room. A deep breath rattled in her once- proud chest. Her lips, furrowed with the wrinkles of time, parted, and a story began, a story Mission had heard a thousand times before. But it never got old, visiting this land of the Crow’s imagination. And as the little ones skipped into the room, they too fell silent and gathered around. They slipped into their tiny desks and followed along with the widest of eyes and the most open of unknowing minds these tales of a world, once beautiful, and now fairly forgotten.

•11•

The stories Mrs. Crowe made up were straight from the children’s books. There were blue skies and lands of green, white clouds and rainbows, animals like dogs and cats but bigger than people. Juvenile stuff. And yet, these fantastic tales of a better place somewhere impossibly distant left Mission feeling angry at the world he was stuck with. He thought this as he left the Up Top behind and wound his way past the farms and the levels of his youth. The promise of an elsewhere highlighted the flaws of the familiar. He had gone off to be a porter, to fly away and be all that he wished, and what he wished was to be further away than this world would allow.

These were dangerous thoughts. They reminded him of his mother and where she had been sent seventeen years ago to the day.

Past the farms, Mission noted something burning further down the silo. The air was hazy, and there was the bitter tinge of smoke on the back of his tongue. A trash pile, maybe. Someone who didn’t want to pay the fee to have it ported to recycling. Or someone who didn’t think the silo would be around long enough to need to recycle.

It could be an accident, of course. It could be a legitimate danger. But that’s not where Mission’s mind went. Nobody thought that way anymore. He could see it on the faces of those on the stairwell. He could see by the way belongings were clutched, children sheltered, that the future of everything was in doubt. There hadn’t been nearly as much new graffiti lately. Even the delinquents had begun to wonder: What’s the point?

Mission adjusted his light pack and hurried down to the IT levels. He remembered his father’s talk of restoring the silo after the last outbreak of violence. There were physical things to patch, like the stairwell, but the population, too. Physical explosions led to population explosions. Record numbers of lottery winners followed the fighting. His father spoke of so many bodies to dispose of that the airlock had been employed, the great flames cremating the dead by the score, their ashes set loose to blur the view. It made clear the link between life and death, that each birth was owed to another’s passing. The difference with Mission was that he knew who that other person was.

He reached IT and pushed his way through a crowd on landing thirty-four. It was mostly boys his age or a little older, many that he recognized, a lot from the mids. Several who didn’t match this profile stood with computers tucked under their arms, wires dangling, jostling with the rest. Mission picked his way through the throng. A computer was dropped, which led to shouting and shoving. Inside, he found a barrier had been set up just beyond the door. Two men from Security manned the temporary gate and allowed only crumpled IT workers through.

“Delivery,” Mission shouted. He worked his way to the front, carefully extracting the note Mrs. Crowe had written. “Delivery for Officer Jeffery.”

One of the security men took the note. Mission was pressed against the barrier by those behind. A woman who belonged was waved through. She hurried toward the proper security gate leading into the main hall, smoothing her coveralls with obvious relief. There were crowds of young men being given instructions in one corner of the wide hall. They stood at attention in neat rank and file, but their eyes were wide as the stairwell.

“What the hell is going on?” Mission asked, as the barrier was parted for him.

“What the hell isn’t?” one of the security guards rejoined. “Power spike last night took out a load of computers. Every one of our techs is pulling a double. There’s a fire down in Mechanical or something, and some kinda violence up in the farms. Did you get the wire?”

Mechanical. That was a long way away to nose a fire. And word was out about last night’s raid, making him self-conscious of the cut on his nose. “What wire?” he asked.

The security guard pointed to the groups of boys. “We’re hiring. New techs.”

All Mission saw were young men, and the guy talking to them was with Security, not IT.  The security guard handed back the note to Mission and pointed toward the main security gate. The woman from earlier was already beeping her way through, a large and familiar bald head swiveling to watch her ass as she headed down the hall.

“Thanks,” Mission said to the guard, hurrying away from the crush of people. “Sir?” he called out as he approached the gate.

Jeffery turned his head, the deep wrinkles and folds of flesh disappearing from his neck.

“Hmm? Oh—” he snapped his fingers, trying to place the name.

“Mission.”

He wagged his finger. “That’s right. You need to leave something with me, porter?” He held out a palm but seemed disinterested.

Mission handed him the note. “Actually, I have orders from Mrs. Crowe to deliver it in person.” He pulled the sealed envelope with the crossed-out names from his courier pouch. “Just a letter, sir.”

The old guard glanced at the envelope, then continued reading the note addressed to him. “Rodny isn’t available.” He shook his head. “I can’t give you a timeframe, either. Could be weeks. You wanna leave it with me?”

Again, an outstretched palm; this time with more interest. Mission pulled the envelope back warily. “I can’t. There’s no way I can just hand it to him? This is the Crow, man. If it were the Mayor asking me, I’d say no