MARTians (11 page)

I don’t think anyone ever taught him how to play.

“I get why they didn’t take you, Timmer, but why did they leave 5er with you?”

“What?”

“Your family, when they left. Why didn’t they take 5er?”

“Oh, man, no. He’s not . . . We’re not . . . I
found
5er, just like I found you. I pulled an inventory shift, and it went real long. It was way past midnight when I came out. I was planning to go to Terra Incognita — like I did sometimes. Just driving home, you know, it felt normal. And I wanted to feel that. The parking lot was nearly deserted, except for the few cars in the far-awayest corners where people were trying to sleep.

“So I saw a pile of stuff on the curb by the exit ramp. I thought probly it was bag of garbage — but it coulda been useful, like a lost coat or something. So I was going to check it out. It might be useful. But when I started walking toward it, it moved. So I figured it was alive, a raccoon, maybe, or a small dog. I still thought, hey, check it out. I wouldn’t get too close. What if it had rabies? And if it was a dog, though, and it wasn’t bitey, it might appreciate a little petting — as long as it didn’t have open sores or smell really bad.

“But when I went over close, I could see it wasn’t a sick raccoon or a lonely puppy. It was a kid.

“Man, I think it woulda been easier to tame a rabid raccoon. I took me an hour to get him to say hi and tell me he was 5er. Then I had to sit there and ask a kajillion questions until I figured out he was waiting for his family. My butt was sore and cold from sitting on that curb, but I couldn’t get that kid to budge. Damn! 5er was
rooted
to that cement. If I hadn’t figured out the plan of leaving a sign for his family, we probly woulda been sitting in that sad place all night long. For the next week or so, he spent nights at the Warren and days on the curb, waiting. Then I argued him around to changing the sign so it tells them to come here if they want to find 5er. It’s a nicer place to wait, and he can watch the lost and stolen child reports. Just in case.”

“The lost and stolen child reports? Has he been reported? I mean by
you
? Shouldn’t
you
report him to . . .” I was going to say the police, but then I thought about the black body armor and the invisible faces. “You could report him to AllMART security. They would know what to do.”

“But we already know what to do,” says Timmer. “We let him wait. That’s what he needs. That’s what he wants. He needs us to help him wait. His family didn’t mean to leave him. It was an accident. They were traveling in four cars. One went East, one West, one North, and one South. The plan was to join up again when somebody found work. When that happens, 5er’s family will all get together again. Somebody will count noses and notice he’s gone. 5er just has to wait it out.”

“Why doesn’t he talk? I mean, if he told you that stuff about the four cars . . .” Suddenly I wonder if he did. Maybe Timmer just made this up, and none of it is the real story of that little boy we call 5er at all. Maybe 5er isn’t even his name. “Why doesn’t he talk now?”

Timmer shrugs. “What does he have to say? I mean, maybe talking makes it worse.”

“How is it? Living in the dormatorium here?”

I’m working with Belly, stocking groceries and tidying shelves. It is not exciting work, but I like it better than working soft goods, where trainees like me always get stuck with the dressing room cleanup. At first I thought that little task was going to be easy: Just collect the clothes, put them neatly on the right kind of hanger, and wheel the rack full of tried-ons out to replace them on the floor.

That’s not how it is.

It turns out that customers use the fitting rooms for toilets. It is much easier to get access to the fitting rooms than the public facilities. There is less of a line. Customers with urgent needs walk in, shut the door to the privacy-guaranteed changing room, and then walk out relieved. A shift in soft goods means suiting up in hazard gloves, scooping messes, and sanitizing surfaces. Janitorial visits once a day to mop up and wash away the graffiti smeared on the mirrors.

Soft goods is nasty, but stocking shelves with cans of fish products is boring and involves a lot of reaching and twisting. Talking makes work go faster, but Belly and I don’t have many shared interests. She complained about the quality of the shopping music, which she says sucks. I explained that the music is carefully selected to increase the serotonin levels in the shoppers’ brains, which makes them happier and more likely to linger and buy things. Belly said, “It still sucks!” Then she complained about how the new deodorant she bought is crumbly and smells like suck. Since I’m not in the market for deodorant at the moment, I just let that slide and shifted the subject to living in the AllMART trainee dorms. After all, Timmer’s rabid commitment to living in an abandoned laundromat is based on loyalty to Raoul, not the actual quality of the living situation.

“It sucks,” says Belly, but she says that about everything up to and including the free sample-size energy drink they handed us at the door this morning. She said that sucked and there wasn’t enough of it in that “inky-dinky” bottle either.

I wait for her to elaborate. Even though there are two settings on Belly’s world perspective — sucks and sucks infinity — she always explains. I’m learning from Belly.

“Living here sucks all of the sucking.” Belly groans. “I have
zero
social life now. Sorry, Zero, no offense. The guys are all jerks, ugly jerks. We aren’t allowed to go anywhere. It’s straight from work to the dorms. We each have an inky-dinky bed and an even inkier-dinkier locker. Dinner comes out of the Eateria and there’s no choice about it. We have to clean our own showers. During time off all there is to do is stare at a screen and sit on the couch. And we don’t even get the good TV channels. And the only thing allowed through the spam filters is online classes at Unicorn. As if!”

It doesn’t sound so terrible to me. That was what my life used to be like on Terra Incognita Circle: I went straight home after school. I ate food. I cleaned up after myself. I studied. I sat on the couch and stared at the screen. It didn’t suck. I had my AnnaMom. It was wonderful.

The shelf in front of me is empty. It’s supposed to be full of tuna cans, the small, flat cans of grated, packed-in-oil fish. I check the cart beside me, but there isn’t product to replace it. I have several cartons of canned octopus, but the shelf space for canned octopus is full.

“Belly, I’m going to call for supervisor advice.” I stare at the empty shelf.

“Why?”

“I don’t have the right product —” There is a meaty, thunking
crash,
and my back is pelted with gobs of wet. When I turn around, there is Belly, on the floor, in a puddle of blood and green. The label on the broken glass says “Pickle Relish.”

I touch my phone and the sound goes over the intercom: “Emergency assistance Aisle 27, groceries. Cleanup on Aisle 27. Help! Please, help!”

“Were the two of you talking while you worked?” Human Resources Manager Dawna Day’s hands hover over the tablet where she is compiling the accident report.

“Yes,” I say. “I mean, a little. It makes the work go faster.”

“What did you talk about?”

“It was work related.” This is true, generally.

“Work related? Are you sure Belly didn’t say anything else?”

I’ve already given her the best answer, but I can see she wants something different. “I asked Belly if she knew if the tuna girl custody case had been decided. I was stocking cans of tuna, and that made me think about it — the tuna-custody case,” I say. “You know, the one on the news? I asked her if that poor girl’s family had closure yet. It’s such a sad story.” I blink my eyes hard and a little tear squeezes out. Human Resources Dawna hands me a tissue. The conversation pauses.

“You are Belly’s friend.” Human Resources Dawna leans forward and tilts her head to one side. Her voice is tender but steady and targeted. Her voice is a nurse picking shards of glass out of a wound. “If she needs help, you need to tell me so I can get her the help she needs.”

Human Resources Dawna pauses. The room is very quiet.

“Zoë, does Belly use drugs?”

“What? No.”

“When I just talked to her she seemed very disoriented. Out of it. You know?”

“I think that was because of the jar that landed on her head. It was heavy. It knocked her down.”

“But why did the jar fall? Could it be that Belly was careless? If she wasn’t paying attention, maybe that’s an indication that she might have been under the influence of something. . . .”

“It just fell off the top shelf and BOOM! There was no way she could have seen it coming. I mean, her attention was on the shelf she was stocking — the lower shelf.”

“Did you
see
what happened?”

I think about my answer carefully before I speak. “No. I was working on the opposite shelf.”

“So you couldn’t have seen what happened.”

“I know she was kneeling.”

“You know what the saying here at AllMART is about accidents? Accidents don’t just happen. Accidents happen because someone isn’t doing her job correctly. Safety is everyone’s job. The surveillance will show exactly what occurred.”

I know the cameras don’t pick up sound — just visuals. The record will show that we were working as I described. It will not reveal that I was probing Belly for information about life in the welcoming shelter of AllMART’s dorms.

“But Zoë, never say ‘Help’ on the intercom. It confuses the customers. It makes them curious. They come to see what’s happening, and that makes it harder for the First Aid responder to do her work. Ask for cleanup. No one is ever curious about cleanup. I know it’s hard to remember that in an emergency, so I’m just giving you a reminder this time, not a reprimand. Don’t worry, Zoë. There are no black marks on your record.”

“Thank you.” I sound genuinely grateful because I am. I am genuinely grateful that this interview is over. I pause in the doorway as I leave to return to work. “Ma’am? What should I do with all the octopus? There is no room on the shelves for octopus. And I don’t have the tuna to put in the empty spots.”

Dawna Day looks up; that twitch across her face and intake of breath mean the question isn’t welcome. She answers it anyway: “Just fill the empty places with the octopus. And strip the tuna price tabs off the shelf. We want to avoid confusing the customers. I’ll tell marketing to push octopus.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say. And then I go back to the aisle, which smells of pickle relish, and do exactly as I’ve been told.

My phone trembles.

It is set on work mode: I only receive alerts that pertain to work — and messages from WARREN — and AnnaMom, who will call. I get work-related messages all day long:

. . . and . . .

I tap the link to my account, press my thumb to the screen, and enter my PIN: 1226. A to Z, Anna to Zoë.

I think I must have checked too soon. I don’t have any money.

No. That isn’t correct. I have
less
than no money. I am overdrawn. Even the little bit of lunch money I had left in my account when school ended is gone. That money didn’t even cover the cost of my physical. Blood tests are expensive. I trained, and I worked, and I have nothing to show for it. No. I have the debt I owe on my AllMART uniform. It cost a shocking lot.

When were still doing classroom training, we got some helpful budgeting advice from Pearl the Squirrel. She showed us how we could
$trrreeeetch!
our paychecks by shopping AllMART deals. Pearl bought nuts and berries, but only after comparison-shopping and checking to see if she had digital coupons. There was a real happy ending at the checkout stand. But Pearl the Squirrel is an animated cartoon animal. She doesn’t wear clothes. That may explain why the cost of the shirt on my back wasn’t included in the budget.