Vending Machine Lunch (13 page)

Nothing could
stop him now.

Thank You For Helping Us Help You Help Us
All.

Johnston climbed out
of his pit of despair. That is what he called his bed, as all he
seemed to ever do in it was simply despair at the mess his life had
gotten into. Stretching his arms up he attempted to stifle a yawn
and scanned the grey interior of his flat. Nothing looked remotely
appealing or interesting and even when he opened the curtains and
let the dying light of the sun pour in, the room still seemed to
contain a certain un-healthiness to it. Perhaps it was the
resistance of the drab colours against the dying orange light of
the sun.

The clock read
that it was six. Johnston sighed, he'd overslept again. He coughed,
marbles rattling in his lungs. Still feeling rather groggy, he
forced himself into his work clothes, a black shirt and trousers.
Whilst buttoning the coarse material onto himself, Johnston stared
upon the land from his window. It was a decent view, or at least,
would have been if it had not been for the general ugly industrial
look of the landscape and the haze of misty rain that had decided
to decent onto the buildings above and below.

Opening the
refrigerator, Johnston grabbed a stale, greasy looking sandwich he
had left from the day before. He took a bite, his teeth sinking
through the rough bread and then down to the gristly meat. It
tasted like chicken but had the look and texture of beef. Johnston
didn't care, just so long as it filled his stomach. Grabbing his
leather coat, Johnston left the flat.

Seeing that the
lift was still out of order, Johnston took the grubby looking
stairs, hoping to God that he wasn't mugged by the local youths on
the way down. Eating his sandwich, he coughed again and spat out
something in-between solid and liquid onto the tiled steps.

Tree world! See the
world as your ancestors saw it!

That poster
always made Johnston chuckle. He was convinced that such a word,
'tree', was just made up. The image on the poster was an aerial
shot of what Johnston thought were green explosions. Or maybe
explosions later turned green with the use of photo editing.

Exiting the
block and coughing for a third time, Johnston's thoughts turned to
tobacco. Or rather, how much he craved it. Checking his jacket's
pockets as he walked through the misty drizzle, orange sunlight and
large building shadows, he searched for his pack of rolled
tobacco.

Dragging the
pack from an inside pocket, he pulled out a stick of rolled
tobacco, placed it between his lips and lit it with a flimsy
looking metal lighter. Coughing yet again, he inhaled his tobacco,
feeling a small sense of relaxation and happiness. Thanks to the
hazy rain, his tobacco was starting to get soggy as soon as he
exposed it to the land he lived in.

His thoughts
instantly turned to what lay ahead of him, after the short walk.
His job. Working at the Deimos facility hadn't been Johnston's
favourite place of work. The many regulations to follow, bizarre
hours of work, bureaucracy, a small sense that despite being one of
the two head regulators he was not in full control and finally,
Jacob.

Jacob was what
annoyed Johnston the most. His arrogance was at times, rather
unbearable. He was some big-headed nobody who somehow managed to
make it to be the second head regulator, a position equal to
Johnston's. However, for whatever reason, Jacob insisted on acting
like he was above Johnston on the work hierarchy. Furiously,
Johnston often clashed and argued with Jacob, often about
meaningless topic at the end of the day, but it still wound
Johnston up.

Johnston walked
past a row of beggars on the floor. Without looking at them, he
tossed a rupee towards them, still sucking furiously at his rolled
tobacco as he thought of Jacob. The beggars, all at once, scrambled
at the coin, beginning to fight over it. That was probably why
giving to beggars was strictly discouraged Johnston thought. Not
that anyone cared, you either gave to them or you didn't. No law or
advice of the government was going to change a thing.

His thoughts
were still on Jacob, furiously building up his mental hate for him
again. Even when it came to actual work decisions, Jacob often
tried to correct Johnston, arrogance floating in his eyes and words
as he did so. It was times like that when Johnston just felt like
landing a powerful punch into Jacob's face. Of course, he couldn't
do that and he simply wouldn't. He'd be given his notice of leave
pretty much immediately and would more than likely face Enforcer
charges of assault. That would be the last thing he wanted. But
just to show Jacob that he wasn't as amazing as he thought he was
would be fantastic for Johnston.

The sky was
rapidly growing darker. He coughed and threw his rolled tobacco on
the ground. The final pulls had become too soggy to smoke thanks to
the rapidly growing mist of rain that clouded his vision. He became
aware that he was also getting rather wet thanks to it. It wasn't
as if it was tipping it down, far from it. The moisture in the air
seemed to cling to anything it touched.

The rows of
buildings were beginning to die off, the constant supply of
pedestrian walkers, beggars and other people amongst were wearing
thin and the road was narrowing. Ahead of Johnston, maybe about a
mile away, was the Deimos facility. It was a metallic, cylindrical
structure that was more wide and long than it was tall. The entire
facility was surrounded by a large stretch of concrete nothingness
and then finally a large electrified and razor armed fence. Several
light blue search lights scanned the structure and sky around it
and the exterior of the facility appeared to be illuminated the
same light blue colour. Johnston continued along the thinning road,
now alone and approaching the dangerous fence.

No unauthorised
personnel beyond this notice. All trespassers will be Enforcer
charged and treated like any other criminal.

The red sign
strapped onto the fence was the only clue or recognition that this
was an important place. Not that people didn't know that already.
Everyone knew about the Deimos and Phobos facilities and they both
repelled people like the centre of a magnet does to iron filings.
People never stepped close, people never cared. What went on behind
the fence and the within the metal cylindrical structure was a
total mystery to the public. Well, apart from those involved. Which
included Johnston.

An unfriendly
looking guard guarded the only entrance gate. He was dressed
exactly the same as Johnston was, just without the leather jacket
and his uniform was blue instead of black. Johnston always wondered
why the one and only entrance in the fence was big enough to fit
vehicles through it, despite everyone who worked there walking or
taking the horrendous Metro. No-one who worked there had the rights
to a vehicle. His mind couldn't ever come up to a conclusion fast
enough, as the guard spoke.

"Alright there
Johnston?" he asked, his big lips smiling downwards in a friendly
sort of manner, "You're looking a little rough."

Johnston fished
for his work ID card in his jacket and displayed it to the guard.
The guard looked uninterested and opened the gate, a feeling of
boredom resonating from his body language.

"Just feeling a
bit tense," replied Johnston, shoving his ID card back into his
pocket and coughing loudly, spinning around to face the guard as he
walked through the large gate, "Nothing a sharp drink at the
Drinking Well can't fix. How’s the wife?"

"Still in the
intensive care unit," replied the guard, squinting at Johnston
"She's slowly improving."

"Give her my
regards won't you?" said Johnston, placing another stick of rolled
tobacco between his lips, "And I expect to see you in the Drinking
Well in the morning."

The guard
chuckled, "Alright buddy."

Johnston turned
around and faced the Deimos facility. It was a damn large
structure, he was almost quite proud on how quickly it had been
assembled and set up. Not quite his brain child, but certainly his
labour child. He lit his tobacco and strode towards the building
and a group of mingling people.

"Good evening
Johnston," said a short girl with poker straight dark hair and
large brown eyes, "You're looking a little peaky today."

"Nothing a
sharp drink can't solve Jaimie," said Johnston, sucking on his
tobacco, he turned to the other two men in the group, "Evening
Josh, Jacob," he nodded to the corresponding person.

"Johnston,"
said Jacob curtly, handing Johnston a clipboard that listed
information on the facilities daily maintenance report, "The
facility has been primed for trial run mark forty-six. We'll will
be attempting a sustained sequence of one hundred and ten percent
in the resonance chamber."

"One hundred
and ten percent?" queried Johnston, coughing slightly and taking a
pull of tobacco, "Is that not a bit steep for the time being? The
schedule demonstrates that we have plenty of time before such a
level of resonance should be tested. Other things can be
tested-"

"It has been
requested by higher authorities that we deviate off the original
testing schedule and speed it up so that a normal process can take
place sooner," said Jacob smugly.

"By higher
authority I trust you mean him? Our land's father?" said Johnston,
sighing slightly, "With all due respect to the guy, he needs to be
told that the testing schedule simply cannot be deviated from. The
schedule was drawn up by our scientists following every safety
precaution. To deviate would be extremely risky, especially since
this is experimental technology-"

"The leader has
requested it," interrupted Jacob, smiling slightly, "And therefore
we shall be fulfilling it."

Johnston sighed
despairingly and smoked a little more tobacco, "Well I guess I have
no choice. I can't say I agree with this though."

"Me neither,"
said Josh. Jaimie nodded her head in agreement.

A bell rang
loudly. It signalled the shift change. It was time for the day
workers to go home and the night workers to start working. A hurry
of people in blue shirts and trousers began.

Johnston began
walking towards the facility, smoking the remaining tobacco he had
in his roll and inspecting the data on the clipboard given to him.
The others followed him.

"Jaimie?" said
Johnston, pointing at a certain bit of data on the sheet, unwilling
to ask Jacob's opinion of his question, "It states here that there
was a small discrepancy at two this afternoon. Contamination. What
happened?"

"Whilst running
some pre-trial tests, an engineer found his scanner picked up a
small trace of external matter within the top shield filter of the
resonance chamber," said Jaimie, her hair bobbing up and down as
she walked, "After running further examinations and tests upon the
said discrepancy, it was discovered to be part human DNA and part
foreign."

"It has been
sent off to an independent scientist lab for further examination,"
said Josh, accidentally walking into a plume of smoke that escaped
Johnston's mouth.

"I thought I'd
requested it to be sent to a government run scientist lab,"
injected Jacob, narrowing his eyes at Josh, "You have betrayed a
direct order from a regulator-"

"Jacob calm
your head down," said an irritated Johnston, throwing the butt of
his tobacco down, coughing and passing the clipboard to Jaimie,
"Josh was right to send it to an independent facility. The
government would have just denied its existence or whatever. We
need actual results here, not just permission to continue
regardless of anything."

"Johnston, the
confidentiality contract-"

"-does not
mention anything about sending off samples to independent scientist
facilities," interrupted Johnston, getting more and more irritated
by Jacob's pointless arguing by the sentence, "I, myself encourage
such a thing. I'm trusting that Josh did not send the sample off to
the scientist facility stating it came from the Deimos
facility?"

"Nope," said
Josh.

"There we go,"
said Johnston, scowling slightly at Jacob, but feeling satisfied he
had won this particular battle of the on-going war of moral status
with Jacob, "The sample could be from the inside of someone's oven
for all they'd care. They just deliver the results, which is more
than what I can say for government scientists."

"The trial run
forty-six is scheduled in ten," said Jaimie, cutting a potential
argument short, "All interior workers will be expected to wear
com-link ear clips. Any com-link transmissions will be contained
within the interior walls of the facility by the transmission
barrier layer. In other words, once you guys are inside and the
trial run has started, you're on your own."

Johnston pulled
out his com-link ear clips and attached it to his right ear. It was
a simple mechanism, designed for easy long distance communication
between members of staff. Obviously, the long distance bit was
rather unnecessary, or so Johnston thought. The others followed
suit.

"Are the
exterior lights fixed," asked Johnston, looking at the many large
lights shining blue.

"Yes," said
Josh, "I had an engineer team work on them today. Apparently there
should be no problems from now on."

"That's what
they said last time," said Johnston, "Are you defiantly sure that
they have got the colour coding right? I know what these so called
engineers are like."

"I can't say
myself, however they assured me it was working perfect," said
Josh.

"Great," said
Johnston, stopping as he had now reached the entrance to the
facility's interior. It was a large metal hydraulic door, at the
moment, opened, the actual door itself hidden in the wall above the
large doorway. Everything in the place seemed to have a blue light,
dazzling Johnston. Yet again, this door was pointlessly big enough
for vehicles, however a lot of personnel did enter and exit the
facility during its 'neutral' periods for equipment tests and
maintenance.