Fae
My mornings always started the same way. At the first beep of my alarm, I would rise from my thin mattress. The air in the small rectangular box I called home would always be cold. I would go to cupboards to take a breakfast bar and to the refrigerator to drink a glass of nutrient water. The bar would always taste like cardboard and the drink was like something trying to pretend to be water but failing horribly.
Then I would stretch. First my arms, then my body, and finishing with my legs. In the cramp space of my living quarters, it was hard to find room to properly stretch. But, when your job calls for you to exert more physical effort than your average Outer District police officer does in a week, stretching could be the difference between having a job or living on the streets.
The most important part of my morning, though, was checking my right arm. Whenever I wake up, the wrappings around my arm would always become loose. That morning in particular, my wrappings had shifted enough to let the crimson painted metal of my arm peek through. I unwound the strip of thin cloth and began redoing the wrapping. With every rotation, more and more of the metal arm was covered until it looked nothing more like a normal limb. Of course, if someone was to look closer, they would notice the odd bumps here and there.
When the clock hit 5:30 am, I would begin my daily walk. A sweater tried its best to protect me from the biting winds of early morning, but time had worn it down. I didn’t mind though. I had long gotten used to the cold.
The street my apartment laid beside was empty at this time. As I walked further down, the street vendors who woke up even earlier than me were setting up for the day’s business.
“Everything doing good, Fae?” one of the vendors asked. It was Derek. I passed by his stall every time I head to work. The buns he sold were quite good.
“Everything’s good,” I replied.
Off to the side, I could hear the rattling of train tracks. The morning shipment was arriving. When I turned to glance over at the incoming transport, I saw two children playing with each other underneath the shadow of the train bridge. It was an odd sight. Children rarely woke up so early in the morning. I watched as the train passed overhead, my eyes being drawn toward the nuts that connected the metal deck to the concrete columns. They were shaking more than usual.
“Hey, you kids,” I called out. The kids stopped and looked at me with annoyed expressions. They couldn’t be more than eight years old. “Might not want to play there. It ain’t safe.”
“Go away grandma,” one of the kids shouted back. The other kid stuck his tongue at me.
“You really should listen to me,” I said. “But that’s your decision.”
I turned away from them, pushing them out of my mind. If they didn’t want to listen, it wasn’t worth worrying about them. Also, I was twenty five.
The factory that I worked at was a ten minute walk from my apartment. My shift started at six and would end twelve hours later. I often got odd looks whenever someone heard that I arrived at work twenty minutes early everyday. I get it too. People don’t like their jobs, especially in the Outer Districts. But a job’s a job and other than begging, there’s no other way to get money. Legally.
The other reason I went out so early every day was because early morning was one of my favorite times. It was when all of the beggars and muggers and drunkards were gone. It was when the streets were near silent and the vendors hadn’t begun singing praises of their utterly ordinary products. The air was as fresh as it would ever get. It relaxed me.
When I arrived at the factory, I was greeted by the guard. I showed him my card and he let me in. The entry of the factory was quite empty. It wouldn’t start to fill with people until six o'clock hit and the changing of shifts happened.
The only person there was a manager judging from his uniform. He gave me a small look when he heard me enter, but then went right back to resting. Must be all of the shouting and walking he probably did that tired him.
I tapped my card onto a reader that logged my arrival. Now the rest of the time I had before the start of my shift was mine. I spent that time meditating to focus my mind on the upcoming day. It’s what I usually did.
The sounds of people drawing near notified me of the time. I got up from my seat and stretched my legs and back before going into the work area of the factory. The area was three hundred by one hundred meters from my estimations. The various machinery took up three fourths of that space. There were four emergency exits on each side of the factory; required by law from what I knew. All four were barred shut. That part probably wasn’t in that law.
I went to the left section of the factory where the circular metal presses were. They were rather large, around a meter in diameter. They flattened whatever was placed underneath them at five second intervals. That included limbs.
The station I was assigned to had a holographic tag that hovered an inch above the ground. It read 467. That was my number. While I was in the factory, that would be my name. No one who worked here knew the real names of any of them laborers. I knew it was done to make us feel like nothing more than the machines that we used. I didn’t mind though. It helped me distance myself from the other workers. If I didn’t know their names, then I couldn’t become attached. In a place like this, that was a kindness in my eyes.
I started working the moment I stepped into the small square area of my station. My mind emptied as my body went through the same movements it had practiced over and over again for four years. Grab the metal. Place the metal. Slide the metal out.
Most couldn’t last more than two years. Doing the same movements over and over took a toll on your body. My right arm was the only reason I could last so long. It didn’t tire and it never wavered. When my left arm would begin to cramp, it could fill in for both for a period of time.
And so, my work went on. My mind kept track of the time with each press of the machine. Eight thousand six hundred and forty presses. Then it would be time to return home.
On the two thousand three hundred and twenty sixth press, a soft whining sound like a dog in pain reached my ears. It was coming from the station to my left. I tried to filter it out, but the sound was just loud enough to float above the whirling and banging of the machinery. With every whine, annoyance crept up within me like a rising tide ebbing away at the sand. Then my nose twitched. There was a smell in the air. The smell of fresh blood.
On my next cycle, I glanced at the person beside me from the corner of my eye. It looked like an older man, maybe around his late fifties to early sixties. I saw the cause of the whining immediately. His hand was crushed by the metal press. He must not have moved it out of the way in time. The adrenaline that was rushing through him was suppressing the pain for the most part, but it wouldn’t last forever.
I stepped on a button that was installed in the ground. Every station had one. A few moments later, a manager appeared beside my station. I saw him open his mouth to speak, most likely to ask me why I called, but his jaw snapped shut as he looked past me. I continued with my work, putting piece after piece of metal into the press.
The manager went to the old man and it wasn’t long before the man was dragged off by another person. Then the manager tapped my shoulder.
“Take his work load,” the manager said. He left before I could reply.
I sighed. At least I would get a bonus from it. Two thousand credits worth.
My day ended at nine. I had to speed up the pace at which I normally worked and my back and left arm were feeling the early signs of that exertion. It was a necessary sacrifice though. If I didn’t finish, I could expect to not have a job the next day.
With time running short, I decided to go out and get something to eat. It was well past the time I normally ate my dinner. Quadrant 4 was a bit of a hike to get to, but my legs welcomed the journey after having to stand still for almost the entire day.
The night sky was out. A red haze floated above, hiding all but the brightest of the stars. The streetlights were on, or at least the ones that still worked. They illuminated the sidewalk and the streets that were stained black from years of neglect. Cars would roll down the streets every now and again.
There were also people out and about. I avoided them for the most part. At night, the drunks, the addicts, the muggers, and the gangsters all come out from their hiding spots. There was a time where I wouldn’t mind them, but now I rarely had the motivation to confront them. So I always chose the safer option and avoided them.
A bus arrived down the street. I sped up my walking and stepped into the near empty bus. There was only one other person on and he looked unconscious. I sat as far away as him as I could. Then the bus began to move and I stared at the dented metal walls, my thoughts wandering off to nothingness. My attention was dragged back as bright neon lights started flooding into the metal bus. It had arrived at Quadrant 4.
I left at my stop, paying the 20 credit toll with the band wrapped around my wrist. The bus stop was in front of a brothel. It wasn’t late enough in the day for the usual customers to be out and about, so there were only a few women outside advertising themselves. I’ve always had a dislike for these places. I don’t blame the women though; they only do it to survive. But every time I looked at this place, I got a burst of fiery anger that would be drenched by sadness. If things had gone differently for me, I might have been where they were. I got lucky. They did not.
Two buildings away from the brothel was a bar of much the same flavor. Music was pumping wildly within, leaking out every now and again when someone opened the door to come out or in. The latter was more common.
I went inside, grimacing as the music pounded against me. I was never a fan of clubs. I liked music, but when you could feel every bass note shaking your chest, it’s hard to find it enjoyable. I scanned the area to look for someone in particular. It wasn’t the usual time I arrived here so she might have been busy, but I spied her dressed in her uniform near the bar talking to a patron.
Her name was Kristin Wood and she was one of the few friends I had left. Behind the pink hair, makeup, and provocative clothes was a girl smarter than probably anyone in the entire bar.
As I approached the bar, she saw me and her eyes lit up. With a few words to the patron she was conversing with, she shook him off and sped over to where I was standing.
“Fae!” she shouted over the music. She gave me a tight hug. “I didn’t think you were coming today.”
“Didn’t I promise that I’ll tell you whenever I can’t make it?” I said, leaning towards her ear. “I just had some extra work to do, so I got delayed.”
“You didn’t eat yet, did you?” she said. “I can probably get you something.”
“No need. I got some extra credits today.”
“Oh, had to fill in, huh,” Kris said with a knowing look. “Well, what do you want? I can put in your order.”
“A sandwich. Synth pork.”
“Feeling bold, are we,” Kris laughed. “But alright. Want a drink with that or do you want water like usual?”
“Water’s fine,” I nodded.
Kristin went to a holoscreen and punched in my order with practiced ease before coming back in less than fifteen seconds. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to a seat at the bar.
“So what happened?” she asked as I took a sip out of the glass of water the bartender gave me. “Someone get hurt?”
“Yeah. Metal press got him,” I said. “Had to buzz in to get him hauled off. The guy tried to keep going even with one hand pulverized.”
“Yikes. Did you know him?”
“I don’t even remember his face,” I said dryly. It was true. The only faces I remembered in that factory were the managers. “Anyway, how’s your day been?”
“Pretty slow today,” Kristin shrugged. I looked around the club and saw it jammed packed with people. I raised a brow at her and she laughed. “You didn’t see it during the afternoon. Even now. No one new came by.”
The food I ordered was served to me then and I paid the bill with a tap of my bracelet. Kristin began giving me a run down of her day, describing every interaction she had. I listened to every word as I ate my sandwich.
“You know, Fae,” she said suddenly, “I could introduce you to some people if you want.”
She gave me a wink that spelled out exactly what she meant. It didn’t help that she was just talking about seeing one of her past hookups.
“I’m not interested in those types of things, Kris,” I said with an exasperated smile. No matter how many times I told her, she would always try without fail.
“Come on, Fae. I know what happened last time, but that was like two years ago. You have to get over that dickhead. Open up. Have some fun. Meet new people. You never know what might happen.”
“I’ve been over that guy for a long time.” I rolled my eyes. “I just don’t want to deal with that sort of thing again. It’s not worth the trouble or time. Besides, living by myself is perfectly fine.”
“Fine, maybe,” she shrugged. Then she leaned in closer. “But are you happy? Satisfied? I know your routine, girl. We’ve known each other for, like, what? Ten years?”
“Nine.”
“Almost ten then. You used to be so much more energetic a few years back, you know? Now all you do is go to work, eat, and then go to sleep. That’s almost as bad as those druggies. Only difference between them and you is that they have another step where they buy stim shots then get knocked out.”
“Having a fine life is better than around ninety percent of everyone in the OD,” I replied.
“Yeah, but I know you can have more. Trust me. I know people very well,” she said with a cheeky wink.
I shook my head and smiled.
“How about you?” I asked, switching topics. “Did you find that fated someone you’ve always been telling me about?”
“Nope. My fated lover has continued to elude my search,” Kristin said with a melodramatic sigh. She met my eyes, a playful sparkle in them. “You know, I thought you were the one when I first saw you.”
“I do know,” I said with a small smile. “I think you’ve told me about a hundred times now.”
“And I can tell you it a hundred times more,” she laughed. “But really, I haven’t had much luck. There’s just no one that captures my attention. All the girls that come around the club are either dolled up to the point they look more like a mannequin or are already with someone else.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm. No worries though. My time will come. Anyway, I should get back to work. Can’t get people suspicious of anything, now can I?”
“Nope. Have a good evening then,” I said to her. “I’ll be finishing my meal then head back home.”
“See you tomorrow then?”
“You can count on it,” I nodded before taking another bite of my already half eaten sandwich. As Kristin turned away, I caught a look in her eyes that I couldn’t quite place.
I returned to the small place I called home at half past ten. The streets in Quadrant 1 were usually quiet at this time; nothing like the rowdiness of the Plaza. That quietness didn’t mean safety though. In the shadows, people often lurked. But the shadows also offered shelter. If one knew all of the twists and turns of the alleyways, they could never be caught.
That night, however, was uneventful. I spied a few potential muggers who scurried away with one look and heard the sounds of rats braver than them. The dying street lights flickered, the road beneath them alternating between soft yellow light and murky darkness. Trash rolled down the streets whenever the occasional wind blew. I rarely was out this late in the night, but as I watched all of this, I felt as if maybe I should come out more often.
The door to my apartment opened with a beep and the one light installed in the ceiling turned on. I squinted as I felt around for the control. With a swipe of my finger, I turned off the light. Intense brightness bothered my eyes and the club already had strained them to their limit. I went to a lamp that laid by my bed and soon a dim light bathed the room.
Then I did my nightly routine of brushing my teeth and changing out of my day clothes. I gave a soft sigh of relief as I unbound the bindings that wrapped my chest. I didn’t like having to bind it everyday, but having a lower profile kept away the gazes of the lecherous. My arm I left as is.
I grabbed a screen that hung on stand and tapped it awake. With a few more taps, I brought up the day’s footage from the cameras I had installed with some help. I read the report for the day and found that no one suspicious had come by.
With that, I shut off the lamp and laid on the thin mattress I called a bed. Staring up at the plain ceiling, I counted the bumps and cracks that littered the plaster as my mind rewound the day’s events. Kristin’s words of advice were something I heard often and not just from her. Whenever others heard how my days went, they would tell me how boring it all sounded. They would tell me how I was wasting my youth and that it could all end one day and I would be left with only regret.
Those people are the ones who have never had a taste of that life. That life ended in ruin. You burn brightly like a flare, but then it’ll all come back crashing down to the ground and you’ll be standing by yourself with no one around who cares. I would rather live a boring existence than die a short one.
And so, my eyes shut and my mind went to rest, readying myself to do it all again the next day.
The main character's appearance is the same as the cover? or did the author change something?
I really need to make a better synopsis. I just made it up in like a few minutes.
Good start. I approve!
Why thank you for the chapter,
