“What’s he talking about?” Zack reached down and snatched the card from Leonard’s hand. “Check it again,” he said, forcing the card across the desk as far as his arm could stretch.
“Zack, it’s OK,” said Leonard, pulling at Zack’s overalls like a nervous child. “He’s right.”
“He can’t be. We walked from the Food Hall together. I watched you arrive at work. You have to stand up for yourself, Leo. Especially here.”
“I forgot. You know how I’ve been lately. I just forgot to check in.” Leonard reached across the desk to take his card back, his hand brown with a mixture of dirt and the marks of age. His skin hung loose across the crooked bones and tendons of his arthritic knuckles.
“But you need your antibiotics, Leonard,” said Zack, his voice soft and comforting. “I would have given you mine if you’d told me.” Leonard pushed the card into this pocket. The man behind them stepped back up to the counter. He had to be one of the youngest in Delta. He picked up his tablet and water shot. Without a second thought he threw it into his mouth and swallowed it down without any fear of their judgement. There was no empathy left for the frailty of age. The man barged past Zack, knocking him in the shoulder as he left, and the people waiting in line edged forwards.
“No way, Zack. No way,” Leonard said.
“But you need them. You’ll get ill. You can’t fight things off like I can.”
“Because I’m old?” Leonard took a step away from the desk towards the corridor that would lead them to the elevators.
“No, not that,” said Zack, breaking into a jog to catch up with him, not knowing how to build an argument out of anything else when he knew that he had meant exactly that. “You just need them, that’s all.”
“You’re a good kid, Zack,” said Leonard as they both settled into their stride, a pace faster than was comfortable for Leonard, slower than was necessary for Zack. “But I’m not your responsibility.” Leonard reached up to his neck, pressed at the muscles with his finger tips, working out some sort of knot that had developed during the day as he had worked hard for nothing. “Anyway, I’m telling you. Dawn is coming. The world is waking up. Then I won’t even need those tablets. Or this place.”
They walked back towards their quarters in Delta Tower along the linoleum tiled floor, worn in so many places the original concrete of the building was working its way through like a fungus. In places there were small piles of dust, particles encouraged from the wall by one of the few children who roamed the corridors with nothing better to do. You could while away a good hour or two creating a hole in the wall with a piece of loose metal, if the hours could still be counted. The dust piles looked like sand and reminded Zack of happier times when he could lounge on a beach in the sun. Sometimes he even thought he could smell the heat mixed with sun lotion, the scent of coconut which could have been a Pina Colada. But his memories were sparse and decaying. His parents’ faces had faded. The image of movies, coffee shops, restaurants, and bars were all a threadbare recollection of his yesterdays. It hurt to revisit them. On some days, even Samantha’s face seemed blurred, but he wondered if he had tried to forget her on purpose, just so he didn’t have to carry the burden of his guilt into the new life that he hadn’t dreamed of or created for himself. The new life in which he was trapped in Delta Tower as a resident of New Omega. Resident Number 8652.
The memories that he chose to keep alive were the impersonal sensations. The brush of wind against his skin like the hand of an anonymous lover, or the sun on his nose on a winter’s day as comforting as a child’s kiss. Sometimes he could imagine the ocean as it stung his eyes, or the warmth of the sand burning his feet. These feelings were as real in his memory as the dusty ground upon which he walked. He kept these memories alive so that the smell of waste water and sulphur, and more often than not the smell of shit overflowing from the waste tanks, didn’t seem so bad. But these memories could have been anybody’s.
The once-mirrored lift drew to a jerky halt on level thirty, and the doors scratched their way open. The sound of New Omega blared out from the televisions which adorned every corner of every wall. At least in the Food Hall there was so much commotion that sometimes if you were lucky you could forget the constant noise streamed in from Omega Tower. Every day they played a new image. A tree. Water. Artificial sunlight. A playground with screens for windows which played images of a pre-war sky. White and blue, occasionally orange. Never grey. Never reality. The scenes from Omega Tower, the central command tower for the Republic of New Omega where life was good were supposed to boost morale.
“I don’t know why they bother to play those here,” said Leonard. “Surely they could save the power and give us more lighting instead. Or heat.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” said Zack. “And I could do without seeing Omega Tower at every turn. They say it’s supposed to boost morale, but it doesn’t feel much like that. It’s not like anybody from here is ever going to get a chance to experience it.”
“You never know,” said Leonard, rubbing at his wrist, thumbing over the small numerical tattoo. “Maybe the next time there is a lottery it’ll be you. Maybe me.”
“Ha! You think? You are crazier than I take you for, Leo.” Zack struck Leonard’s cheek with a playful slap, and they both laughed. Zack brushed aside some scraps of paper and dust balls that had blown in front of his door with his foot. There was an air vent nearby, and he was sick of clearing up the shit that it blew into his path, right outside the only place he had left to call home. He stretched his foot across to Leonard’s door and kicked other pieces of scrap aside. “They’d never let somebody from Delta win. From this shithole? Are you serious? Maybe from Alpha. Anyway, The Omega Lottery is a fix.” Zack held up his wrist to expose the small numerical tattoo, a near copy of Leonard’s. 8652. He had no idea how many people came after him. “This number is never going to get me into Omega.” He opened his door and took a half step inside before turning back to Leonard. “Oh, I nearly forgot. I’ll see you later, alright?”
Leonard smiled. He was embarrassed so he opened his door for a distraction. “OK. Just don’t get in trouble for it,” he said as he glanced back over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t want that. I don’t need it that much.” The knot in his neck resurfaced at the thought of the new pillow that Zack had promised him, and he brought his fingers up and rubbed at his skin. Something new. Something comfortable. “I could never live with myself if you got caught trading on my behalf. Besides, I won’t need it for long, because…..”
“Yeah, I know. It’s nearly over. Dawn is coming. We’ll all be outside playing in green fields soon singing Kumbaya.” They both managed another laugh, but it was half-hearted and whimsical. Mentioning the old world was hard for everybody. “It’ll be fine. Just stay here. I’ll call in later with it, OK?”
After exchanging silent thanks with a nod of the head, they both retreated into their private rooms. Zack inserted his ration card into the box that had been crudely mounted to the wall. The electronic voice crackled out.
“Welcome, resident 8652. Successful completion of daily tasks registered. Your president thanks you on behalf of all New Omega Citizens.” Zack ignored the voice and looked in the shard of old mirror that he had taken from one of the lifts. The back had been spoiled and was peeling, blemishing his reflection with false age spots. Zack reached down into the bucket at his feet and wet the cloth in the inch of remaining water. It was grey like the sky and smelt like sulphur, but it was precious. Wringing every last drop back into the bucket like the rain that never fell anymore, he wiped it over his neck, his face, a few icy droplets trickling across his chest making his skin contract. He peeled away his overalls and swiped the cloth under his armpits where there always seemed to be a subtle layer of dirt. He tossed the rag back into the bucket and grabbed a once-white T-shirt from a pile of two. He pulled it over his head and then covered it with a jumper that would have once been suitable for an athlete.