“Why, you get a cut of whatever she gets?” Zack snarled. Sam straightened himself up, puffed up his chest. “Like I said, not my style, Sam. Got some ration cards to give out.”
“What about our cards?” said Croft. “When you gonna top ours up again?” Croft was the dumber of the two. It was a close call, difficult to compare, but he made it. Just made it.
“Soon, just like I said three triple bells ago. Now,” he said, patting Croft on the shoulder, the smell of tobacco escaping from his mouth. “You going to let me through, or is it going to be a dry month ahead for the pair of you?”
As he walked down the steps he passed B1 and B2. He thought about Roxanna on B3 and the deal she had with Sam, and realised that his own life could be harder. The stairs were empty tonight, and there were no drunks blocking his path. Arriving at B4, he pushed open the old fire doors and stepped through. There was no commotion, no chatter, or music. It was dark even by the standards in Delta, and it always took a while for his eyes to adjust. There were several tables filled with silent drinkers, even those in company were mute, choosing not to speak. What was there to say?
There were a few children who had been born since the war, some above and some below ground. Those below ground bore the scars of a war which people didn’t understand. Misshapen heads, missing limbs, bad teeth, swollen throats. The birth of a child didn’t bring new hope anymore. It didn’t bring a future of promise. Instead it raised every question that every one of the 1984 people who were stuck in Delta tower when the bombs landed had asked themselves over and over. There was no question more frequently asked than why did the bombs fall? Who dropped them? Why wasn’t there a warning? Many people suspected the Russians, other people said that the idea was just a conspiracy and that the USA was the real perpetrator. Maybe it was Iran, or Korea, people would counter argue. Omega Tower had never offered any answers. But Omega Tower was all anybody had. Such questions remained unanswered and would do for the rest of people’s lives. People have no other choice but to accept it. They are stuck somewhere between life and death, a death that was offered, but never came.
Zack arrived at the bar and gestured to the barman. Ronson’s face was burnt and puckered and had the appearance of a weathered lunar landscape, cratered and wounded, but stable. One eye had been lost, a victim of the war. Zack always thought how different he would have looked if they still lived in the old world. How such a burn might have been treated by doctors in that time, and people would have commented on what a good job they had done. He would have received a skin graft, Zack thought, or even a face transplant, and maybe his eye would have been saved. In places the wound was still red, like it might still hurt to touch. Sometimes he saw Ronson sitting with his one good eye closed as if he was trying to block out the pain. Physical or mental, he didn’t know.
The walls of the bar were constructed out of old doors from containers that would have at some point sailed the oceans on cargo ships. There was a logo on one of the panels that read NAVIMEG and so that’s what people called the bar.
“Hey, Shiner,” Ronson said. It’s what he called everybody on account of their presence in NAVIMEG. Alcohol was homemade now, and it was strong. Moonshine, Ronson called it. “Take a seat.” Zack sat down onto the stool, an upturned oil barrel, and shuffled about until he was as comfortable as he would get. “Where you been?”
“Hey, Ronny. I’ve been busy. It’s been harder to get here. I’ve been doing extra shifts on account of somebody going on the sick.”
“Extra shifts up on B3, no doubt,” Ronson said with a smirk on the half of his face that moved. Zack wondered if he too was getting a cut. He hoped not. Everybody was obsessed with B3 tonight.
“You know me, Ronson, it’s not…..”
“Yeah I know,” he interrupted. “I’m just pulling your chain. It’s not your style, right? You’re a good kid, Shiner.” Zack was somewhere between thirty two and thirty five years old, he thought, but to Ronson he was still a kid. It was hard to tell Ronson’s age due to the scarring, but he had to be in his late sixties. He wasn’t at work on the day when fire rained from the sky. He was outside in it, and anybody who doubted it just needed to take a look at his face to remember. “Not an angel, though,” he said as he placed a small beaker of Moonshine next to him. “At least I hope you haven’t become one. I take it you got it?”
“I got it,” replied Zack. “Of course I got it.” Zack pulled a small plastic card from the back pocket of his overalls and slid it across the dimpled metallic surface of the bar. Ronson watched as Zack inched the card closer and closer, appearing almost frightened to touch it in case he destroyed its precious value.
“And you are sure it’ll work?” he whispered to Zack as he leaned in close. “Nobody is going to give me any hassle?”
Zack took a hit from the Moonshine, pulling his lips back as if it was painful on the throat. “You go after the second bell tomorrow,” Zack paused, thinking about his choice of words. He had no idea what tomorrow meant anymore because there was no longer any concept of time. Life worked via bells, alarms. You slept when you had the chance between shifts which allowed you to loosely count the days. That’s why he wasn’t sure of his age. In the beginning people counted days by marking the wall like a prisoner or a castaway stranded on an island, but they soon lost track and stopped bothering. There was no sunrise, no dawn, and no sunset. There was just asleep and awake. Shift, and no shift. Exist, or die. No life, or time. “After the first double bell,” he clarified. “Go to the lobby. Sam will be there, and Croft too. Tell them I sent you and show them the card.”
“What if they don’t let me pass?” Ronson said, clutching the card to his chest, even the thought of failure a painful prospect.
“They will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just can. Now listen. Focus,” Zack said. “You go through the lobby and take the far double doors. They are marked Finance and Shipping. Go to the nineteenth floor and turn right out of the door.” Zack stopped and picked up his glass of Moonshine and knocked the rest of it back whilst Ronson used the time to recap the information. Zack waited until Ronson was ready to listen again. “Follow the corridor all the way along. Don’t stop to talk to anybody,” Zack warned, holding up a precautionary finger, “but don’t keep your head down either. Look like you belong there. You remember what that feels like, right?” Ronson nodded and they both smiled.
“What if the Guardians see me?”
“They will see you, but they don’t patrol nineteenth. Half of it is sealed off, but the doors you will use to get in and out are good.”
“Why is it sealed?” Ronson asked, crouching his elbows onto the bar, minimising the distance that information had to travel, in case should get lost along the way and he would remain forever curious.
“In the beginning, when Omega came, they checked every floor. They deemed floor nineteen a no-go zone. Said it was contaminated, that the windows were broken. They boarded everything up. The doors are supposed to be chained, but they’re not anymore. It has a one-way lock, so just push the bar and you’ll be in. Follow the corridor to the stairs. Go up them. I’ll be waiting for you.” Ronson looked pensive, and he held the card to his chest, gripped so tightly that even his knuckles were white. “That stairway is quieter. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”