Slow River

The Hedon Road night shift ended at two in the morning. I was exhausted, so tired I could barely manage to unstrap my back support and the wrist and forearm splints. My arms felt leaden as I stripped off my skinny and showered. I was too tired to bother drying my hair. I regretted it as soon as I stepped out of the ugly pseudo-Victorian plant gates.

It was cold, and mist made the streetlights smeary; the kind of night that reminded me that in this northern city, autumn was just an eyeblink between summer and winter. At this time in the morning, all the passenger slides would be garaged at the far end of town. I would probably freeze if I had to wait for one to answer a request tapped in at a roadside pole. Besides, until I got paid—until I was sure my records would hold long enough to get paid—I would have to be careful with my money.

A special call-out would mean a large debit from my PIDA. Six months ago I would just have jumped a ride on a freight slide. I knew all the times and delivery routes—Hedon Road, then Springbank, then Princes Avenue—but with my new PIDA it was no longer worth the risk. If I got caught, there would be a blemish on my record that could cost me my job. That would mean a new PIDA… and where would it ever end?

I was tired, but there was something about walking at night, when the streets were empty: my strides felt longer, stronger, and the cold made even my breath tangible. I was real. I was here. Nothing was complicated anymore. I no longer had to be ashamed. I was Sal Bird, aged twenty-five, and I worked for a living.

But when I got back to the flat I had to climb five flights of stairs, and when I opened the three locks on my door and turned on the lights, one of the first things I saw was my Hammex 20 camera and the edit box, and I remembered it wasn’t over yet, that Spanner still wanted payment.

In the kitchen I snipped the corner off a plastic bag and poured half a pound of soybeans into a pan. They smelled of dust, and rattled on the metal as I filled the pan with water. As the water heated, the bean skins suddenly wrinkled, as though the outside absorbed water faster than the rest. The water boiled, and the beans began to rock, and some swelled before others, so it looked as though they were crawling over each other. In the space of minutes what had been hard, shiny ivory ball bearing plumped out into sleek alien ovoids curled up like so many fetuses. Like frog eggs in the desert hatching in a sudden downpour. And I laughed.

I ate well, and slept better, and didn’t remember any dreams.

The mobile rake was churning up gravel and detritus. and trying to dig its way through the trough’s concrete bottom; even in the din of rushing water and pumps, I could hear its electric hum turn to an overstressed whine. I swore, pulled on my waders and went after it.

The troughs were directly under the high, dirty glass of the roof. It was getting dark outside, and the light that made it through turned the choppy surface the color of zinc and pewter, like the North Sea before a storm. The water stank of shit and pollution and rot, and as the trough deepened toward the center, so did the smell of volatile organic compounds. Fourteen feet out, foul, warmish water spilled over the top of my thigh-high waders. It made no difference that nothing would get through my skinny; I felt soiled. And I could almost feel the hydrocarbons easing down my throat, smearing my lungs with filth. I was angry. Magyar had no right to deny basic safety precautions and procedures to her shift.

But Magyar had not written the rules, she merely had to follow them to meet the almost impossible productivity standards Hepple had set. And I doubted she knew any other way. She was smart, yes, and seemed to have good instincts, but she was untrained and unsupported. Hepple had no business appointing her to a supervisory position without even going through the motions of teaching her what she needed to know. No doubt he thought she would make him look good by comparison.

Even the orientation procedures were disorganized and sloppy. Magyar had surprised me on my second day by digging up a copy of the orientation disk. “Watch it in the breakroom,” she said. “It runs forty minutes. I want you back on station in forty-five.”

The carpets and walls of the breakroom were done in white and teal, and there were about twenty uncomfortable chairs and two screens, one tuned to the net—usually the news—the other to a video loop of swimming fish. There was a PIDA reader under each screen, but I didn’t have to V-hand it to run the disk.