Chapter 20
They were on the way back from the general store, late in the afternoon. She had just returned from the gym, while Mani was coming back from the farms. He was telling her about the state of the crops, though she was only half listening. She had her own plans for the rest of the evening. Some of the last bits of materials were getting shipped out from the factory site tonight, and she had not decided if she would oversee the loading herself, or just come in the morning to go over the hoppers to verify they were loaded correctly.
A man pushed past them, running down the corridor and jumping through the hatches as he went. “Hey!” Mani managed to shout at him, as he ran off, nearly knocking a couple of school girls coming from the other direction. With her train of thought interrupted, she noticed the sounds of more people running from behind her.
This time, they got out of the way in time, and managed to see two moderators dashing after the first man. They had radios and handcuffs, but no weapons. There were no weapons in Adalia. Each had the word ‘Administration’ written in large yellow letters across the back of his jumpsuit.
“Lunatic,” Mani said, in resignation. He started back on his report, and Cassy made an effort to listen and comment on his findings. It wasn’t great. The bioreactor would probably end up being the last building to go down, if they had to wait for the potatoes to reach full size. Would they be able to harvest them before they ripen? Do potatoes get ripe? She didn’t want to look completely oblivious, so she made a note to herself to look it up later.
Mani did not seem to mind having to juggle the farm and deconstructions with Cassy. She thought, maybe he even enjoyed it, although it was hard to tell. It was clear that he knew more about construction sites than about potato growing, and she had a feeling he could probably get along doing both jobs just fine without her. But he let her do things her way, which was the proper way, or at least that’s what the academy teaches to be the proper way, even at times when he was clearly thinking about doing things differently.
He accepted that she was in charge, just like he accepted their new home on Kyawthuite. “The hab units are the same, the stalls are the same, the exercise units are the same, not much of a difference if you ask me,” he told her at one point, when she tried to explain to him how she missed their old hab. And he was the one who lived in Siderotil over the last four years, not her. But it didn’t seem to matter to him. Not much did.
When they reached the hab unit, the kitchen was already occupied. It wasn’t unusual, with the increased population of Siderotil refugees, the common rooms saw much higher occupation than either hab was used to. But as they stepped in, the man near the counter stopped and turned to face them with a wild look in his eyes.
He had a long beard, not trimmed and cleaned like Mani’s. His hair was growing wild, his overalls dirty and torn in several places. He looked like he had just dug himself out of a hole in the ground, with what appeared to be garden soil staining his knees and hands. He had food crumbs all over his mouth and beard, and was still holding a half-eaten food square in one hand.
His other hand went quickly behind his back, and Cassy though she could see something that looked like a hard-plastic pipe that he was casually sliding into his sleeve as he put his hand behind his back.
“Ahh!” He shouted at them, spraying food crumbs from his mouth, apparently just as surprised as they were. “It’s you!”
Mani put his hand in front of Cassy, as if to keep her away from harm. While she resented this, she did find herself moving back a step, despite her dignity.
“Gary?” Mani said, which had her staring at her friend rather than at the lunatic before them. “What the hell are you doing here?” He said slowly.
The man — Gary, apparently — looked intently at Mani, and bent his knees a little, as if getting ready to run again. “I couldn’t stay in Siderotil,” he said it as though he actually tried to. “And I can’t be left alone here, either.”
“You never had any trouble with the moderators back home, I’m sure we can sort this out, here, too.” Mani talked to him casually enough, but he did keep himself in front of Cassy, just the same.
Gary’s cheek twitched. “You make this.” He waved the food square in front of them. “And the PC thinks it can feed all of you, but it can’t. It won’t. You’ll be banging on the outside of the airlocks for food, but they’ll be on their way!” He shouted and made a gesture with his food as if it was launching into space.
“What you got back there, Gary?”
“You’re nice fellas,” he said, sadly. “But you’re growing this stuff from tainted soil.” He started to crumble the food in his hand, bits of it scattering on the floor. His other hand stayed behind his back.
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“You’re not supposed to be here, you know that, right?” Mani tried to reason with him.
Gary stopped his antics with the food and straightened up. “None of us are supposed to be here,” he replied, solemnly. “It’s all going to burn. They will leave, and everything will burn.”
Cassy heard more running from outside. The two mods rushed through the door and didn’t stop to mind Mani’s pleas. “Wait, wait!” He tried to tell them, but they went straight at the man.
Gary made one swing at them with his polypropylene pipe, about forty centimeter’s worth, and still covered in soil and dripping irrigation water. The two men dodged it with ease, grabbed his arms and pinned him down on the big, steel table in the middle of the room, as though this was not the first drunken brawler they’ve handled over their careers as moderators.
Mani was right behind them, and managed to wrench the pipe from Gary’s hand. “It’s all gonna burn!” He shouted at them, face pressed forcefully to the tabletop.
“Go easy on him, guys. He was a harmless bum back in Siderotil. Being a refugee in a new hab has to be hard on him.”
The two men dragged him to his feet, after cuffing his hands behind his back. The fighting spirit seemed to leave him, and he let himself get led out of the kitchen. “It’s all gonna burn,” he said in a conversational tone. “They won’t have a choice, then,” he added, as if that explained his behavior.
Cassy eyed the pipe, now harmless in Mani’s hand, but she was barely able to look away from it. As Gary was dragged past her, he once again informed her of her pending doom. “You will be the first to burn. You did this.” which made her finally look away from the blunt instrument over on the other side of the room.
He suddenly resisted, and stopped his captors for a moment, close enough to have a good look at her.
“It’s not you…” He mused, squinting at her face. She was horrified. Was he reading her thoughts? He was definitely staring the scar on the left side of her face. “You’re not her, but you’re still working for them. They’ll burn you nonetheless.” He said, sadly, but was dragged off and out of the hab-unit.
She thought about going after him, asking him what he meant. Then the clanging of plastic on steel, as Mani dropped the pipe on the kitchen table, brought her back from her thoughts into the present.
“What the hell was that?” She asked him. Mani turned his back and was washing the mud off his hands in the sink.
“He’s a lunatic.” Mani shrugged. “As long as I knew him, he was. But he never got into anyone’s hab-unit. Never was violent.”
“He seemed like he knew who we are.”
“Yeah, I’ve talked to him, once in a while, back in Siderotil. Sometimes I’d give him food and stuff.”
“I think he knew me, as well,” she said, mostly to herself. “And it sure sounded like he knew my sister.”
Mani turned around. He looked tired. “Do you want to go after them? You’re not gonna get much sense out of him, but we can try to keep them from kicking his teeth in.”
Cassy didn’t want to go after him. She was tired, her muscles sore from her exercise session. Also, she didn’t want to admit to herself, she was a little scared. Nevertheless, her back straightened and her expression hardened. She had to. “Come on,” she said. Mani nodded and followed her out the door without a word.
To be continued…
