Nah, joking. We’re besties.
Don’t judge me.
Anyway, going to Floor 8 is, like, double my pleasure. I get a chance to hang with Allison and say good-bye to Mike at the same time. Now, whenever the Scavengers get back, we always have this, like, triumphant music that plays from the speaker system. Yeah, the same speaker system that wakes me up on Sevenths Days. I’ve seen Mike come back from a Scavenging almost every three months since I was fourteen and he was eighteen. Eighteen, by the way, is when your career is chosen for you. I don’t want to think about next year. They’ll probably stick me in a boring job just ’cause my dad’s a scientist.
Whatever. Here’s my point. The reason I say I’ve seen him come back “almost” every three months is because, once in a while, the Scavengers find something. We don’t exactly know what, but we know that it’s important. The triumphant music is canceled, the Scavengers skip on the march through the halls, and Security takes them straight up to Floor 1. Nobody sees them the rest of the day, normally not until it’s time for bed. Sometimes you don’t even see them until two or three days later. The only reason any of us know that it’s because the Scavengers found something important is because… well, we just know. Everybody knows; it’s not a secret. I don’t really have any proof, but Allison’s said that her dad—remember, he’s in Security—her dad sometimes mentions when the Scavengers come up with something rare, something the bigwigs running things from Floor 1 have to know about. Not the rest of the Tower, mind you. We get left out of the loop. That information’s just for the big guys.
Psh. What is this, a dictatorship?
Well. Yeah. Kinda.
Recording Ten
Almost been two weeks. I guess the Scavenging’s going well. Couldn’t really tell you either way, since we don’t get updates. But you know what we do get? Announcements. Every few months when this is going on, we wake up to the speaker saying, “Day one of the Scavenging has begun,” and then each night we hear, “Day one of the Scavenging has ended.” Well, I mean, obviously the day count changes each day. You’re not dumb.
Who am I recording this for again?
So, uh, Danny’s back.
I say that in the loosest of terms.
I don’t know what goes on in Reinforcement exactly, and the people that come out of it don’t talk about it. One of the rules of the Tower is that you don’t talk about what happens in Reinforcement. So, like, since the whole point of the process is to make sure you obey the rules, of course, nobody knows what goes on during reinforcing! I swear to God everything in this tower is off-limits or a secret. What’s on Floor 1? The Tower Authority. Has anybody ever seen them? Nope. What’s below Floor 21? Nobody knows but the Scavengers, and they’re not saying. All they’ll tell you is that it’s full of abandoned apartments and Creep. Not even Mike will say what else is down there.
About Danny. Yeah. Whoever I knew before… that guy’s gone. This new Danny’s a lot quieter. Less goofy most def. I mean, old Danny could be a toolbox once in a while, but at least he was funny. He made it easier to pass time when we were working the gardens up on the rooftop. This new Danny, though? Well, let me just say he works reaaaaal hard. Like, that’s all he wants to do. Single-minded, focused on the task. Yeah, a real toolshed. Old Danny might waste your time, but you didn’t feel like he was. Now I feel like I’m pulling teeth just trying to get him to laugh at my jokes.
I decided to ask Dad what it is they do in Reinforcement, but because he’s decided becoming a mute is preferable to talking to me, he wasn’t really saying much. Don’t even know why I bothered wasting my time.
So I’m staring at a picture of us from when I was young. We’re both in uniform, and I’m barely, like, half his height. Guess I was eight in this picture. We’ve both got our bats slung over our backs, and he’s got his arm around my shoulder. Mom took the picture with an old instant-print camera Dad traded for when he found out she was pregnant. Must have been at a time he thought having a kid was a good thing. If I remember right, he had to work double duty in the labs, plus I think he gave up one of the televisions he owned. What I do remember is that this was one of our Mondays together. After we got done with our morning swings, he took me to the roof. Mom’d always been the family gardener, but Dad was no slouch, so they used the rest of the afternoon to teach me about gardening. Mom talked about how you should plant different vegetables through the year, and Dad taught me about how the rain was filtered so they could use it to water the gardens.
Know what I realized that day? Gardening sucks.
But… I’d still rather have that day back than deal with ones like today. Dad came through the door and waved as he went into the kitchen. Really, I wasn’t sure whether to bother him or not, so I just kinda shuffled through the living room. He sees me coming and pops back out with a bottle of water.
“Hey, kid,” he said with that smile that’s just become so… intimately unnerving. “What’s new?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Arguing with Allison. Breaking ankles on the basketball court. Being my all-around awesome self.”
“Well, you were always good at that,” he says as he drops into a chair. He’s already going into ignore mode. I can tell because he’s picking up a tablet to do some reading, which is his go-to move for telling me and Mom that he’s not paying attention. Or at least, not paying much. “So, what’ve you got planned for today? Any school?”
“Nah, already went earlier.” His eyes are already off me and on his screen. I’m left standing there for a second like a piece of mediocre artwork, like I’m not even worth paying attention to. “Uh, so, hey, I was wondering if I could ask you something.”
“Is that so?” he asks, not even taking his eyes off of the screen. “What’s that?”
“Well, Danny’s back. From Reinforcement.”
See, I know he’s paying attention because he flinches a bit when I say it. “Good for him, champ. I guess they were able to straighten out any of the confusion he had about the Tower rules.”
“That’s the thing. He’s acting… weird. Like he’s not really Danny. He used to be a real piece of win, and now I don’t even recognize him.”
“Isn’t that the point, Jacko? People are supposed to change after Reinforcement. It helps them obey the rules better.”
“Yeah, well, this is about a little more than rules.” I grab one of the small pillows off the couch and toss it in front of his tablet, but it doesn’t take him more than a second to slide it to the floor and get back to reading. “Look, all I want to know is if you know anything about what happens up there. You’re all Mr. Mad Science, after all. I figured you’d be able to tell me something about why he’s acting like they messed with his brain.”
“Jackie, all Reinforcement does is reinforce the rules. It’s no different from the classes you go to. Besides, you don’t need to know anything about Reinforcement. Best not to ask questions about it, right? Don’t want to have Tower Authority getting curious about why you don’t trust them.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Jackie.” His eyes shoot up to me. “Why don’t you go listen to some music or something? It’s not good to ask too many questions.”
I can’t keep my jaw from slinging open at this. “Seriously? Am I making up all the memories I have of you taking me to the lab and telling me that to be a good scientist you had to be curious?”
“About some things, Jackie. Other times we just have to trust.”