“I do?”
“Chin up, Ronny,” Zack whispered. “You belong here, remember? Don’t give the game away.” Zack gave Ronson a slap on the back, let out a laugh that ground its way out from the pit of his stomach as if they were discussing something else. “And yeah, you do.” Zack nodded at the final Guardians, their agreement to turn a blind eye already cemented in place from the many trades before.
Zack pushed open the door to the water treatment plant. Ronson stared at the three giant pipes rising up along the far wall. Attached to each was a series of taps, all locked behind a reception desk boarded up with wired glass. There was a gate at the side that opened with an electronic grunt when Zack punched in a key code.
“Won’t be long before others arrive. Hand me the card.” Ronson fumbled in his pocket, his fingers clumsy with nervous excitement. “Thanks,” Zack said as he took it from him. He pushed it into a card reader, and the name Boris Matthews shone in tiny yellow LED dots. Zack pulled a large plastic container from underneath the counter and positioned the opening up to the tap behind him. After a couple of clicks on the computer they heard the rumble of water cascading against the plastic.
“Simple as that,” Ronson whispered, not once taking his eyes from the container. Once it was full the tap automatically switched off. Ronson felt the presence of another body behind him, and when he turned around there was a man standing with a small plastic bottle in his hands. The man smiled but Ronson did nothing. A stranger could be a dangerous thing in the sublevels, and even after all this time stuck down there, they were still around every corner.
“Morning,” the stranger said. “Got yourself a five litre, eh? You must have been putting some hours in,” the stranger said to Ronson. Ronson, conscious of his clothes, his smell, his hat, and of nothing more than the scar on his face that he hoped so much wasn’t showing, just about managed a smile back with the side of his lips that still moved. The sound of the water container hitting the desk grabbed Ronson’s attention and he turned back to Zack without answering. Zack tipped it on its side, lifted a small hatch door and slid the water carrier through the space underneath the glass partition.
“There you go, Boris. Get that straight home, right?” Ronson nodded, almost unable to lift the container, the sides of it buckling back and forth as it contorted from the volume of water inside. “Don’t make any stops.”
“He spoke to me,” Ronson whispered as he leaned in. “He said good morning.”
“You need a rest, Boris. No more extra shifts for you this week. Got it?” Zack stared at him, wide eyes imploring him to grab the container and go. The stranger was also getting impatient, and this was the last thing Zack needed. The stranger took a step forward, rested a hand onto Ronson’s shoulder.
“I think you’ve finished here, Boris.” The stranger’s fingers bored into Ronson’s skin through the threadbare jumper. He scrunched up his nose, smelling the air, inching closer and closer towards Ronson. “I think I feel thirstier than I thought I was. I’ll take five litres today as well. I have been working hard, too.” He slapped his card on the desk with his grubby hand. He pushed it along the counter, and then raised a finger to the underside of his nose. Zack knew that the man had realised that this was a trade, and that Ronson didn’t belong here.
Zack inserted the card into the reader. Richard Donoghue. “You don’t have enough credits.” Zack placed his hands down on the counter in an effort to look immovable. “Boris,” Zack said, turning to Ronson. “Time to leave, Boris.” Ronson nodded, wriggled free of Richard’s grip. He wrapped his arms around his five litres of water and took a few steps towards the exit.
“I think you must have made a mistake,” said Richard. “I know for a fact that there are fifty credits on there. Check again.” Richard took a step towards the door, his eyes still on Zack. “Or, I could just tell one of the Guardians that Boris stole my water. If you’d prefer to play it like that.” Only a second from running, Ronson turned in time to see Zack pulling up another five litre container. With his head down, Ronson fled. He flew through the corridors at the speed of a lightning bolt, a new found energy that surprised even him. He was back through the door to level nineteen and down the stairs in half the time it had taken him to arrive.
After Ronson and Richard left, Zack made the necessary checks on the water supply. It was his job every day not only to dish out the rations, but also to measure the different mineral quantities that they pumped in. There was lots of poor hygiene and substandard nutrition throughout Delta. How many days can you eat the same fare without getting bored or skipping meals, or sustain any acceptable standard of health? There had been an outbreak of the influenza virus and many people had died. That’s when Omega announced the Mineral Supplementation Programme in the water.
Today he had to fulfil the rations for Omega and Epsilon Tower. Each day, a different order. The needs of Omega Tower were always met, but for the other towers it wasn’t always possible. They got what was left.
The irony of the New Omega Manifesto wasn’t lost on most residents. A set of principles supposed to ensure a fair and comfortable life for all. Creed Four: No citizen of New Omega shall die of thirst or hunger. Most people accepted that the manifesto really only applied if you lived in Omega Tower. People joked that it was really called the Omega Manifesto. The manifesto had been fly-posted on every floor, but after they were defaced the Guardians were instructed to take them down. That’s when the televised address started, twice daily, read by President Grayson himself in a pre-recorded speech. It always reminded Zack of how little he believed in it. They were the promises of Omega Tower, but it was Omega Tower who made the demands that prevented Delta Tower from fulfilling the requirements of the other towers. Delta could only pump in so much water, and there was only a limited supply of the chemicals needed to treat it. Sometimes they would run low, and the water would end up with a specific taste or smell. In the early days the pipes were always getting blocked and it made it hard to process enough water. It meant that somebody had to go down into the storage facility where they drew in the raw, untreated water. There were only a few instances recently, but unclogging the metal grids blocked with anything from human waste to dead fish was the worst part of work in Delta Tower. But it was better now than it used to be. In the early days there were blockages nearly every other shift. The problem was that some people had tried to hide in the sewers when the bombs came. Most of them died and got washed into the water system as far as the metal grids that were designed to stop small items going any further. None of the bodies that Zack had ever pulled out had tattoos on their wrist, and that’s how people knew they were outsiders. The really unlucky ones.
After the second double bell, the signal for the end of shift one, Zack didn’t take the lift. Instead he walked through the corridors, past the amblers, past those with nothing to do, until he reached the stairway. There were two stairways in Delta Tower. The first, and largely abandoned, was the stairway by which Ronson had illegally entered Delta Tower at the start of the first shift. Until the twentieth floor nobody used this stairway, and when he had walked up it last week to ensure that it was still passable he was surprised at how untouched it felt. There was dust everywhere, and each step took his breath away as the particles from underneath his feet floated into the atmosphere, disturbed perhaps for the first time in years. There were layers of paint which had been punched like inverted Braille along the walls where furniture had been dragged up, the feet of the beds drilling the story of Delta Tower into the Duck Egg blue walls that once looked so crisp and clean. Some of the glass banisters had been shattered in the same incident, and some of them had been destroyed when the ground shook and the sky lit up.