“I’d been walkaway for nearly a year before I understood this. That’s what walkaway is – not walking out on ‘society,’ but acknowledging that in zottaworld, we’re problems to be solved, not citizens. That’s why you never hear politicians talking about ‘citizens’; it’s all ‘taxpayers,’ as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay. Like the state was a business and citizenship was a loyalty program that rewarded you for your custom with roads and health care. Zottas cooked the process so they get all the money and own the political process, pay as much or as little tax as they want. Sure, they pay most of the tax, because they’ve built a set of rules that gives them most of the money. Talking about ‘taxpayers’ means that the state’s debt is to rich dudes, and anything it gives to kids or old people or sick people or disabled people is charity we should be grateful for, since none of those people are paying tax that justifies their rewards from Government Inc.
“I live as though the zottas don’t believe they’re in my species, down to the inevitability of death and taxes, because they believe it. You want to know how sustainable Belt and Braces is? The answer to that is bound up with our relationship to the zottas. They could crush us tomorrow if they chose, but they don’t, because when they game out their situations, they’re better-served by some of us ‘solving’ ourselves by removing ourselves from the political process, especially since we’re the people who, by and large, would be the biggest pain in the ass if we stayed—”
“Come on.” He had a good smile. “Talk about self-serving! What makes you think that we’re the biggest pains? Maybe we’re the easiest of all, since we’re ready to walk away. What about people who’re too sick or young or old or stubborn and demand that the state cope with them as citizens?”
“Those people can be most easily rounded up and institutionalized. That’s why they can’t run away. It’s monstrous, but we’re talking about monstrous things.”
“That’s creepy,” he said. “And cinematic. Do you really think zottas sit around a star chamber plotting how to separate the goats from the sheep?”
“Of course not. Shit, if they did that, we could suicide-bomb the fuckers. I think this is an emergent outcome. It’s even more evil, because it exists in a zone of diffused responsibility: no one decides to imprison the poor in record numbers, it just happens as a consequence of tougher laws, less funding for legal aid, added expense in the appeals process... There’s no person, decision, or political process you can blame. It’s systemic.”
“What’s the systemic outcome of being a walkaway, then?”
“I don’t think anyone knows yet. It’s going to be fun finding out.”
[II]
THE GUY’S FRIENDS woke from their nap while Limpopo and he were clearing dishes, which meant filing bugs where the dish-clearing routines failed. The tricky thing was that half the bugs were already tracked, but it wasn’t clear whether they were the same bugs, and it was dickish to create duplicate bugs when you could spend time to determine whether the bug was already there. Plus, adding more validations to an existing bug made it more likely to get fixed. If you wanted your bug fixed, you should really check it in depth.
They wandered over, gummy-eyed and torpid, whiffy of unwashed skin. Limpopo suggested they visit the onsen in the back. Everyone was amenable. They gave up on the bugs – let the other B&Bers get a crack at filing bugs of their own – and shouldered their shlepper packs and headed, staggering, to the back of the tavern.
“How’s this work?” the girl said. “Give us the FAQ” – she pronounced it “fack” – “for this kinky soapy thing of yours.” Limpopo thought she was putting up a front and the “kinky soapy” snark was a tell for anxiety about being inducted into a walkaway orgy.
“It’s co-ed, but there’s no sexytime, don’t worry. It’s 30 percent walkaway, 70 percent Japanese in approach. Just enough formalism that everyone can enjoy themselves, not so much that you worry about doing it wrong. The thing to remember is that baths are for relaxing, not washing. You don’t want to get anything except clean skin into them. No bathing suits, and you sit down at the shower stall for a hardcore scrubadub and a decontam stage before you get in. The hot water is limitless – it’s solar pasteurized in barrels on the roof, then there’s a three-stage filter through printed charcoal with the surface area of Jupiter’s moons.
“Once you’re clean, do your own thing. Some of the baths will parboil you in ten minutes, some are cold enough to give you hypothermia if you stay in them, and the rest are in between. Go where the mood takes you. I like outdoor baths, but the fish in them may creep you out. They’ll eat your dead skin, which tickles, but something deep-seated rejects being something else’s snack, so wave them away if you don’t want them nibbling. I like ’em, though. The little towels are all-purpose: keep them handy but don’t wring them out in the pools.”
“Is that it?” the smartass guy said.
“That’s it.”
“What about the dirty stuff?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you meet someone of your preferred gender and want to do something, get showered, get dressed and get a room. We don’t do dirty in the onsen. Strictly platonic.”
“If you say so.”
“So say we all.”
“Where do we leave our stuff?” That was Etcetera, and her mental assessment of him dropped a notch. Shleppers and stuff.
“Anywhere.”
“Will it be safe?”
“Dunno.”
The noobs exchanged easy to read glances: That’s not cool. I’m sure it’s safe, don’t be such a tourist. This is all our stuff. Don’t embarrass us.
“Ready?”
They followed her. They all changed together in the dry-room, and she didn’t bother being subtle about peeking, that was the deal when you were a walkaway. Skin is skin – interesting, but everyone’s got some. These three were young and firm, but not offensively so, and the smartass had totally depilated, which had been a style when she went walkaway, but had since atrophied, judging from the lush bushes the other two sported.
The funny thing about not caring if you get caught peeking is you get to watch everyone peek, and these three did, in a way that made her sure that they weren’t a sex thing with each other – yet. The other thing about not caring about peeking is you catch other people peeking at you, which all three did in turn, and she held each of their eyes in turn, frankly and unsexually. It was her duty to these noobs to help them go walkaway in their minds, the sex and scarcity death-cult they’d grown up with and turned their backs upon.
She needed to do it for herself, too. She knew it was possible to be in the presence of naked people without it being about sex – she knew that stuff was a liability, not an asset; she knew that work was not a competition – she still needed to remind her psyche. Habits didn’t die easy, they were so closely tied to her fear and fear was hardest to ignore. Taking noobs into the onsen was occupational therapy for her own walkaway.
“Let’s hit the showers.” She led them into the cleanup room, pretending not to notice their anxious glances at their packs in the unguarded room, which were no more subtle than their looks at her bare ass as she led them onward.
She started in the hottest pool, a trick to get her mind out of her muscles. That heat made thought impossible, all she could do was be, willing each muscle in turn to unclench, breathing the mineral-scented steam, until she melted beneath the water, legs, arms, ass, back, the soles of her feet, and the palms of her hands going soft as perfect barbecue, flesh just about ready to fall off her bones, relaxation lapping up her spine. The panic of the heat oozed down from her brain, warring in tiny neck muscles and in her occiput, until they gave way, and the last centimeter of stress that she’d not known was there gave. She was sensation, play of muscles and heat, pleasure balanced upon the knife-edge of pain. She relaxed deeper, the postural muscles that kept her in a Z loosened, her butt floated one increment off the porous stone step, and the sudden occurrence of a gracious interval between flesh and unyielding rock caused a deeper loosening, starting with the criss-crossing muscles of her butt, working deep into her pelvis and core. She was so relaxed her tummy bulged as the girdle of tissues that wrapped from ribs to hips gave. She felt like sous-vide meat, muscle fibers unraveling, underlying tissues sloughing away from the bag of elastic fascia that wrapped them. She let out a bass groan that hummed in her loose vocal cords. “I’m cooking.”