Flowertown (7 page)

Walking on autopilot, Ellie found herself at the records office before she had even decided where to go. The office didn’t open for another fifteen minutes, but there were a
few early arrivals floating around and she could hear the distinctive ting-ting-ting of the overworked industrial coffee pot coming to life. She flipped her badge to the guard and headed in and almost didn’t stop when he called to her.

“Are you talking to me?” Ellie turned to the guard who had shouted to her, wondering if everyone who didn’t get high had mornings this complicated. “What do you want?”

“I need to see your badge.” The guard was big, and Ellie couldn’t tell if his army crew cut was blond or gray. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember if he was new or the same guy she passed every day. She came back to his post and held up her badge.

“Is there some kind of problem?”

The soldier compared her face to her badge but didn’t look her in the eye. “You are to show proper identification upon entering all government buildings.”

“Yeah, I did. Nobody ever looks.”

Finally he met her gaze. “Well, we’re looking now.”

“Oooh.” She snatched the badge back. “I bet you’ve been waiting all morning to use that line. Did you practice in the mirror while you shaved?” She spoke over her shoulder as she moved on. “You might try curling your lip a little bit and maybe reaching for your weapon. Or maybe throw in the word ‘punk’ once in a while.”

She looked back when she reached the stairs and saw that he was still watching her, his face unmoving. This crap she did not need. She paused on the bottom step, knowing she was under surveillance, and turned back. As she cut down the cubicle aisle for Bing’s desk, she saw the guard perk up and head her way. Grinning, she waved her badge in the air, the bold red type visible from across the room,
and mouthed the word “clearance.” Her clearance for the records office gave her clearance for the entire building, a little detail that occasionally irked Bing, who did not have the same badge. Why anyone in charge thought she was more responsible than Bing was a mystery to anyone who bothered to think of such things, but at the moment her presence irked the army guard enough. She took her time sauntering down the aisle, swinging her hair in her best impression of a pageant walk, and just before she sat down at Bing’s desk, blew the staring guard a kiss.

She let out a breath as she disappeared from his sight. It had to be the explosions last night that were putting the soldiers on edge. Now more than ever this was no place to be without smoking a nice fatty, and Ellie knew Bing had to keep at least one emergency bag somewhere in his cubicle. She sat back in his seat, ignoring its trademark screech of protest, pulled up to his desk, and tried to think like her paranoid and complicated friend.

Corporate cubicles were strange places, even within government quarantine chemical spill zones. Ellie remembered her days in the cubicles in Chicago and the pleasure she used to take in piecing together the secrets of her coworkers by the things they did and did not display in their little white work spaces. She had never sat in Bing’s chair before, had never been in this space without him, and if it hadn’t been for the personnel label on his inbox, she wouldn’t have been entirely sure this was his space at all. There were thick binders of government forms and protocols, requisition records, manuals, and other mind-numbing bureaucratic paperwork present on nearly every desk in the room. A computer sat sleeping in the corner; stapler, tape dispenser, sticky
notes, cup of pens. A little yellow monster made of silicone crouched beside the mouse holding a sign that read “Bite me,” and on the installed bulletin board, amid the forms and phone lists, Ellie saw one photo of a grinning black Labrador wearing a bandanna.

As far as Ellie knew, Bing did not now nor had he ever owned a dog. She was pretty sure he was allergic to most animals; she smiled at the picture. It was so like Bing to put up a fake picture of a pet. Even at work—hell, especially at work—she knew her friend’s paranoia never rested, and it was typical Bing style to try to mislead any snoopers to a false impression, even about something as unimportant as a pet dog. The squishy little stress ball monster too, she knew, was a misdirection. Bing was not one for stress balls or whimsical toys. To the un-Bing-trained eye, this was the desk of a happy, functioning employee, but Ellie had spent enough time with him to know better. He thought she never paid attention.
She
thought she never paid attention, but this morning Ellie found herself examining the desk like a puzzle to be solved.

“I don’t want to know your secrets, Bing,” she whispered to herself. “I just want to find your weed.” If it were her work space, she would have intentionally hidden a baggie in the thick binder marked “Laws and Regulations” just to be contrary, but she knew Bing would think of the possibility that someone would at some point borrow that binder. No, his weed and whatever other little secrets he might be keeping were hidden someplace more clever, certainly not in a Tinkerbell lunch box in the file drawer.

She pulled open the center drawer. She knew none of them would be locked. Bing thought locks were for amateurs
and said they only raised suspicion. The center drawer held the usual office paraphernalia as well as some breath mints and a bottle of eye drops. Bing got the red-eye when he smoked too much. Ellie poked around a bit, knowing she wouldn’t find anything here, but she sort of enjoyed the scavenger hunt. She turned to the set of drawers on the left, and the chair let out a gruesome screech. Some bolt or spring complained at her motion and Ellie had to laugh. It was probably an intentional sabotage Bing had rigged in his seat so he would know if anyone were sneaking into his cubicle. Laughing at her own paranoia, she could imagine him sawing through an I-bolt in such a way that he was the only person in the office who could sit here silently.

Nobody came at the sound of the chair screeching, and Ellie continued her search. She started with the large file drawer on the bottom. The front of the drawer was filled with the usual hanging files with the usual indecipherable labels used for government work. She flipped through the files, knowing nothing would be found in them. At the last file, she pushed the collection forward, opening a gap in the back of the drawer where a stack of books lay. Bing was a huge reader, she knew, and felt more than justified hiding in his cubicle reading on the government’s dime. She pulled out the first three books in the stack:
The Illusion of Thought: How Stimulus Dictates Mass Action
;
Paranoia for the Aware
; and
When Bad Things Happen to Bad People—Great Retributions in History
. Guess I’m not going to find a bodice-ripper in here, she thought. She had also still not found the weed.

She put the books back and pulled open the shallow drawer above the file drawer. Rows of a variety of rubber and box stamps filled the space. There were date stamps,
classified stamps, rejected and accepted stamps, even a notary public. Who knew? Bing, a notary public. Ellie scanned her fingers over the stamp handles and box tops, reading through their contents, and noticed there were two notary stamps. The one in the front was current; the one in the back of the drawer had expired two years earlier. Both stamps were large plastic box stamps, and both were still in their white boxes with the windows on top. Peeking around to be sure nobody was watching, Ellie pulled out the expired stamp and took it out of the box. The plastic lid, under which an imprint of the stamp had been set, had a tiny crack in the corner. Jackpot.

She grabbed a staple remover and pried off the top of the stamp. The simple mechanism inside fell apart and she had to quickly grab it to keep the rubber stamp at the bottom from falling out. Other than the plastic and spring, the stamp was empty. She had been so certain he would have hidden some weed there. Before she put the plastic lid back on, she sniffed the little case and smiled. Oh yeah, she was right. There had definitely been pot in here, but where was it now? Maybe he had cleared it out after her little run-in with Feno’s Mr. Carpenter. She slipped the stamp back into its box and back into its slot in the drawer and was leaning in to continue her search when a hand grabbed her shoulder.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Ellie jumped. Bing’s face was red as he leaned into her face. She tucked her hands under her thighs innocently. “Nothing.” She laughed, knowing she was busted. “Rummaging through your desk.”

“Why?”

“Looking for your weed.”

Bing snorted, his anger gone. “Good luck with that. You’ll never find it.”

“Oh really?” Ellie leaned back in the chair. “You so sure about that?”

“I am one hundred percent sure. Trust me. You’re out of your league.”

Ellie swung her feet back and forth, making the chair squeak rhythmically. “Wanna bet?”

Bing leaned against the cubicle wall and looked her up and down. “Okay. Let’s make it something worthwhile. Judging from your customary style of dress this morning—what is that on your shirt? Gravy?—let’s bet a load of laundry.”

“Let’s bet two.”

Bing narrowed his eyes at her cockiness. Ellie was probably the only person to hate the laundry facilities more than he did, but he also knew her to be an excellent bluffer. He decided to call her on it. “You have three minutes.”

“I only need ten seconds.”

His face fell as he saw her hands behind her back, peeling up the seam of the worn-out pad of his chair, pulling out a tightly packed baggie of marijuana. “Fuck.”

Ellie laughed and took a deep sniff of the dark green herb. “Mmm. Tasty. And now with a fresh laundry scent! Oh, I’d like my whites bleached, please.”

“How did you find it? Did you feel it?”

“Nope. Smelled it.”

“Bullshit.”

Ellie laughed again and waved the bag under his face. “I’ve told you before, I can smell a dank bud from a hundred paces. Never underestimate the nose.”

“You did not smell that bag.”

She got to her feet and repeated her entrance prance back down the corridor. Bing called out after her but she ignored him, taunting him with the sight of his weed being taken away. That was the smallest part of the torment, she knew. It would drive him mad wondering how she had found it. Of course she hadn’t smelled the pot; even her sensitive nose was not that good. It was when Bing had surprised her and she’d jumped back in the seat that she’d figured it out. The office chair was broken down. The springs were loose and the casters were off balance. There were a dozen chairs all around him that were in better shape. Bing knew that anyone might rifle through his desk looking for any sort of office supply to pilfer, but nobody who spent their day in a cubicle would steal an uncomfortable chair. It was better than a locked safe. Unless someone knew how you thought.

Ellie hurried up the steps, wanting to get a joint rolled, knowing Bing would be up shortly, unable to stand not knowing how she had figured him out. She tossed the bag in the air, catching it as she waved to Big Martha, who was just turning on her computer. Martha didn’t see her and so couldn’t warn her that just around the corner of the tall stack of file cabinets, hidden from view of the door, stood a heavily armed guard in Feno red.

Ellie nearly dropped the baggie when she and guard surprised each other. As she stuffed the bundle deep into her left pocket, he grabbed the machine gun slung around his neck in readiness. All things considered, it seemed to Ellie he had a distinct advantage. She held her hands up slowly and saw the young guard trying to get his breath under control. It didn’t look like that gun made him any more comfortable than it made her.

“Is something wrong?”

“What is your business in this area?” He snapped out his words with the clipped precision of a drill sergeant, and from the tension in his grip and posture, Ellie suspected he was not only nervous, he was new. She couldn’t decide if that made him more or less dangerous.

“That’s my desk.” She pointed to her left, to the area past their standoff, and his eyes flickered between her and the workspace. Apparently this was as far as his dialogue training had taken him because he neither moved nor spoke, only looked at Ellie, ascertaining her threat level. She saw dark circles of dampness under his arms and along the front
of his shirt where his arms pressed with the gun, and bright pearls of sweat on his light brown skin. She relaxed even as he readjusted his grip on his gun. “What is it exactly you’re here to guard? Me?”

“No ma’am.” He straightened his stance, relaxing his gun grip, and stared past her. “Go on about your business.” Ellie chuckled when she caught him peeking down at his shoes to be certain his feet were on the edge of the red-painted section of the floor. This had to be Mr. Carpenter’s doing, sending a newbie guard to protect his precious red-zone files. Shaking her head, she strolled past the nervous guard and dropped into her seat as her phone buzzed a text.

“Thanks for the chili.” It was Bing. She had left her groceries in his cubicle.

“Don’t you dare!” she typed back. “Those crackers are for Rachel.”

“But the chili is for me!!! Unless you want to trade…”

Ellie laughed as she typed and saw the guard eyeing her from his position. “Afraid it’s gonna have to wait. I’ve got company up here.”

“???” Bing typed.

“Come see for yourself, but make sure you have ID. He’s nervous & armed.” She knew that would be enough to make Bing scale the side of the building if he had to. Once he saw the guard was a private Feno guard, he would freak. Bing hated Feno security even more than Guy did. Ellie didn’t look forward to breaking the news that Guy had changed sides.

“Give me 15,” Bing typed. “Staff meeting.”

Ellie kept her eye on the guard, who tried to keep her in his vision without turning his head. A stack of files had
come in with the morning delivery, and she piled them high in her inbox to eclipse her from his sight. She wasn’t hiding anything. She just liked making him nervous. As she waited for her computer to come on, she let her gaze drift over to the closest boxes stacked on the red paint near her desk. It had been so long since she and Bing had rearranged them for their convenience, she had forgotten how close the red paint came to her desk and boxes of files nearby.

As a test, she strolled to a pile of file boxes on the safe side of the red paint and opened the top one. She could see her guard jump to attention, ready to stop her if she breached the secure zone. It would have made her laugh if he hadn’t been so nervous with that gun in his hand. Instead, like a six-year-old who had discovered wrapped Christmas presents, it made her all the more determined to know what those red-taped boxes contained.

The guard relaxed a bit when she returned to her seat, an unnecessary file in her hand. His head turned even less when she returned the file to the open box, and he looked away, relaxed, when she pulled a file box out from the pile and scattered the boxes on the floor. She wasn’t looking for anything. Despite the business of her appearance, she was doing nothing more than removing and returning files unopened to their original boxes. She was also putting her guard at ease while she figured out how to put her plan in motion.

She was going to get a box out of the red zone. She wasn’t sure how exactly she would do it, but when she saw the guard wipe sweat from his upper lip, her plan became a little clearer. It wasn’t that hot in the records office and the guard wasn’t that nervous. She hauled a few more boxes of
files down from the shelf behind her, stacking them two and three high in groupings big enough to block line of sight, but not big enough to make it seem as if she was hiding anything. She pawed through the boxes, muttering and cursing as if she were looking for something she couldn’t find, all the while creating a cluttered line that came very near the red paint. She knew her guard was keeping that red line in sight, and as long as she showed no interest in crossing it, he showed no interest in her. Besides, judging from the way he kept licking his dry lips, she suspected he had something else on his mind.

Ellie rose to her feet and put her hands on her hips, staring around her as if disgusted at the mess and her failure. She grabbed a file and headed to a file cabinet closer to the guard. Once there, she set the file on top of the cabinet and began pawing through a drawer. He was really sweating, his red Feno security shirt turning a dark maroon against his skin. She could see a sheen on the tight black curls on his head, and she could hear him trying to quietly take deep breaths. She knew those signs. Either his protection meds had been upped or he was new to Flowertown. Either way, his skin advertised the nausea he was trying to hide, and Ellie knew just what she needed to do.

First, a cigarette. She pulled a file from an open drawer and opened it, laying it across the other files, and lit a cigarette while she pretended to read. She made a point of blowing the smoke over her shoulder toward the guard. Pulling a thick file from the drawer, she pretended to read while she walked slowly back toward her desk, puffing hard on the cigarette. She paused close enough to the guard to be sure the smoke would hit him square in the face and feigned
being engrossed in her reading. She could hear the guard struggling to keep his breathing steady.

Those early days in Flowertown were not easily forgotten. HF-16 had made everyone sick, some sick enough to not recover. Those lucky enough to survive the first contamination then had to suffer through the first generations of decontamination meds. If she lived to be a hundred, Ellie knew she would never forget the swirling, wracking nausea and vomiting that had afflicted her and everyone around her. As Flowertown residents had gotten as accustomed as possible to the meds, they had taken a dark pleasure in watching the incoming military, treatment, and business workers adjusting to their own gruesome protection regimens. It wasn’t unusual for people to place bets on which soldier or missionary or construction worker would vomit first with the proper stimulus. Like peeing in a cup, tipping a newbie’s nausea to vomiting had become a skill highly prized among many of the long-term residents.

The soldier fanned away the smoke, and Ellie looked up as though startled. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this smoke bothering you?”

“Smoking isn’t allowed in the records office.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and she could see the droplets of sweat on his temples had banded together into a steady stream.

“Oh, I know.” She blew another long plume of smoke out before her. “Nobody really pays any attention to it, though. I mean, there are so many rules, the little ones slip through the cracks, you know?” With the poor ventilation, the smoke hung in wisps before him, and she saw him swallow hard. “But if this is bothering you, I won’t smoke anymore.”

“I’d appreciate it, ma’am.”

“Do you mind if I just finish this one?” She inhaled deeply, letting the ember of the cigarette burn into the filter, a smell she knew was revolting. As she let loose the last thick load of smoke, she fanned her hand around his face, before his eyes, driving the smoke in closer. She didn’t figure the back and forth motion was especially pleasant either. Finally she dropped the cigarette at his feet but didn’t crush it, so it continued to smolder.

“There you go, all finished. I’ll take my smokes outside now since it’s obvious it bothers you.” Thin tendrils of smoke drifted up, and she knew he wanted to crush the butt but didn’t want to look weak. Ellie leaned in closer to him, close enough he had to smell her cigarette breath. “You don’t look like you feel so good. Are you on new meds? Aren’t they the worst? The way they just make your stomach flip-flop and churn.” He narrowed his eyes, both from the drifting smoke and trying not to focus on her words. Ellie let her voice drop to a sympathetic whisper. “The worst is the shits. Have you gotten those yet? Oh God, those are horrible. Your stomach just turns into lava and you dare not sneeze or shit just pours out of you. And the smell of it, oh it’s revolting. Feels like your O-ring’s just gonna melt away. I hope you haven’t started that. I mean, the puking is bad enough, the way your mouth sweats and those chunks just come pouring out and get stuck in your nose.” She paused. “This probably isn’t helping any, is it?”

He didn’t move or answer. He never turned his eyes to her. He had no doubt been warned about this unpleasant hobby of the locals and had readied himself. Or thought he had.

Ellie sighed as if defeated. “Well, it looks like you’re going to be tough enough for those meds. Good for you. I hate when people puke up here. It stinks up the whole place. That’s one of the reasons we smoke up here, to hide the smell of newbies puking. Oh look, that butt’s still smoking. I’ll go ahead and put it out.”

He relaxed a hair, no doubt happy the test was over. Rather than grind the smoldering cigarette out with her shoe, however, Ellie pulled out a trick Rachel had taught her when they had first moved in together. It was tough this morning because she was so dehydrated, but she knew her lack of saliva would make it that much more effective. With a growling sound deep in her throat, Ellie used every drop of spit she could muster to work up a thick and sticky wad of phlegm and let it drop slowly and heavily from her lips onto the smoldering butt. The loogey hit the ground with a satisfying splat, and Ellie embellished the effort with a little gagging of her own, followed by some final drops of spit.

“Bull’s-eye.” She grinned at the soldier who, while sweating more than ever, was holding up admirably. “There you go. No more smoke. Hope you feel better.” She headed back to her desk, whistling, waiting.

Ellie hadn’t expected the soldier to throw up just at that. Even though that was her goal, she would have been a little disappointed if it had been that easy. Part of the fun of tummy tipping was watching the mind struggle that ensued within the nauseated after a stunt. She knew he wouldn’t look at the sooty, lumpy, and yellowish clump of slime. He wouldn’t even want to think about it, but that was exactly what he would do until the front of his mind was nothing but cigarette-filled pockets of dripping snot and slime. She
tried not to laugh, imagining how revolting it must look. If she were in a position to give a shit about him, she would have felt bad.

While she waited for his mind to betray him, she planned on the best way to get a box out of the red paint zone. Since she didn’t know what she was looking for or what the boxes contained, it didn’t really matter which one she took. It was a crapshoot, so she might just as well get the easiest one she could get her hands on. The boxes that held her files were exactly the same as the classified files, except for the bright red tape that secured the latter. She couldn’t be sure she would get more than one chance to sneak into the red paint zone, so she had to be sure whatever box she took stayed hidden and whatever gap she left wasn’t noticed.

Ellie knelt on the floor behind the boxes she had stacked up around her workstation. The soldier completely ignored her, his mind no doubt busy disciplining itself against visions of foul sputum. She studied the stacks of Feno boxes closest to her. They were stacked three high, three deep, three across; the file cabinets were now neatly lined up against the walls. Tidy little fuckers, she thought. Her cozy maze of boxes was gone, as was her private sitting area. Hell, it seemed like half the boxes back here had been removed. Those that remained were stacked in such neat little bundles throughout the red-painted area, it was going to be a bitch to swap them out unnoticed. All those red-taped seals were prominently displayed. If she was going to switch out one of her unsealed boxes, she was going to have to tuck it into the middle of a stack. Great. So all she had to do was somehow get enough time to lift, haul, drop, switch, hide,
and restack. She hoped her guard had had a nice big dinner last night.

Ellie returned to her desk to wait. The secret to tummy tipping was timing. Throw too much at the target too fast and your efforts were just the distraction that could keep them from focusing on their nausea; take too long between stunts and they could get control of their focus. Ellie knew she had to wait until the heat, the smoke, and the idea of snot at his feet became the white elephant in the corner he could not stop thinking about. Judging from the way he swayed just slightly, she knew it was time for phase two.

She picked up her office phone and dialed Bing’s extension. “Hey buddy, how about an early lunch? Or would it be brunch?”

“I’m not giving you your chili back until you tell me how you found my stash.” She could hear the chatter of Bing’s officemates returning from their staff meeting.

“That sounds great! You having your soup?”

“You mean what you call my Ass Soup? Oh…” Bing dropped his voice to a whisper. “Let me guess. Your new visitor isn’t feeling so good? Who is it? Can you say?”

“Nah.” Ellie leaned forward on her elbows, doodling on her desk blotter. “I think I’ll have chili. Why don’t you heat yours up downstairs and just bring the can to me? Our microwave’s a little stronger up here. Plus that will give your soup plenty of time to develop its flavors while my chili gets nice and bubbly.”

“On my way. But you’d better warn Big Martha. She threatened to beat me to death if I ever brought that soup upstairs again.”

“Will do. See you in two.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to keep rhyming everything.”