Wordless (2 page)

two

Drey made good on his word, coming to the garage even earlier than usual to tip me out of my cot and shove a cup of coffee into my hands. It looked and smelled like he’d brewed it out of old truck tires.

I blew on it, sitting on the side of the cot, and took a sip. “Mmm, even tastes like tires.”

“I want you alert this morning, Tav. This is important,” he said, scooting aside a box of spare earplugs and gloves to lean against the metal desk across from my cot. He used to use this room for storage and still put a few boxes in here, but I didn’t mind. He was letting me live here for free, after all. Before moving in here, I’d lived with him in his tiny studio apartment—a total bachelor pad—until we could no longer stand the proximity. That was when I was about six.

“I know it’s important,” I said. “If the Athenaeum’s garbage doesn’t get collected, they might realize it exists.”

“Tavin.”

“I’m listening.” I got up and padded barefoot across the concrete floor to the mini-fridge that I hoped would contain breakfast.

“You’re an intelligent, handsome, hardworking kid, Tav. This is an important opportunity for you … to be noticed.”

I froze. “I’m handsome?”

Drey scowled like he usually did when I was ridiculing something he said, but this time there was no ridicule. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked in a mirror. I’d grown a lot in the last year, my arms thickening to the point where other guys at the garage joked they needed to start working out to catch up to me, but that was about all I’d noticed.

“You can still do something with yourself. Don’t squander your life,” Drey said, reiterating what he’d told me yesterday.

And like yesterday, I still had some serious doubts, even more now that he’d thrown “handsome” onto the list of my imaginary attributes. “Thanks for the pep talk, but it’s not like I’m going to climb to the top on the strength of my trash-hefting muscles.” I peered into the fridge. “Especially with no milk to put on my cereal.” Captain Crunch was my favorite American import—there was a flow of goods across the borders, just not people—and I tried not to go a morning without it.

Drey sighed and raised a brown paper bag that had been resting behind him. It had grease splotches on it, which was always a good sign. Unless that was engine oil and not butter. “I got you a pastry,” he said.

He’d gotten me two. With chocolate filling. I started in on the first one as I trailed him down the narrow aisle between the trucks and a wall of tools. The smell of diesel fuel and ripe trash didn’t bother me as I inhaled the pastry like a starving man. I was used to those things.

It was so early that the other guys hadn’t yet arrived to take the second truck. Still, Drey didn’t give me time to shower in the weeny stall in the garage, which was there for the sake of anyone who’d gotten doused in garbage juice. And he raised a hand to stop me when I reached for my usual neon-green overalls and jacket.

“They gave me a different uniform for you,” he said, opening the door of our truck to toss me a plastic-wrapped package from under the seat.

I tore it open to reveal a white long-sleeved jacket, almost like a doctor’s.

“What, am I going to a hospital?” Before Drey could answer, I added, “Do they even know what we do?
White
?” White clothes and trash were two more things that didn’t mix well.

“We’re an independent company,” Drey said, getting in the truck. He waited until I’d climbed in the other side before continuing. “But you still have to report to the head of the Athenaeum’s janitorial staff. So try to look sharp. She’ll tell you where to go and what to do, though I know you’ll be collecting trash from small sites around the complex and then driving it to the main containers outside. We’ll empty those when I come to pick you up, and then we’ll finish our usual run through the city.”

“Did you say ‘drive’?” I asked as Drey started the engine. The volume of our voices adjusted to be heard over the roar.

“Yes, you’ll get your own vehicle. A small one, nothing like these”—he was backing the great rumbling monster out of the garage—“which you already know how to handle.”

I was going to be trusted with my own vehicle? It was too good to be true. “I still don’t see why they would hire me,” I said, rubbing the white jacket between my fingers as if it were made out of silk. “Don’t they already have someone for the job?”

“Nope,” Drey said tersely, looking straight ahead into early morning traffic. The city was already waking up in this section—the poor section—where buildings were tall but made out of concrete instead of stone, like a prison block. “Buckle your seat belt.”

I grumbled under my breath and put on my jacket and my seat belt. I was intrigued, even though I had no illusions about my “future opportunities.”

We approached the Athenaeum from the south, crossing a bridge over the Nectar River as the sun officially crested the horizon. Golden light bounced off Lake Eden in the east and raced along the river, a glowing slash that cut the city in half. The colossal fountain on the lake ignited like a pillar of fire, and the massive glass pyramid lit up like a lantern. As big as it was, the Athenaeum would have to be a lantern that belonged to the Gods. And I was about to go inside.

We drove around to a back parking lot. I spotted the trash containers against the outer base of the steeply slanting glass walls, next to a gate just wide enough to allow a vehicle to pass: a service entrance.

When I jumped down from the truck, Drey came around to inspect me. He reached up to flatten my mussed brown hair with fingers that were disturbingly crabbed. And either I was still getting taller—which was pretty damned tall already—or he was shrinking. I often called him “Old Man Drey,” but now it struck me like a sucker punch that he
was
an old man.

“You need a haircut again,” he said. “It’s falling in your eyes. And that jacket’s a little tight across your shoulders and short in the arms.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I didn’t want to call him “old man” ever again.

Drey suddenly looked uncomfortable. I didn’t know whether he’d liked me calling him Dad or not, even sarcastically. I’d taken his last name, Barnes, but only because it had been the only one around to give me. I sure looked nothing like him—my skin alone was several shades darker.

We were both about to say something, probably something awkward I didn’t want to say or hear, when the small gate slid open, discharging a compact truck that was more like a cart with a trailer bed attached. It parked a short distance away, and then a woman in white stepped out and approached on foot, flanked by two people in black who’d followed her from the gate. Their rooster struts screamed
power-tripping security guards
louder than their official-
looking uniforms and badges … and guns.

And the woman was walking the same way, even in heels and a tight skirt.

“Uh, see you later, Drey,” I said as he broke away. “In a few hours, right?” I was suddenly afraid he wouldn’t come back for me.

“Of course. Remember what I said, Tav.” He hopped in the truck, which sounded like a metallic avalanche as it took off.

The woman marched up to me without pausing or smiling, her heels clicking sharply on the asphalt. “You’re Gustav Barnes, I presume?”

“Tavin. Or Tav,” I said with a wince. Drey and his stupid names.

She held up an electronic tablet without acknowledging what I’d said. “Look here. Open your eyes wide and hold still.”

I stared into what looked like a camera lens on the back of the tablet and didn’t blink, like a good boy, until she lowered her arm and tapped at the screen.

“Retinal scan complete.” She detached a stylus from the tablet and held them both out to me. “Sign here.”

I balanced the slim device on my arm and pinched the stylus awkwardly in my fingers. The screen, which for me would usually have shown a video recording of someone giving instructions, was full of little black symbols that meant shit to me.

“Uh, where?” That was the first of my problems. The other would be writing my name.

“Where it says ‘name,’” she responded.

“I don’t know where that is.”

She smiled a smile that had nothing to do with kindness. “Good, you’re wordless. We wouldn’t want you claiming to be someone you aren’t, hmm?” She snatched the tablet and stylus back from me, signing the screen herself before doing an about-face. “Right this way.”

I followed the pinched lady as she marched toward the small truck. Her strut
was
somewhat inhibited by her skirt—she walked like she had a stick up her ass. That, along with many other things about her, cancelled out the positive effect of her nice legs. I tried to pretend the security guards weren’t there, positioned on either side of me like they were escorting me into prison. We stopped in front of the truck.

“Here is the vehicle you will be using,” she said, handing me the key. “It will be parked inside the gate every morning. I assume I don’t have to explain your duties, as they’re rather simple. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Wait,” I said as she strode back toward the gate with the security guards. “I don’t know where to go.”

“You have brawn,” she said, giving me a backward glance like I was something she’d accidentally speared on one of her stiletto heels. “But try to use your brains. Follow the signs. They’re mostly in pictures, but scan them with your video phone to get an audio prompt if you still can’t understand. You
do
have a phone, right?”

Even the homeless had phones, never mind the wordless who needed them to function. “Uh, yes. Ma’am.”

She nodded and turned back around. “Don’t wander, or you’ll be fired immediately.”

All I had to say to her involved a string of expletives, so I let her vanish inside the giant structure without another word. I slipped into the truck to follow and was amazed when I barely heard the engine turn over. It was electric, like probably all the vehicles in the enclosed space of the Athenaeum—no exhaust. The garbage truck was the only vehicle I’d ever driven. Drey was right: next to that, this little pickup handled like a silent breeze.

I drove up to the gate, where the security guards were waiting with no-nonsense, brick-stupid faces. They let me pass with another retinal scan, even though I kept expecting them to stop me.

What I saw inside made me forget them instantly.

The Athenaeum was a city of its own—the pyramid was just an outer shell. Roads and sidewalks cut through landscaped gardens that lined the inner wall of the pyramid before diving between buildings that rose as high as the slanting glass allowed. The buildings climbed like shining staircases until those under the highest point, at the center, were literally skyscrapers. Somehow, there was a breeze, and sunlight shone through the glass like I was outside.

After driving around for ten seconds, I discovered that most of the signs were in pictures I could identify: a silhouette of a running man who needed to piss—okay, maybe that was an exit; a fork and spoon for restaurant locations; the outline of desks for offices, color-coded for different sections of the complex; and, lo and behold, a two-dimensional trash can with a crumpled wad of paper being tossed into it.

It struck me that you had to have a lot of paper to be able to throw it away like that.

There was even a sign I recognized from outside the Athenaeum: a serpent twisting up a staff. Why the hell would they need a hospital when there were three outside? Maybe they didn’t like sharing.

At this early hour, there were only a few other electric cars and early risers—joggers, mostly, with only a couple of
people in suits. It made the Athenaeum feel sparsely populated. But there were obviously many people living here with the Words, more than I’d ever imagined. The trash can signs, and the trash cans themselves, were mostly along the widest roads, clustered among swanky hotels and embassies that displayed flags from around the world. But sometimes the signs led me down narrow, canyonlike streets so deep I could hardly see the sky, into tucked-away parks shared by sprawling private apartments.

This made me wonder whether I should collect the trash in these more private areas … plus, the people who’d been strolling the streets had all vanished. But there hadn’t been many “strollers” to begin with, since everyone had acted like ants on the march, and I hadn’t seen any signs telling me these streets were off-limits.

Besides, I was still finding trash to collect in these residential areas. The cans led me, like crumbs leading a street rat, to a group of ritzy apartment buildings with fancy windows encased in ornate wrought-iron bars. Probably to keep people like me out.

Soon I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was an intruder,
no matter what, and I figured I should probably head back—until I spotted trash bags in an alley between two of the apartment buildings
.

The alley was gated.

Curiosity killed the street rat. But I couldn’t help it. I left the truck to investigate on foot, looking as purposeful as possible in case anyone saw me. They probably already had, I realized when I saw the security camera and the eye scanner next to the twelve-foot spiked gate.

I don’t know why I did it. Maybe for the same reason I grinned at security guards—my impetuousness, Drey always called it. Or maybe because there was trash behind the gate, and I was the Athenaeum’s new trash collector.

I waved at the camera, leaned in, and put my eye up to the scanner.

A small yellow light on the scanner began to flash, as if it was thinking. It thought for a long time, as if scrutinizing not only my retina but my entire life story:
Abandoned orphan. Charity case. Lowly garbage boy.
Any moment, I expected the light to turn red and alarms to sound.

But instead, the light turned green and the gate popped open with a soft click.

It had to be a mistake. I stuck my head tentatively inside and slunk into the alley. I was pretty sure I didn’t belong here—especially considering what I did next.