Metropolis - Goldilocks: Capsule Bay 423 - Unit 4

Wednesday, May 13th, 2089 | 6:03pm

Chris could only describe the walk to the cafeteria as tense. She’d waited until the last possible moment to log out of Era, but even that didn’t let her avoid Doris’ friend forever. Chris had wedged herself in the procession line to the cafeteria as far away from the dark-skinned and white-haired woman as she could get. It backfired on her when not even a full minute later, Chris was last in line with the woman directly ahead of her. It was the furthest position from the guard.

With each step Chris took in the direction

of the cafeteria, she became more and more convinced that she had stumbled into an intricate chess game; everyone knew the rules but her. The moment she thought she’d caught up to everyone’s moves, she would find herself outplayed and even more behind. Eyes glued on the back of Doris’ friend’s head, Chris waited for another move of some kind. Every time they stopped at one of the control gates, Chris thought the old woman would say something, threaten her, warn her… something!

But nothing.

The procession of women walked in total silence all the way to the cafeteria. By the time they got there, Chris almost wished something had happened; the silent treatment was driving her crazy. The woman went her own way without even sparing Chris a glance, but Chris’ nerves were frayed and she was on edge as she headed for the food dispenser. Memories of the morning kept her vigilant, looking for any possible line of attack. She watched all women, but classified those with trays in their hands at a lower threat level. Having learned from that morning how hard the women tried to avoid notice from the guards, Chris reasoning led her to believe they’d rather attack without a tray to drop or get in the way.

Keeping her hands down by her sides proved to be a challenge as they flinched up at any sudden movement, bracing defensively. Women near her gave her strange and pitying looks every time it happened. The line to the food dispenser seemed abnormally long. The longer Chris stood in it, the slower it moved. Her eyes scanned the cafeteria and the other food dispensers. It felt like she and the women around her waiting in line were stuck in a time bubble while the room bustled with activity. Chris almost got out of the line and headed to a different line, but having to cross the room and make her way past even more women that could potentially want her dead was extremely unappealing.

While keeping an eye on the line’s slow progress, Chris scanned the room for friendly and unfriendly faces. Tiny, as always, immediately stood out like a beacon. She was four tables away from where Chris usually sat by the door, which was slightly different from where Chris was used to seeing her roommate, two tables away from the dispenser she was at.

Yaz, she detected not long after; the girl had a stridently unforgettable voice. Every now and then, a few words or just the mere sound of her voice would make it through the rest of the cafeteria’s conversations. Chris watched the girl for a moment, noticing how all the women at her table seemed to have absolutely no interest in what she was saying. Some even looked like they’d eaten something sour or were about to be sick. Comforting herself with the fact that Yaz was even more moves behind than herself, Chris took her turn at the dispenser.

Raising her wrist to the scanner, her b-link blinked once and a bowl of steaming gruel came out of the dispenser, ready for her to take out, along with the tray and spork. Chris grabbed them, was hit with a fresh wave of the familiar, strong, seaweedy smell of gruel and made her way toward her table before even checking if it was free. Luckily, all she saw was a friendly face, or at least as close to a friendly face as she was bound to get in the given environment. Tanisha.

Chris walked toward Tanisha, whose face still looked like it had been hit by a sandbag. She was having an animated conversation with a woman Chris assumed belonged to their new faction. All Chris could tell from the back of the woman’s head was that she was probably Asian, with long, black hair hanging down her back. With her attention focused on her surroundings, trying to avoid a similar breakfast encounter Chris didn’t realize who was really sitting at her table until it was too late. Doris.

“Oh, hey, Dearie,” Doris said, “Fancy meeting you here!” Any chance of getting away unnoticed was completely obliterated.

Tanisha looked up at Chris, slightly surprised.

“I didn’t know you knew Doris!”

Chris opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly it felt like she had a toad lodged in her throat. She swallowed and when it still didn’t clear, she forced a cough and made her way around the table. She took a seat to Tanisha’s right. Chris wasn’t going to get away, so she might as well sit down before Doris invited Chris to sit down beside her. There was always a worse situation.

“Yeah, we‘ve met,” Chris said with a smile on her face. It felt faker than a spray tan, but hopefully it wasn’t as obvious as one.

“Come now, don’t be like that,” Doris said chidingly. “And here I thought we were getting on so well.”

Chris clutched her spork in her hand and held it on the table, unwilling to lift a shaking hand. She did not want to show weakness, and the woman’s thinly veiled words were getting to her.

“In fact,” Doris continued airly, driving the point home. “I thought we’d come to an agreement.”

The edge in Doris’ eyes left absolutely no doubt as to what she was referring to. Chris swallowed, once more reacquainting herself with the toad in her throat. Even Tanisha was becoming aware of the growing tension between them, and Chris had no idea how to disperse it. After being on edge for so long, Chris felt like anything she said could be construed the wrong way. She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t move, she was practically paralyzed.

Feeling weak and stupid, Chris bit down on the inside of her cheek hard enough to make it bleed. Tasting the iron in her mouth cleared her head. If she could go against nature’s self-preservation instinct, she could smooth things over with one Asian lady. Chris nodded, using the movement to disguise her unstable hand. She loosened her grip on the spork enough for her to stop using it as a lifeline and use it the way it was intended to instead.

“I thought so, too,” Chris said.

Chris didn’t want to go on the defensive, but she wasn’t ready to go on the attack. Her word choice was ambiguous enough to avoid a direct confrontation, yet firm enough to prove she had a backbone, something Chris knew Doris respected.

Doris’ face remained unreadable as always. Doris’ scar pulled her lips into a jagged smile, distorting her face into a grimace that still unsettled Chris’ stomach. Chris shoveled some gruel to see if the food would calm it a bit. If anything, it had the exact opposite effect. All the gruel ended up doing was distract her from the conversation and bringing her attention to the gruel itself. Chris was so used to ignoring the paste and its taste on its way in and down that it caught her off guard by how it tasted.

It was salty. Not very much, but enough for her to notice and enough for her to know that it must be something that wasn’t there before. The taste shocked her. She’d had a ‘good’ meal here and there in Era over the last week, but this was the first time she’d really tasted anything that wasn’t downright vile since she arrived at Goldilocks. Her mouth instantly started salivating, though her mind still labeled the gruel as ‘atrocious’. Slightly less disgusting, but disgusting nonetheless.

“Ah,” Doris said, knocking Chris out of her thoughts. “Looks like one little birdie found the crumb trail. Don’t get lost in the woods, girlie, you know what’s in there.”

“...What?” Tanisha asked.

“The big, bad wolf?” Chris asked with a hint of sarcasm, wanting to direct the conversation down a different path.

“Actually, I do believe this story ends with an old witch,” Doris said pensively. “Yes, that woman… she must have been very unhappy to eat such innocent, sweet children for breakfast.”

“You sure it wasn’t dinner?” Chris asked.

Doris flashed a quick grin before she added, “Don’t forget lunch.”

“Oh, how could I? Those vomit-bags are unforgettable.”

Doris shrugged.

“Had to make sacrifices somewhere, Dearie. Capsules aren’t going to pay for themselves.”

“You talking about the Warden?” Chris asked.

Doris nodded and steepled her fingers over her already-empty plate.

“But with all the capsules and all of the inmates… Doesn’t he have tons of cash?”

“Before all of this,” Doris said, un-steepling her fingers to display the room about them. “All ventures have a start-up cost and if you don’t have the liquid capital, you have to make certain sacrifices.”

“Yeah,” Chris said, considering. “But that was before. Shouldn’t he have stopped it by now?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Why?” Doris asked. “By now, it’s a custom. The women are used to it and it’s a way to test your commitment to Era and thus him.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Chris said.

Immediately, she regretted her words. There was a beat of silence before Doris spoke again in a much lower and more measured tone.

“I don’t see why, Dearie,” Doris said. “I can see where the man is coming from. A commitment should mean something.”

Her words cast an immediate shadow of tension over the situation. Chris chewed her once-more tasteless gruel and came to terms with the fact that she’d managed to dig a hole ten feet deep, get in it and bury herself with no escape in sight.

“I agree,” Chris said slowly when Tanisha had nothing to add to the volatile interchange. It was obvious that Tanisha had no clue about what was going on, but she also wasn’t dumb or curious enough to try and find out. The woman simply ate her gruel in peace and waited for the other two to battle it out. Tanisha had learned the hard way that a fight that didn’t involve her was a good fight.

The silence multiplied and then, unchecked, grew exponentially. Soon, it loomed, insurmountable, before her. The humorous approach had failed, as had the backbone one; trying guilty or weak was out of the question, leaving Chris backed into a corner. It felt like the whole week had been a huge lead-up to this moment. A moment which could and would change everything.

Her mouth was dry. She felt awkward taking a sip of water, so she lifted the gruel to her lips once more, only to choke without enough moisture. Coughing, tears came to Chris’ eyes and she was forced to grab the plastic mug to sip at it and unclog her throat. She coughed loudly, finally drowning out the loud noises of the cafeteria around her that had begun to overwhelm her.

“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice spoke from the head of the table. “What a cozy little group we got going here. You guys don’t mind if we join, do you? Of course you don’t.”

Chris looked up as she took another slow sip and watched as Velma made her way to Doris’s left side, sitting directly across from Chris. The same tall and thin, black woman from that morning accompanied Velma and took a seat on Tanisha’s unoccupied side. The new additions completely changed the table’s dynamics, but even outnumbered four to one, Doris just smiled like she was still in control.

“Want to introduce me to your little friends, Dearie?” Doris said. The sentence was posed as a question, but it was obviously a command. Uncertain of how to proceed, Chris tapped her spork on her plastic plate, buying herself some time as she looked up at Velma. A slight nod from the black woman and Chris was obliging Doris’ request.

“Velma,” Chris said, nodding at Velma. “Doris.”

“Doris, Velma,” Chris repeated.

The women then turned their bodies slightly to nod at each other, before once more looking straight ahead. Doris then looked at the woman next to Tanisha, who was busy eating and, for all intents and purposes, completely ignoring the rest of the table.

“We, ah…” Chris said. “Also haven’t officially met yet.”

“Is that so?” Doris said, “I thought I’d heard different. My mistake.”

The tall and thin, black woman was still ignoring the conversation, a fact that Doris also seemed to pick up on as her smile thinned. She cocked her head to one side and said,

“And who is this fine specimen of the human race?”

Doris’ voice had a cutting edge to it that made a shiver crawl down Chris’ spine, but apparently went completely unnoticed by the black woman, who continued to eat gruel without concern. Fortunately, Velma picked up on Doris’ tone as well and said, “That recalcitrant child there goes by Needle.”

Velma’s tone was simultaneously sarcastic, deferential and commanding. There were so many different things being said between the lines that it was hard to keep track, but Chris was just relieved to find out for sure that Doris was as important as she’d assumed. After a week in Goldilocks, all Chris was sure of was that she was growing more and more uncertain each day, so it was nice to know she’d been right about at least one thing.

“Needle?” Doris asked after a moment, obviously considering Velma’s tone.

It was a type of interaction Chris had never gotten from Doris and she realized she was watching a sparring match between two superiors. She ate and watched as the women sat next to each other and talked calmly between bites without making eye contact.

“Yes, it’s quite an interesting story, actually.”

“I’m sure,” Doris said, though there was zero interest in her voice.

“I wasn’t aware you knew Barbie,” Velma said, looking straight through Chris.

“We’re acquainted,” Doris said without any inflection whatsoever.

Chris found herself scratching at the metal table’s plasticized surface with her left hand. She’d considered the possibility of offending Doris, but she hadn’t expected it to be this bad. How could someone like Chris be so important to Doris that she would be so upset? Was it just a matter of principle? Chris had definitely not expected to be sitting across the table from two women discussing her fate like they were talking about paint thinner.

“Ah,” Velma said. “I was not aware.”

“Seems like your recruitment process has started early this round,” Doris said.

“Extenuating circumstances… you know.”

“I don’t. But I guess I must. Tomorrow should be an exciting day.”

“Indeed,” Velma said, eyes suddenly focusing on Chris. “We’ll be able to see everyone’s true worth.”

Chris choked on her food and tried to wash it down with water, but the women continued their conversation like she wasn’t even there.

“I believe in the underdog,” Doris said. “Some people end up surprising you.”

“They do,” Velma said.

“Then again,” Doris said, “some people are just disappointing investments.”

“Also true.”

“Guess we’ll know more tomorrow.”

“Sure will.”

As if on cue, both women stopped the fluid exchange of words and went back to focusing on the food in front of them. Chris’s legs were shaking under the table, but she just hoped her lack of composure didn’t show above the table-top.

“You ok?” Tanisha whispered beside her.

Chris clamped down on her emotions, annoyed she was letting them get the best of her. There was no room for fear or regret right then; they would just be getting in the way of clear thinking. She nodded.

“Yep.” She smiled.

Unconvinced, Tanisha had opened her mouth to say something in return when someone slammed her tray down across the table next to Doris, in front of Needle.

Chris looked up to see Freddy sinking down with an equal lack of grace, shaking the entire table in the process. The dishes clattered and the trio of women on the other end of the table frowned at them. Chris lowered her head apologetically and was relieved to be out of the spotlight once more.

“So, this is gonna be fun right?” Freddy asked loudly.

“Fun?” Needle asked, suddenly inspired to speak.

“Yeah, getting all the new peeps sorted tomorrow. It’s gonna be fun. I can already hear the murmurs of complaints in their voices…”

Freddy twisted her whole body to look back at the cafeteria, making the rest of them, save Velma and Doris, look as well. Chris had been too preoccupied with her own safety to pay the general mood of the cafeteria any mind. She took the time now to see how voices were raised, groups bundled up, eyes darting here and there, many of them even directed at their table.

“Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Chris!” Chris jerked at the loud, shrill voice screeching her name. “Ugh, I haven’t seen you in like… forever!”

Chris looked up to face Yaz. The girl’s bare hands didn’t go unnoticed as Chris was still used to checking for possible sources of threat. She wondered if Yaz would be capable of stabbing her, then she wondered why she would doubt the potential for evil in a room full of criminals.

“I wouldn’t say forever,” Chris said neutrally. “I mean, we haven’t even been here for a full week.”

Yaz rolled her eyes dramatically and plopped down next to Velma without asking or even looking at her.

“You know what I mean,” Yaz moaned with a pout. “Every day in Era feels like years. Ohmigod. So stressful only being able to see your rank when you log out!”

Chris nodded, eating small sporkfuls of gruel at a time. Yaz would talk by herself and while Chris was chewing she couldn’t be blamed for the girl’s inability to read or process the scene.

“It’s okay though,” Yaz said, continuing to speak without restraint. “I finally made it past dud-territory. Ugh, I was so worried until yesterday. Those last hundred ranks are killer, aren’t they? Meh, I’m sure you’re way past that.”

Chris nodded outwardly, but internally, she wanted to jump over the table, clamp Yaz’s mouth closed, slap her and maybe strangle her for good measure. The stress was getting to her.

“Doris,” said a quiet, deferential voice, its owner taking a seat next to Yaz.

“Agnes,” Doris said in recognition.

Before Chris could begin to process the new addition, Yaz stood up quickly, knocking over her own cup of water. Chris dove to save it since the girl was seemingly indifferent.

“Doris!?” Yaz screeched. “I didn’t see you there!”

“Shocking,” Doris said with a friendly smile.

“What you been up to, girl!?”

“Being imprisoned, mostly. Yourself?”

The question was enough invitation for Yaz to sit down and start in on her monologue again.

“Leveling like crazy, that’s what!” Yaz said. “Took me forever, but I’m finally at level 23. Rank…” Yaz’s eyes scrolled through an unseen menu for a moment before she said. “5059. Man, Getting through the 5,200s was killer. But after that, it was smooth sailing. There’s gotta be a lot of people clumped on the border of duds and players.”

There was silence at the table from everyone else. Beside Chris, Tanisha’s body had gone completely stiff and the woman had stopped eating the moment Yaz started openly shouting out information that had gotten Tanisha beaten to a pulp.

“Turns out our little group of friends has a new vacancy,” Doris suddenly said. She was looking straight at Chris, but she was talking to Yaz. “You interested, Sweetie?”

“I dunno,” Yaz said, completely unaware of where Doris was looking. “Is it just a bunch of old women like you guys?”

Doris smiled enigmatically.

“I’d say we’re quite a… diverse group.”

“Hmmmm,” Yaz said. “I dunno… Is this some affirmative action bullshit?”

The entire table tensed. Chris was not yet sure of who exactly Doris was, but she did know that that was no way to talk to the woman. Chris’s jaw locked up. The moment it seemed like her situation couldn’t get any worse, it did. Yaz had absolutely no tact, and her actions were starting to reflect back on Chris. Lifting her hand, Chris started shoveling the gruel down with renewed purpose. She needed to get out of there before anything else happened.

“Looks like I’m late to the party,” another familiar voice said, breaking into the conversation and completely annihilating any possibility of escape. “The whole cast is assembled, so I guess my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. It’s a shame, really…” Tiny said as she took a seat next to Chris. “If I’d known the date beforehand, I could have prepared something. I make a mean artichoke dip.”

There was silence at the table.

“What?” Tiny said, digging into her food like a lumberjack and talking around it with the manners of one. “You guys don’t like dip?”