Vera looked down at her sopping wet feet and let out a deep groan. The plastic fastener keeping her orange hazmat boot from falling off had come loose—one of the worst possible things that could happen to her on the job, beside getting chemical burns from the river 'water' or eaten alive by a bottom feeder. She shook off the vibrant green sludge that clung to her toe and it landed on the slimy, pebble beach next to her and silently thanked god—not that she believed in one—that she wouldn't have to take off her gloves...which were attached to her vest...which was essentially super-glued to her pants.
Dexterity doesn't exactly come easily in a hazmat suit, not to mention what happens when the wearer needs to use the bathroom. Lucky for her, shifts on the river only lasted four hours, which was never long enough to get the job done, but always long enough to leave her bursting for a pee.
Working as a waste tech certainly wasn't glamorous, especially for someone who used to look forward to bi-weekly manicure appointments and, in a former life, wouldn't go anywhere without her hair straightener. Now, Vera was lucky if she got a chance to scrub her fingernails clean before her next shift. She also counted herself lucky for what her mother used to call her 'natural beauty'. Rolling blackouts and hyper-overpopulation meant that hair styling tools and anything else that wasn't necessary for basic human survival were a thing of the past. She missed microwaves, TVs, vacuum cleaners and most of all, gaming consoles. What she wouldn't give for a couple of hours with a controller in her freshly-manicured hands and access to Red Dead Redemption III. Though the novelty of it all definitely wears thin when you're essentially living out the worst parts of the wild west on the reg. Still, Vera craved the comforts of the old world so much it hurt. But who didn't?
A familiar siren blared, reverberating off the industrial buildings that lined the river. Her shift was over just in time for sunset, not that it looked like much these days, with clouds of pollution so thick it was hard to tell what time or day it was, or even what the temperature sat at. It's said that in the before times, people could feel temperature changes from day to day, or even from morning to night. When the humidity is at at least 95 degrees Fahrenheit, hot is just hot. There's no such thing as variation anymore. Not in the weather. Not in the food. And certainly not in the day-to-day lives of average people. At least she had a home to go back to and enough money in her bank account to keep herself afloat.
Vera sat on a bench in the women's change room and carefully peeled her exhausted body out of the rubber hazmat suit. The cold steel of the bench stung against the hot, sweaty skin of her thighs. She knew the dangers of the toxic materials clinging to the surface of the suit, and she had the scars to prove it. But she loved showering at work; it was one of the few buildings in the city that was equipped with a water heater, and the only one that had a permit to override water timers.
Vera grabbed a thin, microfiber towel from the hook in her locker and draped it around her naked body. Despite having done this every day for the last 5 years, she still couldn't get used to having all these other people see her naked. Segregated locker rooms were an outdated social norm, which was understandable, but political correctness did nothing to squash the disgust she felt when a balding middle-aged man let his gaze linger on her breasts.
She stepped into the communal shower and let the hot water soak into long hair and drip down her back. Steam filled her lungs and she sighed, taking in the small pleasure. A typical tap can't run for more than 50 seconds in adherence with New Pangea bylaw, but at the Hazardous Waste Water Management facility, foregoing a hot, soapy shower could mean the difference between life and death. They found out the hard way in the early days, when river cleaners suffered radiation burns so intense they were unrecognizable within hours of exposure. Autopsies revealed burn blisters on their lungs and hearts. She shivered at the thought as she reached for her towel and stepped out of the shower.
Vera quickly pulled on black jeans, a faded t-shirt and her leather jacket. She grabbed her backpack from the locker and made her way to the exit corridor where she punched out on her paper time card.
"Not much to be found out there today, eh Prima-vera?"
"Nope, nothing too exciting, Blob."
"It's BOB," the heavy-set security guard barked back at her.
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"Yea, and it's Vera. You want to bully me? You know I'll fight back, old man."
"C'mon, everybody loves a saucy lady. I'm not bullying you, it's a compliment from a true-blooded Italiano."
"Arrivederci, vecchio mio!" she called back at him playfully. Bob was one of the few employees at the facility with a sense of humor. Rumor had it that he'd seen the front lines during the first invasion. Compared to that, nothing would phase you. Sitting in a cushy chair checking handbags and watching a camera all day was definitely something to feel grateful for. She'd probably have been a lot more fun to be around if she spent her days that way, too.
Vera made her way down the long, potholed street of the industrial sector towards the metro station. The further she got away from the water, the less you could smell the sharp, pungent stench of decomposing organic matter and toxic waste. It was a gruesome stink-cocktail she'd come to associate with herself, and she often wondered if other people could smell it on her outside of work. Not that she spent much time around other people, given curfews, rolling lockdowns and her 50-hour work weeks.
She took the blue line westbound towards pedestrian Sector IV, the area that she—along with 190,000 other people—called home. The entire neighborhood took up just two square miles of land with nearly every building towering above 200 storeys. Her bachelor apartment was on the 187th floor of the SE-1 building. She had a view of the entire city, facing away from the river, which she had been desperate to get by trading with a neighbor after his son left to work in the salt mines. He couldn't understand why she'd wanted to give up a private balcony with a water-view for a shoebox with a tiny window and no shower. She didn't have the heart to explain to him what lurked in the waters, nor why she couldn't bare to look at them any longer than she had to. She liked her spot. She liked having somewhere to go; something to come home to, even if it was a lonely shit hole with a weird collection of barely-surviving plants.
Vera didn't mind taking the metro; something about soaring hundreds of feet below the city made her feel alive. Regular citizens were forbidden from having gasoline-reliant vehicles, so it was the only time she got to experience speed. Plus, sitting down on the plastic seat, silently observing other people made her feel a little less lonely. Peering into the lives of others and fabricating their personalities, hopes and dreams was the closest she got to exercising her creative muscle. It made her feel like a storyteller, or at the very least, someone who had stories to tell.
Vera didn't notice the bell chime out and a voice over the serious female voice on the loud speaker announce 'Sector IV'. She scrambled towards the closing doors just in time to exit the train onto the dusty concrete paltform. It wouldn't have been the first time she missed her stop, immersed in a day dream about someone else's life. She moved to join the sea of people making their way towards the mountainous staircase to the street above—escalators and elevators being a thing of the past—and clutched her bag to her side to avoid the sneaky fingers of pickpockets.
As she began to ascend the concrete staircase, she heard a commotion start behind her near the tracks. She felt the pressure of the crowd pressing against her and heard the hum of interest and agitation grow louder. A huge man stumbled down the step above and crashed into her, forcing Vera to grasp for the handrail to keep her balance. He breathed out in agitation, spray from his nose landing on her forehead. She pushed her way past his bulbous belly as she tried to get a good look around to see what was going on. As the murmuring got louder, the pressure to climb the stairs clashed with everyone's curiously to see what's happening below. Then a piercing scream reverberated throughout the station, and caught on like a contagion.
People frantically pushed their way upwards, but Vera resisted, frozen at the foot of the crowded staircase, her gaze glued to the commotion below. From the tunnel, she saw a series of small, velvety green, bubble-like spheres floating towards her. People screamed in horror, thrashing against each other, gripping the hands of loved ones and trampling over discarded belongings lost in the chaos. A man, screaming in a language foreign to her, desperately tried to flee. With fear and anxiety in his eyes, he clawed his way through the crowd, trampling a child and separating an elderly woman from her walker. One of the green spheres landed delicately on his left shoulder and he let out a blood-curdling scream as he fell to the floor.
Eyes wide in incredulity, Vera rushed towards him, ducking low to the ground, head covered by her battered leather jacket. His wool coat and shirt were completely burned through, his flesh seared to the bone. He looked up at her with empty, lifeless eyes. Vera had seen trauma like this before. She had smelled flesh burns like this before.
She scrambled towards the interior wall of the metro station, running her hands along the uneven stone to guide her through the chaos. Her vision was blurring and she was having trouble thinking straight. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, keeping her conscious as she made her way towards the train platform, fighting against the stampede of humans rushing towards the exit. She had to get back to the facility and alert her colleagues. Then she had to find a way to catch one of these things and get into the lab. But first she had to make it out of there alive.