5.1 Manning the Beans

Mrs Briggich is their head chef. Shaped like soft-serve ice cream; her hair is a thin dry shrub with strands curling out of her hair net.

“These are the meat cubes. You give them one big scoop, then you give them the eggs, then the potatoes. Then, they get a choice of broccoli or peas do not give them both we don’t have enough, not that anyone asks for it.”

Maeven glances over a mound of kyphosis to find the chef’s assistant, a petite girl with blond plaits down her shoulders, and the girl doesn’t look back. She’s holding a ladle to her chest like Maeven would a rifle.

“Holly will man the broccoli and the potatoes and this time she will remember to watch the loaf pan. Make sure nobody’s hogging it. It’s three max, Holly, got that?”

The assistant rapidly bobs her head.

“Hah! Gotcha,” says the chef. “The answer is two! You forget? Two-bread-per-assignee-policy. Holly can you even count to two?”

“Yes Mrs Briggich!” says Holly.

“Are you sure?”

Holly nods again.

“Assignee Fifteen can you count to two?” says Briggich, jousting her index.

Maeven backs against the buffet server. “Mhm.”

So with a long look, Briggich sheaths her hand. “Assignees come in from the left door. You’ll serve them until Four-Nine-Nine. Clean up and then you can eat.” Mrs Briggich starts to leave for the back room. “Tie your apron, Holly,” she finishes.

A lengthy silence follows. Maeven glances at Holly.

“Stupid,” says Holly under her breath. “I knew about the two-bread-thing…”

“I think she said to tie your apron,” says Maeven.

“Oh.” Holly places her ladle on the potato tray, she grips her apron straps and pulls it over her stomach. Maeven blinks. They’re supposed to be tied behind the back, no? That’s what she did.

“I can only do it like this,” she then explains, chuckling. She motions to pull the apron over her head.

“Why?” says Maeven.

“I have to tie it at the front and then take it off and then flip it.”

“I’m sorry—you can’t just tie it at the back?”

“I can’t tie anything if I can’t see.”

She can’t do it if she can’t see...Maeven narrows her eyes. She understands Briggich a bit more now, maybe. “I’m sure you can, Holly.”

“I really can’t!”

Maeven steps in and pulls her knot loose, guides the apron back over her head, brings the straps to her back.

“Take these,” says Maeven. “Pull it back and tie.”

The straps in her hand, Holly stills.

“Don’t think. Let your muscle memory do it.”

Slowly, the assistant goes through the motions. Over, under, cinch, around. Then just like that, it’s done, apron sealed with a bow. Without another thought, Maeven stations herself at the meat cubes, grabs a ladle and tosses it to feel its weight. If the captains and assignees line up in chronological order like they always seem to do, Captain Eyeshot will walk in second.

She scoops the meat cubes and lets them waterfall off the ladle, imagining the captain’s tray held out under it. Meanwhile, Holly pats the bow she had just tightened to check if she really did it, then stares at the assignee, nonplussed.

“Broccoli or peas?” says Assignee Four-Nine-Nine, a middle-aged man at the very end of the line. The meat cubes have been reduced to a vegan and scattered few, the egg tray is mostly water. Holly and Maeven are starving, as they eye the thoughtful finger tapping the man’s bottom lip. Scoop, pour, scoop, pour, it took them hours.

At this point, Holly had it readied in her ladle before Four-Nine-Nine could finish.

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“I guess I’ll have the broccoli,” he says.

They wash up in a befuddled dream of starvation. Plates are scrubbed, Maeven wipes down the buffet servers, then helps Holly lower the lid of the dishwasher and press ‘START.’

They divide what’s left of the food: six meat cubes, a mountain of broccoli and peas and a clump of scrambled egg. Sadly, all the potatoes had gone, so had the bread.

She’s getting war flashbacks of Larosa now, walking lonesome across the cafeteria.

It’s an open, air-conditioned room buzzing with banter. Companies are sitting at metal picnic tables, lined in rows. Assignees are laughing, chatting, sporking the air at each other as they talk, while a few eat in silence or with a book by their trays. Ocean Company is stationed at the farthest row, next to Sand and Sky. When she walks up to them, they look bored; emptied of both breakfast and conversation, assuming there was any of the latter to begin with.

Gunner straightens when he sees her. “Here she is,” he says. Forrest gives her a wide grin; Win points at his chest as if to tell her something.

She looks down. Her apron is still on. She rolls her eyes and pulls it over her head.

“How was the leader assembly?” says Forrest.

“Alright,” she answers unenthused, hunching over her tray. She notices Captain Eyeshot standing by the far wall.

“Was it Captain Eyeshot that put you on cafeteria duty?” asks Forrest.

“Yeah.”

“Why did she put you on cafeteria duty?”

She shrugs, annoyed at the question, then takes a bite of her soggy eggs. “She said I was a hot mouse.” She still doesn’t know what that meant. Gunner snorts at the remark.

Forrest tilts his head. His dog ears flop. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well she’s supposed to be the owl, I think that was the point,” says Maeven.

"Is that all you’re eating?”

Her eye twitches as she grips her spork. This is all that was left!

“Riel,” Gunner calls. “Riel.” Her eyes flicker up. Gunner points with his thumb to the adjacent tables. “Look at them for a second, will you?”

She does so chewing. Two tables away Victor has Sky Company completely absorbed with something he’s saying. A story, looks like. He’s making wide gestures and he sweeps his eyes to each team member as he regales. There’s a burst of laughter at the next table. Sand Company, her eyes pivot to, where she catches Ina glancing from the end of their table.

“And look at us.” Gunner finishes with a toss of his hands.

Callum’s napping nose-down against the table. Win is silent, staring at an empty tray, and Forrest is using his thumb to squash one of the beans. So she doesn’t have anything interesting to distract them with. So what?

“We don’t even have any chicks on our team,” Gunner says. “You don’t count. You’re like—a kid.”

“Chick? Like chickens?” says Forrest.

“Never mind.”

Maeven doesn’t wish to analyse. If they’re not happy with the company, they’re welcome to switch tables. So she shovels her broccoli, content with the silence.

When she’s almost finished her tray, Captain Eyeshot walks to the table. “Larosa,” she calls. “Engine room. 5 minutes. Assist them with inspections.”

Engine room. She doesn’t even know where that is.

“Halcutt,” says the captain.

Gunner raises his head.

“Maintain yourself.”

After that, Captain Eyeshot walks off.

“Did she hear me?” whispers Gunner.

5.2 P Cakes

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Two days later, Maeven is returning to Ocean Company’s dorm already exhausted. Captain Eyeshot is spreading her thin with miscellaneous tasks all across the ship. And in the narrow gaps of time in between, she’s never alone.

“The one next to Harvey’s Cinema?” Callum asks.

“No, it’s downtown. You know that pho place where that kid came in with a ruger?” says Gunner.

“Oh yep. I know what you’re talking about now.”

“He’ll buzz you up real good.”

“I’ll have to go there.”

“Do it. Carlo’s the guy. Tell him I ref’d him.”

She sits with her Company and hears Gunner and Callum talk about things she knows nothing about. Modifying cars, their favourite basketball teams, where they shave their balls (seriously, despite her presence they censor nothing). Win doesn’t say anything and neither does she. And although Forrest doesn’t know what they’re talking about either, he always seems to find his way into the conversation.

You didn’t hear things like this in Larosa. During lunch breaks and locker room talks, it was all grade ladders, shit talking, Larona boys, shit talking.

“Have you ever pissed on a pee cake so small it falls down the drainpipe?” says Gunner.

“I don’t know. I think so. I pissed it in half once,” says Callum.

“No shot.”

“Straight down the middle. I took a picture of it.”

Somehow, she just barely prefers this.

“Where were you?” asks Forrest, clutching the rim of the porthole.

“Engine room,” she answers. There’s a long grease mark streaked across her forearm. She licks her wrist to wipe it.

“Why the fuck were you in the engine room?” says Gunner. He always has to talk like that, doesn’t he? Unnecessarily hostile.

“Where were you?”

“We’ve just been sitting here,” says Gunner.

Seriously? Is Maeven the only one running around like a headless chicken?

“We see that other guy more than we see you. What’s his name—Victor?”

“Victor,” affirms Callum, putting an accent on his surname: “Stendahl.”

“Cool,” says Maeven. She places her boots by the bunk. Win’s laying on the bottom level, sketching in a book. She’s beginning to like him on the sole fact that he doesn’t say anything. His refusal to participate in the commentary, it makes him look like the relative genius.

“Why does Eyeshot hate you so much?” asks Gunner.

“Captain Eyeshot,” corrects Maeven. “I missed my physical examination.”

“So? You’re here now.”

“The physical examination was fun,” says Forrest, giggling.

“Really? You do the deadlift? What was it?” says Gunner.

“The heavy thing?” Forrest hums. “100?”

“Kilos?”

That’s not bad, Maeven thinks, surprised.

“Yo—you know that girl from Sand? Blonde hair?” says Gunner.

“Ina?” guesses Callum.

“Yeah. So hot, dude. And she got that spice, you know what I mean? That tajin.”

“Tajin,” Callum intones laughing.

“Ay Win,” calls Gunner. “Win.”

“HUH?”

Geez. It sounds like they woke him up or something.

“See anything you like?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Pussy, bro!” Gunner clicks his tongue. “What do you mean what are we talking about…” He sounds very disappointed.

Win pauses. She pictures him for a second, peaking his head from his sketchbook just a tad. “I’m gay,” he tells them.

“Oh.” Gunner withdraws. “Word.”