~}§{~

There was a crumpled piece of yellow paper in my pocket, and I had a truly terrible idea.

Rats were my only company on these late night walks. They scampered just out of sight, under dumpsters and over sleeping vagrants, huddling in the shadows. It turned out that even when the government provided housing to absolutely everybody, some people just didn’t want to live in a box. They didn’t want a government job. They didn’t like walls. They preferred the open sky. And rats.

It must’ve been almost three in the morning, and the clouds overhead blocked out every kind of light but streetlamps, flickering and weak. The lighting in Oliver was long overdue maintenance, but it was hard enough to get manhours approved to fix what was actually broken, let alone the stuff that was just old.

Some of the rats watching me were bigger than the others; they had shards of glass or spikes of rusted metal hidden under their rags, and their eyes were hungry. They didn’t particularly concern me; I would’ve had to go over the river or clear to Glenora to find someone who thought hassling me when I’d just got off work was a good idea. People knew me in Oliver. They knew I could be nice, or I could be less so.

The night market in Downtown never bustled so much as… hummed. It hummed a low, quiet song. The foot traffic was more careful, more polite. Conversation was hushed and civil. No one yelled or called out to each other. Everyone here worked graveyards or made their living serving the bottom of the barrel. It was a small world.

Most shops had a street-facing window, so you could order and conversate without stepping inside. Some of the merchants had the occupational mandate of merchant. Some didn’t. It wasn’t polite to talk about who was which out here.

Every shop clerk had a heavy broomstick within reach at all times. Purely for cleaning messes, you understand, since improvised weapons had been banned years ago. The sticks were just in case your broom handle broke, and you needed a very study replacement at a moments notice. For cleaning the really annoying messes.

I sidled up to Broeker’s window and sat at my rickety barstool on the sidewalk, leaning on the counter. “Hey, can I get a couple lobster rolls and a butter tart over here?”

She had a mug of hot pea soup waiting for me, and plunked it down. “There you are, your majesty. Anything else? Caviar, pastrami? A chocolate covered strawberry?”

“Ugh, if only.”

We grinned. I was one of Broeker’s regulars, but I’d always thought of her as my friend. Oliver wasn’t exactly a wonderful and safe neighborhood, and was such a far walk from Delwood that I only got to see my aunt and uncle once a month, if I was lucky. It was nice to have a bright spot, even if it was just picking up my food for the next few days.

Broeker let me enjoy my soup in silence for a while. She eventually noticed what had my attention, and she didn't like it; the stall across the street had an old grainy television set on the counter. It was rerunning a news spot from a few days ago.

“Well, at the end of the day, they are still rift workers, and anyone who works the wilds is entitled to our gratitude-”

“But certainly you're not suggesting the decision reflects any kind of mistake made on the part of the CRA years ago?”

“Wha- no! No of course not, certainly not…”

I chuckled. That was my favorite part. His co-host clearly hated his guts, as she’d just asked him on television whether the CRA ever made mistakes. The man’s job and life flashing before his eyes was as pitiful as it was funny.

He recovered as gracefully as he could and moved on, narrowly saving himself. “Of course, the decision to move porters to Supplementary classification was entirely justified at the time, and the CRA is always dynamic when addressing the needs of Canadian residents. The same is true of the current change, making them Essential once more, which I’m certain will be nothing but beneficial…”

My soup was nearly gone. I checked my mug and murmured, “Delicious as ever, Sarah.” My eyes were still on the TV screen.

She wiped the counter absentmindedly for a moment. Then… “I just hope it doesn’t go the way they want. They’re obviously paying porters essential now because so many have been dying lately.”

I could feel her staring at me as she talked. I didn’t answer her, and she tried again as she pulled off her hair net. “They want to pretend as if any of us have a choice. They'd rather we willingly go to our deaths than have to force us to do it. Wouldn’t look good to other countries.”

If an Equity Enforcer had heard her say that, Broeker would have been taken for reeducation. Most people ditched their friends who talked like that. No one needed the extra heat. I just kept watching the news program.

“Cas, what’s in your head?”

My soup was finished. I set her mug down softly. “Y’know what I miss, Broeker?”

“You’re thinking something stupid. Don’t. Think of anything else.”

“Cream cheese on a bagel. I never thought of it as any kind of delicacy, know what I mean? I took it for granted. But now?”

“Cas, for God’s sake, please not now.”

Playing it off like everything was fine was not working. Most nights Broeker and I would sit at her counter and trade off foods we missed eating, stuff that had been easier to find before America had been hit with a food shortage due to the rifts. It was our old game, we’d played a hundred times before. Tonight it wasn’t doing anything to put her at ease.

I turned in my stool to put my elbows on her counter, leaning in. “I think I found a ticket to a career change.”

“You can’t be a porter, stupid. You’re type null,” she said shortly. She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself rather than me.

Like a cardshark revealing the ace up his sleeve, I dropped my hand, palm down, on her counter. “Not even if I’ve got this?”

My hand moved a fraction of an inch, revealing a corner of yellow stationary. Broeker took it quickly, stepping back from her window to read it in the shadows of her shop, where the cams would never see. She didn’t like what she read.

“This will literally never work.”

I grinned. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

“They’ll reeducate you for quoting that book!”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Cas!” She pinched the bridge of her nose, beginning to pace back and forth. She still clutched the little yellow square in one hand. Once she’d taken a moment to collect her thoughts, she sighed. “Is there even any point in laying out for you all the many, many ways this could, and definitely will, go wrong?”

I threw my hands up. “You’re right, it’s hopeless. I should just give it up. Here, give me that back and I’ll go burn it somewhere.”

My sarcasm got me nothing but a nasty look, which lingered for a moment. “I could rip this to pieces right now.”

“Yes, you certainly could.”

“You’d hate me for it, but I’d rather never see you again because you’re angry than because you’re dead or worse.”

“Nah, of course I’d still come here.” I leaned back in my stool, gesturing around dramatically. “Where will I ever find someone else serving split pea soup in Edmonton?”

This was of course facetious, and made her smile, which had been the goal. “Shut up.”

“Truly, rarest of fare. More precious than lobster rolls.”

“Asshole.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

She’d come back to the counter, leaning in to nearly touch her forehead to mine. A slender hand slipped the note back into my palm, but then she held my hand tightly, as if afraid she’d fall over. For a long moment, she just stood there with me. I tried to meet her eyes through the curtain of her black hair, but she wouldn’t look up at me.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

It was barely a whisper. Like a prayer. There was a kind of lump stuck in my throat at that, but I took a deep breath. “‘Course I will.”

~}§{~

I buzzed myself into my unit, having to fiddle with the keys in my pocket while holding the groceries from Sarah’s. I was left in the dark for a second until the lights decided to come on, and bonus! I didn’t appear to have had a break in. Go me.

My unit was pretty standard for Oliver. One mid-sized room, half bedroom and half kitchen. Bathroom through the door on the left, a single window on the right wall. Home sweet home.

Unpacking my food, I took stock of what I had to work with. I’d gotten three little loaves of bannock bread, two cartons of the soup, and a couple packets of instant mashed potatoes (just add water!) and then I had leftovers from last week: one serving of tofu and half a bannock loaf.

I crammed everything into my tiny fridge, taking with me the leftover bread. I held it in my teeth as I jimmied open my window, clambered onto the fire escape, and hauled myself up to the roof. Still no stars.

If there was a perk to being a blue, it was that I could repair my own fridge. Most of my neighbors in OL Block made the trip to the market daily, alone or with family, and just got their meals for that day. When your fridge was broken and tools were illegal, only powders or canned goods kept for long, and cans were scarce. I saved myself time by not making constant trips.

When I had started out three years ago I’d been a street sweeper, of course, but hitting rock bottom is an excellent excuse to start climbing. A year ago I’d been hand picked for a new assignment. Maintenance hadn’t been a life-changing promotion, but at least I’d learned basic repair skills and was allowed access to tools occasionally.

At least, that was what I’d thought before. Now though, working my ass off to make it into maintenance was absolutely about to change my life. I stared at the little yellow scrap of paper, and allowed myself some hope.

For a moment, I felt the ghost of an old pain in my chest, as if I’d just been punched down the length of a hallway. My body could still remember the disaster from last time I’d tried to make something of myself.

I swallowed down the memory. Tomorrow wasn’t going to be anything like that day. I wasn’t going to play their games. I was going to play them.

Sarah was wrong. I had thought this through, every detail. And that night, I had already laid the groundwork. It was too late to turn back now.

Tomorrow, I’d make my own luck.

~}§{~

The standard CRA office workday ran from 10a-5p every weekday. Blues worked whatever hours were most convenient for the people they served, and my maintenance team worked from 4p-2a. This allowed us to do most of our work after the Supplementary workers had gone home, so we wouldn’t bother them, while still leaving us one hour to confer with the office teams. They could give us work orders and instructions before going home for the day.

This meant I had exactly one hour to change the course of my life forever, and if I missed that window there was a chance I would be disappeared to a reeducation facility and never heard from again. So no pressure.

I had already used up 20 of my precious minutes doing what I was actually meant to be doing at work. Having assured several project managers that I would not cripple their workflow synergies by undercutting productivity and would respect and acknowledge their team’s How and Why (I wasn’t fluent in asshat, but I knew enough to get by,) I finally managed to fix the damn coffee machine. Amazing what was possible when people left me alone and let me work.

That done, I headed straight to the 5th floor. This building in particular had a department of records managers that had been down for a few days, and I needed to ensure it was still down today.

I passed a few of my fellows on the way, but they didn’t look twice at me. If I was headed somewhere in a hurry, it was to fix something. I was someone who always got his work done fast. They had no reason to suspect me.

This was a particularly fancy building in Ellerslie, meaning they had an elevator. A quick ride up to the 5th floor, and so far so good; the records room was still vacant. It didn’t look like anyone had been inside all day.

Now I had to find a Mr. Brad Belmore. I assumed that the displaced records workers would still be somewhere on the 5th floor, but I didn’t have much else to go off of. I wandered around until, on a hunch, I stepped into a conference room where a large group of professionals were crammed around a long table. Yeah, they looked like they’d been kicked out of their usual spot.

One of them immediately noticed my intrusion and gave me a disapproving look, but I just said, “Got something for Mr. Belmore.”

He called over his shoulder. “Brad! The help’s here for you.”

Brad Belmore followed me when I stepped out into the hallway. Oh yeah, this would work. Belmore had suave confidence in the way he walked, the way he looked at me in my blue coveralls with coffee grounds on them. He was That Guy. Or at least, he needed to be. And if there was one thing That Guy was afraid of, it was having it all come crashing down around him.

He glanced at his watch, distracted. “What is it? Is our room ready yet?”

“There’s something you should see, sir.”

Rather than asking him to follow me, this wording made him feel very important, as though he were needed somewhere, so he willingly walked after me, back to the dark records room, where Brad and his team typically worked.

I buzzed us in and led him to his workstation, his computer. The lights were still off, the room lit by tall windows by the door that let in the hall lights.

Before he could ask any more questions, I revealed my ace, holding it up so he could see. “Sir, I found this yesterday near the cafeteria trash bins. Do you recognize it?”

Belmore’s eyes adjusted to the dark, and then went wide with shock. His mouth half open, he snatched the little paper out of my hand, and I let him. “What, what, I mean…” His eyes darted around the room.

“Don’t worry, the cams are still down in here. I’m not trying to blackmail you or turn you in.”

Suspicion showed in his every movement. It was clear he would have liked to run away or attack me, do just about anything besides talk about this. “What do you want? Turn me in for what? I don’t know what you’re-”

“Please, Mr. Belmore. I could have gone to an auditor when I found your login credentials written down, especially outside your workspace, but I’m trying to help you.”

I almost had him. He straightened up a little, his disdain for me coming back. “How, exactly?”

I pointed at the downed cams in the corners of the room. “Since we’re still working on getting surveillance back up in here, that means anyone with building access could have very well used your credentials to alter CRA records in the last few days. However, if you access your station now, you can confirm that no changes have been made, and that everything is fine.”

He was beginning to grasp my offer, but held out on me. “What do you get out of this? Why are you helping me?”

I let some fear and need creep into my voice. “Sir, do you think I want to tell an auditor that cams were down during a potential security breach because my team is two days behind schedule? The parts we need were supposed to arrive a week ago, but equity auditors aren’t known for hearing excuses. This would go on all our records.”

I walked around to the other side of his desk to stand behind his screen. “Please, log in, just confirm that nothing was altered, and then change your password for good measure. We can sweep all of this away.”

Aaaand got'im. Belmore sat down at his chair, powering up his machine, typing furiously. “Yes, this will be for the best. We’ll resolve this at our level, so that we don’t make more work for the specialists. And we’ll speak of this to no one.”

“Yes sir! Of course, very well said.”

If I was laying it on a little thick, he didn’t seem to notice. I’d given him plenty of the “useful” part of Useful Idiot, now I needed to play up the “idiot” bit.

Then Belmore stopped clicking and typing, just stared at his screen. I fought the urge to hold my breath. “Sir? Is something the matter?”

“No.” Belmore glanced up, as if to remind himself I was standing on the other side of his screen and couldn’t see what he was doing. “No matter. It's fine.”

He was typing again now, even faster and more focused than he’d been before. I had him.

Belmore had noticed the telltale signs of someone having accessed his system to alter a particular record, before hiding their tracks and closing the system down. If he confessed to me the breach, I’d have no choice as a loyal resident but to report him. But if he put everything back the way it had been before, then no harm, no foul.

Of course, I already knew about the breach. I was the one who’d been changing records details last night with the stolen credentials, with all the cams down for maintenance.

For five minutes that felt like five hours, we stayed there in silence. He clicked through his menus, and I watched the door.

Then he stood, logging off and booting everything down. “There. Good. All clear, no breach. And I’ve changed my credentials, so all that’s left is for us to forget this ever happened.”

“Looking forward to that, sir.” I held the door open for him on his way out, like a grimy lower class butler. He began to walk away, and I made a beeline for the elevator. I’d done it. I’d won! I finally had a victory, after years of-

“Wait! Blue! One moment, please.”

I stopped. Crap.

Belmore was coming up behind me, and that suspicious look was back on his face. “I never got your name.”

I’d been hoping to avoid this. I tried to bluster my way out with lovable charm. “Probably best we avoid those sordid details, sir. I’m already forgetting your name.”

“But suppose you don’t.” He leaned in threateningly. “Suppose this comes back to haunt me one day, and I don’t even have the name of the only other person who should have ever known about it.”

Damnit. The one small problem was that I couldn’t give Belmore my name. It was the name on the record he’d found edited in his dashboard. “Please sir, I just want to put this behind me. I’ve got a family.”

“Do I look like I care?”

He wasn’t backing down. We stood there in the hallway, three paces from the elevator, glass-walled breakout rooms all around us, full of pompous deskheads talking about acceptable margins and quota dispersal. A totally different world than mine.

I hung my head in defeat, and produced a plastic ID bracelet from my pocket. He took it from me, read it carefully, then handed it back. “And now we’re on equal footing. Let’s float together rather than sink together, ok?”

I nodded nervously, made a show of gulping from nerves. He strutted away, once again in command of his life, wearing his suit jacket like a coat of armor. Invincible. In control.

Too easy.

I rejoined a couple of my buddies in an alley behind the building, where they were assembling a replacement cam and eating a late lunch. Hepner jerked his head at me. “Norstrand, what’s good man? Where you been?”

“Oh, where else?” I slumped against the work van and pulled a sandwich out of my pocket. Leftover tofu on bannock bread. “Getting my time wasted by deskheads.”

Koffman smiled. “They never stop talking, do they? Oh hey, can I get my chit back, by the way?”

I tossed him back his ID bracelet. “Thanks, man.”

“What did you even need this thing for, anyway?”

I took a bite of my lunch. Disgusting. “Oh, just framing you for my heinous crimes.”

They laughed.