by J. Rock
4.
"That'll be a half hour docked from your pay, Juno."
I check the clock on the wall. I'm only ten minutes late, but it's hardly the first time. "But–" I begin to protest.
"Wanna make it an hour?" Cantrell cuts me off, his tone harsh, his glare like stone. Cantrell is a short man, with darker skin than most and pitch black hair combed to one side. He's only a few years older than me, but he acts like he’s fifty.
"It won't happen again, sir," I admonish, though we both know the chances of that are pretty slim. My boss just nods and gestures for me to get out of his sight. I dart away quickly, finding the change room and slipping into my work bib in less than a minute. I pull my semi-short, red hair into a dirty ponytail, fully revealing the shaved sides of my head, and enter the Glass Gardens proper.
The heat is the first thing that strikes me, as it always does. It's like a thick, moist wall. The second thing is the pleasant aroma of fresh, dewy vegetation. Row upon row of various crops, plants and trees, extend as far as the eye can see from the head of the Gardens where I'm standing. Drought is a particularly prevalent problem in Eversummer, and so the Gardens were built to accommodate large scale food production without fear of losses. Above me, massive glass panes set into thick metal frames create seemingly random color patterns of light and shadow. Each pane is tinted uniquely, having been scavenged ages ago from ancient towers of the Forerunners. We haven’t the technology to produce such thick glass ourselves, and so salvaged what we could use. The remnants of Forerunner cities can be found all over Eversummer, though I've never seen one myself yet. They lie mostly in the Bleaklands, where air is hard to come by. My Father says they've all been picked clean now anyway; there is little left to find that wouldn't be blasphemous to possess.
A few of my coworkers give me cursory nods or good mornings as I enter, but I'm in such a crummy mood from my lack of coffee that I mostly ignore them. I make for the corn belt, near the center of the Gardens, where I'd been working lately. I duck down the nearest row and find myself relieved as the tall stalks envelop me, knowing there are no prying eyes to find me. Thinking of Jude, sick with worry, I want to cry but push the bad feelings aside, pulling my machete from my tool belt and start hacking away at the lush leaves. The corn around me is ready for harvest. I click the radio transmitter, also attached to my belt, and a confirming series of three clicks follows.
Then I really start working.
I chop the stalks just below the golden ears of corn and gently guide them to the black tilled soil for REX to pick them up later. Technically, I'm not supposed to start harvesting at the center of a patch, but I'm so desperate to avoid any and all human contact today that I'm willing to get reamed out by Cantrell again if he should find out.
He probably won’t though.
A low rumbling comes to my legs through the soil and I look back to see REX ambling toward me, his rusty gears whining in protest with every turn of his rotting axels. On the surface, REX appears to be a large flatbed on wheels, a stupid machine remnant of the Forerunners. But inside his deteriorating carapace, REX does have a brain of a sort, and I have often been amazed to witness it solve simple problems on its own.
"Morning, REX," I say as the machine pulls up to the first few stalks I have lain out. A mechanical appendage, not unlike a hand, grasps the crops and flips them onto the flatbed. REX does not reply. I stop what I'm doing and wait for him to catch up to me. He does so and I wait, not moving. There is a tiny lens at the head of the machine, what you might call an eye, and I watch as it moves about now, looking back and forth between myself and the corn. REX realizes I have stopped working and is trying to figure out why. It's at this point that a small, metallic probe issues forth from beneath the machine, flying toward me at great speed. I dodge it easily, but then REX moves his entire body and I'm caught, the probe giving me a shock on the shin.
"Ow!" I protest with a smirk. It's what I get for teasing the machine. "Did Cantrell have you programmed to do that, or did you figure it out on your own?" I ask. Everyone knows that REX was designed to record data on individual worker production, but this shock treatment is something new. Is REX turning himself into the boss? I laugh and hit the transmitter on my belt again. Immediately, REX stops inching toward me and, with a squeal of metal, darts back the way he'd originally come.
Too bad Cantrell doesn't have an on/off switch like that.
"There you are!" a nasally, high pitched voice calls to me. I look over into the next row of corn to see the plump form of Rayanne Nedaris coming toward me. I roll my eyes; I should have known REX would give away my position. "I've been looking for you all morning!" Ray exclaims, finally coming up next to me.
"I was late," I reply with a tone of finality.
"I heard," Rayanne smirks wildly. "Cantrell must have lost a gasket!" I shrug noncommittally. "I also heard," Ray continues, "that you and Jude found something on the beach yesterday. A weapon of the Forerunners or something?"
My breath catches in my throat. A weapon? "Who told you that?" I ask.
Rayanne gives me a sheepish look. "Well...everyone. The whole town's talking about it. It's not true, is it? Did you really find–"
"Nothing," I interrupt her. "We found nothing. Just some old, washed up garbage. Metal mostly. We were going to bring it to my Father, but a mutant tried to break into the city last night and he was preoccupied."
"Yeah, I heard that too," Ray replies.
I sigh. "One of the Deacons must have been spying on us and told somebody else who blabbed about it." Thomas Whiskeyjack's face flashes through my mind. "Somehow the two stories got intertwined. The stuff we found yesterday has nothing to do with the mutant in the city. That's all there is to it, Ray." The lie sounds convincing, even to my own ears. Hopefully, Ray will spread it around and take some of the heat off of me and Jude.
Ray squints her eyes at me. It's clear she isn't buying all that I'm selling, but she seems satisfied enough. "Well, thank the gods that's all it was then," she says, reaching behind herself to pull a wooden travel mug from her tool belt. She cracks the seal and instantly the sweet aroma of Krakelyn coffee assaults my nostrils. She takes a sip then offers the mug to me. My eyes blast wide open and a slick smile bursts onto my lips.
"You're a life saver, Ray!" I say, reaching quickly to take the drink.
Before I've got it in my hands, Ray pulls it back and says: "You sure there's nothing else going on?" She sighs deeply. "I've always been truthful with you, Juno. I've been a friend to you. You can trust me."
I nod. That was true, but Ray and I are hardly good friends. I think of her more as a desperate clinger trying to improve her social standing by befriending the High Deacon's daughter. "Ray, there's nothing else to tell," I say. And with that, Ray finally seems satiated. She hands me the mug. I down it in a single go.
"Hey! That was supposed to last me all day!" she protests. "Where's the coffee I got you this morning?"
"Gone," I shrug. "Already drank it. Thanks, by the way." I hand the mug back.
"Yeah, you're welcome, Juno," Rayanne grumbles. "For everything." With that, the plump girl stalks away into the corn, green leaves rustling reddish-blonde hair cut in the same fashion as mine.
"Whatever," I reply to myself, gripping my machete and, with fresh coffee coursing through my veins like wildfire, start hacking at the corn as if I am fighting it for my life.
