105. 150. 210, before the line disappears around the corner.
“You the new recruit?”
I turn around. An Initiative woman is lying on her back on a generator box, popping gum. I have never had gum, but the way she’s chewing it makes me want to try some.
I nod my head and swallow hard.
“Well, come on over,” she says. “I don’t bite. Name’s Orion. Like the constellation, you know?” I hide my smile, thinking of the time Peri asked me if Orion was really fat, because his belt was so big.
I’ve never casually spoken to an Initiative officer, let alone a woman. Her uniform is all black, with laced leather boots that reach her knees and a black pistol attached to her hip. But something about Orion is different. I notice a white-and-red band sewn into the fabric around her thigh. “You’re a medic?” I ask.
“More of us are, these days,” she says. “And we’re about to be late.”
I step across the train tracks and stand a ways from her, careful not to get too close. My blood is starting to boil. All the chaos, all the murders, and they do nothing but make us more afraid. They are the shepherds that turn a blind eye when the wolves come to play. “Meadow Woodson.” Orion holds up a small handheld. My name, face, and Catalogue Number shine back at me from the screen. I am not smiling in the photograph. I remember when it was retaken, just days before my mother died. “Says here it’s your first job. Things go well, you’re stuck here for life, Blondie. Think you can handle it?” Her hair is chopped short, revealing a thick line of scars, like claw marks on her neck. Orion is tough. I can tell by the wiry muscles in her skull-tattooed arms, and the way she keeps swiveling her head, watching the citizens all around us.
But I bet I am tougher. “I can handle myself just fine,” I say. I nod at the scars on her neck. “What happened to you?”
“Got jumped a few years ago. Wanna know why?” She rolls over onto her stomach, and the generator rocks a little as she hops down. “You’ll find out soon enough.” I hear the two short chirps that signal the start of the workday. “Follow me. Don’t speak. Don’t ask questions. You’ll figure it out eventually.” Orion waves her hand. “Move it people, move it!”
We shove through the crowd and go around to the back of the building, where there’s less of a crush, but still too many people to really be safe. I stand guard while Orion scans her Catalogue Number. The door clicks open, and we slip into the Rations Hall.
As soon as we walk in I want to turn around and head back to the ocean, where the air is clean and crisp. Here, flies dip and dodge the swatting hands of the Initiative soldiers standing guard around the room. The air is sweltering hot, and with each step I get a dose of body odor and the scent of rotting meat. Rows of metal tables fill the center of the room. It looks as if they have not been cleaned in months.
“They told me I’d get used to the smell, eventually,” Orion says. “They lied.” She presses her forehead to a scanner embedded in another thick metal door. There are what look like fist marks in the metal.
I follow her into a massive room full of wood crates stacked to the ceiling. “Crates hold the rations,” Orion says, slamming her fist on one of them. “It doesn’t go bad, so don’t worry about it not being able to take the heat.”
So much food, just sitting here waiting. I can just imagine my father’s face if he were to see this.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Orion says, raising a pierced eyebrow at me. She pats the gun on her thigh. But then, strangely, she smiles. “Nah. If you were that stupid, you’d have tried something already. This way.” I follow her to a wall of thick glass. “Walls are bulletproof,” Orion says. Before I know it, lightning fast, she has pulled out her gun and fired a bullet at the wall.
It sticks in the glass like a dart. My ears ring. “I just love that.” Orion laughs, holsters her gun, and moves along like nothing happened. There is a counter underneath the glass, and every few feet, holes in the glass above the counter, just large enough for a plate of food or a bundle of rations.
“Those holes aren’t bulletproof,” I say, too loud. My ears are still ringing.
Orion shrugs her shoulders. “Neither are we. Makes it interesting, don’t you think?”
Sweat drips down my spine, and I shudder. This is where the Initiative almost killed Koi so many years ago. I cast Orion a sideways glance.
“You look scared,” she says. “Leave now if you want. I’m sure there are plenty of other little blonde girls who’d kill for this job.”
I cross my arms and stare right into her brown eyes. “I’m not leaving unless you shoot me and carry my dead body out.”
Orion laughs. “Good girl. Gear up.” She tosses me a pair of thick gloves and directs me to stand behind a line on the floor. “The job’s easy. Wait while they scan their numbers. Then check the screens, here. We’re supposed to give them exactly what it says, and nothing more. You tough?”
I nod my head.
“Let’s hope so. You got a weapon on you?”
I nod again.
“Anyone gets rough . . . use it. We lost a girl last week. Sick and twisted mess. You’d be surprised what people do for food.”
“Probably not,” I say. My lips purse together like the sides of a clothespin. Orion has probably never gone a day without food. I wonder what her life is like, what her apartment is like, inside the Initiative Compound.