Fractured Memories by Jo Schneider

Author:Jo Schneider
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Just Add Peril
Published: 2016-05-12T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

That night, Wendy joined the others in the mess hall for dinner. All of the tables and chairs had been pulled out from the walls. Men, women and teenagers sat in random configurations. Some talking, some laughing, some reading and others simply eating. Wendy caught sight of Kev and Cal immediately. Kev was, as usual, perched on the back of a chair, surrounded by a small flock of people. Whatever he was talking about, his hands might be telling more of the story than his mouth was.

When he spotted Arie and Wendy, he waved them over. The two girls grabbed some food and took a seat near the boys.

The amount of food—even though it was much less than the day in the marketplace—still astounded Wendy. She wanted to shake everyone and make them realize how lucky they were.

After dinner, they had garbage duty.

“Come on,” Arie said. “We're doing floor three. The boys are going to do the rest.”

“Hey,” Kev said. “After garbage duty, why don't you girls meet us back down here? We'll show Wendy around a little.”

Arie looked at Wendy, who shrugged. “Sure.” The more she knew about this place the better.

“Great,” Kev said.

Wendy followed Arie, and let her talk about mundane things. Arie led them into the residential section of the complex. Large red barrels sat at the end of each corridor. When they got to the first one, Wendy saw it was full of garbage.

“What do we do with them?” Wendy asked.

“We haul them to the chute and toss the garbage down into the incinerators. Then we collapse the barrels and put them away.”

“The incinerator?” Wendy asked.

“Yup. We have geo thermal something or other power. It's spotty sometimes, but at least we have it. Burning the garbage helps feed something. At least that's what they tell us. I'm pretty sure they just want to keep us from complaining about hauling it.”

They each grabbed a handle on the hip-high barrel and lifted.

Wendy was surprised how light it was, and said so.

“They have little repulsors in them,” Arie said. “My dad and I actually thought it up a few years ago. This way even the kids can do garbage duty.”

“Smart,” Wendy said.

The two girls carried the barrel down three halls before they got to the chute.

“Right here,” Arie said when they got to a yellow circle painted on the floor. “There's one on each level.” They put the barrel into the circle. With her free hand, Arie punched a code on a keypad.

Wendy jumped when a small section of the wall opened and a hose came out. The hose started out as big as her arm, but the end expanded and sealed over the mouth of the barrel. A sucking sound preceded a lot of rattling. The hose swayed back and forth as the garbage got sucked up and into the wall.

A few seconds later, the hose let go and retracted.

Arie reached out and twisted one of the handles. The barrel fell in on itself until it stood just taller than Wendy's ankle.

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