Page 5 of All Your Days
In the end, the New Australian Union made peace with the Federation of Australia to the west, carving up the country. It took a while to establish their authority, but when they did, the Union began to recover settlements and refugees were redistributed.
Surprisingly, The Facility’s biggest threat wasn’t the refugees, or the raiders, or the competing governments or even the desert around us.
No. It was the water. Specifically, a malfunction in the water treatment system thirty-five years ago, that saw every resident of The Facility drinking contaminated water—how the virus is spread.
And so now, not only is our community divided into the commanders and the scientists, the guards and the craftsmen, and the grunts at the very bottom of the ladder, we have the carriers, the infected, and the immune.
Infection with RRV13 means that a person—or animal—can turn at any moment, depending on their rate of infection. So each morning every resident has to provide a blood sample to the guards for checks. For the grunts and craftsmen who live in the mud homes outside the main building, they provide their samples before they can leave their designated area.
Us residents living in the main building have more freedom depending on our residential level. Largely because higher ranked residents, like the commander and the guard leadership and the scientists, live in home-style suites, rather than the pod-style bunks us lower ranked residents live in. They only have to provide their samples before entering the Command, Lab, or Ag levels for the day.
Guards and grunts lucky enough to live within the main building have to provide their sample before their pod is unlocked for the day.
Which is why, after my shower—which is timed with an automatic shutoff to prevent water waste—I get dressed in my durable, dark blue grunt uniform and prepare my sample.
It’s a simple process, a prick to the finger and fill the small vial. It’s less blood than it seems, just enough that when the guards shine their special light through it, they can check the colour.Too dark, means too high an infection and you’re sent to the lower levels for the safety of all the residents.
And later, I get to wash every single vial in the compound.
For now I put the vial in the window of my door and keep myself busy while I wait. I straighten my bed, and reorganise my drawing supplies, making a mental note that I need to make some more charcoal pencils whenever I have the time. I make sure I have all the drawings I’ll need for the day.
I hate this wait. The sitting. The silence. So I move to the small mirror hanging above the sink. Until I grew into my body, I’d been invisible. Thenboomsomething happened and I became pretty. That’s what they call me.Pretty. My brown eyes and brown hair are all normal to me, but it’s hard to miss people's reactions to me. Especially when the men I’m screwing around with love to tell me that I’m so pretty they forget I’m a man. Like that’s a fucking compliment.
I’m also not entirely unaware that my face is part of the reason why Moby insists on having me in the Labs with him.
To protect me.
There've been close calls over the years, with visitors from the Union who’ve gotten a little too insistent in their admiration of me, wanting to whisk me away. Thanks, but no thanks.
It’s why I’ve stopped messing around with the armymen. It seems safer. Which means I’ve become an expert at dodging the expectations of residents I hook up with. It always starts off casual but then they end up getting the wrong idea. They end up wantingmore—even when they were the one to insist that they aren’t into men and they ‘didn’t usually do this’. But more is just not something I’m able to give them.
It’s exhausting. Which is why I haven’t hooked up in a while.
Well, that and becausehe’salways there.
The guard with dark eyes, that always seems to be watching me. My very own ghost.
Jacob.
At least he’s never stationed in the Labs. Not that I’ve beenawareof where he’s stationed. It’s just something I’ve noticed, against my will. Like I’ve noticed he mainly gets posted on watch duty, or on the supply runs to other settlements and trading posts. It’s normal to get to know the routines of residents on similar rotations to you.
Granted, sometimes I’ve had to do some digging. Not because I care—not after Jacob made it clear he wasn’t interested in anything other than lurking in the corner of my eye. I was just trying to understand, so I knew when to expect him to be around. Finding out the information isn’t always easy. It can be hard to ask questions without drawing attention to the situation.
Harder still was covering how upset I was when I found out hevolunteeredfor the supply run job five years ago, using his experience travelling with the merchies as leverage. So far, no one’s noticed how anxious I get whenever he’s gone.
It’s not that Iwantthe tall, frowning shadow following me about, glowering at me whenever I talk or laugh or just exist. But it’s becomefamiliar. Like the way you get used to the nauseating gruel they serve in the cafeteria during lean harvests.
And besides, even if he’s only spoken a handful of words to me in the past ten years, he did save me from the snake. So I owe him. Probably. Mostly, I just try to pretend he’s not there.
Which doesn’t explain why the many, many practice sketches that fill my drawing books all resemble Jacob. It’s something I try not to think about.
A beam of light shoots through my small pod, followed by the sounds of the mechanical lock.
Freedom.
As I collect my papers and my vial and leave my room, the bell for breakfast sounds. It means that I’m joined by my fellow grunts making their way to the cafeteria. Depositing my vial atthe collection point, I slip away from the crowd. Most of the residents use the elevators up to the cafeteria on the ground floor. I prefer the stairs—not only is it great for avoiding the long waits for the elevators; the exercise is pretty much all I get from being in the Labs all day.
“Oi, Eli. You got the thing?” Emerging in the cafeteria, I’ve barely shut the stairwell door when the first of my ‘clients’ approaches me.
