Flowertown (2 page)

“In Flowertown, secrets can KILL you!”

“Fuck!” Ellie tipped forward in her seat, scrambling for the knob to turn down her speakers. A preview of a new cop drama filled the screen, flashes of a gorgeous starlet, a hail of gunfire, and serious-looking men flickering in and out of sight. Ellie clicked and clicked on the little “x” in the corner, swearing all the while.

“Why don’t you just kick the screen in?” She hadn’t noticed Bing come up behind her.

Finally the commercial ended, but the image of the show’s logo remained frozen on the screen. “Seriously?” Ellie threw the mouse in disgust. “I don’t have enough juice to download Championship Sudoku but this shit will play? And stay? I can’t get this crap off my screen.”

“That’s because they want you to see it.”

“Of course they do, Bing.”

“They want us to see it and they want the folks outside to see it. And they want us to know the folks outside have seen it. They want us to know what we look like to them.”

“Obviously. It makes perfect sense. The same people who can’t keep the water on in two buildings at the same time have a master plan to hijack the web. They can’t keep track of how many paperclips to order, but they can link up satellites and brainwash TV producers.”

“It’s all part of the plan, Ellie. Trust me.” Bing pushed her empty inbox to the side and sat on the corner of her desk, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. “You smoking?”

“I’m in a room full of dry boxes of paper and no ventilation. Of course I’m smoking.”

She led her friend toward the back of the office, where the metal sheeting of the walls lay exposed, covered only with thin sheets of plastic nailed to framework. The floor around the area was marked off in scuffed red paint, a warning to anyone up here that this area was for Feno Chemical paperwork only. Document boxes sealed with red tape and mismatched file cabinets that someone had once carefully organized were now rearranged into a functional if uncomfortable sitting area. Ellie hopped up onto a pale gray three-drawer cabinet set perpendicular to a tall, six-drawer tower. The arrangement suited her needs perfectly, giving her room to stretch her legs while leaning back comfortably. It should suit her; she was the one who had rearranged the boxes and cartons into a mazelike warren.

Bing settled down on a low, square cardboard box against the wall. Had he been even twenty pounds heavier, the box would have collapsed under his weight, but it suited him perfectly, and he referred to it as his beanbag. Beside him, the handhold opening of a sealed file box provided a perfect ashtray. A teetering wall of matching sealed file boxes cut the area off from the rest of the office. He lit a cigarette and tossed the pack and lighter to Ellie.

“What would happen if we just burned this whole place to the ground?”

Ellie laughed, blowing out a smoke ring as she tossed the pack back to Bing. “Funny you should say that. I was just
thinking that very thing. Maybe it’s that new weed you’re growing.”

“Unlike you, young lady, I don’t get high before I come to work.” He flicked a long ash into the file box. “Like other respectable Flowertownians, I wait until lunchtime to get wasted.”

“See? That’s the problem with you HR drones. You never take the initiative.” She rested the back of her head against the cool file cabinet, hearing the familiar ka-thunk of the thin metal bending under the weight of her skull. “I got a letter from Bev. They’re having a surprise party for Mom. Kegs and everything.”

“You going?”

“I was thinking about it. Oh, no, wait!” Ellie smacked her hand against her forehead. “I forgot. I’m in quarantine! Shit! I better call them back.”

Bing said nothing, only shaped his ash against the red security tape.

“It’s in three weeks. There isn’t time to get out even if I wanted to.”

“When did you get it?”

“This morning.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” She held the ember of her cigarette against the edge of the cabinet she sat on, adding to a long line of scorch marks. “You’re gonna get a little something in the mail from me today too.”

“I try not to check my mail at work, knowing what’s coming. It’s not from that stupid missionary group, is it? I swear to God, those crazy bastards have given me a new religion, the Church of I’m Gonna Kick Your Ass. If they request one more Kirk Cameron video—”

“Whenever I get those I send them to that bitch in the front office. She loves crushing people’s hopes and dreams.” Ellie ground out her cigarette and wedged it into a dent in the back of the cabinet. “No, this was weird. The address looked like code. You know, R four two two six Alpha Dogstar kind of crap. Like mail from a Klingon.”

Bing fished another cigarette from his pack and talked around the smoke. “Maybe you have family in Nigeria who need help getting their money out of the country. I’ve heard that’s been happening a lot lately. Sounds lucrative.”

“I wish. All this had was this little dancing clock and this totally cryptic message, like ‘You’re doomed’ or something.”

“It actually said ‘doomed’? Who says ‘doomed’?”

“It was something like that.” Ellie rubbed her eyes, trying to think through her morning buzz for the exact message. “Wait, I remember. It was ‘All you want.’ I remember thinking ‘You don’t even want to know what I want right now’ because I had just read Bev’s—”

“You didn’t send it to me, did you?”

“What?” She laughed at his sharp tone. “Yeah, why?”

“Shit, don’t you ever pay attention to anything? All You Want? That doesn’t ring any bells for you? You haven’t seen those words plastered all over buildings everywhere you look?”

“Oh please, Bing, don’t. Don’t start with your crazy government master plan shit. You know I love you. You are my best friend, but I swear I cannot take another second of—”

“This isn’t Area 51 crap, Ellie. This isn’t a bunch of geeks looking to get off—”

“You of all people should know the innate ineffectiveness of government and bureaucracy and political pork. It’s ludicrous—”

“I’m not the only one who thinks this, Ellie!” He finally succeeded in shouting her down. She rolled her eyes but let him speak. “This isn’t about a government master plan. This isn’t the censorship that is going on right under our noses, even though it’s a fact that every word of our correspondence, digital and paper, is filtered before entering or leaving—”

“Bing…”

“Okay, okay, let’s just put that totally off to the side.” He leaned forward on his box, threatening the strength of the sealing tape. “This is something totally different. This is simple economics: supply and demand, widgets and gadgets.”

“Garbage in, garbage out.”

“Exactly.” He pointed his finger at her, and Ellie tried not to smile at how much he looked like a bird at this moment, a big pissed-off bird. “The problem is there is no garbage out. There is only garbage in and the system is overloaded. PennCo was designed to accommodate a limited number of residents for a limited amount of time. Not seven years, I can guaran-fucking-tee you that.”

“No argument here, brother. What’s your point?”

“Yeah, well not only has the time frame been stretched way too long, so has the population matrix.”

“Population matrix?” Ellie asked. “I’m outta here.”

“This was supposed to be a quarantine zone for a potentially fatal chemical, but instead of the population shrinking, it has grown. And continues to grow. Rescue workers, military, civil engineers…”

“Racketeers, extortionists—Walmart, for the love of Pete.” This part of the argument Ellie knew well and agreed with. Flowertown had become a high-risk/high-pay zone for
a number of ambitious and ruthless businesses hoping to make a quick buck on the sudden need for infrastructure. For those healthy and greedy enough to give it a try, the lucrative contracts, whether from Feno or the government, made the sickening prevention meds worth the trouble. The problem was that infrastructures don’t pop up overnight and they don’t maintain themselves, so the seven and a half miles of restricted space became more congested by the month.

“So what happens when we outgrow our resources?” Bing had worked himself into a state, perched on the edge of the box. “What happens when our contained water and waste supply breaks down? When our food storage systems can’t meet safety regulations and food ration lines turn into riots? What happens when the power grid fails from yet another amateur entrepreneur overtaxing it to put up another third-rate rat trap of apartments?”

Ellie knew better than to try to interrupt her friend when he was on a tear, so she simply shook her head and waited.

“I’ll tell you what’s not going to happen: the government is not going to step in and save us. PennCo bleeds millions of dollars from the American taxpayers every year, and if it looks like there’s a chance to ease that burden, don’t think for a second this administration or the next will hesitate to plug that hole. And the beauty of it is they won’t even have to do anything. All they’ll have to do is withdraw the troops, recall the security forces, and let natural human entropy work its magic. Think about it, Ellie: no law, no power grid, no communication. Just Flowertown. The only people left standing would be those who thought ahead and armed themselves now while there’s still time.”

“Oh my God, I never thought of it like that. If what you say is true, if that’s really what’s going to happen, then it can only mean one thing.” Ellie put her hand to her forehead. “It would mean that…Soylent Green…is…
people
.”

“Fuck you, Ellie!” Bing leapt from his seat, kicking at the file box between them.

“Sorry. My Charlton Heston’s a bit rusty, but I thought it was okay.”

“Yeah, sure, you know what?” Bing jammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a baggie of weed. “Get fucking high. Just get high and hide out here and bang your little soldier boy while you can, and then when the shit goes down, you can sit there like all the other sheep and go ‘Somebody help us! Somebody save us!’ Except there’s not going to be anybody. Nobody’s coming to save you, Ellie. Nobody. Let me hear you say it.”

“Nobody’s coming to save me.”

“Fuck you, Ellie. I don’t know why I waste my time on you.”

“Because you want to bang my roommate.”

Bing’s face flushed deep red, but he bit back whatever nasty retort threatened to escape. Ellie could hear the breath tearing through his large nose as he struggled to contain his temper, and then he stomped out of the office and down the stairs. She reached into the baggie and pulled out a half-smoked joint. As she coughed back the harsh smoke, she could hear the alarm going off on her cell phone on her desk. Eleven thirty, time for her meds appointment.

She held in the smoke so long she began to get lightheaded. There was no need for her to hurry to her appointment. She hadn’t bothered to share the news with her
friends, but after last month’s checkup she had received her new medical status—blue tag. It meant she wouldn’t have to stand in line with the other hundred people at the dispensary getting their handfuls of maintenance medications. Nope, now she could swipe the crisp new keychain tag under the scanner and be let into the hallway to the left of registration, to the blue tag lounge. It wasn’t as crowded in there, and last month there had even been snacks on the table. It seemed a nice perk for finding out her liver had betrayed her.

When HF-16 had first been spilled, thousands had been contaminated. The actual numbers were never released, but statistics snuck out to the press. Approximately 17 percent of those contaminated died within two months, including her boyfriend, Josh. Six percent showed no signs of chemical absorption and were released. That left 73 percent of the population required to undertake a maintenance/rehabilitation medication regimen that killed 12 percent of participants in the first year. Adjustments were made to the medications, and if the reports could be believed, as contamination levels slowly receded, the health of Flowertownians remained steady. Mostly steady, that is. One small sector of the population remained resistant to the medications, their livers choosing instead to throw in the towel and leave the rest of the organs to a slow and miserable death. Those residents were switched from the sickening maintenance medications to simply “quality of life” treatments. And their medical records were transferred to the blue folders. These residents were known as blue tags.

Ellie finally exhaled.

“Nobody’s coming to save me.”

Ellie picked through the tray of Twinkies and granola bars until she found the Little Debbie snack cakes she’d been looking for. She grabbed a Nutty Bar for herself, slipping an extra Swiss Roll into her purse on her way to the examination room. Her cottonmouth had not receded with her morning high and she considered turning back for some coffee, but the doctor was already waiting for her. The blue tag lounge had that to recommend it: the service was certainly prompt.

“Good morning. I’m Dr. Lavange. Please have a seat.”

Ellie nodded, trying to suck the dry chocolate off her teeth as she allowed the tall woman to hold the door open for her. Dr. Lavange had that skinny, thin-haired look that could have put her anywhere between an unhealthy thirty and a fantastic sixty, and her tendency to talk with her head cocked in permanent sympathy irritated Ellie.

“Why don’t I get you set up with your sample cups, and as soon as you get back—”

“I can do it here.” Ellie snatched the urine sample cup from the doctor’s hands and, before the older woman could protest, dropped her pants and squatted. Six years of urine samples on demand had turned most Flowertown residents into pissing sharpshooters.

Ellie handed the warm cup back to her, not a drop out of place. Dr. Lavange succeeded in hiding her discomfort, and Ellie tried not to grin as the doctor got her fingers damp snapping the plastic lid back on. “I keep telling my roommate that’ll be quite a party trick when we get out of quarantine.”

“I’m sure it will be.” The doctor put the sample on a sliding tray in the wall. In the older woman’s eyes she saw the certainty that, urinating abilities aside, Ellie would never be leaving quarantine. “We will also need a blood sample before you leave. Or can you do that too?”

Ellie tried to smirk, but felt that familiar smothering sensation of panic trying to overwhelm her. She shook her head and hopped up on the paper-covered examining table. Dr. Lavange opened her file and began to read.

“It says here you are an admittedly heavy user of marijuana. Is that still the case?”

“More than ever.”

She tilted her head even farther to the side. “Ms. Cauley,” her eyes flickered to the file then back up, “Ellie, I know the laws regarding illegal drug use within the containment area have been relaxed a great deal. After all, security certainly has enough on their hands, don’t they?” Ellie sighed, wondering if Dr. Lavange could actually touch her ear to her shoulder. “But just because there are few criminal consequences
for marijuana use, it doesn’t mean there are no medical repercussions.”

“You mean like liver failure?”

Dr. Lavange’s face puckered into a sympathetic mess that made Ellie want to smack it back and forth. “It certainly doesn’t help.”

“Yeah, well, I’m thinking your HF-sixteen did a lot more damage to my liver than a few dank buds, and with a lot less fun attached.”

“It wasn’t my HF-sixteen.”

“You work for Feno Chemical.”

Ellie liked the way the doctor’s head jerked. “No, sorry. Not me. I work with Barlay Pharmaceuticals. As an independent contractor.”

“Who signs your check?”

“Who signs yours?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Ellie could see the doctor’s regret at having allowed herself to be baited so. Lavange turned back to the file, her fingernail tapping out her irritation. Everyone knew Barlay Pharma was a subsidiary of the multinational that also owned Feno Chemical. It made sense, at least to Ellie. Feno had made the mess; their parent company had to clean it up. Why everyone acted like it was some dirty little secret was beyond her. It came in handy, though, when one of the med-techs needed to be put back a step.

Speaking to Ellie’s file, the doctor said, “I suppose it would be a waste of both of our times to suggest that you reduce, if not completely stop, your use of marijuana.”

“I suspect that is true.”

The doctor kept her eyes on the paper. “Have you been informed of the comprehensive counseling services we offer for quality of life treatment?”

“They sound very comprehensive.”

She flipped through several pages of the file, searching for something, then closed the folder, clutched it to her chest, and looked at Ellie. “I don’t see any mention of family within the containment area. Are our records accurate?”

“They are.” Ellie sat very still, promising herself that if Lavange tilted her head so much as a centimeter, she would kick her. Lavange did not move. “I’m not from Iowa.”

“May I ask how you came to be in this area?”

“You mean in the spill zone? You can call it that, Doctor. We all do. We all know why we’re here.” This time, the older woman did not take the bait. Ellie wished she could eat that other Little Debbie in her purse so she wouldn’t have to keep talking. “I’m from Pennsylvania, near Hershey.”

“Is your family still there?”

“Yes. My parents rented a place in Iowa City for a while, in the early days. They and my sisters took turns living there, visiting me, back when they had the suits and all. Well, my mom never did. Visit, I mean. She couldn’t handle the suit and the rest of it.”

Lavange nodded, still clutching the file. “And do they still come visit? The clean rooms have gotten much better in the last two years.” When Ellie was quiet, Lavange asked, “Do you keep in touch?”

Ellie could feel her throat closing as that gray hairy panic descended once more. “Yeah, you know, they’ve all got kids and stuff. We e-mail when it’s working.” She tapped her foot
against the table leg, rhythmically soothing herself. Lavange said nothing, just let her tap-tap-tap until Ellie found herself speaking without thinking.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here. I quit my job. Advertising. I had a big job in Chicago and I hated it, so my boyfriend, Josh, and I decided to save up our money and take a summer off and go to Spain. My parents were furious. They said I was wasting my education and destroying my career, but when I looked ahead, I just couldn’t see myself spending the next forty years churning out demographic reports and test-marketing jingles.” The words spilled out so fast, Ellie had to gasp to catch her breath but could not stop her thoughts.

“I was packed. I was packed.” Her foot pounded against the table. “I had all my stuff packed in my trunk and we were staying with Josh’s parents for a month before we left, out on Blair’s Branch Road on the edge of the county. They had the nicest little farm. And you know what’s funny? I remember thinking, ‘God, it’s so beautiful here, why don’t we just stay here and skip Spain?’ Isn’t that funny?” Ellie dragged in a ragged breath and then crossed her feet at the ankles to stop her nervous pounding. She had to tuck her hands under her thighs to keep her fingers from fluttering. Another deep breath, this one smoother, and her tone returned to normal. “So long story short, no, I have no family here.”

“And your boyfriend, Josh, and his family?”

Ellie found her sneer once more. “You must not be familiar with the area. Blair’s Branch Road is right off Furman Creek. What your people like to call the epicenter of the incident.”

The tech Lavange had turned her over to jabbed Ellie’s finger like it was personal, but Ellie didn’t flinch. All they needed was a drop of blood and her finger complied. Bing had told her once that the maintenance meds contained a blood thinner to make the constant blood samples easier to obtain. She hadn’t cared then; she cared less now. Everyone in Flowertown bore the constant bruises and prick marks of needles on their arms and hands and feet. The tech signed off on the blue form and handed it back to Ellie, waving her off to the dispensary window. Lavange had checked off several boxes on the preprinted form for the first tier of quality of life meds.

Ellie leaned against the wall outside the dispensary, waiting behind an older couple leaning on each other. The woman steadied herself by placing her blue-veined hand against a framed sign. The sign was behind thick plastic, protected, and Ellie thought it must be some sort of collector’s item by now, at least within the confines of Flowertown. It was a large, soft-focus photograph of a young man swinging his daughter over his head, the sun making both of them glow on the edge of a field of sunflowers. Behind them, laughing and smiling, stood a small crowd, family presumably, with a picnic laid out behind them, complete with a healthy jumping dog. Beneath the photo, in understated type, was the caption “Bringing families together.” And beneath that, nearly hidden in the green, green grass, was the Barlay Pharma logo.

Someone with stunningly bad judgment had decided years ago to place those ads around Flowertown, and the graffiti that covered them was both instantaneous and obscene. A couple of times, Ellie had even had to look up
what some of the words meant, and she and Bing never tired of seeing the new vulgarities. After a while, Barlay and/or Feno decided to save the PR for the outside world. Now the only place to see the Barlay logo was behind Plexiglas in the heavily guarded dispensary. She couldn’t tell if it was an accident or intentional, but when the old woman pulled her hand away from the sign, she left a greasy smear over the center of the photo.

As soon as she made it to the corner, Ellie fished out the roach she had snubbed before going into the med center. Not caring who was watching, she pinched the brown bunch between her fingernails and noisily sucked the lighter’s flame to the tip. A few deep hits and nothing remained but a scorched twist of rolling paper that Ellie flicked into the shrubs. Her slow exhale was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass, followed by sirens and the sound of a voice on a bullhorn. Ellie followed the sounds down the block and joined a growing crowd at the corner where a string of military trucks formed a barrier around an apartment building.

“Stand down!”

Ellie couldn’t find the owner of the bullhorn. She figured he was probably hiding in one of the trucks, letting the security forces do the actual enforcing. The soldiers were certainly ready. They had riot shields and batons and helmets with thick eye guards. They seemed more than a match for the dozen or so elderly women who were throwing rocks and pieces of broken pavement both up at the building and across the yard toward the trucks. None of them seemed to have the strength to hurl the missiles far enough to be any
real danger to the soldiers, but they found a good bit of success smashing out the windows on the lower floors. Around her, people were laughing and cheering the women on.

“Come on over here and arrest us, you little chicken shit!” A short woman in her early seventies brandished half a brick like a hand grenade, threatening a trio of heavily armed soldiers nearest the building. “Come on! Arrest us! Your country club jail is better than this rattrap shit hole you’ve got us stuck in! What’s the matter, boy? You scared of an old lady?”

The men looked back to whomever was in command and, either by order or by instinct, stepped away from the woman as a group. The crowd cheered and the woman held her brick up in triumph. “These are the living conditions we’re supposed to accept!” The woman’s voice was strong, despite her age and small size. “They put us in this building, this ‘senior center,’ because they claim it’s the safest place for women of our age to live on our own. I had a house!” The crowd yelled back, encouraging her. “A lot of us had houses, and we had to give them up, and for what? For safety? For convenience? How convenient do you think it is to have sixteen old women living in a building where the toilets don’t flush half the time?”

Beside her, a larger, older woman hefting a heavy chunk of asphalt chimed in. “Hell, we’re lucky to make it to the toilet half the time, so it’s not like we’re overtaxing the system!” The crowd roared out a laugh, and the smaller woman continued.

“We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re just asking for safe and hygienic conditions and some goddamn air-conditioning before the catchall trenches start to stink!”
All around the building, people yelled and clapped, everyone dreading the days coming up soon when the spring rain runoff that was caught in containment trenches around the city would begin to stink with the cleansing agents. Somebody, somewhere behind Ellie, started the chant, “All you want! All you want!” and soon the sidewalk was rocking with the words. A young man beside her put his arm around Ellie, trying to get her to sway with him, but she pushed her way back through the throng. Orchestrated demonstrations were never her thing.

As she cleared the thickest part of the crowd, the chorus broke down into boos and catcalls. Looking over her shoulder she saw a soldier in riot gear step up to the ringleader of the rock-throwing. He didn’t flinch when she held her brick high in her hands. Instead he flipped up his visor and came even closer. Everything about his posture was relaxed. With all the gear he looked like a catcher for a strange baseball team heading out to the mound for a conference with the pitcher. The woman lowered her brick and her friend put the hunk of asphalt down on the ground. The three huddled together, other women on the lawn coming in closer to listen in. The crowd quieted down and even the military radios stopped squawking. Nobody could hear anything of the conversation until the soldier pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to a fat and sweating soldier perched on top of a jeep and the smaller woman threw back her head and cackled.

All of the women were laughing and the lead soldier shrugged. He turned to face the crowd, and the women put down their bricks and rocks and headed back toward the building. Ellie watched, as curious as the rest of the crowd,
as he unstrapped his helmet and tucked it under his arm. It was Guy. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed the swagger. Guy headed back toward the convoy, speaking loud enough for the crowd to hear his Boston accent.

“Crisis averted, sir. I promised them we’d have services come out immediately and fix their plumbing. Of course, they wouldn’t take my word for it, so I had to up the ante.” His eyes slid to the side to see if he still had his audience. “I told them the good news was if it didn’t get done, one of our guys would give them a lap dance. The bad news was I told them it would be from Fletcher.” He gestured to the fat soldier he had pointed to during the powwow, and even the soldiers laughed. Fletcher flipped him off and the convoy began to disband. Guy, along with a few others still in riot gear, moved through the crowd, shooing people away from the scene.