90 Deg. 5 H. II – XIII

Her voice cut through. He could breath. The world came back. The lights were normal. The buzzing was gone. The sense of being crushed from all directions at once was gone. He gasped, sputtered like a drowning man breaking the surface of the ocean. Then he doubled over and finally, gloriously, vomited. An ugly stream of his last meal slashed with dark red, spattering the floor in three convulsive heaves and then he was done. He stood hunched over, drenched in cold sweat, hands clutching his knees, shaking and coughing weakly, taking the deep relieved gulps of air that only come after throwing up.

Finally, he took a deep sour breath and collected himself. He was clammy all over, he could feel the coating sheen of cold sweat on his brow. He put a couple fingers to his face, it came away wet. He ran a thumb and finger under his eyes, and then down, feeling the lined skin of his palm run over his mouth and lips. His hand came away red, and he realised he’d been crying and that his nose was bleeding.

He turned. Ada stood in the middle of the T-junction. The hallway didn’t seem half as long now. He lumbered towards her on wooden legs. When they were face to face he watched her eyes flicker over him with the perfunctory disappointment of a board member reviewing an unsatisfactory quarterly report.

‘Follow,’ she said and turned to walk away. ‘Do you know where the exit is? Can’t find it anywhere.’

The air tasted like floor polish again. He remembered an advert for a deodorant by Yellow Karimov. A man sprayed himself with their new deodorant before a meeting with his boss. He entered the meeting, his boss watching him take a seat opposite her, obviously displeased. The shot zoomed in her face, she gave an exaggerated sniff, and instantly started to tear her jacket open as she leapt over the desk at him. ‘Yellow Karimov’, said the advert over a musical sting, ‘the scent of generosity’. He played out the same scenario in his head, but with floor polish instead of deodorant. He felt a trickle of blood slide slowly from his right nostril and down to the corner of his mouth. He flicked a tongue out, caught it. Followed.

A featureless door ahead of them in a featureless narrow corridor slid into the featureless wall with a mild hiss. To stave off the intrusive silence, he was telling her about a news article on a spice stick outlet who had been acting a front for an opioid cartel, but who had found that their spice sticks were in such demand from the locals in B4-M25-L-A-L10, that they turned a greater profit from the front business than the drug trade. The gang leader, a K. Langley, had been imprisoned, and his wife, Delia Vesna Langley, had taken over spice stick business in his absence. Ada took out her phone as it began to buzz insistently.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sure I am. Stop being such a pussy and say whatever it was you were saying.”
He sighed. “I don’t think being offended by you being rude makes me a pussy.”

He looked around himself. It was an odd courtyard. They stood in an elegant gazebo-esque tunnel ringing the outside of the space in glass panels divided by graceful arcs of golden framing. Into the bottom of the ribcage were set a series of waist-high dappled navy panels. The outer walls were sheer and dark, their surfaces seeming to eat the light that came from a series of hooded lamps like a miner’s lantern reimagined as a luxury fashion accessory, spaced at equidistant intervals along the walls. Their footsteps clicked on the black stone tiling. The dim warm lighting lent an impression somewhere between a jazz lounge and the kind of glamorous soirée portrayed in perfume adverts. It caught the golden ribwork of the tunnel and glittered. Beyond, an open-air square with pale tiles contrasted with the tunnel’s shady floor. In the centre of the courtyard, four benches were arranged around a slightly raised square pedestal, from which a glimmering golden hologram of a slender young tree that was entirely leafless. It shimmered in the light rain that pattered pleasantly against the glass tunnel.

Ada interrupted his admiration and called him over from the left-hand wall.

“Yeah?” he said, making his way around to her.
She gestured at the outline of another featureless door with a gleaming knob of stylish silver. “Open it.”
He looked it over. “What?”
She rattled the handle, it didn’t open. “It’s stuck. Kick it open or break the lock or something.”
He tried the handle himself, ignoring her flash of annoyance, and conceded that it was, indeed, stuck. Frowning, he knocked against it. The strangely porous material seemed to swallow the sound. He knocked harder. Nothing.
“See?” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He began looking around and began slowly pacing towards the far wall.
“Where are you going?”
“Maybe there’s a switch or something,” he said over his shoulder.
“I don’t see one.”
He ignored her, looking this way and that. He heard her huff behind him. By the time he’d made it another quarter of the way around, it was clear that she was right. Rapid footsteps advancing on him from behind told him she had decided to follow. A second later she was pacing beside him. Not willing to give her the win, he made a show of studying the walls. They continued through another quarter of the ribcage in silence.
She broke it. “Eric’s an interesting man,” she mused.
“You could say that.”
“Do you think he liked the talk?”
“He seemed to. Doesn’t strike me as the sort to throw his cash at anything, though.”
“No, that’s true. You think he’ll buy in?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“You surprised him.”
He paused for a second, then gave questioning grunt.
“You know the speaker.”
He shrugged.
“You surprised me,” she said.
He turned back to the wall.
“That’s the money man, is it?”
“Did you get any good contacts this evening?”
“Don’t try to-“
“Who was the best one? Anyone higher up the food chain than Eric?” his voice was harsher than he intended. He wiped the back of his hand across his upper lip, it came away with a smear of half-dried blood. He wrinkled his nose. That was her problem, she’d have to suck it up.
“That’s how it is, then?” she was looking at him.
He fixed on the wall ahead. “I doubt I can leverage anything with him, but he seemed to like you.”
“No, I don’t think so.” She frowned at the floor, “he didn’t seem interested.”
“You two seemed to be getting along.”
“Nothing unusual.”
“He was laughing. You were laughing.”
She gave him a hard searching smile, “Sure. He laughed at me, I laughed at him. It’s polite.”
“You had a secret meeting with him,” he joked.
The joke misfired, her caution deepened. “Not how I’d have worded it…”
“It happened didn’t it?”
She turned away. Said nothing.
To fill the air again, he asked, “I wonder if he remembers that woman on the escalators?”
“It was hardly a secret,” She stated. “He asked you if you minded. You agreed.” She waved an irritated hand at him, “It’s business. Anyway, you had a meeting, too.”
“Sure, fine,” he relented. “Private. Whatever. What did he say to you?”
“Nothing important. You?”
“Nothing important.”

They were back at the door. Pointlessly, he tried to open it again. The door did not oblige.

“It’s not going to open,” she said. “Kick the lock in.”
“I doubt I can,” he said, eying it dubiously. “It looks pretty sturdy.”
“Try.”
“Also expensive.”
“Try.”
“And get done for property damage? They’d sue the hell out of me.”
She sighed. “This is why you’ll never get anywhere here, Caleb.”
“Because I’m not destroying property at the first inconvenience?”
“Bluntly? Yes.”
“Are you insane?”
“I’m serious.” She waved an exasperated hand at the door with an explosive sigh, “All the other men here know where they’re going, what they want, and how to get there. They’re not letting a door get in their way without even trying to open it – one way or the other. Monetary retaliation or otherwise.”
He turned and walked away from her. She followed. “I’ve worked my whole life to get where I am. And then you just walk in and think you can treat it like a parcel delivery.”
He wheeled, “Excuse me?”
“What exactly are you doing here?”
“Same as everyone else. What’s it to you?”
“I want to know what your plan is.” She was inches from his face, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out of here.”
“Not likely. You can’t get through a door.”
He ground his teeth, “Not my point and you know it.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly. Why is that always your answer?”
He stepped back, raising his palms, “What’s it to you?”
“You act like you’ve got time on your side,” she accused. “You don’t. You should have achieved something with your life by now. You haven’t.”
He walked over the glass wall, and stared through the rain running down the windows, at the digital tree standing there, unmoving, heedless of the rain, unbothered by the world around it. “You know what I’m going to do, Ada?” he said, “I’m going to get a boat. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Brilliant. You’re going to get a boat. For what?”
“To get away from here. From people like you.”
“Right. You’re going to fuck about on a boat. Until, what? You starve to death and they find your body, and chuck your body into the sea?” She gave a burst of scornful laughter, “brilliant plan!”
“Ok, then,” he said, throwing his hands up, “well why don’t you tell me what I should do, since you’re the grand big dick of life guru’s now. How much do you charge for a seminar or a course or a fucking conference? Can I pre-order one or do I have to subscribe to a podcast or a video feed or what?”
“It would be more valuable than doing nothing but carrying things about, odd jobs here and there. Achieving nothing.”
“You have no idea…” he started, and then bit his tongue.
“You want to know what you should do? Figure it out yourself. You’ve got nothing else going on.”
“Is that right?” he answered. He wanted to tell her about the yacht. Just to rub it in her face. He wanted to hurt her with the information. Just to shut her up. He bit down on it, resolved to wait. Outperforming her and beating her at her own bullshit would be the greater reward. He could piss on her from a corner office. The stupid bitch would lap it up from a bowl if she thought he was rich enough.
She rolled her eyes. “Right. And your girlfriend goes to another school.”
“Oh, I forgot who I’m talking to. Because you’re going straight to the top, yeah? One day. Is that what you tell yourself? Just keep running around the hamster wheel, tongue enough arse, and one day you’ll get into the Big Club?” He laughed, gestured at their surroundings “Well, here it is, I guess. Are you in yet? How long left? All this work. All these years. The stress. The money. The uncertainty. Suddenly a delivery guy is on the same level as you and you can’t fucking take it, can you?”
“Same level? I think not,” she snarled.
“I bet it fucking stings, doesn’t it? Hard to be high and mighty like that, hard to look down on me when I’m doing better than you without all the grind, isn’t it?”
“I’ll always be better than you.”
“Fuck off, Ada.”
“Am I wrong? Of course I look down on you. You fucking deserve it. Look at you. Trotting in here in your cheap suit from fuck-knows-where, like a sick puppy, scampering up to me like you’re at a fucking bar. But it’s not a fucking bar, is it? This isn’t a date. You are a sad failure trying to make up for lost time. You’re here to do work, so fucking work.”
“Pull your head out of your arse, you jumped up bitch. I didn’t sign a contract with you, I didn’t agree to a code of conduct, so I’ll behave how I fucking like. If you want to belt you across the face with my cock in the middle of the main fucking hall, then I fucking well will, you uppity tart,” he spat. A small voice in the back of his mind wondered if he’d regret it, but it was drowned in the tide of his indignation. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
She glared. “More than you.”

The door clicked.

They wheeled on it in unison. Watched it swing inwards in a lazy noiseless curve, obscuring the person behind it. Footsteps clapped against the tiles. Caleb became aware of how tense he had become and fought against the urge to laugh, Eric stepped into the room. He turned his head, seemed surprised at their presence, but raised his hand in greeting. Caleb returned the casual greeting with an overabundance of energy, flailing is arm, his mouth reflexively fish hooking towards the sky. He spared a glance at Ada, who appeared much the same as himself, and was also gesticulating wildly.

Eric strode across the tunnel, through a clear door, and into the courtyard. He stopped in front of one of the benches and took a seat. Then he sat and stared ahead, seeming to contemplate the golden digital tree.

The door began to swing closed. They bolted for it, scrambling through and out into the cavernous main hall beyond. Caleb stared around himself, it seemed like a different world. The door clicked shut behind them. They stood together, backs to the wall, watching the remaining trails of men and women drift towards the exit. Silence yawned between them. He refused to look at her. Refused to speak first. He expected her to do the same. Instead, she straightened her back and marched forwards. Taking that as his cue, he started off at an angle away from her, but she raised a hand over her shoulder and snapped her fingers, “I need a drink.” She said in a flat exhausted monotone. “Follow.”
“I need a piss,” he answered in his own exhausted monotone, suddenly feeling like an anvil had settled on his shoulders. She didn’t stop walking. “Message me the name of the bar!” he called after her. If she heard him, she didn’t acknowledge it.

The bathroom looked like it had been thrown up after an overdose of music videos. The smoky grey floor contrasted with a blazing enamel ceiling in which a row of small bowl-shaped crevices harboured dim bulbs. The walls were panelled with black marble run through with brilliant white veins that extended their thin crooked reach across the room. Along one side a row of cubicles with wood-pattern doors, while the other was divided in half. The far end was taken up by half a dozen urinals like the lids of a pharaoh’s sarcophagus. Six feet of stocky white porcelain grinning in a mouth-model’s row; angular gums of black marble dividing them. Along the near-half of the bathroom, a row of square, porcelain sinks accented in steel, in front of large rectangular mirrors that reached for the ceiling. Stout steel legs supported the squat square tables they sat on.

Out of habit he checked his phone. On Placement, Clean Id magazine was promoting a new article: ’10 Ways to Maximise Shareholder Value (Number 7 Will Shock You!)’, 7961846207 was trying to sell second-hand hospital gowns, and 8397125650 was trying to convince people to invest in ‘MuffinPupper Coin’.

He pissed, sighing audibly, and watched his stream splash into the metal, the half-egg juicer of the urinal drain with the blue rectangle of urinal cake, yellow slowly sloshing around the gurgling hole. No blood. He was grateful for that. At the sinks he washed the dried blood off his hands and then turned his attention to the ghoul staring back from the mirror. Gingerly, he went about scrubbing the blood off his face, and then pawing cautiously at the shallow cut on his forehead. He was drying his hands when the bathroom attendant, who hadn’t moved from his place against the wall, drawled ‘So?’
Caleb let the dryer finish. The man still hadn’t moved, wasn’t even looking at him. ‘Looks like you need it.’ Caleb turned. The man turned his head, looked at him. He was pale, coal black hair in a sculpted slightly messy style, he was cultivating the image of having just rolled out of bed at any time. Bloodless lips in an ironic lopsided smirk. Wearing small round black shades. A loose white shirt, a casual red blazer. A delicate silver chain draped around his neck, disappearing into his shirt. His shoes were somehow simultaneously understated and gave the impression of being extremely expensive. He smelled like cinnamon. Who was this guy and why was he hanging out here? He was pretty sure everyone attending had a private dealer.
“Well? Are you buying or not?” the dealer said again, his voice never losing the underlying hum of affected boredom.
Why was he hanging out here? How good were his drugs? Chances are it was cut with fuck knew what. Caleb ran his tongue around the inside of his bottom teeth, tasting smooth gums. To fuck off or continue on with the glass-shard circus parade? Was he that desperate? “How much?”
‘First time is free,’ said the dealer
‘Catch?’
‘Contact.’
‘Sure.’
They exchanged details. It was probably stupid. He couldn’t afford it long term, and he didn’t want to field the guy’s false-friendly messages every time he wanted to extract some extra revenue. On the other hand, here was an opportunity to tone down or turn off the white noise pumping through his head. Right then he’d have done a lot to replace it. Submerge it beneath the lubricant slip slide of a gram, where he didn’t have to hear his own head for a while.
He began to head towards a cubicle. The dealer coughed. “Where are you going?”
He turned back, puzzled. Gestured.
“Where do you think you are?” the dealer chuckled, shaking his head.

Caleb watched the dealer cut four lines on the counter, arranging them on a small silver collapsible tray he’d produced from an inside pocket. He ignored flashbacks of a younger self huddled in dingy bathroom cubicles or over shadowed tables with friends and acquaintances, everyone trying to appear outwardly nonplussed until someone asked who wanted the next line and fingers twitched and stilled and eager smiles sliced onto faces and disappeared again. He realised he was holding his breath, scared of being that prick that blows the powder all over the table like a professional amateur. He exhaled as the dealer handed him a tight steel cylinder. He bent down, snorted his first line, feeling the odd, slightly clogged sensation, trying not to sniff overtly, the mental images of clumps of powder accumulating in wads of snot at the back of his nose. Watching the dealer do his second line, remembering, as he always did, the profoundly strange sensation the first time he’d tried it. It wasn’t dissimilar to a sinus infection. He figured if that sensation didn’t subside on the second go, cocaine would never have taken off. Then again, he considered, as the dealer wiped the tube down and handed it back to him, if it turned down the volume on his thoughts, maybe he’d have dealt with it no matter.