The Occupation of Emerald City: The Worker Read Online Free PDF Page B

quickly,
“no offense intended. Just the way you talk.”
    “I’m not upper-class.”
    “You got family on the outside? Someone who might be looking
for you?”
    “No,” I say. “They said … they said my family read about me
in the paper, but I think it was all made up.”
    “That sounds about right for these fuckers. They said my
family was trying to get me out, but they wouldn’t let me out until I signed a
bunch of papers. And I sure as shit won’t sign any papers they hand
me—none of it is in our language. There’s gotta be a Red Cross guy
somewhere making his rounds and I’m just counting …”
    “I said I was a terrorist,” I blurt out. I don’t want to be
left alone. I want to talk to this stranger, to confess as much as I can and
hope he’ll say something to make it all better.
    He’s silent a moment. “Are you?”
    “No,” I say. “They had me pinned down. On a metal table. They
poured water in my mouth and I couldn’t breathe. I told them what they wanted
to hear. I thought I was going to die.”
    “How long did you last?”
    “What?”
    “How long did you last?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. I bite my knuckle to stifle back
tears. The room smells like cold stone and I’m not entirely sure if someone’s pumping a chemical in through the vents
or not. They could be drugging me, somehow. The guy in the next cell could be
an interrogator. This could all be a trick. This could just be a trick. Stop
thinking. I close my eyes. Stop thinking.
    “I lasted ten.”
    My chest inhales a deep breath. “You confessed to them? They
did it to you, too?”
    “Yes and yes,” he says. “And to answer your next question:
no, I’m not a terrorist. I’m a reporter. What about you?”
    “I work for the city power plant. Some men … they broke into
my apartment while I was asleep.” I lean against the cold concrete wall and
close my eyes. “I was half-asleep so I didn’t fight back.”
    Not quite true. I didn’t fight back because I was scared to
death. I had just spent the last thirty hours working on and off, trying to
keep the power plant running after the first bomb exploded downtown. When the
men in black masks broke into my apartment, I didn’t even hear them picking the
lock. I stepped out of my bathroom, toothbrush in my mouth, and saw black
shadows running through the living room.
    They grabbed me and held me down. I begged for them to let me
go before they pulled the black hood over my head. It was thicker and heavier
than the hoods used in this place. It smelled like vomit and every time my
mouth made an “M” sound, my lips touched the wet fabric.
    “The kidnappers brought you here,” says the man in the next
room. “And they told the Coalition you were a terrorist. Or an insurgent. And
then they collected their ten thousand dollar reward and went back out to find
another person. Five hours from capture to paycheck, the easiest ten thousand
dollars they’ll ever make. Whether that money turns out to be worth anything is
another story.”
    “How do you know all this?” I ask.
    “Because I followed a group on the second day of the invasion
when the call first went out around the Capital. Before the bombing was even
over, the Coalition was already putting up rewards for people who might cause
trouble. Didn’t take me long to find a group that was going around grabbing
whomever they could, and I tried to tail them to see where they were taking
people. They caught me, told the Coalition I was plotting points of attack for
an insurgency.”
    I run a hand through my greasy hair. I use the blanket to rub
the cool sweat off the back of my neck, noticing a loose thread from where I
had been picking it. I pull on it very slowly, wrapping it around the palm of
my hand.
    The man sighs. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. I
need some sort of sensory stimulation or I’m going to lose it.”
    “So talk,” I say, pulling the thread apart. I’ve got about
six feet of