The Green Light District

Anya rested her head against the traffic pole as she waited to cross the intersection. It was busy, primes zooming off to work in their spotless, plush sedans. Her hand gripped a vodka bottle, peeking out of a plain canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She pulled it forth, twisted off the cap with one hand while bringing it to her lips with the other. By now, she was numb to the sting as the liquid slid down her throat and burned her insides--that was the point, wasn’t it?

As she returned it to its nesting place, her wrist slipped, and she sloshed some of the booze down her front, a dark spot blossoming across her chest. She let out a curse before the traffic light switched to green, and the crosswalk light flashed a white figure icon.

As she landed on the opposite curb, tottering on unsteady heels, she spotted--auditorily first before she visually found him--one of those scrounger preachers. They were often at this grassy patch adjacent to the thoroughfare, always expounding on the end of the world, or God’s judgment upon this city, or whatever other doom-and-gloom message they were charged to dispense to the masses.

A handful of scroungers were assembled on the grass around the man. It was only ever scroungers, occasionally another cop like herself. Never any Primes. He was a new one she wasn’t familiar with yet; she guessed him to be close in age to herself. Neatly put together, handsome, approachable.

Anja paused to listen. A couple of the scroungers shifted to peek up at her, but they generally paid her little attention. She often stopped to soak in these speeches and throw the preachers a couple of sollares. She found it comforting that their words mirrored what she knew to be true. She had found someone in this city not pretending that this, that everything was normal.

She rummaged around for some sollares deep in the crevices of her bag, as she caught phrases of his sermonizing.

“The Lord has said in two years, scroungers shall be restored to our place in the city.”

A few other scroungers sauntered over. He was an expert at captivation, his voice rising and falling with sincerity.

“We are the descendants of the Founders. We have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that Dr. Samuels’ thinks that we should be freed?”

She stopped digging in her bag to study the preacher more closely. The straw hat atop of his head was a little too perfectly woven together, his burlap pants a little too strategically dirty. How could she not have noticed before?

“Did Dr. Samuels really say that this great city would fall?”

His eyes traveled to each face in the circle about him. They brightened as they fell on her, in particular the lanyard swinging around her neck, her ID for Foundation Headquarters.

“Ah, dear friend of the Foundation,” he beamed at her. He rested his hand over his heart in solidarity, “Your Service will set you free.”

She choked back a laugh. Did he not see the smear of her eyeliner, the misplaced mascara around her eyes? Surely he noticed her sullied uniform, or that she could barely remain vertical on her feet. Surely he smelled the alcohol emanating off her.

She wanted to sling her bottle from her bag with a crushing impact on the man’s forehead. Or pour the contents on his head. Or knock him to the ground, get close to his face, and scream. Instead, she crumbled up the sollares in her hand and tossed them back into her bag.

Her lips curled into a sneer, as she said, “Who bought that hat for you? Cecelia? Or does she give you an allowance so you can buy it yourself?”

The man’s eyes widened, and a flicker of recognition at Cecelia’s name popped across his face. He took a step back and thoughtfully considered her. Anja could see the wheels turning in his head, how to carefully craft the lies that he would use to appease her.

“Don’t bother.” She turned on her heel, ignoring the stares of the other scroungers. Wobbling and forcing her legs forward, she carried on towards Headquarters.

Down the street, perhaps Evelyn’s Prime would be sipping a latte outside of the Coffee Crossing with an informational panel in hand as she often had occasion to do. Anja lingered to take in the coffee shop’s patio, her watery eyes scanning for Evelyn’s folded frame over her work. It always gave her some enjoyment to catch Evelyn huddled at a table, always alone and downcast.

There was no Evelyn today. Instead, there was a crew of Cooperation students with muffins and floofy-fancy, pretend-coffee milkshakes before them, gathered into small groups around the patio tables with their white bus parked a few yards down the block. An exasperated Instructor also donned in a mustard yellow Cooperative color like the students was fussing at a group of boys to take their seats. They continued chasing each other and roughhousing, despite her raised voice.

Anja was stumbling down the sidewalk, teetering precariously, not intending to stop nor give them any other thought. But her breath caught in her throat, as she caught sight of a group of teenage girls--one blonde, one brunette, and one redhead--on her periphery. They were teasing each other with those outlandish, youthful laughs. They couldn’t be any older than sixteen.

And they were catching the attention of three businessmen Primes at a neighboring table, their eyes silently stalking the girls’ every movement.

Anja tapped the middle-aged Instructor on the shoulder. The woman’s hair flounced as she snapped around, and her eyes narrowed as she scoped out Anja’s appearance.

Anja was suddenly self-conscious. She had slept in this outfit after all--had she worn these same clothes yesterday too? She couldn’t recall what she had done the previous day in fact--a small blessing undoubtedly.

She smoothed the wrinkles down her uniform and leaned closer to the woman, speaking as low as possible. “You need to get the kids back on the bus. Now.”

The Instructor whipped her face away from Anja’s, her nose crinkling at the stench.

”You metropolitan cops are always so self-important,” she scoffed, with a nod at Anja’s forest green Cooperative color.

Anja slid her eyes over to the table of girls. The Instructor followed her gaze, her own eyes softening, wavering between resignation and something else Anja couldn’t distinguish.

“Our tour isn’t for another hour,” she said at last. Powerlessness was that other something.

Anja nodded with an “Okay, I’ll take care of it” before marching down the sidewalk towards the bus.

With hand motions signaling she wished to board, she climbed up the stairs. The bus driver, a young cop in his twenties, eyed her curiously.

“I’m just getting your group an earlier tour at the Foundation,” She answered his unspoken question. She kept her voice bright and professional, her face unreadable. She picked up the bus’s navigational panel. With a few wipes of her finger, a few pin passwords applied, she had changed the group’s time.

With a wave of her lower arm over the infrared light that powered the bus’s main computer, she confirmed the change. Her chip scanned an affirmative beep.

“Approved,” he nodded as he peered over the panel as she placed it back in its cradle. An equally approving smile spread across his face. “You have a lot of pull for a twenty-first copy.”

Anja shrugged. “Not really. Not more than any other replica you’ll find in Gehenna.”

With a wave at the bus as it pulled away from the curb, the students all accounted for and onboard, Anja passed back down the sidewalk on route towards Headquarters. A jolt of sobriety was clearing the cloud fogging her brain, and a sense of warmth and success imparted newfound energy to her limbs.

But as she passed Coffee Crossings again, three pairs of eyes followed her. She tried to ignore them and maintain her trajectory, except one of the men motioned to her with a wide flick of his arm.

She threw the group of men a smile, swallowing down bile as she approached them. She examined each carefully, relieved she could single out one of the three without a ring on his left hand.

This would be the one she would plop down beside. She would sling her arm over him and say to them all, “Well, boys, what mischief are you getting into already at this early hour?” At least she wouldn’t have to worry about his wife harassing her at events at the Foundation.

She turned her head to muffle a sigh. She would be late once again, but Cecelia would be pleased.