Left shoulder braced against the wall, I half-walked, half-slid back to where Ninety-One had left me. Everyone was still ignoring me, so I did the same to them. Instinct told me that if I started asking questions, they’d just tell me to piss off.
I was feeling blissful. My pain level was quickly dropping, passing bearable and still receding to just about barely perceptible.
“Eleven.”
That was a familiar voice! I grinned at my one-armed friend as she approached. She didn’t smile back, just stared at my clenched fist. I quickly got my bearings and extended the fist with the cube inside towards her.
“Here, take it. Will you answer a few questions for me?”
“I told you to eat, even if you have to force yourself. This is food. Food is energy. You need energy to work and earn sol at the end of the day. Food is no joke. Eat it.”
“I already learned something useful.” I smiled. “Take it. Even with all the willpower in the world, I couldn’t eat a single bite. Seriously, I can’t even bring myself to chew it.”
“You don’t have to.” She took the cube and tucked it into a small, handmade bag at her waist. “You just have to work up some saliva and put the cube on your tongue. It dissolves in a few seconds, mixes with your spit, and then you swallow it. And there you have it: breakfast. Or lunch. Actually, it’s better to put it into your water and drink it like a shake. What did you want to ask me?”
“I have a lot of questions,” I admitted. “But first, I need to sit down.”
“Make it quick. The sooner we get to work, the better our chances to finish whatever jobs we have for the day. Sit down and ask your questions.”
I sat down, joyfully realizing that my legs had become a little stronger and were doing what I wanted them to. Not wasting another second, I asked the first question that came to mind:
“ORL?”
“Optimized Regular Labor. Think of that as your rank, nullbie.”
“O?”
“One-time, single dose. So they gave you painkillers?”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone gets that shot on their first day to keep ‘em from going totally insane from the pain.”
“Nullbie?”
“Volitional Nullform.”
“I don’t follow…”
“I don’t really understand it myself. It’s our status. You, me, everyone else here — we’re all nullform. And we agreed to it of our own free will. Just like we agreed to have our memories locked away.”
“Speaking of memory...”
“Everyone’s is gone. Don’t ask people about it too much — they don’t like that.”
“Okay.”
“What else?”
“Where are we?”
“Up shit creek without a paddle.”
This blunt expression was really the best description of my situation.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me, double ones. We’re fucked. Hopelessly fucked. And the only way out is to die.”
Her point of view seemed too hopeless for me. I didn’t remember anything about myself, my personality, but some instinct told me I was an upbeat person. Optimistic.
And here I was in this grim world, where despair hung so thick it was almost viscous... I saw only the dying embers of life in the eyes of this one-armed girl, so young and yet so jaded.
“Next question, Eleven.”
“So ORL is my status. And Nullform is my status. What does all this mean? I don’t get it.”
“Think of it like this. Nullform is... who you are, okay? You were born a nullform, you’ll die here a nullform. Nullform is part of your identity, and your name, like everyone else here. I’m Nullform Ninety-One. You’re Nullform Eleven. That’s how it works.”
“Okay.”
“ORL is your internal status. You keep it as long as you do the jobs the system gives you every day. This is important, Eleven. If you don’t do your job, you’re screwed. They’ll cut your rations, won’t pay you sol, and you’ll get deeper into debt for your limbs. They’ll even cut your immunosuppressant dose. Keep your ORL status at any cost. Once we’re done wasting time with our little chat, go see what job you have today and get to it.”
“But I can barely even stand! The pain’s only just easing up now. Something inside me cracks and pops every time I move. Something’s wrong. I feel terrible.”
“Nobody gives a fuck!” the girl snapped, whipping her hand back to slap me on the same cheek as she had before. “Nobody cares how you feel! Everyone’s just waiting for you to drop dead and hoping the system assigns them to your interment! Extra sol!”
The burning pain gave me focus, made me think straight. The haze clouding my thoughts eased up a little. Anger rose up inside me.
“Hit me again,” I asked. “Harder.”
“Don’t tell me you liked it...”
“No, it made me angry, and made me want to kick you hard enough to — ”
“I get it. All right.”
A slap... and sharp pain in my unfortunate cheek. I shook my head:
“Thanks.”
“I gotta go now.”
“Just a few more questions!”
“Listen... you act like there’s so much for you to learn! You probably already know at least half of what the oldtimers know.”
