First Shift - Legacy

20

Troy woke up in a fog. He lifted his hands and groped in front of his face, expecting to find the chill of icy glass, the press of domed steel, the doom of a deep-freeze. Instead, his hands waved in empty air. The clock beside his bed came into focus. It was a little after three. The PM light was unlit. He had the grogginess and headache of a hangover, the midnight confusion of sleeping with the flu, the hours meaningless in the wake of some sudden fever.

He sat up, the springs of his bed squeaking. He had on a pair of gym shorts, couldn’t remember changing the night before, couldn’t remember going to bed. There was something else he needed to remember and couldn’t. Planting his feet on the floor, he rested his elbows on his knees, sunk his head into his palms, and sat there a moment. His entire body ached. There was something he was supposed to be doing.

After a few minutes slipped by, he dressed himself in the dark, buckling up his coveralls. Light would be bad for his headache. It wasn’t a theory he needed to test.

The hallway outside was still dimmed for the evening, just bright enough to grope one’s way to the shared bathrooms and not a watt more. Troy stole down the hall, not needing to pee, and headed for the lift.

He hit the “Up” button, hesitated, wasn’t sure if that was right. He pressed the “Down” button as well.

It was too early to go into his office, not unless he wanted to fiddle on the computer. He wasn’t hungry, but he could go up and watch the sun rise. The late shift would be up there drinking coffee. Or he could hit the rec room and go for a jog. That would mean going back to his room to change.

The lift arrived with a beep while he was still deciding. Both lights went off, the up and the down. He could take this lift anywhere.

Troy stepped inside. He didn’t know where he wanted to go.

The elevator doors closed. It waited on him patiently. Eventually, he figured, it would whisk off to heed some other call, pick up a person with purpose, someone with a destination. He could stand there and do nothing and let that other soul decide. He could just go along for the ride.

Running his finger across the buttons, he tried to remember what was on each level. There was a lot he’d memorized, but not everything he knew felt accessible. He had a sudden urge to head for one of the lounges and watch TV, just let the hours slide past until he finally needed to be somewhere. This was how the shift was supposed to go. Waiting and then doing. Sleeping and then waiting. Make it to dinner and then make it to bed. The end was always in sight. There was nothing to rebel against, just a routine, until the now faded into the past, and the future wilted and died.

The elevator shook into motion before he could decide. Troy jerked his hand away from the buttons and took a step back. The elevator didn’t show where they were going. It felt like they had started down.

Only a few floors passed before the lift lurched to a halt. The doors opened on a lower apartment level. A familiar face from the cafeteria, a man in reactor red, smiled as he stepped inside.

“Morning,” he said.

Troy nodded.

The man turned and jabbed one of the lower buttons, one of the reactor levels. He studied the otherwise blank array, turned, and gave Troy a quizzical look.

“You feeling okay, sir?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.”

Troy leaned forward and pressed sixty-eight. The man’s concern for his well-being must’ve had him thinking of the doctor, even though Henson wouldn’t be on shift for several hours.

“Must not have taken the first time,” he explained, glancing at the button.

“Mmm.”

The silence lasted one or two floors.

“How much longer you got?” the reactor mechanic asked.

“Me? Just another couple of weeks. How about you?”

“I just got on a week ago. But this is my second shift.”

“Oh?”

The lights counted downward in floors but upward in number. Troy didn’t like this; he felt like the lowest level should be level 1. They should count up. He wasn’t sure why this annoyed him.

“Is the second shift easier?” he asked. The question came out unbidden. It was as though the part of him dying to know was more awake than the part of him praying for silence.

The mechanic considered this.

“I wouldn’t say it’s easier. How about… less uncomfortable?” He laughed quietly. Troy felt their arrival in his knees, gravity tugging on him. The door beeped open.

“Have a good one,” the mechanic said. They hadn’t shared their names. “In case I don’t see you again.”

Troy raised his palm. “Next time,” he said. The man stepped out, and the doors winked shut on the halls to the power plant. With a hum, the elevator continued its descent.

Troy’s stomach was in a knot. It wasn’t hunger. It was something else. Something stronger than worry.

The doors dinged on the medical level. Troy stepped out. He felt the hallways calling someone else’s name. That was his imagination, but there were also real voices down the corridor, two men chatting. He stepped quietly across the tile. He remembered picking out tile like this once. Somehow, he knew the name of the pale green paint on the upper half of the walls. Sea foam. The lower half was something else—he couldn’t recall.

A female voice. It wasn’t a conversation; it was an old movie. Troy peeked into the main office and saw a man lounging on a gurney, his back turned, a TV set up in the corner. Troy tiptoed past so as not to disturb him. He supposed that there were positions here—like the reactor mechanics—that were much more important than his own, jobs that required constant care. No one stayed up all night in his office, that was for sure.

The hallway split before him. He imagined the layout, could picture the pie-shaped storerooms, the rows of deep-freeze coffins, the tubes and pipes that led from the walls to the bases, from the bases into the people inside.

He stopped at one of the heavy doors and tried his code. The light changed from red to green. He dropped his hand, didn’t need to enter this room, didn’t feel the urge, just wanted to see if it would work.

He meandered down the hall past a few more doors. Wasn’t he just here? Had he ever left? Hours of darkness lay between him and some event. His arm throbbed. He rolled back his sleeve and saw a spot of blood, a circle of redness around a pinprick scab.

If something bad had happened, he couldn’t remember. That part of him had been choked off.

Adjusting his sleeve, he tried his code on this other pad, this other door, and waited for the light to turn green. Something was calling him. This time, he pushed the button that opened the door. He didn’t know what it was, but there was something inside that he needed to see.