Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
It’s the simplest solution, so that has to be it.
The service hub is on the opposite side of the tower from the main stairwell, so I turn right when I get to Eight and follow the curving hallway around to the opposing side of the building.
All floors with a service hub are crowded, and Eight is no different. There are no spare rooms here and so many people sharing them, they spill out into the hallway at times. Everyone wants to be near the action and the action up here is the pharmacals.
Drugs. They’re everywhere, of course. But Eight is the only place in all of Tau City where you can get hits of spark. Everyone inside the tower—inside the ruins, actually—we all get a baseline level of spark. It never stops, but it never really changes either. A few volts from the mean, plus or minus, is normal. But that’s it. You get what you get.
And eventually, this causes cravings.
So—free enterprise and all that—clever tower people have come up with a way to store the spark. Little batteries that you stick under your tongue to give yourself a jolt.
Or big ones that can deliver a jump directly to your heart—if you’ve got the coin for that. But that’s a rare thing in the tower because no one in here does.
The pharms, jolts, and jumps are only sold on Eight. It’s also the only floor that has a dumbwaiter system set up to deliver goods while you wait, without having to hire yourself a private tower runner.
Everything on Eight costs a fuckin’ fortune. But everyone pays if they’ve got the coin because it’s convenient.
I’ve never done a jolt, let alone a jump, so I don’t do any business with that crew. I only deal with Rodge, who runs the basic commissary and makes his living off the store and the services he provides tower residents who have plenty of coin to waste. Like me.
There’s a thick crowd in front of the door to Rodge’s store—which is just three rooms that have had the walls knocked down to make space for inventory. He’s the one with the dumbwaiter, a simple rope and pulley system with baskets going up and down nine to five. Down in the ruin Rodge owns another store with his own team of private runners who will go into the city and get you anything you want. For a price, of course.
I need a phone and some food. Normally I’d just get the prepackaged shit that’s always in stock up here and call it good. But if I have to send down for a phone—and I do because Rodge can’t stock those, the batteries get drained by the tower before they can get sold—then I might as well stock the pantry so I don’t have to drag this woman all up and down the stairs every time her stomach rumbles.
There’s a long line of people—there’s always a long line of people—but as soon as Rodge sees me come in, he waves. “Tyse, friend. How can I help you?” He calls this out from the back corner. Then he stands up and waves me over to his desk.
I’m one of the few people inside the tower who pays with Tau City digital money, which is a lot easier to exchange and use outside the ruins than all those bulky coins everyone else pays with, so he treats me special.
I enter the cordoned-off space he calls an office and take a seat in the chair he’s waving at. He sits too, shoots me a wide smile that makes his dark eyes brighten, and steeples his fingers under his chin. “What do you need, Tyse?”
“A phone and some good food.”
“Yes, right away. What kind of food?”
“Non-perishable. And enough of it to last a few days.”
Rodge is nodding his head as he speaks, always amicable. “Do you want rations?”
“Not really. What other choices you got?”
His eyes kinda sparkle now. “Are you entertaining someone?”
“I’ve got a…” I sigh. Because I don’t know what to call her. “A guest. Temporary.”
“Female?” He’s smirking at me now.
“Yes. Not that it matters.”
“You’re entertaining a female. Well, then you need a proper grocery run.”
“Well, I don’t wanna cook anything.”
“Will she not cook for you? Since you are housing her?” Rodge is a traditional guy, originally from Thetaiota, where the gender roles are pretty specific. He doesn’t even live in the tower. His place is right outside the ruins on the canal. So he’s got city power, which means he’s got a kitchen. Which of course he does, because women, where he comes from, cook three times a day like clockwork. It’s fucking crazy.
“I don’t even know if she can cook, to be honest. But I’m pretty sure that’s a no from the looks of her.”
He squints his eyes at me. “She’s one of those, huh?”