Under Occupation

Anthony Reist Basel, Kameria
Summer, E5 016

“Good morning, citizens of Acquisition 5B.

Anthony woke up to the sound of morning announcements from Custode Rochat. Every cell in his body wanted to just roll over and ignore Rochat’s droning on about the Path of Light and all that other bullshit, but he couldn’t. By the time Rochat was done with his spiel, Anthony would have maybe 10 minutes left to get from his apartment to his new job at the ration factory.

He brushed his teeth with Bardonese ration “soap flavored” toothpaste, straightened out his hair with a balsa wood comb provided to him by the glorious Spoilist Vision, and ate a breakfast of Panni topped with the leftover condiments from the last meal pack he was issued.

When Rochat got to the part of morning announcements where he condemned recent noxist activity, Anthony thought back on the times he’d considered joining them. On the anger and hatred he felt for his “new benefactors”, but Anthony had seen what happened to people who tried resisting. He’d seen the messy, painful ends they would meet on the beacon screens that had been set up on every other street corner. Besides. The ones who weren’t tied up and shot three times in the stomach in the middle of a city square had to go hide in the woods all the time. And Anthony always hated camping.

Right as Rochat segued from condemning the Noxists to admonishing the citizenry for enabling them, Anthony stepped out of the front door of his apartment building. He smiled in spite of himself. He usually didn’t make it out the door until Rochat started denigrating Kamerian culture.

“Now, some of the more undesirable elements of society may call me a ‘traitor’, but…”

Rochat’s daily browbeating faded into the background of Anthony’s senses. As he travelled the same sidewalk in the same urban sprawl he’d known for years now, Anthony began to realize how much things had changed, and how much they’d stayed the same.

If he took a left two blocks from here, Anthony would still arrive at the Irene’s soda fountain where he took his first girlfriend for their first date. The sidewalks still hadn’t been redone since the Roberts Administration, and the trains still screeched any time they slowed down. But the Irene’s had been taxed into oblivion; the building filled with a depot for the city’s Bardonese garrison. The trains screeched even more since the Bardonese Army’s supply trains took traffic priority, and the sidewalks had new, reddish-brown stains he didn’t want to think too hard about.

Work was the same way. Even though the bakery got buried in the same foreign-business taxes as the Irene’s, he was still baking. But instead of artisanal breads, special order birthday cakes and window shoppers admiring his work, it was standardized ingredients, exacting specifications and Panni with rosemary. No art, no adjustments, just the same panni with rosemary recipe over and over and over.

Anthony was pulled away from dreading the coming work day by the man who just happened to be standing at the next corner. Clad in freshly laundered sweats and casually holding a knife in one hand.

“Hey, you got an extra cigarette?” the man asked, as if there wasn’t a kitchen knife in his hand.

Anthony could feel his heart starting to force its way up his throat. “I… don’t smoke.”

The knife-wielding man took a step closer and displayed his kitchen knife. “Then let me find one in your wallet.”

Anthony tried to say something, but all that came out was a loud voice cracking noise. Like a thirteen year old boy who just hit puberty mid-scream.

The knife wielding man took a step closer. “You think this is a game, buddy? Hand me the fucking wallet!”

Anthony’s entire body froze as the man pointed the knife at his throat. “I’m giving you five seconds. Exactly five fu-”

“Par!”

Two darts shot into the man’s back. An electric current soon followed, but the man kept standing. At the other end of the wires, one of the Bardonese garrisoneers shouted the order again.

“Par!”

The Bardonese garrisoneer dropped the taser and pistol whipped Anthony’s assailant twice in the head. Then he manhandled the knife wielder onto his stomach and roughly slapped a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists. With his work largely done, the garrisoneer looked up at Anthony with tired, bagged eyes.

“Are you injured, citizen?” The garrisoneer asked, the accent thick in his voice. Anthony could only shake his head.

From there, the garrisoneer took a statement from Anthony, wished him safe travels, handed him a slip to excuse his late arrival to work and sent him on his way. “Say what you want about the Bardonese” Anthony mused to himself. “But they certainly keep a lid on crime.”

Anthony’s work day, besides the leftover stress from his harrowing experience, was like any other. 1 packet of yeast, 960 ml of flour, 240 ml of water at 23.11 degrees celsius, and 11ml of rosemary extract in the bowl, slide to the left, repeat. Don’t try and look over the divider at your coworkers. Fraternization invites noxist thought. Be thankful you’re a citizen of the magnificent Bardonese Commonwealth. Repeat from 9 AM to 7 PM. Idle hands are noxism’s playthings. You don’t want to make the world regress back into division and strife, do you?

At the sound of the 7 PM siren, Anthony was snapped out of his daze. It took him a second to remember how to think, but once he did he headed directly for the exit without so much as looking at his co workers. He was running out of warnings for workplace misconduct, and he had no interest in learning where people went when they ran out of warnings.

The walk back to his apartment was uneventful, even though Anthony kept his eyes skinned for threats this time. Once Anthony reached the apartment complex, though, it wasn’t so uneventful anymore.

Outside, Anthony saw a man sitting with three ration tickets and a very self-satisfied look on his face. A group of garrisoneers was posted outside the door to an apartment. From inside he could hear protests of “There must have been a mistake!” and “There were two ration tickets in the envelope!” As he walked past, the tired-eyed garrisoneer from before gestured for Anthony to move along.

Anthony complied, and thanked Elohim that his apartment was five stories above that scene.