This short vignette takes place in the Stacks, the largest unlicensed Haven in Vesper, located in Driftwood.
“So the first thing you need to know,” Danuta says, lighting a cigarette in the break room that definitely has a no-smoking sign, “is that they’re not dead until the machine says they’re dead.”
Tomasz nods. He’s been nodding for forty minutes. His new uniform itches.
“The machine is wrong about thirty percent of the time, but that’s above my pay grade. If the machine says graduated, you log graduated. If the machine says stable, you log stable. If the machine says the patient is doing cartwheels in their pod, you log cartwheels. You do not question the machine.”
“What if—”
“You do not question the machine.”
“Okay.”
Danuta takes a long drag. She’s maybe fifty, with the complexion of someone who has worked nights for decades and posture to match.
“Second thing. The families. They visit sometimes. They want to know if their loved one is comfortable. The answer is always yes. They want to know if they’re happy. The answer is always yes. They want to know how long until—” She makes a vague gesture. “The answer is ‘everyone’s different’ and ‘we’re monitoring closely’ and ‘would you like some coffee.'”
“What if they ask something I don’t know?”
“Get them coffee. By the time you come back, they’ve usually forgotten the question.”
Tomasz writes this down. Danuta watches him write it down.
“You’re taking notes.”
“Is that bad?”
“It’s adorable.” She stubs out the cigarette in a coffee mug that says WORLD’S BEST GRANDMA. “Third thing. The pods. You check them every two hours. Fluid levels, neural activity, the usual. If something looks wrong, you call Viktor. Viktor fixes things.”
“What if Viktor isn’t here?”
“Viktor is always here. Viktor lives here. I’m not sure Viktor exists outside of here.” She pauses. “Don’t ask Viktor about that. He gets philosophical.”
A buzzer sounds somewhere in the building. Danuta doesn’t move.
“That’s the 3 AM feeding cycle. The pods handle it automatically. You just have to make sure nobody’s tube gets kinked.”
“How often do tubes get kinked?”
“Define ‘often.'”
“More than once a week?”
“Define ‘week.'”
Tomasz puts down his pen.
“Is this job going to kill me?”
Danuta considers this. She lights another cigarette, despite having just finished one.
“Probably not. The turnover is high, but it’s mostly people quitting, not dying. Although there was that guy last year who fell into the recycling unit, but that was really more of a him problem than a job problem.”
“The recycling unit?”
“Don’t worry about the recycling unit.”
“You just said someone fell into it.”
“And I also said don’t worry about it. See how that works?” She stands, stretches, and something in her back pops loudly. “Come on. I’ll show you the floor. Try not to look directly at Pod 47.”
“Why?”
“Because the resident in Pod 47 has her eyes open, and it freaks out the new people.”
“Her eyes are open?”
“Some of them do that. It doesn’t mean anything. Probably.”
Tomasz follows her out of the break room, past the sign that says NO SMOKING, into a hallway that smells like disinfectant and something else he decides not to think about.
“One more thing,” Danuta says, not turning around. “If you hear singing coming from the basement, ignore it.”
“What’s in the basement?”
“Nothing. That’s why you should ignore the singing.”
She keeps walking. Tomasz keeps following.
The hallway is very long. The lights flicker in a pattern that might be random or might be intentional.
He’s going to need more pens.