Chapter Twenty One: Unorthodox Job Interviews

A/N: On a scale of 1-10, how cute is the media? Also, you can now follow me on Twitter, username is lararimmer!

The stars have faded into the distance by the time we reach our destination at the bottom of the pit.

Elysium winds around like a clockwork mechanism, the outer levels sinking lower and lower and further from that beautiful white temple in the centre. Like a beacon of hope and frustration, it remains unchanging whilst the workers around it grow exhausted. The further we descend, the worse the air becomes, until there's a faint smell of sulphur and metal.

There's no gardens, no majestic shrubbery this time. The path leads straight into a muddy lane that's cramped by tall buildings, which we would later learn was the business "district" of the outer zone. The large building in front of us appears blackened by soot, slightly tilted, and propped together by chipped bricks and broken windows. A rusting sign labels it; "JOB ELECTION OFFICE."

Job election? What?

Thankfully, Hadrian looks as puzzled as I do as we glance at each other once, and he gives me a small shrug in return. I step ahead, taking the lead on the last few steps into the dismal square.

The place is fairly quiet, with only the odd worker dashing here or there, and as such, there's no queue greeting us at the bottom of the steps. A bored looking woman slouches against the post awaiting arrivals, and she turns to us as she hears our feet slapping the ground in anger. Her eyes briefly skim me, dressed in a shabby camisole and slick shorts, and slide up to my sweat-coated forehead, uncombed hair and scratches from where I'd fallen. I see her about to raise her eyebrows, but she glances uncomfortably down at a familiar plaque around her chest, and visibly looks away from me.

Her eyes land on Hadrian slinking behind me, and widen. He looks like a guard, but that's not what the impression her look is giving. She's fluttering, staggering from her slouched position so that she can straighten her tall back and flick her muddy blonde hair. A diamond-shaped face, pale and gaunt, tries to smile at the oncoming man, but it strikes me as though she's baring her teeth at him.

But muscles are twitching in her face, and she glances at that plaque again, until I'm sure that it's watching her and her behaviour, for her to act so edgy. If it's the same as mine, then it's just a plaque with a few numbers on it.

...right?

Hadrian doesn't notice, and stays quiet as I face the woman. She's shorter than me, so I look down on her. The woman looks like she's about to nut me from below.

I take a step back.

'You're new,' the woman states, and cuts me off before I can answer. 'No, I don't want to know. Don't need to know, for that matter. You're just another one of us. But you, sir...'

She addresses Hadrian, the "guard", as sir. And in his white uniform, ironed into crisp lines of solid masculinity, it's not hard to see why. He glows, straightening his already immaculate image. I want to punch him, and then her, for good measure, but I don't. Instead, I say something much more damaging.

'He's not a guard. He's borrowed a uniform. May we come in?'

The woman looks across to me in shock, but her face quickly hides it. Thankfully, Hadrian's buttoned uniform has prevented anyone seeing that he doesn't own a metal tag; something, I assumed, would make him stand out very much. Bored again, the woman gestures towards a long list of names and occupations, and then gesturing to the empty lines below the last few entries.

'Write your name, let me check your identity tags, I'll assign you a job, you get on with your lives and I'll never see you again,' the woman drills in a monotone, no doubt from the thousands of times she's said this earlier. 'Well...I'll never see some people again.'

I grit my teeth. There's no doubt who she wants to see again.

Hadrian's still fuming that I'd given up his identity, and the woman's still interested, but not half as paranoid at putting a toe out of a guard's line. Hadrian writes underneath the final name with a beautiful, cursive hand, whilst mine is an unintelligible scrawl. Then, she takes the paper, and begins a process of staring at the badge on my chest, copying down the numbers, and placing me in some sort of algorithm. When she turns to do Hadrian's, he explains that he's not a soul-- he's a god.

Maybe I should have ruined his surprise earlier too. He looks as proud as a swan.

Blondie drops the quill she's holding, and drops into a shaking head-bob of respect and eagerness. I roll my eyes as she's even more interested, but clearly terrified of the man before her. When Hadrian waves away her formality, she blushes and turns back to the paper.

Meanwhile, I pretend to stare into the distance whilst in reality, I'm picturing how I'll dissect Hadrian later for looking so damn cocky that he's making the girl so flustered she's unable to concentrate on where to assign him to. In the end, she signs it hastily, adding a stamp to seal the deal. Glancing back up at Hadrian, she grins, looking dazed.

'There you go, sweetie,' she hands him a printed sheet of paper, and he assesses it. She thrusts my own into my hands without much ado, and I go from eyeballing her, to dropping my gaze to see what crap I'd have to put up with.

Sewer Worker.

I blink.

Sewer worker? As in, knees-deep-in-shit sewer worker? As in, sewers? Lord, that sounds hell, but at least Hadrian will hopefully have to do the same. If we have each other--

He glances up at me as he's reading his page, and he gives me a questioning look. I know he's asking about my job without even needing him to speak the question out loud, and I sneak a look at his, with permission.

I stifle a curse.

His job reads Recruitment, and straight away I know he's going to be sat bored here with friggin' blondie whilst I wade through excrement.

Hadrian's trying to see my sheet, but I glower at him and fold it up.

'What did you get?' he asks, and he leans in to take the paper. Irritated, I dodge, whirling it behind my back whilst the Blonde Woman scoffs and wobbles off in search of something, someone. I'm too busy avoiding Hadrian's curiosity; he grins wolfishly, trying to snatch the paper held behind my back. At first, I can see he's enjoying the game and expecting that within a few minutes, I'll either give in or he'll beat me.

When he notices that I won't be backing down any time within my Elysian lifespan, nor can he keep up with my agility, he starts to get annoyed.

'Nerissa!' he says, and he dives.

Stubborn, I stand my ground, and he careers into me, arms wrapping around me to pin my arms. As he's holding me, I snarl, 'Cheat.'

Hadrian's body vibrates as I feel his breathy laugh. 'Maybe I just wanted to hold you.'

To emphasize, he squeezes his grip tighter, so our bodies are pushed closer together . My body reacts instinctively, flushing and flaring at his touch, despite the alarms in my head screaming public and Elysium and Sewers.

What about Blondie? Well, she can observe for all I care.

'I got the sewers,' I hiss, and my breath must blow across Hadrian's lips. He appears to react to me, too; he licks his bottom lip briefly after my words, as if he can taste me across it. The spell soon breaks as my words form images in his mind, and he holds me at arm's length, looking uncertain.

'The sewers?' he repeats, hoarse. 'Why there?'

I pull away, embarrassed by the concerned look within his eyes, as if I am someone worthy of protection. 'I don't know.'

Hadrian's lost for words, but thankfully, Blondie turns back up again with a man in tow, looking equally as unimpressed as the three of us. He wears a flat cap, dusted trousers and a battered white shirt with a weak collar, maybe where a tie had once been strung around his neck. He appears older than Blondie, about late forties, and he's making Blondie seem like a friendly neighbour.

And to top off the pleasant train, she introduces him as my superior.

Guess who's Hadrian's?

Well, damn. I decide to speak out.

'Why am I in the sewers when he's, uh, not?' my voice comes out whinier, and less diplomatic, than I'd envisioned.

Blondie smirks. 'Your score was one of the lower ones, I'm afraid. Less your score is, worse it is. He's royalty compared to you.'

I bristle, and step forwards to square into her face, but Hadrian puts an arm around my front and scoops me backwards. 'Easy up, tiger feet.'

I blink at him, his face unnervingly close. 'Tiger feet?'

His smile is genuine. Teasing. 'Ready to pounce.'

Blondie's eyes are narrowed at us, but I know what she's thinking. In fact, if it wasn't her, I'd have congratulated the plan of getting me out of the way in order to get to Hadrian. But she's underestimating me. Piles of shit won't keep me apart from my route to get revenge.

Although I rethink it when Flat Cap sighs, and pulls another mass of lumpy grey material from a knapsack I hadn't nocited earlier. He hands it to me, and I pull it open-- it's a flat cap, to match his. I stare at it, and then glance at him, in confusion.

Why had he given me a hat? Is it fashion, here in Elysium?

'For when there's sewer drips,' is all Flat Cap tells me, and I internally shudder.

'This is Morgan,' Blondie says, waving us onward. 'He'll take you to your bunks and explain the rules, the work, how we live.'

I don't even nod to acknowledge her.

'And you,' Blondie turns and puts on her best smile to Hadrian. 'You are coming with me. I'll teach you all you'll ever need to know, and if you ever need anything, you know you can come to me.'

I seethe again, but Flat Cap-- Morgan-- places a hand on my shoulder, and says, 'If you grimace any more, you'll get stuck looking constipated. Come. The more you become jealous and angry, the more points you'll get given and then you'll be in the sewers until you forget what the sun is.'

'The points can go down?' I cry, grabbing the metal around my neck and scanning it to see whether my anger at Blondie had swept me up a few points. Thankfully, it hadn't, but it explained how shifty Blondie had looked earlier whenever she'd said something slightly out of line.

And the face she pulled when she was trying to hide something that would have her losing her precious job.

Morgan doesn't wait for me to catch on, he just walks, his gait uneven. Getting the message, I turn to the clingy god at my side and remove his hands from where they were gripping my arm. Hadrian's face falls like a puppy, but I stay strong.

'I'll see you soon,' I promise, 'We'll come up with something.'

He nods, worry laced across his blue eyes. He runs a hand through his hair, distracted, and blowing out the air in one exhalation. Nodding to reassure himself, he turns away, back to Blondie giving him her predatory smile.

I turn and follow Morgan, limping his way in the opposite direction. He leads me away from the main square of what I would realise were the prettiest buildings in the district, despite being smudged grey with smog and dust, and the occasional window boarded up. In fact, the further away we walk, the dirtier the streets became, the filthier the houses, and the uglier the design.

Instead of having separate, functional buildings, huge apartment blocks begin to spring up, in towering dull grey squares to fit in as many people as possible, as cheaply as they're able. Cobblestones end, and the streets become concrete slabs. They seem silent.

'Where is everyone?' I ask.

'Working,' says Morgan. He glances at the tower block to his right, the ugly rows of windows seeming more like tiny gaps to escape than features for light. 'In this district, we're the slaves for the other districts.'

'Why?'

'Because we scored high scores on our sins, which make us the lowest scores in terms of society,' Morgan says, still in front of me. His voice carries, alone in the street. 'Apart from the Punished, who failed the test completely, and are forced to undergo a number of heinous and repenting activities.'

Heinous and repenting activities? I feel my own stomach squirm at the likelihood of those "activities", and the thought of my points dropping and me being reassigned seems a heftier price than before.

'So we work the most,' I say aloud, and Morgan gives a grunt. 'What kind of work?'

'Even our district is split into how many points you have. The more you have, the worse off you are, remember. Highest are people like the Assigners, who sit and wait for new souls to arrive so they can sort them into their "rightful place".'

Morgan, to my surprise and part revulsion, spits a whopping goblet of saliva onto the floor at the mention of this. I jump to avoid flying spittle, spraying from the impact.

He says, 'Pricks.'

I think of Blondie, and agree.

Then Hadrian, the newest "Assigner", pops into my head. Yes, he has been...difficult. But for some reason, I want to defend him to this man, Morgan, who doesn't know him from squat. Only I can say mean things about Hadrian.

Only I...heavens, am I becoming possessive?

'Then there's the quarriers, that's standard work, but hard. Everyone does long hours here, but they have that physical taxation that only the quarriers can imagine. With the quarriers, there's also the growers, who tend the greenhouses that supply the rich with their food, and we eat the gruel. The gruel normally comes from the district above. They have the nicer jobs, like cooking and tailoring and doctoring. Us, we don't get no doctors.'

'So the sewers are below quarriers?' I don't really care about what the next district does. I need to get out of here, fast.

Morgan laughs. It's bitter. 'After the quarriers, there's the furnacers. Burning all the rubbish, powering the steam turbines, making our energy. Least they're warm. After them, then that's us. Sewer workers. We wade up and down crap from every damn district.'

That's a lot of crap. A lot.

I say so.

'Yeah,' Morgan says, and his tone is dark. 'Our pipes run all over the city, but every so often, they break, and a technician has to be sent wading through miles of poo to reach the leak. Other times there's a block, or...'

Morgan's voice continues to tell me about the partiular downsides of being in my position, but I've tuned him out. I let my senses hone on one phrase, as if I'm certain it's important but can't yet place why.

Our pipes run all over the city.

Our pipes run all over the city.

All. Over. The. City.

A wicked but brilliant plan starts to take shape in my mind.

Everyone shits, including gods.

A/N: What do you think of Nerissa's new job?? :') Poor Ness! Hadrian always seems to get the easy way out, whilst she literally goes through Sh!t.

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Larissa

xx