Outside

After being around so any people, Zaharah welcomed the respite of the bathroom, though not its dull grey colour. Just like every space in Denden. Dull and grey. Function over fashion. Even she herself had become dull, her eyes lost their luster and her body was locked in a perpetual state of fight or flight, her shoulders always tensed.

Denden had sunk its teeth into her.

She stuck her soapy hands under the faucet, rolled them over to get every inch before it shut off. Her metal hand registered the sensation of water running over it, but not the cool wetness. It trickled between the joints and carried the dirt and mud swirling down the drain.

All the water in Denden was on a timer, five seconds for public sinks, ten minutes for residential showers. Because desalinating and decontaminating the water from the atlantic was costly and energy-intensive, according to the Director. Most of it was used to maintain the green spaces, Biodome. Residents had to ration whatever was left.

She flicked the excess water from her hands and reached for a towel, only to find Pharah staring at her from one sink over. "What?"

Pharah gave a ghost of a smile ad looked away. "Your arm. Did you lose it in the accident too?"

"Not the accident, but an accident. A car crash when I was six, whole thing got crushed." She tossed her towel in a wastebasket. "I don't remember much of it, besides being in the hospital. Heck, I hardly remember what this arm was like when it was real."

"Oh. You've really been through it, haven't you?" And there was the pity, not over her dead family, but her arm. Or perhaps it was the pile-on that did it, both her parents and the arm.

Zaharah snorted and started out the door. "Hardly. Where to next, just Pharah."

"We could go help Devin in the Orchard, or help Roddi at the barn, I doubt there's enough time to do both before lunch."

"Barn it is." She'd rather spend the rest of the day knee-deep in animal filth than see Pharah's brother again. Petty, perhaps, but disrespect was no laughing matter.

She followed Pharah through the duct, past more fields, more residents and androids. And they walked deeper into the dome until they came to a corridor twice as wide as all the others they'd passed through, painted green instead of grey.

"This is the equator," Pharah said. "And over there is the north, or the barn, whichever you prefer." She tapped at her phone's screen. "Roddi is with the goats. This way." They crossed the green corridor and followed the hall past doors marked with the silhouettes of animals. Chickens, sheep, pigs, it was almost a petting zoo.

Zaharah peeked inside at two residents herding chickens into their pen, while another poured feed into a trough. She didn't have much experience with real animals, fake ones like Skorpi were more pleasant to be around, and didn't need food or water or cleaning up after. Only the very affluent of society kept real pets anymore, since they served no purpose other than companionship.

Zaharah caught the whiff of goat before they even reached the room, that distinct rank anyone who has been around one for five minutes knew. The goat room sat wedged between the pigs and ducks, a room not as big as the field but not and small as the sapling nursery.

Pharah stepped onto the loose dirt covering the floor of the goat room first, her steps slow and careful, though there were no visible droppings on the ground. Juvenile goats congregated in a walled-off area, while volunteers moved carts of feed and filled troughs with water.

Roddi came from inside the shed, almost unrecognisable with a baby goat in his arms instead of his phone. His mechpet laid over his head, paws dangling on his forehead. The cat noticed them first and twitched its silvery ears.

"Roddi," Pharah called. "Need some help?"

"Hey." He set the baby goat with the others and smiled, dimples winking in his brown cheeks. "Yeah, we still need to clean out the cots." He nodded to Zaharah. "Zaharah right?"

"That's right." She furrowed her brow in an attempt to remember being introduced to him, but somewhere between watching the last Junkanoo group and getting home, there was a stretch of nothing where anything could have happened. "Sorry, I may have been a little drunk last night. I don't remember talking to you."

"I spoke to your caretaker. I try to avoid talking to real people as much as possible. They're boring and annoying." The brightness he spoke with offset his choice of words, made the insult sound almost as flattering as a compliment.

"I concur," his mechpet said, narrowing its pink eyes. "Insufferable, the lot of them."

Zaharah blinked. That should've offended her, but she couldn't blame them. "Well you'll love my friend here." She offered Skorpi a hand down from her head.

"Yo, that holo finish is cold as fuck." He leaned in for a closer look. "Makes me want to get Shala some new skins."

"Well met, brethren," Shala said, saluting Skorpi with his paw. "At last a being of higher intelligence. I've had enough of these meat sticks."

"You all slacking again?"

Roddi jumped as an android wandered over from the pen with a bundle of cloth in her arms. "Nah, Pam, I was just giving Zaharah the run down. She's new here."

"Uh-huh." Pam wore her hair buzzed off, a stark contrast to the usual braids or dreads Zaharah was used to seeing. She raised the cloth. "I was hoping to see you Pharah. Remember about a month ago, I told you one of the billies died?"

Pharah's lips parted and her eyes went wide, giving her the look of a kid at a theme park. "Is it...?" She accepted the cloth and opened it as though it held her firstborn. But instead of a squealing, squirming child, nestled in the folds was a goat's skull, scrubbed clean of all its flesh. She squealed, much like one of her fans. "Look Zaharah, isn't it great?"

"It's something." Zaharah touched one horn, the bone roug and abrasive against her skin. "What's it for?"

"I collect them. Do you... think that's weird?"

"Nah. When we were younger, Jade used to collect bugs and pin them up and hang them up on the wall. Took a while to get used to."

Pam cleared her throat. "I'll keep it in the office until you all are done for the day. The cots need to be cleaned out. Get to it." She took the goat's skull and took long strides out of the field.

"You heard the lady." Roddi pointed to the three boxes at the entrance. "Gloves for your hands and shoes and scented masks. Gear up. We need to gather the turf and drop it in the laundry chute, then we hose everything down."

Zaharah slipped on the layer of protection and flexed her fingers under the blue rubbery material. The masked smelled of coconut, and hibiscus, and filtered out much of the rank scent. The cots lied in shambles, with the fluffy hay-like turf tossed out of beds and covered in various bits of animal waste. The masks helped, but the fumes still burned her eyes.

They worked in silence, shoving the turf down the chute. Then she and Pharah took hoses to the walls and floor, while Roddi pushed the water and muck towards the drains. A tingling settled at the base of Zaharah's skull, heralding a headache that would force her into bed earlier than usual.

Roddi wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled. "That should do it for now. When we get back from lunch everything should be dried and we can shove the turf back in."

"Great." Zaharah hung the power hose up and flexed her good hand. Sweat glued her shirt to her back, and her instep burned. The community gardens weren't half as gruelling as this place. She slipped off her gloves and mask and dumped them in the bin outside the cots.

"Finally." Pharah sighed up to the ceiling. "I'm starving." She looped an arm around Zaharah's and dragged her out of the goat room.

Zaharah looked at their linked arms and hoped she didn't smell too bad of goat and sweat. The trek to the front of the dome ate up fifteen minutes of their lunchtime. Pharah freed her arm so she could get her lunch bag, and they headed outside.

"You mind eating outside?" Pharah asked as they ventured into the grove. "Roddi isn't fond of crowds."

"Not at all." She wasn't fond of them either.

"Great, I parked in the back. You guys can wait here." Pharah jogged off before Zaharah could say anything else.

Parked? Few people drove in Denden, heck most of the kids here weren't old enough to drive. The Director had offered Zaharah a buggy to get back and forth to the lab and clinic easier, but she declined, since she'd never driven anything with wheels before, unless her long board counted.

"She likes you," Roddi said, cutting into her thoughts. He leaned against a scraggly tree, hands tucked in his pockets. "She has a habit of doing that."

Zaharah scrunched her brows. "Doing what?"

"Getting attached to people too quickly. Causes a lot of disappointment. You planning on being a disappointment too?" His voice was far too casual for a question of such weight.

She couldn't tell if he genuinely worried for Pharah or made a blind assumption based on their brief interactions. They'd just met, and while she enjoyed Pharah's company so far, they both had plans and those plans and lives that did not align. A year from now, she and Jade would be on the mainland and Pharah would be here in Denden.

"I don't know." And she left it at that.

Silence stretched between them until the sound of tires on gravel ricocheted off the wall of the Biodome. Pharah came through the grove in a pink and green buggy with big tires that could ride the smooth paths or weave through the trees in the arboretums. Zaharah remembered finding the buggies odd, being accustomed to fast trains and vehicles that looked and operated more like space ships. But the buggies had a rustic charm to them with their triangular shape and three seats.

Pharah grinned at them. "Hop in."

Zaharah slid in the back next to Roddi, and Skorpi jumped from her head to her lap. "Nice ride."

"Thanks." Pharah turned and draped an arm over the back of her seat, in that cool racer way. "Makes it easier to lug around my stuff. Hang tight. It's a short ride."

They cruised down the ramp of the center platform and headed north into the industrial part of Denden. Zaharah used that time to check her phone, still nothing from Dwight. The Director could be holding him hostage for all she knew.

"Where we headed, just Pharah?" Zaharah asked.

"It's a surprise, maybe, but you'll love it, I promise." They rode past the water depot and reservoirs up onto and isolated platform with a single building. With its unmarked exterior and two unlabelled doors, it could have been a storage unit or a service building. Or a drug house. Not somewhere they should be having lunch. Pharah parked just outside, and they hopped out.

Zaharah bit her lip and looked to Skorpi for guidance, but he only offered her a few beeps, not the words of wisdom she wanted. Perhaps she'd been a little too trusting of the cute DJ.

"I'll take care of it," Roddi said, flashing a keycard. He swiped his key card on the east door's panel. It slid open to reveal a lift big enough to carry an elephant, but it only held a few empty crates.

Zaharah stood back while Pharah and Roddi went inside. Her eyes drifted to the way they came to the water reservoirs and pumping stations. Industry, far removed from everyone and everything else. Save for the drone of the pumps, it was quiet, empty. Denden's "outskirts"—a place where people got up to the nefarious activities she and Jade joked about.

"Been a while since we came here. Think it still stinks?" Roddi asked.

Pharah giggle-snorted. "I hope not." Her smile faltered when she looked at Zaharah still standing outside. "Is something the matter?"

Zaharah took a step back. "This place looks a little shady is all. Where exactly are we going?"

Roddi frowned. "Shady? I don't see any trees around here."

"It's not, I promise." She clasped her hands and gave Zaharah a pleading stare worthy of an Oscar. "I wouldn't drag you somewhere dangerous."

Zaharah held her gaze. Part of her wanted to believe the cute DJ—who has a drug addict brother, her mind reminded her—but Demarkus would kill her if she got into trouble.

"Here." Pharah held out her keycard. "If you're not comfortable, you can come back down with this."

She frowned at it, not because she didn't appreciate the gesture but because ID photos were supposed to look like shit. But Pharah looked like herself instead of a convict on the run. "Fine." While she accepted the gesture of good faith, it didn't ease her mind. She could already hear Demarkus' tirade. He wouldn't let her leave the apartment again.

"You won't regret it, I promise."

"I better not." She stepped inside and Pharah hit a symbol marked with a barge and water.

Zaharah stuffed her hands in her pockets and balled them into fists. Her stomach fell as the lift moved. She always hated these things, but at least the ride was short. The door parted, and sunlight fell in. Real sunlight, not the HID lights.

Outside.

Zaharah hadn't been out of Denden since the accident. Balmy air slammed into her, along with the salty scent of the Atlantic as she slipped out of the lift. A garage filled with hover carts flanked the lift on the west side, and shipping containers stood around them like skyscrapers.

Pharah and Roddi wandered off through the maze of containers, but Zaharah stayed just outside the garage, numbness settling in her feet. Not from the chill in the air, but from another feeling, a tingling deep in her gut, the kind of feeling she got when something was off.

Like the time she'd walked in and not heard Demarkus rummaging around the kitchen, only to later find him passed out on the floor – or the android equivalent. Turned out to be a malfunction in his programming the guys in the lab had to fix.

"Zaharah?"

She snapped her head up to meet Pharah's gaze. "Yeah?"

"Everything alright? You want to go back down?"

"It's fine. It's just... been a while since I've been outside. Mind if I look around?"

"Not at all. Roddi and I will find a good spot." With that, she traipsed off and disappeared around a container.

Zaharah stepped around the lift and squinted at the garage with its wind-weathered roof and shutter rattling in the wind. Then she walked to the other side to see it from a different angle and took several steps back until the shipping container was in her line of sight too. Realisation smacked her over the head like a bat. That garage, she'd seen it before.

In the video.