blind and you’re talking about colors. Heterotrophic, you say, or enzyme, and you may as well be talking about . . . about flying to a bird that’s had its wings chewed off!”
He turned away and I wanted to reach out to him, put an arm around his hunched shoulders. I remembered just in time that he didn’t like to be touched.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault for starting in the middle instead of the beginning.”
“You just didn’t expect me to be stupid,” he said bitterly.
“You’re not stupid.” He wouldn’t turn around and look at me. “Paolo, listen to me. You’re not stupid. Not knowing the right definitions is no different from not having the right tools to fix a burst water pipe. You can learn. I can teach you.”
He looked at me over his shoulder for moment, then turned all the way round. “Can you?”
“Yes.”
He studied me. By his expression, he didn’t know whether he wanted to believe me or not. Hope could be dangerous.
He probably needed time to think. “We need to get all these barriers checked and that feed line on forty-two unclogged before the break. We can talk about it more then.” He seemed relieved.
Paolo and I were the last into the breakroom. When we got there, both screens were off and the assembled shift was very quiet. Magyar was there, with Hepple. Her eyes were as hard as beryl.
“. . .and so our acting shift manager—”
“Night manager, now.” Hepple was smiling slightly and rocking up onto the balls of his feet.
Magyar forced a smile. “Mr. Hepple, recently promoted to night manager, has decided to take a look, in person, at our particular part of the operation. He’ll be on duty with us this evening.” So. That was what she was angry about. He was checking up on us and, by implication, her.
Hepple nodded at her, a patronizing, dismissive little gesture. It made me angry. “Thank you, Cherry.” Oh, he was enjoying himself. “As you may know, I have long asserted that Hedon Road could be even more efficient than at present. I have been given this new position with a mandate to improve productivity. Toward that end, I have decided to pay closer attention to the on-floor management process.”
Magyar’s smile was brittle. We were her team, only she could harangue us or praise us, and now Hepple was embarrassing her in front of us all. Judging by the way she kept her body turned slightly away from him, the stiffness in her shoulders, she wanted to stuff him in our dirtiest effluent and watch him swallow sewage. “And now we’ll leave you to take your well-earned break in peace.” She stressed well-earned, letting us know that this was not her idea, that she knew we worked hard enough as it was without being dogged every step of the way.
But Hepple had not finished with us. “I’m looking forward to watching you all in action. I’m sure I’ll find—despite Cherry’s protestations of understaffing—that you are a fully capable and hardworking team. That’s all.”
He seemed to be waiting for us to leave, then remembered it was our breakroom. He nodded at the room in general and opened the door. Magyar preceded him.
“Christ,” Cel said. “That’s all we need.”
“I thought Magyar was going to pop him.” Kinnis sounded as though he wished she had. “What do you think of that crack about ‘Cherry’s protestations’?”
Cel pulled a meat roll out of its self-heating carton and blew on it. “Means we won’t be getting any more workers, and that he’ll be looking for someone to fire and not replacing them.”
“He’s an ambitious little snot,” Meisener said. There were general nods. One or two people wondered out loud if now might not be a good time to look for a job somewhere else. “I looked around before I signed on here,” Meisener said. “Nothing. Tighter than a rabbit’s arse. But I’ve seen these young turks get revved up before. Sooner or later he’ll go too far, get too greedy too fast, and then things’ll be back to normal. All we have to do is wait him out.”
I wasn’t so sure.
Hepple, immaculate in cliptogether over skinnysuit without a mask, came onto the floor half an hour after the break. I was at the influent station when he appeared, accompanied by Magyar. She explained the various readouts, and that “Bird here is on analysis.”
He turned to me blankly, then snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes. Bird. New here. Three weeks, is it?”