Albedo Chapter Six

Train, Chlorine

The train came to another lurching halt, Marnie stayed staring down at her phone with tears drying on her face. Another late afternoon rich in despair. The haggard old metal caravan, tagged and dented, stalled at one of its milk-run stops. The waterlogged line had been updated by the public over the years, abandoned by the government and corporate entities as unmaintainable and unprofitable. The carriages now driven by a hooligan roster of ex-brakemen, ad-hoc services only traceable by the pings of other passengers with the decentralised app installed on their phones. Open source developers long since lost interest waiting at stops for something that may never come. Two boys were at the other end of the carriage, taking turns to slap each other on the face, who says stop first loses. The sun was plummeting towards the horizon, assailing the landscape with long searching shadows. Sat in her memories, frowning and staggered by this day's stark, choking, ruin. Wrong against the soft esoteric right of the day before, those little moments with ladies and tea, the fear all felt cleansing.
The train had been stopped for longer than usual, someone bartering with the driver for a cheaper fare, maybe someone unloading a batch of luggage or stock. Someone boarded into her carriage, stepping up into the carpeted aisle, silhouette black against the long sun. Yanking shut the jamming door. Marnie looked up at the entrant, locking eyes with the tea maker from two days ago, suited now in light grey worsted wool. She smirked and came to sit opposite, and in that moment, in her periphery, Marnie felt a huge shadowy figure cross the cart, the jammed door slamming shut again. The driver came over and slipped two coins into the tea maker's hand "Change here dear."
"You look miserable" she said to Marnie, who rolled her eyes in response. "I'm Meredith" the lady said to her "We never got chance to introduce ourselves on the other day." A brief moment while they stared each other down, "Marnie" she said. "What's up then chuck? Unburden yourself."

One morning last week she'd been pulled aside by Lucille, checking in after she'd put down sixty hours over a five day period. Marnie could tell that she'd intended to cast the conversation with concern, to try and look after her, but it quickly turned into a chance to get a job done. Some sort of lucrative work was going with Lucille's father Mike - an old office from his younger days needed decomposing and harvesting for the purposes of posterity, to be locked up in records. He wanted someone for the job that he could trust to make the right choices, and wanted to interview around the candidates. Marnie would need to attend next week but would be in the running for a well paid role. The interview had been that morning, and she told Meredith about it.
Marnie was waiting almost a full hour in the presence of a secretary who kept frowning every time they met eyes. Mike poked his head round the door and looked around. "Are you the girl?" she stood up to start introducing herself but ended up having to chase him into the office to do so. He was already sat at the desk. "Did you bring a C.V. then? No? Not a good start" Marnie searching around for somewhere to sit, no avail, standing in the middle of the room. Secretary glancing through the door window disapprovingly. Was she supposed to bring a chair as well? "Lucille tell you what you'd be doing?" He asked "There's a box in the corner, some of the first stuff we've taken out, that's the calibre of stuff we're after. Look it over and tell me what you think." She glared around the room at the white walls and corporate strategy boards, gummy marks and gummy smiles. Whiteboards with bad diagrams and buzzwords, smeared and dried out, old targets and taglines. Décor not befitting a man of his wealth and status. Teamed with politicians and businessmen on the news once or twice a year. Sat even now for this minor meeting in clothes that said money in loud letters. The box-file was on the floor in the corner, when Marnie went to go pick it up, she saw in the milky reflection of one of the whiteboards Mike leaning over to catch an eyeful of her bending over. She felt heat rise in her face and bile in her throat. Regretting what she had chosen to wear, regretting coming here. She could feel his leery eyes moving over her while she browsed some of the files. An urgency growing in her, all of a sudden trapped in her with something hostile. What was once indifferent now seemed libidinous and ugly. She was asking questions of him, hoping to hold him in place at the desk, but he stood up in her peripheral and started to waltz over. He stood close to take one of the sheaves from her, to point out something on the page. She could smell his pure aftershave and hear his shallow breaths, almost in her ear. "There is no one around who misses doing things in person more than me. I detest the age of the screen. When I was a young man you could do things with all of your senses, and it made me into the man I am. Sensate. Able to detect more than just sight and sound allow." She must have cringed away for him to put his stilling hand on her shoulder, steadying her backing up with the box file. He was looking away from her while he spoke "Nothing you've done so far makes me feel as if you're the best fit for this role. But I'm sure you can do plenty. Remember I'm sensitive to the other senses." Marnie didn't need more than the end of the sentence to imagine where he was going with that. Shrinking growing away from him, heat of anger rising inside, thistle seed floating in through the window, words choking in her throat. All that she could say to him, to batter the man turned beast, the ugliness leaking from him like slime, like an old wound, low and unkind in want. "Luci said you're a hard worker. But in a job like that you're always going to be hard up. Stick with me and you'll go far" she felt his hand on the small of her back. A burst of chlorine smell hit her nose. She felt his hand slide down and grip her back pocket. She elbowed away and blacked out rushing for the exit, rushing out onto the street, for the air. She wanted him to die, she wanted to be away from him, to escape debasement all together, to never need anyone's approval again. Never to need anyone.
She felt like the world was made for everyone else and she was just hanging onto the edge. She told Meredith this much on the train, unburdening, feeling better in the spilling. "So you had a fucked up day. It happens. Try not to let it destroy you." She'd been listening intently, leaned forward. Easing back she said "My only advice is that if something makes you deeply unhappy, then head in the other direction. Trust the little voice inside." It wasn't the careful back patting she thought she wanted, but Marnie already trusted the sentiment she was expressing. "Absolute power like that, it corrupts people absolutely. The root of the problem persists even if you lop off branches. You have to make the cutting count. The whole parasite needs voiding." Marnie was about to speak but she could see Meredith writing something down on a slip of paper. "Come to this address tomorrow afternoon and see what they can do for you. I don't imagine the pay will be good, but you wont go home feeling like this." She folded the cornflour blue note crisply with her fingernails and handed it over slowly. A set of coordinates in dark blue ink was not what she was expecting. "Ask for Flynn".
After Meredith had disembarked, the screens on the train wall showed breaking news. A corporate event, some roadshow, had been evacuated, some 450 people cleared from an exhibition hall in the city centre. Chemical burns on the people closest to the incident. Respiratory issues for the surrounding. Paramedics by the droves, pictures of smoke exiting through a skylight, stills picked from pre-flinch mobile phone recording. Foul play suspected but unobserved. Possible gas leak.

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