Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 467. First Day of Work

Seeing something so obvious written again and again on the pillars, the long steps to the entrance of the building, and the walls ahead showed a bone-chilling kind of despair.

I was surprised, thinking that there would be more curses and vulgar pictures under the graffiti, but that wasn’t the case.

Ethan, a few steps ahead of us, bent down and reached for a few papers amidst the bunch of trash.

He looked through them and pursed his lips.

"A petition."

I walked closer with Henry hanging on me, but I didn’t have to look at what Ethan was holding; these signed papers with names and addresses were spread everywhere among the other trash.

I spotted a paper with a few words at the beginning still recognizable: "Not enough/the wrong medications, moldy food, not enough—" The rest wasn’t readable, but under the words were again names and addresses as well as signatures.

These petitions were from before they turned off the water because of the civil unrest—portraying the cause for it.

I would feel cold if I didn’t have the warmth of my puppy’s body heat on my back.

Still, I stayed silent, and so did the other two as we continued to climb the steps.

The main entrance of the building was high, as were the windows and doors, but everything remotely glassed was smashed in.

The rubble was on the side of the steps, either cleared up or conveniently fallen.

We walked to the big door leading to an even bigger hall.

There we found the first people since entering the city.

Military guys stood at every wall; the marble floor shone marvelously, a strange contrast to the outside.

Straight ahead was a reception hidden behind the only intact glass, with a little window people could speak through.

There was a line of people, though not long—maybe ten—and we hadn’t even gone to the end of the queue when the person at the front was already finished, sent to a big corridor on the right of the reception.

The military guys scattered across each wall scrutinized us but didn’t move.

Ethan led us to the queue, and we stood and waited, hearing the female receptionist speaking.

"Name?"

The person in question answered,

"Alfred Jenkins."

"ID?"

An ID was handed over.

"What medications are you taking, how often, and in what dosage?" she asked.

"I need pain... pain medication and... fresh bandages," the big man muttered.

"To receive medications, you need an appointment with the doctor first; this can take a while," the woman chirped before instructing,

"Go to the end of the corridor, first left and then right; the transport is waiting."

I watched the gruff man take back his ID, and when he turned to the corridor, I noticed that he was missing an arm from the elbow down; the coarse clothes didn’t cover the injury, and a bloody bandage was visible.

"Next," the receptionist’s voice sounded.

Name, ID, medications? Instructions, next—and repeat.

Everyone here was male; everyone was silent, uncannily obedient, their clothes dirty, and their bodies unwashed.

No wonder the soldiers stared at us; upon entering, besides them and the receptionist, we three were the only people that looked to be in a good state regarding hygiene and clothes.

"Name?"

"Ethan Hendricks."

"ID?"

Ethan had already opened his bag and taken out his ID and now handed it over.

"Medications?"

"None."

The instructions sounded, and Henry and I were next.

Ethan gave me our IDs and stayed on the side to wait for us.

The receptionist’s eyes lit up when she saw me and Henry’s head on top of mine, her eyes lingering on the puppy longer than necessary.

I raised my hand and snapped my fingers to get her to stop staring at my head accessory.

"Kennith Howard and Henry Devin, no medications." I pointed at myself and then at the big puppy before handing over our IDs while hearing the latter chuckle happily.

The receptionist snapped out of it and took our IDs as if nothing had just happened.

In the end, she repeated the instructions she had told everyone before, and I took our IDs back, giving them to Ethan.

Henry hummed happily as we walked along the long corridor, then left into another long corridor that led to the other side of the building, into a big open parking lot filled with a bunch of shuttle buses.

There was a metal fence, and a few military men stood ready, with tablets in their hands.

The men we had waited with had already passed the fence and stood soullessly in line for one of the buses. Other people stood in line for theirs; everything was in order. Everything was deathly silent, except for the man at the fence calling names—our names.

Ethan was sent to a bus to the right, while Henry and I were sent to another bus—the same one the armless man was standing in queue for.

Henry hummed as he confirmed that he and I weren’t being separated. I was also more than happy not to have to fight about this with the military guys here.

I turned around and looked at Ethan to the side, and he gave me a desperate glance that I interpreted as ’Don’t use your powers; don’t kill anyone.’

I nodded back, remembering that he had said something similar in the car when I texted the guys.

"I love how you snapped your fingers at her just now..." Henry whispered from above me, so quietly that nobody could hear, though he still didn’t stop hanging onto me.

I patted his arm while we walked forward.

"Can you do that each time someone looks at me? No matter who?"

Imagining my grandmother glaring at Henry as she usually does and me repeatedly snapping my fingers in her face, I shuddered.

"Not gonna happen."

"Why~~?"

"Be quiet or stand on your own."

That shut the puppy up, though the weight he put on me seemed to increase as a silent protest.

Alright.

I patted the puppy’s paws, and we were already next to board the bus after our names had been called by another soldier.

I walked into the bus, seeing everyone sitting orderly, not talking, and when I walked down the aisle, I saw that everyone had a red lunchbox on their lap, gripping it tightly.

When we came to the last two empty seats in the back before the last row, there were two red lunchboxes on them.

So it was here that we would have our breakfast?

I took both our boxes and sat by the window, Henry naturally sitting beside me.

"Again a bus, but this time not in orange," the puppy chuckled, reminiscing about old memories.

"Yeah, black is the new orange," I said and chuckled to myself.

The puppy froze before quietly breaking out in laughter again.

I elbowed him and waited, looking at the open parking lot with under a hundred people.

There were too few people, or are these only the ones who registered themselves today?

A soldier entered the bus, announcing loudly:

"You are part of the rebuild team! Eat quietly; no fighting! If someone misbehaves, you will be thrown out, which means no lunch or dinner and a one-week ban from working!"

The soldier walked to the back of the bus, with three more following in, donning an arsenal of weapons; the last row was occupied by them, and the bus started.

The moment it did, the lunchboxes were ripped open greedily, and the sound of water bottles being chugged down was heard.

I opened my lunchbox. A small soggy sandwich, a water bottle forced inside the small space, a few nuts...

I miss E-... No, I can’t even think that or the puppy will kill the cook.

Henry held the sandwich up, watching as an unknown liquid dropped from it back into the box.

I gave my sandwich to him, telling him with my eyes that he should get rid of it.

Too paranoid to eat anything that could have been prepared especially for us.

And if we gave our food to somebody in the bus, it would invite jealousy from the others; additionally, if the government had planted drugs inside it, we would just make someone else suffer in our stead.

Henry looked at the camera on the ceiling; it was in the middle of the bus, unable to capture what we were doing on our laps between the high backrests of our seats.

He acidified our sandwiches, and I checked the water bottles—they hadn’t been opened before, and there was no needle mark anywhere.

Fuck... It wouldn’t do anything to our upgraded selves anyway.

Finally less paranoid, I drank from the water and ate the nuts while looking out.

We had left the parking lot, driving through an empty city; everything was literally run down by either rats or zombies, and a bunch of blood was splattered here and there on walls or the street itself—though I didn’t see any dead bodies.

Everywhere was a whole lot of damage to buildings, nature, benches, and signs for the traffic; it was quite a few times that I saw bullet holes all across some buildings.

Through a few big broken windows, I could see that the stores were absolutely empty—not only supermarkets but also pharmacies, clothing stores, and electronic stores; everything was either harvested, plundered, or maybe taken away by the government beforehand.

Then eventually there were more buses, similarly loaded with people. This whole setting...it feels like a damn movie again. When will it finally set in?

That normal was the new abnormal—and vice versa.

Henry also ate his nuts after seeing me doing the same before he leaned against me.

I think the puppy had, meanwhile, fully lost his ability to either stand or sit on his own.

I played with his paw that had magically found its way into my own while continuing to watch.

Not one fucking person was outside who was not in a bus.

Everyone’s breakfast had been wolfed down instantly, so after the first three minutes of driving, it had turned deathly silent again, with the exception of the bus wheels that were rolling over the trash on the street. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

About forty minutes later, we stopped in front of what looked like an already finished skyscraper with a bunch of machines on the side, making it look like a construction site.

After leaving the bus orderly and quietly like the rest, I looked up and first made sure there was no crane that could traumatize my puppy, and upon not seeing one, I asked myself why the fuck we were here.

"You follow them!" A big man with a yellow helmet pointed at one of the passengers on our bus, motioning to one of the groups that had already been there.

Then he pointed at the next one, scattering the newcomers to the grouped people that stood around.

When the yellow man looked at me and saw my tattoos, he smiled condescendingly.

"So short, probably can’t lift much. You go up with them."

????

Motherfucker, what??

I grabbed Henry’s wrist when I felt him straighten up to tell him he should behave.

Yellow Helm looked at Henry and nodded appreciatively, pointing to another group than mine, which forced me to tighten my hold around the wrist I grabbed, again telling him to behave the fuck.

In the end, Henry and his group were led to the back of the building very unwillingly, while I was given a helmet and led to a simple elevator on the outside of the already finished building.

Ah, Armless was in my group...so I was in the one for shorties and people missing limbs, and indeed the others in my group were either malnourished or weak—THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF ME.

Anyway, the elevator started, and I wasn’t really a fan of it going higher and higher, making me dizzy and unwell, especially when the elevator didn’t seem especially secure.

At least I can teleport back up if I fall down.

Two soldiers had boarded with my group, their weapons ready to shoot anyone misbehaving, and another senior construction worker or something used the time to tell us what we had to do upstairs.

This building in the middle of the city had been chosen for a stock-up in height, and until now the shell construction on the highest floors was ready, but it was missing walls and stuff, which our group would make today.

So we weren’t even putting away trash lingering on the streets or repairing some buildings that had been blown up, but instead some skyscraper in the finance district that nobody needs or uses.

Pfft.

You know what they call such a dumb, non-special task?

Occupational therapy or...a distraction.

They don’t want the people to do nothing because it could lead them to have bad ideas; at the same time, they don’t want to put them to more productive work because they don’t want their living conditions to improve.

Nobody seemed surprised; everyone was giving a damn as long as they would get fed and, if lucky, get the daily dose of whatever medication they took before everything went to hell.

On the twenty-second floor, the fucking elevator finally stopped, and everyone was given a bucket of wall plaster and a trowel.

I looked speechlessly at the semi-dry plaster before getting ushered to a drywall.

"Start working if you want to eat!" the senior construction worker bellowed.

What a fucking waste of time.

Alright... nothing wrong with building walls in a city doomed to get destroyed.