Twenty-five: Relative peace

The next few days fell into a routine of sorts. While most of my workmates had now ostracised me and pretended I didn't exist, Katja worked hard to try and keep me from being too lonely. I heard her stand up for me over and over again when they thought I couldn't hear. Because of her efforts, the others in our team at least, reluctantly allowed me to tag along with the group when we walked to and from the Compound. Sometimes they even forgot about me being under suspicion and treated me normally.

When that happened, it felt great. Until something reminded them of my lowly status and I went back to being given the cold shoulder again.

I managed to forget about the fear of being charged for crimes I hadn't committed and the fear of war. At least while I was immersed in my work. But then, I realised how much spyware and bugs had been slipped into my computer at work. It was rough, shoddy work. There was even a keyboard counter that I noticed while habitually cleaning my keyboard. They were working very hard to catch me red handed in performing suspicious behaviour. To avoid any suspicion, I was very good. Became a model worker. And because I finished my work so fast, I helped everyone else out with their work.

When no one was looking, I'd bypass the bugs and spyware for a quick look at what was going on behind the scenes. I was almost caught once by an expert hacker who was almost as good, if not better than me. I was just lucky, I guess, to escape and lose him somewhere on the other side of the planet in cyberland. After that, I didn't dare to do too much exploring on the internet.

There was also a hidden camera now pointing at my workstation. I was being watched nearly twenty-four/seven. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. My fingers itched to let them fly over the keyboard and to search the internet but now wasn't the time. I didn't want to get the workplace into trouble either or even give a hint that I might be the internet breaking culprit from years ago. Otherwise they might use that as evidence of collusion with the enemy.

As long as I behaved myself and was super very good, I might be able to convince all the eyes watching me that I wasn't a threat. Never had been. Never would be.

The problem was that even if I did my best to be good, seeing the Bosky soldier around during our walks to and from work and the Compound was unnerving. Sometimes he would be at a café and sometimes walking parallel to us across the street. Sometimes he was a passerby going in the other direction brushing past me. Sometimes he was standing in a blind spot where cameras couldn't see him, watching me from the shadows.

Why was he watching me? Or was he not watching me but someone else? Did he think that he and his friends could elude my eye? If I, a real amateur, could spot them, then surely the government agents watching me from behind their disguises could too. The government agents really weren't much of a match compared to the Boskies. If I were being really honest, between who was a better pavement artist, I'd have to give the prize to the Boskies. They were much better at not giving themselves away.

Had the government sent rookie agents to spy on the Boskies and me or something? Was I just some rookie level training ground for my government's agents?

Sometimes, I had the feeling that if I didn't stay with my workmates going to or from work, I might be kidnapped or killed. By whom and what for, I still hadn't worked out. It was just a feeling. A hunch. But even so, it made me feel jumpy and nervous whenever I was out on the streets. It was only in the office at work or when I was back in the Compound, locked in my room for the night that I felt safer.

Even my daily runs and races with Katja gave me the jitters every now and then. But nobody made a move and my worries calmed down a bit over time until I felt more confident to explore more. Katja and I began to cheat on each other by taking what short cuts we could find through the Compound in order to find the shortest route back to the finishing line. We climbed fire escape stairs to cut through buildings. I started scaling buildings and jumping from trees to find what made a better shortcut. We climbed and jumped the Compound walls and sometimes Katja even used rollerblades - which was really cheating. When I pointed it out, she'd point out that I could almost keep pace with her when I really wanted to, especially if I took a few shortcuts. She'd win seven times out of ten, but there were times I'd beat her by the length of my hair or by a nose.

It was almost like a daily battle between us that never left any hard feelings. It helped relieve our stress. I'm not sure she ever realised just how important our daily races and competitive training became to me. If I hadn't started training with her, I think I might have had a nervous breakdown much earlier.

Competing in pushups or bodyweight training type exercises caused a lot of other people to join us, such that in the late afternoons, the Field would be full of people exercising and making competitive friends. During times like that, I wasn't a suspected traitor in solitary. I was a strong girl who could almost keep up with the best of them. That was until the rumour mill did its job and I was left once more with only Katja by my side.

Soon we began to hear stories of people being cleared to leave the Compound. They left in ones, and then in twos and threes. The Compound began to empty out more and more. The people in my block were often changing. They were disappearing or being taken away, only to be replaced with newcomers. Only the dour accounting lady two doors down and I were the constants.

The war at the border, along the Central Trainline was heating up. The government wanted to clear as many people out of the city as soon as possible.

Then there was another stable time of relative peace. That didn't stop people from being cleared and sent out of the Compound. The people in the toilet block stopped changing.

My workmates were leaving the office so quickly that there were only enough people for two teams left. That was fine with Boss. There wasn't enough work for him to keep everyone anyway.

Secretive meetings with government agents occurred in the office nearly everyday. People would be called to the meetings and a day or so later, they would leave the Compound and then leave work. We could all guess what was going on. The government agents had come to do their questioning and clear people of suspicion. I wondered when it would be my turn.