21st Century History (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, PG-13)
Vin has no fuckin’ time for the conspiracy theories on the net. The Sanctuary Districts are “genocide by another name”, those morons type, those losers still living in their parents’ basements without a clue about the real world. Bleating on about how it won’t be safe, all them cooped up together, like anyone’s safe right now with the goddamn virus. And there they are, accessing the interface at all hours of the day or night, clearly no fuckin’ jobs of their own, talking about how this is going to be dangerous, like they’re actually out there in the world like he is? Like they’ve a clue?
Anyone who’s lived in San Francisco more than a millisecond knows that this situation, that all these people without jobs, without a clue, have needed to be put away for years. Not like it’s jail. They just need to be away from the decent ordinary citizens of the place, and now with these germs floating in the air they need it more than ever. This is proper life-or-death stuff, and Vin has no time for the bleeding heart liberals. In some ways they’re even worse than the hardcore lunatics, those guys - and it is mostly guys, he’s noticed - those of them on the job are already starting to refer to as ‘ghosts’. The bleeding-hearts are all earnest, like they still think they’ve got a chance of being heard. Like they’re gonna get anything they want.
“Gimme a job,” he says, one night with the guys, over drinks. He’s doing a bit, loving the attention. “Gimme a house. Gimme opportunities.”
He’s kinda proud, when ‘gimmes’ starts catching on for those kinda people, in his local District, then spreads. It’s a small thing, no biggie really, but how many guys in his job get to influence the language alongside doing their regular job of keeping the streets safer and cleaner? How many?
***
What kills Danny about his dad losing his job is that it’s so obviously not his fault but his dad keeps apologizing for it anyway. ChemTech were clearly going to go under and it was just a matter of time - like, they couldn’t get the rights to the vaccine and in 2021 that was all anyone cared about in that industry. Maybe even in the whole world. Danny’s still not sure, he’s still figuring things out, because up until a few years ago his whole world was computer games and friends and girls, and it’s only lately that it’s split open to reveal a whole lot more.
Like back in the old days, when they were at home, in their house - which feels crazy now - he never even bothered with his sister, she was just this irritation, and now Jeannie’s a regular part of his day. She’s his baby sister and he needs to take care of her and he feels shitty he didn’t see it sooner, but there’s a lot of things he didn’t see sooner.
When they first arrived at the District - ‘arrived’ makes it sound like it was a choice, like they hadn’t been escorted there, politely but firmly - he moaned about not being able to get on the net. Now he wants things like a wall between his family and others. There are some decent people around, like the Petersons, but a lot of dicks as well. A lot of people he doesn’t trust and knows he shouldn’t ever.
He’s scared all the time.
This is not fair. This is so not fair.
***
When Lee loses her job at the university she thinks about killing herself. She’s spent fifteen years trained to spot suicidal tendencies in students, even if she’s not supposed to deal with them herself - she’s just an administrator, the just sounding heavier to her now - so she finds herself analyzing her own symptoms, assessing them.
She’s drinking too much - which is basically self-harm for someone with her blood sugar issues. But she’s managing, she tells herself.
She’s sleeping with bad men - which is basically normal when the world’s gone crazy, she tells herself, even though with the virus she really shouldn’t be sleeping with anyone right now, even if their online profiles are charming and their messages say all the right things.
She’s not able to do her job because she’s just an administrator even though she’s trained in health and when this sends her into panic-attack mode she, well, she has the panic attack and then pours a drink or messages a bad man to get over it, and tells herself that at least she knows it’s a panic attack and not a heart attack and she’s not putting pressure on an already strained healthcare system.
The Sanctuary District A job application is a lighthouse in a dark stormy sea. She can do this. And these Sanctuary Districts - they, too, feel like lighthouses in their own way. The world went crazy for a bit but now things are settling. This is where order will be found, will be made.
This job is going to save her.
***
Gabe grew up thinking that by your mid-thirties you were absolutely, unquestionably, an adult, but those promises have been cackled at and broken so many times that he doesn’t know what to believe anymore. He’s never had a job more than two years, and even that gig at the tech company, where his bosses seemed to love him, ended with an unceremonious goodbye.
There are things he thought were his right that have not manifested in his life so far: a house, a stable job, a wife, kids, a white picket fence - yeah the last one’s a cliché, but why the hell not? If the world’s gettin’ better all the time, why is his life harder than his parents’, even though they told him all the way through his childhood how things were gonna be better for him?
It’s not that he feels entitled. He gets it. The world’s a hard place, especially these past few years, with the virus and all . . .
But he wonders if it’s ever going to be better.
He wants to do something to make that better-ness happen, and then: then the thing happens. He’s only two weeks into unemployment but everyone knows it’s a helluva lot more dangerous to be that while black than anything else, so really when he thinks about it, he should’ve run. Instead of going, yes, no, sorry, of course, and filling out their goddamn forms.
Because once you’ve filled out those forms, really, it’s like admitting defeat.
***
B.C. loves his hat. Loves Errol Flynn. Loves travel and booze and good women. Hates most other things. Doesn’t mean to kick off a riot but kinda does anyway. Listens to that Bell guy. Hates himself for it.
Bell’s exactly the kind of guy that makes B.C. think about the Big Issues, and those were stacked away in his head a long time ago. Not safe, to care about that sort of stuff, in the Sanctuary Districts. A distraction.
The world’s gone to hell. He can’t be thinking about -
- dammit, Bell.
***
When he goes home to Sonya and the kids, he tells them that he loves them. Over and over again. He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until one of them points it out. He doesn’t apologize.