[flashback] sick day

[2goodarms]

A decade isn't enough time for illnesses to evolve from their pre-freeze state. So many of them start the same way they always have: with a chill. A lot of times, people don't even know they're sick. What's feeling a little colder than usual, needing to curl up a little tighter under your allotted blanket?

So Curtis doesn't know, for a good forty-eight hours, until the shivering doesn't quit even after Gilliam loans him two more blankets. As soon as Tanya feels his forehead, he's whisked away to the very back of the Tail, stumbling a little as the train heaves along the tracks. Everything's tilted just a little too far off-kilter, and weaves just a little too sharply whenever they go over a bump. He's grateful when he finally has a chance to sit down.

...Actually, maybe he'll lie down for a bit. Yeah. Just a couple minutes.

Comments

[2goodarms]

"Nah. M'good."

He seems to be fading fast, now that there's some food in him.

"Thanks, man."

[hate_gettin_older]

He grins a little, pleased as always to have been useful, and takes off with a wave to Evie.

He's already working out what he can offer by way of barter to get Curtis's next protein block, if he can't make it to the next headcount.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

Curtis is still asleep when the next headcount comes. Evie doesn't wake him; he still has two-thirds of a protein block left, and she can always share hers if necessary.

She joins the murmuring throngs of people as they file out of their bunks, crowding to the front of the train to wait for the guards' arrival.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar eels through the crowd, tugs at the hem of Evie's sweater to get her to look down at him.

"Is he okay?"

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"He's okay," she confirms. "Still asleep."

Evie peers at him a bit more closely.

"That wasn't your protein block you gave him earlier, was it?"

[hate_gettin_older]

He shakes his head. "Nah, traded for it. -- Did he finish it?"

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"Good," she says. Someone Edgar's age can't skip meals as easily as an adult. "Not yet, but I'll see if he's ready to eat more once he's up..."

Her attention drifts as the murmuring grows louder, then abruptly cuts back into a hush. The guards have arrived, guns lifted, the crate of protein blocks parked between them.

And so has a bug-eyed woman wrapped in lavish furs, nose wrinkled like simply stepping back here is like stepping into a pile of dog shit.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar's lip curls unconsciously in reaction to her expression. Or perhaps it's simply to her appearance; she's clearly a front-sectioner, after all.

Maybe this will be one of the rare occasions when one of them shows up to dole out some special treat, like the Thanksgiving raisins that one time a year or two ago, or the boiled potatoes he can only dimly remember from even longer ago, still hot and unbelievably delicious. There's nothing behind her but the usual protein blocks, though, which means she's probably not here for anything good.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"All right, line up," says one of the guards. As always, contrary to the giant gun and full riot gear, he sounds positively bored by the situation.

Obligingly, the crowd shuffles into position, ten to a row. The guard pulls out a clicker and starts to count off: "One. Two. Three."

Evie and Edgar are in the sixth row; when the guard reaches them, she kneels down with the rest.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar does too, although he can't resist stretching up a little bit to try to see past the grownups in front of him.

The lady in the fur coat is still just standing there, looking at them all like they're bugs.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

Five minutes later, headcount's over. The guard with the clicker falls back to murmur something in the woman's ear. Her lip curls further in response.

When, by force of habit, somebody toward the front stands up, intending to start the line to the food cart, the second guard advances. "Nuh-uh," he says, ushering him back with a few menacing jabs of his rifle. "Nobody gets up yet."

Delicately, the woman reaches behind the cart and picks up a megaphone with her spindly fingers. It crackles to life, and her voice booms through the Tail.

"Would anyone like to guess," she says, "how many protein blocks are in this cart?"

[hate_gettin_older]

A beat of silence.

People glance at each other, confused, uncertain, beginning to be apprehensive. Is there a shortage? Are they cutting rations?

Edgar looks up at Evie with a frown, and then across at Tanya further down the row; she's eyeing the woman grimly and doesn't see him.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

Nobody, however, dares to speak up, so the woman continues, crisply, "Nine hundred and seventy-eight protein blocks we have generously brought to you. And yet, how many of you bother to emerge from your filthy bunks to receive them?" Another pause for effect. "Nine hundred and three. A difference of seventy-five. Seventy-five wasted blocks, gifted to all of you by the grace of Wilford the Divine, that your laziness has hurled back in his face."

[hate_gettin_older]

A few rows behind them, someone makes a quiet spitting sound. Without turning to look he can't be sure, but Edgar's pretty sure it's Macgregor; he saw the man's bushy red hair around there when they were lining up, and besides it's the kind of thing he would do, brave in the face of the watching guards, utterly contemptuous of any talk of Wilford the Divine.

Edgar bites back a grin of satisfaction, and watches the woman keep talking.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"And this is not the first time I've witnessed such an egregious insult!" she's saying -- nearly shouting, by now. "Every day, every head count, this cart does not leave empty. If it could merely be explained by a handful of deaths each day, that would be simpler, but no. No. Even knowing you will not be fed, you prefer to shirk your very few responsibilities. So."

She pulls herself straighter, taking a moment to adjust her outsize glasses.

"Effective immediately, should you not be present for three consecutive headcounts, your ration will be stricken from the records. Permanently."

Evie's jaw drops.

[hate_gettin_older]

A moment of blank surprise -- and then a slowly rising murmur of protest. "They can't do that --" "How do they --" "-- what about the --" "-- motherfuckers, what do they --"

"But he's sick," Edgar half-shouts in indignant complaint, not really expecting to be heard over the increasing noise.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

She doesn't catch all of what Edgar's shouted, but she hears just enough.

"Even the sick can manage to come up here once a day," she snaps. "Standing around, sitting when your number's called, that's not particularly taxing, now is it?"

[hate_gettin_older]

He swallows what he wants to yell at her, more from fear than prudence -- and because he's doing some rapid math. She said effective immediately, and that might mean counting from now but it might mean counting from as far back as they have, and this is the second headcount Curtis has missed, which means --

He looks up at Evie again, a touch desperate.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

Her own concern's clear, but Evie shakes her head, very slightly, and touches a finger to her lips.

"All we have ever asked in return," the woman says, "for sheltering you from this eternal winter, is kindness. Gratitude. It's right and proper you display it. So it is."

She tugs at one shoulder of her fur coat.

"Those of you who have bothered to show up? Come get your dinner."

The guards exchange glances, nod to one another, and move to the cart of protein blocks.

[hate_gettin_older]

And the line starts to move as always, a uniform slow trudge up to the cart and back down along the wall, each person reaching in for their allotted ration.

For a brief moment Edgar contemplates trying to take two, in case Curtis can't make it to the next headcount, but he discards the thought immediately. He's seen what can happen when people try to grab more than their share; once that he can remember clearly, which ended with the thief having his fingers broken and losing his ration for three days. And he's heard people talk about an earlier time, when it ended with a riot as people mobbed the cart, frantic with the urge to get their own fair share while they could -- or to imitate the thief and get as much as they could while they could, fairness be damned. The guards opened fire on the crowd; dozens died.

When he gets to the head of the line he very carefully takes one block, glowering at the guards behind his falling hair.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

One of the guards isn't much older than Curtis. He meets Edgar's glare with a dispassion that, like the other guard, nearly verges into boredom: this is just one more person in the long, stinking stream of Tail-sectioners, and as soon as this unpleasant chore's done, he can go back home to the Front.

Evie picks up her block in silence. Unlike the people in front of them, she doesn't bite into it right away. Instead, she tucks it into the breast pocket of her ratty coat, stepping out of the dispersing line to catch up with Edgar.

[hate_gettin_older]

He's still glowering, and hasn't bitten into his own block either.

When Evie moves up alongside him, he glances up at her. "We got till morning," he says. "Think he'll be better by then?"

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"No," she says honestly. "But he'll have to be better enough to come up here."

She sighs and scrubs at her forehead with the side of her hand.

"I don't want to risk misunderstanding Mason's cutoff. He's missed two head counts already, right?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"Yeah." The line ahead of them is moving too slow for his taste, but it's still too crowded to easily slip past everybody, at least if he wants to talk to Evie at the same time. He shifts from foot to foot impatiently. "So that means he's gotta come to the next one or else that's three."

[snowpiercer_npcs]

Evie sighs out a curse.

"Then we'll have to get him up there somehow. At least he'll get a full night's sleep first."

Assuming the fever doesn't keep him awake.