From the looks of it, I’m not the only government employee to bring a dependent to dinner. The government canteen at South Station is packed from wall to wall, but only half the people in the room are wearing uniforms or government ID badges around their necks. Despite the crowd, the food issue counter works almost as efficiently as an enlisted mess at watch change on a warship. Mom and I only stand in line for five minutes before we both take possession of our food trays. There’s no buffet option like in the service—everyone gets the same tray, with the same items, in equal amounts.
The food is lousy. It’s merely a slightly more flavorful version of the processed soy crap in the BNA rations. Compared to military food, it’s barely edible, but Mom tucks in like it’s a gourmet meal. I eat a little bit to give my stomach something to work with, and then mostly push the food around on my tray while I watch Mom eat.
“Do they feed you like this every day?” she asks between two big bites of soy chicken. I haven’t eaten a piece of processed soy since I joined the service, but I don’t want to remind my mom that we get to eat actual food while she has to live on this recycled and reconstituted garbage.
“Yeah, kind of,” I tell her. “We burn a few more calories than civvies, ’cause we run around with guns and armor a lot.”
“Last time I got a commissary voucher, beef was up to five hundred dollars a pound,” she says. “That was over a year ago. God knows what it’s up to by now.”
“I saw what they did to the voucher booth. So what, they just don’t issue vouchers anymore?”
“They don’t do anything anymore,” Mom says. “Trash only gets picked up once or twice a month now, and they skip it altogether when there’s a riot. You hardly ever see a cop anymore, either, except when there is a riot. Then they show up by the hundreds. It’s like war every month. People get shot on the street corner, and nobody picks up the bodies for days.”
“They don’t do safety sweeps in the tenements anymore?”
Mom shakes her head.
“They’re afraid to walk the streets. It was pretty bad for a while with the hoodlums, but it’s a little better now. You can buy security escorts now, you know. A thousand calories for a day, you get a guy with a gun to walk around with you. The cops don’t care anymore.”
“Jeez, Mom. Who’s keeping the peace now?”
“Nobody,” she shrugs. “Everybody, I guess. Everyone’s got guns now. Hell, I got one. I keep it in the apartment, though. It’s not like I get to go out much anyway, except over to the civil center to read your mail, and they still have gun detectors at the door there.”
When I still lived at home with her, Mom hated guns. I suspect that if she had ever caught me with one, she would have turned me over to the public-housing police herself. If Mom is keeping a gun in the apartment in violation of the law and her old philosophies, things must have become very grim indeed.
We finish our meal and clear the table for the people waiting in line for seats. As we walk out past the two security guards checking ID cards at the door, Mom looks around in wonder.
“You know, I’ve never been up here. Above the public platforms, I mean.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’ve lived here for almost twenty years now, and I’ve never had a reason to come up these stairs.”
“You’ve never been out of Boston, Mom?”
“Oh, sure,” she shrugs. “When I first met your dad. Before you. We went down to the Cape for the day a few times. He took me to New Hampshire once. But we took the hydrobus back then. The one that used to leave from North Station.”
I turn around and go back to the security guards at the entrance to the canteen.
“Excuse me, sir,” I address the higher-ranking one, a thin, sour-faced guy with a sergeant’s shoulder boards. I outrank him, but this is his turf, and he wields more clout down here than I do. The HD sergeant raises an eyebrow.
“What can I do for you, Staff Sergeant?”
“I’ve been off-world for too long,” I say. “Could you tell me what the rules are these days for taking relatives with you on private transportation?”
“That your mom over there?”
“Yeah, she is.”
“Dependents can ride along for free, up to five thousand kilometers per year. She’s gotta be on your card, though.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means,” he says, in a tone that reminds me of a drill sergeant explaining something obvious to a slow recruit, “that she has to be in the files as your official dependent. No pals, no girlfriends, no other relatives.”
“She’s on my card,” I say. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
I walk back to where Mom is standing.
“What was that all about?” she asks.
“You want to go up one more level to where the private trains are? If you’re not in a hurry to go back home, we can go for a little ride.”
CHAPTER 6