“Those people can be most easily rounded up and institutionalized. That’s why they can’t run away. It’s monstrous, but we’re talking about monstrous things.”
“That’s creepy,” he said. “And cinematic. Do you really think zottas sit around a star chamber plotting how to separate the goats from the sheep?”
“Of course not. Shit, if they did that, we could suicide-bomb the fuckers. I think this is an emergent outcome. It’s even more evil, because it exists in a zone of diffused responsibility: no one decides to imprison the poor in record numbers, it just happens as a consequence of tougher laws, less funding for legal aid, added expense in the appeals process.… There’s no person, decision, or political process you can blame. It’s systemic.”
“What’s the systemic outcome of being a walkaway, then?”
“I don’t think anyone knows yet. It’s going to be fun finding out.”
[ii]
The guy’s friends woke from their nap while Limpopo and he were clearing dishes, which meant filing bugs where the dish-clearing routines failed. The tricky thing was that half the bugs were already tracked, but it wasn’t clear whether they were the same bugs, and it was dickish to create duplicate bugs when you could spend time to determine whether the bug was already there. Plus, adding more validations to an existing bug made it more likely to get fixed. If you wanted your bug fixed, you should really check it in depth.
They wandered over, gummy-eyed and torpid, whiffy of unwashed skin. Limpopo suggested they visit the onsen in the back. Everyone was amenable. They gave up on the bugs—let the other B&Bers get a crack at filing bugs of their own—and shouldered their shlepper packs and headed, staggering, to the back of the tavern.
“How’s this work?” the girl said. “Give us the FAQ”—she pronounced it “fack”—“for this kinky soapy thing of yours.” Limpopo thought she was putting up a front and the “kinky soapy” snark was a tell for anxiety about being inducted into a walkaway orgy.
“It’s co-ed, but there’s no sexytime, don’t worry. It’s thirty percent walkaway, seventy percent Japanese in approach. Just enough formalism that everyone can enjoy themselves, not so much that you worry about doing it wrong. The thing to remember is that baths are for relaxing, not washing. You don’t want to get anything except clean skin into them. No bathing suits, and you sit down at the shower stall for a hardcore scrubadub and a decontam stage before you get in. The hot water is limitless—it’s solar pasteurized in barrels on the roof, then there’s a three-stage filter through printed charcoal with the surface area of Jupiter’s moons.
“Once you’re clean, do your own thing. Some of the baths will parboil you in ten minutes, some are cold enough to give you hypothermia if you stay in them, and the rest are in between. Go where the mood takes you. I like outdoor baths, but the fish in them may creep you out. They’ll eat your dead skin, which tickles, but something deep-seated rejects being something else’s snack, so wave them away if you don’t want them nibbling. I like ’em, though. The little towels are all-purpose; keep them handy but don’t wring them out in the pools.”
“Is that it?” the smart-ass guy said.
“That’s it.”
“What about the dirty stuff?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you meet someone of your preferred gender and want to do something, get showered, get dressed, and get a room. We don’t do dirty in the onsen. Strictly platonic.”
“If you say so.”
“So say we all.”
“Where do we leave our stuff?” That was Etcetera, and her mental assessment of him dropped a notch. Shleppers and stuff.
“Anywhere.”
“Will it be safe?”
“Dunno.”
The noobs exchanged easy to read glances: That’s not cool. I’m sure it’s safe, don’t be such a tourist. This is all our stuff. Don’t embarrass us.
“Ready?”
They followed her. They all changed together in the dry-room, and she didn’t bother being subtle about peeking, that was the deal when you were a walkaway. Skin is skin—interesting, but everyone’s got some. These three were young and firm, but not offensively so, and the smart-ass had totally depilated, which had been a style when she went walkaway, but had since atrophied, judging from the lush bushes the other two sported.
The funny thing about not caring if you get caught peeking is you get to watch everyone peek, and these three did, in a way that made her sure that they weren’t a sex thing with each other—yet. The other thing about not caring about peeking is you catch other people peeking at you, which all three did in turn, and she held each of their eyes in turn, frankly and unsexually. It was her duty to these noobs to help them go walkaway in their minds, from the sex and scarcity death-cult they’d grown up with and turned their backs upon.
She needed to do it for herself, too. She knew it was possible to be in the presence of naked people without it being about sex—she knew that stuff was a liability, not an asset; she knew that work was not a competition—she still needed to remind her psyche. Habits didn’t die easy, they were so closely tied to her fear and fear was hardest to ignore. Taking noobs into the onsen was occupational therapy for her own walkaway.
“Let’s hit the showers.” She led them into the cleanup room, pretending not to notice their anxious glances at their packs in the unguarded room, which were no more subtle than their looks at her bare ass as she led them onward.