Chương 185: Psilocybin Three

Home was home. It was maybe a little more deteriorated than it had been in prior years, and maybe some of the neighbours had left only to be replaced by others, but the essence of it was the same. It was home. I wouldn't say that I was proud of my home. Maybe if I was more of an optimist I'd say something like 'the hardness of it improved me' or I'd point out how my parents were good people. They had big hearts, were accepting, kind, and hard-working, giving me all they could afford to. But I wasn't an optimist.

I was a pragmatist born twice over, once in a society and culture far more civilized than the one this home was built in. I knew that things could be better, and that this level of squalor wasn't necessary. My mom was home already. The bit of smoke from the chimney said as much. So I knocked and waited, and when I heard a muffled 'Who is it?' I called out.

"It's me." The door opened, and I tried on a smile. We'd missed my eleventh birthday, but that didn't mean much. I was still so short that I only came up to my mothers chest, and she wasn't exactly built tall.

"You're home," she said. She didn't sound upset. Not happy, not much of anything. Then she stepped forwards and pulled me into herself. I leaned forwards, wrapping my arms around her as well.

"Why?"

"I had to," I said.

"No, you didn't," she replied. Sighing, I pulled out of the hug and met her eyes.

"Hi mom," I said.

"Hello," she replied before taking a deep breath.

"You look like a boy in that getup."

"That's fine, isn't it?" I asked.

"It's clean."

"Some of it looks new," she replied.

"Come in. There's food." And there was at that. Two open cans by the old coal stove. Their contents in a pot that was bubbling slightly. It smelled like tomato-paste and canned mystery meat. A staple.

"Have you been eating well?" I asked.

"Shouldn't I be the one to ask you that?" she replied.

"Ah, but my own child doesn't spend time in her own home these days." I sighed.

"Are you still working for the factory?"

"Yes," she replied tersely.

"You could..."

"I know," she snapped.

"I know." this time it was more quiet.

"But they've been good for me, and I'm no quitter."

"They haven't," I said.

"They haven't been good, mom. They barely pay you anything, certainly less than what you're worth. No time off. No advantages."

"It put a roof over our heads and food in your belly," she replied. I winced.

"Yeah, and it's going to..." I wanted to say that it was going to put her into an early grave, and I knew that was true. She was... what, thirty three years old? Thirty-two? She was still young, but she had the skin of someone twice her age. Her back had a stoop from working in cramped conditions for so long, and her hands... they were so rough. So many little callouses, such a weird bend to her fingers.

"Mom, I have the farm."

"Your little project isn't--" she began. I reached into a pocket and pulled out a pouch. She paused, watching. I emptied it onto the table. Coins. Pound coins. Some forty in all. She made maybe one pound a month... maybe. It was probably less than that, and that barely covered her expenses. This was more money than she could save up from working at the factory for ten years.

"You could work for me. With me. I've hired a few girls. They could use someone to help look after them. The work's not too hard. Just managing a little, maybe making them some uniforms?" That last wasn't necessary, but I knew that she had a few levels in some skills that were related to tailoring.

"N-no, I... I can't just quit. I've been there for years." She pulled her attention away from the coins. There were tears in her eyes.

"Okay," I said. There was no arguing this. The factory had her by the soul. I wasn't even sure if that was a metaphor or not. While at the Academy, I'd seen and learned a lot about social skills. I could pass myself off as innocent even when I ought not to. Some students could lie with dangerous ease. There was a game they played where the students would try to convince each other of the most absurd thing. Once, a fifth year played with us, and when he said that the moon was made of cheese, I believed him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Why couldn't it be? And if it wasn't, then what's to say that it wasn't partially cheese? What was cheese anyway? Couldn't rock technically be cheese? Sometimes it had the same colour. And on and on I went in my own mind for a solid minute before I broke out of it. It was insane. But the game was there to teach the students that were younger to see through it, to break through.

No one outside of places like Eden Powell had that kind of training as far as I knew. Worse... what was to stop an employer from showing up every so often and telling his workers that they loved their jobs, that they'd never quit? I think the only reason unions and rebellion still existed was that the owners were often too lazy or incompetent to step in and keep their entire workforce under their thumbs. I was planning on doing something about that. Targeting the owners was risky.

They had guards under their pay and sway, they lived mostly apart from the rest of the city, and... perhaps most importantly, killing them was unpopular. Not just with the others at the top, but across the city. They owned the media, such as it was. Taking one of the nobility out always started an outcry. Ratesco's Union, ostensibly my allies, didn't like it when the boat was rocked outside of their control either. So no, I couldn't go on an indiscriminate rampage amongst the rich. Not yet, in any case.

What I could do was deprive them of their workforce. It was a plan that I'd been cooking up for months, one that I wasn't certain would ever pan out. Still... When fighting a superior, entrenched foe, it did one well to find out where they were weakest. The nobility, this city, its greatest weakness were people like my mother, like the many thousands of others who lived in the slums or the districts around it. Individually, weak, but there were tens of thousands of factory workers there.

Going around and putting them out of working condition would take ages if done in a more... manual way. So I had a plan, and it was vile. My mother brought two small bowls over, both steaming with freshly-cooked food. She sat across from me, then stared at the coins for a long while, her lips tight, the muscles around her eyes pulled taut.

"It's not right," she said finally.

"What's not?" I asked, fork in hand.

"This." She gestured, not at the coins but at me.

"You show up with money. Clothes. After being gone for so long doing something. Like I didn't raise you right."

"That's not what this is," I said quietly. She didn't meet my eyes.

"Feels like it."

"I'm trying to help."

"I didn't ask for help."

"I don't want to help just you," I said.

"I want to help everyone in this city. People like us, people like Dada." She took a deep breath in through her nose. I knew the thought of him still stung. It hurt me too.

"I miss him," I said.

"Me too." I nodded. We could agree on that, at least.

"I... I think that, had things been different, he might still be with us." Her face twitched, then fell flat again.

"You think I didn't wonder the same thing every night?"

"I know. I know, mom. That's why I'm doing this. Dada's gone. Someone else's Dada will be gone too. Probably every day. And it's only going to get worse. So I'm going to break things. Break them so hard that people will have no choice but to start over, and maybe next time things will be a lot more right." She started to eat, but I had the impression that she wasn't tasting anything.

"You've always been smart," she said.

"Too smart. Never good at listening. Always thought you knew better than everyone."

"Because I did know better. I still do."

"That's pride talking."

"No, mom. Pride would've made me leave and not look back." I met her eyes.

"This is guilt. This is love. This is me not wanting you to die like this." Her mouth opened like she had something to throw back, then just... closed again.

"I can't," she said. It was almost a whisper. So was my reply.

"You can. You just won't. But I'll do something about it. I'll free you." 🍄︎🍄️🍄︎