The Weatherman

PROLOGUE

They say that you should never start a story by talking about the weather. Well, I’m going to. Not because I love talking about the weather, but because it’s relevant. It is on this planet, in this colony, anyway. Here, we don’t need weather forecasts. Sector A is always sunny, Sector B always icy cold, it always rains in Sector C, and in my sector, Sector D? Fog – very thick fog. We hate it. But we have no choice. The Colony Executive prohibits us from moving from sector to sector. Even if we could move, we can’t afford to live anywhere else. Most of us would love to move to one of the other sectors, especially  Sector A. We’ve heard it’s really beautiful there. But it is what it is.

Who am I? My name is Oositellyi. That’s how you say it. It looks much cooler written down. U-Č-I-T-E-L-J... Učitelj. Difficult to say? Call me Ooze – everybody else does. My name means 'teacher'. Pretty apt really, 'cos that's what I do. I'm a teacher.

My ancestors – back on Terra (or, as some of you may know it, Earth) – were Croatian. In fact, most of us in Sector D are of Croatian descent. Our ancestors came here as refugees during the Great European War of 2353. Croatia got hardest hit. A tragedy really; they say it was a beautiful country. Anyway, those that could get out, did get out and made their way to this hell-hole.

I'm being disingenuous. The planet's not a hell-hole. I hear there are some parts that are quite beautiful. Especially in Sector A, where the richest people live.  Sector B too, if you like snow. So I've heard, anyway. Never been there. Sector C would probably be nice too – if it ever stopped raining. And as for Sector D? Nobody wants to come here. And I can't say I blame them.

There are a few Dirties – that's what residents of the other sectors call us – who get to go to the other sectors. We hook up with workers from Sector C, the Shoovers, sometimes, when there's drainage problems in Sectors A or B. Shoovers are great at solving drainage problems – well, they would be, wouldn't they? You need good drainage when it rains all the time. But they don't like doing the dirty work. Not when we Dirties are around to do it for them. So they come into our sector sometimes, recruiting manual labour. Everybody wants to go with them, to take a breather from this bloody fog, but that costs money. Oh – did I not say? They don't pay us; they consider that giving us a break from Sector D is payment enough, if declogging sewers can be called a break. Yet still they get plenty of volunteers. Volunteers who are actually willing to pay them, just for a change of scenery.

I don't volunteer. As I said, I'm a teacher. I'm considered too valuable here to go gallivanting off digging holes and unblocking shitty sewers. I wouldn't want to do it.  Anyway, I wouldn't get past the first checkpoint. One look at my hands and they could tell I'm not a manual labourer.

Do you know, I've never seen the suns? Sure, I've seen a couple of fuzzy orange balls in the sky, I mean – they're up there. I know that. They haven't gone anywhere. It's just that this fog is so bloody thick that we Dirties don't get a proper look at them. People who come back from the other sectors – well, A and B – talk about clear blue skies and two beautiful orange glowing orbs that you can't even look at with your naked eye, for fear of burning out your retinas. Here, in Sector D, you can look at them all day long and nothing would happen to your eyes. I know people who've tried it. They can still see all right. Well, they can see about ten metres in front of their noses anyway.

That's our limitation. Ten bloody metres. That's why it takes so long to get anywhere. Transport has to travel slowly, otherwise this place would look like a wrecking yard. That's why we have to go everywhere by public transport. The buses are all fitted out with GPS transponders so they can move around without crashing into each other. No private vehicles in Sector D – it's not allowed. It would cost too much anyway. We're the bottom of the heap; we don't have money to throw around on luxuries like private vehicles. It's walking or the bus for us. Money is for buying food and clothes, and – if we can save enough cash – stuff for our houses. But the transport is free – that's one bonus. They had to provide free transport really; keeps the natives from getting restless.

Housing is free too. It's pre-fabricated and all the houses look the same from the outside. People do try to add a bit of variety by putting different coloured curtains at the windows but you have to be really close to the house to see them properly, so it's a waste of money really. Inside the houses, you can do pretty much what you want. The walls can be any colour you like (like the curtains) but there are only six colours to choose from – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white. And there are no differing shades of those colours. There are only six choices of furniture items too. I've heard that in Sector A they have hundreds of items of furniture to choose from and hundreds of colours. That's probably too many really. There is such a thing as being spoiled for choice. I mean, if – say – you want to buy a sofa and there's a whole palette of colours to choose from, not to mention so many different materials, how are you supposed to choose? It's too many choices. But six is too few, too. Even ten would be better than six.

Anyway. Back to the story. My story. You don't need to know everything about this place. Just the basics. You know, to get a feel for the place.

Chapter 1

Every day was like any other day. I came to work, I worked, and I went home again. It was there, and I did it. It was just like my dad used to say when I asked him how work had been that day. He’d say it was there, so I did it. Now I would sometimes say the same. Except my dad was an accountant, and I don’t think he liked his job. I, on the other hand, do enjoy teaching. It’s rewarding. So you can scrub that it was there, so I did it thing. It’s not really applicable.

The day’s lessons were over and it was finally time to go home. I looked out of the schoolroom window and spoke to nobody in particular.

It’s really bad today. Maybe two metres visibility or less. They’ll have to suspend the buses.

As if they had been waiting for my cue, speakers all over the city blared out their warning.

Fog Warning. Fog warning. Visibility down to two metres. Public transport has been suspended. I repeat, visibility down to two metres. Public transport has been suspended.

I always thought those words Fog Warning were irrelevant – fog is the only weather we got. We didn’t need a warning about it. Visibility Warning would have been more apt.

Suradnik poked his head around the classroom door.

You coming, Ooze? You know Služ doesn’t like us to be late.

Suradnik was a fellow teacher and Služ was the line-leader who would get us home safely that evening.

I gathered up my books, tossed them into my backpack, and left the room, making sure I locked the door behind me and tossing the door keys through the letterbox of the principal’s office. The keys rattled with excitement as they joined those from classes 1B, 2J, and 3S. My class was 4U – ‘U’ for Učitelj. 3S was Suradnik’s class.

It didn’t take us long to get to the meeting point, even though the fog was so thick. We Dirties have a kind of sixth sense that helped guide us through the fog but it was only good for short distances. We needed the walking-lines to get home safely – if the buses weren’t running, that is.

When the fog was particularly bad, the GPS signals had trouble getting to and from the satellite, so everybody had to walk home. No exceptions. It would have been such a recipe for disaster if people were left to their own devices. Imagine two hundred thousand people out on the street at the same time, each one being able to see only two metres in front of their face. There’d be a ton of accidents.

So the city concocted a system of walking lines and each line had two walking marshals. I was one myself. Each pair of walking-marshals had a set number of people to escort home. Everybody who lives close to each other worked close to each other too, so it wasn’t inconvenient. We’d get home later than usual, sure, but it’s better to be late than not get there at all.

My responsibility was for Ulica Street. That’s where Suradnik and I were heading for that evening. It’s in the centre of town, about five kilometres from our suburb. We were lucky that we lived so close. Some people lived up to twenty kilometres away. That journey must have been murder. In fact, it sometimes was. The thick fog was a gift for criminals when it was as bad as it was that day. There were occasionally a few muggings, but it wasn’t unheard of for people to be killed either. That’s another reason why we formed a line of twenty people to walk home – security. Safety in numbers, see?

We quickly passed the red-bricked building that was the Central Bank, the blue-walled Central Clinic, and approached the green metallic structure that was the Central Supermarket. I could see sixteen members of the line had got there before us, including Služ. With Suradnik and my arrival that just left two more spots to be filled.

The two stragglers, new line-members who’d recently moved to the city from an outlying village, had had to kind of feel their way along buildings’ walls to guide them and arrived shortly after us. They’d actually done quite well considering it was their first experience of a two-metre fog. Now everybody had arrived we were ready to set off. I was to bring up the rear, with my red lamp, and my friend Službenik, a clerk, would lead from the front with his white lamp. The white lamp was so other lines could see us. Služ is blind, so he didn’t need a lamp to see where he was going. It made sense for him to lead the line too, as it made no difference to him whether the visibility was two metres, twenty metres, or two hundred metres. He couldn’t see a thing but he always knew exactly where he was going.

Soon the city was a heaving mass of conga-lines (minus the dance moves), twenty people long, weaving in and out of each other with the precision of a military tattoo. Longer lines had been attempted in the past but they’d proved to be too unruly – continually crashing into each other and breaking apart – and so an official limit of twenty had been placed on them. In addition to that, each person was connected to the one in front by a fluorescent cord, so that they didn’t become separated and start wandering around aimlessly and get lost.

Anyway, we all hooked ourselves up – everybody knew exactly where they should be in the line – and waited for the off. The person behind Služ – Mesar the butcher – acted as his eyes to tell him when to set off, counting down as he saw a gap into which our line could slip, but that was the only help Služ needed. He had a special Hi-Vis vest with a giant logo of an eye on it, not to highlight his disability but to advise others to let his line pass as we were able to walk a lot quicker than most of the other lines. He wasn’t the only blind walking marshal in the city but there certainly weren’t enough to go round for every line. We felt privileged to have him heading our line.

So we zigzagged our way along our regular route, everyone fully confident that they’d arrive home safely, stopping occasionally for someone to unhook themselves from the caravan and enter their house. After about forty minutes it was just me and Služ left, the accountant Računovođa having just arrived at her house. I watched her to make sure that she was safely inside the house before we moved off again. Just as Služ was about to start the final leg of the journey, I tapped him on the shoulder.

It’s okay, Služ. You can drop me off here too.

Služ didn’t turn round – neither one of us wanted him to lose his bearings – but I could almost see him grimacing, even though I was looking at the back of his head.

I don’t know, Ooze. The fog’s particularly bad tonight.

Even though we both had Croatian roots, Služ called me Ooze just like everybody else did. He was one of my best friends