The Mushroom Wars

Chapter 6

I pushed the door open and found Solani staring right at me. Not picking their teeth or checking their nails or wandering off, just staring right at me like they had seen everything.

"You like cold showers?" Solani smirked like they knew exactly how unnerving they were.

"Best not to get used to luxury. People destroy themselves trying to keep it."

Solani smiled at me, genuine this time - reflected in those mahogany eyes. "Best not to get used to anything. Habits are powerful, but expectations are... dangerous."

I felt trapped.

I hated being underestimated, and every look of pity stuck in me like a splinter. I also hated being dead, and my future here was predicated on being an idiot - too pathetic to kill.

I grunted in response.

Solani looked at me for seconds that felt like years. There was a viciousness in their gaze. I half-expected them to stick one of those revolvers in my mouth. My legs tensed up and I got ready to jump out of the way.

"Let's head to a cafeteria then." They grabbed the satchel of reclaimed barley from me, and spun on shiny gray shoes toward the center of the Grand Ficus. They looked out of place thumping against the packed earth.

I followed Solani's shoes through labyrinthine twists and turns, bringing us progressively closer to the center of some increasingly obvious circle that was the Grand Ficus. I saw nearly nobody the whole time we walked. Any time I saw some flutter of movement in a distant hallway, or heard a door shut, Solani would smoothly direct us away.

The floor changed from earth to cobbles to wood, and Solani's shoes went from thumping to thwacking to clacking. The silence was overwhelming, and I felt like they were scrutinizing my every move.

"Why do you dress so strangely?" Was all that I could think to ask. I had never, in all my life, seen someone with clothes so gray and shiny.

Solani stopped in front of a wide set of double doors and gave me that same eternally-bemused look that felt like it was etching itself into their face.

"It's called a suit. A long time ago everyone used to dress like this." Solani ran their hands down their shiny gray vest. "A sign of respect. To the old ways."

It was so casual. So flippant. Dripping with the kind of entitlement that someone could only feel if they never left the walls of this paradise. Currents of rage churned in my stomach. I saw red.

"Respect?" I scoffed. "You respect those Old Fools? Is it the rape that you respect? The murder? Setting the planet on fire? Or maybe it was all the slaughter. No, no, I bet it was all that poison. The shit that they crammed into the air and the ground and the sea until it wouldn't fit any more! Of course a fucking sycophant like you would talk about respect to the old ways." Those last words - 'respect to the old ways' I said in a nasal, mocking tone before I fully realized what I was doing.

I stopped and panted. My heart sank, thinking I may have just overstayed my welcome, but Solani just smiled. That made a part of me even angrier, but my basic survival instincts prevented me from opening my mouth.

"Don't confuse respect for approval." They pushed open the double doors. "We don't have much room for error any more. We need to learn everything we can, and we can't afford to be picky about where it comes from." A warm fog of savory musk wafted over me. "There's much we can learn from the Old Fools as you call them. Even if it's just how to destroy a little more efficiently."

I pushed past Solani without making eye contact.

Part of this was a conscious decision to end the conversation. Basic self preservation said that talking about the Old Fools with traitors and sycophants was a terrible idea. The other part was physical. My body sprang to life when it got hit by those smells, and it plowed forward only barely under my control.