NUMB

Day Three - Jet

"Have you found anything out?" Seth asks. We're at his house again, in the dining room. There's food in front of us, but neither of us touch it. The acne scars on his face look especially red today, like he's been picking at his skin again.

"No. I haven't had a chance to get inside the building yet. I can't even go in there on my lunch breaks because Jackson keeps me in the break room with him by giving me half his lunch. So I don't even have an excuse to go down there."

"Have you gotten anything from those two? From Jackson or Ari?"

"Just bits and pieces and I don't trust either of them. They have a biased opinion on things because of how they feel about the Numb kids." My mind wanders back to when I had first started working.

///

There were two people already on the wall when Beck led me and Brian, the only other newbie being put on the East Wall with me, up there. Jackson, a short guy with curly brown hair and a nose that sits low on his face; and Ari, a girl with light brown skin, long eyelashes, and a headscarf that was the same blue as her shirt.

"Happy training newbies." Beck slapped both me and Brian on the shoulders and left.

"He's not staying?" Brian asked.

"Beck hardly ever stays on post," Ari said. "He likes to pop around, checks in a couple of times at each station during the day. It's the perk of being the M-I-C of a group."

"M-I-C?" I asked.

Jackson leaned back against the railing, anchoring himself by gripping the pole that ran along the top of it. "Man in charge. Beck's an asshole, but he's better than some of the other ones. Beta group has a chick whose got something out for all her groupies. They're the most miserable bunch of Warden's I've ever seen."

Brian shuffled his feet against the concrete. "How long have you two been working here?"

"I've been here for about six months," Jackson said.

"A year and three months last week," Ari said. "I started off in Infirmary and trust me, when Beck moved me to the gate instead, I went happily. I'd rather stand around doing absolutely nothing for like six hours than have to deal with those dead eyes down there. They seriously give me the creeps."

Jackson gave Ari a pointed look and quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, we're supposed to be training you guys. So here's what we do up here. Mainly, it's just a lot of standing around and doing nothing. Sometimes, we'll have to open the gate for the service trucks. They're usually in and out on the weekends. It's usually slow, but that's why there's two of us out here at all times."

"What about the Numb? Do they ever try to get out?" Brian picked at the edge of his shirt. This guy was already starting to make me antsy. He's so damn fidgety.

"They do sometimes. There's no way to get through the gate though. The controls are up here." Ari pointed at a panel on the wall opposite the door. "If you see one running around out here, just call it in and the C-P will take care of it."

"C-P is Compound Patrols, right?" I asked.

"You got it." Jackson smiled at me. I returned the gesture. "And we're G-P, Gate Patrol."

"What are the shifts out here?"

"They're all over the place. A lot of the time, you'll be here in the morning and then come back at night. There's other guys that handle the midday shifts, not us usually. You can be here from six to ten in the morning and then come back around six until ten at night. If you don't get the swing shifts, it's either the morning or evening shifts. Which are four am to twelve pm and eight pm to four am. The shift you get is totally random, but look forward to having your sleeping schedule completely fucked."