damp paper, bad whisky and dust
The Speakeasy smells of recycled air and bad decisions, which makes it the most honest place in Bunker 101. Pound has been standing behind the counter long enough to watch the Bunker's official version of itself dissolve, drink by drink, into something closer to the truth. She pours. She listens. She folds napkins into precise triangles, writing tasks (and secrets) in penmanship that belongs in a different world entirely. A world with dry paper, real whisky, and rooms that don't echo with every whisper. Her PentaFive family would say she's wasting herself here. Her family says a lot of things.
She retouches her red lipstick using the mirror behind the bar, and decides; as she's decided every morning since she noticed her father's pressed jacket could hide a broken man; that beauty is not wasted simply because no one asked for it. A bump against her hip makes her smudge the precise line around her cupid's bow.
"Excuse me, some people here actually have work to do."
Unamuno, soft perfection donned in white, her face marred by the anguished expression of someone betrayed by a best friend. Pound's words in the talk show just a few days ago still ring in the deafening silence between them. The unexpected friendship between a PentaFive with an excess of class, and a UnaOne with an excess of consciousness, dissolved in the very abyss that brought them close in the first place.
Pound didn't exactly regret saying what she said. Asked to speak on licensing in the lower blocks, she had other members of PentaFive Alpha in a frenzy, as they felt she was neither qualified nor emotionally invested enough to do so. But she wanted to show her family one of their own could address the entire Bunker with a level of grace and eloquence, and perhaps that's what was needed for their struggle to finally be heard. They thought she didn't care about the class war they so dutifully fought. The reality is her caring just wore a different costume.
When Pavlov, the talk show host, asked her about UnaOne Alpha members who take up the causes of the lower blocks, she answered with the truth. Not the dressed-up version Unamuno would have preferred.
"I'm familiar with that type. Someone who carries the history of a Worm in their blood and tries to cleanse it by fighting other people’s battles. I get it. But who does that really serve? Us, in the lower blocks, or their troubled conscience, adopting causes that were not theirs to begin with?"
She didn't say her name, but her colleagues knew, and turned to face Unamuno that night. Unamuno stood in silence. Since then, something stirred inside Pound every time she gave her an icy look, or broke the silence with an equally icy remark. And Pound was having a real hard time hiding it. Tachycardia, nausea and difficulty breathing forced her to brace against the Speakeasy shelves as she pretended to wipe the dust off of them.
"Tamino and Brecht are on their way, Penza is doing the trash and I've cleaned up the tables."
Unamuno doesn't say goodbye. She states her absence, picks up her things and soon she's a speck under the halogen lights in the upper tunnel. She forgets her pen, as she so often does, and Pound places it in a box under the counter, dedicated to the many forgotten things that wash on the shores of the Speakeasy, a collection of Bunker C:\EPHEMERA slowly decaying with damp. She finishes prepping the bar for the shift change with Penza, holding off a wave of dizziness through a deep breath and a slow exhale with each glass she places back on the shelf.
"You should do something about that." Penza says, already halfway down the stairs with two rubbish bags. "Before you break those glasses. Or, you know, hurt yourself."
He's right. It's about time she stops pretending this isn't disrupting her ability to function. With the bar ledger updated, and a note left to Brecht about the latest additions to the list of customer requests placed under the counter, Pound finally gets the courage to march down the tunnel towards the Pharmacy. Unamuno is far out of sight, so her disposition improves and her posture returns to its purposefully elegant line.
At the Pharmacy, the air filtration system is no match to the smell of iodine and old wood. Other patients with a variety of ailments sit at the waiting area, the bright white glow of the lamps making everyone look different shades of grey. Toscanini, the highly-strung TerraThree in the thick glasses, calls Pound to the counter and begins his assessment.
"Name?"
"Pound PentaFive Alpha."
"Age?"
"Thirty five."
"Chief complaint?"
"Overworked, under maintained." He blinks at her, clearly recalculating whether that's a joke or an actual complaint requiring a form he hasn't seen yet.
She smiles at him. "It's a joke, darling."
Bogart, parked on the only leather chair behind the counter, huffs out something not quite like a chuckle. She relents. "Dizziness. Nausea. My breathing is doing something it shouldn't."
They go back and forth between short questions and shorter answers - is it the food, is it the water, is it the air, is it the vaults, does it happen when you're exercising, does it happen when you're tired, how much sleep have you been having? Pound, losing her patience, cuts through the list before he can get to the next one.
"It's a person," she says, flatter than she means to. "Talking to a person. That's when it happens." She doesn't elaborate, and something in her face makes it clear she's not going to. Not in front of a BissoTwo.
"Ah. Of course. Give me a second." While Toscanini anxiously riffles through papers searching for the right form, Bogart sizes her up. "You clean up well, Pound." Just before she can assemble her most charismatic smile, Bogart continues. "I can barely see the dust from here."
It takes her a second to stop her lips from saying what she actually wanted to say. She's an expert at rewriting her thoughts. "At least dust washes off." Neither of them says anything else.
"A-ha, there we go, anxiety and depression. Follow me, please."
Toscanini leads her past the waiting area into a smaller room with an evaluation chair that looks more like a torture device. He resumes his questions from there, working towards a conclusion he's clearly already reached. Anxiety, probably. Common enough, especially post-Reboot announcements. He suggests guided meditation, something about breath work, regulation, the body remembering how to be calm...
Pound cuts him off before he finishes the sentence. "I'm not anxious. I'm nauseous. I just need something that will work before dinner."
Toscanini reads through his anamnesis notes with a sigh. "No fever. No diarrhoea. No change in rations. GI markers unremarkable. No blood, no pain, no cramping. Radiation logs from your last three shifts, within tolerance." He looks up. "Nothing physiological. This reads as anxiety." He's already dimming the lights, already reaching for whatever plays the ambient track piped through Pharmacy speakers on days like this.
"I'm telling you, I'm not anxious. I'm just reacting to a colleague who made it her life's mission to make me feel guilty for something I said. Can't you just, give me a pill or something?" She can't bear the thought of spending another minute in that chair, under those lights.
Clearly irritated, Toscanini flicks the lights back on. "Very well." Killing the music, he walks her back out to the counter and opens the drug cupboard, looking for a specific box.
"This should solve your problem for the time being." He picks up a vial, straightens the prescription notepad and starts scribbling away. Without looking at her, he lists the effects of the drug. "Harmonix has a fast acting psychoactive compound that modulates the prefrontal cortex, which should improve your collaboration, and push you to seek compromise and pacification during conflicts. Side effects may include a strong drive to intervene in conflicts you might witness, and an intense impulse towards premature consensus, regardless of underlying cause."
He picks up a small white pill, placing it in her right hand, the written C:\PRESCRIPTION on the left. "Effects may last for up to 24 hours, but usually go away after the surge of adrenaline experienced when the patient resolves a conflict. Return to the pharmacy in case of any adverse effects."
Pretending not to be overwhelmed, Pound takes the pill immediately, thanking Toscanini for his help, and leaves the aseptic cube that is the Pharmacy at something close to a march. There's still time to get her eyebrows plucked by Ellsworth before dinner - a small, ordinary cruelty she's grateful for.
Between tweezers and small talk, she can gossip about Bogart's backhanded compliment, instead of thinking about whatever's still unresolved with Unamuno. Unsure of how long it would take for the pill to take effect, Pound decides to wait until after the family meeting to look for her. That can wait. It's waited this long already.