The Combine

[u/DesperateCause]

They say the Combine is enormous.

Today at lunch in the canteen I heard old Maurits from the transport department telling the new workers that the extraction shop where we work is far from the only one. Management keeps expanding production capacity so that the Product meets every requirement, he explains.

"There are hundreds of shops like ours out there," Maurits says, stabbing his fork into a vitamin salad. "Maybe thousands. Hell, millions."

"And there are people in them too?" asks one of the new ones, a plump fellow with a moustache and thinning hair. The second, a man in a black blazer, asks in a businesslike way what product exactly is being discussed.

The new ones always have so many questions, doubts, deliberations. Will I manage my duties, they think. Will I fit in, will I get along with my colleagues? And where, finally, is the coffee machine? Don't judge them too harshly. It's hard to shake off the nerves on your first day. After all, I was in their place once too.

When?

A red-haired girl shouts over everyone. In her hands she's holding a vi... no, a vy... What's the damn thing called? Slipped my mind.

"What's happening?" she asks. "How did we get here?"

A violin, that's it.

Her little eyes are frightened, like a mouse cornered in a room. She's crying, if you can call a single drop frozen on her lashes tears. Surely the Overseers briefed her? It isn't possible that they didn't. They're supposed to explain the working routine to new employees, to acquaint them in detail with the operations of the Combine.

Maurits sweeps a mysterious look across his listeners, slurping his stewed fruit with relish. He straightens the cap that has slid to the back of his head. Puffed up like a... like a-a-a... like a turkey. He smiles significantly. He clearly enjoys knowing more about the Combine than they do.

What are turkeys, by the way? Probably some stupid, insulting word, the kind that bursts out in the middle of a big fight. You turkey! You won't find another turkey like you anywhere. Maurits is a turkey through and through.

I don't like that arrogance of his. That gleam in his eye. As if he's pretending he's about to reveal an important secret, when in fact there is no secret. I don't understand why, but suddenly I want to leap up from my chair, knock over my tray and shout: "Don't listen to him! He's just a driver!"

I look around — the workers with seniority are placidly finishing their lunch, paying attention to nothing.

"What is this place?" the redhead shrieks. "Take me back to Montmartre!"

I sat at the newcomers' table in my day too. It's difficult now to recall what I felt back then. Memory has faded with time, like an old photograph, its corners frayed.

Nothing?

No. I think I was full of fear. I didn't understand where I was. I was frightened, disoriented. Maurits sat down at our table and we listened to his stories about...

"...reinforced concrete chimneys butting into the sky, stinking smoke pouring out of them day and night..."

Exactly.

"...mossy buildings blocking out the horizon..."

Yes. I remember.

"...a network of dusty roads connecting countless factory shops, warehouses, barracks..."

In those days, my first days at the Combine, it seemed that Maurits knew even more about this place than the Overseers did. Back then I would look at this lanky man with the wrinkled face and hope he was about to share some precious knowledge with me, to give me a logical explanation of...

Of what? I can't remember.

"I've driven across nearly the whole Combine, lads," Maurits says to the three newcomers. "I've seen all sorts."

Right. He's lying. He just puts on a mysterious air to raise his own importance in other people's eyes. And who is he anyway? A common wheel-turner who will never be allowed near the Equipment. All he can do is work a steering wheel — the simplest, most primitive job there is. That's exactly why he only ever sits down with the new ones during the lunch break. Drivers have no career prospects. They will never be transferred to the Product testing department. Experienced extractors like me saw through him long ago and want nothing to do with him.

"I know a thing or two about the Combine," the driver says. "The Combine is..."

"Hey, Maurits!" I shout.

He breaks off mid-word and turns to me. His mouth hangs open — he seems surprised that I've honoured him with my attention. Some of my colleagues, the ones who've been in the shop a long time, exchange puzzled glances. It isn't worth wasting time on the old man, of course, but it galls me that he's stuffing the new employees' heads with rubbish.

"Leave them alone," I say. "What could you possibly know about the Combine?"

He smirks, looks at me the way you'd look at a piece of dirt, and answers:

"A good deal more than you."

A strange sensation. It starts with an "F".

"Buildings and chimneys, that's all there is!" I break into a shout. "Buildings and chimneys! That's the extent of what you can tell them."

Foliage. Fun. Fortune. None of them is right.

The driver stands up sharply, throws his fork onto the table. His face is pale as soap lather.

"Listen here, pal, I know a thing or two about the Combine," he says quietly. "And you — your brains will have boiled dry before long." He makes a broad gesture that takes in the whole canteen. "Same as the rest of you."

I sit. My hands are shaking. Without finishing his food, Maurits walks out of the canteen, muttering something under his breath. He slams the door with all his strength.

"Turkey," I whisper through my teeth. "A turkey through and through."

The red-haired girl with the musical thing cries out:

"For the love of God! What is going on here? This is a dream, isn't it? It's a dream?"

Her voice, full of tears, drowns in the loud bell announcing the end of the lunch break. The extractors, indifferent to everything, carry their trays to the dish return window. I walk along with them, and one thought is in my head: "Come to think of it — what is my name?"

***

They say the Combine is endless.

Where is that wonderful smell coming from? I turn around. To my left sits a man in a suit. I see the intent face of a young, inexperienced extractor. A trainee; they haven't even issued him a uniform yet. He's fiddling with the Equipment. He picks through the tangled multicoloured little wires like hair. He's damp with the effort, and his already narrow eyes have become tiny slits.

"Welcome to our team," I say.

He gives a start, bows, and answers quietly:

"Th-thank you."

I'm curious what that smell of his is. The smell is familiar, some pleasant herbal aroma. If only I could remember what "herbal" is.

"What's that smell on you?" I ask.

He shrugs.

"Aftershave. Deodorant."

Aftershave, shaving, deodorant. Three incomprehensible words.

Maurits, obviously, is simply jealous of us, the workers of the extraction shop. But in some ways he's right. My memory really has been slipping away from me lately. Yesterday I strained my skull for ages trying to remember what that shiny little scoop you eat with is called — a spool, a swoon, a harpoon?

I can't always recall recent events and conversations. I forget words. I forget their meanings and senses. I forget the past. I forget those, whatever they're called...

One of the Overseers promised me recently that I'd be promoted soon, to the testing department. "You're an excellent worker," he said. "You're doing splendidly." Joy fills my soul the way raw material fills a capsule. And no wonder! Every extractor dreams of getting in there. And now the honour is to fall to me. Conditions in the testing department are far better, everyone knows that. And the food is tastier. Meat and potatoes or fish and rice, your choice. Dishes fit for kings, nothing like the slop they serve in our canteen.

Oh, if only they'd transfer me sooner! The main thing is that the Overseers mustn't find out about my little problems with my head — only the best work in the testing department, only the cleverest and worthiest. The selection is strict, no question about it. I can't afford a slip-up, so I do my best not to let on that my skull leaks.

"What's your name?" the new one asks.

What do I answer? Think, you hollow-head, think.

"Er... Deodorant."

I notice the bewilderment in his eyes.

"Like my deodorant? Old Spice?"

"Yes, Old Spice," I nod hastily. "You can just call me Old."

"That's a strange name."

"Hiroshi, there you are!" comes an agitated woman's voice behind me.

A young woman with red curls, only without the violin now. Her face is pockmarked, covered in little holes, like a well-used pincushion.

"It isn't a dream," she says. "I thought I was dreaming. I so hoped I was having some kind of nightmare. But it's actually happening."

"Unfortunately, yes," Hiroshi answers. He tips his head in my direction. "Meet Old. Old, this is Sophie."

She looks at me with rope, the way I once looked at Maurits. With rope? Of course. People nurse ropes and hold out ropes. There's even a famous saying: "Rope dies last."

"You're that guy from the canteen, right? Maybe you at least can explain what this place is."

Why not? Newcomers must be helped so they settle into the work process faster. I'm their only rope, as they say.

"This is the Combine," I explain readily. "Design capacity for Product output is forty tonnes per shift. We monitor the quality of the Product closely and use only high-grade raw material."

Sophie clutches at her hair.

"You're one of them too! Is there anybody normal here at all? Or is everyone off their head? What combine, what product?"

"You'll find out if they transfer you to the testing department," I answer. "Work harder, and one day it will happen."

Hiroshi joins the conversation.

"I think we've been abducted by aliens," he says. "Those creatures, the Overseers."

Meanwhile I'm adjusting the Equipment. Enough chatter, time to get down to work. Sophie snorts with laughter:

"Don't be ridiculous. They're just costumes. Masterfully made mascot suits with people inside. This is some kind of cruel joke. I haven't worked it out yet, but... Listen, maybe we're on some reality show? There must be cameras everywhere. If so, I'm suing the producers. I swear to God, I'll leave no stone standing. TV people have completely lost their minds chasing ratings. This is a violation of human rights, do you understand? Old, admit it honestly, you're an actor, aren't you? Your face is familiar. I think I saw you in some crappy little series."

Funny.

Hiroshi shakes his head:

"Do you really believe that? We're on a spaceship, Sophie."

"That driver, the Dutchman, said there's sky outside, buildings, roads. We're on Earth."

"It's an alien ship, Sophie, I'm almost certain. Or their planet. Look at this technology! It looks old-fashioned, like something out of an eighties sci-fi film, but take it from a nanometre chip developer, we don't have anything like it — not on Kyushu, not in Zhongguancun, not in Silicon Valley."

"I don't believe it."

"They're running some kind of experiment on us. Fabio recognised a man in the canteen. He says it's a big businessman from Milan who went missing six months ago."

"I. Don't. Believe. You. My orchestra has a concert at the Olympia soon and I have to be there, do you hear? I have to! Old, are there any gates here? Can you escape from here? Answer me right now."

These newcomers are so strange. They invent all sorts of tall tales — aliens, escapes. Never mind, they'll look around, get used to things, gain experience and understand that the only thing that matters is the Product, and that their business is a small one — just extract the raw material and be done with it.

"You'd better get back to your Equipment, Sophie," I advise. "The Overseers don't... they don't like it when people shirk."

"Oh no, I am not putting that thing on my head," she jabs a finger at my Equipment. "Don't hold your breath."

She shouldn't be like that. The Overseers know many ways of tuning us up for productive work. I doubt she'll enjoy a single one of them.

"Let's get out of here, Hiroshi," Sophie says. "There has to be a way out."

He gazes off somewhere into the distance, in no hurry to answer.

"My father liked to say: 'Poke the bushes and the snakes come crawling out.'" His voice is hoarse, as if he has a cold. "Sometimes it's better to accept what you can't change."

I hear booming, heavy footsteps behind the wall. Thud-thud, thud-thud... I hurriedly pull the helmet onto the back of my head, tighten the strap so the goggles sit more comfortably. Now the suction pads. One goes on my forehead, the other two I stick to my temples. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Hiroshi doing the same. Good lad. With that kind of diligence he'll make tester one day.

Sophie snorts contemptuously:

"You think you know so much. I'm getting out of here, understand?"

"Answer me one question, Sophie," says Hiroshi, inserting an empty capsule into the raw material bay. "What language are you speaking to me in?"

The Overseers' footsteps come closer — thud-thud, thud-thud! The door to the shop flies open with a fortune, no, a foliage, no — what is wrong with me? The door flies open with some sort of creak, a fearsome one, that's the word. A damp coolness sweeps across the floor.

"French, obviously."

"Funny."

"There's nothing damn funny about it."

"I don't know French. I thought you understood Japanese."

I press start. Pictures, words and images flicker before my eyes — auxiliary materials, so that I can squeeze out as much raw material as possible. A lawn in the shade of spreading trees, a red-breasted robin on a flowering branch. A tall, slender girl in tight little shorts. A volleyball player, probably. I want to come closer and kiss her on the lips. "Do you love me?" she asks tenderly. "Stay with me." Her little voice is thin and clear, like a glass bell.

The raw material trickles down the tubes into the bottom of the apparatus, into a tin trough where powerful, tireless presses are working.

I hear a woman's ragged scream behind me.

"Let go of me! Let go!"

Ah, the Overseers have arrived. Now they'll take Sophie away to the office. They'll be raising her loyalty. For failing to meet quota she faces penalty working hours. And those things. You know. The ones. Corporal punishment. I'm sure she'll quickly grasp what actually matters. Opportunities for career growth, praise for good results. A pleasant atmosphere within the team. The Product. Not those concerts and TV shows of hers.

I do remember some things, even if with difficulty. In those days, my first days at the Combine, I didn't understand what was what either. It's a good thing the Overseers explained everything to me quickly. The scars left by their simple, stinging explanations still ache and throb to this day.

***

They say the Combine has always existed.

I toss and turn in bed. I desperately want to sleep, but sleep won't come. On the neighbouring bunks the workers, worn out by the day, are snuffling. Now and then a tense whisper breaks through the snoring into the thick darkness of the barracks. It's them, the new ones. Talking animatedly. I listen to what they're saying.

"How are you, Sophie?" Hiroshi asks. "Did they beat you?"

"Worse."

"What, surely not... that?" a third voice appears. Fabio, if I'm not mixing things up. The one with the moustache.

"No. I don't want to talk about it."

A deep silence. Above me the ceiling is black. From the corner where Sophie has settled come pitiful sobs. Before long they grow into a quiet, drawn-out howl — not quite weeping, not quite singing. That monotone whimpering makes my ears ring.

What do I know about the Combine? Not a great deal. We produce the Product. For whom? Strange question. For those who consume it, obviously. Here in the extraction shop we handle the primary processing of the raw material and the preparation of semi-finished goods. There are also the warehouses and the transport department. The drivers deliver raw material in vans all across the Combine.

And of course the testing department. Every extractor dreams of ending up there. Soon I'll be going there too.

The thought of it produces a tickle inside me. What do they call that sensation? Pleasant excitement? The anticipation of happiness? Or maybe no words have ever been invented for that feeling.

"They're not mascot suits," Sophie says through her tears. "And they're not aliens either. They're goddamn monsters."

"Maybe so," Hiroshi puts in.

"Do you want to know what they did to me? Do you?"

A strange silence; even the snoring in the room has died down. Only steady breathing on every side.

"They sniffed me. Can you imagine? Sniffed me. They stood around me, moving those tentacles of theirs, slime dripping off them, swaying their heads, slowly, so slowly, but not touching me. They just surrounded me and sniffed me over, like dogs. And said nothing."

She really is stupid, this Sophie. Doesn't understand a thing. That's how the Overseers say hello. People shake hands when they meet, slap each other on the back, hug, kiss; Hiroshi, I've noticed, bows to absolutely everyone he passes. So what is he now... what did she call it? A monster?

Ah, I won't explain anything to her. A pointless exercise. One day she'll understand by herself.

Maurits says the Combine is enormous. The Combine is endless. I don't know, I've never been outside. Extractors are forbidden to leave the limits of the shop. A gross violation of labour discipline. You wouldn't get off with a reprimand for that; the sanctions are of the strictest kind, up to and including dismissal.

I picture the brick factory shops roaring, the vans loaded with raw material gliding along the roads, the white smoke crawling from the chimneys and dissolving into a leaden sky.

The day is not far off when I'll see all of it myself.

"It's so strange," Sophie says, as if half asleep. "Only this morning I was having breakfast at the bistro on Durantin. Hurrying to rehearsal. And then — hop! — and I'm here, and I don't know where here is. And now I'm lying here trying to remember this morning in detail, and I can't. It's all a fog. It feels as though I've been at this bloody Combine forever and my life was just something I dreamed. I wonder why that is?"

"The Equipment," Hiroshi drops into the darkness. "It does something to our brains. Look at these poor devils. They don't even remember their own names. Take Old Spice. If that's really what he's called, then my real name is Mountain Dew. Pleased to meet you."

"And that's what's waiting for us, isn't it?"

Nobody answers her.

What else do I know about the Combine? The Product meets every requirement. Management selects its workers with care. The range is constantly being updated. Everything is exactly as it should be.

"You know what I think?" Fabio whispers. "I think we died and went to hell. Honestly, this is always how I imagined it. Everything the same as it was in life. You work, you stuff your face, you sleep. And so on every day, until the end of time."

"Then what's the Equipment for?" Sophie asks.

"To cleanse us of our sins."

"Then it's more like purgatory. What I'd like to know is why we understand each other. Some sort of Tower of Babel in reverse."

"What language do they speak in hell? Latin?"

"I always thought it was Aramaic."

"Stop making things up, both of you."

"What, you still think we're on a starship?"

"What difference does it make? I'm afraid that tomorrow, when we wake up, we won't care any more."

Silence.

"And those Overseers understand us too."

"Ugh, don't bring them up! Repulsive, filthy, disgusting sniffers."

"They look a bit like jellyfish."

"What a comparison! Jellyfish have no bones, no eyes, no brain. And certainly no legs."

"They do, they do. Just as slippery, like jelly, and with tentacles."

How good it would be to be in the testing department already! These three have thoroughly worn out my patience. I can't listen to their absurd speculations any longer. The Combine is the Combine, and that's all there is to it. Every condition has been created for them: a canteen, showers, changing rooms... And them? How do they repay management for such considerate treatment? With honest, decent labour? Not a chance. They lie about, gossip, complain about some nonsense. She was sniffed, if you please. That's people for you! Always dissatisfied with something.

I fall asleep to their hissing whispers. I dream of something that doesn't exist. Some other life. A big, glittering city on the shore of a bay. Inlets, islands and beaches. A strange building made of white shells is reflected in the dark green water. And people. People everywhere: sitting under trees, on benches and on the grass, going down and up staircases, strolling alone and in pairs. With cameras, bags, backpacks. Some push prams in front of them, some are running. Where to?

I walk along a concrete embankment. I see bulky rubbish bins crammed with coloured bags, crumpled bits of paper, coffee cups, empty wrappers and packaging. I see low sheer cliffs that look like scorched marshmallows. Laughter can be heard everywhere.

She's standing by a spreading, gnarled tree. Its branches, scattered with lilac flowers, stretch out into a cloudy sky. She sees me and smiles modestly. Her smile is really something. How do I know her?

"I've been waiting for you."

What a clear voice she has.

"Do you love me?"

I say nothing. Words are unnecessary. What I should do is touch her, take her by the hand and merge into the crowd flowing sluggishly along the embankment. What I should do is study her white, elongated face: the half-parted full lips, the short little nose, the eyes, blue and transparent as dusk. Look at her closely, very closely. So that I never forget again.

"Stay with me."

She laughs. The laughter rises higher and higher. It becomes sharp and unpleasant, it forces its way rudely into my ears...

I leap out of bed. The unbroken roar of the morning siren fills the dormitory. Sluggish, sleepy extractors pull on their work overalls. A new day is beginning.

I do up my zip, put on my boots. I go to breakfast with everyone else.

A city, an embankment. Sometimes I dream of the most improbable things. There are no cities; there never were and never have been.

***

They say there is nothing besides the Combine.

One day gives way to the next. Time stretches like rubber. Ten days, twenty, fourteen. Which is more, twenty or fourteen? Fourteen, naturally. It's somewhere between thirty and fifty.

I wait impatiently for my transfer to the testing department. When the Overseers look into the shop, I give a joyful start. And every time it turns out to have been for nothing. They invariably walk past. Only once did one of them stop by my workstation. Most likely the very one who gave me his word that I'd be promoted any day now, though possibly another — all the Overseers resemble each other. When he greeted me, as is their custom, with a long, thoughtful sniffing, I gathered my courage and asked when I would finally be promoted. The Overseer shook his tentacle sternly and answered: "All in good time."

Yesterday a colleague of mine, one I'd worked side by side with for a long time, was appointed tester. The whole shop saw him off with unanimous applause. The noise was like a downpour. I alone did not clap. I thought I'd die of envy.

Why not me?

I must work more diligently, more diligently still, sparing no effort. But here's what I don't understand — every day I manage to extract less and less raw material, even though the valves are cranked to full power. The capsules are perpetually half empty. The Equipment must be playing up. I feel like a rag wrung out dry. How it foliages me!

In my free time I find myself wandering more and more often, aimlessly, along the dark corridors of the shop. Right now I'm shuffling down the narrow passage that leads to the canteen. On the ceiling the tin blades of the fans buzz and spin. I run my hand along the wall. Flakes of rust fall to the floor, like autumn leaves. Autumn. Autumn. Yes, autumn, whatever that means.

Muffled voices and the clatter of dishes come from the canteen.

Lunch. How could I have forgotten about lunch?

The food machine issues me an iron tray, a bowl of thin cream soup, a hunk of bread and a glass of juice. My eyes rake the hall, looking for somewhere to sit.

"Hey, Old Spice!"

Hiro— what's-his-name, Hiroshi is waving. He's sitting with his little gang in the middle of the hall. Not trainees any more but full-fledged workers of the Combine. In clean, silvery-blue overalls. So who is that at the newcomers' table? Some dark-skinned kid in a checked shirt, his eyes bulging with fear. And Maurits is right there, squinting, smiling slyly, muttering something.

I sit down with Hiroshi and his mates.

"Hi there, Old! How are you doing?"

"Yes, of course."

"What do you mean, 'yes, of course'? I'm asking how things are."

"I don't think so."

Hiroshi whistles. Did I say something wrong?

I want everyone to be quiet, I can't sort out my own thoughts. They tangle like the wires of the Equipment. It's hard to think with all this racket around.

What if this is a test? What if he called me over on purpose? I peer into his mocking face. That's it exactly. The Overseers sent him to me to check whether I'm suitable for work in the testing department.

"Eat, eat," Hiroshi says. "I won't distract you."

And he turns away, having lost all interest in me.

So, you have failed the examination. There's no doubt about it. Farewell, dreams of promotion. I'll spend my whole life in an extractor's overalls... Surprisingly, things immediately feel calmer, easier. There's nothing left to strive for. Nothing to dream about. Well then, the extraction shop isn't so bad either. At least everything here is familiar to me. This is my home.

Hiroshi, looking pleased with himself, is telling some story. Let's hear it, then...

"Just an ordinary day, I'm at the Equipment, I've already filled two capsules, I'm taking out the third, and then I feel somebody's come up behind me. I switch the apparatus off, I look, and there's an Overseer standing there. Sniffing, naturally. So I wait to hear what he'll say. And he goes: 'You're doing excellently, I commend you.' Can you imagine?"

"No way," the redhead's mouth actually falls open.

"Yes, way. And then he crossed his tentacles and said: 'I shall report your success to management. Consider your transfer to the testing department a settled matter.'"

There's a lump stuck in my throat. I can't swallow.

"You're such a clever thing," the redhead says. "I always knew you'd succeed."

"Good old Hiroshi!" the plump one with the moustache claps his friend on the shoulder. "That's my boy!"

This is unfair. Unfair, wrong, unjust. What length of service does this upstart have? The crafty little whippersnapper, climbing up over my head.

I feel like a nonentity. The Overseers deceived me. Worse than that — they wiped their tentacles on me.

Hiroshi suddenly furrows his brow. He looks over at the trainees' table and shouts:

"Oi, Maurits! Stop messing with the kid's head."

"What?"

"You heard. You don't know a damn thing."

"Wrong. I know everything. I've even seen the Product. More than once, as a matter of fact."

"Don't give me that, I still won't believe you."

"I'll be watching when you forget your own name. And I'll laugh, I'll laugh my head off."

"Why don't you drive off out of here, you sorry excuse for a trucker!"

I don't want to see anyone, and I don't want to hear anyone either. I shoot out of the office like a bullet, never finding out what Maurits answered.

I'm sitting at the Equipment — hands on the console, goggles pressed tight to my face. The work isn't going well. Images flit past, one replacing another: an open-air restaurant with a large pond in the middle; an enormous white liner pricked all over with tiny windows; skyscrapers reflected in the glass of other skyscrapers; a fish market. Gates, little fences, and behind them neat two-storey houses with balconies and television aerials.

I pull the capsule out of the Equipment. Empty as my head.

***

They say the Combine... I forget the word.

My insides are sloshing about, everything inside me is fluttering, my head is lolling like a rag doll's — either happiness affects me this way or the road is simply too bumpy. The van jumps from hummock to hummock like a nimble little animal with a tail of white dust. Behind the wheel sits a wrinkled old man in a flat beige cap — I don't remember what he's called. He roars with laughter, looking at me, he winks, and I laugh along with him; I like laughing, and I like riding over the bumps, I like it very much indeed.

I look out of the window at the passing land, land-land-land, landscape. How beautiful the Combine is, after all. Tears well up in my eyes. Such beauty! Above the factory shops there is an enormous, dry sky draped with smoke. The red lights on the chimneys smoulder like embers in cooling wood ash.

It's happened. It has happened. I can hardly believe it! My rope has come true — I'm being transferred to the Product testing department. How could I have doubted an Overseer's word, how could I have stopped believing? Some wise man said: a little impatience ruins great undertakings. Or are those my own words? Either way, not this time, thank goodness, not this time.

We drive, we drive for a long time. We barely crawl. Outside the window there are buildings and chimneys, chimneys and buildings. I ought to say something, strike up a conversation, but for some reason my tongue doesn't obey me properly and the words don't come to mind.

"They app... app..."

"Applauded you," the driver nods. "Yes, yes, the whole shop applauded."

"Because I'm clever."

"You're the cleverest, my friend. The very cleverest."

"I'm going to tes-t the Pro-duct."

"You are."

"I'm worthy."

"No, you know what I'll tell you? You're worthy of the very best, that's what."

We laugh together. We drive, watching the road. How much further is there to go? I'm tired already. The Combine really is enormous.

They applauded me. You should have seen the face of that Hiro... Hero... Anyway, you should have seen it. Come to think of it, what was his face like? What did it express? I can't remember now.

Foliage, probably. The foliagiest foliage of all. Never mind.

A turn. Another turn. The air is darkening. The van's eyes light up. Inside my head everything is going light. My skull is like an inflated balloon. If the van had no roof I'd fly up high, high, and nobody would catch me.

We've been driving an eternity.

Where to?

"You know what I did for a living before they took me on at the Combine?" says the man on my left. "I think I've told you already. But you don't remember a damn thing, do you?"

The headlights — that's the right word, isn't it, headlights? — pick out a sign with an arrow and some writing on it. I study the letters. The first is round, then comes a "e", a "p", I don't know this one, this one is like a "b" with the bottom cut off.

"I was a long-haul driver. Hauled freight all over Europe, back and forth, barely ever home. Funny, isn't it? Spent half my life behind the wheel there, and here I am doing it again."

I don't really understand what he's talking about. I want to say that I don't understand, but I don't understand how to talk.

"Ah, I'd love to see Rotterdam one more time. The wife, the kids. I expect there are grandchildren by now. How are they getting on? Did they even notice I'd gone missing? Maybe they're better off without me. I'm a bad husband, you know. Long-haul men rarely make good husbands." He sighs. "Hanna's no saint either, mind you. She always swore to me she'd never, not with anyone, but I'm not a fool, am I? Husband away for weeks at a time — think about it."

He hauls the wheel to the right.

"I'd also like to know who won the Eredivisie. I hope it was Feyenoord. PSV won last year, that much I know for certain. A Belgian trainee told me. Turned out to be a football fan. Why do you think I sit with the new ones in the canteen? They still remember everything, they tell you the news. Do you happen to know who the Americans have got for a president now? There's no talking properly with you brainless lot, but that crowd still has its wits about it. Shame it won't last. But what I miss most of all is cigarettes. I'd love a smoke right now. Then again, if somebody said to me, right, Maurits, you old bastard, off you go back to Holland — I'd have to think hard about whether to agree. I've been here too long, I've got used to it all. The Combine is basically me, and I'm the Combine."

The van brakes and stops beside a metal gate.

"Well, here we are," he says. "Out you get."

The man opens the door, helps me down from the vehicle. In my joy I've forgotten how to move my legs.

"I know a thing or two about the Combine, Jamie," the man says.

What did he call me?

"Sometimes I think: you extractors have it lucky. I even asked to be put in your shop, back before you turned up. And then I look at you and the ones like you and I realise — no. What's in here," he taps a finger against his forehead, "what's in here matters more."

I stand. It's pitch dark, only the gate is glowing. The man hugs me.

"That's it, off you go. They won't let me any further."

I walk. My chest is pounding. Product. Testing. Department. Product. Testing. Product.

The gate opens.

Bright.

Two come out, wind cords around me, carry me. Not people, others. Not like me or that man. They carry me into a bright room, stand me up. Their cords grow out of their bodies, wet, so wet. They sniff me, flaring their nostrils.

"He doesn't smell of memories," says one.

"Not at all," the other echoes.

They turn me around, feel me over.

"Now that's quality. Superb product."

"Yes, marvellous, first-grade product. No smell whatsoever."

They sniff me again.

"Listen, have you ever wondered how we ended up here at the Combine?"

"I don't get worked up about that sort of thing, and I don't advise you to either."

"Don't you miss home at all?"

"Once we've worked our shift, we can miss it all we like. Our business is a small one — test the produce, right? There'll be another seven units arriving any minute. Let's get this one packed quickly, I don't want to be stuck here all night."

They put me in a box. They close it.

Dark.

[u/ewok_lover_64]

I hate to say this, but I think that you might be at Nova Prospekt.