Manchester

"Dr. Kemp, I advise you to increase your funds, for it will benefit both of us."

A calm voice from the other side of the speakerphone reverberates across the room, with a neutral calmness emanating from the woman's voice.

In the doctor's office on the far side of the east wing of the building, Dr. Herbert Kemp adjusts his glasses as he contemplates his subsequent decisions. He takes a deep breath and then slowly nods his head in agreement as he responds with an affirmative. "I have spoken with Mr. Riggins regarding this matter. He has agreed that we should move forward with further funding until my funds begin to dwindle. As long as we keep paying Mr. Riggins, that is."

"Yes, indeed. That is correct." Mrs. Jenkins' voice is gentle and reassuring. Her tone reminds Herbert of when he first began working at the facility. It was during one of his initial visits to talk about their current financial situation before the company's board meeting.

The man breathes out a sigh of relief.

After the call, Dr. Kemp decides to go home early.

He walks down the hallway of the East Wing, which is deserted at this hour. The halls are eerily quiet save for the soft creak of rubber soles on the linoleum floor as he goes through each door of the empty hallways. There's nothing but darkness ahead of him. He tiptoes, not letting any noise leak into the corridor behind him. Not even the occasional sound of footsteps can be heard in the vast silence.

It is nearly midnight when Herbert makes it back to his flat. When he enters, he sees Eleanor curled up on his sofa, sleeping soundly. She's holding her Laboratory Manual as she sleeps. For someone who doesn't like reading much, she sure seems to be interested in what is in this book.

Herbert slips off his shoes and walks past her as quietly as possible. She's come home early from her job in the hospital. He sits on a wooden chair near the kitchen counter where the kettle sits, waiting to boil water. With all that happened yesterday, he's exhausted. He falls asleep on the wooden bench in front of the kitchen table. A moment later, the kettle whistles loudly as steam rises from its spout, waking Herbert.

He sits up and turns off the stove. He looks at the couch and sees Eleanor writing in the Lab Manual. He thinks for a moment as he watches her read through the pages and then goes to the fridge. Opening it, he grabs his favorite bottle of beer. He unscrews the cap, twists off the top, and then pours himself a large glass.

The phone on the wall starts ringing.

He glances at the clock as he downs half his beer and sets the mug down. It's only 8 o'clock. If Eleanor were awake, she would have already answered it by now.

She must think he's gone somewhere because she closes the textbook and stands up, placing the pencil she had been using into her lap.

Before he could walk up to the phone and answer it, Eleanor seemingly teleported to it.

"Hello?" Eleanor speaks on the telephone, asking the caller from the other side about their identity. It takes seconds to register before Herbert realizes the call was meant for him. The unprecedented horror in his eyes cannot be hidden from the confused Eleanor as she looks at him quizzically.

"Who is this woman?"

The caller's shrill voice can be heard from the telephone, almost like a siren stabbing the soft eardrum of a newborn baby. The phone was instinctively dropped as Herbert scrambled his lazy ass to run toward the dropped telephone.

"I was going to ask you where your funds are going, but you are playing around with a girl!"

The mature voice of the woman floats around the room, making Eleanor scratch her nape uncontrollably. She sighs and walks away to her room before shutting the door.

He sighs audibly. He needs to keep his ventures a secret lest his mother grows disappointed in him.

"The money deducted from the account is for… office supplies!"

His chest tightens as he knows this feeling all too well: lacking.

"Guess what. Your youngest brother got a medal at school today. Unlike you, you never brought home any medals from your college."

As much as Herbert wants to refute his mother, he can hear the genuine happiness in her voice, making him give up on that idea. Her joy is essential to him, which is why he worked so hard in the first place. He has no right to talk too hard to his mother.

"Yes, mommy, I get it. At least I graduated now, and I'm working now. I'll be sure to work hard to repay your retirement."

He waits a moment for her reply.

"It's good that you still remember how to address your mom. Also, are you free on the weekends?"

Herbert gets his bag and shuffles around his files, flipping them one by one until he comes across his calendar. He looks at the calendar. Tracing his fingers across the small boxes with the date numbers, it lands on the weekends. He sees that he has two appointments on that day.

"Uhh, sure, mommy, I'm free at the weekends…" he says tentatively.

"Ok! See me in France; oh, and by the way, bring the little girl with you!" the telephone is abruptly hung up.

Herbert sighs. He puts the telephone back on its socket. He walks back to the couch, slumping into the rigid foam and reaching for the TV remote before opening it up. The news channel is reduced to mindless white noise as he contemplates his life up to this point.

Herbert looks to the hall as a door swings open. Eleanor walks out in her elephant-themed pajamas and a bag of crisps in her hand. She plops down beside him on the couch and opens up the bag. Almost like clockwork, Herbert grabs a bowl from under the coffee table in front of the sofa.

He pulls the table closer to the couch until Eleanor can reach it with her hands as she violently dispenses the crisps into the unwashed bowl. She grabs a crisp and puts it in her mouth, chewing it audibly.

"So, bro-bro. What was that?" She asks.

She grabs her bag from the floor and pulls out a book. Opening the Laboratory Manual up to the middle, she starts answering the manual. Herbert holds some crisps and eats some. Eleanor's eyes twitch, but she shares the bowl of crisps.

"Just… Something. Hey… Can I ask you something?"

"Ask away, bro."

Herbert sighs as he grabs another handful of crisps and downs it in his mouth. The weather is getting colder and colder, and the heating is shit right now. The energy crisis can go fuck itself. He changes the channel on the TV to another channel.

"My mom wants to see me this weekend. Can you come with me?"

Eleanor looks straight at him quizzically. She closes her Laboratory Manual and puts it away. She puts a hand on his left shoulder.

"But we've got stuff to do on the weekends, remember? We have to meet a person."

"My mother wants to meet me. We can finish up early and go." He says as he eats another handful of chips.

"Hey! Those are my chips!" Eleanor grabs the bowl and puts it on the side arm of the couch.

"So, are you going with me?" Herbert sighs.

"You're lucky you're my friend." Eleanor rolls her eyes and grabs the bowl and her manual as she saunters to her room. 'I'm lucky indeed.' Herbert sighs. He turns off the television and stands up. He enters his room and goes straight to sleep.

The night feels long and cold, and his body shivers audibly and to the bone. The cold is being felt in this faraway city as the winter closes in. The windows fog up until you can no longer see the city outside. The city bellows smoke as nighttime begins, and a rhythmic humming permeates.

As if it's a beating heart, it chugs through the night, giving the city life it desperately needs. A dystopia that has no more remedy as the city churns with the help of the night workers. It is the same for almost 90,000 souls living in the city and the nearly 7 million in the burgeoning nation.

The mornings are not better off since the cold is just terrible. It seeps into your skin until your shoulders ache, and your nipples stay erect until they resemble icicles on the edge of the branches of trees. At six in the morning sharp, the occupants in the building sit up on their beds.

The warplanes flying above wake the city, the hums that lulled them to sleep the night before ceasing to exist as if it is merely a figment of imagination—no longer noticed as it's happened oh so often.

The mornings are a reset for the schedules of many.

After trudging along for three more days, the weekends finally arrive, providing respite for the toil within the city. Men disappear daily from the streets, and some will never be seen again. Sectarian violence and many brawls also occur in obscure parts of the city.

Herbert drapes his coat on the couch and walks towards Eleanor's room. He knocks lightly, careful not to be too loud to disturb her room's ambiance. After a while, he could hear a shuffling, soft thump on the floor and the doorknob turning to reveal a prim Eleanor. Well, as stuffy as she could be anyway.

The left strap on her top hangs loose on her shoulder as she walks out like a zombie. She sits on the couch, the coat falling to the floor.

"So, you've got a good reason to wake me up?" she asks as she reaches for her go-to crisps, only to find them missing.

"I was just planning to tell you about our travel plans tomorrow." Herbert sighs.

"Can we buy new tapes in France?" she asks; she seems to gain energy for a moment.

"Like, music?" he asks. She deflates as she sighs.

"I've only one, and this thing is good, but I want a new one for keeping."

"I have this song stuck in my head…" Herbert says, sitting next to her.

"Me too! Well, since I only have one. It's about Kenyon Atkins."

"Isn't that the serial killer, Atkins? The one that makes the human dolls? Why do you listen to that stuff?" he asks.

"I know, I know. I'm pretty sick, am I?" she giggles, jabbing him with her elbows.

"I saw the documentary on TV. It's one of the rare good ones the Government is providing." He sighs.

"Ever since it started, entertainment and everything related to it is suffering." Eleanor stands up to open the cupboard. After scouring over the blocks of cheese and preserved bread within it, she stops momentarily after not finding what she's looking for.

"Where the fuck are the crisps!?"

The Next Day...

The bags of important stuff has been packed. Both are wearing their dull-colored coats as they step out of the apartment building. Passing by the rusty pipes, the damp streets, and the uneven pavements, they slowly reach the edge of the City of 90 thousand.

It takes quite some time as, by the time they've arrived at a place where they can see expansive grass fields outside the city, it's already noon. Eleanor's stomach starts to rumble as they walk along the main street.

"Want to stop at a food place?" Herbert looks at her.

She slowly nods. "Bread and cheese is not a good daily meal."

Entering the pub, they walk towards the bar to see the weary pub owner sitting on a rocking chair. His lifestyle causes him to look shriveled up and dry, like an old raisin. As they both walk forward, the pub owner scrambles to his feet and starts to wipe a glass from the shelf.

He makes himself look busy as the two guests sit on stools. Herbert takes his wallet from his pocket, and his leave papers fall out. He bends down to pick it up when another man enters the pub. A scraggly man with an unkept mustache goes forward and takes a seat, his shirt almost torn to shreds.

He flags the owner to give him the town's best… Watered down spirits.

"This is shit!" The man sputters, unable to accept this country's poor beverage quality.

Eleanor smiles politely as she waits for her drink, and the guy, with his back on her, doesn't even acknowledge that she is there. She takes the menu and looks at the prices of most of the dishes. Her mind wanders somewhere else.

"I heard the city's economy sucks."

"What?" the man replies.

"I heard the city has gotten hit hard. There aren't many people here anymore."

"Yeah… They say the government is bankrupt now." He chuckles.

"Yeah, yeah," she responds.

Herbert nudges her on her shoulder. "What the hell are you doing? Why are you talking to him?" he whispers in her ear.

"Relax, I know what I'm doing." She whispers back.

"No, no, you don't know what you're doing," Herbert replies, raising his voice. "He might not have anything nice to say to you. You're crazy!"

"Oh, please," Eleanor laughs. "Don't tell me you care?"

Herbert sighs, frustrated. "Look… you shouldn't waste your effort. What did you think this trip would be like?"

"I don't know what you mean." Eleanor frowns slightly and sips on her whiskey.

"It's nothing. I thought you would talk about something more than your studies. Look, you've even brought your Laboratory Manual with you."

He gestures to the black book lying next to her on the counter.

"I wanted to get some inspiration," Eleanor smirks.

"For what?! To work on your thesis?!"

"Hey!" the girl raises her voice to defend herself.

"Well, I'm... I need to focus on my studies," she finally says.

"This trip's going to take a month, Eleanor; I want you to relax for once. You've been working on that every day for the year; we've both got the job!" Herbert sighs.

She stares daggers at him, "You need to grow up! I've spent this whole damn summer getting ready for this project. You don't even realize how important this is!"

"What if you don't make it?" he retorts.

"Then what?" she yells, "You're supposed to be my friend..." she says in a depressed tone.

Herbert sighs. "Ok, ok. I'll support you. I just… I want you to take a break sometime."

Eleanor nods in understanding and then glances around the pub. The pub patrons look away as they whisper among themselves.

"All right then," Eleanor smiles weakly. She takes a deep breath, calming herself. "Let's start eating. You know, maybe try a few different things?"