31
Never Enough

The hyperloop picked up the pace as the airlock shot it through its clear cannon towards the next stop.

“Sorry for such late notice. I just feel that this is urgent.”

“No matter, Irene.” The butler leaned back on the felt seat. “I’m kinda free anyway, it’s alright.”

The cabin darkened as the train crosses through a skyscraper where the tube is built through. The air pumps and the counter engines began firing and the train slowed as it pulled into level eleven of the complex. The door opens, and Luna watched as the exchange of commuters interrupted the quiet peace broken just a few seconds ago.

Irene spun open the cap of her canteen and set it off to the panel to have it refilled at the click of a button. The sun streamed at her as it bounced off the glass panes of the autos passing the interstate in front of them, down below.

“You sure your, um, master wouldn’t be mad at you, Luna?”

“She understands it. I’m only told that much. You gotta work around it.” The butler’s eyes sank to the floor.

“I have no connection to your life in New York. You can tell me. Is there something?”

“It’s okay, I—“

“I owe you and Kayla.” The eyes drifted towards the window. “Would you like to bestow me the honor? Maybe we can talk you out of your own dilemma.”

Luna stared at the floor to her right, eyes blinking, and her face faded.

“All your life you had to serve someone else with nothing for yourself. Some guy like me will never understand this. I just don’t get it.”

Irene sighed, she rose an inch and slumped back onto the chair. 

“I mean, Kayla is with the couple. They can handle it.”

“It shouldn’t be them. It should be me.”

“They’re paid, of course. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

“How much were they paid? It’s never enough, is it?” Neurons were firing inside her head.

“Somewhere in the ballpark of 15— ‘It’s never enough.’ Come on.” Irene scoffed. “There has to be some point of enough. I just don’t get the point of hoarding that much— You’re not gonna spend it all, are you?”

“Hmm. I’m not sure I’m qualified to speak on that.”

“You’re just a student that rolled a seven. And so was she.”

Luna pulled out her old phone to try a catch a signal that was long obsolete. Her attention was all over the place.

“Is this what it was like back then? You people driving your manual cars, snubbing over everyone?”

“I’m… I’m sorry.” Luna shuffled her phone back inside her pocket. 

“No, it’s my fault— it’s true.” Irene’s eyes peered and scanned the rest of the train before speaking again. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up. I kinda figured something out when you guys had meals delivered every day.”

“This isn’t meant to be anything.”

“Please, Luna. I already said it’s not you. It’s me.” Irene looked at her intently. Luna’s eyes scurried away.

“Alright.”

“I never quite understood a lot of things. We had this small light pen that draws some light trails that I had to share with four other people. Played a little bit of Tic-Tac-Toe. Then we got a copy of Hot Button that’s two years old from that Goodwill down the street. We had fun. Played it all day because we wanted something to pass the time.”

“Those days were surely better.”

“It was. No responsibilities, no nothing. We live however we can. Sometimes some rich guy rolls in with his fancy head-mounted tracker and looks at us like we are something lesser than him. Got things we can only dream of. Eating things we’ll be lucky to have on our own birthdays because their food is three days worth of work for my parents.”

“What’s the inflation like?”

“Used to be around five hundred a day, but it has crossed a thousand a few years ago. So count that as around fifteen hundred. Used to hate them to the bone, but I feel different now.” Irene flicked her hair back. “It’s a different world, certainly. And for you, I know.”

“Kayla had to suffer a crashed plane. I had to follow along. Everyone has something to worry about. I don’t think the problems is certainly going to, you know, magically solve themselves, even if you get up there.”

“A few years ago I stopped blaming people like Kayla. Or anyone really. Just simple ’survival at the fittest’. Of course if I could do it— and I am very satisfied with what I have done for now— I would have.”

“You chased a dream, Irene. A lot of people don’t have the luxury of doing that.”

“You never forgot where you came from.” This seemed to elicit a smile from Irene. “I always thought it was just me clinging to my own past. I don’t know anymore.”

“It’s luck that I had some interest and then I saw the listing, and they liked me, and it went from there. It’s luck.”

“Yeah. Luck. It came way too late for me. Maybe I’m not destined to be you, or Kayla, or someone like you both. Life can go on, with or without it, right?”

“I would have probably just played on my launchpad that I bought when I was in middle school and be set with it. Never thought about the money, honestly thought it was some unpaid internship before they fly me off to Switzerland or some place else. Now they put my brother through college, and moved my family into our own castle.”

“That’s why I stopped. No one can control anything.” Irene shook her head and chuckled to herself. “Everyone’s essentially a victim of circumstance.”