Val seethed. "You do you. But it's what I felt when I'm with her. You can blame me however you wish. And I don't ask for your forgiveness. I'd figure this out somehow."
Felt? He spoke in past tense. Didn't it mean he no longer had the same affection for Aluna?
Now it was Stephanie's turn to boil under her rage. Everything they had worked for was at stake for a summer fling of his.
Ah, the old age argument of being free to love. Where was his moral compass again? Oops, she meant a moral roulette?
"Homewrecking is where I draw the line, Val, even more so to have the said person as an outstanding board member of this freaking company and my co-founder! It's not that I'm stuck up and prudish. It's . . . How do you sleep at night knowing you taint our painstaking efforts, of safe houses, of research, of networking?"
Outside, the curfew almost fell.
Inside the Prattle's office, Val's face also fell.
"Then remove me from Prattle's portfolio."
~*~
The following days and nights saw Stephanie hunched over her laptop when she was not visiting clients. Working alone at Prattle's office or at home, she knew she couldn't win the race against the clock. The priorities had been set: safe house first, living allowance however elusive it would be, later.
Mark, knowing she would be aggravated if he nagged her incessantly, only nudged her once today. He tried an angle of persuading her into having a normal friendship.
She rubbed her eyes tiredly, "Nobody is having a normal friendship here. Any real friendship has gone with three-quarters of humanity." Clearly, Mark's personality didn't grow to a full adult capacity after he was detained. Realising her rudeness five seconds later, she muttered an apology.
Why was it that she became ruder when under pressure? She needed to work on this, she reminded herself. Sharp words only hurt the relationships, gave temporary satisfaction, but ruining the future harmony between people.
"—but it appears to me that you overwork yourself to solve someone else's problem. And I want to be there for you."
Her selective hearing had to distort the message. "I don't do it for Val. It's for Aluna, her business with Val doesn't eclipse her real need for a safe house. And for Lila. People who need it the most. And a lot of other spouses, because it's not only women who are domestically abused, men can be victims, too. I want a system where they can sustain their life. Having a safe place away from the home-prison is not enough if they don't have access to wealth."
"You mean, they're living in a financial dependency? Is that what it means when my mother used to say she didn't want to go because of the children?"
Stephanie leaned her chin on her fist, staring at her laptop screen from her bolted flat, hopefully that wretched son of her client wouldn't barge in demanding her head to roll. "Your mother said it? You heard it?"
His video lagged microseconds from his voice, so he turned it off. "To a lady friend. Maybe a neighbour. I wasn't really sure back then, just old enough to understand the context of their conversation."
"No child deserves to hear that."
Whether 'that' was the reason the parent had to stay was them, or that the bad relationship in general had to happen, Stephanie was unsure.
"If there's one thing I learned from this pandemic, it's that power never ceases to allure people to exercise it wrongly. I thought once we have a common enemy, we cast our differences aside and work towards the common goal. But some people are too opportunistic, some are so blinded that they couldn't bury the rift between them. Some are still beating their family members with hands or words. Some, like the Lawless, still spread unnecessary fire so we never have enough peace to restart. I just . . . I don't know how civilisation so chaotic like this deserves millennia of development. To inherit this freaking earth."
Mark saw her from his eagle eyes. Even via the video call, Stephanie was shy under his penetrating gaze. "You alright?"
She didn't know the answer to that simple question of her wellbeing. What an irony of someone who proposed the care of people's wellbeing in front of the Department of Wellbeing team.
Stephanie rose from her slump. "God . . . is it almost the curfew already?"
"Not for another half an hour. I can run to your place and stay there tonight."
If she felt defenceless walking down the path to home, and even when she was at home, nobody wouldn't need to know.
If she okayed Mark's plea to let him guard her flat tonight in her vulnerable state, only Mark could know.
~*~
Morning saw her staring at her now sleep laptop screen. Her fingers twitched, an involuntary response after burning the midnight oil to draft out the support plan. The safe house readiness had to be expedited, so she arranged a few calls with the Department of Wellbeing hours earlier. She didn't mention the client's name, though, for fear complicating the situation.
She checked the digital clock while massaging her sore shoulders after a few hours of uncomfortable dosing position.
A body-shaped dent formed across her sofa looked new and still felt warm to the touch. Mark hadn't left her house, probably?
She found the man standing in her kitchen, helping himself with a cup of coffee.
"It's stale. I'm sorry," she spoke huskily that early morning.
Mark bristled like a cat, but quickly turned around to face his host.
"I must've made you awake."
"No, no, I'm okay. I woke up because it was uncomfortable."
"I saw you typing all night but it's not my place to ask you to go to bed. Nobody likes to be asked to go to bed anyway."
Stephanie understood the subtle reference of a controlling environment in prison. She came closer, rubbing Mark's arm.
Since when did she turn tactile, by the way?
"You alright?"
He nodded, looking at a spoonful of instant coffee on the bottom of his cup. "I'm gonna move to the next unit if that's okay with you."
When Stephanie still kept her tongue tied, Mark misunderstood that as defeat. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, "I'm not your client anymore, am I? You're obliged to help me for a few days. But it's been weeks and if we want to start a proper friendship, nobody bats an eye."
"What is it that you want?" She was surprised at her own words.
He palmed his face. "I don't have many friends. I don't have a real friend where someone didn't beat me first before sharing some secrets with me. The world is changing around me, but you said it yourself that we're social beings, and that's the purpose of your companionship programme, right?"
Words failed to come out of her mouth. Her mind flew to Val and Aluna.
"It's gonna bring more pain. To have a friendship with me, that is. Please don't do this."
Because you don't know what a pain in the arse I was, died before spoken.
When the rays of dawn sun graced her flat with the soft beginning of the day, she let Mark go without any more explanation. She forgot she was dealing with a 20-year-old youth trapped in a 40-year-old man's body. She forgot she ruptured his delicate feeling with rejection.
So Mark left, holding frustration and anger within. But most importantly, confusion. If his own Companion didn't want to turn into his friend, why would anyone else? What did he do wrong? With two decades behind bars and just recent years more social exposure, how could they expect him to know the social cues on picking up friends?
~*~
The Department of Wellbeing Jakarta office was not properly maintained like anywhere in the world. At least from what she knew from newsletter to Immune-maintained companies.
"Look, Stephanie, we don't have any money to support this proposal. We have safe houses, yes, but that's because some of the people here have extra assets that we're willing to donate for you guys to use. Because let's face it, nobody has the buying power anymore, as if we've got people to buy houses anyway. But about money, the liquid cash itself, we don't have it."
Alright, here we go, she thought. Living from one place to another during the jobless period forced her to discard a thin face. "But we've got money to spare."
The Wellbeing Companionship programme director's eyebrows rose until almost touched his hairline.
Shameless thinking, coming from a grave-robber mentality that Mark ever criticised her with, sprung into an even more incorrigible proposal this morning, sometime before 2am. "Deceased people's bank accounts. Corporate accounts. A lot of accounts with the names on the statement that can't withdraw the money anymore."
She thought she had unlocked the newest low. Not only did she rob empty houses, but now she proposed to a government official her crazy plan to ransack dead people's money.
"We can't."
Stephanie imagined gears running behind his skull, had underestimated how brazen this lady could be, and now gulped after such a daring proposition.
"It's not that I'm immoral, Sir. It's—"
He lifted his hand to stop her from talking. "I know, I know. Technically, the money goes to the next of kin or designated beneficiaries. But I've seen the banks, the remaining employees at least, going back and forth to track this money and the names. And they gave up."
"Indeed. Interest rates keep running, right? The computers don't know that we've lost three-quarters of humanity. The system wasn't built with that capabilities. Besides, it doesn't care anyway."
"But the stock market crashed."
"Yeah, no one's trading anymore. But the money is still there. Banks can close some accounts, I think, if they're at default. But no one knocks on people's doors to collect debts. It's a dead asset. Ninety per cent, Sir. Banks create money with only ten per cent at the reserve, but no one utilises this."
"There was a talk like this a year ago."
"Yeah? So why didn't the initiative run?"
"It's deeply unethical."
"I just wanna help those in need."
"You don't strike me as a type without a moral compass."
"I do have it. But moral compasses vary. Some compasses want people to procreate to inhabit the earth back. Some others see the problem in a more humane way." And some are roulette wheels, she swallowed her words before even leaving her pretty mouth. Pretty foul.
"And you're the latter."
"Sir, the money isn't for me. But I've read about a social cushion, it's like a safety net for people who don't earn so they can still be supported."
"That's what we're doing. What do you think food stamps or rations are for?"
"For food. What about other needs?"
"We're working towards it. Besides, what might your clients possibly need other than food and a roof? It's not like they're gallivanting with jobs, anyway."
"That's why it isn't sustainable, right? There are businesses that can be done from home. But they need capitals, upfront. Say, you want the economy to resume to where it was before? But that doesn't happen because there's no money to consume. Nobody's going to produce. No creativity. No trades."
"People don't need such capitals, Ma'am. They need food, houses, and yes, we provide them. Repatriation and such. But let's not waste our breath on businesses."
"You need to bail us out. Bail your people out like you did for big corps. You make supply depots and all hubs and pay the Immune like Mark—"
"Who is Mark?"
Ah, her emotion got the best of her at the wrong time. She halfheartedly expected the verbal match ended with more questions to be answered at a later time. After a few days of staying late, it was hard to stay bright. "My client. Inmate reintegration. So, you pay Mark and all the other Immune people, but that solves only half of the problems. Our other clients . . . they're stuck with their abusive spouses at home with not even a single penny under their name."
"You'll move them to the safe house next week. We'll provide the rations and such. What is the problem again?"
Outside, some staff rearranged new desks on the open floor plan. Coming Memorial Day, more reinforcement was expected to stand by at each department's office. Council's order. Global leadership from Den Haag's order. Could she bring the problem outside to this cold, decent office to taint the efficient way of their work? People suffered in silence.
"That's how abuse works, isn't it? Taking choices away from leading one's own life. They won't be able to support themselves, because how sustainable is it your giving away the food stamps?"
"Since when did the Companions talk about the economy?"
"Since we put it in the silo. Economic problems are always joined at the hip with how we are as a society, and by that extension, a Companion's job."
If Val were here, he had to need to slap Stephanie in the head. How audacious it was to acknowledge the problems with the economy was within Prattle's authority?
But there was no dignity to save anymore. Seeing the officer frown on his forehead but stay silent, she went on. "Please, Sir. We can't afford to be short-sighted. Not with what these past three years have taught us."
"So, this safety net, this is for everyone?"
"That's why I came here in the first place."
Stephanie ran out of arguments and the programme director didn't rebut her last statement.
Finally, "It's above my paygrade, to be frank. Go to the Commerce people, after crunching some numbers."