Page 38 of The Dream Hotel

N ext evening. Sara and Toya linger by the cubbies in the locker room, under the sign that says This Property Is Subject to Inspection Without Notice . The air is stale, the smell getting stronger with each garment Alice takes off. Her sweater, her pants, her headwrap pool at her feet. She has just returned from the hospital, where she was treated for complications from the virus and told she needed to rest, but eager to keep up her good score she worked a twelve-hour shift today. They have cornered her here, where they can talk undisturbed.

“You’re saying she was a snitch?” Alice asks.

“Not a snitch,” Sara replies, with a glance at Toya. The revelation about Julie Renstrom has given them an unexpected edge; they intend to use it. They spent the day strategizing, debating whom to approach, and how, and when. Alice Carter was first on their minds; she’s been at Madison for more than a year and in that time has shown herself to be a kindred spirit. “Or not exactly a snitch. She’s a scientist who worked for DI. Works for them still, according to her profile.”

“So she was, like, watching us?” Alice asks. Isn’t that what the implant does, her tone suggests, and the Guardian cameras, and the temperature sensors, and the attendants. What difference does it make if there’s one more person watching?

“But she was doing it in secret,” Toya insists. “She had no reason to watch us in secret, right? Not with all the data they already collect. My guess is, she was testing something on us. Like we’re goddamn guinea pigs.”

Sara is still mad at herself for not realizing this sooner. She watched Julie Renstrom come and go for three weeks, and yet she didn’t really see her. Or she saw only the parts that she was meant to see. Had it not been for an email slipup, the veil might never have been lifted from her eyes. “And if they sent her here,” Sara says, a thought suddenly crystallizing in her mind, “then they probably sent others before her. For all we know, there might be another one here right now.”

Alice checks that her shampoo is in her toiletry bag, then zippers it up. “That’s crazy.”

Not crazy, Sara thinks. In fact, it’s the opposite of crazy; it’s the parasitic logic of profit, which has wormed its way so deeply into the collective mind that to defy lucre is to mark oneself as a radical, or a criminal, or a lunatic. Entire generations have never known life without surveillance. Watched from the womb to the grave, they take corporate ownership of their personal data to be a fact of life, as natural as leaves growing on trees. Detaining someone because of their dreams doesn’t exactly trouble Americans; most of them think that the RAA’s methods are necessary. Blowing the whistle on Dreamsaver Inc.’s illegal behavior might make headlines, might even cause a scandal, but that doesn’t mean it will change anything for retainees, or at least not for those in the locker room right now. They can’t afford to wait for other people to save them. “That’s why we have to strike,” Sara continues. “Enough is enough.”

Alice wraps herself in her towel and starts toward the showers.

Sara puts a hand on her arm. “How about it?” she asks, hoping for a sign, however small, that they’re getting through to Alice. She tries flattery. “A lot of people look up to you, and if you join us, maybe they will, too.”

“You don’t understand,” Alice replies, shaking her head. “My score is down to 515 now. I can’t screw it up. I can’t.”

—

“Can you move your left knee up a tiny bit?” Emily asks. “There. That’s great.” Minutes pass, during which the only sound is that of the pencil on the sketchbook. Sara stares at the ceiling, ruminating over her defeat. Alice has been extended a dozen times, so she’d thought her indifferent to the dangled carrot of release, but clearly she’s miscalculated. She needs to work with long haulers, yes, but she should’ve started with those who’ve recently been slapped with an extension. The punished might be more receptive than the hopeful. A musical note interrupts her thoughts. “Did you hear that?” she asks, raising herself from the bed.

“Hear what?” Emily says. “Don’t move, you were perfect like that.”

A second later, it happens again. It sounds like an A note. She stands up.

“Oh, man,” Emily says, tapping the pencil on the pad. “I was almost done and then you moved.”

Another note. This time it sounds like a D. Sara comes out of her room and walks in the direction of the music. She hears a G, played again and again. A minute later she is at the door of 202, where Marcela is hunched over a maple-colored Gibson guitar. It is a beautiful instrument, and a well-worn one, too, with scratches that testify to many years of use. The guitar case sits on the opposite cot, unassigned since Lucy was released, and on its side is a huge sticker of a pink brick—the logo of Sharp Jello. Marcela is so absorbed in her tuning that she doesn’t notice Sara standing at the door of the cell.

“Marcela,” Sara calls after a moment.

Marcela looks up. The joy on her face has transformed it; she looks ten years younger, her eyes shine with pleasure. “My petition was approved.”

Her fifth try, Sara thinks. How will she convince her to join the strike now? This is another complication she hasn’t anticipated, she realizes; as she makes one move, Safe-X will counter with another.

—

There is no time to waste. She has to organize faster and better, or else her efforts will fail before they’ve even started. Working with Toya, Sara draws up a list of long haulers who got in serious trouble in the last few weeks, some for dealing contraband and others for a nasty fight in the rec room. There are twelve names on the list, but once Sara removes those who are laid up in the infirmary, she is left with nine, which she splits with Toya.

She starts with Elaine Coleman and Jeannie Kowalski, down the hall in 257. It is late in the evening, the time when everyone is getting ready for bed. Elaine is working on a puzzle, her reading glasses perched on her nose, while Jeannie is braiding her long hair. “Knock, knock,” Sara says, and when Elaine nods, she steps inside.

257 has no window, but being at the corner it is slightly larger than the other rooms. The air smells faintly of the antiseptic cleaner that Jeannie managed to get, under mysterious circumstances, right when the outbreak started. Sara stands in the space between the cots, and tries to make her case. She talks about the long hours they work, the money they make for Safe-X, the state of the cafeteria, the showers, the laundry, the ridiculous rules that keep them here, working even more hours, making even more money. The only way out is to withhold their labor. Let the attendants do the work, she concludes.

Elaine lets out a snort. She sits cross-legged, with her half-completed puzzle laid out on a piece of cardboard, staring at the picture on the box—an autumn scene, with red and yellow leaves dominating the composition.

Sara persists. “You used to teach math, right?”

Elaine has been at Madison for thirteen months, and before that she worked for twenty-two years as a schoolteacher for LAUSD, so she’s seen a strike or two in her day.

“Remedial algebra,” Elaine replies, trying to place a piece on the puzzle. The piece doesn’t quite fit, and she pulls it out. “I was better at teaching Calc A and B, but the chair liked to stick me with the bigger classes and assigned the smaller ones to his girlfriend. A lot of good it did him, too, ’cause she ended up cheating on him with one of the music teachers. Actually, they were both cheating, the music teacher was married to someone who worked for the dis—”

“My point is,” Sara cuts in, “we’ll only get anywhere if we hit their profit margins.”

“Maybe we can get some goddamn AC in here,” Jeannie says, turning to look at Sara for the first time. Jeannie gets hot flashes that nothing seems to soothe. Even now her face is pink, her shirtsleeves damp at the armpits. “Sometimes I feel like I’m gonna die.”

“AC, sure,” Sara says.

“And longer showers.” Standing up to face the small mirror above the sink, Jeannie loops a rubber band at the end of her braid. “And more time in the yard.”

Better conditions of retention aren’t exactly what Sara has in mind—she wants Madison to close altogether—but she has to start somewhere, and after listening to Jeannie rattle on about everything that needs improvement, she brings up what she has learned about Julie Renstrom.

“Wait, are you serious?” Elaine sits up.

“Remember how surprised we were when she stayed here only three weeks? Now you know why. She was testing something.”

“Are they allowed to do that?” Jeannie asks.

“Doesn’t matter if they are,” Elaine tells her. “The point is, they already did.”

“Wasn’t she in 258?” Sara points to the left wall. “Next door to the two of you.”

Jeannie shakes her head. “She was in here all the time.”

—

Stephanie Michaels is the next name on the list. She’s a theme-park attendant who’s been at Madison since February and has worked in different jobs throughout the facility: dishwasher, service worker, librarian, custodian, maintenance worker. This afternoon Toya has invited her to the poker game she’s playing with Victoria and Emily at one of the tables, a game that seems no less contested for having no financial stake. When Sara takes a seat, Jackson comes out from under the breezeway to walk the perimeter.

“Jackson’s in trouble,” Sara begins.

“Hmm-hmm,” Stephanie says. She stares at the cards in the middle of the table, trying to remember which ones Victoria and Emily have already played. A nine of hearts, a jack of spades, and a three of diamonds lie at the top of the pile. The cards have gotten thin from use, but no one has enough money for another deck.

“The outbreak messed up her schedule,” Sara continues, “and now six of us aren’t working.”

“Imagine if more people went on strike,” Toya adds.

“Can you just let me focus?” Stephanie says. “I’m trying to play a game here.”

A moment later, Victoria folds. The others continue for another few rounds, and when they lay down their cards Stephanie has three nines, Toya has two pairs, but Emily has a full house. “You’ve been getting better,” Sara tells her cellmate.

Emily turns modest. “I got lucky.”

From the road comes the sustained honk of an angry driver, drowned out a moment later by the sound of tires screeching on the pavement. Jackson walks by the table, eyeing the players as she passes them, then returns to the breezeway. Sara stretches her arms, the fresh air is invigorating.

While Victoria shuffles the deck, Sara makes her case to Stephanie. We have to stop working, she says. It’s the only way.

“How about it,” Toya says. “You want to join us?”

“Who’s in already?”

“The four of us,” Toya replies, pointing around the table. “Plus Jeannie Kowalski and Elaine Coleman.”

The short list of names fails to impress Stephanie. “Yeah, I’m not interested,” she says. “It’s too risky.”

Victoria leans forward on the table. “You know what else is risky? Life. Life is risky. Go ahead, Sara. Tell her about Eisley.”

Sara recounts what she discovered, but Stephanie is in disbelief that DI would send an undercover scientist. “There must be another explanation,” she says. And when Victoria starts dealing cards for a new game, she makes up an excuse and leaves.

—

Temper your excitement, Sara chides herself. You’re pushing too hard, too fast. This is something her mother used to advise her all the time: anything worth having is going to require some patience. Yet when she returns to her room after yard time the sight of the broken cameras reminds her how much Victoria has already sacrificed; she has to make the most out of the opportunity that her young friend has created for all of them. She decides to try the next names on her list, Rita Mason and Carol Warren in 248.

Rita used to be a clerk for a shipping company, while Carol did bookkeeping for a chain of restaurants. A few months into their retention, they started a little commerce in pepper, which some retainees use to flavor the bland cafeteria food, trading it in different-size packets in exchange for whatever items they need or want. Their room has a miniature fan, which whirrs from the shelf, and a battery-powered reading light. “How’re you two feeling?” she asks. “I heard you got the bug.”

“She gave it to me,” Carol says, pointing to her cellmate without looking at her.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you don’t wash your hands when you use the toilet.”

“That’s not true.” Rita looks up at Sara. “It’s not true, you know. She’s just mad that she got sick after holding out for ten days and now she’s looking for someone to blame.”

“Well,” Sara says from between their cots. “The way I look at it, this thing wouldn’t have spread so fast if we hadn’t been caged—not just here but at the other jail, too.”

“Right. That’s how it started.” Rita turns to Carol. “So if you’re looking to blame someone, blame Michelle. She caught it in Victorville and brought it here.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Sara says, shaking her head. “I’m talking about accountability, not blame.” She’s off on a tangent again, she realizes. The last thing she needs is a philosophical debate, she has to turn this conversation around before it gets out of hand. She tells them about Julie Renstrom’s fake name, her real job and secret goals.

“See what I told you,” Carol says, turning to Rita.

“You knew?” Sara asks.

“I mean, I didn’t know this, exactly. But I knew something was off about her. The way she never looked at the attendants, I thought that was strange. Usually newbies try to reason with them, ask them questions about how things work, see if they can get help on their cases, but she never did. She only ever talked to us.”

“Well, you had her number,” Rita says. Her complexion has turned pallid, the vein across her forehead is a bluish green. She seems to be struggling not to throw up.

“This is one of the reasons we’re organizing,” Sara says. She tells them about the importance of doing this now, while the stomach flu is still wreaking havoc on the work schedule. With just a few more people joining the strike, the impact will be felt.

“Sure,” Carol says. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Relief washes over Sara. With Toya bringing in Maggie Rivera and Yolanda Brown, they are up to ten, enough to attract the attention of any retainees who’ve had a complaint or a grievance about Madison.

Which is all of them.