Dimitri emerged from the central station into darkness, fresh off the morning train.
The towering buildings in the city’s old quarter were packed so tightly together the sun seldom reached the streets. Breathing through his respirator to filter out the steady stream of dust from above, Dimitri passed through murky pools of brown air illuminated by always-on streetlights.
In neighborhoods like this, on the rare days when the dust settled, residents could sometimes glimpse tiny patches of blue sky far above. On even rarer occasions, the gleam of luxury trams shuttling the city’s elite between penthouse stations could be spotted up near the clouds. It was all a stark reminder that elevation in Central City determined your lot in life. Or maybe, the more valuable you were to society the higher up you were allowed to live and work. Either way, the view from the bottom was inescapably depressing.
Dimitri walked the last couple blocks to his office, gripping the small blade in his pocket when he passed a crowd of strung-out derelicts huddled together sharing a single respirator.
His office resided in a mostly abandoned sub-basement of one of the city’s oldest towers. As usual, Dimitri was the first to arrive—years before his only coworker had been mysteriously reassigned and never replaced.
Approaching the rusted security box mounted next to his office door, he spoke into a small mesh screen: “Dimitri One-One-Seven.”
Nothing.
“Dimitri One-One-Seven,” he said again.
More nothing.
He picked up a nearby brick and banged the top of the box. The machine beeped and his office door clicked open. Reassuring as always, Dimitri thought.
Entering his dilapidated office, the migraine-inducing fluorescent lights automatically flickered to life. He nodded to the security cameras monitoring his performance, moved behind the weathered counter to his workstation, and sat in the room’s only—and quite wobbly—chair.
And so began yet another day at Dimitri’s government job.
All of life’s transactions in Central City were handled electronically. Births, marriages, divorces, housing assignments, tattoo requisitions, deaths… everything handled digitally. Yet, there were sometimes glitches, which required citizens to fill out forms by hand. And that was Dimitri’s assigned role, and why he and other similar functionaries throughout the city were still considered necessary.
Like usual, Dimitri started his workday by checking the server for alerts from the supervisor corps. No surprise—the network was down. To pass the time, he spent the morning daydreaming about vacations he couldn’t afford. Then he ate an early lunch of rehydrated noodles.
A bit later, while Dimitri watched a moth repeatedly bounce off one of the room’s fluorescent lights, a young woman walked into the records office and straight up to Dimitri.
For a moment, he thought he might be hallucinating. Visitors were rare. At least, visitors like this. The people who came into the Records Office usually reeked of the last thing they drank. This woman was something else. Clearly one of the city’s privileged elites, she wore a crisp white uniform and had clean brown hair and freckles. She also, Dimitri noted, smelled like citrus, and seemed to have all her original teeth. She must be lost.
Dimitri cleared his throat. “Can I help you?” It was the first time he’d spoken to another person in days.
“I’d like to become an astronaut.”
Dimitri looked at her numbly for a moment. “I think maybe you’re in the wrong place for that.”
“But this is Records Office number twenty-seven, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Well, yes.”
“Then this is where the instructions said to go. Can you give me the application I need?”
“Again, I’m not really sure…”
“Is there someone else I could speak with?” she said looking around, “Maybe a supervisor?”
This made no sense at all. Was it some sort of test to determine his fitness for the job? But then, Dimitri had a thought. “Let me check the computer. Sometimes they send overnight updates.”
The woman smiled at him. “Great.” Her teeth were the whitest he had ever seen in person.
His hands fluttered over the keyboard as he logged into the system; suddenly aware of her breathe as she leaned over the counter to see his screen. This time when he logged in, a string of new messages awaited his review—all arriving within the last few minutes.
“It says here my office has been designated as the central sign-up point for astronaut applications,” Dimitri read incredulously from the first notice. He looked up at the woman with a stunned expression. She looked back at him with a smirk.
The front door opened again, and two young men, both also clean, privileged, and out-of-place, strode quickly into the office and into line behind the woman.
The young woman glanced nervously over her shoulder at the pair, then leaned further across the counter to Dimitri. She was just inches away from Dimitri’s face. “Listen,” she said barely above a whisper, “the administration is offering spots on the space station, and for some reason, they’re letting everyone apply. But we need to act quickly. Can you help me… right now?”
Dimitri nodded.
Returning to his computer, he read further. The first thirty applicants were automatically guaranteed spots in the training class. Only two finalists would be chosen, though, while the rest would be placed in lucrative administrative roles and considered for future missions. The message contained a link to a form to be filled out in person, then witnessed, scanned, and submitted electronically by Dimitri.
Another person entered the office and hurriedly got in line. Dimitri saw sweat starting to form on the young woman’s brow. Then he realized his own heart was pounding faster than normal.
Whether on purpose or by mistake, a bureaucrat somewhere had created a ridiculous protocol to land a dream job, one that promised a way out of the cramped confines of daily life in Central City. And somehow, Dimitri was integral to the process.
More people entered the office.
Dimitri printed forms and handed them out to the crowd gathering in his office. Of course, they were all there for the same thing. Although, with so few working pens, everyone had to take turns.
By the end of the day, hundreds of people had passed through Dimitri’s Records Office to fill out astronaut applications. When it was closing time, he turned dozens more away.
After locking the office door, Dimitri returned to his desk, and the enormous stack of applications waiting for him to submit.
The young woman should be first, he thought. She deserved it.
Number two, though?
* * *
When the supervisor in charge of astronaut recruitment logged into her system the next morning, hundreds of applications awaited her attention. All were submitted from Records Office twenty-seven, which served as the clearing house for the space program’s recruitment efforts decades earlier. As per instructions from the recently reinstated guidebook governing her job, she selected the first thirty applicants in order, including one from a low-level clerk named Dimitri One-One-Seven, and sent a congratulatory notice to each, deleting the rest.
Dimitri was no dummy.
Andrew Rodgers is a writer and filmmaker in Denver, Colorado. His fiction has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review and Every Day Fiction. He started his career as a journalist with the Chicago Tribune and has written for several news and culture publications, including Our State and SOMA. You can find Andrew online at: https://virtualandrewr.wordpress.com
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