Michael looked at the dishes, which were cleaner than ever. He could hardly say how long it has been since he’d been released from the police cell by now, as time has become unclear. He had been working full-time for more than two weeks now, doing the dishes in the kitchen and cleaning everything and his shifts had been longer than ever too. He dreaded going home as much he was afraid to face anyone who knew him, and apart from his parents when he had brought his stuff home and one visit from Eliza he hadn’t seen a human soul he knew. His parents had either been ignoring him as if he didn’t exist for them anymore like his father had done, or looked at him with great sadness without making any connection as his mother had done. Eliza had been more positive, but also more confusing in a way, acting as if nothing had happened. She had made him feel better for a few hours, but she hadn’t been able to take away his depression. He hadn’t even dared to try to find Megan or anyone else, and he felt bad for that too, as if it was one more reason to isolate himself from everyone.

He started to put away the dishes on automatic pilot, trying not to think of anything when Tom suddenly stood before you.

‘Michael, dude, you’re overdoing it. I thought you were only washing dishes and doing long shifts all the time because you’re currently badgeless and your job content had changed, but the boss said it was all your own choice. This isn’t healthy anymore! It’s time to do something else than washing the dishes for you today or your hands will shrink away into human raisins. I’ve asked the boss and he said it’s okay for you to work as a waiter today. You can do the man section and the unsegregated tables’

Michael looked at him with an annoyed face and gasped. He didn’t really appreciate anyone who disturbed his misery, and he had pushed away all thoughts about unsegregated spots, and the whole revolution. Plus there was the problem that there might be people who knew him there. But he knew he couldn’t protest, Tom Was a Gamma-2, and he was nothing now. All he had left as a Nation man was that he still had an official identity and wasn’t a feral nobody. He was in a very good place here for a deleted man actually. He knew that both Tom and the boss would still listen to him if he could bring in some arguments even as a zero, but he actually hadn’t anything to say now to anyone, so he couldn’t really reason himself out of it now.

‘So, is there still an unsegregated section?’ He asked Tom.

‘Why not?’ He asked, rather surprised.

’Well, it was my idea, and I’m not in any position of power anymore. Doesn’t the boss find it annoying to still have it?’

‘His wife likes the idea a lot. She even brought him and her daughter there once, and more bars are doing it all over The Nation. So why would we suddenly stop it? It’s not your thing anymore. It’s a whole movement. And it brings money in.’

He nodded. ‘So, are there people there outside now that I might know?’ he asked, nervously. Tom just shrugged.

‘Dude, I don’t know why you insist on being in the kitchen all the time, but doing more shifts as a waiter means you could get some extra money from tipping that you won’t get from dirty dishes.’ Tom had just realised that for the unrated workers tipping could make a lot of difference, possibly even more than doing the extreme shifts Michael had been doing in the kitchen recently.

Michael nodded, he hadn’t even thought of that yet. Money hadn’t even been a motivator for him lately. He’d never have enough of it anyway to go back to the Alpha lifestyle of his parents.

He changed uniforms and took his tab and walked outside. He looked at the tables and noted that the Unsegregated Spot was bigger than ever, with five tables full of people he didn’t know. No, wait, there were six, and the last table had only one person,a young woman with very short hair and very blue eyes, wearing orange workers clothes and two badges on her chest. One was a weathered E-badge for women, and the other one was a Free Person badge, just like the one Eliza had given him a few days ago. It was Angela, and she was reading a book but dropped it when she saw him and came over to him as soon as he came close to give him a hug.

‘Michael, you’re back! Finally!’

He stood there and almost dropped his tab, trying to get away from her hug.

‘Hi Angela. I don’t think I’m allowed to hug customers while on duty.’ He said dismissively.

The first time they had met she had been afraid of him, and now she was a fully learnt apprentice of Eliza in being physical with him, a boy, in a purely platonic way. They looked at each other.

‘No-one minds, Michael, but wow, you look bad, boy.’ He looked away. ‘I’ve had some bad things happen to me lately. You probably heard everything already. But I’ll talk to you later, I need to work now. Or do you want to drink something more, then I’ll get it for you?’

‘A dark man beer maybe? Manfred plus tripel, Eliza said that’s a very good one.’

She winked.

‘I can’t do that, and you don’t even drink that stuff, do you? If I start breaking rules now I’ll lose my job and I’ll fall even deeper.’ The look upon his face became even sadder.

‘I was only joking. Lighten up, Michael. You really don’t seem like yourself today.’ ‘There is no myself anymore. Michael Adams the Gamma-1 who was engaged to Megan doesn’t exist anymore. Michael the boy school student from the department of intellectual studies is dead now. Now there’s only Michael the badgeless dishwasher, married to a creepy robot that’s almost 200 years old and still manages to do the dishes better than me, who’s supposed to be the professional.’

Angela looked him straight in his eyes.

‘And you say that to me? What am I then? I became a non-Wife when my father kicked me out of the house instead of sending me to school when I was 14. I’ve been working fulltime ever since, and I’ve always been a much more boring person than you are. But still you wanted to be my friend without even caring for all of our differences. So what are you complaining about?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’ He said, looking away from the intense blue eyes.’

‘Michael, I never thought I’d ever tell you to behave like a man, but please act a bit like an adult instead of sulking like a moody teenager.’

‘You would be depressed too if they deleted you and made you unmarriable after been a Gamma-1 brainie student.’

‘Listen, I know you’re going through a lot, and you’re not used to that as a former Gamma-1 who lived in an Alphaville villa, but every non-Wife in The Nation has a story like yours. You’re not so special, and at least you haven’t been abused, or had to endure violence.’

Michael looked at her and turned red. ‘Sorry, you’re right. I need to put things in perspective. You’ve all endured horrible things. And I should be working, not complaining about my stupid life. So hat did you want?’

‘A cold three herbs then.’ Michael wrote her order down, went to the other tables, and then to the kitchen to get the drinks.

*

Two hours later, when his shift was supposed to be over, she was still there when he had changed from his uniform in his normal clothes and was ready to go home. He walked over, feeling that he had to do something to put their friendship back on the map.

‘Can I walk you home?’ He said, more out of politeness.

She looked at him. ‘Well, maybe it’s better if you do indeed, I’m alone today. Sam’s doing volunteer work in the Ghost Town hospital and I’m not used to that. And unlike naive Wife School students I know all the places to avoid so there won’t be any dramas.’

He nodded a bit uneasily and together they left the bar.

‘So Sam’s working in an outlaw hospital tonight?’ He said, crossing Square plaza.

‘If you want to call it that, yes. She said she needed something more in her life than just watching robots sort trash. Especially after giving up on men after your disappearance.’ She chuckled and Michael said nothing.

‘Everything okay with you?’ she asked after a while when he kept silent.

‘I just don’t know what to say to that. I never wanted any attention like that from her, and I don’t feel like being her hobby to be honest.’

‘Oh, she realises that. And she’s mostly just teasing you, you know that.’ ‘It’s still irritating. But greet her from me. I haven’t seen her in a while.’

‘No-one has seen you. It seems like you moved to another city instead of just another neighbourhood, you’re hiding a bit too much and you know it.’

A trio of shady-looking Delta men passed them, and Angela grabbed his arm, but luckily they didn’t seem to notice them.

‘Sorry, nothing personal. Men still scare me sometimes.’ She said.

‘They scare me too, especially after what happened and without my Gamma-1 badge. These Deltas are above me too now, remember.’

‘Oh…’ Angela unconsciously touched the E-badge on her chest and said nothing for a while and then went back to their earlier subject.

‘Have you seen Megan already?’

‘I haven’t.’ He said, a bit cross.

‘You should.’ Angela said decisively, but the conversation had fallen silent again while they passed ugly apartment blocks for Deltas and Epsilons, and then finally a Zeroville house for women.

‘And here we are.’ He said, and looked at the dark woman house.

He had seen it before, but never given much thought to it as he would never be allowed inside of it anyway. It was a big Zeroville apartment, but then for women. He had heard that it once had been mixed, but that it had been the women who had installed the segregation because of the bad behaviour of men, and then turned it into a woman house, and the State seemed to have accepted that and had only admitted women to the house. Mixed Zerovilles didn’t really work at all, also because all the men were unrated and thus unmarriable. But the biggest difference between her home and this was that this was a community house where the non-Wives lived as friends together, and his house was full of individuals who didn’t really connect to each other. The only neighbour he occasionally talked to was that old man with his creepy stories, but they hadn’t exactly become friends yet.

‘Thank you for walking me home, Michael.’

Angela gave him a hug again, and he didn’t even protest. It was weird how different he was treated by his girl friends compared to how the male world had spit him out. Would he ever see any of his school friends again? He didn’t know, and at the moment he didn’t really look forward to having to see any of them anyway. It would be too painful.

*

Robert was a bit nervous when he walked into the Square bar later that night. He’d been following evening classes on computer coding, but his mind had been elsewhere all. This was probably his last chance to find Michael. No-one else had been able to help him, but this was the place where he had done his part-time job as a student and where he had hung out with his fiancée. So if there was any place left to find out about his friend it would be here.

As he had hoped he recognised the waiter, but Robert never was good at talking to strangers, and Tom the barman was an impressive dude to start a conversation with. But now wasn’t the time to let his social anxiety take over though.

‘So you’re looking for Michael Adams?’ Tom said, looking him up and down.

‘I am. He was in my class. I know he used to work here, and you’re my last chance I have of finding him. He’s completely deleted in school, and his parents act as if he never even existed.’

‘I’ve heard that, yes. It’s stupid how easily these things happen. But you’re lucky, sort of. He still works here. Actually, he was here earlier today.’

‘He was here? So he’s gone now? Do you know where he went?’

‘What Am I, his babysitter or his agent or so? Why does everyone have to ask me about him?’ Tom said, visibly annoyed. ‘

Ah, who else asked for him then?’ Robert asked.

‘Those two Wife school girls, and then that other girl without hair in her orange overall, and that flirty friend of her, and now you, don’t know his name. For someone who is depressed because he’s deleted and forgotten, he’s still quite popular if you ask me.’

‘Ah,’ Robert said, ‘but he is actually deleted. His parents disowned him, and he got erased from all school records, and the teachers won’t even speak his name. He really has disappeared. It’s horrible.’

‘Well, he doesn’t look deleted to me. His badge might be gone, but he’s doing the dishes here every day. And he still has his fanclub too, it seems, even if he’s mostly hiding from them.’

‘You really don’t know where he is now?’

‘No, he left with that girl in orange. The one with very blue eyes from the trash sorting center, forgot her name. E-rated non-wife and shy Women are Human activist.’

‘I think I remember her. So he’s been keeping in touch with the girls? Why not with me and Henry then?’

Tom shook his head. ‘I think it was more the girls who were keeping in touch with him. They were quick to find him here when he got his job back.’

‘And the blond one? Shirley? Is she still in contact with him?’

Tom half closed his eyes. ‘I’ve only seen her that one time with you, not? I suppose she’s still in Wife School? They can’t leave their school except when on a date or as a chaperone, remember. I doubt he’s been seeing her.’

‘I suppose so,’ Robert said.

‘But back to my question, do you have his address?’ ‘No, I don’t. He refuses to give it to anyone. But the girls have it. Eliza has been hacking some administration to get it I think. Strange one she is. They say they call her the man-hater in the female world, but she’s been sticking to Michael like a velcro from the beginning, at least as much as the fiancée girl herself. And she knows a lot of people in very different places, black markets, Ghost Towns, administration, school and so on. Let me tell you one thing: women are much more complicated than anything they tell you. Especially that girl!’

‘I never thought they weren’t,’ Robert said darkly,

‘But they were more human than I expected in a way when I met them. I also never realised how creepy our side can be before Michael was deleted. He didn’t do anything wrong but if you hear some guys in school then it’s as if he was a dangerous traitor and a criminal who deserved his punishment. I just hope the female world will treat him better than that.’

Tom laughed. ‘They’re hanging out here as best friends, but I doubt that they’ll let him in into a Ghost Town soon. He’s still a man after all. There’s always a natural barrier between the sexes. Men and women are still different species.’

‘Hmm, but is that really true? Didn’t you just say he left with a non-Wife as friends? And isn’t Eliza The Man-hater the first friend who came looking after him? I don’t think those barriers apply to him. They started the whole unsegregation thing too, didn’t they? I wouldn’t have believed that any man would be hanging out with a woman casually as friends, but with him I believe it. But if he isn’t here, I’ll have to come back another time. It’s getting late anyway,’ he said, and walked off into the night, leaving Tom alone with his thoughts and a few waiting clients.

*

Angela was drinking a mint tea in the small kitchen when Samantha appeared, who had been reading in her room. ‘You look happy today,’ she said.

‘Oh, yes, I had a good day.’ ‘

You’re late. It’s not safe to stay out so late for a single E-nonwife.’

She sipped from her tea. ‘I wasn’t alone. I had a strong and gallant man to walk me home.’

Samantha looked up. ‘He’s finally back above water?’

‘Sort of. He’s been working again for a while now but he’s hiding in the kitchen washing the dishes. Eliza was right. He’s hopelessly depressed. But at least he was happy to see me. The poor guy has lost everything in the male world, even his friends.’

‘Why do I always miss out on the good boy stuff?’ Samantha lamented.

‘You were giving up on men, remember.’

‘If he’s back I can’t give up completely, can I? Especially not now that he’s not tied to a forced engagement anymore. Hunting season is open!’

‘Oh, shut up. Want some tea?’

Angela poured some mint tea and Samantha looked at the figures in the steam for a while. ‘So how’s the Ghost Town hospital?’

‘Small, and very female. We had an outsider non-Wife today who had been attacked by men near a Zeroville block and she needed stitches. It wasn’t a pretty sight. What’s wrong with men? Why did they attack her? Can’t they just let us be?’

‘They never have the chance to have normal interactions with women, plus they’re brainwashed completely into being toxic idiots.’

‘You think they could be different? Isn’t it just a cruel joke of nature that we’re attracted to monsters that can only destroy and abuse us?’ Samantha asked.

‘Michael isn’t a monster. Neither is Tom, even if he’s a bit distant. Or that Robert dude. They’re just confused people who haven’t been taught to be complete people. And now they don’t know how to be with women. And you know women can be monsters too. Remember that job that you quit because of the gossip and nasty atmosphere and the endless power games. Humans can be bad, but there’s always good people too.’

‘One good man for a whole Nation isn’t enough to change my opinion of them as a whole. But at least you’d still make a chance with him. Unlike this poor silly temptress here.’

‘Just stop that, Sam. But why are men so unhappy and frustrated all the time, if they all should be happy according to the teachings of old Mandfred dude who promised every man a Wife and all that? These creeps probably weren’t even single. The Alpha that wanted to assault them had an A-floor fiancée in her old school too, I heard. So it seems that something in the system doesn’t work there for them. Not even when all women are half brainwashed into robots with all that please-your-husband nonsense, and they’re still unhappy. They should be happy, and grateful, not? Instead of becoming even worse? It’s all bullshit, that’s what I say.’

Samantha looked up when her shy friend used such strong words. ‘But they’re men, they have their own special needs that we don’t understand?’

‘What a man wants, what he thinks he wants, and what he needs are three different things, as someone once said. We’ve had 150 years of Manfred’s ideas and did it make men happier? Apart from making it hell for all women outside of a Ghost Town I don’t think it made it better for any man either. It’s an immature selfish fantasy that doesn’t translate to the real world well.’

‘Wow, Angela, you’re on fire tonight. You sound like Eliza when she’s read too many of those ancient sociology books.’

‘I will take that as a compliment. Eliza is usually right, and being a smart woman is the best way to rebel against the system. And rebellion is only the start of what we need.’

‘Oh, are we still revolutionary? I thought the revolution was over already?’

‘It only has just begun, Sam. What are you doing in a Ghost Town as a city-nonwife? And do you think there will ever a day when they will admit a wounded man to your hospital? Or take in a lost boy?’

Samantha almost spit out her tea. ‘What are you even saying? That’s impossible. A man in a Ghost Town?’

‘The black markets are connected now. There’s unsegregated spots everywhere. Times are changing. Are the Ghost Towns following or not? Don’t you think that someone as compassionate as Lady Martha will jump on the train too one day? I mean, with the few men that aren’t monsters.’

Samantha looked at her. ‘That’s still unlikely. Even with her.’ ‘Me having a boy as a friend was unlikely too. And look at me and Michael now…’