They’re moving everything out of the backyard. It’s the only space big
enough for what they need to do. Lawn chairs, the table, the cornhole game
things; it all has to go. Jande asks Ersence if she can go around stripping
everyone’s bed. Some might not be so happy with that, and she doesn’t care
what people think, so she can still get it done. Jande carries the sewing
machine downstairs himself and sets it on the patio. The point where it gets
the best faux sunlight is too far from the wall outlet, so he has to go
around looking for an extension cord too. He sets everything up, Ersence
gets all the bedding in a pile, and they should be ready to go. He doesn’t
know how long it will take, though.
“Why are you asking me?” Dare questions. Everyone’s looking at him.
“You’re the sewing expert,” Jande tells him.
Dare winces. “What the hell gave you that idea?”
“The sewing kit was under your bed,” Jande points out. “Aren’t you a sewer?”
Dare rolls his eyes. “I took the kit because I wanted to learn how to
sew. I didn’t even get a chance to try because we got wrapped up in getting
rid of the smart dust.”
“Well, shit,” Jande laments. “This whole plan is contingent upon
someone being able to sew all these sheets together.” He lifts his
head. “So who here can do it? Come on, don’t be shy. Even if you’ve
only done it once, at least that’s somewhere to start.”
Ximena raises her hand. “Um...no, not me, but, uh, Mayor can.”
“Mayor,” Jande echoes. “The guy currently playing footsie with Death. He’s
the only one with any experience sewing? How did that happen? Was
this all planned?”
“Haoran, how is he doing?” Ersence pushes. “Can he move? We could set him up
in a chair so he only has to move his arms and hands. There’s a pedal. If he
needs someone to hold a pedal down, well, I can certainly volunteer for
that.”
Haoran stares at her blankly. “There is a torn shirt in his stomach that
reads Y2K Princess. No, Ersence. He can’t move. Best I can do is
carefully drag him to the patio.”
“That might be enough,” Jande decides. “He can instruct one of us how to do
it.”
Haoran shakes his head, very annoyed. “If he needs to sleep, he needs to
sleep.”
“We’re doing this for him,” Tamerlane reminds him. “If he wants to
live, he’ll stay awake long enough to teach the sewer. I saw an epinephrine
injector in the med kit—”
“You are not giving my patient epinephrine, you fucking psycho. He’ll
bleed out in minutes.” Haoran makes himself calm down a little. “Though...I
could theoretically...crack it open to control the dosage myself, and get
some lucidity out of him. But only for a crash course. We’re talking about a
sewing machine here, not a quantum terminal. Once he’s done teaching, he
goes back on the sedative to recover.”
“Don’t use too many sedatives,” Kool warns. “We probably won’t get more.”
“And who else needs them?” Haoran questions. “They’re not recreational.”
“I’m not talking about myself,” Kool reacts. “I’m just saying...”
“I’m just saying,” Jande interrupts, “that we need to decide who is
the best person for the job. It should be someone with nimble fingers who
picks up new skills quickly.” He scans the crowd again. “Really? Still no
takers. Do you all want Mayor to die?”
Still no response. No one is guilted into volunteering. They probably don’t
want something to go wrong and be blamed for someone’s death. Death is so
rare these days.
Jande sighs. “Fine. As a farmer, I guess I have decent hand-eye
coordination. But we all have to contribute. Nap time’s over, people.
Someone other than me or Mr. Gao, go get our patient, and
carefully carry him out here so he can see the machine. There’s a lot
of fabric here. I’m going to need help wrangling it. I’ll sit at this little
chair, and control the section I’m working on as needed, but it will be a
group effort.”
Jande sits down while everyone else is getting ready. He wants to study the
sewing machine before he tries anything to maximize the time he has with his
injured teacher. It looks relatively simple, but the real danger could be
messing up after Mayor falls back asleep, and not knowing how to fix it.
Once Jande actually begins, he soon finds that it’s not as simple as
moving the fabric and thread in the right way, and pushing the right
buttons. It’s tiring. After twenty minutes, his body has kind of already had
enough. He doesn’t keel over and pass out, but he starts making little
mistakes which could cost whoever uses this thing their life. It doesn’t
have to be pretty, but they only have so much thread, so they have to make
sure it holds. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one paying attention.
A few others tag in so they can cycle the responsibility. It’s like a firing
squad. If it tears somewhere, they won’t know whose fault it was. In fact,
realizing this, Tamerlane suggests that everyone gets a turn on the machine,
so they don’t end up being able to zero in on one person. Of course, they
hope it holds together anyway, which is why everyone’s work gets checked and
stress-tested, but it has to be fair.
Now comes the time when they have to decide who the hell is gonna use this
thing. Van declared that whoever showed up would get the antibiotics that
Mayor needed, but also that there would be a second prize. Of course, to
maintain that tension the producers love so much, he didn’t say what the
prize would be. It could be as simple as a slice of pizza, or the chance to
name an opponent to be kicked out of the race entirely. That was Zanele’s
random idea, and she shouldn’t have said it, because now the producers can
use it, assuming they didn’t think of it before.
Jande has been the de facto leader throughout a lot of this, but not all of
it. He literally has the loudest voice, except for Mayor. That’s really the
only reason. Right?
“Wait, why would I be in charge of deciding?” Haoran asks.
“You don’t have to decide,” Jande says, “but you have to at least decide how
we decide. You’re the doctor. You’re the only one who can’t go. The rest of
us are fair game.”
“It sounds like you still wanna lead, like you did the sewing
challenge,” Haoran reasons. “Candidates vote for themselves every election.
So get on up here, big guy.”
“Hold on.” Pryce shakes his head with a chuckle. “We don’t need a moderated
debate. We can just vote. All in favor of Jande being the one to go, raise
your hands.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How did I suddenly become the
only one in contention? That’s not fair. Who votes for Pryce instead?”
No one raises their hand, not even his literal wife. So Jande has to trust
the parachute that he was primarily responsible for putting together. Which
actually is somewhat fair. It’s not as bad as he thought. The ride down is
cold as hell, but mostly boring. The annoying part is as soon as he lands,
the house does too, having been lowered safely on the hydraulics. It was
timed perfectly to make him look like a chump.
Van walks over with his microphone. “Welcome to the next challenge! We lied.
Before you get the antibiotics, you have to compete in our Sudden Death
round. Whoever kills Jande Ter Avest before the timer runs out becomes the
Superintendent. If Jande survives the day, we keep going. Okay, three, two,
one,” he rattles off, “go!”
