After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh Read Free Book Online Page A

girls in green worked at either the drawers or the table.
    “We’re going to start cultures,” Baiyue said. “Take a tray and fill it with those.” She pointed to a stack of petri dishes. The bottom of each dish was filled with gelatin. Jieling took a tray and did what Baiyue did. Baiyue was serious but not at all sharp or superior. She explained that what they were doing was seeding the petri dishes with cells.
    “Cells?” Jieling asked.
    “Nerve cells from the electric ray. It’s a fish.”
    They took swabs, and Baiyue showed her how to put the cells on in a zigzag motion so that most of the gel was covered. They did six trays full of petri dishes. They didn’t smell fishy. Then they used pipettes to put in feeding solution. It was all pleasantly scientific without being very difficult.
    At one point everybody left for lunch, but Baiyue said they couldn’t go until they got the cultures finished or the batch would be ruined. Women shuffled by them, and Jieling’s stomach growled. But when the lab was empty, Baiyue smiled and said, “Where are you from?”
    Baiyue was from Fujian. “If you ruin a batch,” she explained, “you have to pay out of your paycheck. I’m almost out of debt, and when I get clear—”she glanced around and dropped her voice a little “—I can quit.”
    “Why are you in debt?” Jieling asked. Maybe this was harder than she thought; maybe Baiyue had screwed up in the past.
    “Everyone is in debt,” Baiyue said. “It’s just the way they run things. Let’s get the trays in the warmers.”
    The drawers along the walls opened out, and inside, the temperature was kept blood warm. They loaded the trays into the drawers, one back and one front, going down the row until they had the morning’s trays all in.
    “Okay,” Baiyue said, “that’s good. We’ll check trays this afternoon. I’ve got a set for transfer to the tissue room, but we’ll have time after we eat.”
    Jieling had never eaten in the employee cafeteria, only in the guest house restaurant, and only the first night, because it was expensive. Since then she had been living on ramen noodles, and she was starved for a good meal. She smelled garlic and pork. First thing on the food line was a pan of steamed pork buns, fluffy white. But Baiyue headed off to a place at the back where there was a huge pot of congee—rice porridge—kept hot. “It’s the cheapest thing in the cafeteria,” Baiyue explained, “and you can eat all you want.” She dished up a big bowl of it—a lot of congee for a girl her size—and added some salt vegetables and boiled peanuts. “It’s pretty good, although usually by lunch it’s been sitting a little while. It gets a little gluey.”
    Jieling hesitated. Baiyue had said she was in debt. Maybe she had to eat this stuff. But Jieling wasn’t going to have old rice porridge for lunch. “I’m going to get some rice and vegetables,” she said.
    Baiyue nodded. “Sometimes I get that. It isn’t too bad. But stay away from anything with shrimp in it. Soooo expensive.”
    Jieling got rice and vegetables and a big pork bun. There were two fish dishes and a pork dish with monkeybrain mushrooms, but she decided she could maybe have the pork for dinner. There was no cost written on anything. She gave her danwei card to the woman at the end of the line, who swiped it and handed it back.
    “How much?” Jieling asked.
    The woman shrugged. “It comes out of your food allowance.”
    Jieling started to argue, but across the cafeteria, Baiyue was waving her arm in the sea of green scrubs to get Jieling’s attention. Baiyue called from a table. “Jieling! Over here!
    Baiyue’s eyes got very big when Jieling sat down. “A pork bun.”
    “Are they really expensive?” Jieling asked.
    Baiyue nodded. “Like gold. And so good.”
    Jieling looked around at other tables. Other people were eating the pork and steamed buns and everything else.
    “Why are you in debt?” Jieling asked.
    Baiyue