La gestión por resultados en el Ecuador 2

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desolation, the concrete emptiness, seeing instead a welcome division between those caught within the city cogs and their own free and untroubled existence.

Today though, with the black clouds a reminder that winter beckoned not far away, he saw only that the city’s overbearing presence crept ever closer, threatening the space between them with each new day that passed.

Running his hand through his hair, he drew in a deep breath and tried to reassure himself that things were not as bad as all that. After all, she’d promised not to come to the warehouse, hadn’t she? And so there was no need to ever see her again. He looked north, across to the underpass that led nowhere, and further north to where the tall metal cranes staked their claim on the land like a child’s flag jabbed into a sandy turret. They’d need to get to work on the factory right away. The Tribe had already increased by one new member this week. Who else was out there, like Scott, like all of them had been, empty, alone, left with nothing? For that reason, and now others, they needed to be gone as soon as possible. For everyone’s sake.

*

After he’d bathed, the brutally cold act of which helped to bring him more to his senses, he took Daniel with him to the factory site. They’d need to spend more time on the grounds and the land around the factory in order to salvage anything that would save them the inconvenience of bringing materials on the two-mile trip unnecessarily.

He’d thought to bring Scott as a way of keeping him occupied, but Michael felt the urge to act impulsively might still be strong with the day-old Tribe member, and until that urge passed he preferred to keep a close eye on him. Jacob understood and had been peering round the breakfast hall for another companion when Michael had touched him on the arm and nodded toward the corner of the room where Daniel sat alone. The young boy was using his spoon to prod at the contents of the breakfast bowl, though little was actually making it onto the spoon and into his mouth. Jacob had looked to Michael questioningly but received only a shrug in response.

Now as they neared the factory, he gave up trying to distract Daniel from whatever was concerning him. For once, this normally chatty Tribe member seemed to have little enthusiasm for talking. His hood remained pulled far down over his face despite there being no one else in sight and the DroneCams having already completed their rounds half an hour before. Though he’d answered Jacob’s questions and replied to his conversation, it was clear that he did so only because he felt he had to. But to ask Daniel what was wrong would be breaking the Tribe’s

value of respect and non-judgement, so instead he dropped the conversation and they walked the final half-mile in silence.

Not wishing to add any more weight to his already creaking conscience, when they reached the factory he suggested they begin by scouting the area together rather than go their separate ways. Such was Daniel’s mood that he was reluctant to leave him on his own.

‘There’s an old gymnasium just down past here.’ He pointed. ‘If we take a look round these grounds first, see if there are any pieces of metal, plastic, or tools we could use, and then we’ll head over to the gym before we leave. I think we’ll find lots in there unless it’s already been taken.’

His companion nodded, but as the pair searched the area, Jacob’s concern grew until he could keep it to himself no longer. ‘Are you well, Daniel?’

The young man nodded beneath his hood. ‘Yes, brother.’

‘Why don’t you put your hood down? There’s no one here, and I don’t imagine the DroneCams are able to come out this far.’

Daniel reached for his hood and pushed it back. He offered a smile but his furrowed brow defied the weak attempt.

‘Are you looking forward to the move?’ Jacob asked, spotting a tube of plastic guttering among the reeds and reaching to retrieve it.

‘We can’t talk of the future, brother.’

‘Of course not.’ Jacob stood corrected. ‘Making conversation, that’s all. You don’t have to reply, Daniel.’

The boy bent to pick up a discarded bucket, examined it, noted the broken handle and holes drilled into the bottom and dropped it again. ‘I’m indifferent, brother. As long as I’m with the Tribe it doesn’t matter where.’

His voice wavered at the end of his sentence but Jacob pretended he hadn’t noticed.

‘Yes, you’re absolutely right. Though I’m not sure how many more of us in one bedroom I can cope with.’ He laughed and was pleased to see his companion smile a little too, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

By the time they reached the gymnasium, the thin conversation had dried up.

They stepped silently in through the heavy, rusted metal doors and into the main foyer, littered as all these buildings were with pieces of stone, glass, plaster, and the remnants of other visitors on their own scouting mission at one time or another.

The door squealed shut behind them, echoing around the bare walls. Before them were two corridors.

‘Shall I take this one, Daniel, and you try that one? We can meet back here.’

‘Of course.’

He watched as Daniel took the corridor to the left, saw him yank his hood back up, and wondered if he would find anything of any use even if it were actually right there in front of him. Concerned but unable to do anything, he concentrated on his own task. It wouldn’t do to leave with nothing. It was a fair walk out here and back, and he didn’t want any visit now to be a wasted one. They’d compiled a small bundle of items from the yards around the factory that would likely be useful for something, but he didn’t want to have to revisit the places they’d already been.

Every trip out here needed to bring them a step closer to the final move.

At the end of the corridor, he pulled on another heavy swing door and found himself in the changing rooms. He reached up to the metal frame once used for hanging clothes and found it came away from the floor easily. The scrape of metal across tile was almost deafening against the silence of the old building. They wouldn’t be able to dismantle these without tools, but at least he knew they were here. Likely there would be an identical room adjacent to this one; one for male, one female.

He examined the tiles on the floor and walls, some salvageable perhaps, others broken, mold-ridden or attached to their surface so well they would only splinter if retrieved. Up against one wall was a row of around fifty metal lockers. He looked more closely, to his dismay noticing that many of them were locked and keyless. He scanned the floor, under benches, but all the keys must’ve been taken when the place closed for the last time. Perhaps they were keys owned by the gym members themselves, ones now lying forgotten in the bottom of a drawer or a plaything for restless toddlers. There were one or two lockers still open but he doubted they’d be of much use, not when they were all attached together in pillars of five.

He heard a noise from the next room, the unmistakable scrape of boots over concrete. He zigzagged around the overlapping sequence of tiled walls and pillars and out into the vastness of a disused swimming pool. His eyes widened as he looked up to the high ceiling way overhead and the old strip lights that still hung there, now unused and unusable. On one side, the wall was tiled all the way to the roof with what once had depicted colorful scenes of an adventurous life at sea, but were now faded, bland, and a whole lot less enticing. Opposite were four floor-to-ceiling windows, each containing rows of smaller panes which altogether, he imagined, let in enough light to warrant foregoing the strip lights altogether.

He looked across the empty pool, empty that is of water but filling instead with leaves, chunks of debris and a creeping mold that was eking its way up what appeared to have been sea-blue tiles in a past existence.

The pool curved down to its deepest point on the opposite side from where he stood and was overlooked by a diving board made of no more than a wooden plank, certainly now not one that would pass health and safety regulations. Beneath the board sat Daniel, his boots hanging limp and heavy over the edge of the drop.

Jacob’s own boots crunched over broken tile and plaster until he reached the far end and crouched to sit beside him.

The young man’s gaze, angled down toward the bottom of the pool, failed to conceal the sheen that covered his eyes and must have blurred his vision.

‘You’re not well,’ Jacob said, still resisting what he really wanted to ask.

Daniel rubbed a fist across his nose and sniffed. He looked out across the pool, seemed to be deep in thought, then asked, ‘Can you swim, brother?’

The question took him by surprise and for a second he couldn’t remember if he could or not. ‘Yes, actually. A little. At least I used to. How about you?’

‘Junior Champion, Rathburn Elementary, 2020.’

‘Wow, really? That’s wonderful.’

‘Is it?’

Jacob peered at him. ‘Isn’t it?’

Daniel’s snigger was heavy with sarcasm. He looked down at his hands. ‘Not much use to me now,’ he said. But then his throat reddened and he glanced up. ‘I’m sorry, brother.’

‘It’s okay.’

Jacob looked out across the redundant pool, at the ladders that dropped down to the murky depths, and noticed how the dirt and mold started from the lowest, deepest level before edging their way upward, slowly suffocating everything that lay beneath. The grime was ground in at those depths, had become part of the tile, while the ones nearer the surface maintained something of their original color. But for how much longer?

‘We try to live by the doctrine as best we can,’ Jacob said, his voice quiet and almost lost in the cavernous room. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.’

He was only a young boy. How could they deny him the feelings that came naturally? Were they even right to do so?

‘What’s bothering you, Daniel?’

The boy’s head rose to look at his peer, brown eyes glistening. ‘You can’t ask me that.’ His voice cracked.

‘It’s only us two here. You’re clearly upset. Let me help.’

Daniel’s head dropped and a tear escaped down to his chin, dripped onto his hands. He brushed it away, eyes flicking to Jacob as though he wanted to say

something but daren’t. They were breaking the values, both of them were. But after the week he’d had, Jacob could bear the tension no longer.

‘Is it Aaron?’

A look of astonishment crossed his face, but mixed with something else, something Jacob hadn’t seen in a while.

‘You’ve nothing to feel guilty about, brother.’

Daniel hesitated, stumbled over his words. ‘I’m guilty of breaking the values.’

Jacob saw the difficulty that speaking those words caused him, saw how the cacophony of mixed emotions crumbled his normally open and sunny demeanor.

Wasn’t this what the Tribe was supposed to protect against, precisely these feelings of shame and guilt?

‘Has anything happened?’ he asked, trying to hold his gaze while he had his trust.

But again Daniel hesitated. ‘It’s okay. This is just between you and me.’

‘But Michael—’

‘You and me, Daniel. And see?’ He held up his hands. ‘Now we’re both breaking the values, so you have nothing to fear. Are you having a relationship with Aaron?’

‘No.’ His reply was quick, but his eyes swamped with tears. ‘But I want to.’

‘Does he?’

Daniel nodded, and again a tear spilled over. ‘We know what the doctrine says.

We’d have to leave. But neither of us want that.’ His expression was one Jacob had seen more than once lately. One of despair. One of pleading.

He looked down past his black jeans to the bottom of the pool, a depth of ten meters. What would Michael do? Michael would ask one or both of them to leave, surely there was no doubt about that. What would he do, he thought disparagingly, he who should one day be leader?

He examined the pool floor but there were no answers there. What harm could these boys do? They were happy together and also happy within the Tribe, with its doctrine to protect them, bring them peace, contentment and the freedom they craved. Yet growing ever more audible to Jacob was the voice in the back of his head, questioning the doctrine’s promise to its members and whether the values, created to liberate, were in fact doing just the opposite.

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