II #2
Ana nodded, understanding only somewhat. The girl continued: "It's all very important, because from analyzed samples we can estimate how much compost to mix into a certain amount of stone dust to get the richest soil composition needed for growing plants."
"I see. It's some kind of artificial fertilizer?" Ana tried to understand the process.
The girl looked at her seriously. "Not quite like that, but similar. We don't have the ability to make the chemicals used in artificial fertilizers. But stone dust serves as a substitute fertilizer, because it's full of microscopic particles and minerals that plants need to develop."
She looked at the papers, then at Ana, letting her know she should get back to studying and not to pointless explaining.
Ana said goodbye to the girl and quickly headed through the laboratory, meanwhile making a mental note that she should talk to Erik about placing a few guards to turn people away from entering the laboratory.
She passed Nika, who was too busy with the microscope to notice her friend passing quickly.
Ana quickened her pace. She didn't want to keep people from their work, and she soon left the laboratory and headed down the hallway toward the space where the canteen and the so-called shopping mall were.
She stopped to let two carts loaded with kitchen supplies pass and, seeing that the crowd around the elevator was settling, headed toward the office not far from the kitchen that they'd repurposed into a studio for making ultraviolet bulbs.
Someone had closed the entrance with a blanket, but from inside came laughter and cheerful conversation.
"And did you see that oaf with the glasses? The guy seems like he's not all there." Loud laughter from the room. Ana stopped and listened.
"Oh yeah, and he stares at people like some calf." More laughter.
"Oh, he's weird, but that whole crowd acts like they own the whole place." Voices of approval, while the same one continued: "It's a bit strange that the same crew gets a whole floor to themselves while we're squeezed in with the others in bunk beds."
"Yeah, like sardines, and I hear they even have a bar where they party and drink up the drink supplies," a new voice added, and many voices agreed.
"A friend of mine from the warehouse told me that the head warehousewoman Irena is in charge of procuring drink and food, and that she gave a blowjob to that guy who runs everything so she could party with them." Some voices sounded appalled and shocked, while most sounded in agreement.
Ana leaned her back against the wall by the entrance and picked up some papers, which she pretended to study deeply, but actually she was completely interested in the conversation she wasn't supposed to hear.
"You mean Nick?" A new voice Ana recognized. It belonged to Tina.
"Yes," the earlier girl spoke up.
"Well, Nick is indeed the one in charge, and that about the blowjob is the plain truth. He's always chasing girls. He came on to me too."
"Oh yeah? And did you blow him?" Laughter.
"No, I turned him down, but he didn't take it well. He harassed me so much that I had to ask security at my gym to remove him and ban him from entry."
Ana knew Tina was shamelessly lying. Nick actually avoided Tina wherever he could, because she persistently threw herself at him. She kept eavesdropping.
"I'd blow him. He's very good-looking," some new voice spoke up, provoking a giggle.
"And he'd let you blow him, and you probably wouldn't know you were being filmed and that the video would end up online," Tina replied to that, which quieted the laughter and voices.
"What do you mean?" The girl's voice now sounded serious.
"Well, Nick is friends with that skinny four-eyes, that retarded idiot. Nick lays them and this one films. He even joins in sometimes, and then they have their way with the girl as a pair. I heard it from reliable sources."
Tina's voice provoked a shocked silence in the room while Ana raged inside.
But she forced herself to keep listening.
"And I heard Nick even organized orgies and later sold the video online. He got quite wealthy from it."
Tina was still lying incredibly. For a moment Ana wanted to burst into the room, but she knew that would do nothing against the shameless rumor Tina was spreading.
She could only force herself to stay calm, to pretend the meaningless papers in her hands had incredible importance, and to listen to this conversation.
Because, though the conversation was full of rumors and untruths, Ana knew it would spread through the shelter like a forest fire.
And Tina was the main source of it. Ana decided to use that information once she'd thought carefully about everything she was hearing here.
So she focused on the voices in the office.
"And his wealth is of great use to him now in this shelter." Someone spoke up, at which Tina objected.
"And isn't it? Didn't you yourself just say that they party up there while we play sardines?"
She got no answer to that, so she continued: "And on top of that, I heard that pregnant woman also attends those orgies."
Shocked voices at that statement. Tina continued: "Yes, she's like the main one for some show those lezzers put on to get people worked up. That's how they deceived that Dalmatian girl too."
"You mean the girl from the laboratory?" Someone asked.
"Her exactly, I heard the girl was hetero until she met our local lezzers. And that there was licking and screwing at the orgy yesterday."
"And who are these local lezzers?" A new voice asked naively, provoking laughter.
"Well, Ana and that green-haired one who clings to her skirts," Tina explained importantly.
"Wait, Ana, you mean that red-haired girl who imitates the Gestapo, while doing nothing herself?" someone asked.
"Her exactly. Imagine, I considered her a friend until she stuck her tongue in my mouth." Tina's voice sounded disgusted; Ana literally flushed with rage.
"Oh my, she stuck her tongue in yours too?" Again a voice from some girl. "I noticed a few weeks ago that she was undressing me with her eyes at a party."
"Oh yeah, Ana is like Nick — you know they're neighbors in Zagreb? And I heard they sleep together." Tina sounded serious.
"Come on, cut the crap, a moment ago she's a lezzer and now she sleeps with Nick. Make up your mind already." Now the first girl's voice spoke up, provoking loud approval from the girls' chorus inside the room.
"I'm telling you seriously, a friend who was drugged so she couldn't move told me. Nick raped her in the ass, and Ana sat on her head and she had to lick her half the night. After that they fell asleep in the same bed, and the friend slipped away as soon as she was able to walk.
Ana later threatened her that she'd announce to everyone the girl was a lesbian, because she'd recorded the whole thing on her phone."
Ana became furious. It was an incredible twisting of the truth of an event from a few months earlier, when Ana had noticed that a girl's drink had been spiked with a drug.
The girl was surrounded by people and didn't notice one of them pouring gray powder into her juice.
But Ana did, and she quickly called Nick, who pulled the suddenly weakened girl out of the group of people who were heading toward the exit.
Four embarrassed young men calmly handed the girl over to security, who later beat them up in a dark alley behind the building.
The two of them sat the then-half-conscious girl in Nick's car and set off for the nearest hospital.
She remembered that the girl, barely audibly, begged not to be taken to the hospital, because her parents were respected doctors and it would cause a big scandal.
So they decided to bring her to Ana's apartment, where they showered her in cold water, dressed her in some of Ana's clothes, and looked after her the rest of the night while she slept on Ana's sofa.
Ana remembered falling asleep, exhausted, in Nick's arms, and that in the morning they found a note of thanks from the girl, who had slipped away early to go home before her parents woke.
So Ana raged completely justifiably, gripping the useless papers with fingers pale from the effort.
And since she had later, over some unimportant coffee, mentioned that whole story to Tina, she'd had no inkling that Tina would betray that trust in the worst possible way and turn something positive and good into such a monstrosity.
She could no longer listen to the conversation.
Everything said was either a heap of lies or twisted half-truths anyway.
Ana made a real effort to move away from the office, keeping a calm expression and cheerfully returning the occasional greeting of an acquaintance.
While in reality she could barely walk, broken by what she'd heard.
She knew there would be rumors and envy.
But she'd never expected her trust to be betrayed in such a way.
She knew Tina was a selfish bitch, which was becoming more and more obvious as the days passed, but that she'd profit in such a low way from information she'd gathered over the years of their friendship — that appalled Ana.
Tina was literally ready for anything just to elevate her status in every situation.
And probably that quarrel from a few days ago, when Ana had stripped her of all rights, was the reason she was scheming against her former friend in such a low way.
Ana didn't know how to respond to it all.
If she openly set about refuting Tina's lies, she'd stoop to her level and only give the parties involved more material for rumors.
If, again, she didn't react, she'd give some credibility to the lies that would grow over time.
And who knows what would come of it. The thing was that, with her intention to isolate the council members on the fourth floor, she'd fed those rumors about partying.
Because people could only speculate about what was going on behind those suddenly forbidden zones.
There was no help for it anymore, and she could only hope that the council's positive decisions would dispel all those unpleasant rumors about the fourth floor.