Kai's Navigator
Kai has delivered food on his electric bike for three years. Orders pop from the phone, the system times them, and a late mark or a bad rating cuts his pay. He learns the city's shortcuts, braves rain and a bad fall, and delivers behind closed doors where customers never see him. One run to a weeping family in the ward makes him think of his own mother. The navigator's voice pulls him through the city like a string; he dreams of saving enough to go home, yet the sum slips further.
Kai had ridden for the delivery app three years.
He did not like to say it. In the city the electric bike, the yellow helmet, the warm box on his back made a wall between him and everyone else. Orders popped from the phone; the system set the time; late meant a cut in pay, a bad rating meant a cut. Rain bonus barely covered the trouble.
He remembered his first year, the first late order, the customer cursing that the food was cold. He stood in the stairwell, the box held to his chest, and thought, next time faster.
Later he learned the city. Which alley cut a corner, which gate was loose, which tower had the slow elevator — he knew them all. The phone on the handlebar spoke; turn left, he turned; U-turn, he turned. Once it led him into a dead end; he lost ten minutes, the order went late, his pay dipped, and he swore and went on.
Rain was the worst. The cape did not help; his cuffs soaked; he wrapped the box in three plastic bags. One snow day the road was slick and he and the bike went down under the bridge. His leg bruised; two orders still open; he rose, twisted the throttle, hands shaking.
The customers never saw him. Past the door he passed the food, leave it there. Now and then one opened and said thanks; he paused, nodded. Mostly the door shut and the world was the voice of the navigator again.
Once he delivered to a ward where a family wept and took the meal, saying the patient had wanted something hot. Kai stood in the hall and thought of his own mother, who loved hot meals too, and whom he had not seen home for three years. He looked down; the next order waited five kilometers off.
The system pushed every day. Good months he ran fifty orders and his back ached. Bad months, wind and rain, few orders; he squatted at the station door and counted bikes. The chief said, don't stop, stop and the orders go.
Last year he saved for a new bike and a bigger battery. His father said on the phone, son, don't grind so hard. He said, the city pays well. He hung up knowing he had lied.
This spring the fall sent him to hospital; the doctor found worn lumbar. Rest, the doctor said. He rested three days and went live again. Who else would pay the rent.
He stopped arguing. Late, he typed sorry; a bad rating, he let it pass. He turned the volume up; the navigator at his ear, a string pulling him through the city.
Off shift at night he took off the yellow helmet and wiped his face. The city lights strung on like orders, never finished. He thought, when he had enough saved, he would go home and open a small shop, no more runs. But the sum slipped further the more he saved.
Kai went live again. The navigator said, five hundred meters, turn right.