Black Rust (13 page)

In a country accent, Irene said, “Hey Goose, how’re you this morning?”

With Toby breathing too close behind her, Sienna followed Goose through the building’s glass doors, glaring at the receptionist, a plump hag with a syrupy voice and dull mind.  She presided over the sterile lobby of Blue Bean’s central administrative building. 

“How you doin’, Irene?” Goose stepped up to the receptionist counter and leaned his elbows on the polished granite.  “Got some papers here for the Boss Man.”

Irene glanced toward a door at the back of the lobby.  “Mr. Workman is in the small conference room with the State Inspector.”  She reached out for the death orders Sienna had signed.  “I can give these to him when he finishes.”

“Sure,” said Goose, passing the papers to Irene.  “Before his eight-thirty meeting.”

“Of course.”  Irene took the papers, took her flirty eyes off Goose, and turned them cold for Sienna.  “Your meetin’s in the executive conference room.”  She pointed at a door across the lobby as though Sienna didn’t know where the room was. 

Sienna stepped up to the counter.  “I need to speak to Mr. Workman before the meeting.”

Irene turned and made a show of looking at a big clock on the wall behind her.  “I’ll tell him, but I doubt he’ll have time.”

Sienna held firm.  “It’s important.” 

“You run along and take a seat in the conference room.”  Irene pointed again.  “I’ll let him know.”  She turned her doe eyes and coffee-stained smile back at Goose.

It was puke-worthy.  Irene knew Goose was a lifer.  She had to know what he was in for.  Still, she seemed to want little more than to drag him beneath her cloying sheets to entertain him between her lumpy thighs.

“I need to run,” Goose told Irene before exaggerating a wink.  “You make sure Boss Man gets those.”  He gave Sienna a glance and a snort.  “I gotta get all them defects to the Bloodmobile.  Shoulda been done yesterday but somebody got lazy ‘bout signin’ their paperwork.”

Sienna didn’t rise to the taunt, satisfying herself instead to see Goose head for the door with his drooling Bully Boy in tow.

“The conference room,” Irene reminded Sienna before turning her attention to some papers on her desk.  “Coffee and pastries inside.”

“Did you see that?” Lutz asked, pointing into the sky above the road.

“No.”  I looked up from the map on my phone.

“Hover bike.  I think it was a cop.”

“Ricardo said they were Blue Bean’s buzz bikes.”

“Looked like a cop bike to me.”

“By himself?” I asked as I stared at the narrow strip of sky I was able to see between the trees that bordered the road in front of us.  “Just one?”

Lutz took his foot off the accelerator as he craned his neck to look above us through the windshield.

“Keep going,” I told him.  “We need to get to Sienna Galloway.”

“If that was a cop up there, you’re not going to be seeing anybody.”

“Speed up,” I told him.  “If the guy on the hover bike saw you, going slower isn’t going to help anything.”

Lutz shook his head but pushed his foot on the accelerator anyway.  “I can’t get caught with you.”

“You can say you didn’t know there was a warrant,” I told him, guessing the root of his worry.  “It isn’t even twelve hours old.”

“How are we going to explain being on Blue Bean property?”

“Lie.”  I laughed.  “Say we got lost.  It’s not hard.  No road signs.  All these dirt roads look alike.  Besides, we’re not on their property yet.”

We were racing along over fifty, and the Mercedes was bouncing and rattling everything around in the back not strapped down.  Thankfully, the dirt was moist in the shade of the trees, and we weren’t throwing up a dust plume.  That would be a hard thing to miss from above.

“What do I do at the turn coming up?” Lutz asked.

“Left,” I told him.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” 

A dark streak crossed over the road above the trees ahead of us.

“You see that?” Lutz shouted.

I did.

“Cop bike?” he asked, making no effort to hide his anxiety.

“Looked like a cop bike to me,” I agreed.  “But it was moving too fast to tell.”

“It was a cop bike.”  Lutz looked around at the trees.  “The kill site isn’t far from here, I bet.  Maybe ten miles that way.”

Lutz was wrong about that.  By my guess, we were three or four miles away.  “What are you getting at?  Why’s that important?”

“Maybe they’re investigating.  Maybe they’re out here looking for us.”

That was possible.

Sienna was tempted to lean across the wide table and slap the jelly-filled donut out of Mike Rafferty’s mouth.  “The Mobile Retirement Unit is here, on the property.  Today.”

“I know,” Mike mumbled through the sugary mush filling his cheeks.  “We brought it in with us.”

“That’s not the point.”  Sienna crossed her arms and clenched her jaw.  She glanced at the closed conference room door and then turned back to the State Inspector’s assistant.  “You’ve been telling me for months that we can’t do anything right now. 
When
can we do something?  Blue Bean is murdering degenerates the moment their productivity slips so they can get an allocation of fresh ones out of next month’s class from the state school.”

“Kill and fill.”  Mike swallowed the rest of what was in his mouth as he lifted the donut for another bite.  “Everybody does it.  Impossible to prove.”

“It’s illegal.”  Sienna didn’t yell it, but she’d wanted to.  “They all get away with it because they’re all a bunch of inbred cousins running the corporate farms out here.  They collude to make sure they put similar percentages on the kill list every month, so nobody looks like they’re sending too many, so nobody looks like they’re guilty.”

“Or nobody is doing anything illegal, and the similar stats prove it.”  More donut into the mouth. 

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“I know what you keep telling me.”  Mike tried to stuff more on top of what he was already chewing.

“Don’t,” Sienna told him. 

Mike looked at the donut.  “Blue Bean makes a lot of money.  You might be used to getting donuts.  But me, on a state salary, you know how often I eat anything but grits for breakfast?”

“I don’t care about the damn donuts and grits!” Sienna realized she was starting to yell, and she made an effort to bring her voice back down to a conversational level, or at least one that Irene out in the lobby wouldn’t hear through the door.  “You know how many you’re going to run through the Bloodmobile today?”

“The Mobile Retirement Unit,” Mike corrected.  “The Inspector doesn’t like it when people call it the Bloodmobile.”

“It’s better than Murder Wagon,” Sienna spat.  “That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

Mortified, Mike said, “Don’t call it that in front of him or you’ll never get his help.”

“Why do I have to be nice to him to get him to do his job?” Sienna shook her head in disgust.  “I should go to the media.”

“You can’t,” said Mike.  “I told you that.  Not with what you have.  At least not with what you’ve shown me.  It’s not proof.”

“I’m the one who certifies degenerates for retirement.”  Sienna felt dirty just for using that word. 
Retirement
was a euphemism for euthanasia.  Hell, what they were doing wasn’t even euthanasia.  It was slaughter.

“The Mobile Retirement Unit only retires defective degenerates—the violent ones—on the list you’ve signed.”

“I’ve told you before,” said Sienna, “They’ve been lying to me about violence and cannibalism.  Ninety percent of the retirees they ask me to sign for aren’t guilty.  They lose their training because of the progression of the encephalopathy.  Ongoing training makes them more expensive to keep around.  That’s why Blue Bean and every other farm in the area lies and sends them to the Bloodmobile for you to slaughter.”

Mike glared at Sienna, taunting her by stuffing half a cream-filled donut in his mouth and speaking through the mush.  “Mobile Retirement Unit.” 

Sienna bit back her anger.  She’d had hope when she’d first contacted Mike, but not because he had any love for the degenerates.  Like her, she thought he recognized the degenerates had a right to life if they could still fill a productive roll.  She thought Mike held the same view.  “Last time we talked, you told me to get proof.  Well, I did that.  I sequestered every degenerate in the training compound and my staff scrupulously observed them for days.  We didn’t witness one single savage act.  Not one.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” said Mike.  “You can’t know they weren’t violent before they were put on your list.”

“Exactly,” said Sienna.  “How am I supposed to prove something didn’t happen?  Goose Eckenhausen is Mr. Workman’s gopher boy, and his trustees will say anything he tells them to say.  They all lie.” 

Punctuating each slow word, Mike told her, “You have to have
proof
they lied.”

“I’m going after the Inspector when he comes in here.”  Sienna was tired of having the same discussion over and over and over again with Mike.  “I’m tired of asking you and nothing happens.  I’m tired of him looking the other way.  My proof might not hold up in court, but if I put this out on the Internet for the whole world to see, enough people will care, Mike.  Because whether you like it or not, whether all of the inbred hillbillies running these farms believe it, mankind will perish from the face of this earth if we kill too many degenerates.  Plenty of us still understand that.  We need the degenerates to sustain the species.  The Inspector better come around.  I’m not making threats.  He needs to do his job, or I’m calling him out in public along with Keith Workman and all the others.”

“Don’t,” Mike warned.

“As soon as he comes in here,” she said, “you’ll see.”

“You’ll regret it if you do,” said Mike.  “You know he and Workman go back a long way.  They were in the Army together back in the day.  Inspector Doggett won’t side with you.”  Mike put his donut on the table and leaned forward.  He was serious.  “He’ll see you fry.”

“What about an investigation?” Sienna pointedly asked.  “You keep telling me you’re going to tell the proper authorities to come here and do a real investigation.”

“These things take time,” said Mike.  “You have to trust me on this.  This isn’t easy.  I have to be careful who I talk to.”

“No,” Sienna nearly shouted.  A long night, two dozen killed right in front of her, threats in her own house, had pushed her past her ability to control her frustrations.  “Another two hundred degenerates are going to die today with my signature on the paper and all they need is to be retrained.  I’ve got that on my conscience, Mike.  I’m tired of the guilt.  I’m tired of trying and getting nothing done to save them.  If Inspector Doggett won’t do something, I’m going to the media and telling them everything I know.”

“Whatever you do, don’t do that.”  Mike was nearly pleading when he said, “Blue Bean is a powerful company.” 

They both ran out of things to say and they sat in silence.  Sienna stared at the table.  Mike fidgeted with the remnants of a pastry until he said, “You know what the most popular show on TV is right now?”

Sienna didn’t look up.  “I don’t watch TV.”

“Bash.”

Sienna shrugged.  Despondently she asked, “What’s Bash?”

“Reality crap.  They show video from spotter drones and voyeur drones of the funniest sanctioned kills they can find each week.”

“The funniest?” Sienna didn’t believe it.  “It’s not funny when anything dies.”

“They run it to music.  They run it fast-forward and in reverse.  They add graphics.  The hosts of the show make snide comments.”

“That’s sick.”

“Most people find it very funny.” 

Sienna shook her head and stared out the windows on the back wall of the conference room.  She should have quit a long time ago, as soon as she’d suspected what was happening.  But the money had been good.  Mr. Workman’s lies and promises were still believable when she tried hard enough.  She’d thought he was a good man managing bad people.

And Goose Eckenhausen was Workman’s right-hand man when it came to dealing with the trustees and other prisoners.  As unthinkable as it was, he was Workman’s foreman, Keith Workman’s dog.  If Workman could keep a predator like that on a leash and not recognize—or not care—what he was, then Keith Workman wasn’t worth any faith she’d put in him.

The conference room door opened, catching Sienna’s attention, and freezing Mike Rafferty’s jaws mid-bite.  Sienna recovered quickly, just as a blob of purple jelly dripped off Rafferty’s lip. 

Sienna pushed her chair back and jumped to her feet.

Inspector Doggett stopped in the doorway, startled at Sienna’s sudden animation.

Sienna saw the sheath of papers in Doggett’s hand, the kill list Goose Eckenhausen had forced her to sign.  She looked up at Doggett’s wide eyes.  She pointed through the door.  “I need to speak with Mr. Workman.”

Doggett made an indecipherable sound as he stepped aside, allowing Sienna to rush past him, out of the conference room and into the lobby.

Once past Doggett, Sienna spotted her boss—a tall, wide-shouldered man with a thick wave of silver hair on a melon-sized head, steering his big round gut toward Irene’s desk.  He wore cowboy boots made from the leathered hide of some animal so exotic and expensive its identity couldn’t be guessed.  His jeans were ironed with a crease and he wore a linen shirt starched stiffly enough that one couldn’t help but guess he had the means to afford domestic help that tended his laundry.  He wore a gaudy gold watch and ridiculously large gold rings.  His appearance told anyone who saw him that he was a man who never lost at anything.

Irene stood up, leaned over the counter, and softly spoke to Workman while looking at Sienna. 

Workman’s face turned to a frown.

Trouble.  Sienna turned back to Doggett, smiled sweetly—she hated having to kowtow with false niceties—and said, “We’ll be there in a moment.  Go on in.”  She turned back to her boss.

Workman looked Sienna up and down as he put his smile in politician mode.  “Dr. Galloway, what’s got you running outta there like a wet cat?”

Sienna ignored Workman’s good-ole-boy bullshit as she marched up to him and pointed at the door to the small conference room.  “May I have a moment of your time before our meeting with Inspector Doggett starts?”

Workman looked up at the clock on the wall over Irene’s chair.  Turning back to Sienna, he said, “We’re already late, little lady.”

Yeah, because you and Doggett were in the other room reminiscing about drunk girls you banged back in your Army days.  “It’ll just take a moment.”

“If it’s just a moment,” said Workman, reinforcing his grin and nodding to encourage the answer he wanted, “just tell me right here.”  He glanced over at Irene.  “We’re all family.  We’ve got no secrets.”

Total crap.

Sienna chose her words carefully, “The retirement list, I need to get it back from Inspector Doggett.  I’d like to make some revisions.”

Workman’s smile disappeared instantly.  “I’ve been asking for that list all week long.  You were supposed to have it to me on Monday.”

“I know,” said Sienna.  “I was running tests on the defects.  I wanted to confirm—”

“There’s nothing to confirm.  Goose’s boys witnessed their behavior.  That’s why they’re on the list.”

“I—”

“If you had doubts about the degenerates on the list,” he said, “you should have taken off the names you weren’t sure of.”

“I didn’t,” stuttered Sienna.  “I couldn’t.”

“It’s done.”  Workman took a step toward the conference room.

Sienna put a hand on his arm to stop him. 

Workman scowled. 

“Mr. Eckenhausen came into the residence compound this morning.”  Trustees were not allowed in the residence compound.  It was an unbreakable rule—or so Workman had told her when she first started.  Sienna wrestled with what more to say.  Anything she said would get back to Goose through Irene, if not Workman himself.  Then what would happen?

“I’m afraid that’s
my
fault, Ms. Galloway.  I needed that report for Inspector Doggett.  I had Goose stop by your residence.”

“But—”

“I take full responsibility for him, Dr. Galloway.  I know why he’s a permanent resident here.  He’s a little rough around the edges, but you have to admit he’s a good man.  He works hard for Blue Bean.”

A good man? 

That knocked Sienna’s anger off track.

Goose had threatened to let his drooling Bully Boy rape her in her own kitchen.  Mr. Workman needed to know.  She only hoped Workman hadn’t stooped so low as to order Goose to do what he’d done.

As she opened her mouth to lay her accusations out, the front door swung open, and Goose came hurrying through, his Bully Boy right on his heels.