The Grief Team (13 page)

It was to her credit that she didn’t scream hysterically when a heavy, smelly net dropped over her and she was lifted by powerful hands up into the sunlight. The first thing she saw was Mutt, biting a mouthful of net like he actually thought he could eat his way out. She saw the six men cocooned in blue-biosuits with two wide bright yellow stripes running horizontally at the chest and waist.  Their weapons, made of shiny metal that glinted and mirrored the red sun, were out and ready. In her shock and amazement, she was still aware that Jason wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Ferria had sent Roy Glyn to get Mutt the WildKid. Mutt, Ferria had determined, would lead Roy to the boy who had appeared in her dreams. Roy didn’t know why but, when he saw what he saw yesterday—when this silent, skinny Kid with the dark circles under his eyes had actually healed Mutt’s radburns—Roy had almost jumped out of the bushes where he was hiding. No wonder Ferria was interested in someone who could do that!

Roy’s mastery of the old ways, the tricks -of-the-trade when he had been a feral Outsider himself, quietly seeped back into him. He had cottoned on to Mutt’s fire hours before and then Roy had been able to do something that a vidkam couldn’t—he had a sense of smell and he knew sa’mon when it was being fried just the way he liked it. It had taken quite a while but he had found Mutt’s homeplace and then he had waited, hungry, sleeping when they slept, and then quietly following after in the morning on their journey. He had been very surprised when Mutt had led the others to the Dome. 

Roy knew that he had to concede Mutt’s mastery of the terrain. As it was, leaping forward to grab the pale boy by his hair, and then pulling him out of the tunnel and banging him hard on the head with a flat rock was a near thing. Until that moment, Mutt had given Roy no opportunity to get close; only the sudden appearance of the Yellowbands had allowed Roy time to get him out of the tunnel and into a side crevice that Roy himself was hiding in. The pale boy had been stunned by the blow from the rock but he was conscious and had allowed Roy to push him along as quickly as he could. His wheezing was harsh and Roy had a hard time listening above it to see if they were being followed. 

As the two boys moved away from the scene of Mutt and Cathy’s capture, Roy Glyn was patting himself on the back for a fine piece of work. Admittedly he’d been lucky to notice that the Grief Team had silently arrived and to steer clear of them. Ferria had warned him that any Team sweeps were out of her control and he must avoid them at all costs. He’d been lucky all right and now Roy kept Jason moving. He knew that he could also make a report on the little girl they called Cathy. Ferria might be interested in what she had said about being a Mallchild.

Yes, he was bringing Ferria d’Mont what she’d asked for. He was bringing a Kid who could make radburns vanish! She was bound to be pleased…would want to show her affection for him on completion of such a successful mission…

Roy missed a step, stumbled, and caught his stride again. A sudden intense throb in his groin reminded him of his impending reward.

His daughter had what I believe we might refer to as a dysfunction, perhaps an Electra complex, if you will.” Gabriel paused and smiled at the assembly. He was dealing with business at hand. “She chose to drive her new step-father away by competing with her mother for his love and affection. She attempted to dominate and intrude even in the presence of her mother and, with step-daddy alone, she advanced her physical affections until he was unable to resist. For this, he has been accused and removed from the scene. In brief, the seduction and submission of this Stage Four Father was a…forgive me…foregone conclusion. Under the Rules, it is a violation of the species. Step-daddy most certainly had at least one occasion when his brain clearly advised him to stop and report the matter. He did not, he proceeded, he is guilty. Crematoria today.

“The little girl’s health is my prime concern. See that she is well-looked-after and include counselling for a minimum of five hours, then remove her to SkyDome for export. Designate the Mother as Crone and open her lodgings. Let Grief Team Removals do the usual, and transmit one copy of this order to the Mayor.” Gabriel relaxed and leaned back into his chair.

“New business?” He suppressed a sigh of impatience as one familiar hand shot into the air.

“Quentin?”

“Rhonda. I want to talk about Rhonda.” Already blood was suffusing into the cramped features of Quentin Chang’s face.

“So you do,” responded Gabriel, looking at the others and taking note of their stance on the matter. “I take it that your objections to Rhonda are mainly in the area of her Fan Club, is that right? You have a problem with some of the loonies? You don’t like nasal-dicks, Chang, is that it?” Chang’s face was approaching purple, but Gabriel continued. “What’s the matter, your wife not getting enough lately?  Not failing in your duty as a Father, are you? Give your wife a good poke at least twice a week, because if she calls me one more time about how you won’t even touch her, then I swear I’m going to drop over and pork her myself!  Now what was it you wanted to say about Rhonda?”

A flutter of laughter rippled through the members of the assembly.

“You bastard!” screamed Chang. “You know she drops those suggestions into the Stream for a joke! It’s a joke! You can’t understand a joke when you read one, Gabriel? What kind of joke does it have to be before you understand it?

The amusement continued and Gabriel could not suppress a grin that was threatening to widen into a smile. “Nobody wants to fuck your wife, Quentin, least of all me. Sure it’s a joke! We all got it, I got it! I got the joke! You don’t get the joke, Quentin. The joke is that it’s the fifteenth time she’s invited me over to fuck her brains out and some of the people who work in my office are beginning to think of taking her up on it.” 

“That bitch! I want her on the List!”

“So, list her. Charley, put Quentin’s wife on the updated List.” 

Charley Anderson nodded and picked up a pencil. “Under what category, Gabriel?”

The Director of the Grief Team glanced at Quentin Chang. “Working Women; afternoon assignations only.” He watched the pencil do its work and then turned back to Chang. “Now let’s hear about Rhonda.”

“Rhonda’s not the problem...you get that bitch listed tonight, Charley! I want to see it on TV tonight!... it’s these fucking Fan Club Mulls, some of these disgusting mutants are getting out of control and...”

“...with your permission, Gabriel,” Ferria d’Mont smoothly cut the cuckolded husband off at the crotch. “Quentin, as you have only been with us for a very short period of time, perhaps you are not aware that Rhonda’s Mulls are a protected resource of the Nation and therefore may not suffer the infringement of any of their rights under the Mall Act for Mulls.” Ferria paused long enough to flash the Director a look clearly denoting her request to allow her this opportunity to instruct the new member.

“With this in mind, I would suggest that the matter be assigned to Greenbands. Expanded Team presence in the area will ensure that Rhonda’s Mulls have adequate space within which to offer their adulation and will also help to alleviate the general press in the malls. It will also enhance the coverage on TV reports and will make these ‘disgusting mutants’ as you call them very happy as well. Fan-Mulls are, after all, Mr. Chang, part of the show. Perspective is everything, Mr. Chang.” Ferria turned her perfect teeth loose in a smile which practically electrocuted Quentin Chang, who sagged back into his seat, hardly knowing what had hit him.

Gabriel nodded. Dogs’breath, that girl is good, he was thinking. Below, he felt himself beginning to stir. “Thank you, Ferria. Anything else? Peter?”

Peter Heckbert opened a large black binder and adjusted owl-rimmed glasses. “Yes, thank you, Gabriel. Today I went to the Holding Pens in SkyDome and I am sorry to say that it’s getting worse in there all the time. The quality of the rations has dropped and that means cannibalism is starting up again. The littlest ones just don’t have a fair chance when there is an imbalance in the Rations as serious as this and it is indisputably a direct result of insufficient rations. We must increase their allotment immediately, and not just more of those fucking canned sardines either! There’s no earthly reason why we cannot divert some of the flow out of the Bammo! cannery...”

“...robbing Peter to pay Paul, that is...,” muttered Quentin Chang.

Heckbert ignored the interruption. “I would also like to receive  confirmation of my intention to dismiss the idiot who ordered the decrease in Rations in the first place. The number of missing WK’s is edging close to seventy over the last thirty days. That’s unheard of, even when the program was started.”  He paused, removed his glasses for effect, and continued.

“Now there is another problem in the Dome. There is a serious disturbance in the pens, one which the Yellowbands tell me defies punishments and, with the greatest respect, Gabriel, your sermons on the Jumbotron are having little effect. If I am correct in my thinking about this, this problem represents a greater threat to the order and management of Skydome than a few barbeque pits out in left field.”

“You have our undivided attention,” granted Gabriel.

“It has to do with a WK named Mutt. No last name. He’s a feral Kid, dropped by ferals. We caught him when he was a tadpole but he was untrainable...”

“...thought he was dead,” interjected Chang who, for his pains, read each and every line of the weekly Team reports.

Again, Heckbert ignored the interruption. “This Mutt was correctly judged as unfit for export and too wild to take a chance on for TV, but he disappeared three days before his appointment at Domestic Consumption. His tattoo number was never found on any manifest, nor was his murder ever reported or a body discovered. Nevertheless, as Mr. Chang correctly remembers, we did report his death.

“About three months ago, rumours began circulating through the pens that Mutt had escaped. Not been removed, not been killed, not been barbequed, but escaped!  The idea of escape, something which we have successfully contained for years is, in my opinion, in serious jeopardy. 

The Yellowbands have gone to great lengths to end the matter, ‘discovering’ a planted corpse. Despite the thirty-one Kids whom we had identify the remains as Mutt-no-last-name, the rumour refuses to die. There is a growing belief that Mutt is alive on the Outside. It’s positively eerie, I tell you, and it has to be stopped!”

“Why?” asked Gabriel.

“Why? Don’t you know anything about religion, Gabriel? These are the exact conditions which lead to the creation of a religion or a belief system.”

“I’m a little rusty, I’m afraid. I haven’t thought about these things since the last priest was driven out. Father Louis of the Purple, I think it was. Do you remember Father Louis, Peter?” 

“Ah... no. No I don’t.”

“Well most don’t. Thank you for your report, Peter. Go ahead and fire your rationing expert if you wish. I believe Cleansing can always use the help. As for this new Messiah, Peter, a little shit named Mutt was apprehended not more than an hour ago. We’ve been watching him for days and I think it’s highly unlikely that he’ll manage to escape twice.”

Ferria d’Mont, who had been watching the proceedings with great interest, felt her smile turn to wax. Mutt captured? What had happened to Roy Glyn?

“Watch the situation,” Gabriel continued, “push the Yellowbands to the limit. They always give up too easily. I’ll record a new salvation video and focus directly on the problem. Will that satisfy you?”

“Ah, yes. Yes, it will, Gabriel.  Thank you.” With a snap, Heckbert’s black binder was closed. “And if I may, I am needed elsewhere at the moment. Stephanie’s dancing in Centre Court downstairs. Honour the child and all that, you know.”

“Honour the child, Peter. Thank you. And give Linda and Stephanie my very best. Further business? No? Good morning to you all then. Ferria, do have an extra moment for me?”

Quention Chang approached the Director, thought the better of it, and hurried after Charley Anderson instead. His cocksucking wife was going to gets hers if it was the last thing he did.

Ferria, who had needed several moments to digest Gabriel’s news, was nonetheless ready for the encounter. Her relationship with the Mayor had opened enormous possibilities for her but, as yet, the Mayor’s son was an unknown, undefined entity. One worthy of careful scrutiny certainly.

Gabriel wasted no time. “Ferria, your intelligence far surpasses my own and Elias’ for that matter. Are you surprised that I openly admit this to you?”

Ferria was equal to the task. “Not surprised, Gabriel. Flattered actually.”

“Tell me, Ferria, why did you buy Roy Glyn and send him Outside?”

Dog’sbreath! You knew all along!

The Director had been dipping into her files in the Stream, tracking her movements, looking for something out of the ordinary.  Dogs’breath, you’re incredibly good!  How deep were you able to delve? Is there nothing you cannot not fish out of the Stream? 

Ferria had anticipated a question regarding her purchase of Roy Glyn but nothing beyond that. She had concocted an intricate history of events that she believed would keep Elias happy and, in a pinch, hold Gabriel off, at least until she had dealt with the boy that Roy was bringing to her. Now she was rapidly assessing what she could and could not say as the Director sat waiting, a wan smile on his face.

The boy in her dreams, the pale, solemn child whom she feared, knowing instinctively, innately, that her survival demanded that she dominate him! Possess him!  Even now Roy Glyn was probably hurrying the Kid through the Malls, through lanes that Ferria had shown him, discreet passages where movement escaped the vidkams and certain types of business were conducted by other citizens from time to time. 

What does Gabriel know about the boy?

What did she know about Gabriel Kraft?

Until Ferria had won the opportunity to serve Elias, she knew what every Child-of-the-Malls knew: that peace, happiness, and security were provided by the Grief Team, the product of  Mayor Dickie’s amazing mind. And she knew that the pre-eminent figure attached to the Grief Team was none other than Gabriel Kraft. He was a hero, a man of much self-sacrifice; strong, true, wise, brave, and heroic. It was a cant that had served him well. Ferria was eight when she first experienced a pang of hero-worship one evening when Gabriel appeared on TV. She was in love with him for years until her own life began to take shape, drawing her forward to her own destinies.

At sixteen, she had been appointed to a position made necessary by Elias’ inability to ever remember anything. It afforded her a first-hand look at the reins of power in Toronto Nation and Ferria, hungry for power, had immediately set about making herself indispensable to the Mayor…which was mainly why she was fucking him. Which was why anybody fucked anybody really.

Ferria’s intelligence quotient accelerated her inclusion into the draft for the position in the Mayor’s office. To her delight, she had been selected as the first choice on nine of twelve lists. Impressed and intrigued by the exercise of power which Mayor Elias possessed in the Malls, Ferria had begun searching for the means to enhance her obsession with power. Her interest in using the system to her own advantage multiplied each time she observed how deftly, and wastefully, the Mayor used the Stream; ordering repairs and improvements in the Malls, checking on specials, adding to a debate, speaking with ambassadors from the World Trade Zone, or simply calling on citizens to see how they were. Such pitiful dealings when one had the power to move mountains! Thus, on occasions of the Mayor’s absence, Ferria began to conduct her own fishing expeditions, discreet dippings that nonetheless left tracks until gradually she discovered how to disguise them.  

Within a day after she stopped the proceedings on Countdown to Horror to purchase Roy Glyn, an act which she had committed without thinking or hesitation, Ferria had been using the Mayor’s authority to request the surveillance of Mutt WildKid. Roy had babbled about the Kid who escaped from the Dome and had unwittingly provided her with the means to find the boy in the dream. Further enquiries among some of the more persuadable Yellowbands in and around the Mayor’s office, ones who had worked in Dome, were happy to provide the Executive Assistant with information. 

It was true that Elias always left the enforcement issues up to Gabriel whose ability to maintain the status quo was legendary in the Malls. Other than the odd incident involving Wildkids, the citizens experienced rarely a ripple in the calm waters of their everyday lives, so keenly did Gabriel navigate with his hand on the tiller. Ferria, sensitive to those in whose veins power flowed, watched and listened and waited for her opportunities. Ferria thought she knew her quarry.