World-Mart (22 page)

It was early morning, just before sunrise, when the police associates found the blue, stiff body.  His eyes were closed and his face peaceful, his arms tightly locked around his legs.

After a short, restless night, Shelley made her way back through the pedestrian halls.  She entered the Corp school shuttle hall just as a Police-Corp shuttle sped in with backup.

A security associate spotted Shelley and ran to intercept her.  “I’m sorry, miss, but this tunnel is closed.”

“But I need to get through here,” Shelley said, already suspecting the worst.

“What business do you have going through here during the weekend?” he asked, subtly glancing over at a random work of Graffiti on a nearby wall.

She felt her hands begin to tremble, wondering if the man meant to arrest her.  “My brother never came home last night and I was hoping to retrace his steps.  I think my dad may have been out all night looking for him and—”

“What does your brother look like?” the associate asked.

Shelley took a deep breath.  “He’s seven, brown eyes, sandy blond hair.”

He nodded.  “I think you should come with me.”

Shelley fought tears, her throat growing unbearably tight as the man escorted her through the garage.  “What’s going on?” she asked, although the answer was evident. 

She collapsed to her knees with a shriek as she saw a tiny, blue limb through the small swarm of police associates.  Everything went fuzzy, tears blurring her vision.  The voices that echoed through the hall became a confusing mass of noise, her own screams adding to the chaos.

A police manager ran up to her and the associate.  “What’s this?”

“I think we have an I.D.,” said the associate.

“I don’t know what we’ll do with it.  Corporate hasn’t sent over any work orders yet,” said the manager.

Shelley looked up at the two men, then back over at the body.  Needing to get a closer look, just to be sure, she forced herself to her feet and ran to it.

“Hey!”  The security associate tried to stop her, but she darted past him.

Shelley began to sob hysterically, pushing through the small crowd, as she recognized Kurt’s face.

The police manager tried to pull her back.  “I’m going to have to ask you to go with—”

“That’s my brother!” she cried, yanking her arm from his grasp.  She went limp as a couple of associates moved in to help the manager pull her from the scene.  “Kurt!”

Their voices faded into the din as they spoke:

“We’ll have to detain you if you don’t calm down.”

“I can wait with her for a work order if you want.”

“I think we need to get higher management involved in this one.”

“Mine’s not on call.”

“Neither is mine.”

“We’ll just have to wait then.”

The associates stopped dragging her, seemingly intent on keeping her contained at the furthest tunnel connection.

“We’re going to need to ask you a few questions,” one of them told her.

Shelley thought to respond, but instead she sat, silently weeping, unable to take her eyes away from the body’s location.  She watched for breaks in the mass of workers . . . waiting for another morbid glimpse of his frozen leg.

“Miss? 
Miss?
”

Chapter Twenty

VIRGINIA
startled awake with a horrified gasp, and she quickly sat up in her cot.  Sleep had thrust upon her mind a terrible nightmare, but what the nightmare had been about she could no longer recall.  She took a moment to become reoriented with her new surroundings, having forgotten that she had dozed off in the basement room after the Conrads had retired for the night.  Staring at the dark, dreary walls, she felt a sudden, intense longing to be home with her family, missing them now more than ever.

She stood up, shaking off the cold sweat that covered her body.  She looked over to the other cot, noticing that Nadine was not there.  She slowly went up the stairs, and then quietly opened the door to the foyer.  Seeing and hearing no one, Virginia crossed to the kitchen.  There was a service light on over the sink, and Virginia saw that there were two used wine glasses sitting on the counter beside an open bottle of Merlot.

Knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Conrad would have rang the bell if they had wanted wine, and Nadine would have cleaned the glasses immediately if she had somehow heard the call and served them without waking Virginia, she wondered if perhaps Nadine was just as much the thief as the girl she had just fired.  There was a commotion in the storeroom as a few canned goods fell from a shelf.

She
tiptoed over to the storeroom, hoping to see something she could use to put that bossy woman in her place.  As she peeked through the doorway, however, she found Nadine and Mr. Conrad together on the floor.  He had his undergarments down to his ankles, and she was on her back with her legs wrapped around his wrinkled, fat, gyrating body.  Neither expected the intrusion, and both were oblivious to Virginia’s presence.

She
hurried back downstairs, deciding to feign ignorance over the matter for at least the time being.  She returned to her cot, but found herself too restless to fall back to sleep.  The longer she lay there, the harder she found it to get comfortable.  Nadine came downstairs after a short while, and Virginia held her eyes closed, falling still and silent.  She listened as Nadine quietly slipped back to her cot and quickly fell to sleep.

Virg
inia
told herself she would be extra loud when she cleaned out the pans in the morning
if Nadine woke
with a hangover.  She shuddered at the thought of a man as undesirable as Mr. Conrad making a pass at her, and wondered why a pretty young thing like Nadine would give in to his advances like that.  Virginia would just as soon quit than add Mr. Conrad to her list of responsibilities, she told herself, disgusted with just the thought of ever seeing that man naked again.  Seeing Nadine with him like that took her already diminished respect for the girl down even a few more notches.

Nadine began to snore and Virginia lay awake, wishing the day would just come so she could get it over with all the sooner.  The hours passed by slowly, however, and by the time morning came, Virginia had dark circles under her tired, puffy eyes.  She dragged herself off of the cot as the morning bell rang, perking ever so slightly as she saw Nadine wince at the light and hold her aching head.

“Time to make breakfast?” Virginia asked.

“We have fifteen minutes to put ourselves together,” Nadine mumbled.  “If you brew us a fresh pot of coffee, I’ll owe you whatever favor you want.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”  Virginia started a pot of coffee in their tiny, downstairs coffee maker, and then turned to the sink to wash her face.  She looked at herself in their small bathroom mirror.  With her blue eyes and tired face, she could barely recognize the reflection that stared back at her
.  S
he quickly turned away before the image had a chance to induce another untimely surge of emotion.

The basement room filled with the aroma of fresh coffee, a luxury Virginia had not enjoyed for a while.  She found two clean mugs and poure
d
a generous serving of coffee for each of them.  Seeing no sugar or creamer, she handed Nadine her mug and sat back down on her cot.  The coffee tasted rich and bittersweet.  Virginia lost herself in the comforting liquid as she slowly sipped at it, reality going on hold until her mug came close to empty.

“We should get to the kitchen,” Nadine said, putting on her apron and slipping into her shoes.

Virginia followed suit, getting dressed and combing her hair with her fingers as she followed Nadine to the
kitchen
.  There wasn’t any trace of the wine bottle
,
nor the glasses from the previous night. 

Nadine went to the dumb waiter, removing the hand-held computer and retrieving the order for the morning.  She moved around the kitchen nervously, barking orders all over the place as Virginia tried to fill her part of Mrs. Conrad’s order.  Virginia held her tongue and did as she was told, understanding that Nadine possibly had a considerable amount of influence through Mr. Conrad and was best not crossed at this juncture.

“You’re doing it all wrong!” Nadine grunted as Virginia started preparing an omelet.  “Chop up the onion a little finer  . . . and you have to slice the cheese thin!”  She demonstrated, making paper-thin slices of cheese with her knife.  “Like this, see?  Have a little pride in your work!”  She moved out of the way, wiping her hands in her apron, shaking her head as if she had a reason to be frustrated, as she motioned for Virginia to continue.

Virginia
took over
the cheese, emulating Nadine’s ridiculously thin slicing technique, and then chopped the onions until she had reduced them to fine shards.  She added them to the egg already sizzling in bacon grease, and then threw in bits of bacon and pepper.  Her mouth watered, the aroma of the different foods blending as they cooked together, and she considered dropping the omelet to the ground when she was finished making it.  Unfortunately, Nadine had it off the pan and on a plate before she could summon up the courage.

Mr. Conrad had sausage and eggs with his coffee this morning, while Mrs. Conrad had two omelets, hash browns, bacon, sausage, ham, and a half dozen slices of buttered toast.  Two slices of toast and two liberal slices of ham somehow found themselves on the floor, and Virginia and Nadine helped themselves to the spoiled food, smiling and waving up at the camera to add to the show.

The telephone rang, and Nadine left to the foyer to pick up the downstairs line.  “Conrad residence,” she said.

One of the Conrads’ Corporate managers screamed so loudly through the receiver that Virginia could hear him from the kitchen door: “Get me either of them, and make it fast!”

“One moment.”  Nadine put the man on hold, and then paged the Conrads’ bedroom.  She went to hang up her line, and realized that Mr. Conrad’s conversation with the manager was still audible.  She saw that the foyer camera pointed at the bulk of the artifacts displayed, and not the telephone.  Placing her hand over the mouthpiece, she quietly waited to see if either could tell that she was eavesdropping.  She kept quiet as the conversation commenced, seemingly without either party suspecting Nadine’s presence—just as Nadine had no idea that Virginia was watching her.

“Yes?” Mr. Conrad coughed, sounding annoyed to have had his breakfast interrupted.

“We have a situation,” the manager said, sounding nervous.  He cleared his throat.  “We’ve got another forty or fifty people in the hospital with suspected or confirmed HD-1 infection.  What’s worse is dozens of deviants are claiming to be displaced humans, and honestly we’ve lost track of how many people have fallen victim to this thing.”

“How many people in Info-Corp know about this?” Mr. Conrad asked.

“Nobody below upper management,” the manager said.

“Keep it that way,” Mr. Conrad said.

Nadine could hear Mr. Conrad explain the situation to Mrs. Conrad as the manager awaited further instructions.  Mrs. Conrad grabbed the receiver.  “I want a Board meeting with our top Corporate representatives.  Register us for a time slot around noon, and have lunch available.  I’ll be at my office in about an hour if you want to meet me there.”