by John Corwin
"It bears investigating, Deputy."
"The hell it does, Constable." She poked his chest with a finger. "Last four feedings were travesties, and you knew it. Science Division said they're guilty, and you rubberstamped them without a second thought." Scarlett took her finger off his chest. "I don't know what happened to your conscience, Max, but it sure looks like the lab coats finally found it buried in your black soul."
Max trembled with rage and grief. Her words cut him to the bone. Not just because of Sarah, but because she was right. He put a lid on the boiling emotions and pointed to the door. "Go do your job."
Scarlett's eyes softened. "You tell Sarah hello for me, okay?" She unlocked the front door and stopped. "I knew you had a soul in there somewhere, Max. The sad part is, when Sarah feeds, I don't know if you'll keep hold of it, or lose it for good." The door slammed shut behind her.
Max stared at the closed door for a long moment. Having a conscience or a soul made this line of work too hard. He'd stood up to Science the first year. Then Alderman sentenced his parents to feed. No son should have to put his parents out of the airlock, but he had. Father damn it all, he'd done his duty, but this time he would feed before he put Sarah out to die.
He locked the door then ran back down the hall to the vault. Pressing his hands to the cool metal, he imagined transmitting hope through it to her. "I understand your message, sis. You want me to get a special suit from the brassworks."
A muffled cry of relief reached his ears.
Salt bit into his eyes. He blinked away tears. "I'll figure out how to hide it in the airlock, but what good will it do on the outside? There's no place to go in the city and even fewer places in the sand."
She managed another strangled sound.
Max leaned his head against the door and let the tears drip straight down to the gray concrete floor. He thought back to the last time he'd seen his sister—thought real hard. Had she ever mentioned doing or thinking anything treasonous? She was a lab coat—one of them! They were nearly immune to punishment. Hell, she was practically paired with Governor Alderman's oldest son, Robb, and the man thought of her like a daughter.
He thought for an instant about going straight to Robb and asking for help, but Max suspected the spoiled man-boy had already filled his old man's ear with tantrums. Robb didn't like anyone taking away his toys. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.
Suit first. Max checked his wristwatch. Seven A.M. The morning was passing by fast and he had ten hours to save his sister's life.
Chapter 2
Max grabbed an evidence duffel bag from the closet and the bladewheel from its charging socket next to the door. Outside, he unfolded the metal pedals from the sides of the carbon fiber shield covering the single sixteen-inch wheel. With a practiced smoothness, he balanced his feet on the pedals and leaned forward. The internal gyroscope sensed the tilt and activated the motor on the electric unicycle. It was one of the few luxuries afforded his office. Most civvies had to walk.
The streets were clear, nearly everyone at work, so Max leaned forward, urging his ride to top speed down Main Street. Everywhere he looked was gray, gray, and more gray. It all blended together, especially on a dim morning like this. The founders built most everything in Central from reinforced concrete. Some joked it was so the scheduled rains could just wash all the grunge down the drains without any fuss.
The buildings hugged one another on the tightly packed avenue. Next to the constable's station stood the central medical center, past that the emergency response unit, and then the commissary, each labeled plainly with white signs and black letters.
The line of people waiting for their weekly allotment of food seemed longer than usual today. Max saw a familiar face waving at him. He smiled, pretending nothing was wrong, and waved back. Inside, he felt the relentless gnawing of worry, like rats working on the bottom of a garbage bin. I'm going to get caught.
At the end of the street, he saw Barlow McGee entering the door of the last building—the saloon.
"Dumb son of a bitch," Max growled. Then again, what did he care? The old man would drink until he couldn't work anymore, and the city would retire him. Most chose the grinder instead of the airlock when they retired. At least they put a person to sleep before feeding them to the daughter.
Max passed by the last of the essential services located in Central. The communes, light-gray beehives where the civvies lived, ringed the dark center. Max headed east to the industrial sector, home to the mechanists shop, recycling, and supply. The science labs were on the west side, and to the south stood the mansions where the admins lived. The workers called it Luxville under their breaths. Farms and ranches edged everything, taking up most of the acreage, and outside the farmland was the treeline.
While old workers fed the daughter or father, Science Division admins became city admins and Luxville was their afterlife. Everyone else went back into the ground one way or another.
Max felt the angry tremble in his arms again. Alderman took their parents six years ago and now he was about to take Max’s last living relative. Why in the hell had the founders given Science Division all the power?
Sunlight speared down onto the road and began to spread toward Max. Streetlamps flickered off as the light hit them. Max looked up at the great dome far overhead and saw the dark tint receding to let through the yellow rays. The lab coats never explained why they let the light through later some days than they did others, and it wasn't anyone's place to ask.
Max continued along Main Street until he reached the chain-link gate guarding the mechworks. Formed of plain gray concrete like nearly everything else, mechworks rose like a great monolithic cube. That still didn't make it the tallest building in the city. Overlook, on the science campus, reached all the way up to the dome itself.
"Hey, Constable." Marshal Olga Birch stepped out of the security box, the beige uniform hanging loose on her thin frame.
Max flashed his badge. "Hey, Olga. I got some business inside." Entering the mechworks without probable cause or authorization was illegal, but most people didn't question the constable. He prayed Olga didn't go by the book today.
"You don't say?" She looked up at the receding darkness. "Looks like the science boys woke up late again. It's nearly eight and they're just now giving us sunrise."
"Yeah, well, they like to play god." Max forced a grin. "At least they haven't messed up the weather controls in a while."
Olga snorted. "Like the time they accidentally turned on the rain in the city but not the farms?"
"I reckon they aren't as smart as they want us to think." Max nodded forward. "Well, I'd better get to it."
"Wait!" Olga grabbed his arm.
A nervous fever blazed beneath Max's skin. Please don't ask for a warrant.
"Was it another death in the brassworks?" she asked in a low voice.
"Another death?" He glanced around. "The last one I investigated over this way was three months ago."
Olga frowned. "We got two more dead since then."
"In the brassworks?"
She nodded. "It's a dangerous place to work, and they sure as hell shouldn't be sending untrained people in there."
Max frowned. "Wait a minute, you're telling me they sent untrained people into the brassworks?"
"Yep, a woman named Josephine Walls and some scrawny man. I think his name was Brent something." She squinted, snapped her fingers. "Brent Carlisle." She spat on the ground. "Transfers, both of them."
Transfers was a nasty word to throw around. Kids were tested for aptitude and schooled accordingly, slotted for jobs that they tested well for. Jobs were for life, except for rare occasions. Transferring from one job to another was almost unheard of.
"I had no idea about those other two deaths," Max said. For some reason the names sounded familiar, but so many had died on his watch, he'd stopped counting. To the lab coats, the civvies were like the gears in his wind-up watch. Keep on spinning smoothly and don't draw any attention or else they'd
rip you out and replace you.
"Yeah, the Brent guy came from the bee farms. Not sure what the woman did before." She shook her head sadly. "They didn't even last two days."
"Why wasn't I brought in to investigate?" Normally, Max wouldn't much care. Wasn't anything he could do for the dead—or the walking dead, for that matter. When Administrator Barnes or Investigator Simmons showed up with a suspect, he didn't do much except put on a good show so the prisoner thought they had a chance. Sarah's troubles had changed all that in a heartbeat.
Olga shrugged. "The foremen reported them. Someone up top sent down the word they were accidents—no investigation necessary."
The Constitution clearly stated that the constable had to investigate all deaths, even if the coroner ruled them accidental. One of the admins wasn't following his own rules. Then again, that was nothing new.
"I'm here for something minor," he said, then as an afterthought, "Barlow."
Olga rolled her eyes. "That old drunk. I hope he didn't mess up anything."
"That's what I'm here to look at."
"Well, you go ahead, Constable." She touched his arm. "Is everything okay, Max?"
"As good as it can get in this place." Max tipped his head and forced a smile. "I'll be on my way." He rolled forward on the bladewheel and toward the complex. The imagined weight of her stare lifted as he turned the corner out of sight of Olga, and headed toward one of the side entrances he knew from experience was often left unlocked. He parked the bladewheel next to the door and made his way inside. The sound of grinders and power tools echoed from above. A yellow construction bot walked past on four legs, a heavy metal beam slung beneath it.
Max waited for it to pass, looking both ways for any signs of other people. With the path clear, he made his way through the large maintenance shop filled with all manner of construction tools. He soon reached recycling. Old metal and wire were piled high in one massive bin where it had been sorted for conversion back into raw materials.
Two men stood before a mound of refuse, busy stripping rubber insulation from copper so they could put the materials in the appropriate bins. Max walked boldly past them as if he had all the authority in the world to be there. They didn't even look up.
He reached the supply warehouse, gated off by chain-link fence. Under normal circumstances, a person would walk to the front window and enter a requisition form. Max thought about filling out one, saying he needed the outfit to go to the brassworks, but the minute Sarah stepped outside onto that red landscape and into view of the monitors, everyone would see she wore a toughsuit. The paper trail would point them to Max about five minutes later.
So, in these most unordinary of circumstances, he did what he'd arrested another man for, and walked to the back corner where a flap of chain link fence wasn't bolted to the concrete. Dexter Ellis had been convicted of supplies theft and fed the daughter. Though Max had discovered how the man broke in, he hadn't reported it. Dexter had tried to trade a length of precious wire for swill at the saloon and been caught for his stupidity. By the time Max got wind of it, there wasn't anything he could do for Dexter.
Max figured he could make use of stolen supplies in other ways, hoarding bits and pieces of essentials in a hidey-hole back at the station evidence room, and sometimes anonymously giving them to someone in need. Never had he thought he'd be using this illegal trespass to save a life. He slipped under the loose flap and peered around the nearest storage unit, a towering metal shelf. The aisle ran a hundred yards or more into the distance, empty, but for the automated arm used for retrieving items.
"Where do they keep those suits?" he asked himself in a hushed voice. He imagined the huge supply grid. This section was mostly hardware—nuts, bolts, screws. Protective materials like suits would probably be somewhere in the middle sections. Probably near the front.
Max slipped from aisle to aisle, growing more confident with every step.
"Hey!"
Ice raced through his veins and his heart crashed against his ribcage. Max froze in his steps and looked behind him. There was no one there.
"Yeah, right there," the voice called again. "Far end on the right."
"Yes, sir," a young male voice replied.
Max peeked around the corner and saw Twig Meyers, the supply chief instructing one of the Cooper boys about using the automated arm. It wasn't Brad Cooper—damned fool boy. Why didn't he listen to me? Brad fed the daughter a while back, so it had to be Burt.
"You got authorization, boy, so just tap in the code and the item number." Twig sighed in frustration.
"I typed it in, but it don't work, Mr. Twig."
Max backtracked to the next aisle and kept low so the coils of rope on the shelves hid him. He peeked between spools and saw Twig standing before the silver keypad.
"Stand back, boy, and let me do it." The supply chief punched his sausage fingers against the keys.
One, eight, four, four, seven. Max memorized them, even though the access codes changed frequently. Whenever he wanted something higher up, he had to climb for it.
The robotic arm hanging from the ceiling unfurled and, with precise mechanical motions, pinched a small box from a top shelf and set it on the floor next to Twig.
"Carry it to the front, boy." Twig shooed his helper. With a shake of his head, he turned and followed the kid toward the front.
Max waited for a count of twenty, then cautiously peered around the corner and down the aisle. Twig and Burt were nearly to the other end, so he dashed across the aisle and looked down the next. He hoped the suits weren't kept further to the front, but in this huge place, there was no telling. Another row and another gave him nothing. He'd have to move further up to the center aisle running horizontally between the front shelves and the back.
He hit pay dirt on the middle rows. The suits hung right near the entrance to the requisition room. Voices drifted from the open door.
Twig's voice carried from the office. "Did you finish inventory on the raw recyclables?"
"Y-yes, sir." Burt's nerves sounded about as frayed as Max's.
"Come to the computer, boy," Twig said.
This seemed like the best chance to grab a suit. At least a dozen hung from sturdy hangers next to a shelf of folded gray coveralls. Max stepped carefully, keeping his steps light as possible on the concrete floor.
The first few suits looked suited for larger figures. He found one for a petite build and stood next to it, sizing it up. The rubber gasket on the bubble helmet looked just right for Sarah's head to fit through and still keep a seal. Just above the suits was a box of oxygen micro-canisters. Max held one between thumb and forefinger. The small white cylinder had a threaded end that screwed into the bottom of the bubble helmet. At the top of the bubble helmet was a metal valve of some sort, probably to let out carbon dioxide exhaust.
He rolled the canister in his hand and found a label with minimal instructions: Hyper-compressed air. Two hours rated usage. Attach to approved helmets.
"Back there," Twig said. "Get it now."
Footsteps echoed. Cold panic raced up Max's limbs. If he ran for the end of the shelves, his own steps would betray him. He looked at the suits and took his only option.
Burt walked not ten steps from Max's hiding place behind the suits. Please don't look this way. Max's feet were in plain view beneath the hanging suits. The boy stopped and stared down the aisle.
"Was it this one or row thirty?" Burt mumbled to himself. He apparently decided it was the latter and reversed direction, going back toward the front and disappearing around the corner.
Max strained to listen for the fading clomp of steel-toed boots. Sweat trickled down his forehead, stinging his eyes. What if Twig grew impatient and came out? Max glanced nervously back and forth between the door and the front of the shelves. Finally, he could take it no longer. The top of the hanger circled around the bar, so he eased the zipper down just enough to slide the suit off it, then gently arranged the other suits to cover this one's absence.
Carefully, he folded the bulky burden over an arm, took the bubble helmet and an air canister, and retreated down the row, waiting for the shout that would prove his end. Twig didn't emerge from the office and Max made it to the center aisle without being seen. He looked around the corner and jerked his head back. Burt stood there gazing down the row. Max sweated it out a few seconds, praying the boy hadn't picked up movement in his peripheral vision.
"Find it yet?" Twig hollered.
The boy shuffled and his footsteps sounded as if he'd moved a little up the path to the left. Max glanced back down toward the office. He just knew Twig would come out at any second, so he risked it and stole around the corner to his right. Thankfully, the supply boy wasn't in view.
Max's chest tightened. The knot made it hard to breathe. Lunch or dinner when the staff was occupied with food instead of wandering around the warehouse would have been a much better time than morning. Unfortunately, he had little time to spare.
Max retreated two more rows to the right then risked fording the center aisle. Those five steps felt more like twenty, but finally he stepped into the shadow of the back section. The tension in his chest eased and he took a long slow gulp of air. Almost home free. Quietly, he made his way to the back and the loose fencing. He ducked back through, pushed the chain link back into place so it looked as solidly attached as the rest, and leaned against a nearby support beam to calm his nerves.
Max folded the suit—difficult to do with such stiff bulky material—and stuffed it in his duffel. He put the air canister inside the helmet and crammed them in as well. The bag bulged like a pregnant cow. He hoped Olga wouldn't ask any questions on the way out. Wiping the sweat from his face, Max walked back into the mechworks, stepping past the recycle workers as if he hadn't a care in the world.
The bladewheel leaned against the wall outside. Max slung the duffel strap over a shoulder, centered the load on his back, and rode the electric unicycle back toward the gates.