“Because I grew up in a different time. When there was hope and so much to look forward to. When the unemployment rate was less than ten percent instead of ninety. They make sure it’s high just so that people willingly become research subjects. Back then, we thought things were bad. We didn’t realize how lucky we were or how much worse things could get. Maybe the Keepers can bring those times back.”
Rosie couldn’t help but look over at her mother in disbelief.
“Mom, no one will bring those times back. The Journeymen are too busy trying to survive and the Keepers don’t seem to be helping. So what if they can lift rocks and change the weather? How effective has that ever been against genetically altered soldiers and sound strategies? And why are we talking about all this now when Dad is missing?”
“Because I know he’s not coming back.”
Rosie couldn’t help but wonder if her mother had finally lost it. She had been under a lot of pressure lately, what with her father’s health deteriorating.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not crazy,” Sophie said calmly.
“I know. It’s just... Well, how do you know he’s not coming back?”
Sophie rubbed her cold hands together, bringing them to her lips to warm them with her breath.
“I know because this house isn’t usually so cold.”
Chapter 4
Rosie lay shivering in her bed, unable to fall asleep. Her mother and brother lay beside her. Only Simone was sleeping, oblivious to his mother and sister’s uneasiness. Sophie had piled all the blankets that they had over them and they lay side by side to keep warm. It would be time to get up soon. But the two women could barely keep their eyes shut as they contemplated their future and what this would mean for all the other Journeymen, not to mention the Keepers.
Eventually, the bedside clock struck seven. As it screamed for them to wake up, Rosie reached over and turned it off. She had a long day ahead of her, cooking for the scientists at Biolance. Her mother stayed with Simone, homeschooling her all day. It was something she would be doing only until the end of the year. Metz’s Ministry of Education was abolishing homeschooling as of the following year.
“And the indoctrination begins,” Rosie’s father, Maximilian, used to say whenever they talked about Simone’s education.
“Maybe we could move to Dijon. Things are still quite old-fashioned there. It’s a far cry from the ‘tech capital’ that we live in now,” Sophie would say.
“Was there really once just one Ministry of Education? For the whole country?” Simone would ask.
They would all pitch in to answer Simone’s questions, only too happy to talk about the old days.
“She’s ten years old, after all. The world she knows is very different from how things were back then. We really should move,” Maximilian would say.
But they hadn’t moved. And now, Maximilian was gone.
Rosie got up from bed, grabbed a towel and made for the bathroom. Reaching for the toothpaste, she removed the lid and squeezed a pea-sized portion on her toothbrush. She brushed quickly, warding off the tears that kept threatening to bring her to her knees. As she pulled off her pajamas, Rosie thought about her father and the last time she had seen him. She had been on her way out, heading for work. He seemed proud as she slung her bag over her shoulder and jumped into the truck that carried her and her best friend Joseph’s supplies.
“Well, Joseph, it has been nice knowing my daughter has someone to look out for her but of course we all know she’ll win that contract. We should start a business together, fixing up these old houses,” Maximilian joked.
“You should do that. You could call it ‘Maximilian and Daughters’,” Joseph would reply good-naturedly.
They both knew very few -if any- in the outskirts of Metz would afford the services of ‘Maximilian and Daughters’ but the humor helped them through tough times. Now, as she stepped into the shower, Rosie let the tears run down her cheeks. She rubbed the bar of soap against a course cloth as piercing sobs wracked her body. Her limbs were on autopilot as she rubbed the lathered cloth over her face and arms, around her neck and between her breasts. By the time she reached her legs, she crouched down on the floor and curled into a ball -unable to move. Something told her she would never see her father again. But how could she live with the reality of that? It had always been her consolation that she would get the contract and would move him out of the ghetto into a safer and healthier Central Metz. And just when she was able to do that, he disappears. A wave of anger washed over her at the injustice of it all. Who had done this to her and her family? It dawned on her that she could find out and bring whoever it was to justice. The water from the showerhead fell over her body as she sat on the floor of the shower, back against the wall and feet pressed against the floor. Her ginger hair reached past her shoulder in fiery wavelets as she made up her mind. Yes, she would find out who had done it.
Chapter 5
Sophie had just seen Rosie off to work and cleared the breakfast dishes when she took Simone by the hand, leading her to the police station in Central Metz. Not far from the technology district and research parks, it distinctly gave off the impression that it was there for the white collar workers that surrounded it. The exterior consisted of sheets of curved, silver steel perched on blue glass walls. Maximilian had always said the structure reminded him of a fashionable test tube with a steel belt around its waist. As Sophie and Simone made their way through the revolving doors, they were met by the sight of suit-clad men and women with perfectly starched shirts and briefcases swinging from their hands. People in this part of town always seemed to walk around with briefcases. Sophie usually wondered what that was all about whenever she came to central Metz but today her mind was in a different place.
Hurrying towards a policeman stationed behind a counter, Sophie cleared her throat.
“Excuse me, I’d like to report a missing person.”
“Hello, Madam, how are you?” the policeman said sarcastically.
Sophie blushed, embarrassed by her rudeness.
“I’m fine thank you. I’d like to report a missing person.”
“Age?” the policeman said, pulling out an electronic tablet.
“Fifty-nine,” Sophie said.
“When last did you see this person?”
“Yesterday.”
The policeman put the tablet down.
“Madam, we cannot act on this report until this person—-.”
“...my husband,” Sophie said resolutely.
“...your husband has been missing for at least 48 hours.”
“Yes, I know. But this is different.”
The policeman sighed as if he could hardly stand the tedium of his job.
“How is it different, Madam?”
Sophie looked down at Simone, who was preoccupied by a Black German Shepherd standing not too far away from them.
“He has been killed by a Keeper,” Sophie whispered, leaning forward so that the policeman could hear her.
The policeman immediately grabbed the tablet and seemed to have come alive at this news.
“How do you know that, Madam? You just said your husband is missing.”
“Well, I don’t know where he... his body... is but I know he has been killed.”
The policeman rolled his eyes.
“Madam—-.”
“The house is freezing cold. Much more than usual. His spirit has left our home. I know that when a Keeper kills a human being, all the things that made it feel like that person is there are left without that...feeling. His clothes don’t feel like his clothes anymore. There is no familiar scent about them. His things look brand new as if he never used them. And there is frost lining the ceiling of our bedroom. We had to sleep in my eldest daughter’s room. All the signs are there. It’s like his memory has been wiped off the face of the earth.”
“Yes, those are clear signs of a Keeper-killer,” the policeman said thoughtfully as his index finger moved over the tablet�
�s screen. “I’ll file the report immediately.”
Sophie exhaled, grateful that the policeman believed her, “What happens next?”
“We get a representative from the Ministry of Corrections in Espérer involved, of course. Come with me.”
The policeman led Sophie and Simone behind the counter and down a long corridor at the end of which they turned left. Facing them, was a red door where all high priority cases where dealt with. The policeman opened the red door, ushering Sophie and Simone into a hive of activity. There were numerous cubicles in which detectives were working on solving assassinations of scientists and the disappearances of blue collar workers with hundred-year contracts. The latter meant that more jobs became available to the rest of the population living in the outskirts of Metz. There weren’t any open Keeper-killer cases and everyone was thankful for that -given the consequences whenever there was one.
The policeman knocked on the door to an office at the other side of the room and entered when he heard the cue.
“Chief, this is Mrs. Moreau. She says her husband’s been killed by a Keeper.”
The man who had been addressed as ‘Chief’ seemed dazed for a minute but quickly regained his senses.
“Mrs. Moreau, please take a seat,” he said.
Chapter 6
“What can I get you, Miss?” Rosie asked a meticulous-looking young blond wearing a white lab coat.
Her first day as a permanent worker at Biolance was turning out to be a success. But she wished Joseph were there so that he could ease the burden of her father’s death. But he had lost the contract and wouldn’t be working alongside her anymore. She wondered what he was doing now. Was he sitting at home frustrated by where he had ended up? Or was he planning his next move? He’d been secretive about what he would do if he did not get the contract.
“Scrambled eggs, toast and green tea, please,” the young blond said courteously.
As Rosie passed the order to the kitchen, she resolved to visit Joseph when she knocked off at midday. The customers came and went. She fixed a smile on her face and kept working. The hours crept by until finally noon struck and she was done for the day. A different catering company stepped in as she gathered her equipment. They would be here all night, like she had been the night before. Biolance buzzed at all hours of the day like a metropolis that never slept. There were hundreds of scientists, engineers, lawyers and analysts working twenty-hour days. They needed to eat. That’s what Rosie was there for. When they weren’t working or eating, they were causing messes that needed to be cleaned up by 24-hour cleaning crews. They were sleeping in rooms specially designed for them to stay at work instead of going home. They were working out at gyms that made sure they stayed sharp and ready to do well at their jobs, maintaining physiques that kept them attracted to each other and making babies on bathroom breaks. Biolance was a city in and of itself. And Rosie loved it. She was at the bottom of the chain in this city. But at least she was there. She was a living, breathing, necessary part of the food chain. She provided a service that was needed, fuel for the brains behind Biolance. She had Purpose.
Soon, Rosie’s truck was piled high with all her equipment. She shut her door and began the drive to Outer Metz. Joseph was sitting outside her house when she arrived.
“Look at you. You must be exhausted,” he said.
“I am,” Rosie answered. “It’s so good to see you. I was going to come right over.”
She stood on tiptoe to give him a hug then invited him in for a meal.
“Thanks. I’m famished. Where’d your Mom go?”
“I thought she’d be back by now,” Rosie answered, pulling up a chair for Joseph. “Something’s happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
Rosie stalled, grabbing a loaf of bread from the refrigerator.
“Rosie?”
“It’s really just a suspicion. Maybe she’s wrong. But Mom thinks Dad has been killed.”
Joseph sat up straight, “What?”
Rosie nodded, “He didn’t come home last night.”
“Maybe he’s at a hospital somewhere. He’s been sick lately. Maybe he collapsed and they’re getting him help.”
“Yes but he always has his ID on him. Why haven’t they contacted us?”
“But what makes your Mom think he’s been killed?”
Rosie began spreading a thin layer of peanut butter on the bread. She didn’t want to admit it out loud but knew there was no other real explanation for what had happened the night before.
“The frost on the ceiling,” Rosie said quietly.
“What was that, Rosie?”
“The ceiling in the main bedroom was covered in frost yesterday while my mother was sleeping and began to spread to other parts of the house. We all slept in my room, freezing.”
“You don’t mean...”
“That’s exactly what I mean. He must have been killed by a Keeper.”
An eerie silence settled in the room as Joseph and Rosie thought of the implications of what had just been said.
“If that’s true, then we’ll soon start to see the manifestations of it. A storm here, a fire there. Things that seem to have no clear cause or point of origin,” Joseph said.
He had a fancy way of talking, like he was explaining a scientific report to a lay man. But he said it in a friendly way that made it difficult for people to think he was bragging about having read all those science books he’d found in the dumpsters of Metz when they digitalized the textbooks. Joseph and Rosie were two of the only people who had collected all the books they could find and stashed them away from prying eyes.
“Yes, I guess that’s what will happen next. I just wish I knew where my father is.”
“Is that what your Mom went to find out?”
“Yes. She’s gone to Central Metz to file a missing person report.”
Joseph stood up and walked towards Rosie.
“I’m thinking you have other plans about what to do.”
“Yes, I do,” Rosie said determinedly. “I’m going to Espérer to talk with Captain Reeves.”
“The police are probably going to do that themselves.”
“I don’t care. I want to look her in the eye and let her know what a great job she’s doing taking care of us.”
“It’s not her fault. She can’t possibly keep an eye on all the Keepers all the time.”
“Sure but what do they do all day? Murders happen all the time while they’re in their perfect little world, pretending they’re fulfilling their Purpose. For all we know, I could be next for landing this contract.”
“Well, I’m going with you,” Joseph said resignedly. He couldn’t let her go on her own.
“Of course you are. Someone needs to keep me in check,” Rosie answered.
She was grateful for Joseph’s companionship. Ever since they had become close, she never had to do anything by herself.
“Oh, I have something to tell you,” Rosie said.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I’ll be earning a lot more now that I’ve landed the contract. Plus the lawyers seem to prefer my menu and some items on yours. So they’re willing to fund a few extra shifts. I was thinking about a joint venture.”
“With me?”
“Of course, who else?”
Joseph seemed to be holding back tears as he shook his head in disbelief.
“You would do that for me? You could be earning an arm and a leg, you know. And the paperwork—-.”
“Don’t worry about the paperwork. If I hire you as an employee, I won’t have a lot of red tape to cut through. But we’ll split the profits equally.”
“Wait, how did you know the lawyers like some items on my menu?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on what sells, what doesn’t and who buys what for five years now. You’re great at coming up with an interesting menu. I’m great at the business side of things and making sure customer service is done right. We’d make a great team.”
“I don’t know what to say...”
“Say you’ll do it.”
A smile spread across his face, “Of course I will.”
Rosie stepped towards Joseph and wrapped her arms around him as Sophie swung the door open, dragging Simone behind her.
“They’ve filed the report,” Sophie said immediately.
She didn’t take her coat off.
“It still feels like Siberia in winter in here,” Simone said.
“What do you know about Siberia, Simone?” Rosie chided.
She didn’t want to talk about her father’s case just then. She wanted to preserve the goodness that had just passed between her and Joseph. A bit of good news in a long stretch of monotonous days that offered no relief from the drudgery of Outer Metz.
“Plenty. I read about it yesterday,” Simone was saying.
“Simone,” Sophie intervened. “Go to your room and do your work. I’ll come and check it just now.”
“Have you told him?” Sophie said pointing at Joseph once Simone was out of earshot.
“Yes. We’re going to see Captain Reeves right now.”
“Captain Reeves? Don’t cause any trouble, Rosie. She’s the one person who might be able to help us.”
“That’s why we’re going to see her.”
Sophie sighed, “I know how confrontational you can get. Keep an eye on her, Joseph.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll be back before you know it. But what did the police say?”
“They’ve contacted the Bureau of Corrections in Espérer. Apparently, a representative from there’s coming over tomorrow morning.”
“Well, they’re taking their time,” Rosie scoffed.
“Nothing they can do will bring him back alive, Rosie,” Sophie said.
She sounded tired and looked like she had aged ten years. Rosie could see her mother was already feeling the loss and only wanted to give Maximilian a decent burial so that she could grieve. But Rosie wasn’t ready to grieve just yet.
“We’ll be back soon, Mom.”
The Great Keeper boxset: Science Fantasy Page 9