by Gates, J.
“What is this?” I whisper to Ethan.
“Just watch,” he says. “Save your questions for later.”
The next hour blurs in my mind: we enter the gates and pass from factory to factory. In each one, men and women are lined up as far as the eye can see, performing all sorts of jobs, from painting vases to stitching footballs. We pass through a foundry, filled with the stench and heat of hell. There’s a slaughterhouse the size of seven football fields, a fish cannery, and of course, the airstrip, where all kinds of goods are loaded, unloaded, and sorted. There are plants for extracting gold from ore, for creating diamonds from carbon, for making all sorts of plastics, resins, paints, and solvents (here, even more than in the rest of the city, the air tastes of poison, and we move along quickly).
Every area we pass through is filled with throngs of workers, all of them intent on the task at hand and heedless of our presence. Some of the factories are filled with elaborate machines, but others are just packed with tables where the workers perform tasks by hand. We enter one such room in the shoe factory, and Ethan leans over to me.
“We’ll talk to one of them briefly, but only one. You pick who.”
I look around, not knowing exactly what Ethan meant or what I’m supposed to be looking for, but I finally see an old fellow with a friendly-looking face. His dark skin is withered, but his eyes are edged with laugh lines. His fingers work quickly, weaving white laces into the newest athletic shoe, the N-Hoop 6. I point to him, and Ethan leads us over.
“Hey,” Ethan says to the man.
“Yes. Yes, sir,” the fellow says, putting down the shoe and standing fumblingly. “How can I help you?”
“Just answer a few questions,” Ethan says.
“Alright,” says the man. “Sure.” His gaze lingers at our feet, looping back and forth like one who is dizzy and on the verge of fainting. He is very old, and sickly thin.
“How did you get here?” Ethan says.
“Well . . . bus took me,” the man says with a shrug.
“Okay,” says Ethan, “but I meant—”
“I don’t do nothing wrong, I lace ’em up as fast as I can, sir . . . ”
“I’m not worried about that,” says Ethan. “You’re not in trouble. Just tell us how you ended up here. Why were you taken to this place, do you know?”
“Oh, you know. It’s an old story,” the man says, his sick, yellowish eyes smiling at us. “I wasn’t working like I was supposed to. Was more interested in playin’ the trumpet and singin’ songs than working a real job, truth be told. Then I threw my back out and couldn’t work no ways. My debt was getting big; real big. Same reason as everybody else is here, pretty much. I wasn’t workin’ enough to pay back the debts, so m’credit got froze. I couldn’t buy nothing. Couldn’t go anyplace. Got put outta my apartment and got m’car taken away. Had no food for my wife and kids. You know how it is. . . . ”
“So what happened?” I ask. “You got repossessed and taken here?”
The man laughs. “Oh, no, no. Never got repossessed or nothin’ like that. I begged to come here. Otherwise I’da starved and my kids woulda starved and my wife woulda left for sure. The Comp’ny was good enough to take me in here, after I did a lotta beggin’. I said, ‘Please, please, God! I ain’t no unprofitable! I’ll work! I’ll work!’ And they took me to this here work camp. Now I got food and a place to live and they make me work; don’t let me get lazy or nothin’ like I used to be. I’m grateful, I tell you the truth, I thank God, Amen!”
“Isn’t this a bad place to live, though?” I ask, mystified.
“Well . . . people do get killed here. Lazy people get tired of workin’ and get mad and the squad puts ’em down, or otherwise people find out somebody’s got something they want, and one guy steals from another one, you know, and pretty soon they’re stabbing each other or raping each other’s wives. But mostly when that happens the squad finds out and puts ’em both down, so that way the problem ends. Sure, people get killt. But no, not me. I’m one of the good ones. I’m grateful to the Comp’ny, for sure I am.”
“Are they erasing your debt, then, as you work?” I ask him. “I mean, since you aren’t buying things?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says, thinking. “I don’t remember mucha what they said when I came in, but it was something about fees . . . it costs to live in the camp . . . and plus food and all . . . so I think my debt is gettin’ a little bigger . . . but the Comp’ny’s good about it. They ain’t mad—long as I keep on workin’ hard, they’ll let the debt run, so just my kids’ll pay it later on instead of me. But . . . ” He glances dubiously at the pile of shoes stacking up next to his table. “Maybe you want me to get back to work? I shouldn’t get behind.”
I open my mouth, but Ethan speaks first. “Yes, do get back to work, but one more question first: how long ago were you brought here?”
The man scratches his head for a moment. “Truly, I don’t know. It’s been so long.”
“If you were going to guess?”
“Well, to guess, I’d say . . . fifteen years, maybe. Pretty close to that.” He glances again at the pile of shoes.
“That’s all,” says Ethan. “Thanks for answering our questions. God bless you.”
I’m about to speak again, but Ethan gently takes my arm, “We don’t want to get him in trouble. And we should go, too. It’ll be dark soon. ”
I turn to thank the old man, but he’s already too involved in his work to notice me, his shoulders hunched over the big sneaker in his hands, his head bobbing to a beat only he can hear.
We make our way out of the factory quickly. If Ethan’s pace is any indication, he’s feeling the same urgency to leave this bleak, soul-crushing atmosphere that I am. But when we round the corner and step into the alley where the motorcycle is parked, we find the squad member from the gate sitting astride it. When he sees us, he smiles, climbs off the bike and starts walking toward us.
“I checked with the N-Sport people,” he says. “It looks like you missed your meeting. And it’s a funny thing, no one at the N-Sport office had heard of either of you.”
I hear a shuffle behind me, and two squadmen with large machine guns step out of the shadows behind us. I’m on the verge of screaming, but Ethan’s breathing remains even.
“I think this is my lucky day,” the squad member continues gleefully. “I always wanted a motorcycle.”
“Well, I’ll just get you the keys,” Ethan says, calmly, and he reaches inside his coat.
I hear the crack of the shot before I even see the white pistol in his hand, and the squad member by the motorcycle drops face first to the pavement. Ethan is wheeling toward me now, and I instinctively duck out of his way and cover my ears as three more gunshots ring out.
Ethan’s eyes scan the alleyway once more, shifting from one end to the other then flitting up to the rooftops. Satisfied, he spins the gun like an Old-West gunslinger and slips it back into his coat, adjusts his tie. I suddenly realize I’m staring at him, my jaw dropped. I close my mouth quickly and clasp my hands together to halt their trembling.
“That was . . . ” I whisper, searching for the words. For the second time, Ethan has saved my life. He’s a scholar, an athlete, a master of disguise, and now a gunslinger. If I could ever be interested in a man, it would be him.
A grin crosses his handsome features. “You can pat me on the back later,” he says. “If HR catches us here, the squad will execute us before sundown.”
Once again, a protest forms in my mind: all HR punishments are doled out only after three meetings with your department review board, and capital punishment is at the sole discretion of the divisional HR head.
Yeah, I remind myself, and work camps are humane, temporary opportunities for workers to “get back on track. . . .”
I hurry back to t
he motorcycle, climb on behind Ethan, and wrap my arms tightly around his waist as the engine thunders to life. I will hold on to him, I decide. I will follow him—wherever the road might lead.
~~~
The ride back to the Protectorate camp, through the deepening night, seems to take forever. Questions buzz in my mind, angry and fighting to come out, but I can’t shout them over the rush of wind and the growl of the motorcycle. Finally, like an island in a sea of darkness, the little house emerges in our headlight, and next to it, the garage from which we began our journey so many hours before.
We pull in and stop. With the engine silenced, the quiet seems as thick and sticky as molasses. Ethan pulls the rattling garage door closed and we start walking down the footpath, retracing our steps from the morning. I have so many questions that I don’t know where to start.
Ethan senses my reticence and begins: “The kind of extravagant luxury the Company provides can only be built on the backs of the impoverished. That’s the way it’s always been, in all of human history. All Company workers are slaves, but the people you saw today are the most wretched ones of all.”
“But why?” I ask.“I don’t understand why it has to be that way. Instead of everyone buying gold-plated hairbrushes and brand-new, three-million-dollar ICs every six months, why can’t we give something to help those people? I know the Company has the means to do it.”
“Of course they do,” says Ethan, “but it would come out of their profit.”
“It makes no sense, though,” I say. “What good is profit if nobody benefits from it?”
“A few benefit,” says Ethan. “The rest is just wasted, or used to perpetuate and expand the Company’s power even further. But the Company is a machine, May. It’s not a thinking entity in the normal sense. It doesn’t operate on logic. If it would increase the Company’s profits, everyone would be sent to a camp like that. There is no logic in a Company, only greed. If somebody tries to do something for the good of the world that hurts Company profits, they’ll simply get fired. It’s the nature of the system.”
Night sounds envelop us. I’ve grown to love nature—what remains of it, in this poisoned world. Twigs crackle under our feet. Stars glimpse us through the tree branches. At least, I hope they’re stars and not satellites.
“Why do you take the time to show me so much?” I ask. “Teach me to fight and help me understand the Company and everything?”
Ethan sighs. “There are a couple reasons. For one, you’ve grown up closer to the Company than anyone. I guess I figure if I can make you understand why it has to be destroyed, then I can convince anyone.”
“What’s the other reason?” I ask.
He stops, turns to me. “Because you’re a leader,” he says, “and I may not always be here.”
We walk the rest of the way back listening not to our own words, but to those of the owls and the crickets and the breeze.
—Chapter Ø15—
The prison raid.
The team and I leave the underground village at dawn, rising from the earth at almost the same moment as the sun. Already, the day grows hot. We trek through a long tunnel, climb up a ladder, and come up through some sort of storm drain set in the cracked, decaying foundation of a long-fallen building. This is the outer industrial arc, where nature has almost reclaimed most of America Division’s former manufacturing might.
Ethan leads us single file under cover of trees down a long dirt footpath, and despite my nerves, I begin to feel good. The throbbing pain of the wound on my cheek has diminished almost to nothing. I notice strength in my legs, feel the sun on my skin—and there’s something else, something new: the weight of the white gun on my hip.
There are twenty-six of us, including me. Ethan walks in the lead with McCann, the only other member of the ruling council to volunteer for the mission besides that bitch Grace, who takes up the rear. Twenty-six seems to me a tiny number for such an undertaking—even I know that Company prisons are heavily fortified and armed with elaborate electronic defense systems. Judging from the whispers I heard in the camp before our departure, I wasn’t the only one who thought the idea of this mission was pretty foolish. But nobody asked my advice, and if they had, I doubt if I’d have said anything. I, like the twenty-five rebels now walking with me, face the coming danger with the sort of calm only claimed by the truly blessed, the stupid, or the doomed.
After a short hike, we descend a small hill and find the path ahead opening up into a narrow dirt road. There, in among the trees, sit five large, black, off-road vehicles, identical to the security squad trucks. If anybody else is surprised to find them sitting in the middle of the grove, nobody shows it. We all draw up in the center of the sandy clearing and look at one another. I’m amazed and delighted by the fact that ten of the twenty-six-member crew are women. Some of them look at me now with hard, patient, unreadable expressions. I’m thrilled by the strength they exude and by the thought that one day I might be like them, with the same wrinkled, sun-battered skin, the same sharp eyes, the same quiet, implacable strength. I meet their appraising gazes with what I hope is a friendly but measured smile.
Ethan crosses his arms and scans our ranks with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. Something looks a little different about him today. It’s not just the strange, bulky sunglasses pushed back against his forehead or the gauntness of his face; everything about his bearing is slightly different—no less commanding than usual, but a little strange, as if he’s channeling a spirit with different mannerisms from his own. I wonder: Could it be fear?
Nodding to himself, apparently satisfied with us, Ethan points to McCann, then to a short, hefty woman, then to a broad-shouldered young man, and then to Grace. “The four of you will each drive a squad truck. Follow me,” he says. “When we get there, I’ll do the talking. When the fighting comes, run fast, shoot fast, and stay close to your leaders. You all know what to do.”
I have no idea what to do, but I nod anyway.
As the vehicle doors open, I head toward Ethan’s car, but McCann calls me back.
“Miss Fields,” he says. “You’ll ride with me.” Then, perhaps reading the expression on my face, he adds, “You’ll see why soon enough.”
This is one of the few times in my life I’ve act ally been on the ground beyond the industrial arc. I ride, watching the countryside streak past, watching abandoned houses, gas stations, and stores appear
in my window then disappear again. I still remember when N-Corp enticed the last stragglers from the countryside, where they were unproductive and difficult to police, and into the cities. First, they cut all jobs that existed outside of the hubs, so most people had to move into town in order to make a living. Some proud country folk were resistant, but once the Company cut electricity to all rural areas (for the sake of efficiency, of course), country life completely died out. Rumor has it that there are still a few mad hermits here and there who live off the polluted land and attack people who wander near their homes, but for all I know, these stories may have been started by the Company. The tales are just scary enough to keep people inside the hubs, where HR can keep an eye on them.
Now, I’m struck by the beauty of these lost and forbidden places. It’s fall, and this empty world seems golden. The polluted air has been cleansed by the cooling weather and smells of things old and sweet and ripe.
As I watch it all pass out my squad-truck window, my mind wanders to Clair. During my training, I fought hard to keep any distracting thoughts of her out of my mind, but now, on this long drive, it’s impossible. A few weeks ago, I would have assumed the Company treated their prisoners well, but after seeing the work camp, my worry for her has steadily increased. Now I know they’ll treat her in whatever way is most cost-effective for them. Which could mean they won’t feed her. And if you have to pay prison guards by the hour, it’s more efficient to torture a prisoner than to wait weeks f
or a confession, isn’t it?
I thrust these thoughts from my mind. I’m jittery enough as it is—there’s no need to get emotional. Around me, my fellow passengers are checking and re-checking their guns, peering into their clips, and patting their ammo pouches, all with the perfect calm of people about to go fishing and making sure their tackle boxes are in order.
McCann presses a button in the dash and music blasts forth with enough force to make me jump. He laughs good-naturedly around the plastic straw hanging out of his mouth and yells over the din.
“You mustn’t startle that easily, Miss Fields, not where we are going.”
“Call me, May,” I say. “And I won’t be scared.”
Although I am already scared—shaking, in fact—I somehow know that I’m telling the truth. I will be brave. He only nods, then gestures to the radio.
“This was my music,” he says. “I played the drums.”
I pause, listening to the sounds blaring from the speakers. Galloping drums pound over a twanging sort of instrument that I can only liken to a mouth harp tinged with distortion, and behind it all, a distant voice chants. The sound is beautiful, savage, stirring.
“I love it,” I tell him.
“I was a big star in my village, back in Africa Division. Can you believe that? I went into the hub city to make this album. I did everything when I was young, anything to get ahead. When I left my village and went to the city, my people were starving. So I did any work I could to help them. I sold drugs, guns, guitars, even dolls!” he laughs. “I sent half of the money back to the village elders, to help my starving people. All the money from the music concerts I sent back. When I met my wife and we made Michel, there was less money to send back. My wife, she was beautiful. I loved her very much. But she was a woman who liked nice things. Perfumes. Silk. Dresses. She wanted us to save money to send Michel to a private school when he was big enough. I had to work harder to make her happy, and now there was nothing left to send back to my village. Then, N-Corp came to the city with posters offering jobs that seemed too good to be true. I was one of the first to sign up. I wanted the people in the village to join the Company, too. Then, they would have everything they needed. Maybe it was just me being selfish. If they all worked for the Company, they wouldn’t need me sending money to them every week, then I would have plenty of credit and my wife would be happy. . . . ” He shakes his head.