“How do you know Agent is here?” Sasha asked.
“You heard her talk about all the special tools she has. I bet she put a tracker on the boat or something. She promised she would be near, even if we don’t see her. I believe her. Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Sasha said unenthusiastically.
“I believe her,” Ben said. “She’s a super-hero.”
“I know one thing. If she gets us out of here, I’m going home to my parents,” Jane said.
“I’m not. My dad is the worst,” Conner replied.
“What about your mom?”
“She doesn’t hit me, but she doesn’t stop my dad, either.” Conner got quiet. “She makes great food, though.”
“I don’t have parents to go home to,” Melanie said. Everyone fell silent.
Then Sara spoke up. “Don’t worry, Melanie. When Agent gets us back to Trenton, we’ll stick together until every one of us has a good place to go. Right?”
No one backed up her statement… until Jane did, then Conner did. Soon, all twelve were on board with watching out for each other and getting all of them home – some kind of home.
“I’m really proud of all you guys,” Jane said. “I gotta pee. I’ll be right back.” She went into the wash room and was nearly bowled over by the smell. Various hand-made, misspelled signs identified the different areas of the wash house. Towels sat in a semi-neat stack on a stool next to four shower heads in one cubicle for girls and a similar group-shower for boys. Across from the showers were dressing rooms, again segregated into boys’ and girls’ changing rooms. Jane went to the girls’ one and found a pile of folded pants, a pile of tee-shirts, a pile of underwear, and no footwear whatsoever. She realized that none of the eighteen other children had shoes on their feet.
Jane went in search of the toilets. What she found was a metal shelf at seat-height with several oval holes cut out. The smell was overwhelming. She stepped closer and looked into one of the holes. She gagged at the sight of a deep, dark trough filled with human waste. She really had to go, so she braved the disgusting line of holes and sat down. As quickly as she could, she finished her business and ran to a sink to wash her hands and face.
Back outside, Jane took a deep breath of fresh air. She walked to where Kevin was explaining the work day to the new kids. “So, you have a quota to fill. You need to find twenty havva beans to get dinner. For every extra one you bring in, you get extra food or milk. If you’re below quota, you don’t get any dinner.”
“What’s a havva bean?” Ben asked.
“I’ll show ya,” Kevin said. The experienced children were already at work. Kevin took the new kids to an area where the ground had already been dug up thoroughly. He started digging with his fingers. “Start digging. If you find anything, I’ll tell you if that’s it or not.” he said, not stopping while he explained. The new kids started digging in a concentrated mass. Kevin glanced up. “Spread out,” he advised.
After fifteen minutes of digging with nothing to show for it, Conner asked, “How deep are they? Usually?”
“I find ‘em anywhere from one hand deep to two hands.” Kevin dug the ground with practiced skill. Another ten minutes went by before he called out, “Here’s one.” The kids gathered around him to have a look. He held a small, light blue, elongated spherical thing about the size of a kidney bean.
“What is it?” Melanie asked.
“A havva bean,” Kevin said patronizingly.
Jane came to Melanie’s aid. “She means, is it really a bean or a seed or what?”
“I dunno. All I know is the Morrisseys collect them and I get dinner if I bring in twenty of ‘em.”
“This area looks pretty picked over,” Conner noted.
“The havva beans keep showing up. You can dig anywhere and find them.”
“Why don’t they have a machine to dig for these things?” Sara asked, “…or at least give you shovels?”
“They’re really fragile. Don’t scratch ‘em or crush ‘em, or they don’t count for your quota.” Kevin put the havva bean in a shirt pocket and buttoned the flap over it. “You don’t wanna lose one once you find it. There are more shirts with pockets in the wash house. You can go change if you want to. Good luck.” Kevin strode away to where the others were digging and chatting together.
The children looked at Jane. Already, their fingers were getting raw from scratching at the rocky, sandy, dirty ground, and so far, none of them had anything to show for it. “C’mon. Let’s go get a pocket-shirt,” she said, leading the way.
In the corner of the wash house, a large washing machine tossed dirty clothes around in soapy water. The children dropped the clothes they were wearing onto the floor in a messy pile and donned the clothes that were provided for them. Most of them needed to use the row of holes over the trough, then they headed back outside to begin work.
As they dug in a separate group from the established residents, Conner said to the group, “I think we should share what we find. Even if we find enough for ten dinners, that’d be a good amount to share among the twelve of us.”
“Yeah, that’s better than each of us being short by one or two. Then nobody eats.”
“So, we only need to find two hundred all together instead of two hundred-and forty. Do you guys want to do that?”
They all agreed that splitting ten dinners was better than finding another forty beans. They continued to dig.
Hailey stayed in the cover of the jungle trees. She watched her little team of urchins work in the dirt. She watched the experienced diggers putting beans in their pockets every twenty-five minutes, on average. Having found nothing in her vast memory about havva beans, Hailey sent a hyperwave to Lucky asking for information on the little things.
Next, Hailey surveilled the house. Inside, the Morrisseys enjoyed a lavish breakfast prepared and served by young adults. The servants wore khaki-colored uniforms and never spoke a word in the Morrisseys’ presence. Hailey wondered who would work for such people, knowing they had child slave labor working just outside. Then she saw something that brought understanding.
One young woman said to another, “They want chicken masala tonight with bala rice and veg-kababs.” The cook went to a section of the wall where notes were written and erased. She took a special pen and drew hieroglyphics representing the food choices the masters had ordered. She can’t read or write Common, Hailey realized. The household staff, Hailey surmised, were grown-up kids who used to dig for havva beans but were promoted to “inside” slaves.
A young man entered the domain of the domestics saying, “They brought twelve new kids in last night.”
“Twelve? They told me to put out enough breakfast for four extras, not twelve.”
“Do you even have enough to feed… what’s eighteen and twelve…” he counted on his fingers, “thirty?”
“We got a bigger shipment than usual this week.”
“I wondered where they went yesterday. Damn. How many kids are they gonna bring here?”
“What are you gonna do about it? You know what’ll happen if you go against them.”
“I just…” the young man trailed off.
“Get back to work, Marco. We all have work to do,” the cook closed the discussion. “Here,” she said, slipping Marco a piece of toast the Morrisseys had not eaten, and giving the extra juice to the server. With a grateful smile, the server resumed her duties while the young man went outside to clean windows. The cook cleaned the kitchen after the morning meals, prepping it for lunch.
Hailey slipped away, feeling she had a pretty good picture of how these Morrissey people lived and took advantage of children. What she didn’t know, yet, was what they did with the havva beans.
The Havva Industry
By midday, the children were getting hot and thirsty. They noticed that the other kids had metal bottles of water. Conner inquired from the nearest veteran about the bottles and where to get water and learned that water was only available in the wash house. Conn
er went to the wash house and, at the sink, washed his hands then made them into a bowl and slurped water from it. He splashed water on his face and, feeling somewhat refreshed, returned to his friends and told them what he did. They all followed his example while Conner got back to digging.
He had found eight beans so far. He knew it would take more time than he had left in the day to find twenty. He was glad that his group had made the sharing plan. Being one of the older ones, he felt responsible for finding more than the littler kids, so he dug on with purpose. When Jane came back, they talked about the plan. “Even if we only get nine dinners, that’s still good,” Conner said.
“Yeah, and a few extra will get us extra food and milk. When we split up the beans, let’s make sure that each team gets some extra, if we have any.” Jane had started to think of the twelve as four teams of three. It made her responsibility as “leader” more manageable in her mind.
“Jane, how long until Agent Ramirez gets us out of here?”
“I don’t know. She was talking to that other agent about getting the whole network, not just these two jerks,” she explained, referring to the Morrisseys.
“What whole network?”
“I’m not sure. I think these beans must be worth a lot of money, so they must sell them to someone else. Maybe the agents want to get those guys, too.”
“If they catch everyone involved, then we kinda helped, didn’t we? I mean, they could’ve gotten us out of that warehouse back in Trenton, but we’re here, doing our part.”
Jane chuckled. “Maybe there’s a reward for helping a ‘super-hero’,” she teased.
“I wonder how long those other kids have been doing this.”
“Sounds like some of them have been here for years.”
“They don’t know it yet, but we’re gonna be their heroes, too!” Conner said.
Jane smiled. “Yeah.”
Hailey broke into a locked barn. It was a separate building next to the main house where she found havva beans in various states of processing. One canister held the latest beans collected. They were still dirty but kept cool in the refrigerated vessel. She found very clean beans being dried on racks laid out under a sunny skylight. There was a grinding machine currently on stand-by, and more canisters with the havva bean powder in storage. On the other side of the barn was a kitchen, of sorts. Hailey didn’t know anything about cooking, but she did know chemistry. She knew that heat can make molecular changes to substances, and adding other ingredients changed things even more. She presumed that applying heat and additives to the havva powder changed it into something else. That new compound was kept in canisters labeled “product.”
Drugs, Hailey surmised. But what do they get out of it? A nice house on a remote island? Surely, they want more than that.
Hailey had to get more information from the kids who had been there longer, but she didn’t want to alert them to her presence. She didn’t know how emotionally dependent they were on the Morrisseys, and if they would betray her or not. She determined to talk to Jane that night.
While she waited for darkness to descend on the island, Hailey hid in the jungle and ate one of her protein bars. She had to ration the little food she had brought along. From the map she had of the island, she knew it was much bigger than the “ranch” the Morrisseys owned. What she’d give for an aerial view of the island! Her leg was not up to a circumferential run around the whole thing. Then she had the bright idea to have Derek get ahold of a satellite or aerial view of the place. She sent a hyperwave to him and within a minute received a reply: In the middle of something. Will do, when I can.
Hailey replied back: Everything OK?
Fine. Occupied at the moment.
Update: presume drugs are involved.
Confirmed.
Hailey knew the two of them were converging on the same target. Since she’d have to wait for the aerial view, she decided to investigate the area nearby. She walked away from the Morrissey labor camp.
The kids headed by Kevin were lounging around in the shade of a few tropical trees. They had each found enough havva beans to earn them a dinner plus a little extra. It didn’t occur to them to help the new kids find enough for their dinners; they had been at this so long, they had settled into their own routine.
Jane found twenty beans by the end of daylight, but several of the kids were not as productive. When they gathered up their beans, they had one hundred and eighty-three all together. “That’s… nine dinners and three extras,” Jane calculated. “That’ll be enough to share, right, guys?” The tired children agreed. “OK,” she continued, “when we get in line, Quon’s, Sara’s, and Conner’s teams get the food. Then we’ll get together and you guys share with my team.”
A bell rang in the distance. Kevin approached the newbies. “Time to get dinner,” he said, walking off down the paved path toward the masters’ house. Kevin’s group lined up by seniority; Jane’s group lined up by teams behind them. In front of the back entrance to the house, Mr. Morrissey sat at a small work table next to a food table. Kevin reported to the adult who counted his beans and said to the server, “Plus two.”
Kevin moved over to the server who handed him a plate of food and stated, “We have apples and milk.”
“One of each,” Kevin replied. Taking his food to a spot on the patio, he sat down on the ground and started eating. Each of the eighteen originals did the same. They didn’t sit in a group like they had at breakfast. They left at least a meter of space between them. Ms. Morrissey watched over the children as they ate their meals.
The first nine new diggers got their plates and their extras and sat down. Ms. Morrissey made sure they spaced themselves out. As Jane approached the counting table with her two juniors behind, she had no beans to present. Mr. Morrissey looked at her incredulously. “What’d you do all day?”
“Uh, these two were feeling pretty bad, so I took them to the shade and stayed with them.”
“Feeling bad? What kind of bad?”
“Well, uh, sick. Scared. They were crying. I didn’t know what was wrong with them, so I just stayed with them.”
“So, they don’t have any beans either?”
Jane shook her head.
“Then no dinner,” Morrissey said, taking his new supply of havva beans inside. Jane looked at the server who returned a sorry look, then glanced at Ms. Morrissey.
“Well,” Ms. Morrissey snapped, “take the food back inside.” The server mouthed “sorry” to Jane and loaded the leftover food onto a cart and took it back inside.
Jane and her two buddies approached their friends to get their share of the food. The others were already separating out a fair share to give to them when Ms. Morrissey saw what was going on. “Oh, no, you don’t. You three go back to the wash house. And tomorrow, don’t even think about plotting like that again. Twenty beans each.”
Jane made eye contact with her three lieutenants. They understood they should bring some food back with them. They nodded ever so slightly. She and the two younger kids walked away.
Jane and her buddies went to the showers. They remembered Kevin’s rule that the last to harvest their quota had to fold the clean laundry. “C’mon, guys. Let’s surprise the others and get this stuff folded up.” Half-heartedly, the two agreed and within fifteen minutes, the job was done. Jane put her soiled clothes in the washing machine and wrapped a towel around her body, heading for the girls’ shower. A weak spray of warmish water fell from the shower head. She soaped up her hair and body and rinsed it all away. The water ran downhill toward the outside wall which had a slit built in at the floor. The water seeped through the small opening and fell outside the building. She guessed that the drain pipes in the sinks also just ran through the wall and dropped the dirty water outside the building. There was no sewer plumbing in the building at all. She wondered how long it would take the poop-trough to fill up.
By the time the three were in clean clothes, the others were returning from dinner. Jane went to Sara first
, but she reported that they were not allowed to take food with them. They had to eat everything they had right there on the patio. “Did anyone smuggle anything out?” she asked. Conner and Quon shook their heads sadly. Jane looked at Kevin. “You could’ve told us,” she said heatedly.
“I didn’t know you were planning a dumb stunt like that,” he replied without stopping his walk to the showers. She watched him walk away, stunned by his lack of sympathy.
“Well, I hope you’ll do a better job of sharing breakfast tomorrow.”
He raised his hand in a rude gesture and disappeared into the wash house. All the original kids went in after him while Jane’s group huddled around the three hungry ones, apologizing for the failed plan. “We’ll dig better tomorrow,” Ben promised. “We’ll get twenty for each of us.”
Jane saw a light flicker in the jungle. She left the lighted area between the three metal buildings and walked toward the trees. “Jane, it’s me,” she heard a voice whisper.
Jane turned back to the others and whispered, “It’s her. Come on!” The whole group followed Jane, excited by the news that the agent was really on the island with them. Out of sight of everyone else, Hailey huddled with the kids. “Agent Ramirez, when did you get here?”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
“But how? You weren’t on the boat,” Sara asked.
“I was under the boat,” Hailey replied, “holding on.”
“Whoa,” the children gawked.
“I told you she’s a super hero. You hold your breath the whole time?” Ben asked.
“Nah. My helmet and suit are waterproof. Got air on the inside.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Still, holding on under the boat – that’s pretty cool.”
Hailey's Comet Anthology Page 31