Black Rust

by Bobby Adair

  As the road curved through the trees, the break in the vine curtain came into view. No trucks were coming down the overgrown road to find me. That was one worry ticked off the list. No vehicles were parked in the field just at the end of the road. Another worry gone. No band of d-gens and their foremen were standing in the sunshine looking in. Tick.

  I pushed the pedal to the floor to build speed.

  Seconds passed.

  I burst into the sunshine again, raging through the cotton at nearly forty miles an hour. Bushes and bolls flew in every direction as I bounced toward the d-gens spread across the far end of the field.

  Many of them stopped what they were doing and stared. Others ran. I tried to pick out the foremen as I scanned. I knew they were ahead, probably raising their weapons.

  I slid down in the seat, exposing only my eyes and the top of my head above the dashboard, just enough to see the general direction of where I was going.

  A bullet hit the windshield, high up on the passenger side, sending a spider web of cracks across the glass.

  Lutz wasn’t going to like that.

  Looking for the guilty asshole who’d shot, I spotted a man holding up a rifle, standing a dozen paces from a parked truck, looking defiant and brave.

  I swerved toward him and accelerated.

  It took him all of two seconds to understand what was happening. He’d missed his shot, and his prey was pissed. He turned and ran for his truck.

  So much for bravery.

  A moment later I zoomed by the truck in a cloud of dust, leaving the cotton field and the harvesting d-gens behind. I straightened the Mercedes onto a dirt road that ran in a straight line between two fields. I mashed the accelerator to the floor and pushed the Mercedes up past fifty as I sat up in my seat and scanned the sky.

  No buzz bikes?

  Maybe the police had backed off to let Blue Bean handle the problem of the black Mercedes.

  Chapter 37

  Sienna walked away from the admin building, fuming, not sure whether she was walking toward her cottage to sulk, to her office in the training compound, or to her car where she might start it up and drive away, putting Blue Bean Farms behind her forever. Her resignation, she finally understood, was exactly what Workman wanted. He’d evidently wanted it ever since it registered in his mind she wasn’t a malleable stooge who’d rubber-stamp his forms for the chance to double her salary.

  Now what he wanted was of no more concern to her, except as a target for her defiance.

  For Keith Workman, Blue Bean Farms had only one purpose to its existence, to fatten his bank accounts. To that end, he treated degenerates, work camp prisoners, and employees like consumable resources—use one up and replace it with the next.

  Employees came and went faster than the change in seasons. He hired more.

  Work camp prisoners were the dregs of society who needed to be punished into submission. Workman had said on many occasions he wanted to grind them down with long, sweaty hours of work to fill the wormy holes in their souls with good character.

  Degenerates were nothing to him. Actually, less than nothing, because they ate food he would otherwise have sold to fatten his profits. They slept in barracks built on ground he otherwise would have tilled. Left up to him, he’d work them all to death before their minds had a chance to deteriorate into uselessness. And why not? He seemed able to get any allocation of fresh d-gens filled from the state school and they didn’t cost him a penny—not counting the bribes he likely paid for Blue Bean’s spot on the state school’s priority list. All Workman had to do was provide an executed kill list to the state school’s clerk to get a refill on the first of the month.

  That’s why the kill list was such an easy thing for him to fill. It provided him a convenient avenue to cull any degenerate whose productivity waned. Workman hated Sienna because he wanted to turn that avenue into an eight-lane highway and she stood in his way with her loudmouth complaints and high ideals.

  A subversive thought caught Sienna mid-stride and stopped her cold.

  She blinked at the idea as though the shimmering genius of it might hurt her eyes. It was elegant. It was perfect.

  She glanced back at the admin building, as though the idea had been so brilliant, Workman behind his tall windows might have seen it from his desk chair.

  The kill list was turned in. Before lunch today, Goose Eckenhausen and his trustee thugs would herd the degenerates out of the training compound and into the pens for the Bloodmobile.

  But what if the degenerates weren’t in the training compound when Goose came for them?

  Sienna couldn’t take the degenerates off the list, but she could still give them a chance to live.

  She headed for the training compound, urgency in her steps.

  Chapter 38

  Knowing Warden Smallwood wasn’t in his residence, knowing the guard barracks were empty, and knowing the armory wasn’t, Goose drove the pickup toward the gate of Warden Smallwood’s compound. The double row of barbed-wire-topped fences stood tall and intimidating. The sign that warned of a deadly electric jolt for anyone who dared touch the fence was even more frightening. But Goose knew the wiring on the fence had fried nearly eight months prior, and the Warden hadn’t been able to get a work order pushed through the State Comptroller’s office.

  With Deke, his right-hand man in the truck beside him, Goose pulled the pickup to a stop just outside the gate. A second pickup containing four other trustees—Rusty Jim, along with Bart and the two former cops, Taylor and Flores, now prisoners like the rest of them—came to a stop on the road behind.

  “You still think this is a good idea?” Deke asked.

  Goose swung the pickup door open as he looked at Deke. “Boss Man said, and I quote, ‘do whatever it takes’.”

  “He didn’t mean this.” Deke looked worried.

  “This is what it’s gonna take,” Goose told him, looking like a kid who’d just stolen a handful of candy.

  Goose hopped out of the truck, took out his phone, and dialed.

  On the fifth ring, Goose decided if Warden Smallwood didn’t answer, he’d call it tacit approval. He waited two more rings and as he was lowering the phone from his ear to hang up, the ringer cut. A voice came on the line. “Smallwood.”

  “Warden, Goose Eckenhausen, I’m just outside the guard compound gettin’ ready to come in and see you.” Keith Workman had given Goose free run of Blue Bean, but the guard compound was not technically Blue Bean property. It belonged to the state prison system. If Goose went in without permission, any one of the guards would be within his rights to put a bullet or two into Goose’s head.

  Warden Smallwood said, “I’m not at the compound.” Goose knew that.

  “Any of yer guards ‘round?”

  “We’re out at a…” the Warden took a long time to find the right words, “a training event.”

  Goose knew that wasn’t true. He knew, too, when he drove up, how unlikely it was any guard on the state’s payroll would be within twenty miles of Blue Bean Farms. It was a Thursday. Most of them were in the habit of starting their weekends early—very early—probably off hunting whatever animal was in season at the moment or sleeping off hangovers after spending Wednesday night in Houston’s bar district, plying promiscuous ladies with alcohol. “We got a problem here on the farm.”

  “You handle the escapes most of the time without any help from us,” Smallwood replied. “The weekend’s almost here. Can you get this one yourself?”

  “It’s not an escape, Warden.”

  “What then?” Smallwood sounded mad.

  Goose didn’t care. “It’s about them crooked Regulators you called me ‘bout earlier. The ones the police called you about. Now they’re rampagin’ ‘round, tearin’ ass through the fields, runnin’ down workers and disappearin’ into the woods.”

  “I thought you said you were going to handle that problem. Besides, me and my men don’t handle people trying to break into prison.” Smallwood laughed. It wa
s the closest he could come to actual humor.

  Goose persisted, “I need to git into the guard compound and—”

  “Why would you need to enter my compound?” Smallwood asked testily. “Are your crooked Regulators in there?”

  “No,” answered Goose. “The Regulators are in an SUV. We’re having trouble findin’ them so we can catch ‘em. Boss Man is pissed ‘cause all the damage they causin’ not to mention throwin’ off the work schedule. They’re gonna put us behind on the harvest, and you know how Boss Man likes to stay on his schedule.”

  “Oh yeah,” Smallwood mocked. “I’ve heard it all before about losing money on contracts and the commodity markets, and not meeting city contracts and empty troughs and rioting d-gens in the streets in Houston. God damn, if I never hear one of Workman’s speeches again about how the whole goddamn world depends on this one stinking-ass farm, it’ll be too soon. Reminds me of my old man. I wish he’d just whip me instead of blabbering on like he does.”

  Goose knew none of that stopped Smallwood from taking the envelope of money Workman gave him every quarter to keep his nose out of Workman’s management of the prisoners in the service of Blue Bean’s profits.

  “What is it exactly Mr. Workman wants me to do?” Smallwood finally asked.

  Time for the lie. But that was okay because lying came easy to Goose. “I need them new hover bikes Workman bought for your boys.”

  Smallwood laughed heartily. “You have got to be kidding? Give hover bikes to trustees? You must think I smoke as much of that wacky weed as you do, boy.”

  “I’m serious, Warden. We got to find those crooked Regulators before they shut the whole damn farm down. You know how serious Boss Man gits about that. You just said so yerself.”

  “Goddamn.” Smallwood was getting frustrated.

  “I ain’t pleased about it neither,” Goose lied, and then lied again. “I don’t wanna ride one of them thangs. I’m afraid of heights.” Total bullshit.

  “Well, you know as well as I do, these hover bikes belong to Blue Bean Farms. They’re on loan to the guard unit. They ain’t mine to lend out. I got to have direct permission from Mr. Workman himself.”

  “You go ahead and call ‘im,” Goose bluffed, knowing and having it just reinforced that the Warden hated more than anything having to sit through Mr. Workman’s lectures.

  Goose waited on the Warden, letting him stew with the decision.

  The guards didn’t need the damn hover bikes anyway. Even when they were around, they never did anything for Blue Bean Farms except horse around or try to scare up the local deer for target practice. They didn’t need the hover bikes for that. Goose could put them to good use. Mostly, he liked the idea of riding one around the farm and looking down at everybody like a flying-carpet genie.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Goose after he figured he’d given the Warden long enough, “I’m gonna go on in and git them bikes out. You might be on the phone with Boss Man for an hour or more gittin’ an earful ‘bout how yer slowin’ shit down.”

  Warden Smallwood groaned.

  “You know I’m right,” said Goose. “You go ahead and do it, though.”

  Smallwood sighed. “Not the two military bikes.”

  “Say what?” Goose asked, deciding to play a little bit dumb. He knew there were six bikes in the armory—four police models, bought from a department upgrading to newer ones, and two expensive military grade bikes, brand new. If the rumors were to be believed, the new military models were as fast as all git-out and could turn on a dime. Those cop buzz bikes took damn near half a mile to make it all the way ‘round if they were moving at top speed. That is unless you came to a dead stop. But slowing to a stop and accelerating to any decent speed took five minutes.

  “You take them four old cop bikes out, but you leave the military bikes there.”

  “Probably just take one or two anyway,” Goose told him. “Just need to spot them dirty Regulators so my boys can round ‘em up in their trucks.”

  “If any of your boys runs off,” threatened Smallwood, “it’s on you. Not me. You be sure Mr. Workman understands that, you hear?”

  “Yessir, Warden.”

  Goose wrapped up the conversation. He had what he’d come for, permission to take out the bikes.

  Using the keypad, Goose opened the gate—Workman had provided Goose with the master code for all the keypads on the farm and he’d given him the secure code to Smallwood’s compound, too. It was good to be the Boss Man’s favorite.

  Goose strode across the guard compound, heading straight for the armory’s garage. He didn’t have any intention of taking one of the cop bikes. He was going to fly one of the military bikes over the fence, and by the time the day was done all six bikes would have a new home at the trustee barracks.

  Sure, arguments would follow, but in the end, Warden Smallwood would give in because he didn’t give a beagle’s butthole for Blue Bean or the handful of work camps he oversaw. He was happy to draw a dependable state salary and take his envelopes full of money. He wasn’t about to make a big stink about stray buzz bikes that his higher-ups at the state didn’t even know about.

  Chapter 39

  If not for the certainty that the work camp’s trustees would eventually figure out where I was, I could have been on a lazy Sunday drive through the country. Once I got some distance between me and the pissant who took a shot at me just because I ran over a bunch of his little cotton bushes and scattered his d-gens across a couple of acres, I took a turn onto a red dirt road and slowed down to what I guessed might be an inconspicuous speed for driving around Blue Bean Farms.

  I drove by the remains of a country house, one of many family homes back when all this land belonged to small farmers working plots measured in a few hundred or even a few thousand acres. Most of those houses were in ruin. The people who’d lived in them had died or turned d-gen twenty years back. That’s why the land was available for Blue Bean Farms to squat.

  In the distance I saw barracks, some in pairs, some in groups of four or five, all identical, all surrounded by tall fences. In truth, they looked like barns more than barracks, a place to store the d-gens when they weren’t working the fields. From the satellite photos Ricardo had provided, I knew small complexes of barracks were spread all over Blue Bean’s property—better to keep the livestock close to the land, I guessed.

  I passed stands of trees and fields, some tilled under and ready for autumn planting, others with crops waiting to be harvested by d-gens. I saw crews here and there, toiling in the sunshine. I knew every group of d-gens was supervised by work camp prisoners—normal humans serving a sentence—but I figured none of them carried weapons. The trustees who oversaw the other prisoners were armed, and as I’d found out, eager to shoot.

  I came to an intersection with a signpost on one corner providing directions: cannery, go straight; grain silo number seventeen, go left; administrative complex, turn right.

  Right I went.

  According to the information Ricardo’s hacker—Blix—had gathered for me, the places Sienna Galloway might be were in or near the administrative complex. All I needed was to get close, ditch the Mercedes in a stand of trees, and find a stealthy way to get myself to each of the three places I might find her.

  One way or the other, the solution to my legal problem would materialize.

  Chapter 40

  “You ridden one of these things before?” Goose asked.

  Deke looked up and down the length of the camo green hover bike. He glanced at the matching bike Goose was inspecting. “Yup.”

  “You sure?” Goose asked.

  Deke looked down the row at the other four bikes, all painted in Blue Bean colors with logos on the sides. “Something wrong with these two? They didn’t paint ‘em yet.”

  “These two came in yesterday,” said Goose. “Come in from the Army. They ain’t had time to paint ‘em.”

  “Do they work?” Deke didn’t look comfortable with the idea of getting on
the bike.

  Goose was getting a bad feeling about his choice to put Deke on one of the Army bikes even though Deke was his number two. Goose looked over the other trustees he’d brought along. The two former policemen had spent plenty of time on hover bikes before their bad behavior had gotten them thrown into the work camp. Bart was former Army. He’d ridden the Army model some years ago for sure, at least several models older. Rusty Jim was a braggart who fancied himself a daredevil who claimed to have ridden or driven everything with a motor, most of them stolen. They all had more experience than Deke.

  “I can put Bart on one of these fast ones,” said Goose. He pointed at the daredevil. “Or Rusty Jim.”

  Deke looked down the row at his fellow prisoners.

  Goose came around his bike and put a hand on Deke’s shoulder. “Yer my right-hand man, Deke. But if you don’t wanna ride one ah these thangs, well, that ain’t nuthin’ but a thang. I just figured you an me, on these two here buzz bikes…you know.”

  Deke shook his head.

  “We run this camp,” said Goose. “We borrowin’ these from the Warden but we ain’t givin’ ‘em back. What you ride outta here, is gonna be yours long as yer here.”

  “Which is forever,” muttered Deke.

  “Everybody’s gonna look up to us whether they like us or not,” said Goose. “These bikes, they’re power. Matter of fact, bein’ in the work camp won’t mean nuthin’ no more fer you an me. We can skip into town, any town ‘round here and git right back. All we got here is free food and a free place to sleep, long as we keep the rest of these fart suckers doin’ their jobs.”

  Deke nodded. “I like the sound of that. But we can already drive into town now and again. I don’t think we need these buzz bikes.”

  “It’ll be easier.” Goose was getting frustrated. Why did he have to sell Deke on the idea of freedom? He was going to be stuck on this goddamn farm for the rest of his life. “You wanna git on or not? I can git somebody else.”