by Ian McCain
--Look, I don’t… I don’t want to see you like this. The sun is up, it’s tomorrow and you haven’t slept a wink. This is crazy.
Hector starts to walk away when Marie screams and then bursts into tears. He turns to her. She is crying big chunky tears, holding a small Polaroid image. She wipes her eyes, and turns the image toward Hector. There, clear as day, is an image of the man they encountered on the street: a perfect image of Ernie as a young man. Hector responds.
--I don’t believe it.
He grabs the picture and looks closer, unable to accept the reality of the situation. Marie nods through her tears. She can’t make words yet.
--But… that’s impossible.
Marie sniffs back her tears, wipes her eyes again.
--Now I have to find him again… I have to.
She smiles at Hector, who smiles back.
--OK. I don’t understand any of this, but I love you.
Marie pulls herself up from the ground and quickly locates a folder amidst all the clutter. Inside is information related to her father’s life insurance policy, underwritten by some unknown company listed in upstate New York.
Chapter 21
Endo and Dit-Low take turns pacing back and forth inside the Chapel, not a word being exchanged between the two of them. Each time one of them takes a breath to speak, it is instead let out in a confused breathy curse.
--Shit, man.
Endo is unable to strike a balance between his anger and his frustration, preferring instead to continuously rack his 9mm, chambering and then expelling unspent rounds into his hand, then loading the clip back up and repeating the process. Finally Dit-Low speaks up.
--So if Tay really is some crazy shit, why would he go through the trouble to bring us up there only to kill folks?
--I don’t know.
--I mean, seems like the smarter play woulda been to just kill us in the Chapel.
Endo nods his head. Pissed, but puzzled.
--He ate those muthafuckas, man. You saw that. He chewed through Chubbs’ neck.
--And Chubbs’ neck, that’s no joke neither. That’s like eating through three necks.
Both men smile uncomfortably. Endo finishes reloading the clip to his 9mm. He starts again, sliding the bullets out of the clip and into his palm
--Well, nigga’s dead now. I saw that hole in his side. No way he survived that shit.
--I’m gonna bounce, get my dick wet and grab some sleep. Let’s hook back up later tonight.
--I’ll have Tronix gather the rest of the soldiers and we can have a proper war room on this shit.
--All right. I’ll see you on the flip.
The men start to part company with their minds awhirl with thoughts and planning. The facts are these. Their Organization is down nine soldiers for the night and all of them were earners. A few hoppers and corner men, but they all earned. Also these were boys who just changed colors. It is not going to improve relations within the gang. This loss is bad for the whole NHP.
Dit-Low’s phone starts to vibrate.
--Yo.
His expression starts to sink as he listens to the voice on the other end.
--Nah, I ain’t… Slow down… What?
He holds the phone to his chest, and yells to Endo.
--Hey, grab the TV.
He turns to the phone again.
--What channel? What the fuck are you talking about, all of them?
Signals to Endo to just turn it on.
--OK, hold up… Man, calm the fuck down… I’ll call you back.
The small portable TV starts to buzz to life, struggling to power its low-fidelity images. As the static fades the image slides into clarity, revealing the simulcasted tiles of images: a news crew out at the crash site at Morris Heights, another news crew shooting down the street where Tayvon ran off. The news ticker is hard to read on the old tube television, where the ghosts of previous shows have been forever burnt into the tube. Endo turns up the volume. The female “on the scene” reporter’s voice crackles through the small speaker.
--Current reports list the body count at thirteen, though there has been speculation that the numbers could be far higher than that. Residents of the area are horrified by this tragedy and the grief it has caused to a town already struggling with the damage wreaked by the local drug culture and gang violence. There have been no official reports at this time, however we spoke with an eyewitness earlier whose personal account of the crime claims that all this devastation was caused by one man.
The scene cuts over to footage from an eyewitness, a skinny black man in his late fifties.
--Yeah, I saw this young blood, just stumbling up the street. Ain’t nothing new. Lady down the way, she yells out and is like, “You OK?” And he starts walking toward her. She had something in her hands, like a stick or something. And this dude just runs toward her. I thought he was hurt or something, cause he was all covered in blood and he just runs at her. She, like, you know, hits him and he just… looked like he was trying to eat her. She screamed for a second, and I yelled out, he turned starts running toward me… So I went inside, locked up I ain’t trying to be no hero. Not here, not in this neighborhood.
The interview cuts back to the reporter.
-- For those of you just joining us, that was the eyewitness account of one of thirteen murders that took place in the Morris Heights area late last night. Authorities claim it is too early to make an official statement but many believe it’s connected to the bodies of several young men affiliated with a local gang, found murdered inside their vehicle just a few blocks away. There have been conflicting reports from what you heard just moments ago. We spoke with several first responders who claimed the attacks appeared to be animal in nature. We may not yet understand the magnitude of this devastation, but you can be certain that the Channel 3 News team will be here to bring you all the details as they come in.
Dit-Low looks over at Endo, a hint of fear creeping over his face.
--Maybe the nigga ain’t dead.
Dit-Low picks up his phone, dials the necessary numbers.
--Rally all the captains, tell them to let the hoppers work they corners… We got a club meeting tonight…
Chapter 22
Ernie leans forward in his chair. It has been constructed using very fine grain leather with intricate stitching and artisan woodworking skills. It is clearly very expensive, very old and very well looked after—the perfect analog for Gideon.
As he leans on his arms, painting a look of shock on his face, Ernie simultaneously takes in the images on the television screen being shown to him and calculates how to get out of the room if things should go poorly for him. Odds are good that he won’t make it very far at all, but he also knows that if he acts responsible or shows even the slightest lack of disbelief, Gideon will know what happened. Gideon is like Ernie: similar foul scent of Virus, same distaste for bullshit and the same ability to gauge truth from lie. He is perhaps the Anti-Ernie. In all ways that mattered, the representation of Ernie’s potential, should he have applied himself instead of… not.
--Fucking tragic… the black on black… on black… crime in this town.
Gideon sits on another ornate piece of furniture next to Ernie. The inside of Gideon’s office smacks of old-world opulence. Ernie always prefers to call it his lair, but it is nonetheless an office, nested inside a larger building in the south-east side of Midtown. Ernie has only been in the actual office once before following his initial exposure to the Virus and a gangbanger’s bullet. Gideon brought him in just over a year ago to discuss his duties and how he will be required to recruit as well as deliver to the Gothics.
The office itself is located on the top floor of an old community health center that has been repurposed as the intake building. The Organization owns several buildings: Ernie’s apartment building, intake, several small businesses run by unknowing partners in the blood trade, and of course the Farm—wherever that is. These holdings are sponsored most generously by th
e needs of the impossibly wealthy Gothics. Fucking assholes, all of them. Their need for Farm-raised goods sees to it that the Organization can grow its holdings.
Most of the infected community is happy to toe the line on Organization politics. They know that the supply needs to flow, and without it, there will be chaos. The same chaos on the television screen Ernie is watching, times a hundred.
--So, Ernie, are you telling me that you know nothing about this?
--You mean did I go on some kind of killing spree last night? No, absolutely not.
--So what do you know then? These things, they do not happen in a vacuum.
Gideon stands up from his seat and walks over to the TV to turn it off, even though the remote is right next to him. Ernie imagines this is so that he can lead in with some sort of torture, interrogation, some sort of evil shit. Gideon signals to Claude and Nathan to leave the room.
--Leave us.
The two walk out.
--Did I ever tell you that I was a priest?
--No, but that makes sense to me, all that weird Bible shit you know.
Ernie assumes that Gideon is revealing this because he doesn’t expect that Ernie will leave the room alive.
--Do you know what it is like to spend your life believing one thing, only to have your eyes opened to the very real truth that your faith is unfounded?
Ernie starts to stand.
--Look, Gideon, I don’t know about any murders.
--Sit.
Ernie sits. He knows that his goose is cooked, that if Gideon wants him dead, he is dead. At best Ernie serves a small purpose, swelling the Farm’s crops, making product deliveries.
Gideon walks closer. Puts his hands on Ernie’s chin and looks at his eyes, more specifically at the red ring surrounding his iris. Gideon lets go of Ernie’s chin and continues.
--I have obviously not told you everything. I share what is needed and nothing more. It is easier to moderate knowledge than it is to simply hide it. I would hope you are not doing the same.
Gideon turns away.
--Look, I know you aren’t a fan of repeating yourself, but I really don’t know anything about those murders. We went out recruiting, like I am sure Nathan and Claude told you. We got a good crop too, but one of them, he got away. That’s all I know.
Gideon nods.
--And what did you do after the recruiting? I was told you did not return to intake.
--I walked around the city. Took in the sights.
Gideon reels back and lands a firm punch on the bridge of Ernie’s nose. The force cornflakes the bone and sends a steady stream of blood onto Ernie’s shirt.
--Shit! You have some real anger management issues.
Ernie looks down at his shirt, now covered in a splatter of blood.
--And I just got this shirt.
Gideon smiles. The bones in Ernie’s flattened nose begin to knit back together, pushing out the bridge and rebuilding the structure. It quickly returns to its perfect pre-broken shape. Torture is a losing proposition for infected who can handle pain.
--This is a problem, Ernie.
Gideon gathers up the blood from the front of Ernie’s shirt. Rubs it between his fingers and sniffs at it like a fine wine. He touches his tongue to it. Ernie can see that the blood has a visceral effect on Gideon, though he does an amazing job at remaining composed so it is unclear if the effect is pleasant or otherwise. Gideon is clearly not just some doper willing to go on the nod from the bliss. He has control of his systems, his body, and his abilities. Once again showing Ernie what his potential might be.
--I need you to come with me.
Ernie obliges, not having any other options on what to do. Gideon signals to Claude and Nathan that they are free to go. Claude has a worried look on his face that does not exactly calm Ernie’s nerves. The two men continue through the very familiar halls of the intake building. Though Ernie has only been through them a few times they are, like everything else, as familiar as home.
As they approach the door to intake Ernie prepares himself for the assault on his nose. He knows it is coming. It will be the second time tonight that his nose is broken.
Though he believes himself prepared, he isn’t. The scent is so horrifyingly foul. And, though he doesn’t puke this time, he does not view it as a victory. He would rather have every bone in his body broken than be exposed to the smell for a moment longer than needed. At least pain he can handle now. This shit, this horrible horrible funk… he cannot. The irony does not escape him.
Ernie makes his way through intake, past the sedated group of bangers that he was able to acquire with Claude and Nathan. They are all hooked up to their IVs and tubes. Just as he has seen before, and just as he has seen at the Transitions building upper levels. For the first time in a while he feels a sense of actual fear—a creeping notion that he is in some legitimate trouble.
The two round the far corner of the room and walk into a narrow corridor that leads to a new area of intake that Ernie has never seen before. The corridor stops facing a large wall and what looks like the doors that you might find within the opening of an underground missile silo.
--You got to be shitting me. What’s this?
Gideon does not respond and instead proceeds to interact with a series of security panels, thumbprint, access card, entry code. The sheer volume of security measures seems absurd to Ernie.
--Are you gonna tell me what is behind this enormous fucking door?
Gideon finishes the final security code entry and the door begins to part.
--Come now, Ernie, you know what this is.
A rush of cold air escapes from the parting doors and brushes Ernie with the scent of blood, clean, straight-from-the-source healthy blood. The smell is so enlivening and compelling to him, it is like a beautiful stranger whispering in his ears. Drink me, it says without words. This area is pure. This is the place they house the viable “recruits.” The purified and healthy crops, so close to the compost outside.
--The Farm?
Gideon nods.
Row after row of beds fill the absolutely massive space. It must be a thirty-thousand-square-foot facility filled from wall to wall with beds, hundreds of beds, each containing a sedated person hooked up to machines and respirators. All of them connected by tubes and monitor devices, the wires spilling out the data on their vital signs on to small LCD screens. The crops lie still while their chests slowly pump up and down from the forced respiration and their veins empty their essence into this colossal interconnected system. A vast web of tubing filled with beautiful crimson red twists and turns throughout the facility. Sections of the blood are being pulled into a series of dialysis machines and centrifuges, separating out the most important parts of the blood needed to synthesize the product. It looks like there are about ten people to a dialysis machine. Which makes sense, so that resources are used with maximum utility.
Ernie looks at the layout of the space, his mind constructing a blueprint of the intake building and mapping out the structure. The space itself appears to be housed in the building next to intake, joined together at the gigantic bunker door the way a cheap motel has a door to connect adjacent rooms. Only in this case the door is not cheap and this is in no way a motel anyone would ever want to check in to.
Years and years of planning and millions of dollars have gone into this building, into this room. The Farm is full of familiar faces, crops he has helped to bring in over the year, chemically entombed into a life as a food source. There is so much attention to detail, so much that has to have been planned out before it could have been constructed that Ernie becomes aware of something that he struggles to accept, but knows in his core is true… this is not the only Farm, or at least not the first. It can’t be. Building a facility like this, to house this many, would have taken decades of planning and coordinating. New York is not the kind of place where you can secretly build a medical facility capable of housing hundreds of sedated people. This has been a work in process for quite a
while, but while it was being built, there must have been another location. A proof-of-concept facility that likely lacked the sort of humanity and organized planning that went into this space.
Gideon walks over to Ernie and begins to escort him into the room, toward the hub of tubes and bodies. The electronic buzz of pumps and machinery paint the room in a sort of background static and hydraulic machinations.
--This is what we have worked to build. This facility means that we as a community are stable, that the city is safer—for us and from us. It means that numbers stay low, that there is no more unnecessary killing.
Ernie nods. He understands the logic behind the Farm, and deep down he enjoys exacting his personal vendetta against the masses of nameless bangers in the city. Ernie knows that his responses will directly impact his well-being. How he reacts to Gideon and how far he tips his hand will in every way determine his fate. But Ernie is not a generally fearful person. He does not often find himself holding his tongue or swallowing his opinions. More so than all of that, he has a need, a deeply burning desire to know what it is that is going on. He yearns to have knowledge that exceeds his place in the Organization.
Ernie swallows before speaking, knowing that what he says may very well be the last words that leave his lips. But fuck it, he should have been dead a year ago anyway.
--This isn’t the only Farm, is it?
His words clearly take Gideon by surprise. Gideon knows that Ernie is sharp, that he has an aptitude that has always been squandered by the trappings of common vice. In his new infected state though, more of his potential is able to shine through. Ernie continues.
--This space. The planning. It couldn’t have happened overnight. There are years of labor and red tape and preparation just to set up the space itself. And, knowing you, your own acumen for business, I imagine you would have had to start somewhere… A proof of concept. An initial step into harvesting and maintaining crops, where you could hone the system to find what works and doesn’t. It’s a great idea. Really the only way to do it when you traffic in… well… what we traffic in.