Black Rust (12 page)

Sienna turned the shower off and dried herself with a towel as she looked at the bruises and scrapes on her skin that had been hidden by the dirt.  She’d been reckless running through that cornfield and the woods to get away from the rogue Regulators who killed the farm workers—the degenerates she’d been informally studying.

Sure they were all mentally diminished by the Brisbane virus and its prion surprise, but they’d still been capable of working productively on Blue Bean’s farm and they had enough depth of thought to imagine a life outside of the present, even to speculate about what might wait for them beyond death.  Those dead degenerates, like other groups she’d read about in scientific journals, had formed a rudimentary belief system complete with a crude temple and simple rituals. 

Only a tiny, tiny percentage of d-gens did this, but just like fully functional humans, these relatively few degenerates gravitated toward religion.

And those bastard Regulators had killed them for it.

They’d almost killed her too, but for some reason, no bullet found her.

Now, what was she to do?  Report the Regulators?  Admit she’d been out in the woods, breaking company policy by observing farm workers doing things they were forbidden to do during a time when the rules mandated they be in their barracks?

Such an admission would mean she’d be fired at least.  Given the depth of management’s animosity toward her, she’d probably get the blame for the deaths.  They’d say she’d led the degenerates out there, that she’d put them in danger.  The company would hold her financially responsible for the loss.

And what could she do about it? 

She could hardly claim she’d come upon the group by accident.  She would have had to follow them miles to the site of their ceremonies out in the woods.

And even to do that, she’d had to win their confidence over the course of months, keeping company with them outside of the normal work routine.  She’d befriended them.  She had feelings for them.

Goddammit!  Degenerates are people.

Maybe not all of them, but some were.

Sienna didn’t understand how seemingly good people could flip some switch in their brains that turned off empathy when it came to degenerates.

The group she was studying in her free time didn’t live in the same barracks.  They were spread across seven buildings, males and females.  They never all worked together on tasks.  They didn’t eat together.  Yet they’d somehow recognized one another for what they were—not normal humans, but not regular degenerates either.  They communicated in a language of simple syllables and gestures and formed a community that depended on their ability to share simple ideas and coordinate actions. 

Sienna didn’t understand the nuances of the language.  It was speculated that it spread in the state schools, devolved from whatever human language skills they learned before Brisbane’s prions did the worst of its damage to their brains.  With the leftovers, these few were able to communicate effectively enough to sneak out of their barracks at the same time and meet at a remote location in the woods.

The group had been fascinating.  Watching them was like looking through a time machine window to see prehistoric humans invent culture. 

There was so much to be learned.

They’d been her only reason for remaining at Blue Bean Farms, the one thing still worth doing.

Now they were all dead.

Having toweled her body as dry as she was likely to get in the steamy bathroom, Sienna wrapped the towel around herself, tucked in the top edge to form something of a dress, and reached for a comb to run through her hair as she opened the bathroom door.

A guttural chuckle frightened her into stopping.

She screamed as she saw a hulking bruiser of a man, standing droop-shouldered by the wall, staring at her.

“Hush!” Goose Eckenhausen ordered.

Sienna stepped back into the bathroom and reached to shut the door.

Goose jumped over to stop the door with a foot as he grabbed her by the wrist.  “You settle down, honey.”

Sienna’s eyes burned with fire as she spat, “If you and your friend don’t leave right now I’ll—”

“He ain’t my friend,” Goose laughed, letting go of Sienna’s wrist.  “That’s Toby.  He’s my Bully Boy.  Just got ‘im a coupla weeks ago.  Used to be in the Army.  Did some fightin’ down in Columbia or some such shit.  He’s a war hero.”

Drool ran down Toby’s chin as he leered at Sienna.

“You get your friend Toby and get out of my—”

“Nope.”  Goose stepped in close to Sienna.  “Mr. Workman wants them papers signed.”

“I told you—”

Goose put one of his dirty fingers on Sienna’s lips.  “Don’t say nuthin’.  You been refusin’ to sign yer paperwork and Boss Man is tired of listenin’.  We talked ‘bout this on the porch.”  Goose looked over at his Bully Boy.  “What do you think, Toby?  You think maybe Dr. Galloway needs to stop protestin’ and do what she gets paid to do?”

Sienna jerked her wrist out of Goose’s hand.  “Mr. Workman will hear about this.”

“Why would ya think he don’t already know?” Goose pointed at some papers spread out on Sienna’s small dining table.  “Sign ‘em.”

Sienna hated Goose so much she could taste it.  She looked at the papers.  Those papers, if she signed them, would put over a hundred debilitated farm workers in the queue for extermination.  And it would happen today. 

“Ya know,” said Goose.  “Toby’s got needs if ya know what I mean.  I don’t think they let him, you know, get any satisfaction when he was in the Army.  You see the way he’s lookin’ at you standin’ there in that towel.”  Goose took a step back to make it clear he wasn’t going to be in the way should Toby decide he couldn’t control his urges.  “Toby’s a big boy.  Not sure I could do nuthin’ to stop him should he decide you were too purdy not to have a go.”

“You’re going to let your goon rape me if I don’t sign those papers?” Sienna wished more than anything she had a gun to shoot them both.  “Is that it?”

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’ of the sort.” Goose feigned innocence.  “I’m just tellin’ you we’re stayin’ ‘til you sign them papers.  If it takes a long time for you to git ‘round to it, well, so be it.  I’m just sayin’ I can’t be responsible for keeping a handle on old Toby boy with you struttin’ your purdy stuff ‘round in that towel.  That’s all.”

“You’re a pig.”

“No, I’m a goose.”

Frustrated and angry, Sienna wanted to scream her rage.  But she was afraid of what Toby and Goose might do.  Looking at Toby’s dead eyes and drooling mouth, she feared a lot worse than rape.

She looked at the papers.  She had no choice, at least not in the moment, but she had every intention of fighting this once she got to the meeting with Mr. Workman and the State Inspector.  She cut a glance at Toby and then focused on Goose.  “You tell him to wait outside, and I’ll sign the papers.”

“Sorry, can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t let him outa my sight,” said Goose.  “Rules.”

“Bullshit.  He wasn’t with you when you were on the porch.  How’d he get here?”

“He was on your neighbor’s porch.  Right behind you the whole time we was talkin’.  You just didn’t see ‘im.”

Was that true?  Had the steroid giant really been there?  A shiver ran up her spine. 

She took one more glance at the oaf and pushed her way past Goose as she gripped the top edge of her towel to keep it in place. 

She bent over and shuffled through the papers.  “What’s this?”

“What you askin?”

“There are at least a hundred more names here.”

“More defects,” Goose told her.  “You want I should step outside while you and Toby talk about it?”

She hated Goose Eckenhausen more than ever.

She scrawled a fast, angry signature on each page, pushing so hard the paper tore beneath the pen.  Once done, she scooped up the papers and shoved them at Goose.  “There.  May I get dressed now?”

Goose stepped back and looked her up and down.

Sienna suspected that was the same look all of his rape victims had seen.

“You sure are a purdy one.”

“Get out of my house,” she ordered.  “Get out.  I gave you what you came for.  Leave.”

Goose smiled and nodded as he let his eyes linger on her visible bare skin.  “C’mon Toby.  Let’s go.”  To Sienna, he said, “We’ll be outside waitin’ for ya.”

It was against the rules, but Sienna decided in that moment she was going to buy a gun.  She’d never again be on Blue Bean property unarmed.

“I got the signal.”  I looked up and scanned the sky that I was able to see between the tall pines on both sides of the road.  I spotted the drone, nearly a hundred feet up, directly overhead.  I pointed.

“How’d it get there?” Lutz asked. 

The spotter drones were harder to see than it seemed like they should be.  With the Wifi connection established between Ricardo’s drone and my phone, messages started to pop up.  I read and summarized as I went.  “The road is clear.  Two turns.  We take the left turn twice.  Should get us within a mile or so.”

“Nobody out there?” Lutz asked.  “Nobody to catch us?”

“I’m reading,” I told him.  “I don’t know yet.”

“So what’s the plan, then?  I drop you off.  You do your shit, and I drive you back out again?”

“Yeah,” I told him.  “You stay with the car.”  I read more.  “Shit.”

“What?” Lutz asked, panic rising in his voice as he looked around.  “Did Ricardo see something?”

“We’re safe for the moment.” 

“What then?”

“Buzz bikes.”

“Army?” Lutz asked.  “What are they doing here?”

I shook my head.

“Police?  Already?”

“Ricardo says maybe police.  Maybe private.  Too far away.  He can’t tell.”

“Private?” Lutz scoffed.  “Not likely.”

“If the Army or the police are surplusing them out, Blue Bean would probably be able to buy them,” I speculated.  “They’ve got the money.” 

I’d seen plenty of cops riding the things, hovering over the streets, avoiding all the crap in the roads, zipping across the suburbs at eighty miles an hour.  That’s how fast I’d heard the cop versions flew.  People said the military versions could carry up to five hundred pounds and hit a hundred and ten. 

The buzz bikes, or hover bikes, were a natural evolution of drone technology.  Four ducted fans—two in front, two in back—engines powerful enough to get a man off the ground and software built in to keep the things stable.  I hated them because I’d heard about all their shortcomings, but now with the possibility of them being available in the private sector, my jealousy turned practical.  I looked at Lutz.  “Sell the Mercedes.  We need to get our hands on a couple of those things.”

Lutz shook his head.  “No way.”

“Think of it,” I said.  “No more roads.  No more obstacles.  No more having to reroute to get around a riot and missing our sanction.  How many times has that happened?  Once a month at least.  Hell, forget that.  We’d get to our sanctions quicker every time.  I bet we’d get twice as many kills.”

“No,” said Lutz.  “We can’t afford them.”

“You don’t even know what they cost.”

“We just spent five thousand on a goddamn spotter drone,” Lutz spat as if it had been his money I’d laid on Ricardo’s desk.  “I’ll bet you’d spend fifty or sixty on one of those, at least.”

“It’d pay for itself in a few months,” I argued.

“Not if we’re in Mexico.”

“Christ, Lutz.  Are you back on the Mexico thing?”

Lutz pointed down the dirt road.  “Buzz bikes.  You said it yourself.  There’s no way they won’t see us.”

“They’re not up there for security,” I told him.  “It’s not like we’re trying to sneak on to an Army base.  Maybe they’re private.  Maybe Blue Bean uses them to wrangle stray d-gens.  They’re not going to be looking for a Mercedes on a dirt road minding its own business.”

“They’ll see us.”

“What if they do?” I asked.  “How big is this place?  How many people work here?  Normal people, I mean.  Several hundred, you think?  A thousand?”

“Don’t know.”

“How many does it take to manage all those d-gens?”

“The work camp prisoners manage the d-gens,” said Lutz.  “That’s the way the work camps function.”

“But there are employees too, right?  Like Sienna Galloway.  They’ve got their own cars.  Everybody working this far out from town has to have a car.”

“What’s your point?” Lutz spat.

“Those guys riding the hover bikes can’t know every car owned by every employee.  That’s all I’m saying.  We just drive on in like we belong there, and it won’t be a big deal.  Like I said, this isn’t exactly Fort Knox.  It’s a corporate farm spread over three counties.  Hell, you could probably shoot Roman candles off from the top of your Mercedes and drive through in the middle of the night, and nobody would ever notice.  That’s how big this place is.”

“I doubt that.”

“That’s because you have a cloudy disposition.  Lighten up and smile for a change.”

Lutz looked at me like I was screwing with him.

I was.

I walked to the passenger door and got in.  Lutz followed my lead and got into the driver’s side as he started the engine with an exaggerated sigh.  “I don’t like this.”

“Drive,” I told him, as I went back to reading the messages from Ricardo.

The Mercedes started to roll.  Lutz said, “I’ll keep it under twenty so Ricardo’s drone can keep up.”

“He’s not coming.”

“What?”

“The hover bikes,” I told him.  “Ricardo thinks those bikes can take out his drone?”

“Can they?”

I shrugged.  Military bikes might be armed, but not the cop bikes.  They didn’t have the payload for that.

“So we’re going in blind?” Lutz asked.

“We know what’s ahead of us.”  A long, narrow country road.  We were at least five miles from the nearest cultivated field.

“This is bullshit.”