Blood Zero Sky (20 page)

The danger and gravity of our position hit hard again when we reach our destination, however. Ahead, over the leafless tops of stunted trees rise thick columns of black smoke. A second later, the scrawny foliage gives way to a vast area of brown, dry grass. Beyond, a high chain-linked fence with barbed wire looped at its top extends to the limits of my sight in both directions. The area enclosed here is much, much larger than any of the other secured complexes I’ve seen in America Division. This is an entire city.

In front of us, squadmen mill about, their black guns brandished and ready.

We approach them fast, then stutter to a stop.

“Slow down there,” says one of the squadmen, squinting at us as he steps out of a metal guard hut. He pulls a large, outdated-looking IC out of his pocket and it beeps twice.

“Ono and Prescott? Is that right?”

“Yeah,” says Ethan, “we’re consultants for the shoe division of N-Sport. We’re running late for a production meeting.”

The squad member blinks at his IC, scrolling through several screens, presumably.

“Alright,” he says. “You’re on the list. Head in and take a right on the first street. Follow it all the way around and the factory will be on the left. They’ll scan you there and let you in the gate. Just make sure you stay on the main road—this place is full of animals. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to your pretty friend.”

He shoots me a lecherous glance.

“Thanks,” says Ethan, revving the motorcycle impatiently.

“Where’d you get that bike?” asks the guard. Though he’s chewing gum, I can still smell the reek of contraband alcohol on his breath from six feet away. As usual, these squadmen are above the rules. “I haven’t seen one of those in ten years.”

“Family,” Ethan says, and he revs the motor again, rendering the guard’s response inaudible.

Realizing the conversation is over, the squad member slips his IC back into his shirt pocket, adjusts the rifle slung over his shoulder, and sits back down inside his hut.

Ahead, an electric motor buzzes to life and the corrugated steel gate pulls back. We sputter past it but are stopped by another, identical gate, this one maybe forty feet past the first. When the one behind us has closed, the one in front of us opens, and we lurch through it, the engine of our bike buzzing like a gigantic insect.

I lean forward to Ethan’s ear. “What is this place?” I whisper.

“Used to be called Indianapolis,” says Ethan. “I’ll explain later. Just keep your eyes open.”

Ethan shifts his weight, pulling us off the main, four-lane road (on which we are the only vehicle) and onto a narrow side street between two sagging apartment buildings.

The sights here are haunting. Clotheslines crisscross yards littered with old, rusting appliances. The houses all wear dingy coats of peeling paint. Hardly anywhere is a window unbroken. We pass a few men walking in a group. They wear red jumpsuits and stare at the ground, hardly even glancing up as we roar past. Their shoulders are hunched, their steps slow, their feet heavy, their limbs spindly, and their cheeks sunken. Even from a distance, I can tell they are broken men.

We pass children standing barefoot and still in a few dirt yards. They stare at us with eyes as sharp as nails, then disappear behind us. Sometimes, we pass whole blocks of buildings that seem to have been burned to the ground; only charcoal outlines of their ruins remain. On and on the hellish vision continues. Other than the knot of sullen men, we pass no other adults and only a few children, but block after block, the desolation and squalor extends unbroken.

Finally, Ethan brings us around to another large street—or it could be the one we were on before, I have no way of knowing—and we speed off. We pass over a set of weed-choked railroad tracks and a brown, murky-looking river before at last approaching something familiar: this area looks like the industrial arc. But unlike the industrial arc in the Headquarters hub, this one is teeming with workers wearing red jumpsuits. Some face away from us. They’re lined up in cues that extend for hundreds of yards down both sides of the street and terminate in a complex of huge, menacing-looking factory buildings larger than any I’ve ever seen. In between the two lines, massive groups of workers spill out of the factories, heading toward us. I don’t know how many of them there are, but they must number in the thousands. There are so many of them that they choke the roadway and force us to kill the motorcycle’s engine and continue on foot, weaving our way upstream through the mass of milling bodies.

“Shift change,” Ethan explains.

Nobody will look me in the eye. They must see us, for they clear out of our way as soon as we approach, but none of them acknowledge our presence in any way. They simply wander past us, like reeking, exhausted zombies.

Above, I hear a deep roar and look up to see a huge airplane pass low overhead, descending toward a landing strip that must be very close by. To our right: a concrete guard tower filled with squadmen and bristling with guns.

“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 the 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.”