The Hundred Gram Mission (13 page)

"Madam, are you even listening to me?"

"I'm sorry Doctor Henrikson, that's completely unacceptable. We have a lot of respect for you Sir, but this is not your business."

"Don't tell me what my business is! How can you even do this?"

"Do what, Sir?" asked Maeve. The man could have at least shut the door. Outside, Tammy and Clyde from Benefits, were staring. "I understand it was you that required we hire a large mining staff. We've done exactly that."

"You've conscripted prisoners from a private prison!"

"We did what we had to do, with the budget that we were given. Did you think Sun Star was going to create full time jobs with benefits?"

Henrikson stared at her.

"Oh, so you did! That's not how this works."

"But we have the money."

"Oh Honey,
we
do not have the money. I don't know about you, but I have
no
money. Mr. Spektorov has the money, and he is not spending it on 401ks for miners. If you want him to spend more on this, then you best ax him yourself."

"I'll do that."

"You know what he's going to say."

Henrikson clenched his fists and looked around, as if an answer may have been about.

"Look, you just have a problem with these people being forced to do something, they don't want to do?"

"That's putting this mildly."

"Then how about this? You can do a final interview with these people. Anyone who doesn't want to go, you can reject.  Just say they didn't meet your specs and I'll sign against it."

His face lit up. "You'll do that?"

"Of course. As long as you don't come barging into my office again, trying to tell me what I can and cannot do."

"I'm sorry, Madam."

"We're doing first intake on Wednesday. Why don't you head on down there early, and enjoy New Orleans? I think you'll like it."

"Thank you Ms. Higgins."

"Call me Maeve."

The crazy European scientist disappeared like a quarterly bonus. Tammy smiled at Maeve and looked back down at her filing.

That's right, keep on smiling, you skinny white bitch.  

Avoyelles Correctional Center, 30 miles South of Alexandria, Louisiana

"Hi, I'm Ken Brown, Prisoner Number Fourteen B Twelve."

The room was prison grey, a wide-brimmed light hung low, over the table. The orange-suited man sat opposite the woolen-suited one. He smiled, bags under his eyes.  

"Hello," the other man extended his hand, "I'm Doctor Henrikson. Thank you for your time, Mr. Brown."

Brown smiled and shrugged, "Time is all I got. At least another seven years. And most of it isn't really mine. Thank you for
your
time, Sir."

"What are in for, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Not at all. Credit card fraud and identity theft. It was my side hustle. Should have stuck to freelance programming."

"You're a programmer?"

"A little bit. I was. I try to be useful."

"And what did you do for fun? Before?"

Brown let slip a small laugh. "You really are interviewing me, aren't you? I like to make things, still do."

"Like art?"

"Like gadgets. You want to turn a toaster into a heater, I'm your man."

"I think there will be plenty of heat at the facility, but, it would be good to have someone with a knack for machines." Henrikson lost his smile. "So tell me Mr. Brown, do you actually want to go to Space?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Do you want to work on this project?"

"Sorry I - I understand the question, I just don't understand why you're asking me. Are you trying to give me a choice?"

"Yes. You have a choice. If you want to decline, I will simply mark that I rejected you. No one will know, but us."

"That's very kind of you Sir. I've never been given that choice. Not since I came to Avoyelles. Er, I guess the answer is yes?"

"Forgive me if I remark that you do not sound enthusiastic, Mr. Brown."

"Well I mean - it's just that I don't really have a choice, do I? I mean sure, you'll honor my wishes, but what choice do I have otherwise?"

"I'm sorry I don't follow you."

"If I'm sent back into the pool, I'll just get picked for something else, right? Something I won't be given any choice over. You can give me
this
choice, but does that matter, given that I don't actually have 'Choice'."

The two men said nothing. Elsewhere, someone was yelling to someone else about their mother.

"You seem a little upset, Doctor."

"No, it's - it's just that I don't want to work with anyone who is being coerced. I don't want to be part of that system, you know?"

"I get you," Brown nodded. Then he held up his hands shrugging, "but you are."

A guard yelled at the yeller. The yeller yelled back. More mothers were invoked.

"I'll do it. Because I want to do it, it sounds like really cool work."

"It could be very dangerous."

"So is being a small, fat, white guy in a prison. This project sounds amazing. I'd go for this even if I was on the outside. I want this job, Doctor. If you'll give it to me."

Henrikson resolved a smile. "Yes, it is yours Mr. Brown," he extended his hand again.

"Wow," Brown accepted it and shook. "And you didn't even ask me where I see myself in five years."

"Well, where
do
you see yourself in five years?"

"Somewhere better."

Lakshmi Rao, II

Outside Al’lbediyya, Sudan

"Happy anniversary, Brigadier General."

Nasri Al-Hamdani of Egypt’s 18
th
Independent Armoured Brigade, looked up from the battlefield hologram. A colonel and two majors stood before him, smiling like school boy tricksters. One held a combat knife tied with a ribbon made from medical gauze. The other, a steaming, brown, date cake. Headset-wearing operators stopped talking and looked up from their ruggedized computers. Land and air displays of South East Sudan hovered in front of them. 

"What’s all this?" he smiled. "Did we get gay-married, Farouk? I would have remembered that."

The cake went on the table; petrol and thorium inventories disappearing under it.

"Here," Farouk offered him the knife. "It’s everyone’s anniversary. Three years since Operation Ra."

"Has it been three years already?" he held the knife like he was unfamiliar with it. Perhaps now he was. "It doesn’t seem it’s been that long."

"Quickly," one of the Colonel’s waved him along. "Before the ceasefire is over."

Some laughed, but it sounded tired. Al-Hamdani began to cut - the aroma hit and he closed his eyes. He was a boy again, spending his pocket money at Al-Nouri’s, the bakery. He was eating by the roadside with his friends, watching protesters going to Tahrir Square .

He looked around. There was a lot of staff in the command tent. He started cutting smaller pieces.

"This is excellent," he nibbled a piece. His mouth exploded with flavor. "Who made this?"

"An Abrams driver in 2
nd
Company," said Farouk. "He was a baker in Alexandria, before he was conscripted. We found fresh dates in an abandoned village. His platoon built an oven out of a gutted Sudanese tank."

"That’s incredible. Can he make Khubz?"
[xxxi]

"Of course he can make Khubz. He’s a
baker
."

"Get him to make us as much as possible. The men will appreciate fresh bread."

"I’ll take care of it. I suppose we should send some cake to our benefactor, too. The UN High Commissioner."

More laughter.

"Lakshmi Rao?" Al-Hamdani wasn’t laughing. "She should be reaching the Atbara camp, soon. Why is Cairo even allowing this? It’s going to be a PR disaster."

"What are we supposed to do?" Farouk scowled. "If the Sudanese fire rockets at us from a refugee camp, we bomb it. It’s quite simple. If they don’t value their own people’s lives, we’re not going to, either."

"But it’s not that simple. Remember, we are the invading army, with the Abrams and the F22s. You forget, the world doesn’t care about
our
problems."

"Excuse me Brigadier General, but fuck the world," he replied. "They don’t understand what’s at stake. Ethiopia’s dam will kill the Nile, and Egypt.
[xxxii]
We have the Americans and the Israelis behind us. We don’t need anyone else. Let the Sudanese cry and wail to Rao, and show her dead children. We will sweep them aside and enter Ethiopia, by Ramadan."

Men cheered.  

"Are you going to get into trouble Sir?" asked the Major, who had said nothing. "For not capturing the camp in time?"

"No, Major. Central Military High Command is not so crazy to think we could have accomplished that in such a short span. But I am surprised they are giving her access. And the ceasefire to allow her passage, just means more rockets coming down on us, later."

There was the roar of an armored vehicle driving too fast, inside the camp. The officers looked outside as an Oshkosh M-ATV pulled up. Its crown was a ten kilowatt, anti-personnel laser. Two men got out; one had the rank pips of a Major. He strode into the tent uninvited.

"Brigadier-General," he saluted.

"What is it? And who are you?"

"And can we keep your Oshkosh?" asked Farouk. "We’re going to save the Nile, you see." 

"Major Qureshi, Central Military High Command," he ignored Farouk. "I have a message for you."

He opened a small valise and handed the Brigadier-General a folder. Al-Hamdani opened it. He lifted out the paper inside, like an archeologist with a papyrus.

"I will need that back when you are done reading it, Sir."

The Brigadier-General frowned. He read the paper, and his frown deepened.

"Here," he handed it back. The major saluted him, got back into his vehicle, and drove off.

"What the hell was that?" asked Farouk.

"Orders. The kind you don’t want to send electronically."

"They’re afraid the Russians will crack our encryption?"

"They’re afraid in fifty years a historian will find it in an archive. We are to prevent the UN High Commissioner from reaching Atbara."

The only sound in the tent was the air conditioning.

"They declared a ceasefire just to let her through!"

"The ceasefire is a sham. Now, no one can say that Egypt denied her access to the camp."

"But we
are
going to deny access! And they are telling us,
just
now!
"

"No Colonel,
we’re
not denying her access."

"We’re not?"

"Egypt is not, no. This is a job for our Eritrean friends."

"Your pet Asmaran paramilitaries?" Farouk made a face. "They’re a bunch of raving psychopaths."

"Which is why they will start shelling, during a ceasefire. We will not be blamed."

"Of course we will be blamed. Everyone knows we control them."

"Nothing can be proven," Al-Hamdani shook his finger. "And I don’t think anyone can control a bunch of raving psychopaths, once you give them tanks."

Abu Hamad Toll Road, fifty kilometers North

"High Commissioner, can you tell us why you’re visiting the Atbara camp?"

The reporter’s flak jacket was so large, it looked like she’d drown in it. A heavy belt strapped her waist to her seat, like the rest of the APC’s passengers. She leaned forward, mike in hand. The light on her glasses lit up red to show she was recording.

"Of course, but first some background for your viewers. The Atbara camp is just one of fourteen the UN opened in Sudan, after the start of the water war," Rao, sat across from her, wearing a UN blue helmet. "It has over two hundred thousand refugees. A thousand more are joining it, daily. Resupply is very difficult: all four sides have fired on UN aid flights. The only way is overland, but the roads are often closed by the fighting.

"The current offensive by Egypt and Eritrea has affected the Atbara camp’s access to clean water. This has caused a sanitation crisis. This paired with recent sudden, heavy rains, has caused a cholera outbreak.

"I am going to Atbara to see the situation for myself, and to highlight the plight of these people. Their humanitarian crisis will only grow as Egyptian-allied forces advance deeper into Sudan. The Security Council needs to pressure Egypt to end the offensive, and put in a lasting ceasefire."

"Madam Commissioner, what do you make of the Egyptian military government announcing a unilateral ceasefire to allow you to make this visit?"

"I welcome the move," she said, after a pause. "However, unless the Egyptian government makes serious commitments to protect refugees in this war, and not just those of their allies, then this will only be a hollow gesture."