Blood Zero Sky (14 page)

I hurry down one of many aisles, toward the point where they all converge: it is the decadently ornate pulpit familiar to every N-Corp employee, perhaps to every person in the world.
The Jimmy Shaw Hour in Christ
films here.

Behind the pulpit, a three-story-tall cross rises from the floor, huge and gray. Without warning, it startles me by coming alive with a swirling, beautiful array of light. After a moment, the various shapes and hues finally coalesce into the form of a crucified Christ, complete with bleeding wounds and slowly blinking eyes. The image—that’s all it is, of course; the cross itself is just a huge 3-D imager screen—is startlingly, disturbingly lifelike. The activated cross now bathes the whole darkened sanctuary in eerie light.

I rush forward to a small door near the base of the cross. I have never been behind the scenes of Jimmy’s show, so I don’t know where the hallway leads. All I know is that my father is here somewhere, and I have to find him. The staircase behind the cross is completely dark, its shadows stirred to life only by the flickering of the cross above.

I descend. My footsteps carry me down the staircase for what must be two, three, four stories. At the base of the stairs, one lone squad guard steps out of the shadows. Behind him: one more door.

“Stop,” he says to me. He asks for no explanation, and I offer none. I watch him in the tenuous light, staring down at the screen of his IC. After a moment, it beeps.

I fully expect to be arrested, detained, fined, demoted. Instead, the squad member nods to me. “Welcome, Miss Fields. They’ve been expecting you.”

That’s disconcerting, since I wasn’t expecting to be here myself. . . .

He opens the door for me, and I pass through. The room I enter is large, but still ringed in darkness. At its center, an overhead light shines down on a conference table. There’s Yao, Jimmy Shaw, my father, and several other people whose names escape me. Leaning against the far wall, his arms folded, stands Blackwell.

At first, no one notices my presence.

Yao leans forward and places a data stick in the center of the table.

“This is the list,” she says. “Black Brands division will handle the processing. For both companies combined, the number will be one million thirty-seven thousand.”

The others nod slowly. That’s when Dad notices me.

He half rises, alarmed. “May? What are you doing here?”

I step forward into the light. Blackwell approaches the table, too, from the opposite side.

“It’s okay,” Blackwell sooths my father. “Welcome, Miss Fields. I’m glad you made it. We were just discussing the red slips.”

“Red slips?”

“Terminations of employment,” Jimmy Shaw offers. He notices my bewilderment and adds, “What, didn’t you get the memo?”

Several men at the table laugh. My father does not. He clears his throat. “We’re merging with B&S, hon. It’s gonna be huge. We’ll be able to cut a lot of useless jobs. Bring in low-credit-level workers from places like Africa Division to phase out some higher-credit-level folks. Cost savings will be in the hundreds of trillions. Gonna be great for the bottom line.” He smiles that charming old salesman’s smile, but there’s a note of weariness in his tone. “Sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.”

“What happens to the workers who get terminated?” I ask, my voice so low even I can hardly hear it.

“What’s that?” my dad asks.

Blackwell’s dark eyes stare into mine. “They’ll be released from service as efficiently as possible.”

“How?” The word is like a stone dropped into a deep well.

“This merger will be one of the greatest events of our time, Miss Fields,” Shaw says. “And you have a role to play.”

Yao nods at Shaw, who rises and approaches me. My dad starts to stand too, but Yao puts a hand on his arm, stopping him.

Shaw puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me out of the room.

I look back at my father, but he stares down at the table, his face veiled in shadow, refusing to meet my gaze.

“Come, my dear,” Jimmy Shaw croons into my ear. “I’m going to let you in on our little plan.”

~~~

Shaw leads me out into nave of the church, bathed in the muted light of the Company cross.

“Thank God I got you alone, Jimmy,” I say. “You’re the only one I can trust.”

Jimmy, my father’s oldest and most trusted friend. My lifelong moral compass. My spiritual leader. Surely if anyone will understand my concerns, it will be him. He nods, a sad smile plastered across his saintly old face.

“Of course, my dear,” he says. “Mr. Blackwell analyzed your viewing habits. It seems you’re quite a fan of my show.”

He’s right. I hardly miss an episode. In the plastic, shallow, material world that surrounds me, Jimmy Shaw and the idea of God have sometimes been the only things that seemed to keep me afloat.

“I love your show, Jimmy,” I admit. “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only one in the Company who’s actually sincere.”

He pats my hand gently then releases it.

“Of course, my dear. Of course. . . . Girls!” he shouts.

From a door on the far left side of this stage, three women enter. They wear frocks of blue, not unlike the one Jimmy Shaw wears during his televised sermons, but these are cut short, exposing lean, smooth legs and high heels. All three women have long blond hair and fake breasts, which seem to struggle to break free from the confines of their religious habit. These altar girls stop at the edge of the stage and stand still, presumably awaiting instruction.

I take a tremulous breath. At first, Shaw’s presence was calming me, but now I’m getting nervous again. “So, Reverend Shaw . . . the plan?” I say.

Shaw only smiles. He steps over to a basin of holy water, dabs some on his fingers, then walks over and presses his wet, age-gnarled fingers to the cross on my face, tracing it tenderly. “Little wandering sheep,” he says, looking at me with a stare so probing I can only stand it for a second before having to avert my eyes. “Do you have a confession for me?”

I nod.

“Jimmy,” I begin quietly, “I think something terrible is going to happen to those terminated workers.”

Shaw nods thoughtfully. “That is serious, indeed,” he says. “We’d better have a good talk.” He glances toward his altar girls. “Bring us a chair, honey,” he says to one of them, “and a bottle of wine.”

I look at him, startled, but he’s already walking away from me, to a huge, bejeweled throne at the foot of the cross. He sits with a heavy sigh, and then glances up at the towering Jesus.

“Looks bigger on TV, doesn’t he? I mean, on the imager?” he says, and laughs.

I nod, glancing around the room. “This whole place is beautiful,” I say. “I haven’t been here in a long time.”

One of the buxom altar girls approaches with a chair, and I go to sit.

“Bring it closer, closer,” says Shaw with that familiar, endearing-yet-commanding drawl with which he addresses the worldwide masses. “I want us to have a good talk, and I don’t want anything, not even a few feet of air, to come between us.”

I pull my chair closer, and he motions me closer, then closer still. When my knees bump into his, he closes his eyes and nods. I sit.

“You seem so distressed, dear,” says Jimmy, laying one big, soft hand on mine. “Don’t you remember when old Uncle Jimmy would come over for meetings with your daddy and bring you candy canes?”

It’s been years and years ago now, but . . . “I remember.”

“Well, today is no different. Not a bit. I’m here today as your loving uncle once again, and though my duties have kept me very busy and far away from you, don’t ever think I forgot that willful little girl with that sassy mouth and those big, dark eyes.”

“I’m still a willful girl,” I say. “I guess that’s why I’m here. ”

Jimmy laughs. Above him, Jesus disappears and the cross roils with swirling color again. “I never expected anything else from a child of your father’s, believe you me!” he says. “Take your little indiscretion at the N-Dance club the other day. Oh, yes, Blackwell told me all about it, my dear. Could have been quite an embarrassment for your father, May. Quite a few people were surprised by your . . . unusual passion. But never old Jimmy. It takes a good deal more than that to surprise me. No, I’ve always known you were different and have always been your champion, though I bet you never knew it. Your father and I, we have great faith in you. I’ve always said, the further a person has to fall, the better their balance!”

Jimmy chuckles until it devolves into a bout of coughing.

One of the women comes back with a bottle of wine. Shaw gestures to her and she hands me a glass and begins pouring.

“Oh, I . . .” I begin. “I don’t drink.”

Shaw laughs again. “Why, because it’s against Company policy? Don’t worry about that here. You’re in the house of God! Here, wine is Christ’s blood, and believe me, we drink our sacrament by the case, don’t we, ladies?” His altar girls giggle.

The woman fills a glass for me and for Jimmy, then sets the bottle down and withdraws.

Shaw takes a long, slurping sip then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Where was I?” he asks. “Oh yes, I was your champion. I promise you, May, there were many
many
folks, some of them on the board, who feel a woman with your . . . secret proclivities . . . deserves no place in the high-executive ranks, much less a shot at rising to the board or becoming a Blackie. Frankly, I think some of those men are just jealous that a delicious young morsel like yourself is permanently off their menu. And you can tell me truthfully, you do like women, don’t you?”

I don’t answer. I look down at the wine glass in my hand. A sickening realization barges into my head: this might be a trap. If I have a drink, or if I admit to loving women, they could use it against me. One slip could mean the end of my life with the Company—or worse. But Jimmy wouldn’t betray me like that—would he?

“Drink some wine,” says Shaw, almost without pause. “You look so pale! That nasty unprofitable woman who kidnapped you the other day must’ve really frightened you! You look positively shaken up!”

I feign a smile.

“Fortunately,” Shaw says, “we caught her fairly easily, God be praised. She was foolish enough to be caught at a shopping plaza trying to buy food—probably provisions for her anarchist buddies. My PR team and I spun the story to make it sound like you were responsible for the arrest. No need to thank me.”

My mind is on Clair and what’s going to happen to her, and Shaw seems to realize it.

“Don’t worry about your anarchist friends, May. We’ll catch every one of those rats soon enough and hang them all, I promise you that. But they aren’t the only ones I’m worried about. As impossible to comprehend as it is, there may be enemies of the Company even among our employees and shareholders. Shocking, I know, and hard to imagine. But let’s think about it. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of these anarchists. You’re a smart girl, May. A good God-fearing girl, though you’re a homosexual and hence cursed in God’s eyes. You tell me. Why would anybody want to hurt the Company?”

“Do you know about Black Brands?” I ask him. “What they really do?”

“I know about everything,” he snaps, rising to his feet. “Now I asked you a question. Why would anyone want to hurt the Company?”

Jimmy Shaw isn’t going to help me, I suddenly realize with a horrible, plummeting sensation. Nobody is.

“I don’t know,” I mumble.

“May Fields, do not mess with me, do not trifle with me, do not dream of concealing even an ounce of yourself from me while you’re here, in God’s house!” he shouts, jabbing his trademark cane toward me like the barrel of a gun. “God sees everything. And you know what? I am his eyes, his ears, his mouth, and sometimes even his teeth.

“I ask you again,” he says, pacing the stage. “What reason could you imagine for anybody to want to hurt the Company?”

It takes me a moment to muster words, for the muscles of my face feel frozen with emotion. “Because,” I say, “the Company hurts people.”

“What?” says Shaw, full of fire and brimstone. “Speak up!”

“Because,” I say, “I imagine, because . . . people never really own anything they have. It all belongs to the Company. They can only learn the things that the Company wants them to learn, and see the things the Company wants them to see. They can only eat the things the Company gives them, and in exchange, they have to work for the Company forever, even until they’re old, until the day they die. Then their kids inherit their debt.”

Shaw nods a big sarcastic nod. “That’s true,” he says. “God as my witness, all of it is true and more. But one thing you forgot, little sister—it’s been that way since the beginning of time. Somebody rules, everyone else is led. But the Company has been the most generous ruler in the history of the world, hasn’t it? Twenty-one percent of the population of America Division has been to the moon on vacation. Doesn’t that strike you as generous, even extraordinary? Most people have fast, sleek cars. They can afford surgery to make themselves beautiful, medicine to make themselves healthy, happy, and eternally young; they have gadgets, imagers, and robots to entertain them at every hour of the day or night. We have taken the garden God gave us and tamed it, replaced the poison apples with sweet, nutritious health bars, made all the wonders of creation available to anyone willing to sign on to the Company payroll. Is that wrong?”

Shaw builds up steam, sometimes turning his burning gaze on me, sometimes calling his words out to the ceiling, as if speaking to God Himself. “We have united the world—not under two flags, but under two logos—ours and B&S’s!” he shouts. “And until that ugly incident at Headquarters, we had brought peace to the human race. We have carried nearly every single employee of both Companies to Christ. Do you know how extraordinary that is? We have created the perfect world God envisioned. We have rebuilt the Garden of Eden! All we ask in exchange is a little hard work!”

Jimmy suddenly approaches me, his nose an inch from mine. “Is that your problem? You don’t think people should have to work? Well, May—truth be told, we don’t need them to work. We have machines and computers that can accomplish almost everything society needs done. We don’t need the people’s labor; it’s the other way around. It’s the people who need the work, because idle hands belong to the Devil. Constant work is among the greatest gifts the Company gives its people. We want them occupied, because hardworking people are too busy to commit crime, too busy to be discontent, too busy to be unhappy. And all we really want here at the Company is for everyone to be happy. Is that too much to ask, May Fields? I’m asking you. Is it?”