New Reality 2: Justice (7 page)

No matter how many times she walked up to it since taking a job in the control room, her heart galloped, her throat dried, and her stomach did backflips. It had been worse since they'd terminated Jake.

Reluctance made her legs heavy and not even the birds sang as she walked up the silent street. She was alone and her slow trudge was the march of a slave in manacles. If only she could turn around, walk in the other direction, and sack work off forever. If only she could embrace motherhood wholeheartedly. But motherhood was the reason she kept going. This baby needed to enter the world with as much money behind it as possible.
 

***

Whoosh!

The automatic door to the locker room opened and Marie turned around. After making eye contact with one of her 'sisters', she quickly looked at the floor.
What was she doing? She wasn't supposed to look at anyone, but it was the colleague that had let her into the control room the other day—the one that had smiled at her. Would there be a better opportunity to see if she wanted to be friends?

Marie regarded the camera hanging from the ceiling, her cheeks burning, then turned back to her locker and opened her handbag.
 

When her sister moved next to her, Marie's body tingled. They were so close to one another, Marie could smell her flowery perfume.
There must be a way she could communicate with her. But how would she get away with it in here?
 

In an attempt to stall for time, Marie put her phone into her bag and zipped it up.
Would they notice it on the cameras?
She never put her phone in her bag; she always left it next to it. She then opened a pocket on the side and rearranged the three different packets of mints in there. She needed just a little more time to think;
how could she communicate with this woman?

After clipping the popper on her bag shut, she quickly glanced at the blonde woman. Her heart lifted when she returned her smile.
She does want to talk!
 

While staring ahead, Marie cleared her throat. She spoke only slightly louder than the sound of her breath. "Hello."

With her own pulse throbbing in her ears, it was hard to hear if her colleague replied or not. Marie tried to steady herself, but she still didn't hear anything.
Was she too quiet?
She was just about to say something else when she felt her colleague's warm hand touch the back of hers. It was fleeting, almost as though an accident. Almost an accident.
 

Goosebumps ran up her arm and Marie had to fight the urge to hug her. They'd pushed it too far already.
 

The woman next to her then closed her locker and walked off in the direction of the control room. That was enough for today—too much and they'd get rumbled.

Still smiling, Marie turned around to see the camera looking straight at her. Her face fell. After closing her locker door, she looked back up at the lens and saw darkness shift behind it.
Were they focusing on her?

When she heard a loud voice outside, panic flapped in her chest like trapped birds.

"You what?!"

It was Doug. Frowning, Marie looked at the camera again.
Had they told him already?

Cuban heels clicked loudly over the hard floor as they marched towards the locker room.
 

Click!

Click!

Click!

"They've done what?!" It sounded like he was talking into a phone. He was pissed, whoever he was talking to.
 

Click!

Click!

Click!

How could she be so stupid? How could she fuck everything up just from wanting to make a friend? Why did she say hello to her?

Click!

Click!

Click!

Jesus, Marie, what have you done?

Chapter Twelve

The clicking of Doug's heels halted outside the locker room door.
 

With tension gripping her stomach, Marie shook as she looked at the floor and waited for it to slide open.
Why did she try to talk to another colleague? Any kind of interaction was strictly forbidden. She knew that, so why was she so stupid? If she lost her job now, it would push Frankie over the edge. What was she playing at?

Doug's angry voice outside made her jump.
 

"They can't come here, Monty.
No way!
"

The panic in Marie's chest eased slightly.
Who couldn't come here? What the hell was he talking about?

"I don't care if we're obliged to show them around. I'm
not
going to do it."

Maybe she hadn't been rumbled. She looked up at the camera.
What would they be thinking of her strange behaviour?
It was a bit weird to stand still and stare at the floor.
 

Marie pulled her right leg up like a dog that had a thorn in its paw. There was a bench next to the door, so she hobbled over to it and sat down. As she pulled both of her shoes off, she continued listening to Doug, his voice now reedy with panic.

"Can they just turn up without any warning? Surely, they have to give us
some
notice?"

It was so quiet that Marie could hear Monty on the other end of the phone. It was impossible to make any sense of what he was saying though; she was too far away from the speaker.
 

The first sock she removed was slightly damp with sweat because of the summer heat. She turned it inside out and pretended to look for the foreign item that was irritating her. All the while, she made sure the camera could see what she was doing.
 

"I don't have any time to prepare. What am I supposed to do?"

After a pause, Doug tutted and said, "What do you mean, make it look
convincing
? Do you realise how hard that is?"

Marie put her sock back on and removed the next one. Although, how the irritant could jump from one sock to the next…
Hopefully, whoever was watching wasn't thinking about that.
 

"Okay," Doug said with a sigh.

Another pause as Monty replied.
 

Doug then offered a petulant, "It's not like I have a choice, is it?"
 

Monty spoke.
 

"Yep."

Monty spoke again.

"Yep." Doug was clearly sulking.
 

There was a pause where neither man spoke. Doug's attitude must have been irking Monty. It was hardly surprising; Marie felt like swinging for the spoiled brat and she didn't even know what they were talking about.
 

Another loud tut and Doug finally said, "Fine. I'll get one of the girls from the control room to come with me. A couple of them are pretty enough to distract them. Hopefully, that'll stop them working out what's going on. But I'm not taking responsibility for this if it goes to shit. There's only so much I can do."

The white camera was still trained on Marie when she started on her left shoe. After shaking it, she then up-ended the thing, screwing her nose up at the slight funk coming from it. After looking inside, she slipped it back on her foot and wafted the air with her hand. The smell wasn't terrible, but it was enough to make her self-conscious should anyone else walk in.

"Yes, Monty, they know about us terminating prisoners. We pretend they don't to the employees, but what the fuck do they know? The government don't care about a few casualties."
 

If Marie were any further away, she wouldn't have heard what Doug said next, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"But they can't find out about this. We're taking money from them. Fraud is much more serious than the death of a few estate rats."
 

Fraud!
It was hard to hide her reaction with the camera watching on, but Marie did her best as she listened to Doug walk away down the corridor.

A quick check of her other shoe and she then slipped it back on. She had Doug over a barrel now. Fraud was a serious crime. If he had to take one of the girls with him, wherever it was, she was going to make sure she was that girl. Since wearing the corset, Doug saw her as a pair of tits and nothing else. He was blinded by his lust for her and she was going to use that to her advantage. Frankie may have some other work in the pipeline, but if this was as serious as it sounded… well, twenty-five thousand credits for a marriage certificate would be a price worth paying Marie to keep quiet.

The very start of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, but Marie kept it suppressed. She got to her feet and glanced up at the watchful camera. It continued to stare back. She then turned to the door and pressed her finger against the scanner next to it. The light above it turned green.
 

She fucking had him.

Chapter Thirteen

The high-pitched screams sent shooting pains through Marie's ears, driving her shoulders up to her neck. Disorientated by the sound, she flapped around at her console to lower the volume of her headphones.
 

The sharp acceleration of her pulse had stolen her breath. Pulling it back, she stared at the muted images. The child in front of her was no more than six years old. She was covered in blood and crying for her mummy.
 

Why did she ever take the 'promotion' to the control room?
The wage increase seemed pitiful once she saw what she had to endure. A few hundred extra credits a month didn't compensate for the nightmares.

It was hard to control the shake running through her limbs as she tapped away at the keyboard. All she needed to do was pull up the lunatic's identity, confirm it was him, and move on. But to do that, she had to look at the screen.

The shot panned out. The little girl was crouched over a decapitated lady. The woman was naked save for a scarf of her own entrails.
 

Hot saliva ran down the back of Marie's throat and she gulped several times.
Would she ever desensitise to the violence?

All she needed was one image of the guy to cross-reference and then she could get rid of the projection.

Before she brought his details up, the shot panned out farther to show the door to the room being kicked in. Seconds later, a man burst through, bare-chested and as covered in claret as the little girl. The head of what must have been the girl's mother was hanging from his grip, his bloody fingers entangled in her dark hair. Beneath his shirt of blood was a shirt of ink. The man was heavily tattooed.

When the girl turned to look at him, she covered her mouth and the man's face opened in what Marie could only assume was a laugh. She wasn't curious enough to turn the volume back up. When she finally got a clear shot of the man's face—a spiderweb tattooed across it—she identified him.
 

Before she could move the screen on, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder and she shrieked.

She spun around to find herself looking up at the smiling Doug. Everyone else in the room had already stopped what they were doing and were staring at her.
 

"Sorry, darling, did I frighten you?"

It was a rhetorical question. They weren't allowed to speak in the control room.
 

A quick glance over her shoulder and Doug winced. "Oh, that looks like a nasty one. And that's a positive projection, is it?"

Marie nodded, stealing a quick glance at her blonde co-worker from the locker room. The woman was staring straight at her, her soft features projecting compassion.
 

"You can see why he's been locked up. It's scary to think what goes on in people's minds. I bet he's a fucking
homo
too."

Marie ground her jaw as she watched her boss. How did she end up working for this piece of shit?

"Anyway, sorry to interrupt, guys," Doug said. "I just wanted to tell you that we have a visit from government officials today."

Marie did her best to relax, sat up straight, and pulled the front of her top down to show off her cleavage. This was what he was talking about on the phone and she needed to be the one to go with him. A quick flick of her hair got his attention. She slowly pushed her tits out farther.

As Doug lingered for a second on Marie's chest, he swiped his greasy, side-parted hair across his forehead and laughed. "Don't all speak at once; let me answer the questions that I know you must have. How does it affect you? It doesn't. Because of the secrecy contract, the government can't come into the control room, so you may not even notice their presence. I just wanted to let you know in case any of you pop out for a toilet break and you see them snooping around."

When Doug's eyes returned to Marie's cleavage, he lost his words for a moment.

Marie stole a quick glance at her blonde co-worker again and saw the confusion wrinkling her brow. Once they were friends, she'd explain everything.

When Doug finally looked up at her, she smiled. "There's um… there's one more thing; I need someone to come on the tour with me."

This was her moment. Marie dropped a pen and leaned down to pick it up, taking her time to return upright so Doug got a good eyeful.

The fat man gulped.
 

It was working.
 

There was a distant look in his eyes, the intoxication of lust setting in. "It looks like you get to see the prison complex today, Marie."

Marie smiled at the slug of a man, taking in his broad grin and greasy head of jet-black hair. She then turned to her console and logged out. He was so easy to manipulate that she almost felt sorry for him.
 

Almost…

Chapter Fourteen

Click!

Click!

Click!

The white corridor was so sparsely furnished that the harsh sound of Doug's Cuban heels bounced off the walls. Every
click
was a pickaxe to Marie's temples. After a deep breath, she lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders back. She could do this.
How hard would it be to reel the idiot in using his own libido as bait?