The Ward (33 page)

‘You keep saying that! What must I do?’

Rosen lays his briefcase and the silver case on the desk and brings out his copy of the contract. When he looks up at me, he’s regained his professional composure and smiles thinly.
‘Bullet tips, as you upsiders say. Your viable harvest mass was notarised as 117.63 pounds on release from the Modification Ward. Your Donor Swap policy stipulates delivery of 150 per cent
viable mass within thirty-three shifts. By midnight tonight, upside time, you may deliver’ – he takes what must be a novelty soft-gel calculator out of his pocket and taps out a sum
– ‘176.445 pounds of viable tissue to a collection node conveniently located near you. Remember that the final tally will only be made after termination and recycling of the viable. The
assessors will let you know if there is any further shortfall. In this unlikely circumstance, you will have ample time to make up the shortfall once the assessment is lodged. Failing this, you will
be in breach and subject to an out-of-contract termination.’

As the reality of what he’s talking about starts to sink in, I’m astounded that he’s talking about it so openly. ‘What are we talking about here? Is it organs?
You’re organ traffickers, is that it?’

‘Organs, muscle, tissue, bones. Anything viable,’ he says, and in that moment I’ve caught him on camera admitting to organ harvesting. I
have
this fucker.

I clear my throat, speak loudly and clearly. ‘So if I… deliver… people weighing 176 pounds, I’m out of debt with you. Is that right?’ I’ve
got
them.
Motherfuckers.

‘176.445 pounds viable, not total.’

‘What does viable mean?’

‘The viability criteria are appended to your contract here, Mr Farrell.’ He runs his mutilated fingers down the list. ‘High-quality, intact facial tissue is rated five;
slightly compromised but still high quality could be four; uncompromised eyes, hearts and brains could be rated up to five; bulk muscle tissue rated anything from one to three; skin from one to
three and a half. Raw blood is rated on a sliding scale. If you have a look at your in-ward assessment schedule here’ – he passes me a list of numbers from the file – ‘you
will see that your viable total was superestimated because of the high quality of the skin and muscle tissue, but was rated down because of stimulant content. The hormone therapy you received in
Preparation Ward unfortunately compromised various of your components. Your eyes, lamentably, were listed as unrated and of marginal viability.’

‘And who makes these assessments?’

He looks at me oddly. ‘The Ministry’s assessors. We submit a mimeo-graph and they return an estimate, but the final assessment is only notarised once the poundage is delivered and
recycled.’

‘And then what happens to the—’

There’s a click and a creak over my left shoulder. I whirl around. Eduardo is standing in his office doorway.

‘I thought I heard someone,’ he says. ‘Working late, Farrell?’

‘Uh, yes. This is my, er, broker.’

‘Jesus, that’s service. Can I get your card?’

‘He’s primo,’ Rosen says.

‘What?’

Instead of answering, Rosen clicks open the little steel case and removes a gadget that resembles a stubby remote control. He walks over to Eduardo, presses the thing against his neck and
Eduardo folds quietly into an unconscious heap. Rosen crouches over him, unlaces Eduardo’s shoes then starts undressing him.

‘Please assist me, Mr Farrell.’

But I can’t move.

‘Mr Farrell!’ he snaps, and something vicious in his eyes tells me to listen. I move across to the doorway. ‘Remove his trousers, and please help me lay him out flat.’ I
follow Rosen’s orders. There’s a sheen of sweat on his face as he struggles to pull Eduardo’s tight Hello Kitty top over his head. As Rosen bends and turns, I notice a stain
behind his ear under his hat. It looks like old blood.

When Eduardo is naked, Rosen goes back to the case on the desk and removes a marker pen and a Polaroid camera, those sick bastards’ technology of choice. My mind claws at the inside of my
skull and my stomach heaves; I know exactly what he’s going to do. Sure enough, he draws lines on Eduardo’s body, portioning him up into segments, and takes a photograph of him, the
flash popping my mind blank.

‘Nothing better than a stumps-on tutorial, Mr Farrell.’ Rosen smiles at me as he wafts the photo in the air, waiting for it to develop. ‘Especially when the moments are running
away. We signal this mimeograph to the assessors, and they’ll signal back an estimate and then we can take this to collection. Easy as that.’

‘Take him? But why?’

Rosen looks at me as if I’m an idiot. ‘To deliver on your contract, of course. This brown is primo. At least a hundred pounds viable, I’d estimate. More than half your debt
right here.’

‘What would happen to him… after I deliver?’

‘He’ll be terminated and recycled.’

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ This is the first time that I accept it, deep down.

‘The Ministry of Modifications doesn’t play, Mr Farrell. And neither do its agents.’ He hands me the Polaroid. A greenish-beige body with lines drawn on it. Just like the
photos they took of me in the hospital.

‘I can’t. I can’t… use… him. He’s done nothing to me.’ But now I know exactly what to do. The answer to all my problems. It
is
as easy as that,
after all.

Rosen shakes his head. ‘It’s your decision.’

The cold shock of what I’ve just seen, and of what I know is about to come is perfectly balanced by the liberating euphoria a different part of me is feeling.

So I feel nothing as we dress Eduardo again, and lay him on his couch. I consider leaving the surveillance files intact, recorded proof of what this racket is doing, but I know I can’t.
I’m complicit now. I log into the surveillance server, stop the cameras, deindex the night’s files, pick up the steel case and escort Rosen out of the building.

Rosen chats companionably as he drives. His car is a cross between a Renault Scenic and a hearse with tinted windows. ‘The Ministry of Paraphernalia is still working on a
prototype of an invisible pen that only shows up in the mimeograph flash,’ he says. ‘But you know how these things go. They table a research tender, then the results must be scrutinised
and the research budget extended to the practical experimentation phase, then those dockets need to be cycled up to the Minister’s office, then through to Senate ratification. It takes a
while. But mostly, it takes lemons.’

‘Lemons?’

‘Yes. Not so easy for us to grow.’

Lemons.

‘You have a primo workplace for scouting. What your mascots lack in weight, they more than make up for in quality ratings. The mascots you work with – provided they don’t
toxify – have up to a ninety-three per cent viability ratio. It’s like picking viable from the meat tree.’

‘What do you mean “mascots”?’

‘Oh, sorry. What you call “mowdels”, I think. Sorry, I haven’t been upside for some periods.’ He drifts off into a reverie, and scratches at the wound behind his
ear. It’s definitely blood, and still wet. Every time he fiddles with the wound, his fingers pull off it with a sticky lisp.

‘I was hoping to see some mowdels tonight, like I did the other day. All that primo Donor material.’

‘Most people leave the studio at six or so.’

‘Pity.’ He drives on in silence. All I can think about is what’s to come. I fidget with the stunner, tapping it on the steel case, eager to zap that fat bastard to the
floor.

Easy as that.

It’s close to nine thirty when we reach Glenn’s street. We stop three blocks down and, as planned, Rosen gets in the back and lies down. I drive the rest of the way. When we get to
Glenn’s gate, there’s a new security guard on shift and she asks me my business.

‘Tell Mr Forrest that I’m bringing Katya back. She wants to come home.’

The guard doesn’t bother to look into the car and phones up to the house. She presses the button to open the gate and watches me in.

I pull up at the front of the house. Glenn is already standing on the entrance terrace, eyeing me suspiciously. I check that the stunner in my hand is on, pull up the handbrake, open the
door.

‘Where is she?’

‘In the car.’

‘What the fuck are you driving?’

Oh shit. ‘It’s from work. The Alfa had a flat.’

He jogs down the stairs, peers into the tinted passenger window. ‘Kat?’ He taps on the glass. ‘Kitty-Kat?’

His body flies back from the window, flopping onto the gravel like a ragdoll. Damn.
I
wanted to do that.

Rosen opens the door. ‘This is suboptimal. He’s quite hefty, you’re right.’ He pokes the prone body with his shoe tip. ‘Low ratio, though. The assessors will
decide. Assist me, Mr Farrell, we must carry him up the stairs.’

Rosen hauls Glenn by the shoulders and I take his ankles. I can barely get a grip around their bulbous girth and we struggle and jostle to get him to the first step, then take a rest. I check
down the drive to the front gate. Just paranoia. There’s no way that guard can see us from here.

‘One, two,
three
,’ says Rosen, and we heft him up a few steps; just a few more to go.

‘Josh! What are you…?’ June appears in the doorway and lets out a shrill scream.

Before Rosen can react, I rush up the stairs. ‘It’s okay, June, it’s…’
Yes, a strange man in a suit and your would-be son-in-law are hauling your
husband’s body up the stairs. I can explain
. I put the stunner to her neck and press the button. She collapses, easy as that. That felt good. This zappy thing is fucking awesome.

I look to Rosen, but he’s gone. Shit. Has he left me to deal with this by myself?

Then I hear the crunch of jogging footsteps on gravel, and Rosen returns, pocketing his stunner. Security guard. I skate June’s bird-like body into the lounge and go back to help with
Glenn.

I feel motivated. I feel strong. I look at Glenn’s angry face, his slabby hands – those hands that are way too free with Katya, way too free with June – and I feel nothing. I
know exactly what’s going to happen to this grotesque chunk of meat, and I feel nothing. He’s lucky. This end is too good for him, too clean, too painless.

I hear myself thinking these words, and still I feel nothing. Glenn’s a blight. We’re putting him down more humanely than he deserves.

Once he’s in the lounge, I start stripping him without even being asked. Rosen gets the pen and the camera from the car, marks Glenn up like a dummy printout for correction and takes the
picture. I look around the house, knowing I will never come here again.

When the photo is developed, Rosen scans it through his phone. ‘What about her?’ he says, indicating June. ‘No more than forty, fifty viable, but every bit helps. There are all
types of Clients with all types of needs.’

‘No. Just him,’ I say. June never did anything overtly to hurt me or Katya. That’s enough to save her.

‘Frankly, if the Ministry wanted you to settle your debt with highratio parts, Representative Mutual should have stipulated that in the contract. But stipulated it is not. So this’
– he indicates Glenn’s blubbery form on the carpet in front of him – ‘is contractually acceptable. The representatives missed a finger there, I’d say.’

Rosen’s phone beeps; he stops muttering and reads the message. He raises his eyebrows. ‘Hmm. One hundred and forty, the assessors report. I’m sixed it’s that much. But
the Ministry has recently endorsed assisted fattening and they’ve added lipids to the new draft viability schedule. Could be that.’

‘One hundred and forty. But that means…’

‘You’re still 36.445 short.’ He nods at June’s body and smiles.

I look at June. Remember her feeble performance at dinner last night. What did she ever actually do for Katya? Did she ever protect her from Glenn? Or did she just stand by and let him paw her
and contort her all those years? Change her from that happy girl to a driven and selfobsessed woman. Katya always called her pathetic, never forgave her for being so weak.

She doesn’t even know that her daughter is dead. A mother’s supposed to feel that in her bones. She thought Lisa was Katya, for fuck’s sake.

‘Yeah. Throw her in.’

I look away as Rosen strips and marks June. The Polaroid flashes. I drink a tumblerful of Glenn’s single malt.

I’m gazing up at the oil painting of the miserable stag – Glenn’s appalling taste in art another reason why he won’t be missed – when the assessment comes in.

‘Forty-seven,’ says Rosen. ‘Congratulations. We’re clear to deliver.’

Rosen backs the car right up to the stairs and we haul the bodies into the back and cover them with a blanket. We stop at the gate, lift the security guard from where she’s lying prone
on the driveway and place her back on her chair in the hut. I eject the disc from the security monitor.

‘You don’t need to worry about that, Mr Farrell. Your society has so many little holes where evidence can disappear. You simply don’t have the systems.’

The way he says it makes me believe him. Besides, there are recorders and cameras all over the house. I check my watch. 10.26. We haven’t got time. I’ll worry about the repercussions
when they come. I have a feeling nobody’s going to miss Glenn Forrest too much.

‘Where do we deliver?’ I ask.

Rosen checks his list. ‘Closest node is Highgate Mall. Delivery entrance 7B.’

Half an hour and we’ll be done.

Late on a Thursday night, the mall is eerie. The neon lights blast out for nobody, and disoriented birds swoop around sleepily. All the shops and restaurants are long closed
and I wonder whose cars these are, dotted about the parking lot.

Trucks are parked outside the Woolworths delivery entrance, drivers snoozing, waiting for their turn to unload, but Rosen drives onto the rooftop. It’s deserted, except for a dusty red VW
Fox.

We park in front of the massive steel door to a truck-loading bay and Rosen gets out of the car. He sends a message on his phone and waits, stretching and arching his back as if he’s
taking a rest stop on a long journey, keen to get home. As I watch out the car window, I think I notice the shadow of someone skittering between the rooftop bulwarks, but I can’t be sure. I
look back and everything’s still again. Rosen and I said little to each other on the drive here, but our silence has been comfortable; just two workmates getting on with the job in hand.
I’m feeling calm, almost relaxed. I should be feeling guilty, paranoid, terrified… But I’m not.