The Milkman: A Freeworld Novel (10 page)

The scene didn’t look right, McCallum thought. No single detail sat out of place, no scent or sound set him off. He’d lived in this loft for 20 years, the last several alone, and knew when his world had been disturbed. He padded into the center of the space, between the kitchen island and kitchenette. He skipped turning the lights on. He peered into his living area. All his canvases seemed to be where he’d left them, leaning on the couch and coffee table. His recent piece up on an easel, under the skylight — the reason he purchased the place — waiting for the shower of natural light you couldn’t really get until winter called it a year. The round table he used as a coat rack remained empty. That left his bedroom. He backed up, and stepped between the island and the kitchen’s cupboard-coved back wall. He flipped the faucet lever. Water gushed into the sink with a soothing racket.
If there’s no one here, you look like an idiot only to yourself
, he said inside.
If there is someone here
… He rounded the corner and kicked his door in.

“Hey,” a man said, snapping his arms into blocking positions.

“Hey.” McCallum hopped and kicked again, into the man’s midsection. The man knocked the kick aside, turned and took a proper stance.

Fuck
, McCallum said inside.
He’s got a skill set
.

McCallum punched. The man blocked and punched straight, twisting his fist. Perfect stance and execution. McCallum spun, caught the man’s arm, pulled it to his chest and used it as a brace to ram his head into the door jam. The apartment shook. Frames rattled on the walls. McCallum’s momentum took him through the doorway, breaking his grip. The man lurched behind McCallum, snaking his forearm under McCallum’s chin.
Death hold
, he screamed in his head. He grabbed, rolled right and flipped the guy, smashing him to the kitchen floor.

The man bounced up faster than McCallum expected. They each bent at the knees, turned to limit their profiles and raised their arms. The man wore dull black pants, jacket, turtleneck and watch cap. It hid blond curls. McCallum put him at 5’10”, 180, 15 his junior. The spot of blood in the center of his forehead made a tail down his nose. A slick, red tadpole tattoo. McCallum had the advantage. He hopped forward… then back. The man looked confused. He wanted to look around but wouldn’t. McCallum inched backward. The man took a chance and spun into the living room. He took the canvas off the easel and raised it above his head.

“No!” McCallum yelled.

“Then don’t move.” The man’s voice confirmed his youth. McCallum heard just a tincture of excitement.

“I’m an op. This isn’t going your way.”

“This ain’t a break in. My superiors gave me the door code.”

Fill me with fuck
, McCallum thought, but said, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m supposed to be delivering a message.”

“They should’ve sent more than one asshole.”

“Not that kind of message,” the man returned. “I’m supposed to tell you Emory Leveski is innocent.”

“You couldn’t call me?” McCallum shook his arms, letting the blood loose in his muscles.

“I’m just the messenger.” He stepped forward, keeping the painting high. “Now if you’ll step away from the door.”

“Who sent you?”

“Right. The door.”

McCallum sidestepped to his left. He let the guy pass between him and the island. The man refused to relax. He watched McCallum like this was a match. His arms stayed cocked and tight, waiting for a bell, as if smashing the canvas would win him a stuffed lion.

“So what was your plan?” McCallum asked. “Come at me all tough and scary?”

“It wasn’t to tussle, I can tell you that.” He arched a hand behind his back and opened the door, lowering the painting, but keeping it between himself and McCallum. His eyes never strayed from where they needed to be. He tossed the canvas. McCallum jumped and caught it with both hands. He examined it to make sure nothing had marred the image; the sweep of black lines, all in the same direction, broken only by the figure of a woman face down on a sidewalk.

McCallum kicked his door closed. Even if he caught up with the man, what would he do? Fight more? Maybe lose? He crossed his loft and returned his art to the easel. He liked this one. He always liked them before they were finished. Then he hated them. He walked around the island and turned off the water.

Emory Leveski was innocent. He wished they’d sent professional muscle into his home to tell him something he didn’t already know.

Chapter Thirteen

The common room for men assigned to the alternative work detail had no sharp edges. The corners of the walls met in concave joints; every chair rim, table lip and door jam curved. The walls glistened, painted in a peach enamel that Emory believed to be a ‘calming color’, a hue the industrial psychologist researched, tested and decided would promote tranquility. The high gloss made it easier to clean if the color failed. Two doors stood at opposite sides of the room. No windows. The back wall served as a large monitor. Everyone could watch whatever movie or educational program the company deemed appropriate. Emory had yet to start watching one he could stay with till the end. The films tended to show little action of any kind, unless it was a period piece, usually an old movie about governments trampling citizens.

Most of the films depicted families striving to make an honest living under the tyranny of government regulation. They couldn’t plant crops because of arcane land restrictions. They had to shut down the mill because the corrupt government official wanted it for his lazy son. Emory tried to watch all of the native people’s movie. Good natured, natural folks, living off the land, rounded up and marched from their homes by the government. The absurdity of the story made him think it might be true. The company didn’t have the imagination to manufacture stories that bizarre. In end, he didn’t make it. People marched and cried and marched and cried until he fell asleep.

Tonight’s feature had to do with different Indians. These lived near what he knew as the Bombay catchment. They wore more clothing, but not much more. Another government army seemed determined to round up more people and march them around.

“It’s all true,” Campbell said as he sat down. He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles, and folded his arms across his chest.

“The movie?” Emory asked.

“Yep.” He nodded once. “The British Islands were once all under the same queen who wanted to rule the world. She used her army and navy, but her real innovation was commerce. She used companies to expand her empire. Not realizing that…” Campbell quickly scanned the room, decided no one but Emory could hear him, and continued “…that the companies would eventually turn on her descendents.”

“Is this the truth you’re guilty of spreading?”

“A little. The company doesn’t mind me talking about how bad the queen was… or the United States of America or the Third Reich or any of those devious old, malfunctioning structures. No, they’re fine with that. It’s the rest of the story that bothers them.”

“What’s the rest of the story?”

Campbell turned from the wall monitor to Emory. He looked into his eyes for longer than Emory liked, but he refused to look away. He wanted to see if this guy was insane.

“How’d you end up here?” Campbell asked.

“Don’t know,” Emory answered. “I honestly don’t know.”

“But?”

“No buts.”

“Aren’t you going to say, ‘but it’s a mistake. I’m innocent. The company’s got it all wrong’?”

“Oh no,” Emory replied. “I deserve to be here. I just don’t know if the company’s got the right reason.”

Campbell’s bottom lip protruded, not in a pout or bout of sadness, but in a way Emory thought projected disappointment. Campbell’s own, personal disappointment in not guessing all of Emory’s specs from their first, brief encounter. Emory trusted the man on instinct. Of course, he no longer trusted his own instincts, so he decided to refrain from spilling his life’s story.

“I haven’t killed anyone,” Emory said. “How’s that?”

“No problem. It’s your own business.”

Emory snorted and half-smiled. “No such thing.”

Campbell smiled back. He panned the room again — all the faces faced the far wall, some asleep, some on the verge — then leaned in closer to Emory. “What did they teach you in school about the Buy-Ups?”

“I don’t know,” Emory threw out, “Governments borrowed money to fight wars and went bankrupt. The world’s corporations stepped in to make sure society didn’t collapse. They fed people, maintained police forces and sanitation services and divided the world up so we’d never have another war.”

“Very good. You must have been a great student.”

“For what it’s worth.”

“Sadly, you learned history as written by the Public Relations Department. Just like this movie, it’s part true, part false, and part missing.”

“What makes you think that?” Emory asked.

“I’m not some tin-foil hat wearing alien abductee. You know what I used to do before laying sewer pipe? A datologist, that’s what. I specialized in pre-Buy Up code. I translated old information into modern formats. The company decided what should be preserved and what should be destroyed.”

“Sounds like a dangerous job.”

“A lot more dangerous than crawling around underground.”

“If you read all this stuff the company wants erased,” Emory said, “why are you still alive?”

“Ha,” Campbell chirped. “It’s taking them longer to kill me than they first figured. You really don’t know much about your situation, do you. It’s death by labor.”

Emory’s stomach curled up on itself. Campbell’s smug conviction; his acceptance. Emory played cat’s cradle with his hope every day, stretching it, weaving it, reworking it into shapes that fit his changing predicaments. Through all the manipulations, the strung-out hope held. It hadn’t snapped and fallen limp. He wouldn’t let this crazy asshole pinch it from his fingers and turn it into his life sentence.

“I’m not going to die here,” Emory said.

Campbell sighed. He watched the movie for a moment, saying nothing, as if waiting for Emory to catch up to him.

“How long have you been on the chain?” Emory asked.

“Seventeen months,” Campbell answered.

“And you’re still alive.”

“The new line’s not done. The companies hate paying for public works. There’s no profit in sewage. There’s no easy way to make people pay for what they don’t use. The fact that all three companies share the main lines really fucks things up. So business centers pool funds and they look for the cheapest labor force they can find. That would be us, in case you’re wondering. When this project’s done, they’ll have less use for us.”

“You know what I did before this? I was… I
am
a systems engineer. So I can tell you without a doubt, this project will never be done. It’s constant, continuous maintenance. By the time you finish at one end, you’ll need to start back at the other. You may be around a lot longer than you anticipate.”

“I appreciate your optimism.”

“So what do I need to know, Campbell? What’s the other history?”

Campbell bent his head and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “The Buy-Ups didn’t happen. Not like the companies say. There were no white knight rescues. They foreclosed.”

“Foreclosed? Like took over?”

“They decided governments had become… become too wasteful to continue. It didn’t matter what kind. Socialist, communist, monarchy, even the great capitalist republics on which the companies themselves had been built all had to go. They didn’t collapse under their own foolishness, they were uprooted.”

Emory made his doubting face, eyebrows jutting out like plump bookshelves. “All the guns and armies,” he motioned to the movie playing on the wall, “they spent all their time frightening people into submission. But you want me to believe a bunch of executives took them over?”

“Those armies didn’t run on their bellies,” Campbell said. “They ran on their bank accounts. By the time of the Buy-Ups most armies were professional. They worked for a paycheck, just like you and me. They worked for whomever
gave
them the paycheck. It was easy when the checks came from the King’s exchequer or the Department of the Treasury. When it came from World Security International Incorporated? Or the Bank of Hong Kong? The lines of command became tangled. And weak.

“The change didn’t happen with a big pageant. It took years. A lot of bloody years, according to the stuff I read. The Buy-Ups we know are actually this period, when the companies, and vestigial states, all fought each other for assets. There were thousands of companies at the start. Thousands. Not divisions or branches, but separate companies. Big corporations bought up smaller ones, or forcibly gobbled them up, until there were only three.”

“And you read all this? You have this data?”

“They E.M.Peed on my office. While I was sitting there. Lost everything on my cuff. My back ups. Lost everything…”

Emory returned to the movie. Khaki clad soldiers with long, wooden guns stood blocking a throng of skinny men in thin cotton warps from advancing down a street. Emory had no idea what they wanted, but they seemed desperate, determined and destined to die.

“You think I made this up?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Emory said. “You’re here. I’m here.”

A man two rows in front of Emory rose. As he passed he tossed two packets of butter into Emory’s lap. Emory spun. All he saw was the man’s back, nearing the door. He walked fully upright, arms swinging, in no hurry. Emory flicked the butter away like bugs. He glanced at Campbell, who was polite enough to stay focused on the wall monitor, pretending to be entranced by the army raising their guns to their shoulders.

* * *

The woman said she’d talk to Sylvia so long as it didn’t interfere with chores. Sylvia had no idea what that might entail. The woman was 91. Whatever her chores might be, she was sure she could keep up, even in her current roly-poly state. Corrida wore a long twill coat, with lots of hoops and pockets. She waddled through the stalls checking on gauges, fittings, and hoses. She patted the cows on the rump or nose, depending on their orientation. Each of the farm hands said good morning to her with a fair degree of reverence.

“If I’m working, they’re working,” she said. Her voice carried like an accordion. “I shame them into it.”

“You run a tight ship, huh?” Sylvia followed behind her.

“Oh, I don’t know. As long as everything’s working right, I’m OK.”

Sylvia waved Samjahnee ahead. She wanted him to film her and the dairymaid approaching, slowly, through the stiles. He skipped around them, stopping to set a globe on a gatepost. It would catch them passing. He could work the shot into the scene in post-production. He kept the other globe to film the old woman and Sylvia moving towards him.

“Do you find the Milkman insulting then?”

“God no, sweetie. Someone wants to take the time to tell everyone how good our milk is, I’ve got no issue with that. No issue, none. We put out good milk here. Good milk. This Milkman’s helping us.”

“So you don’t mind that he’s questioning your integrity? Isn’t he saying that your tests are either ineffective or nonexistent? Isn’t he calling you a liar in a way?”

“Insulted? I’m old and fat and I can’t remember what I had for breakfast. He’s just testing, is all. He’s testing to make sure I’m no liar. I’m not insulted somebody wants to test me. I’ll tell you this— I’ve had hard tests. This ain’t one.”

“You’re a proud woman, Corrida. You don’t need this guy looking over your shoulder.”

Corrida stopped and leaned back against a gate. An enormous heifer, a velvety grayish blue, stuck its nose through, rubbing it right against Corrida’s shoulder. Sylvia thought the woman might tumble sideways, but she held. She breathed. Sylvia could hear her breath chug through her airways. She smacked her tongue inside her mouth.

“I fought in the Buy-Ups, you know,” Corrida said.

“I didn’t,” Sylvia replied.

“I commanded a tank recovery vehicle. We were there when the House of Saud fell. A whole mess of us running around, trying to prop up the world while it crumbled like an old barn. You should’ve seen it.”

“I wish.”

“You don’t. I got shot at by men I thought I was fighting along side. A woman piloting a tank did not go over well with our Arab friends. You ever get shot at by your co-workers?”

“Never even seen a gun.”

“That there is the best thing to come out of this. I’ll tell you that. Guns were a quick way to do something you can’t undo. I was pleased as punch to be done with them, pleased when they sent me to the farm.”

“Who sent you?” Sylvia’s voice changed. It surprised her. The bite was gone. “How’d you get from the army to the farm?”

“Oh, I don’t recall it all. All that craziness. I was only 20 years old. Mostly worried about staying alive. An oil company, I think it was Exxon, bought up my unit’s contract from the United States of America. ‘You’re going private, private!’ That was the joke back then. Then I think it was Unilever next? Or was it Pepsi? I think it was PepsiCo, as they were called at the time. When the fighting died down they sent we soldiers all over. I could drive big stuff, so I ended up on a farm in Davenport Catchment. I liked it there. I liked the new quiet.”

Sylvia glanced at Samjahnee. He kept the camera on them. She didn’t know if any of this had any value, but she wanted it. Every drop.

“When did you come here?” Sylvia asked.

“To Niagara? Let me see…” the woman tapped her puffed and spotted chin. “I got posted here about five years ago. The company wanted me to whip these boys into shape. Get production up.”