Unknown - The_Growing_589064

And there is, as yet, no medicine for this hurt, not in the pharmacology, not even, yet, in the spiritual power that has begun to make itself all but visible in Dakota Rivers. Maggie is a skeptic; a realist. Being a realist, unfortunately, sometimes forces one to recognize an uncomfortable and unprepared-for truth.

One of which, much as she hates to admit it, is that pond scum eating coprophage that he is, McCallum has a point. There is presently no adequate judicial mechanism to deal with him or with others like him. Hell, there’s no way to deal with a pickpocket beyond a person’s own fists. Or, more frighteningly, a person’s own gun.

It is not that the evidence is lacking. She opens her folder again, to remind herself why it is important to find a way to do justice, not just vengeance. The printed words convey so little of the timbre of the voices that spoke them, the emphases, the empty spaces that represent a woman’s struggle for control and coherence.

Her memory is not so handicapped. She will hear these cadences, these halting phrases, in her head until she dies.

Q: Please state your name for the record.

A: Monica D* * *

Q: What is your profession, Ms. D* * *

A: I’m—that is, I was—an artisan. I made jewelry.

Q: You were among the women liberated from the Rapid City CCA facility?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you tell me how that happened?

A: I was in my studio when the riot broke out. I hid in a storeroom in the back, under a tarp.

Q: They found you?

A. They set the studio on fire with my blowtorch. I ran out when I couldn’t stand the smoke any more.

Q: What happened at the jail?

A: I was raped. We all were. Almost all.

Q. Do you know why?

DEAD AIR ON TAPE: 1.4 MINUTES.

Q: Can I get you something, Ms. D* * *? Water? Tea?

A. No. No, thank you.

Q: Let me put it a bit differently. Did the—the men who assaulted you—ever give you any reason for it?

A: Reason! Reason!

Q: Ms. D* * *, I’m sorry, but I do need to ask. Did any of the men ever say anything that might tell you, and us, why the droids instigated the attacks?

A: No.

Q: Did the droids ever discuss the matter in your presence, or did you overhear anything that might indicate what their purpose was?

A: No.

Q: Can you come to any conclusion, given what you know, why they might have wanted to salvage and impregnate women of childbearing age?

A: No. Please, I can’t anymore . . . .

“Colonel.” The Corporal’s voice interrupts her memory. “The Major says they’re ready.”

Reluctantly Maggie levers herself up, feeling the persistent soreness in her right leg where the bullet grazed her. She wants nothing more than to be done with McCallum and all he represents, but she sees no prospect of that in any immediate, realistic future. She dusts a bit of soil and leaf mould off the seat of her uniform. “Coming,” she says.

Both men are seated when she re-enters the room. Only Boudreaux rises at her return, but something in the set of McCallum’s back is less defiant. Maggie glances at the Major and receives an almost imperceptible nod. She seats herslf at the table across from the prisoner and switches on a small recorder, stating her name and the names of those present, the date and time. Then she says, “Talk.”

McCallum shoots his legal representative a quick look; Boudreaux stares stonily back. After a moment he says, “All right. You wanted to know what the droids were up to. I can tell you.”

Maggie does not unbend by an ångstrom. “We’re waiting, Mr. McCallum.”

His knuckles go white under their tattoos, but he looks her straight in the eye. “You remember that the Jews and the A-Rabs never bought none of the domestic models, right? Just the heavy-duty military droids that don’t really look like humans.”

“I remember something about it,” Maggie answers, frowning. “Get to the point.”

“I am getting to the fucking point, you—” McCallum catches himself and glances down, away from Maggie’s hard stare. “They didn’t buy the MaidMarians and that junk because they’re imitation humans, get it? They’re images. And the Jew god and the A-Rab god Allah don’t want no images. The ones that are serious about it won’t even paint a goddam flower, much less somebody’s face.”

“I remember,” Maggie repeats. “Get—

“—to the fuckin’ point. I hear you.”

“Now.”

“So the goddam Jews and the goddam A-Rabs don’t got nothing but the military droids. They can control them all through their guvmint, their buncha fag princes royal families. And they can use those droids to control all the rest.” He looks up expectantly, as if every word he has said is self-explanatory.

Maggie waits.

”So they got the oil, right? And now they want to control all the rest of the world, so they use the drods to kill all us American and European Aryans off and probably the sp- uh, Hispanics and Ornamentals, too. That just leaves the Semite race alive.”

“That tattoo you’ve got there,” Maggie says, pointing to the impaled crown and cross. “That’s the Church of Jesus Christ Aryan, isn’t it? That bunch up of Neo-Nazis up in the hills in Montana?”

“Nazis?” The man’s voice climbs in genuine outrage. “Fuck, no! Old Schickelgruber himself was a Jew! Why the fuck you think he couldn’t make the Thousand Year Reich last even twenty? Naw.” He looks as though he wants to spit, glances around him and thinks better of it. “We’re White Nationalists. We’re Christians. That’s different.”

“I see.” Maggie steeples her fingers, willing herself to patience. If there is some chance, some minuscule chance, that this racist idiot has some clue about what has happened to the world, she is duty bound to hear it, even if McCallum makes her skin crawl. She promises herself a long, hot bath with double the lavender she ordinarily uses. “So why, having destroyed your Master Race, do these people want to breed more of you? How does that fit with your theory.”

McCallum leans across the table confidentially. It takes all Maggie’s willpower not to draw back. “They want to live forever.”

This is too much for Boudreaux. Even though he is an auditor, and, in Maggie’s view therefore used to lies, he apparently cannot quite stifle the sudden constriction in his throat. He covers his mouth and transforms the laugh into a cough. “Sorry, Colonel. Something caught in my throat.”

Damn right. Like this preposterous story. Aloud she says, “And this has what to do with—“ A wave of her hand encompasses the whole horror of the jails, the apparent breeding program, McCallum’s place in it.

“Spare parts. They grow the kids, see, then harvest their organs when they need ‘em. Replace a heart, replace a liver, a kidney—the bastards’ll never die. Just keep getting replacements

“Forever.”

There is a certain nasty plausibility to the story, if one begins with a certain mindset. Maggie can remember hearing news reports of Mexican paisanos and Columbian farmers attacking evangelical missionaries because they believed the americanos had come to steal their children to sell for parts on the medical black market. Prejudices never die, she reflects, just attach themselves to new and different “others.”

“This was told to you? By whom?”

“Ah hell! Hell no, lady, they wouldn’t tell us that! What white man’d want his little kid cut up for parts?”

“So you did it because….?”

“To save my fuckin’ skin, why do you think? Think I enjoyed ramming those bitches?” He manages a quite convincing shudder. “Man, not more’n half of ‘em was white! Think I wanna pollute myself that way?”

Maggie manages to keep her thoughts to herself and her fist out of his lying teeth. She says, “So how did you find this out?”