Revolt of the Rats - Reed Blitzerman (early readers txt) 📗

was gone, her bald head mottled with small red welts.

“We had an infestation,” she said. “They did it to all the girls.”

She sat at the table with an air of distraction, looking left and right. She’d lost weight. Hollows surrounded her eyes, and her normally full arms were gaunt and bony. She shifted in her chair, agitated.

He hated to see her like this, diminished somehow. Without Anise he was adrift, floundering through his days, all joy lost. He wanted the sheets back, and the suits, and the steaks, and the knife. Why can’t things be like before?

Her fingers pawed at her face, her nails clotted here and there with what appeared to be dried blood. When her hand reached for his, he overcame the urge to recoil. It was warm, and the skin was still soft. He closed his eyes and for a moment it was fine. They remained silent until the guard returned to the door and out of earshot.

He said, “I’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you, Dawson. I have. But I’ve suffered so. It’s six years I’ve been in here, Dawson. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve asked our savior for guidance, for a vision; and none has come.”

She pulled her hand from his and leaned away, her neck a series of cords. Her high cheekbones were unblemished, her eyes brimmed with cold fire. She looked down her nose at him and for a moment it felt like before. Her arrogance fanned him, the bullfighter before the bull.

Her words emerged sharp like thistles. “Eli Steiner done this to me. Steiner and that salesman who didn't have the good sense to die somewhere else.”

“Yes.” He was fearful to say more. His breath was as light as a passing breeze.

“What will we do Dawson? I’m lost. I need to move on. I need closure.”

The world shifted as he struggled to keep up with her. In all the time that he’d known her, Anise had never been lost. He searched for the right thing to say, retrieving what he’d heard from itinerant pastors who’d occasional boarded with them. “Forgiveness then.”

She squeezed his hands tight, her nails cutting half moons on his skin, and drew in so close he thought she was going to bless him with a kiss. Her breath curdled hot on his cheeks. “I don’t need to find forgiveness. Without the Lord, we must take things into our own hands. Avenge me, Dawson. If you love me—”

“You know I do.”

“—destroy the Steiners. Don’t come back until it’s done.”

He nodded without speaking, perusing again all that he had lost: the suits, the steaks, the hogs with the blood, and greatest of all, Anise. He thought of himself as a good husband. He would do what she asked.

He was still seated when she abruptly stood up. She signaled the guard who guided her to the door and proceeded through without looking back.

Motion at the bar brought him back to the present. The Steiners were leaving. It wasn’t hard to pick them out. What to do next was taking shape. Everyone has a weakness. Anise said it all the time. You just needed to find it. He slid off the bench. And when they left out the door, he followed them.

Juke Joint

Dill threaded the bleary eyed throng with ease. Gratefulness filled their upturned eyes. They patted her shoulders with coarse hands. She was used to the smell, had called on many of them in the past with jobs. But her questions were met with shakes of negation, shrugs, and grunted commiserations.

A face below a stained Burberry cap hazarded an answer. “You need to go further down the street where the gaslights end. Bar’s on the right. Looks like it was built by a crazy man.”

They exited to the street, and down the block. They found a wooden shack that fit the description amidst several abandoned warehouses, scattered like so much broken crockery, dissimilar wooden boards resurrected from scrap with what she assumed was vagrant labor. Gas jets flickered inside, throwing light across the dirt floor, to the bartender and its single patron.

The patron was nearly as wide as he was tall, dwarfing the be speckled barman. His hands were as big as liter German beer steins. Below a thick moustache crusted in foam was a wide neck wrapped with a bandana stained deep red with sweat. Dark brown eyes followed them as they entered. The giant spoke. “I like the dives, the booze is always cheaper.”

Dill concentrated on his right eye, trying not to appear intimidated. She was the one after all, with a customer order to fill.

“Good to hear. I’m Dill and this is Everett Steiner.” She indicated her nephew without turning.

“Know who you are. Glad to meet.” The giant extended a paw to shake. He did so the way you would squeeze a child’s hand, though Dill could feel the tendons flex in his fingers.

“You come recommended,” she recovered her hand. “We need a man can supply a certain kind of steel on short order.”

He set his mug back on the bar. “You got a sample?”

She handed it over.

“We’ve got some alright,” he said. “Hasn’t had any demand for years. What farmers you got using this? Oh wait, I see, you got some factory work. How much do you need?”

She told him.

“Come by tomorrow. We’re at Fourth and West Street. You’ll need to pay up front. If you can cover my beer tonight it would be obliged.” The giant smiled, producing an unsettling feeling. “I’m a little short.”

Dill reached into her pocket and produced some coins. “Least I could do.”

He nodded at the bartender whose relief was as obvious as a bed sheet on a clothesline. The giant smiled again, satisfied and happy. “Let me walk you to your car.” He waved as they pulled away.

This is going to work. Dill hid her amazement, only allowing herself a small smile. They found a jazz station playing ragtime and turned up the radio.

As they left the curb, a figure pulled up short on the sidewalk. Deep set eyes following as they turned the corner.

Smart Money, 1999

Motomax deserved to die. The place disgusted Bee, but not as much as her attraction to it. Somehow it had got to her. Weekends at home she found herself smiling, thinking about clever tools made from flecks of steel, parts clinking into aluminum pans, or the motions of tattooed stringy arms. And then there was these two.

“If I told Bodge what you’ve been doing,” she said, “he’d have me walk you out today.”

Dieter Machs and his friend sagged and she let them dangle, weighing having them fired. Anger crashed against her resolve like waves threatening to burst a breakwater.

She’d caught them at all sorts of mischief, some of it right here in her own offices. How long had these two been skulking with her unawares? How much damage had they done, going off on their own? Maybe they were like the rest of Motomax, bent on industrial suicide. Cold roots of dread spiked deep inside her. It was all coming apart. I should just let the whole place burn.

How had a master’s degree led to this? Easy as a country rube she’d fallen, from tenure track professor at the University of Wisconsin to highly paid firefighter, maniacally beating back failure, locked in a downward spiral.

Her only ally lay behind that desk, compiling on her computer. Cooling fans cooed to the software model inside. It grew stronger, suckling on data from the factory’s mainframe. Maybe it knew where her heart had gone wrong.

The things it had already shown her. Every forecast had been confirmed by a flurry of emails crackling with growing alarm; hourly employees were quitting, machine breakdowns were spiking, her electrical engineer had resigned...the chance to recover was slipping away.

She turned and entered her office, skirting manuals stacked on the floor. She’d found answers there. It might be enough. Over her shoulder she said, “Get in here, close the door, and sit.”

She rolled a chair before them and exhaled, her hands hanging down between her knees. “Soon I won’t have to walk you out,” she said. “Bodge will be letting all of us go before he turns off the lights.”

They stared at her, in shock. She sat unblinking and unmoving, her legs crossed, hands in her lap. “Smart money already left.”She’d been here how long? Six months? Nine? When did I run out of time? She turned to the engineer on the left, hardly larger than a child. He was a bonny man, more beautiful than handsome.

“I want the details of what you’ve been doing,” she said. “Or I send Machs back to Deutschland, and you back wherever you came from.”

Truth was, she’d only dump Machs if she had lost her mind. On Friday afternoons, long after the others (who she planned to eventually terminate, one at a time) had left to get their boats out on the lake, he was typically still at his desk. She checked his  work, like everyone else, and found it fastidiously correct. She ignored his chains and Megadeath concert t shirts in exchange for his steady craftsmanship.

As for Machs’ little friend, she’d seen him about and assiduously avoided him. When she started working here, it seemed like he was always around. She thought she’d scared him off, yet here he was again.

She needed to think. The clanging of the stamping presses below faded to a drone, as an idea crept forward, slowly gaining form. The man-child on her couch had stopped talking.  She remembered his name. It was Kahle. She asked, “What were you planning next?”

“I uh, well we were going to maybe combine some welding department tasks,” Kahle said.

“Whose idea was that?”

“Boomer.”

“Tell him to expect a message from me.” She pointed at Dieter, “You mentioned plans for the ansible. Go get them, please.” She visualized the plastic tubes passing into the rafters and splitting off, capillaries filled with information.

When Dieter left she turned back to Kahle. “You talked about a book,” she said. “Do you have it with you? I can see that you do. Could I see that?”

She extended her hand and Kahle placed the book in it. She would execute the plan now, with what she had on hand. To have any  chance of success this thing would have to grow. She would have to recruit. Build the machine. There was no time like the present. Maybe they could help. Or maybe it was too late.

She asked, “You were in the military, weren’t you?” This might be a mistake. Did she actually need the help, or was she looking for an excuse to stare at those large brown eyes?

“Yes ma’am.”

At this point it didn’t matter. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. Now that the decision was made, she felt lighter, more energetic. The stamping presses outside had stopped their god drums, and when the words rolled off her tongue they seemed right and true.

“Meet me tomorrow at The Bowman,” Bee said. “Eleven am. Don’t be late.”

She was avoiding staring at Kahle’s back when Machs placed the pamphlet in her hand. Now they’d have to find out where this ansible was located. She found Boomer’s name in the computer and sent him a message via pager.

First shift was over and dinner time hadn’t come yet. She met Boomer in the rear of the plant by the heat treating area and laid out a map of the plant.

“Here,” she said, “we’ll make a grid.”

Using the roof support girders as markers, she drew a line down the center. “You take this half.”

It took three hours, but they traced the vacuum lines to the roof.