“I estimate we process fifty thousand head per year. Even allowing for growing the business from scratch, it still makes nearly a million head.”
“Did you eat this stuff, when you were a guardian?”
“Probably. It’s not all human. One of our duties is slaughtering pigs. The meat looks the same and I suppose it tastes much the same.”
“No one would ever suspect a scheme as fiendish as this,” Lawrence said. “It’s extreme economic logic all right, so extreme only a maniac could have conceived it. The question is: why? It’s utterly baffling any mind could have dreamed up such a place as this. The Captain comes across as a cynic, not a maniac.”
“Snap Turtle told me an old story from the early years, when there were just a few hundred alphas building the Square. Apparently, some of those early value recognised The Captain from a previous life—”
“The Captain was here at the beginning? But he’s not that old.”
“He sucks youth from us. We die young and he stays young, damn him. He was a glory officer with General Wardian and a top killer. The full works—led a hygiene unit, then commanded a barge. His real name is Prentice Nightminster.”
Lawrence’s attention closed in like a hawk’s. There was a name—and such an unlikely one. Nobody would ever make up the name Prentice for The Captain.
“Anything more?”
“Nightminster supposedly came from Bermondsey asylum. That could be true. If you listen carefully, there’s the hint of a slummy accent when he says ‘know’ or ‘happen’. Even more supposedly, he went to Oxford University and then dropped out to join General Wardian after some kind of ruckus. One value told me he got in a fight with Tom Krossington and was thrown out. Another said he was caught up in the Sack of Oxford and it warped his mind. There must be a core of truth in the tale—it’s too randomly fanciful for anyone to make up.”
Lawrence guessed this was privileged information, known only to superior members of the gang, passed down from alpha to beta, beta to gamma and so on through the alphabet, decade after decade, another ritual by which the top-dog value distinguished themselves from the undead dross.
“The Captain was certainly a top killer,” Lawrence said. “He was sneering and jeering over my life—”
“He does that to everyone.”
“—and he said things only a top killer could know. It’s obvious in other ways. Where would he get these ultramarine thugs except from hygiene units and barge crews?” By way of a peace offering, Lawrence laid his trust in Tricky Fingers. “Do you think Krossington and his like know about preventions?”
“Of course they fucking do. I’m convinced that’s why I ended up here—I’d seen too much. On paper, I got six months for conduct unbecoming of an officer. All I did was hold orgies to while away the boring weeks patrolling for surplus. In practice, I got this. You and I aren’t the only suckers here with a past, believe me.”
“Someone has to get out and tell the world. Isn’t there some organised radical group? The National Party?”
Tricky Fingers just grunted and shook his head.
“There are always radicals, Big Stak. When I was young, the SUN Party was still around. It got rubbed out after the Sack of Oxford. No, you’ve got to face up to being here for life.”
He turned, grabbed Lawrence and kissed him on the mouth. Lawrence fell back in shock, wiping his mouth and spitting. He glared at his gang leader.
“Don’t do that again.”
“You don’t want me for an enemy.”
“You don’t want me for an enemy.” Lawrence marched from the crating room. The confrontation was too embarrassingly camp to continue. Back in the heat, Spiderman was still tending his pressure-cooking boiler.
“Where have you fucking been?”
“I was labelling with Tricky Fingers.”
“Turned you already, has he?”
“I’m not going to last.”
“You’ll do fine.”
“What do you make of Tricky Fingers?”
“He’s an arsehole, don’t mind him. There are no genuine crooks here, we’re a bunch of dumb saps who obeyed orders and a fat lot of fucking good it did us. The real crooks are running the slums, or making a packet ripping off the glory trusts.”
“Has he ever made a pass at you?”
“People don’t make passes at me, I’m ugly.”
“He keeps hassling me for sex.”
“That’s because you’re pretty,” Spiderman said. “There’s always excitement when a fit new deb like you arrives. The gals are drooling over you, even more than over Zeta728’s tits.”
“I’ll beat that shithead to a jelly if he makes another pass at me.”
“Shall I let him know?”
“It wouldn’t do any harm.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, Big Stak.”
Lawrence just shrugged. Doom lay heavy on his chest.
Chapter 8
Lawrence survived a month. He survived six weeks. He survived…
A depressive mood afflicted the population as the days slid into the dreary gloom of autumn. Two arrivals hanged themselves in the toilets on their first night. Another, undead Zeta408, got scalded in the Cannery. He opened the vent of a boiler when the pressure was still 0.5 Bar. The steam shrieked louder than he did and misted up the whole Cannery leaving him writhing and screaming, flailing his own skin off in sheets. Even Master Sergeant Ratty was shaken. He ordered the poor bastard dragged outside, where he ‘anaesthetised’ the unfortunate young man with shot through the head. Two more arrivals ran off in the night. The Captain displayed their remains at the following days’ evening parade. The eye sockets were stuffed with purple-grey bulbs. Lawrence asked Spiderman about these.
“Balls,” he said. “Testicles. Done when they were still alive, I’ll bet. Spayed and blinded. What a way to go.”
The dead vanished like pigs in the slaughterhouse. No one spoke of them again. Too many people died to remember them all, and what was the point anyway? There was no history here. The only plan was to survive this current day intact. Lawrence was learning to appreciate every instant of clean wind, a shade of blue over the evening horizon, a laugh with Spiderman, the
