Houston, 2030: The Year Zero

by Mike McKay

  Chapter 3

  Mark woke up from movement in the bedroom: Mary piled old styrofoam boxes on the windowsill, a somewhat futile procedure for keeping rooms cool through the day. Apart from William, Clarice, and little Davy, who would start a bit later, the rest of the family already awoke. The three younger kids: Samantha, Pamela, and Patrick, sat at the kitchen table, munching on their breakfast. In the built-in garage, Michael loaded his cargo tricycle with empty plastic jerrycans. Before the school, the kids had to make a daily run to the Reservoir to fetch fifty gallons of water, or there would be no warm shower in the evening. Mark's father-in-law, David-senior, had finished breakfast and went to the back deck, smoking his morning pipe.

  Mark fixed a piece of bread with lard spread and poured acorn coffee. The real coffee no longer imported, they had to save their small stash for special occasions. While finishing breakfast, Mark checked his telephone. There had been no updates. Fifteen minutes later, he was on his police bike, pedaling towards Beaumont Highway in cool morning air.

  Small shops and food stalls along the highway remained mostly closed, but the traffic started picking up: bikes and cargo tricycles, and many people – on foot. Now nobody lived farther than ten miles from work, and ten miles would mean an hour and a half of commute, – if one was lucky to have a push-bike. Despite the early hours, there were many school-age children on the road. Most carried water or firewood, helping with the daily chores, the same way as Mark's kids had to do. He overtook a gang of teens, all barefoot, and with straw hats. By their ragged clothes and the early time, they targeted to a labor market, Day-Pay, as the locals called it, across Beaumont Highway from McCarty Road Landfill.

  Unlike in the northern States, unemployment in Houston was low: less than fifteen percent. Factories still operated, producing weapons, uniforms, and ammo for the endless wars. Fifty thousand private businesses were registered, although a typical enterprise counted less than ten employees. Those who engaged in ‘backyard agriculture,’ farming veggies or tending chickens – were considered self-employed, as well as licensed medics and licensed prostitutes. The statistics would be perfect if not for ever-growing child labor. The official point of view was that underage workers stole jobs from the adults.

  Few years ago, Mark participated in multiple raids to Day-Pay. The authorities tried to weed out illegal child labor and enforce the new law: no full-time employment before the age of fourteen. To be frank, the task was impossible. Hungry kids were everywhere, looking for jobs. The Police did not care about the workers' age: teens at Day-Pay carried no IDs, and uniformly said they were fourteen. After all, with undernourishment too common, some fourteen-year-old kids looked as if they were eleven. The main raids' target was child slavery.

  To Mark, the entire Day-Pay looked a lot like a medieval slave market, taken from a fantasy novel and planted into the present day Texas. Thousands of people – sitting on bare ground, each holding, like a price tag, a small piece of cardboard with the desired day wage. These cardboard tags were called ‘day-pays,’ hence the market's name. The potential employers wandered between workers, selecting the ones they liked, negotiating employment conditions and remunerations. Few were hired for several months or even permanently, but most ended up with a week or two worth of work, or more often than not – for just one or two days.

  The market had dedicated rows for qualified and semi-qualified labor: carpenters, brick-layers, fixers, and such. These were predominantly mature men, and somewhat better dressed. Few displayed their tool kits, advertising professional skills. Next, the rows for agricultural workers. Here the majority were women, every fourth accompanied by preschool kids: an overwhelming display of poverty, but nothing particularly illegal.

  The largest portion of the market was occupied with Wanna-Any-Job category, and here the real slave trade was going on. Criminal rings, so-called rag barons, supplied little boys and girls for the Landfill and garbage processing shops. Often as young as five, for their hard and dangerous jobs poor kids received nothing but little food, while their handlers pocketed all the wages. By any definition, the rag barons were an organized crime, so the FBI was involved in the Police operations.

  During a raid three years ago, Mark stopped a young woman, pregnant, and with a baby in her arms, accompanied by three girls, aged between seven and ten, and skinny to an extreme.

  The woman held a piece of cardboard: $550. About two times an average garbage processing adult worker would get per day. Pregnant women here seldom asked for more than $200, and a pregnant-with-a-baby type would never be called even if she asked for $150. The girls looked experienced rag-pickers. One had a thick rubber glove sticking out of her pocket. These three girls could be an adequate match for two adults, hence the price… Mark flashed his badge, and asked for IDs. No surprise, there were none.

  “These three girls,” Mark asked, “are they with you, Madam?”

  “Yessir! I'm look'n for work,” now the woman reversed her day-pay, and the other side appropriately read: $135. “The girls're my nieces. They have a school break, so I let 'em come here wim'me. Nobody home to leave 'em with, sir…”

  “Yes, yes, and I'm Rudolph the Reindeer, with my red nose, and straight from the North Pole!” Mark felt enraged listening to such a shameless lie. “I have five kids myself! The school break you're talking about… It's not due in two bloody weeks!” He pointed to the oldest girl, “what's your name, young lady?”

  “Jasmine, sir,” she replied readily.

  “How old are you, Jasmine?”

  “Ten!”

  “What school are you in?”

  “The Creek Side! I'm in the fifth grade!”

  The Creek Side. One well-rehearsed story. The school thirty miles away, conveniently preventing any local policemen to have their kids in it. He could ask for the teachers' names, and then phone the school. But to make such a call, he would have to wait till nine or even ten, and the Day-Pay would be closing before nine…

  “Listen,” Mark tried to reason with the woman. Perhaps, she was not in the rag barons. Just another unlucky young mother with an unexpected pregnancy, trying to send her desperate nieces to the Landfill. “Let's say, the girls are not in school, but rather scavenging at the McCarty Road, aren't they? It's off-the-record. You don't need to tell me anything, just nod…”

  The woman nodded, quietly confirming Mark's assumption.

  “They should not work at the 'Fill at this age, don't you understand? It's bloody dangerous. There are needles, dead bodies, chemicals, old batteries, God only knows…”

  “Nos'sir, 'em aren't work'n at McCarty! As I said, their school's on quarantine for three weeks! Nobody home…” She started the rehearsed pitch again, but applied a little correction about the school break.

  After procrastination, Mark let them go. The FBI could not arrest good third of the labor market and bring them for further questioning! He regretted his decision four months later, while participating in yet another raid to the Day-Pay. He spotted the same skinny girl, but now she was on her own. She had the same baggy cut-off jeans and oversized shirt as two months ago, only now her clothes had multiple holes, apparently eaten by acid. Her face and both hands were covered in a constellation of open sores, and her right eye – all white from a chemical burn. She held a day-pay: $30. Thirty bucks for a full day of hard work – would not be enough to buy a sandwich for lunch. Really, who would want an injured rag-picker?

  “Jasmine?” he called, approaching.

  “Yessir…” she recognized him instantly and corrected herself: “No, sir. My name is… Amelia! Amelia Khan!”

  “I have seen you before, four months ago. Back then, you called yourself Jasmine, and said you're at school.”

  “Must be a mist-under-standing. I didn't see you. No, sir. Also, I'm not at school. I'm fourteen, and I can work. Un-rest-trick-tied!” The girl struggled through the difficult legal term.


  “What happened to your eye… ‘Amelia’?”

  “A battery made a little ka-boom! Shit happens… Sorry! I mean: at the 'Fill, bad things… happen. Sometimes… But I'm OK now.”

  “Were you rag-picking at the Landfill?”

  A proud smile: “I'm no maggot, sir! I'm a spec'list!”

  “A specialist?”

  “Yessir! I'm a battery spec'list! Battery recycling, you know?”

  “Battery recycling? What shop was it, exactly?”

  “I… I have no re-coil-lection. I mean: I don't remember!”

  She understood the Day-Pay rules too well: if an accident happens, do not ever point to the employer, or nobody will hire you again. Mark insisted that Jasmine-Amelia, – or whatever her real name, – saw the Police medic, who also participated in the raid. An hour later, the girl came to say thanks. The bigger sores were plastered. She clenched a small bottle of Betadine the medic gave her to take care of the wounds, and looked a bit happier.

  The same evening, Mark told the story of Jasmine-Amelia at home.

  “Now I'm positive that woman, four months ago, was in the rag-baron ring,” he concluded. “She said the girls were her nieces. Nieces, my ass! They didn't even look alike!”

  “Take it easy, darling,” Mary said, “you can't catch them all.”

  “Yet, if I arrested that bitch, the poor girl would not lose her eye,” Mark insisted.

  “It's perverted logic, Dad,” Michael said, “you automatically assumed that if you had removed the handler, the girls would stop working at our shit-pile.”

  Back then, Mike already dropped from school and started working at the Landfill. Granted, his job remained strictly legal, – he was almost fifteen at the time. Unlike Jasmine, he did not need to endure the Day-Pay to get himself hired. Mark's neighbor expanded his synthetic gasoline business and offered Mike a permanent job. Mark and Mary did not complain much about Mike leaving school. Clever but disorganized, Mike did not study. The 'Fill made better of him. He became more responsible and finally began reading his textbooks. While in school, he hated Chemistry, but now discussed solvents, optimal temperature regimes, and product yields like a real engineer.

  “You have a point, Mike. The girls would not stop working, arrest or no arrest,” Mark agreed. No need to torture yourself. Whatever he had done, the girl would still be working with the garbage and still could be hurt.

  “This is just statistics, Dad,” Mike said. “Nobody can stop what they're doing, can they? Take our plant. In each bomb, we got to put one-point-three ton of plastic scrap every day! If we stop, the thing stops. So we don't give shit…”

  “Mike!” Mary banged her hand on the kitchen top. “I don't like your 'Fill language! It's inappropriate!”

  Mike smiled apologetically and continued: “OK, OK. So we don't – want to know, who picks the scrap, as soon as the scrap keeps coming. Twenty thousand people go to work every day. Nobody is perfect. Anybody can make a stupid, simple mistake. Accidents will happen – sooner or later. On the 'Fill, shit… Sorry, Mom! Stuff happens two or three times a day. If not with your Jasmine, or Amelia, whoever, it must happen to some other girl. Large numbers. A law of mathematics.”

  “Hey, who is talking mathematics!” Mary said, “your highest achievement last year was between D and D-plus, if I remember correctly.”

  “As a matter of fact, I had a C-plus. Once!” Mike replied. Then, admitted: “I copied all the answers from Krystal. She boasted to be OK in math.”

  “Krystal? Was she before or after Ashley?”

  “Before Ashley.”

  “And what was Krystal's grade for that test?” Mark asked, smiling. Krystal was Mike's third girlfriend, but she did not last, the same as two girls before her, and an unbeknownst number of girls after.

  “She also got a C-plus. I'm very good at copying… Anyway, back to the 'Fill business. If I were you, Dad, I wouldn't worry about Jasmine at all. She's probably better off after her accident than before.”

  “How come?”

  “Simple. The bad news: she lost one eye. But her second eye is perfectly fine, so no big deal. Now, the good news: it looks like the rag barons kicked her out. Now she can find a decent job, to make money for herself and not for fake ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties.’ If she didn't get the acid burn – well. She would still be a slave, for another three or four years. Working hard for little food and nothing else, or even dying from a 'Fill accident or their regular prophylactic beatings! Would it be any better than a little acid burn?”

  …Mark pulled into the Station's parking lot few minutes past six. Benito sat outside, smoking his pipe and shuffling through the last day reports.

  “Morning, Mark,” Ben waved his fingers in the air, “so today I come to the Station, and: surprise, surprise! The on-duty deputy tells me that yesterday the FBI dude brought two stiffs in here! Brilliant! Just freaking brilliant! The deputy complained. He said, the emergency generator ran all night and interfered with his research.”

  “What research?”

  “Deputy Woxman is trying to prove Albert Einstein wrong. He believes information can travel faster than the speed of light.”

  “I do remember Einstein started as a patent office clerk, but I didn't know our Station deputies work in theoretical physics.”

  “Well, it's not theoretical. Woxman is already in his experimental phase. Every time our deputy is on-duty, he proves you can download all the new porno from the Internet before it's done uploading on the other end!”

  Mark laughed. Unlike Mark's William, Ben Ferelli excelled at making jokes, even if his humor – on the dirty side.

  “OK, Ben. You got me once again! But about the bodies… There were no relatives. We only got a positive ID on the male. He is – from bloody New York! What do I suppose to do with the corpses?”

  “I don't know, Mark. Take them home, for instance! Other people take their job home, why the FBI can't?”

  “The rules, Major, the rules. The bodies are confidential material, for a federal case. We have no right taking confidential stuff, – or should I say: ‘confidential stiff?’ – home. Must be kept locked on premises.”

  “Besides the jokes, I support your decision, Mark. I will even allow the CSIs to do a proper body processing and an autopsy. They need practice, right? I made the necessary calls. As soon as my friend Charlie gets his lazy, fat ass into his office, he will sign you all the paperwork.”

  Ben referred to the Justice of Peace, the Honorable Charles Steiner, whose office resided across the road from the Station. “Your papers are done too. Yours truly made Deputy Woxman to practice handwriting this early morning. For all his experimental research, he has to give something back to his Station! You only need to scribble your initials, and off-you-go.”

  “Gee, thanks, Ben! It's wonderful you look after your poor FBI relatives.”

  “But Mark! These bodies have to be out of my fridge today. On your stiffs, we wasted our monthly limit of diesel. The next murder you may be investigating on your damn bike!”

  “If we can't locate the relatives today, I will pay a visit to my friend in the Salvation Way Center. The male victim is an USACE vet, so the charity funerals should not be a problem.”

  “Fine with me, dude…”

  Reassured in such way, Mark went to his office. He quickly synchronized his phone with the laptop and added yet another pin to the map on the wall behind his desk. Now the map had sixteen color dots on it. Besides the map, there were no usual crime scene photographs or paper notes on the walls. Mark preferred to keep all information in his laptop. He frequently said that saving printer paper was his main priority, true to a degree. The real reason – he was paranoid about information leaks. Somebody in the Police remained too close to the media. Besides, the majority of the Sheldon Butcher case photographs were too gruesome to be posted on the walls. Even in the FBI office.

&nb
sp; Sergeant Alex Zuiko and CSI Natalie Gardener walked into Mark's door at 6:20. Together, they quickly discussed the things to be done today. Natalie would source the second CSI and do the bodies' processing, while Alex and Mark would start the potential witnesses and relatives search.

  Ten minutes later, Mark and Alex were on their bikes, pedaling towards the Garret Road Police Beat.

  It caused a major controversy ten years ago, but by now the consensus in Houston had been that the Police Localization program was simply the best idea implemented by the Harris County Sheriff's Office. They disbanded both the HPD and the Highway Patrol. After the Meltdown cars became rare, and the Highway Patrol hardly had anything to look after. The entire county, including Houston incorporated areas, was divided into manageable districts, no larger than seventy square miles, and each district got an independent Station. Then, Sheriff confiscated few hundred bankrupt businesses here and there – at that time, there were still plenty to choose from, and converted them into those Police Beats.

  The setup was basic, but efficient: a single-room office, some with a tiny jail at the back, and two to four officers, strictly local, so they knew everything and everybody in the neighborhoods. Each beat covered no more than two square miles, and cops could reach every place on-foot or on a bicycle in reasonable time.

  As with any other post-Meltdown arrangements, there were disadvantages in spreading officers so thin, but the benefits far outweighed. Some cities delayed with the localized police force and continued to use their traditional patrol car approach. After several years, they ended up with vast areas, which saw a policeman once a year or no police at all. In Los Angeles, gangs declared a good chunk of the southern suburbs a ‘Police-free zone.’ See a cop – kill the cop. Alas, the LAPD did nothing and accepted the new reality.