Страница 39 из 90
“The factory turned out to be surrounded with all kinds of security protections, scientific and magical. Far more than you’d expect for any business operation. Ugly place: all rough stone walls, electrified fences, and more floating curses than you could shake a grisgris at. I slipped in easily enough and made my way to the factory floor. Sometimes I think that’s the best part of this job—skulking around in the shadows, being places you’re not supposed to be, and watching people who don’t even suspect they’re being observed. I should have been a voyeur, like Momma wanted.
“Turned out the rumours were almost right. The entire workforce were dead, but they weren’t zombies. They were patchwork men. Frankenstein creatures, pieces stitched together to make new forms, and all of them with clear lobotomy scars on their foreheads. A workforce that could easily be controlled, would never tire, and didn’t need paying.
“I found an office and ransacked their records. The various body parts had come from executed prisoners and dissidents: the political opposition, artists, homosexuals. The usual. Anyone the current regime didn’t approve of. Executed secretly, and then brought back to life to labour for the State, forever. I wasn’t going to put up with that. So I crashed all their computers, planted some explosives where they’d do the most good, and burned the whole place down. I waited outside and shot everyone who escaped the flames. Neatness always counts. I suppose I should have interrogated a few people, got the details on how they did it, but just the sight of those poor bastards on the factory floor, alive and not alive, suffering forever . . . No. Not on my watch.”
“A nice story,” I said after it was clear she’d finished. “But with just a few gaps in it. If you’re going to tell a story, Honey, you really should tell all of it.”
“Really?” said Honey. Her voice was light, but her eyes were cold. “I wasn’t aware the Droods even knew about this mission.”
“We didn’t,” I said. “But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why you were sent to Cuba. Zombie slave labour is nothing new. Some countries have been using zombies for centuries. But the raised dead wear out quickly and fall apart, no matter how many preservatives you pump into them, and they need a lot of overseeing. But patchwork men; that’s new. Cutting-edge science, especially if you add computer implants to the subjugated brains. I can think of a whole bunch of American industrialists who would just love to get their hands on a process like that. No more unions, no more relying on illegal aliens . . . and no more back talk. Your orders must have been pretty clear: find out if the rumours were real, and if so, how it was done. Then steal the details and bring them back. Only you couldn’t bring yourself to do that, could you, Honey? Not after you’d seen the suffering involved. So you disobeyed orders . . . and did the right thing. You soppy sentimental idealist, you.”
Honey smiled dazzlingly. “Don’t tell my superiors. They think the Cubans blew up the factory rather than have its secrets stolen.”
“You can trust us,” said the Blue Fairy.
“It would never have worked anyway,” said Peter. “Too much public resistance to the idea.”
“Not if no one ever finds out,” said Walker. “I’ve seen worse practices in the Nightside.”
We waited, but he had nothing more to say. So Peter told his story next.
“Most of my work in industrial espionage is actually pretty boring and everyday. Watching and listening, spending hours in front of a computer searching for patterns and trends, trying to second-guess your opponents even as they’re second-guessing you, and always looking to spot someone useful on the other side who might be persuaded to jump ship, with just the right amount of encouragement. In the old days it was all bribes, honey traps, and blackmail, but everything has to be legal and aboveboard now. Boring; but I have seen a few . . . unusual cases. Perhaps because of my family name. I’ve always tried to play down my co
“I was hired to investigate a new firm that had just entered the tricky field of GM foods. There’s been a lot of public resistance to genetically modified crops and animals, especially since the tabloids dubbed it Frankenfood. A very hard public sell, but lots and lots of money just waiting for the first company to crack the market. This new company didn’t seem to be working on anything particularly new or outrageous, but rumours were spreading of some quite extraordinary advances in certain areas where every other company had failed. So I was sent in, extremely undercover, to have a little look around.
“Took me almost a month to weasel my way into the right people’s confidence, but people who’ve achieved something really big are always desperate to talk to someone, and who better than their new best friend? It turned out the genetic manipulation hadn’t been confined to the food; it had been extended to the workforce as well. They were manufactured, grown, right there in the sublevels under the factory. You can see why Honey’s story reminded me of this one . . . Accelerated human clones, with added X-factor. Alien genetic material, to be exact, bought on the black market. You can buy anything these days if you know where to look.
“These human-alien hybrids looked pretty normal to the casual glance . . . but mentally they were sharper, faster, and they could convince you of anything. Anything at all. Something about the voices, or maybe pheromones or telepathy . . . I never did get the details. But these people really could sell freezers to Eskimos, or morals to a politician. They could make you change your mind, your sexuality, or your religion, just like that. They were gearing up for a truly massive sales campaign to shift their new product . . . a cheap and tasty snack just packed with trace alien DNA. And since you are what you eat, eventually . . .
“Who knows what’s really in our food, these days?
“Like our delightful little friend from the CIA, I disapproved, so I blew up the factory and killed everyone involved. Very definitely involving my new best friends, who were far too blasé about what they were pla
“Would I be right in assuming that not everyone who worked in that factory knew what was going on?” said the Blue Fairy. “That there were in fact quite a few i
Peter shrugged. “I try not to think about that too much. This is a human world, and I intend for it to stay that way.”
“Well,” said the Blue Fairy after a pause. “It seems there’s no doubt you really are Alexander King’s grandson. My turn now, I think.”
“Nothing so everyday as factories or big business or u