“There’s time.” She bent her head, and then asked it, the one question per visit she allowed herself. The last weakness left. “And my children?”
“They’re well. Najla—”
“Give them my love. Now there is something you must begin for me, Will. An important next step. Maybe the most important Sanctuary’s ever taken.”
“What?”
She told him.
Jordan closed his office door. Sound stopped instantly—the rat-a-tat-tat of machinery on the factory floor, the rock music, the calling voices, and—most of all—the newsgrid coverage of the Sharifi trial on the two superscreens Hawke had rented and set up at either end of the cavernous main building. It all stopped. Jordan had had his office soundproofed, paying for it himself.
He leaned against the closed door, grateful for silence. The comlink shrilled.
“Jordan, you there?” Mayleen said from the security kiosk. “Trouble in Building Three, I can’t find Mr. Hawke nowhere, you better git.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Fight, looks like. Screen ain’t positioned well over there, somebody should take a look at it. If they don’t break it first.”
“I’m going,” Jordan said, yanking open the door.
“So I told her—” “Hand me that there number five—” “Latest Testimony Seems to Reveal Doubts on the Part of Dr. Adam Walcott, Alleged Victim of Sanctuary Conspiracy to—” “Daaan-cing All Ni-ight with Yoooouuu—” “—Vicious Attack on Sleepless Firm of Carver & Daughter Last Night by Unspecified—”
When his vacation came, Jordan thought, he would spend all of it somewhere silent, deserted, empty. Alone.
He ran the length of the main plant, outside, and across a narrow lot—the Mississippians called it “the yard”—toward the smaller buildings used to inspect and store parts from suppliers, to stock scooter inventory, and to service equipment. Building Three was Receiving Inspection: half warehouse, half sorting station to separate incoming We-Sleep scooter parts into the defective and the usable. There were a lot of defective. Sprayfoam packing crates littered the floor. In the back, between high storage shelves, people shouted. As Jordan ran toward the sound, an eight-foot-high section of shelf crashed to the floor, scattering parts like shrapnel. A woman screamed.
Plant security was already there, two burly uniformed men restraining a man and a woman, both struggling and yelling. The guards looked bewildered; assault was rare among We-Sleep employees brought to a fever pitch of loyalty by Hawke. On the floor a third man sat moaning, holding his head. Beyond him a huge figure lay still, soaked with blood.
“What the hell happened here?” Jordan demanded. “Who’s that—Joey?”
“He’s a Sleepless!” the woman shrieked. She tried to kick the prostrate giant with the toe of her boot. The guard yanked her backwards. The huge bloody figure stirred.
“Joey a Sleepless?” Jordan said. He stepped over the moaning employee and turned the giant over; it was like turning a beached whale. Joey—he had no other name—weighed 350 pounds and stood six feet five, a mentally retarded man of immense strength whom Hawke let live, work, and eat at the factory. Joey hauled boxes and did other menial work that at any but a We-Sleep factory would have been automated. He worked just as tirelessly as a robot, Hawke said, and he was a bona fide member of that class We-Sleep was lifting out of dependent degradation. It had struck Jordan that Joey was now as dependent on Hawke as he ever could have been on the Dole, as degraded by his coworkers’ cruel jokes as he would have been in any government dorm. Jordan had kept such observations to himself. Joey seemed happy, and he was slavishly grateful to Hawke. Weren’t they all?
“He’s a Sleepless!” the woman spat. “We got no place here for his kind!”
Joey a Sleepless? That made no sense. Jordan said coldly to the man still straining against the guard’s grip, “Jenkins, Security’s going to let you go. If you make one move toward Joey before I get to the bottom of this, you’re through here. Got that?” Jenkins nodded sullenly. To the guard Jordan said, “Report in to Mayleen that this is under control. Tell her to call for an ambulance, two patients. Now you, Jenkins, tell me what happened here.”
Jenkins said, “Bastard’s a Sleepless. We don’t want no—”
“What makes you think he’s a Sleepless?”
“We been watching him,” Jenkins said. “Turner and Holly and me. He don’t sleep. Never.”
“Spying on us!” the woman shrilled. “Prob’ly a spy for Sanctuary and that murdering bitch Sharifi!”
Jordan turned his back on her. Kneeling, he peered into Joey’s bloody face. The eyelids were closed but twitching, and Jordan knew suddenly that Joey was pretending unconsciousness. The giant wore the cheapest of plastic clothing, now badly torn. With his untrimmed beard and hair, his unwashed smell, and the blood smeared across his huge body, he looked to Jordan like some cornered mangy animal, a battered bull elephant or limping bison. Jordan had never heard of a mentally retarded Sleepless, but if Joey were old enough—he looked older than God—he might have had only his sleep-regulating genes modified, without even a check on the rest. And if his natural IQ was very low…but why would he be here? Sleepless took care of their own.
Jordan’s body blocked the others’ view of Joey’s face. The stupid woman was still shouting about spies and sabotage. Softly Jordan said, “Joey, are you a Sleepless?”
The grimy eyelids twitched frantically.
“Joey, answer me. Now. Are you a Sleepless?”
Joey opened his eyes; he always obeyed direct orders. Tears trickled through the blood and dirt. “Mr. Watrous—don’t tell Mr. Hawke! Please, please, please don’t tell Mr. Hawke!”
Pity scalded Jordan. He stood. To his surprise, Joey also staggered to his feet, steadying himself against another shelf, which shivered precariously. Joey shrank against Jordan, overwhelming Jordan with his smell. The giant was terrified. Of Jenkins, looking sullenly at the floor; of Turner, moaning and bleeding; of the filthy-mouthed Holly, who weighed maybe 105 pounds.
“Shut up,” Jordan said to her. “Campbell, you stay with Turner until the ambulance gets here. Jenkins, you and she start cleaning this mess up, get someone off Station Six to make sure parts flow to the lines isn’t interrupted. Both of you report to Hawke’s office at three this afternoon. Joey, you go with Campbell and Turner in the ambulance.”
“Nooo,” Joey whimpered. He clutched Jordan’s arm. Outside, ambulance sirens shrieked.
How did ambulance medics react to Sleepless?
“All right,” Jordan snapped. “All right, Joey. I’ll tell them to check you here.”
Joey’s cuts were actually superficial; there was more blood than damage. After the medics had checked him out, Jordan led Joey around the outside of the main building, in the side door, and to his own office, all the while marveling: Joey, a Sleepless? Incompetent, dirty, terrified, stupid, dependent Joey?
The soundproofed door extinguished all noise. “Now you tell me, Joey. How did you come to this factory?”
“I walked.”
“I mean, why? Why did you come to a We-Sleep factory?”
“I dunno.”
“Did someone tell you to come here?”
“Mrs. Cheever. Oh, Mr. Watrous, don’t tell Mr. Hawke! Please, please, please don’t tell Mr. Hawke!”
“Don’t be afraid, Joey. Just listen to me. Where did you live before Mrs. Cheever brought you here?”
“I dunno!”
“But you—”
“I dunno!”