“Oh, Eddie . . .” said Honey. “Always so ready to look for the best in people. It’s a wonder to me you’ve survived this long.”
Back at the fire, we dumped our armfuls of wood on the ground so everyone could see them, but it didn’t fool anyone. They knew we’d been talking. So I sat down by the fire and looked around the group with my best authoritative stare.
“We need to talk,” I said. “All of us. We’re still mostly strangers to each other, and strangers can’t function as a team. I think everyone here should tell a story. Something meaningful and significant from your life. Could be your weirdest adventure, your greatest triumph, or failure. Anything, as long as it matters to you. Something . . . to help us know you.”
“What brought this on?” said the Blue Fairy. “I don’t do therapy groups.”
“We were talking about who might have killed poor Lethal Harmony from Kathmandu,” said Honey, settling herself comfortably down by the fire. “Eddie seems to think he can prevent future deaths by having us all bare our souls to each other.”
“How quaint,” said the Blue Fairy. “You always were the sentimental sort, Eddie.”
“Agents don’t have souls,” said Peter. “Everyone knows that.”
“Have you got anything better to do while we wait for the Sasquatch to show up?” I said.
“Good point,” said Walker. “One more cup of this inferior tea and I’ll piss tannin. So, who goes first?”
We all looked at each other, and then Honey shrugged easily. “Oh, hell; I might as well get the ball rolling. Don’t we all love a good spooky story by firelight?”
“I was sent to Cuba a few years back. And please; no jokes about making Castro’s beard fall out. We’ve given up on that. I was there, extremely unofficially, to investigate some rather unsavoury rumours that had drifted into Miami concerning the working practices at a new and suspiciously productive factory set up in the hills of Cuba, far away from anywhere civilised. Never mind how I got onto the island; that’s still classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you all and firebomb the whole area, just in case. Anyway, rumour had it that the reason these factories were so productive was because the managers were using zombie labour for their workforce. The idea had a lot going for it: the raised dead could work twenty-four hours a day till they wore out, and you could always make more.
“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 connections to the legendary Independent Agent, partly because I needed to prove to everyone that I could make it on my own but mostly because I can’t stand the old bastard. But people will talk . . .
“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.