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  Bender stopped and turned to us again. “No talking in here, I do all of the talking. Below this level, the compound is divided into three sections. You’re in demo yellow section, that’s all you need to remember for the moment.”

  We entered the door and walked into a large, well lit, room. There was an icy chill to the air. Big Chin had air conditioning in this area. I glanced around the room as we walked to a large table. At the table, with his back to us, sat a man with broad shoulders and greasy blond hair. Over his shoulder I could see a piece of red meat, rolls, and potatoes.

  “Big Chin, these are my new workers for the demo team.” Bender twisted our direction. “Hey, you two came with names didn’t you?”

  “Danbeu and her name is Roberts,” I said. I noticed Chin did not seem to care whether we were there, or not. The food on his plate was more important.

  “Yeah, yeah, Danbeu and Roberts are my new guys. I know you like to meet the new demo team workers, Big Chin, so I brought them by. We’ll go now.”

  “Wait,” Chin ordered. “What’s their job?” He still did not turn to face us, but he did lay down his knife and fork.

  “I’m down two members on one of my yellow section demolition teams. I’m putting them there, unless you got a better place for them.”

  I looked from Chin’s back to around the room. It was in sections with guards at every door that I could see. In one section, there was a set of couches and pillows and several women. Panic struck me that Roberts might be put there. She was a kid of twenty-two, but a cute kid.

  “Demolition team, fine. First light I want them out working.”

  “Yes, sir, Big Chin, first light, you bet.” Bender grabbed Roberts and me by our shoulders and all but dragged us to the door and out of Big Chin’s quarters.

  Our little group headed back into the hot warehouse area. We went down the stairs, through several halls, and came out into the main body of the warehouse. Bender stopped us there.

  “This is the main hall for yellow section.”

  “So that was the boss, huh?” I said.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m your boss, that’s all you got to remember. You got lucky with your arrival because we are just starting the down shift for demo teams. All demo teams go out together and come in together. Most teams are that way in all of the sections except the area guards. Yellow section, your section, eats and sleeps in the same hall.” Bender started to walk off.

  “What is a demolition team?” Roberts asked.

  “Tomorrow. We’ll go over your jobs tomorrow. Tonight eat and sleep if you can, and tomorrow you start work.” He continued through the hall. It was crowded and smelled of crowded, unwashed bodies. As we cut through the crowd, people moved for Bender. He came to a wall and pointed. “Red section is on the other side of that wall, beyond that is blue section. You’re yellow section, so do not go into those sections. It is unsafe for you if you’re not with me. This is your hall, just this area.”

  “Yellow section, got it,” I said. “What’s in the other sections?”

  “Area guards, managers, and alpha leaders can move between sections. Blue section is the techs. They are to the far right in that area. Between the blue section and the yellow section is the cruncher, red section. All you need to remember is stay in the yellow section.”

  I looked over at Roberts and she was staring in the tech direction.

  “Roberts, yellow section only, remember that,” I told her and touched her arm.

  “Yellow, yeah.” She turned to Bender. “Didn’t you say something about food, I’m starving.”

  Bender grinned. “Come with me, you too, Danbeu.”

  It was a short walk across a crowded area to a long line of men and women. Bender walked up to the next man in line to be served and elbowed the man back, then waved Roberts and me into the line ahead on him. “Demo team here,” Bender told the person dishing out food. He said this loud enough that no one grumbled about us cutting the long line. The fact that these people did not stop us, made me worry a lot about the new job. “Demo team!” Bender repeated louder.

  The person serving, placed a thick piece of yellow bread in a steel dish, and the next person ladled a scoop of a grayish colored stew on top of the bread. He then handed the dish to Roberts. I got the next one and Bender took the one after me.

  With our food in hand, Bender led us to a row of almost empty tables to eat. Around us were heavily filled tables with some people eating standing up. I noticed Bender watching me as he sat down next to me. Roberts sat down across the table from us.

  “This table is for demo teams only,” Bender explained.

  “Like the bread, just a little something more,” Roberts commented which told me she had been paying attention when she seemed distracted by the blue section.

  “Yeah, a little something extra for the special ones.” Bender reached across the table, laid his right hand on her left, and smiled a little wider at her. Roberts did not move her hand and smiled a little smile back at him.

  I hit him across the jaw line with an open fist. It gets a person’s attention, but does not do any real damage. It got Bender’s attention and others around us, including Roberts.

  Bender stared at me. I stared back at him, and after a minute gave him a slight shake of my head. Slowly, he drew his hand back from touching Robert’s hand.

  “Problem, Bender?” I heard someone ask from behind me.

  Bender continued to look at me. “No, no problems. Jenkins, this is Danbeu and Roberts, the new members of your demo team.”

  I glanced at Roberts, who did not look pleased with me. She stood up and extended her right hand to this Jenkins guy behind me. “Mia Roberts.”

  Jenkins shook her hand, and she took her seat again.

  “Danbeu,” I said and turned in my seat to face him. He was skinny, but that did not surprise me with what I had seen of the food, so far. With the exception of Big Chin and his guards, everyone looked like they were slowly starving to death.

  “After dinner, I’m going to show them where to bed down,” Bender told Jenkins.

  “Bender, report to my office. Bender, my office,” came over the loud speaker mounted on a structural load beam near our table. I noticed a large iron hammer hanging there from a chain.

  “Jenkins, after they eat, show them where to bed down. Tomorrow get them working. No free lunches here.” Bender left the table his bowl in hand.

  Jenkins leaned over the table. “Two things you need to know. First, we start early and work long hours, so you are going to want to get your rest. I’m headed to my rack soon, so don’t take long eating.”

  “What’s the second thing we need to know?” Roberts asked.

  “The second thing is, problems for Bender are problems for the crew and the demo crews solve their problems quickly.” Jenkins left.

  Roberts and I finished up in silence and the minute we stood, Jenkins joined us. He waved for us to follow him which, of course, we did, and then led us to a door.

  Inside, there were two rows of bunk beds, some double and some triple. It seemed to me there were a lot more people than beds. We stepped over people sleeping in the aisles, and saw lots of people sleeping two to a bed. There were people standing in the aisles almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Even the sleeping people looked tired.

  Jenkins led us to one corner that had dirty tape on the floor. Inside the taped area were more beds than people.

  “Demolition team section I take it?”

  “Yeah.”

  We crossed the tape and the area was not crowed, like on the other side. There was room to walk without touching the people around you.

  Jenkins walked over to a bed and pointed at it. “This is Alpha leader’s bed, my bed. Don’t ever let me catch you in it. If you need something after we’re done here, this is where I’ll be. You’re new, and nobody cares about that. Don’t bother people and they won’t bother you, much. Find yourself some beds and get some rest. No one will bother you until we s
tart work.”

  I spied an open set of bunk beds against a wall; most of the beds against the wall were empty. I took Roberts in tow. She resisted, at first, but followed easily after a step, or two. “We’ll sleep here,” I informed her.

  “Fine, do you want the top, or the lower bed?”

  “We’ll both be in the bottom bed.”

  “No. We have two beds.”

  I smiled, then leaned close to her ear. “I just punched their boss in the jaw for touching you. We’re joined at the hip, clear?”

  “About that, I don’t need you or anyone else defending my honor. I can smile at anyone I decide to, clear?”

  “Here’s the problem. You’re my ticket off of this planet, so until then, you don’t smile at anyone but me. You sure as hell don’t share a bed with anyone but me, and you do not sleep alone if at all possible.”

  Roberts looked around the room at the men and women in and out of the taped off demo section.

  I could see she had now taken notice how many eyes were on her, not us, but just on her. They all watched the new female of the area. “Yeah, you got a fan club,” I pointed out to Roberts.

  “Okay, I’ll take the inside next to the wall.”

  “Hate to do this to you, but no. No one in this place is going to put a knife in your back to get to me, but they will try to go through me to get to you.”

  Roberts looked around at the crowds of dirty people. Their lives were unpleasant which made most of them, if not all, hard people. Putting a knife in one person’s back for something they wanted was not out of the question with these folks.

  “We’re each other’s shield.”

  “Yes.” I crawled into the bed up against the wall.

  Roberts followed me. She tried to keep her distance in our bed and still be comfortable.

  I pulled her close. “The bed isn’t big enough for us to sleep apart. I’ll be a nice guy, we need each other.”

  “What’s the bundle I’m feeling, pressed against me, Mr. Nice Guy?”

  I smiled, reached to the bundle and showed her.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I got it on the ship when Nelson was ordered to join the mission and he punched me. He pushed the weapon into my hands while I was doubled over. He likes to cheat and probably thought to get it back down here, but our team got split apart right away.”

  “What’s the charge level on that Taser?”

  “I hope full, but I haven’t had a chance to take a look yet. When everyone has settled down we can check out the bundle and see.”

  Roberts nodded. She tried not to yawn, but that never works.

  “Get some sleep. I slept a lot on the trip here. I want you awake and alert tomorrow for this demo team business.”

  “There must be a high turnover rate, and not many, or any people willing to join up.” She twisted toward me and shifted her left shoulder down for more comfort.

  Her position forced me to notice how warm and comfortable her body was when pressed up against mine. I tried not to think about her. It was a mission, and here we could end up dead, really fast.

  “When the workforce here is willing to do with less food to stay out of this demo team job, it can’t be good.” I studied the people as much as I studied the surroundings. All these people looked worn-out, and some of them did not look old enough to be worn-out.

  I knew from Lark that prisoners on the planets still had children. However, I did not see any little ones here which meant either few survived to adulthood, or they were kept somewhere else. I did not want to think about that. In the network, child labor did not exist, but that would not be the case here. Probably, everyone started working as soon as they could put one foot in front of the other. I hated that idea, so I studied the building instead.

  It was a converted warehouse that had been divided into areas. Yellow section was on one wall. Red section was in the middle, being by far, the largest section from what little I had seen. It was a warehouse, but did not have a high ceiling. The early workers, in the construction of Tirus becoming a prison planet, had modified the building to have more area in the upper levels. There was a lot more space on the second level than the occupied area Big Chin lived in. There was storage area up there which made me want to explore it.

  “I wonder if there is another team in all that space upstairs, or if it houses supplies?”

  “The best goods for the best people, little rewards for Big Chin’s special friends,” Roberts replied. “I was wondering about that too.”

  I eased my grip, from holding her close, but she did not move away. She closed her eyes and settled in against me to go to sleep. I watched our demo team members and tried not to think about the beautiful woman cuddled up next to me.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Get down!” Roberts yelled at our line of demo team members.

  The plow bar of the hydraulic arm swung out wide and would come racing back in our direction. This arm, in one sweep, could smash through most walls of old buildings and turn them into rubble. The buildings were full of team members trying to search them in advance of the hydraulic bar leveling them.

  Our job, if you call it a job, was to run through the building being ripped down and make sure no good, serviceable equipment or supplies had been over looked, and if so, get said stuff out before it came down. They did not give a team much time to look either. And pickings were slim at best. The teams would run in, grab anything they could, and race out as the plow smashed away.

  As soon as it passed over, you got to run back into the rubble and search for more. The entire time, the plow bar and plow body frame that it was attached to was moving and advancing forward. On each side of the frame, stood a spotter that kept an eye on the team and the movement of the bar arm. Their job was to watch out for them and to yell warnings about the bar’s approach.

  I heard Roberts yell and had gotten accustomed to a three second count before it passed over my position.

  On my side of the bar were a handful of team members. I had only learned one name and that was Bikes. He was a big man, taller than I was, but unlike the rest of the team, Bikes had a grin on his face from ear to ear all of the time.

  Roberts yelled a second warning, and I dropped to the ground as the bar moved overhead. It was close to ground level, and the operator was not giving our team any room for error. I was tired and did not want to get up, but the plow body would roll forward whether I was there, or not, so I moved forward still low to the ground.

  We had one break for lunch; a sandwich of thick yellow bread with water and that had been hours earlier.

  “Bikes, move!” yelled the spotter from the far side of the frame.

  “It’s good, it’s good!” Bikes yelled back to the spotter. He was pulling on something I could not see, but whatever it was it seemed more important to him than the spotters warning.

  “Move, you idiot!” Jenkins yelled from the body frame next to the other spotter.

  I watched as Bikes strained to pull his prize free of the rubble. He did not watch the bar at all. I saw the shadow of the bar approaching from behind me and heading his direction. I pushed up, ran for Bikes, and grabbed the handle of the large metal case he was trying to salvage and pulled as he did. The metal case did not move at first, and I knew we only had seconds before the bar cut through us. I bent my knees and strained. Bikes did the same and the case inched its way out of the debris. We pulled harder and it gave all at once. As soon as it was free, we tossed the case away from the plow bar area and both dove for cover.

  I felt the rush of air as the bar passed over us and turned to look for Bikes, but he was already up and chasing after the next prize and laughing as he ran. The case would get collected by the follow up crew, and Bikes moved forward.

  The rest of the day was the same except for having to help Bikes. Before dark, the plow body stopped its forward run and stopped the arm. Jenkins ordered the equipment back to the compound. As it returned home, Jenkins and the spotters ju
mped down. Like the rest of us, they started loading the broken debris into hand carts for transit back to the compound.

  Roberts walked up and touched my arm.

  I looked over at her.

  “What happen to watching my back?” she asked quietly. “You could have gotten hit when you went after that guy. You could have gotten me stuck here.”

  “Hey, Danbeu!” the other spotter yelled over at me. “Thanks for helping Bikes. That idiot doesn’t know when to listen sometimes. Thanks.”

  She moved forward, lit into Bikes about listening, and the whole time he just grinned and talked about the metal case being so good.

  “I’ll be more careful, I promise,” I told Roberts. We both dumped arm loads of debris into a nearby cart. The guy pushing it looked to Roberts, then to me. “Good job today you two, welcome to the team.”

  We started getting a few good remarks from our new team. Before the start of the day, the only ones who talked to us had been Jenkins, to tell us what to do. And Bikes, he seemed to talk to everyone, and sometimes even to people no one else saw.

  Our compound laid on the southern rim of the dead city, the last real civilization before the government converted Tirus to a prison planet. Roberts walked on my left as Jenkins joined us on my right.

  “Go ahead ask!” he said and tossed some small bits of brick and tile into the cart near us.

  “Why knock down the city and live in the crowded compound?” Roberts crossed in front of me to face Jenkins.

  “When the planet became a prison, the people lived in the city. Over the years they used up and stripped it of everything worthwhile. As supplies got shorter, people started banding together to share what they had as well as protect it from others. That’s how the compounds came into being.”

  “And in the compounds it became management and workers, and the guards between them,” I said. “So why knock the dead city down?”

  “Supplies. We have facilities to produce raw materials, convert this junk to useful junk. Other compounds produce food, but not raw materials. We trade, but not everyone wants to trade or trade evenly. The city was stripped years ago, so all that is left are the structures themselves, and each compound needs supplies, anything we can get. We have to expand the compound because we keep getting more people dropped in all of the time. We need room to expand food production just to feed the people we have.”