When Good Plans Go Bad, page 5
part #2 of DimWorld Series
The idea of the gold was tantalizing, but he had conflicting feelings about it. At the Academy, they had taught that this sort of thing was never acceptable, but Macalister’s explanation of fringe perks made sense. He was young, but not too young to know that sometimes corporate policy said one thing, and best practices said something else. It was doubtful that Macalister would give him much of it anyway, but still. Maybe he could do something about that. It would be nice to have his own nest egg. He could probably skim some of the gold off the shipments before they ever got back to camp. That was one thing that befriending the guards and workers gave him that Macalister would never get from them: favors. The guys on the trade convoys would probably do it just to stick it to Macalister.
In the four years since Morgan Gage had been assigned to this project, Macalister had moved steadily further and further away from the corporate plan. It had been small steps at first, but once the DimGate shut down and stayed down, he had quickly gotten bolder. Gage had been helpless to do anything but watch as Macalister became a tyrant.
When he got to the mill, he found that work had stopped. Several guards stood around the area, along with the workers. Keme, the head foreman of the workers, was taking the screws out of the cover for the gear casing, handing them to a child who stood beside him with a bucket of tools.
“Did the mill go down?” Gage asked, working his way to the front.
“Yes, boss, the shear pin, probably,” Keme said, glancing over at him. “I’ll know in a minute.”
“Alright, the rest of you go help out the juice crew. We can’t have everyone standing around.”
He stepped up beside Keme and helped him lift the heavy cover plate off the mill and set it down. He pulled a flashlight out of the bucket and shined it down inside the gear housing. It was dark and dirty inside. The mill was a simple design, one that had been in use forever. A 20-foot-long horizontal handle was attached to a vertical center shaft that stuck out the top of the mill housing. The workers walked in a circle around the mill, pushing the handle. This turned the shaft, which turned gears inside. The grinder was attached to one side, and it was just two wide cylindrical gears that turned in on each other as the handle was pushed. A worker fed the sugar cane into the gears which crushed it, squeezing out the juice which ran to a collection vat.
“Looks like a rock in the crusher,” Keme said. “That’ll do it every time.”
Gage moved the light over the gears to the base of the vertical shaft. Just above the gears at the base, the upper shaft slid over the lower shaft, with a bolt going through the center of them to hold them together. This was the designed fail point, so that the crusher wouldn’t be damaged if a rock or something made its way into the gears. The bolt had been sheared off, as it was supposed to do in such a situation.
“Alright, let’s get it changed out. Do we have any shear pins left?”
“We’ve got one left, boss.” Keme rummaged around in the bucket and pulled out a punch and a short-handled sledge hammer. “That needs to be on the first requisition order we put in. Can’t do much without them.”
“I know,” Gage said. He grabbed the punch from Keme. “I’ll hold the punch and the flashlight, you drive it out.”
Keme looked at him for a moment and nodded. “Alright.”
This was a trust-building technique that Gage liked to use, but it was hard to find opportunities to do it. Macalister was violently opposed to the whole concept and had reamed him out over it more than once. Are you crazy, giving a slave the opportunity to hurt you? Macalister had shouted at him. I’m showing the workers that I trust them, and they can trust me, he had responded. It had fallen on deaf ears.
He held the punch up to the bolt hole and shined the light on it. Keme repositioned slightly and gave the punch a test tap with the hammer.
“Alright boss, you ready?”
Gage nodded.
Keme swung the sledge hammer. It landed with a solid impact on the punch, sending a vibration up Gage’s arm to his elbow. He gritted his teeth and tried to hold the light still as Keme swung again. It took five swings to knock the bolt out the back side of the hole, and by the time it broke free, Gage’s arm was screaming in protest to the jarring blows. He dropped the punch in the bucket and grinned at Keme as he massaged his wrist.
“One of these days I’m going to learn to let somebody else hold the punch. That kills my arm every time.”
Keme chuckled. “I would have traded places with you, boss, but I’ve seen you swing a hammer before.”
Gage laughed. “Come on, man, I’m not that bad.”
Keme removed the broken shear pin pieces and the rock from the gears. Gage tapped the new pin in, and together they lifted the cover back in place. As they started the screws, Gage steeled himself for the difficult conversation that he had been leading up to. He glanced around, making sure no one else was in earshot.
“I need a runner to send to the Inka. It’s not going to go very well. Who do you have that can take a tough message?”
Keme stopped turning the wrench and tensed up, staring fixedly at the bolt. “What kind of tough message?”
Part of him wanted to rebel against Vincent Macalister, to ignore the order and not send a runner. Standing in front of Keme, it seemed like the right thing to do, but it would be a different story when he was standing back in front of Macalister. He hated being in this position. It was the very worst part of leadership.
“Macalister wants to change the deal. No more food, no more clothes, just gold. And the price is going up.”
Keme turned slowly to face him. “You know the man that takes that message in there isn’t coming back. It’s a death sentence.”
Gage held his eyes, trying to keep the guilt he felt off his face. Of course he knew he was sending someone to die. That’s why his stomach was churning, making him feel like he might have to race for the outhouse any second. Macalister knew it too, and that’s why he was making Gage deliver the order. He was such a vindictive bastard. Gage took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Look, Keme, I don’t like this any more than you do. Hell, I tried to explain to him that we need the food a lot more than he realizes, but he wasn’t hearing it. You know how he gets.”
Keme’s lips trembled, and his eyes grew dark. “You talk to me about your beliefs, about how you want to change things for the Bribri, and then you come to me with this? How long until you stop talking and take a stand against him? How many boys like Charto, there, have to get hurt or killed until you decide it’s time to stand up to him?”
“What do you want me to do?” Gage asked, his eyes blazing. “I have to go through the proper channels to get him replaced, and that takes time. This is now. I can’t stall this for a month while I’m waiting on a chance to file a complaint with his supervisor. I don’t have any choice.”
Keme turned away. He was at the breaking point, and clearly anything Gage tried to say now would be wasted. This wasn’t how he wanted the conversation to go. Keme was bright, and he was a good leader. He had to understand the position Gage was in. Yes, he had promised Keme that if he could get Macalister removed from his position, that they would work together to make life better for the workers. He stood by that promise, but it wasn’t something that was going to happen overnight. The DimGate had only been functioning for a few weeks, and it wasn’t like he could just run over to the Genesis Dimension and fill out a complaint form on his lunch break.
Maybe they could change up the messenger, send someone that the Inka wouldn’t kill. What if they sent a woman? Women were revered in the Bribri tribe, but the Inka didn’t have the same system. They would probably keep her as a slave. A child? That wouldn’t go much better. They’d be suspicious of a runner that wasn’t a man or a boy and disregard the message anyway. Not that Keme would send a woman; he would probably go himself before doing that.
Frustration boiled up inside Gage and he gave into it. He turned towards the nearby hut where the juice crew was working.
“Charto, come here. Now.”
Charto dropped the firewood he was carrying and ran over. He was a thin boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, with a dirty face, but his eyes were bright. He smiled at Gage as he skidded to a stop.
“Yes, boss?”
“Go pack some food. I need you to take a message to the Inka.” He looked over at Keme. His pulse was pounding in his temple and his mouth was dry. He had lost his temper, and that made him even more angry. “Keme will tell you what to say to the Inka. Go get your stuff.”
Charto ran off.
He wanted to lash out at Keme for making him feel like such a heartless bastard, but he knew it was really Macalister who was doing that to him. Keme was just a victim of circumstance, like himself. Well, that wasn’t fair. After all, Keme was a worker. A slave. He didn’t like to use that word, but it helped him divert his anger. Keme was a slave, and he couldn’t be mad at the slave for resenting the master. A master that made him sacrifice one of his own, no less. His anger dissipated, leaving him feeling empty and dirty.
Keme turned back to the cover and began tightening the screws, his jaw clenched. Gage felt like throwing up. He wanted to apologize to Keme, but there were no words, so he turned away and walked down the road towards the fields. He needed some time alone to figure out a plan. Clearly, he had to do something about Macalister. He just didn’t know what, or how.
Chapter 5
Vincent Macalister walked out onto the porch and looked around the compound. To his left, Bader was seated in his usual spot, guarding the door. Across the courtyard, the guards were gathering up for the midday meal outside the mess hall. The sound of laughter and boasting drifted across the muddy expanse. To his right, down past the warehouse, the slaves were seated on the ground in front of the sugarcane processing hut, eating their lunch. A few guards lounged nearby, and he knew there were more on the other side, out of view. He turned back to the guards at the mess hall, and looked at his watch.
“A little early for lunch, isn’t it?” He spoke loudly, his voice echoing off the rear wall of the warehouse that spanned the gap between them.
The laughter and grab-assing stopped instantly, and a small grin tugged at the corner of his lips as they cringed and turned towards him. That was control, man, that was power. It was almost as intoxicating as the gold. Almost. He looked at his watch again.
“It looks to me like everybody over there owes me ten minutes at five o’clock. Is that what it looks like to you?”
“Yes, boss.” The low chorus lacked the enthusiasm he would have preferred, but he decided he didn’t feel like pushing it.
“Bader.”
“Yes, boss.” The legs of the chair hit the wood plank floor with a bang as Bader leaned forward and stood up.
“It’s been a rough goddamn morning. I need something to cheer me up.”
“You want me to bring you a woman?”
He briefly considered it, but not too seriously. Fucking the slave girls while he was in a bad mood wasn’t a good idea. He’d done it before, of course, but he had a tendency to knock them around when he was angry, and the one time he’d actually killed one of them, they’d almost had another revolt on their hands. That kind of thing slowed down production for weeks, and it just wasn’t worth it. Best to wait until he felt better about things.
“Nah, it’s too hot for that shit. Let’s take a walk.”
“I’m with you, boss.”
Good old Bader. Dumb as a fucking rock, but loyal to the death, and willing to fight anyone Macalister pointed him towards. He walked down the steps, with Bader right behind him.
Halfway down the side of the warehouse, he stopped and opened a door. The inside of the warehouse was dim, lit only by the skylights overhead. This side was where the dried cacao nibs were stored. To Macalister, they smelled like mushrooms, musty and faint, but in a good way. He breathed deeply as they walked down the aisle to the back, relishing the moment. In here, there were no employees, no slaves, no DimCorp, no problems. This was his go-to corner, and he guarded it jealously.
At the end of the row was another door. This one had a padlock on it, and a deadbolt just below it. Macalister had a key to one, and Bader had a key to the other. For someone to get both keys would be impossible without killing them both, and that was very unlikely. Macalister motioned Bader to the padlock.
“You’d better have your key.”
“Sure do, boss.” Bader reached inside his collar and produced the key, which hung around his neck on a rawhide cord. He opened the padlock as Macalister unlocked the deadbolt, and they went inside.
Macalister waved his hand over his head in the darkness, and eventually found the string hanging. He gave it a tug, and the bright LED bulb came to life. He stood with his back to the door, knowing that the first thing he would see when the light came on was the goblet. As the shadows retreated, his heart began to pound, as it always did when he saw it. Out of all the wonderful things made of gold in this room, this was his favorite. He picked it up with a loving smile.
It was a massive solid gold goblet, with a solitary ruby set in the side of it. It was ridiculously heavy, and would probably be awkward to drink from, but he loved it. Holding it made him feel superior to everyone else. If someone saw him at a party holding the goblet filled with wine, they would know that he was someone important. This goblet told everyone who the motherfucker-in-charge was. He set it back down and carefully wiped it off with a handkerchief.
He wandered down the line. There were piles of arm bands. Some were plain, and some were engraved with tribal artwork. There were trinkets in the shapes of various animals, more than a few idols of outlandish figures, and even a large plate with a battle scene engraved on it. Most of it was meaningless to him, at least in terms of art. Aside from the goblet, the rest of it was just gold, money. It represented a way out of this shitty dimension.
“You feeling any better, boss?” Bader asked from the doorway.
He took a deep breath, and slowly blew it out his nose, relaxing. “Yeah, man, I’m getting there.”
“That’s good, boss, that’s good.”
This room was another improvement he hadn’t mentioned to the corporate monkey. They’d be sure to give him hell about relocating lights and solar panels from staff quarters, and he didn’t want to hear that shit. At this point, he needed to empty the room anyway, and they could have their lights back after that. First, he needed to figure out what to do with all this stuff.
“I’m thinking about melting all this down and pouring it into bars so it doesn’t take up so much space. What do we have that we could use as a mold?”
Bader’s forehead scrunched up, giving him a dark, bushy unibrow. “That’s a tough one, boss. I don’t think we really got anything that wouldn’t burn up.”
Macalister looked away to hide a smile. Bader was the only person in the camp that he tried to avoid insulting, at least most of the time.
“Well, keep your eyes open. If you run across something, let me know. We gotta get this stuff out of here pretty quick.”
“I’m on it, boss.”
“One other thing.” Macalister looked back at him to make sure he had his complete attention. “I want you to keep an eye on Gage for me. He’s starting to buck me. I want to know what he’s telling the boys behind my back.”
Bader nodded eagerly. “You got it, boss.”
Once again, Macalister thought about having Bader kill Gage. He’d thought about it before, of course, hundreds of times, and while he always came to the same conclusion, he couldn’t let the idea go completely. Especially now, with Corporate becoming a part of things again. Why couldn’t the damn DimGate have stayed down another year or two? That would have made things so much easier. He could have stockpiled twice as much gold, gotten Gage out of the picture, and retired like a king. He still could, but Gage could screw that up for him, too. He was just too much of a rule-follower, a company man. He was such a tight-ass that he might not even accept the idea of taking gold as a perk. Macalister shook his head. How do you reason with somebody that can’t think for himself?
Bader, now there was a guy he might be willing to share the gold with. If anyone had earned a piece of it, it was him. He’d been loyal right from day one, and never questioned anything Macalister told him to do. Hell, he might even take Bader with him when he retired. He’d be useful to have around, especially with all the gold. When you were rich like that, you needed some reliable muscle to protect you.
“What do you think about retiring to the Caribbean, Bader?”
“Boss?”
Macalister tossed him a gold armband. “I’m talking about you and me getting the fuck out of this miserable goddamn place. We could go back to the Genesis Dimension, cash this in at a gold dealer, and go live in some exotic dimension. Every day, sitting on a beach, rum and pussy everywhere.”
Bader grinned shyly, looking down at the armband in his hands. “Sounds good, boss. Sounds real good.”
Macalister nodded absently. He couldn’t just walk away, of course. DimCorp was going to have to be dealt with, but that was paperwork. It could be handled. Grease a few palms here and there to speed up the process, and he could be out of here in less than a year. He could do anything for a year, if there were millions of dollars waiting on the other end of it. The only potential problem was Gage.
“You keep your nose glued to Gage. We can’t let him fuck this up for us, right? I’ve busted my ass to make this happen. If he rats us out to Corporate about this gold, we’re both fucked, and I’m not about to let that happen. If he says a prayer, I want to know what he asks for. If he sends a letter to his mother, I want to know how many x’s and o’s he puts on the bottom of it, you hear me?”
“I hear you, boss.”
“Don’t be obvious about it, either. Use your little team, if you’re sure they can be trusted. If you’ve got doubts about their loyalty, don’t say shit to them. This is totally off the radar, got it?”
“I got it,” Bader said. “Incognito.”
