“Rad-blast it!” Mike the Drunkard shouted, hurrying down from the bus’s steps. “Don’t chill the dimmie bastard! If you chill him, I won’t make my quota for today.”
“You’re bringing in the dregs,” the soldier countered. “This skinny scab shouldn’t count toward your quota, anyway.”
“I know he looks kind of thin and wheezy,” Mike said, “but he’s got a lot of work left in him. I’ve seen the man shovel shit, so I know what I’m talking about.”
“If your shoveler doesn’t move back three steps real quick, he’s going to be shit.”
Huth took the trooper at his or her word and retreated the required distance. Overcome by anguish, he threw back his head, clenched his fists and cried, “Somebody here has got to know me! I’m Dr. Huth! I developed this technology! I’m the reason you’re all here!”
This admission drew murderous stares from the captive Deathlanders seated on the ground nearby. A few of them resonantly hawked and spit in his direction.
Huth fell to his knees and began to sob into his hands.
“Get over there with the others,” the soldier said, poking him in the back with the rifle. “Do it now, or you’re dead.”
Then another amplified voice said, “Don’t shoot. I know him.”
Huth wiped his eyes as the battlesuited figure approached him. “Oh, thank you. Thank you!” he gushed. “You can’t imagine the hardship and humiliation I’ve endured.”
The figure said, “Cuff him.”
“But…but…” Huth stammered as troopers quickly snapped laser manacles on his feet and wrists. “If you know who I am, why are you treating me like this?”
“Because I don’t want you running off again.”
Even distorted by the audio processor, the voice sounded vaguely familiar to him. “But I didn’t run off,” he protested, rising from his knees. “I was transported here by accident when the missile blew up the Totality Concept complex.”
“There’s no way to verify that, is there? Maybe you were part of the sabotage plan. Maybe you masterminded it. All I know for sure is that you’re here and that my slave catcher snatched you up.”
The voice suddenly clicked in Huth’s memory. “CEO Trask?” he said, squinting hard at the opaque visor. “Is that you?” The visor cleared.
What Huth saw inside the helmet struck him speechless for a second. He had known Dredda Otis Trask since she was a little girl. Her late father, Regis Otis Trask, had been one of his early champions. The elder Trask had promoted his career as a young whitecoat, had followed his rise to fame and influence and had been instrumental in his being appointed to the directorship of the Totality Concept, FIVE’S most advanced and ambitious research program.
Regis Otis Trask and the other CEOs of FIVE were like figures from ancient history. Like the Caesars or the Borgias. These modern kings maintained their power through enormous, self perpetuating bureaucracies, through favors granted or withdrawn, through webs of conspiracies. As with the Caesars and Borgias, their climb to the top was always bloody and violent. And once they were enthroned, the CEOs used their private armies to keep their positions. Their success was the result of cunning, not intelligence. Of brutality, not reason. No reasoning individual would have wrung out the resources of the world like the last drops of juice from an orange.
Remarkable genius though he was, Huth had come into the picture too late to do anything but delay the inevitable. There was no way to change the course of history that had already been set by the conglomerates, who had balanced markets, consumption and the taking of profits without regard to tomorrow. Over the course of their century long reign, the conglomerates’ viewpoint had shifted from “there’s plenty to go around,” to “let’s squabble and backstab over the trickle that’s left.”
In terms of outright viciousness, the Trask daughter had been even more prone to excess than her father. She was always able to grab Regis’s attention, which she treasured, by going one step further than anyone else was willing to go. Of course, there were never any negative consequences to her acts if they didn’t produce, or if they turned out to be catastrophic. Her position as the only child of Regis Otis Trask had made her invulnerable before his death. When she was made CEO in his place, she remained untouchable. Dredda was the CEO who had pushed through FIVE’S disastrous Beefy Cheesie, Tater Cheesie program, and she had personally coined the phrase “Let them eat rock.”