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  It was even longer until “Sector Three: Textiles” flashed by, and it must have been five or six minutes until they passed through “Sector Four: Grains.” Mason wanted to ask how many sectors there were, but he doubted the enforcers would speak to him. This must be some sort of working prison. We task here so that the young can play, General Dannen had said. Interesting.

  To pass the time, Mason counted off the minutes, and just over ten passed before the tram started to slow. The smell of hydrogen sulfide gas that came from decompressed manure gripped him long before the tram stopped at the station for “Sector Five: Livestock.” There had to be a lot of cattle up there to produce such a strong odor.

  “This is your stop, shell,” Penn said.

  Mason got off the tram and limped toward the escalator. The station was empty. He and the enforcers rode the escalator up, which deposited them in the lobby of some sort of business building.

  They left the building through a different door, which put them on a narrow sidewalk with a four-story brick building on one side, and on the other, a waist-high railing that overlooked a feedlot. The odor was intensely repugnant, and Mason coughed, though he’d never been hypersensitive to such things before. The sight staggered him almost more than the smell. Black and brown steers, as far as his eyes could see. Tens of thousands of them.

  “Astonishing,” he mumbled.

  “I never get used to that stench,” Penn said.

  “They say it’s not so bad depending on the wind,” Blake said. “At least you’re not in the slaughterhouse. I hear that’s about as bad as it can get.”

  Mason didn’t doubt it. He had seen enough animals butchered in his life to be able to imagine the horror of multiplying that times the number of cattle in that lot. What did they do with all the blood?

  They walked the equivalent of two city blocks and entered a gray-brick building that said “Men’s Bunkhouse” over the door. Inside was a small lobby with a scuffed tile floor. A hall stretched out straight ahead for what looked like the depth of the building. To the right was a stairwell and elevator. To the left, a door and a window in the wall that opened to a counter. Two enforcers sat at the counter chatting with each other. Behind them was an open room with desks and a sitting area.

  Once the entrance door shut behind them, the manure smell diminished somewhat, but the smell of dirty humans instantly replaced the decomposing manure. It was disinfectant over sweat over urine over excrement. Oh, life had just become very unpleasant on many levels.

  But at least it was still a life. So, liberation didn’t mean death.

  Mason’s enforcers waved to the men at the desk, then took Mason up the elevator to the second floor. It looked identical to the ground level, with a scuffed-up lobby, the long hallway stretching back, and another window with two enforcers.

  Penn stopped at the window and slapped his hand on the counter. Blake prodded Mason to follow. The enforcers behind the window wore the same green enforcer uniforms, without the helmets. Hays and Ebler, according to their name patches. Hays was totally bald and had tiny, sunken eyes. Ebler had black hair and a beard to match. He was a full head shorter than Hays, though if Mason had to choose one not to cross, it would be Ebler. He had a mean look to him.

  “New resident,” Penn said. “He’s in 2C.”

  “Ooh.” Hays winced at Mason. “That’s a shame. That’s Scorpion’s block.”

  Ebler frowned as both he and Hays looked Mason over like he’d just lost a hand of cards.

  “How old are you, kid?” Ebler asked. His beard was so thick around his mouth, Mason could hardly see his lips move.

  “Eighteen.”

  Hays brushed his hand over his shiny scalp. “Dang.”

  “What’d you do to get the orange pajamas?” Ebler asked.

  “Uh . . . I made an enemy in Lawten Renzor.”

  Ebler snorted. “That wasn’t smart.”

  “Yeah . . . well, that’s irrelevant at this point, isn’t it?”

  Ebler chuckled and glanced from Hays and back to Mason. “Scorpion will love that mouth, kid. You better learn to shut it.”

  Mason didn’t want to be here. He’d never been one to spend much time out with the men, doing tough things, comparing muscles and who’d caught the biggest fish. And this seemed to be desperately worse than any of that. Not even comparable, really. Dealing with tough guys had never been one of Mason’s strengths.

  “Look, we do our best to crack down on violence in the blocks, but . . .” Hays shook his head. “There’s only so much we can do. If I were you, I’d cozy up to Rock Fist straight off. Him and Lethal are the only ones Scorpion won’t mess with, but if you make a deal with Lethal, he’ll own you, and you don’t want that either. We haven’t had any competitions for new arrivals in 2C since Rock Fist got here. That doesn’t mean you’re safe. But trust me, Rock Fist is your new best friend.”

  “Rock Fist,” Mason said.

  Ebler shook his head at Hays. “He doesn’t understand.”

  “They never do,” Hays said.

  Penn squeezed Mason’s shoulder, as if to offer some sort of support. “He will.”

  “Look.” Hays leaned onto his arms on the counter. “Someone comes after you, yell out, ‘I’m with Rock Fist.’ And hope for the best. He sleeps in bunk three.”

  “It’s all you can do,” Ebler said. “And I’ll tell the next shift to keep a close eye tonight.”

  That was comforting. Mason had started the day apprehensive about the trial, then he’d felt hopeless when he learned he was going to be liberated, hopeful when Omar had reminded him of the contact lenses, then he’d despaired when the lenses were taken, curious when he’d met the liberator. But in this place with these cryptic warnings . . . he was terrified.

  “We’ll take him back to the block, then out to the pens,” Blake said.

  “Good Fortune, shell,” Ebler said. “You’re going to need it.”

  The enforcers led Mason down the hallway, where the stench of unbathed humans intensified. They passed two doors on the right — both labeled 2A — and two on the left — both labeled 2D. Each door had a window on the top half that was made of safety glass and a SimPad on the door itself. Inside, the rooms were filled with bunk beds. No people.

  “Where is everyone?” Mason asked.

  “Tasking,” Penn said. “Most everyone in the Lowlands tasks from eight to six, except those who are on night shifts.”

  “But all strikers work days,” Blake said.

  “That’s right,” Penn said. “Every once in a while, they take a group of you strikers out to do some late-night task, but mostly, they want your kind locked up when it’s dark out.”

  His kind. Strikers. Mason didn’t like being lumped in with criminals. With the Safe Lands justice system, he wondered how many men in the bunkhouse were despicable and how many were merely as unlucky as he was.

  They passed by the doors for 2B and 2E and found block 2C at the end of the hall across from 2F.

  “Give your tag a try and make sure it works,” Penn said.

  Mason set his fist to the door and the entrance swung in. Nothing but bunk beds, three rows of them. One row on the front and back wall, one row in between. He quickly counted the bunks. Eight across . . . must be three deep . . . two beds per bunk. “Forty-eight people in this little room?”

  “Naw, I don’t think they put more than forty in a block,” Penn said.

  “And this is where I’m meant to live?” Mason asked. “For how long?”

  “That depends on a lot of things,” Penn said. “Your sentencing, your behavior, whether or not you work hard for your task director.”

  The smell wasn’t so bad, though the room was empty. Add enough bodies, and it was sure to get far worse. “Where are the bathrooms?”

  “In the back. I’ll show you,” Penn said, walking deeper into the room.

  Mason followed and saw that the back row of bunks didn’t have eight across, but six, separated by an opening in the w
all that led to a tile room. Penn went inside, and Mason followed, stopping beside the enforcer. Ten shower stalls on the back wall — no curtains. He turned around. Four toilet-sink combos on one side of the entrance, four on the other. And on the ceiling, a yellow camera on each end of the room.

  Blake was standing in the archway that separated the bunk room from the showers. He smiled wide. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  “Cameras in the showers?” Mason met Penn’s gaze, and the look on his face must have showed his total horror because the enforcer jerked his head back to the bunk room.

  “Don’t let those cameras scare you,” Penn said. “They’re for your protection. And listen, a friend of mine started out in the bunkhouse. Here’s how he did things. He didn’t shower here. He didn’t use the toilets. He held it until his tasking breaks or his free time. And he only showered at the car wash.”

  “What’s the car wash?” Mason asked.

  “Mandatory cleaning for strikers,” Blake said.

  “It’s a shower and change of clothing and a quick word with a medic to make sure you’re okay,” Penn said. “Get patched up, if need be.”

  Mason’s stomach fluttered at those words. Patched up, if need be. “And that takes place . . . ?”

  “Basement. Second floor goes on Thursdays, I think,” Penn said. “The bunk enforcers won’t let you miss it.”

  “I see.” Mason glanced around the bunks. “Which one is mine? Twenty-six?”

  “Numbers start on that wall, so . . .” Penn pointed at the wall opposite the shower room, the one with the entry doors to the block. “Sixteen on the far wall, eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-six.” He pointed at one of the bunks directly in front of the shower entrance. He walked toward it and moved a thin wool blanket off the bars on the end. “Twenty-six.” He tapped the black number that had long ago been painted onto the steep frame.

  “Someone’s stuff is there,” Mason said.

  “Just claim an empty one later,” Penn said. “After you find Rock Fist.”

  Mason had committed the name to memory. “Which is bed three?”

  “Over there.” Penn pointed to the corner by one of the entry doors, opposite the showers.

  Mason walked that way and studied the bed. “You know him?”

  “Naw. But you’d better, shell.” Penn met his gaze, and the man’s eyes were sympathetic. “You understand the gravity of the situation, I hope?”

  “Yes,” Mason said. “There is no doubt at all in my mind.” It was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER

  3

  The enforcers showed Mason the striker’s cafeteria in his building where he could eat for one credit a meal, then they took Mason out to the feedlot. Again he noted that the size of it was staggering. The cows were all brown or black, and the cattle in the pen to his right looked to be male yearlings.

  They ended up in a red barn, where the enforcers introduced Mason to the yard foreman, Gabon Gacy.

  “Glad to have another farmhand,” Gacy said. “Have a seat, Mason.”

  Mason sat.

  “You’re on your own now, shell,” Penn said. “Stay out of trouble.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The enforcers left.

  “I got a text tap on you this morning,” Gacy said. “Said you tasked as a medic.”

  “A level two medic, yes.”

  “Well, the tap said you’re to task in the pens as a farmhand. At some point, if you’re good and lucky and the task director general thinks you’ve been punished enough, I could train you as a vet, since you have a medical background. You don’t need to be a vet to learn how to vaccinate, though.”

  “Do the cattle have the Thin Plague?” Mason asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what are the vaccinations for?”

  “Several things. They’re vaccinated with a five-in-one for the clostridial diseases — tetanus, malignant oedema, enterotoxaemia, black disease, and blackleg. Clostridia are widespread in the lot, found in the soil and feces. We’ve got a separate vaccine for protection against botulism, if needed. We get a lot of BRD here — that’s bovine respiratory disease. And we vaccinate for that, plus — ”

  “Why would cattle get respiratory diseases?”

  “The lots are mud baths in wet weather and dustbowls in dry weather. Cattle catch colds. They’re close together. They’re stressed. So their immune systems are in high gear, trying to guard against everything that’s coming at them. And other diseases crop up too. Besides vaccinations, since these animals are bred for meat we give them antibiotics to keep the liver functioning long enough to reach slaughter weight. And the females are on birth control to keep them from riding other animals and stirring up dust or bruising other animals.

  “The vets keep a good watch on the animals, but that will be part of your job. You see a sick animal, bring it into a holding pen. I want it away from the others until a vet can take a look.”

  “What else will I be responsible for?”

  “Moving the cattle for the vets, moving the cattle for cleaning the pens, watching for sick animals, watching for damaged fences, helping the penriders or vets when asked.”

  “May I ask, what is your job?”

  “I oversee daily operations of the feedlot, monitor feed rations, animal health, fence building and repair. I also supervise thirty-some other taskers. That includes my assistant, the penriders, truck drivers, vets, farmhands, and maintenance workers.” Gacy eyed Mason. “What do you think about working with cattle?”

  Mason shrugged. “I like cattle. I took care of them in my village.”

  Gacy frowned. “You’re an outsider?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you had your own cattle?”

  “Not like this. Ours lived off grass.”

  “Is that a fact? Well, we don’t have the space to let our cattle wander the prairie eating grass. We feed them grain with added growth hormones. How many head you have?”

  “Head?”

  “How many animals?”

  “Oh, um, we had six milking cows, eight calves, six yearlings, and three bulls.”

  “Well, we’ve got about ten thousand head here. We’ve got fifty pens that house two hundred head each. You might have moved some cattle where you lived, but there’s some things you need to know about the cattle in our pens. You need to handle them nice and quietly. Don’t be rough with them. Cattle want to see where you are and will move accordingly. They’ll want to go around you. They’ll want to stay with and follow other cattle.”

  That sounded right to Mason. “I understand.”

  “Let’s take you out and see how you do. You’ll need a pair of boots. Check that room for your size and put them on.” Gacy pointed at a closet by the entrance to his office.

  Mason found a pair of boots, and they went out to the pens. Gacy showed Mason the setup. There were three rows of pens, each separated by the road for the feeding truck. As Mason and Gacy walked down one of the roads, the truck passed by, pouring grain into a trough that lined the outside of the pens. The cows had their heads between the bars and munched happily.

  “Cattle need room to move or they get stressed, and that leads to illness or low weight gain,” Gacy said. “We give the animals three hundred and fifty square feet each. It’s our goal to maintain a low stress environment for the herds. Each pen needs to be safe and comfortable. We treat these cattle well. I see you shoving or beating an animal, I’ll have you reassigned.”

  “I could never harm an animal,” Mason said.

  “Good. This first row has pens one through eighteen. The second” — he motioned to where the truck was dumping feed — “goes from nineteen to thirty-six. And the third row holds pens thirty-seven to fifty-four. We don’t use those last few unless we need them. Off past the third row, that’s where the manure stockpile is, and the terraces and retention pond. Down at the ends of the rows are the sick pens.”

  “Do you birth calves here?”
Mason asked.

  “Not on the feedlot. Calves spend six months with their mothers before being weaned. Then the trucks bring them here. We can finish a steer in twelve months. With the hormones in the grain, these animals gain an unnatural amount of weight in a short period of time. At eighteen to twenty-four months of age, the cattle are taken to the slaughterhouse.”

  When they reached the end, Gacy opened pen eighteen and they went inside. Two cows that were standing close to the door lumbered away.

  “This will be your row. So every day you walk pens one to eighteen. I want you to become aware of what’s normal so that you know when something is wrong. Watch their behavior. Look for depressed animals, droopy ears, excess salivation, shivering, panting, animals standing alone or reluctant to move or get up when others do. Look for animals that approach the feed bunk but don’t eat.

  “Watch their movement and how they look. Take note of limping cows. Check their legs for swelling. Lame animals might stand strangely or lean to one side or shift their weight from one foot to another. Watch for bloat. Look for restless, irritable animals. Are they swishing their tails or kicking their bellies?

  “Watch for sickness. Count their breaths per minute in cold and hot weather. Be alert for short respiratory movements. Look up their noses. Get used to what’s average for mucus. If an animal has more than the others, pull him out. A runny nose and short breath might be the start of a respiratory disease. Watch their dung. Look at the consistency and color. Pale dung or diarrhea may indicate feed problems or infections.”

  Gacy walked back to the gate they’d come in. “Farmhands task from seven in the morning to five at night. You get to take an hour lunch, but you got to work that out with the penriders. We like to have a penrider and a farmhand on each row at all times during the day. In fact, let me introduce you to the penriders and the other farmhands.”

  And so Mason met the two first row penriders, Coy and Brondon, who each rode glossy brown horses. He also met Wayd and Prezan, the other two farmhands for the first row. The vet, who was called Oakes Hackett, was busy working with the animals, so Mason was informed he would meet him later.