Chapter 13

Friday Morning, An Anniversary

David awoke between two women in a large wet spot of their own making. He was tired, smelled like sex, and needed a shower and coffee.

I never used to be this tired, David thought. Or this fucked out.

Extracting himself from a sleeping Margaret and Christine, he wandered into the shower. Thirty seconds later he was under the water scrubbing off the remainder of last night’s celebration. While shaving he noticed a female body come into the bathroom and sit on the commode. Shortly thereafter, having finished his shave and, smelling human, David opened the door to see Margaret standing there holding a towel. “Hurry up, fella. You have a busy day ahead of you.”

“I know,” David responded. “And my six sluts will be busy too. We have sixty to process and twenty-one more to interview means that everyone will be busy. Probably need another computer or two. You and Candy will be running your asses off.”

“Not really. A total of fifteen trips means about four hours on the short schedule. An hour break and we will be done at three o’clock. We don’t really start until nine o’clock. We have to stop to pick up lunch stuff on the way, though.”

“Can I help?” Christine said standing in the door. “I don’t know what all I can do but I can at least talk.”

“You can, but you have to be naked and wear an orange collar,” David said. “No clothed people in the front office.”

Smiling, Margaret added, “That’s right. Did you notice how relaxed everyone was, talking about us and not about what was going on?”

“Funny. I didn’t think about it. It was odd, but after a few moments it wasn’t unusual.”

“It also keeps things settled when we have them strip down in the stripping room ahead of processing,” Margaret continued.

“Well, what else can I do?”

“GROCERY SHOPPING!” both David and Margaret said at the same time.

“Salad and pasta fixings. Don’t get anything heavy or meaty. Faux crab and seafood work best with salad and pasta. Light lunches. And get about a case of white wine. That worked well for the afternoon yesterday,” Margaret said.

“How much?” Christine asked.

“At least enough for fifty. Bring it by at about eleven o’clock.”

“Okay,” Christine answered. This could not possibly be profitable, Christine thought. But it was sure nice to do it that way.

Stopping at the bagel shop on the way and having picked up milk, cream cheese and regular bread on the way to the office, “I have to hand it to you, David. You handled Carol great,” Margaret said.

“How else could I? She is getting a bad case of the crazies. Jim told me that I had to keep her involved or she would get depressed and go crazy.”

“We’ll do that. I’ve got her thinking about legal angles for Cindy. We might have to break your one-week rule with her.”

“The problem is, once we go past that time, it is almost impossible to term them. We get attached and how to you kill someone you are attached to?” David asked.

“You give them to your wife or Candy and have them do it. That girl would slit my throat if you asked. And if the time comes I will do her too.”

“I’m glad you can. I get sentimental about that shit,” David said. “Women are harder, I guess.”

“Damn right, and don’t you forget it.”

Getting to the office, David saw that Carl, Gus, and Marty’s cars were all there already. David called Candy to buzz them in, and was waiting at the door with armloads of groceries when the door was opened by Carl, wearing pants and shoes and no shirt.

“David, I have to say your rules are going to kill me. But it’s a great way to go.”

“Girls wearing you out?”

“Wearing us all out. Mark, Jim and Peter just left. I think we are going to have to get some closet or locker space here for our next overnights.”

“Put that on the union issues list. Lockers for overnights for members getting laid.”

“Right. I’ll circulate that around the local next week. Not.”

Entering the kitchen, David saw Helen at her usual place (in front of the stove) in her usual uniform (naked except for an apron) doing her usual cooking of peppers, onions and eggs. The bacon was cooking in the microwave and the smell of fresh coffee was in the air.

“Oh, bagels,” Candy said from the table. “Did you get lots of cream cheese?”

“Yes, my little eating machine,” Margaret replied.

“I’m glad you got bagels. Also, we are almost out of bread. Oh, you got some. Good,” Helen continued as she stirred breakfast.

“Hey, boss,” Nancy said from another table, with her coffee in one hand and looking at the screen. “We picked up some overnight committed traffic. We had sixty yesterday, but we now have eighty committed. Plus the twenty-one are now thirty for interviews.”

“Shit,” Margaret said “That’s twenty trips. That’s five hours constant, but still not full capacity if we work it right.”

“We are going to have to nudge Marty to get some more butchers,” Carl said,

“Well, wake him up and tell him,” David said.

“He is awake. It’s just that Liz had him locked into her when I saw him last and didn’t want to let him go.”

“Shit, he won’t be worth anything,” David laughed.

“Who says?” Marty said from the doorway. “I admit that she tried, but with two of us and one of her, we eventually wore her down.”

“Good. So we now have eighty coming in today. I don’t want to change anything, but do we have the ability to get two more butchers to do field-dressing and clean-out as well as cut-up?”

“Might be one or two. I’ll call in to the hall and see if the two I’m thinking of are available. You won’t want them in the front office, right?”

“That’s right. If I could get another female cutter, I would do that. I think Margaret and Candy have shown us all the way.”

“I think so too. Find us another one and we will unionize her.”

After breakfast, all the naked goats went down to reception, followed by Carl, Marty and David carrying drinks, glasses and snacks. The uneaten bagels went there too. After setting up, all of the men left for their respective offices and processing areas. Promptly at eight-thirty, the door opened and the first group of women entered. Of the twenty-three that came in, sixteen were scheduled. Helen, Margaret, Elizabeth and Candy quickly got forms distributed to the first group, while Carol and Nancy worked with the remainder to get them settled and the intakes started.

Carol was surprised to see Sue Barksdale and Cathy Cox here. Sue was another attorney, while Cathy was a reporter. Neither of them it turned out, had been selected.

“Good morning, ladies,” Carol said in her best lawyer voice. “And what can I do for you?”

“Carol,” Sue began, “This is not a formal inquiry yet.”

“Come back when it is,” Carol answered firmly. “Petition the court under rules of discovery and then call me back.”

“Just a second,” Cathy interjected. “We are getting off on the wrong foot. What Sue means is that there are a lot of unfounded allegations regarding the Findlay operation that we would like to see clarified.”

“Cathy, if you want to stay and talk, I am sure I can get someone to speak with you both on and off the record. That is a public relations issue. Sue, you are here on discovery. As such, your inquiries should go through the formality of orders from the court.”

“Damn, girl. That smacked me so hard my nose is bloody. You didn’t used to be so tight-assed.”

“I wasn’t legally ‘dead but waiting for it’ before, either. That tends to change your perspective. You can have anything that Cathy has permission to print for free. Other than that, you are either representing a client or looking to find one.”

Sue had to think about this. She had intended to ask a few innocuous and leading questions, but finding Carol here threw her off. Being recognized, she had tried to play the nice-lawyer card. That didn’t work. Time to shift tactics.

“So, Carol. If I did want to pre-select here, whom would I talk with?” Sue asked.

“Are you asking as a lawyer or a woman?” Carol replied.

“Woman.”

“Okay. So here is what we do to look into that. First, we bring up the MAB selection board website. Let me show you.” Popping up the browser link, Carol opened it up to the MAB. “First, we select Options. Here we have the listing of the three current Chicago houses. Notice that H&S is greyed out for the moment. We check-mark Findlay Processing and it asks you for your SSN and PIN. Sue, do you want to enter yours, or Cathy, do you want to enter yours?” Carol asked.

Both women had the wide-eyed look of caught in the headlights. “Does this mean we volunteer?” Cathy asked.

“Absolutely not. This is a preference indicator in case you are either selected or volunteer. That is done through the Lottery board. That was changed last year after the other news article. Poor woman didn’t know that she had been volunteered without her knowledge. We got an amendment driven through the legislature based on that. I worked on that legislation,” Carol said with some pride.

“Okay, let me then. You wouldn’t lie to another officer of the court,” Sue said. After entering her SSN and PIN, Sue saw a banner message that said, “You are selecting your preference for the termination location if you are either selected by the lottery board or if you volunteer. This in no way changes your assignment or guarantees that the processor will have capacity to handle you on your due date. If you agree, please select Yes.”

“So does this commit me?” Sue asked, curious now about this turn of events.

“No, it indicates preference. It’s not binding on you or us. All it really does is establish a slot.”

Sue clicked Yes, then Yes again for a confirmation, and then saw a banner message that said that a confirmation of her election was to be sent to her. If she changed her mind at a later date she was encouraged to review quarterly in the event of business changes in the area.

“Okay. Next stop is the selection board website. Here we check status to verify that you are within the age range and to review your actual status.”

A short time later Sue was looking at her status in the selection board. She was surprised to see Volunteer pending confirmation after her name. “What the hell?” she asked.

“Hmm, looks like we should do a review of that. Mind if I drive for a second?” Carol asked.

Following a now familiar set of checks, Carol soon found that Sue’s sister-in-law had started to nominate her as a selectee volunteer for next week. Looking at the acceptance page in View Only status, she carefully printed the contents of the page to give Sue a copy for her records to take home with her. “I think you and your husband need to have a talk about this. If you had clicked Accept on any of the ghosted pages or if you had accepted any certificates, then you would be on your way. At least you could come here so we could straighten this out.”

“Carol, how often does this happen?” Sue asked in a shocked voice.

“This is the second time this week. You are a good lawyer, so I would think you would be able to look into this a little deeper. We found one this past week that was actually committed. We were barely able to avert that one.”

“Can you give us any particulars?” Cathy asked, smelling a story.

“Sorry, client confidentiality. And Sue, you can buy lunch.”

“Shit. I will buy a lot more than that. Do you guys check everyone?”

“It is part of the checklist. Here, Let me take you both through the whole list.”

For the next ten minutes Sue and Cathy went through the entire checklist. Everything from closing bank accounts to notification of the utilities and pet adoption was listed with both check-boxes and lines for information. Cathy was surprised at the depth of the information. There were a lot of things she would not have thought of.

“You surely do cover all the end of life business,” Cathy said.

“Yes, we do. And if you were a selectee, then from here we would proceed through to processing,” Carol continued.

“Could I look into that?” Cathy asked.

“I don’t think so. David has been pretty firm on this rule. Once you leave here, all of your business is pretty much finished.”

“What do you do with these forms?” Cathy asked.

“They go home to the address listed for your next of kin along with the clothes and any personal items you had with you today. I would ask if you had driven your car here so we could arrange for it to be placed in storage until it is picked up. We had one of those on Monday. No one else would bring her down.”

“Sue, that would be seen as coercion. We don’t do that here. Nor do we intimidate. Do either of you feel intimidated in any way?” Carol asked carefully.

“No, I sure don’t feel that way. Where are those women going?” Cathy asked seeing four women at a table getting up and following Candy toward the hallway.

“They are going to the exam rooms for blood tests and then to the restrooms for urine samples for pregnancy testing. All in accordance with the current law. All medical information is confidential. The main issue is to review grading and catch any male children.”

“Such a small group. Is that normal?”

“Cathy, we are getting into an operations area that I would rather have public affairs handle.”

“Okay. Who does that?”

Good question Carol thought. “I believe that Elizabeth would be able to help you with that. Elizabeth, could you come here for a moment?” Carol said, raising her voice. “I’ll work with your team if you like.”

“No problem. My girls here are just finishing up their questionnaires. Margaret will be up in a few minutes to work with them. How can I help you?” Elizabeth asked.

“Elizabeth, this is Sue Barksdale, an attorney and Cathy Cox from UIN News. Sue was here initially to do an ambulance chase, and we saved her from some problems. Cathy is trying to fill her show with whatever you tell her, so be careful. Ladies, I will leave you in Elizabeth’s competent hands.”

“Elizabeth, do you all do intake operations like this for all women you process?” Cathy asked.

“Everyone since I have been here. That’s been about a week, so far.”

“Really? How did you come to be here?” Cathy asked.

“I was selected. So was everyone else here. Except for Margaret. She’s the wife of the owner. Helen interviewed me when we were arriving, and asked if we would put off our processing to help out here for a while. We had a talk with David and we agreed to help out.”

“Was there any coercion?” Sue asked, dreading the answer. “Was there any implied exchange of favors?”

“OH yes. We get our fantasy ending if we want, and we get to help people here as a part of our sticking around. I think David is one of the most unusual men I have ever met and definitely not who I would think would be in this business. This is just a pause on the way out that lets us do some things we want to do, and help a few people while we are here. We helped re-tool the questionnaire based on our own experiences, and that has made some real improvement.”

“So, how are your peers terminated?” Cathy asked, suspecting she had built enough trust to ask that question and thinking that a story was in there somewhere.