The Starving Years by Jordan Castillo Price Read Free Book Online Page B

“What just happened out there? That’s what I want to know. It was thickest right by the job fair.”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time Canaan drew protestors,” Tim said; no one but Javier would know him well enough to sense he was being deliberately vague.
    “What now?” Marianne turned the Fair and Equal flier one way, then the other, as if she couldn’t pick out from all the small print what the actual message was supposed to be. “Did they find another factory full of illegals working twenty-hour days?”
    “The thing with all those protestors,” Randy said, in a loud, easy voice, as if he was accustomed to people actually listening to him when he waxed philosophical, “Is that they take it too far. They make themselves come off like a bunch of assholes, and no one actually listens to what they have to say.”  
    The moment was ripe for a pot-and-kettle comment, but Marianne resisted the temptation. Randy thumbed in a number on her phone and got another loud circuits-are-busy message. “No way. You’re not on All-atel, are you?”
    “No, Transdata.” She answered absently, still focused on Tim, who she’d obviously pegged as someone who knew what was going on. No matter how he tried to act otherwise. “What could possibly be so bad they’re out there tearing each other up like that?”
    “It’s crowd psychology,” Randy said. “People start freaking out, and it spreads like a cold sore. And once everything’s crazy, the predators swoop in.” He pressed the now semi-frozen bag to his cheek again. “And then they take your hundred dollars.”  
    Again, Marianne didn’t rise to the bait. “It can’t be just crowd psychology. It happened too fast. It was too vicious. I wasn’t kidding about the working conditions. They have plants in Mexico, you know—I read about it on Facebook. Most of the laborers should be in school, but they’re pumping out manna instead. Maybe someone had photos. Maybe they posted them online.”
    “If the working conditions at Canaan are so bad,” Randy said, “then what were you doing at that job fair?”
    Tim looked at Marianne with what he hoped was an expression that was somehow...normal. Polite interest. He had no social skills, so his ex always told him, but hopefully he was intelligent enough to fake it.
    Marianne had reached the point where Randy’s comments were starting to wear, though, and she didn’t even notice Tim’s efforts. “Never mind me. What about you, Mr. Smartypants? What were you doing there—running up to the stage with Nelson’s answer.”
    Randy held up a hand in a semi-conciliatory “chill” gesture. “Have you seen the Canaan’s health club? Have you heard about the quarterly sales bonuses? I’m sick of busting my hump for a two-point-four percent raise. I want to get in on Canaan’s sweet benefits package.”  
    “Look,” Javier said, “regardless of the reason anyone was or wasn’t there, what matters now is getting everyone home in one piece.”  
    Yes. Definitely. Tim couldn’t have said it better—because eye patch or no eye patch, he needed to see if Javier’s inside tip had panned out, and he couldn’t do that in front of just anyone.
    Except maybe Nelson Oliver. He was fast asleep, anyway.
    “So what do you think everyone’s flipping out about this time?” Marianne said. “Broadcast news will be useless. Fire up that computer over there and see if anyone online knows something yet.”
    Everyone looked at Tim—who suddenly realized he had absolutely no idea what might appear on his monitor when the browser came up. Something innocuous, like the local traffic report? Or something telling, like the dirt he’d been trying to dig up on Canaan? Or, worse, the transcript of the last chat he’d had with Javier.
    The one he’d jerked off to.
    More than once.
    “My connection’s spotty,” Tim said.
    He glanced at the mess of daisy-chained power strips, and the redundant server rack draped with yards of