Iwata drove slowly on to the main strip and stopped the car. Huxley was spread thin, the desert visible through gaps between houses and buildings. He scanned the street but saw no one. Nobody jogging. Nobody walking a dog. Nobody sitting on their porch enjoying the sunset. Windows were dark. Drapes were closed. Businesses shut.
Yet the streetlamps were on. The gas station at the end of the strip was illuminated. Although, looking around now, he realized there were no cars whatsoever. It seemed as if Huxley had been abandoned, yet the buildings looked new.
Iwata circled the town twice in search of an explanation, some trace of normality. He found none. On the south side of the town the houses seemed less new. What Iwata noticed first were the faux balconies, little wooden artifices. Then he considered the houses themselves. On closer inspection, they seemed like flimsy, nonsense houses. The lawns were overgrown, the driveways were cracked, the roads too. It was as if Iwata had stumbled on to a movie set that nobody had remembered to dismantle. All the windows on this street were dark. There was no noise, no movement; no signs of day-to-day life.
Iwata got back in the car and pulled a U-turn, heading back towards the main strip. He would start knocking on doors if he had to, but he wasn’t leaving Huxley without an explanation. As he made a left the border-patrol truck squealed up behind him.
Iwata stopped the car. There was an uncertain silence now, only the sound of his breathing and running engines.
The one Iwata recognized as Cousins got out and approached the window. Up close, he was clean-shaven and muscular. His eyes roved through the 4Runner before finally settling on Iwata himself.
‘Evening.’ There was a warm drawl to his voice.
‘There a problem, Officer?’
‘No problem. Only you look a little turned about.’
Iwata smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m kind of lost.’
‘Okay.’ Cousins circled the SUV, his eyes flicking down to the tyres. ‘But, uh, how come you’re lost here?’
‘Thought there might be gas.’
‘Down an unmarked service road?’ Cousins looked at the fuel gauge. ‘And you must be a careful driver. You’re plum two-thirds full.’
‘It’s a big desert. Anything could happen.’
‘Well, I guess that’s about true.’ Cousins smiled acridly then stood up straight. ‘But there ain’t no gas here, sir. So please go on back the way you came now.’
‘What is this place?’
‘Training facility – private property.’
‘I didn’t see any signs.’
‘You have a nice night.’ Cousins patted the bonnet and returned to the patrol truck. It didn’t move. This only left Iwata with one path, the main strip out of town. He drove slowly, keeping his eyes on the rear-view mirror.
At the end of Huxley, Iwata made the turning. But the second he was out of sight of the patrol truck, he turned again, sharply, into an alleyway. Before he could think about it Iwata opened the door. The cold was nettles.
Sticking to the shadows, he skirted between homes and non-existent businesses. The alleyways were littered with empty cardboard boxes and discarded building materials, but there was no rubbish beyond this, no food, no piss, no broken glass. In the distance he could hear the patrol truck grumbling through the empty town.
Iwata leaned back against the wall, his heart beating hard. The wind ruffled his hair, cooling the sweat on his forehead. There were other noises now, more engines. Hiding behind a plastic drain pipe, he glanced around the corner.
Three flatbed trucks were rolling into Huxley, each one crammed with people. They were immigrants, all of them sporting coloured wristbands, their hands bound with plastic zip ties. Men with tattoos, ranchero hats and assault rifles gripped on to the roll cages of the trucks and kept their eyes on their cargo. Then they were gone, roaring south.
Taking two deep breaths, Iwata pushed off from the wall and went in the direction of the trucks. He zigzagged through Huxley’s backstreets and followed the distant sound of the engines.
At the fringes of the city, close to the foot of the mountain, he stopped. There were voices, footsteps close together. There was scared weeping, some laughter above it, radios crackling.
Iwata emerged into a dark cul-de-sac. A hundred yards behind him, the flatbed trucks were being unloaded, people being sorted into wristband colour.
The houses on the cul-de-sac were half constructed, just wooden frames. Iwata looked up at the upstairs windows and saw faces. Scared faces. Little grey smudges in the shadow. For a moment, he wondered if they were mannequins. But they were blinking. At the other end of the road, one of these houses had its door open.
Iwata checked behind him. The flatbed trucks were still being unloaded, people being shouted at to jump down quicker. The men with rifles worked dispassionately, two of them watching a video on a phone. Iwata scurried out of his cover. He braced for a shout but he felt only the wind. Reaching the house, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him.
Iwata was in an empty, unlit room painted ashen blue by the moon. There were faint noises coming from upstairs. He drew his gun as he passed a table with what looked like large playing cards on it. Peering closer, he saw they were passports. On the table, there was an ashtray with two recently crushed cigarettes in it. It smelled of sweat here, it smelled of men. Iwata knew he should leave this place, and yet he moved forward with a nauseous conviction. He climbed the stairs slowly, praying for silence in his steps.
Reaching the top, somebody coughed. Iwata froze. When his eyes adjusted he saw he was in a large attic space. He recognized the antiseptic smell from the housing complex he had fled from. There were twelve small cubicles separated by plastic sheeting hanging from hooks – a small abattoir. The stink was overwhelming.
Gun raised, Iwata inched forward. Another cough resounded, making him flinch. It came from the first cubicle. Taking a breath, Iwata peered inside. He saw a thin naked woman lying face down on a bed, her wrists and ankles bound, her eyes wide. Her anus was dark with blood. On the floor there were a dozen discarded condoms. In this gloom they looked like little sherbet UFOs. On the end of the bed there was a clipboard. It showed the woman’s age, blood type and her ‘match’. There was also a date underneath.
Iwata thought back to the housing complex. Since you’re here, I imagine you’d like to view the material? He recalled the face of the little girl tied to the bed, the man babysitting her.
Iwata’s stomach lurched, nausea and realization kicking in at the same moment. He gripped the bed frame to stop himself from falling and the woman began to scream against her gag. Staggering away, Iwata ripped back the sheet to the next cubicle. The next one. And the next one. He found men, he found women – all ages, all colours, all of them bound and terrified. On every clipboard there was a date and an organ underlined:
Cornea
Kidneys
Liver
Fat
Blood
*
At the end of the attic, there was a closed door. Light seeped out beneath it. Iwata found himself wading towards it. He opened the door and stepped into soft lamplight. The nightlight projected Dora the Explorer warmly across the ceiling. The room was filled with small grey Formica tables. On them, there were cardboard boxes. Inside them, squirming little figures. Some of the babies were crying. Some looked sick. Blood types had also been written on the side of these boxes.
Dora the Explorer was swinging from a vine, a smile on her face. A shadow crossed over her. Iwata turned. There was a flash, then a heavy weight on his temple.
Iwata slumped against the wall and dropped his gun. The wood was rough against his cheek. Warm blood tickled his ear as he looked up.
‘I told you to get the fuck outta here, didn’t I?’ Cousins picked up the gun, then crouched down as though admonishing a badly behaved puppy. ‘But you had to take a piss on my leg and tell me it was raining, huh?’
Iwata punched him in the windpipe – instant, brutal. Cousins frowned, hacked, then fell forward. Iwata grabbed his gun back. A gunshot erupted. Iwata looked down at himself. The bullet had gone through his upper arm. The gun dropped from his hand, as though suddenly commanded. Ortega was in the doorway, his pistol raised, face illuminated pink and blue from the nightlight. He stepped forward and lined up the shot. Iwata closed his eyes and thought of Cleo and Nina.
No shot came. Iwata opened his eyes. Something had happened to Ortega’s face. It was a plastic, crinkly outline, sucked in at the mouth. Hands appeared at either side of his head. Mara Zambrano was behind him, suffocating him with a plastic bag.
Ortega bucked hard but Mara did not waver. Her poise was perfect, the distribution of weight incontrovertible. Ortega had no foothold; he could only claw at the plastic.
Then, just as his struggle was fading away, she dropped the bag. Ortega fell against the wall, his skin purple, his eyes pink, choking for his own existence.
Mara Zambrano looked down at him with no expression. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
Ortega looked up at her, in terror, in disbelief.
‘Then let me remind you.’
With an open palm she smashed his nose in. Then, fast, before he could understand it, she had him around the neck from behind, forcing him to keep his head up – as if a mother holding a child above water. She held him as he thrashed and gargled on his own blood.
When Ortega had drowned to death Mara dropped him. She peered at her hands in the moonlight, front and back, as if they had been lent to her.
Iwata’s consciousness bled out.