Page 20 of A Light in the Dark
“I know you will. Now, head on home. I’m going to meet with my boss tomorrow about the refugee situation. If oneof our clients has been abusing a refugee, others are… and we can take advantage of that.”
“That’s rather ruthless, sir.”
Mr. Accor’s smile chilled me. In a way, he reminded me of a predator on the prowl for his next meal. “Yes, it is. A month of free work is a small price to pay for loyal employees, and if these fools want to cultivate star employees for us, I won’t say no. We need good employees, and we’ve been talking about expanding our operations for a while. Anyway, head on home. We’ll talk more about how best to settle Madeline in tomorrow.”
I did as told, although I made a show of gathering things at my desk, jotting down a few notes, and otherwise handling my usual routine. However, I checked Madeline’s file, jotted down her refugee information, and slipped that into my purse so I could ask the Hunters about her. On the entire walk home, I questioned everything about life in Stonecreek. When I’d first heard we would be accepting refugees, it had been in a state of hope that everyone from Earth would find a better life. Instead, bodies rotted in the lake below the city, companies used the refugees as little more than mules, working them far beyond what we’d do to ourselves, and I questioned everything about our society.
How could we tolerate such injustice? Worse, I couldn’t shake the belief that there were those, including those who ran the government, who abused the refugees—and killed them—for profit.
Once inside my home, I locked the door, dug out the Hunters’ phone from the depths of my purse, and pulled up the text conversation, mustering the courage to ask if therewas a reason to be concerned if employers were trying to learn about Earth’s technology.
A moment later, the phone rang, informing me someone named Roger wished to speak with me. As the contact was registered on the phone, I answered and said, “Hello.”
“Good afternoon, Valerie. Are you somewhere safe to talk?”
“I am. I’m at home.” I headed into my kitchen, grabbed my kettle, and plunked it onto the stove so I could have a calming cup of tea. Given a few minutes, I would need it. “Dare I ask how many you found?”
“We’ve pulled out almost two hundred bodies, unfortunately—and we found some skeletons beneath. We’ve been able to identify them all. We have DNA samples from every refugee to come to our world, and we have records of when the refugees entered Stonecreek and when Stonecreek received payment for their care. We have determined that, according to the age of decomposition, the refugees were killed thirty to ninety days after Stonecreek received their payments.”
I sucked in a breath. “Why are you telling me this?”
“We need someone on the inside of Stonecreek to look around for us. None of the Hunters can do it; the powers that be in Stonecreek know to keep an eye out for us. A citizen of their city-state? They won’t be expecting that sort of betrayal.”
I appreciated Roger’s honesty; I would be betraying my city-state. However, anyone who murdered others for money deserved betrayal, and I would stick around for however long was needed to see justice done. “I’m in.”
“I thought you would be. You don’t seem like the type to accept this sort of thing lying down.”
With almost two hundred dead, I would be chomping at the bit to find out who was behind the killings and make certain they rotted in some prison, preferably off-world, where they would never see the light of day again.
None of our prisons, at least as far as I was aware, seemed adequately terrible for punishing such a crime.
“I’m really not. How can I help?”
“We need to find out what is happening to the surviving refugees. How are they fitting into society? What kind of person is being viewed as useful and kept in the system?”
“The company I work for just poached a refugee from one of our clients. We traded a month of work for them in exchange for her employment. The company is housing her.”
“What do you know about the housing?”
“It’s a good house down the hill with a properly shored foundation. I was there for the first viewing of the place. It is being bought from the bank as a foreclosure for a pittance.”
“Do you know the address?”
I told him how to find the property, apologizing for not knowing the actual street address despite knowing how to get to it and which house it was. Roger chuckled, promised I’d given him the information he needed, and that he’d dig more into the situation. Then, worried Madeline might become another victim, I asked, “Does it look like all the killings happened during the flooding?”
“As far as we can tell, yes. Stonecreek has been processing refugee claims in a window before the flooding happens for the most part.”
That worried me in some ways but relieved me in others. “Is it possible to check into a specific refugee?”
“Yes, we have a database of all refugees on our planet.”
I pulled out the scrap of paper I’d hidden in my purse and read off Madeline’s information. “This is the woman my company poached. When we got a hold of her, she was really stressed about her work situation, so I have concerns.”
“This is the exact sort of thing we need to know about. Thank you. Are you in any position to find out more about the refugees working for your company or other companies you work with?”
I thought about it, and a chill ran through me.
I could, and I could do so without anyone being the wiser for my clandestine operations. “Yes, I can do that.”
