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“No, they’re not. Look at this.” He punched a button on his control panel, and a computer screen sprang out of the console. He called up the last census report. “You know how closely we monitor population data.”
Hundreds of years had passed since the Great Nuclear War wiped out all humans except for the New Terra colonists, but our population was still too small. If people were being stolen, not only were their lives endangered, but the survival of our species was threatened.
Garrison dragged a cursor along a slightly ascending line on the graph. “Our population continues to grow at a slow but steady rate. The birth rate is not as great as we’d like but still shows an upward, positive trend.”
“Maybe we’d have a larger population if people weren’t being abducted.”
“There is not a single person unaccounted for. Every time someone keys into their residence, into their workplace, into a government building, their existence is verified. If you compare the count to a month ago, a year ago, five years ago, adding documented births and subtracting deaths, it’s clear the population is where it should be. You say hundreds, maybe thousands of people were abducted? If five people went missing, even a single person, the records would show it. Data doesn’t lie. That’s why I’m skeptical.”
“The data is wrong,” I insisted. “Can’t we at least check it out?”
“How? Do a special census, which will show exactly this?”
Facts were hard to refute, but I knew what I’d experienced and observed. I’d been gassed, removed from the Star Cross, and awakened in a cell on a slave ship—along with 300 others. Damn the LOP for its bureaucracy and competing goals! They’d silenced everyone who could have backed up my story. “Who was behind the space cruise?” I changed tactics.
He blinked. “You won it in a prize drawing you said.”
“But who sponsored it? Who owned the ship?” Hindsight was 20/20. I couldn’t believe how naïve I’d been to accept the prize at face value.
“How should I know? It was your cruise.”
“I was told the cruise was a new venture. A pilot program. We don’t have space travel capability yet.”
“Obviously, we do.” He spread his hands.
“Do we? Do you know something I don’t?” If we had a space program, I would have thought I’d have been informed.
“Departments guard their turf. They don’t always talk to one another. There could be a secret space program, and the cruise could have been a test,” he offered.
It sounded plausible, except I knew better. The Copan-Cerulean Cartel had been behind the space cruise. “So, you’re not going to do anything,” I summed up our meeting.
“I’m not going to act on your allegations, unless there is proof.”
If we failed to act now, more people, mostly women, would disappear. Slave buyers preferred females over males because they considered them easier to control, and then there was the whole sex slave aspect. I crossed my arms, frustrated to no end. “Fine.”
Garrison looked at me. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what ‘fine’ means coming from a woman. I’m ordering you to let this go.”
Chapter Four
Maxx
I raced back to Jessie’s apartment. I had to stop her before she blabbed too much. Before she blabbed anything. Realizing I could find myself at the business end of her weapon, I came prepared this time, strapping a stun stick to my side under an extra-long hoodie.
I got to her apartment and pressed my ear to the door. I didn’t hear any noise coming from inside. I zapped the keypad with my handheld. The lock clicked as it opened, and I held my breath, waiting to see if the quiet sound would catch her attention. When nothing happened, I cracked the door open and listened. All quiet.
I widened the door and stepped inside to chaos.
Tables lay upended. Cottony fluff ripped out of sofa cushions covered the floor like snow. Cupboards had been ransacked, their contents strewn everywhere. Artwork, and even electrical plates, had been torn from the walls.
Where was Jessie? Were the intruders still here? Gripping the stun stick, I crept to the door leading to the bedroom. Flattening myself against the wall, I peered into the bedroom. Vacant, but it too had been torn apart. The mattress, pulled from the bed, had been sliced open. The nightstand lay on its side, its drawers flung across the room. The closet door stood wide open; clothing had been tossed onto the floor. Drapes had been pulled from the window.
This wasn’t the result of a search—it represented frustration and anger from a fruitless search. When they didn’t get what they’d come for, they’d torn the place apart.
I peeked into the bathing chamber. Nothing here appeared to have been touched. Either something had scared them off, or they hadn’t considered the room significant. Or, they had found what they’d come for after all. My gut tightened.
