The Dark Country

The Machine Demands A Sacrifice

Soot fell in a continuous haze that obliterated the sun over the freeway, leaving a gritty texture on the once-bright finishes of the variegated cars and trucks. For miles ahead they extended bumper to bumper in a snaking line, stretching on through infinite gradations of opaque smog, and if you let your arm hang down from the window and brushed the door with your fingertips, they would come away grainy and black-edged and imprinted with hundreds of microscopic lacerations.

It was five o'clock in Los Angeles on a July afternoon.

A short black van with the words E'MER-GEN-Z-INC stenciled on the sides was stalled in the far right lane.

"Jeezus," said the driver, wiping the sweat out of his eyes with a dirty sleeve. His face was bloated like a brown paper bag full of potatoes, his black eyes peering out through two torn, badly placed holes. "It's that fuel pump again — you know that, don't you?" He shook his head and glared outside lor confirmation.

"I thought the Company was supposed to put in a rebuilt one, after last time," said the other, a slight young man named Jaime who was new on the job, with exaggerated disgust. This was in fact only the end of his first work week, and he still looked to the fat man for direction, trying to limit his end of the conversation to a general swearing, bitching echo.

"Jeezus H. Christ," said the fat man, hunching over the wheel and shifting his huge buttocks. A horn started up behind them.

The fat man shook his head at the floorboard. "I am the Company, me and Raoul. Told that son of a bitch — but no, he's worried we'll miss some nice, juicy accident if I put 'er in the shop till noon. Man, I tell you…"

"Yeah," said Jaime. "Well, hell, I'll get out and push the son of a bitch. There's a crashpad right up ahead. Thank God at least for that.''

He climbed down from his side and went around to the back. The driver got out and pushed at the door, straining to reach the wheel inside. There was a wide shoulder by the side of the freeway, only yards ahead. After a few nauseous grunts through carbon monoxide and bleating horns, the driver hoisted himself in and braked as the van rolled to a stop in front of the compactor.

"Far enough," he gasped, stumbling out. "Don't want to junk this baby yet. God damn. Get too close and the junker takes over."

Jaime stood around trying to look grim, kicking rocks off the blacktop.

"Now we just got to wait for it to cool. How much credit we got on the card register, kid?"

"Uh, the starting fund from this morning, plus that two-car we found. The digits we sold 'em. Not much."

"Great. All we need's a COPter to spot us right now." The fat man leaned on the magnetic grapple of the compactor and let a sigh whistle out through his small mouth. "The junk fee on the van would just about pay the breakdown fine," he laughed bitterly. "They got it figured so it comes out exactly even, that's what I think."

"Yeah. Except for the vacutract unit," said Jaime. "Right, Jesse?''

But the fat man was looking back over his shoulder, past the massive compactor.

He stuck a thick finger to his lips. He motioned to the kid, a rat-shrewd light coming into his eyes.

Jaime walked over, keeping behind the line of the automatic junking machine. He bobbed his head around the crane where Jesse indicated and saw it.

An '89 sedan with a selenium top was racked up at close to a 45 degree angle, the right side crumpled against the pavement from hood to tail. A man in a business suit with spider webs of blood spun from his ear and forehead was laid out on the front seat. A thin man with glasses was reaching up and in the opened driver's door, tending the wounds.

"Watch this," mouthed Jesse, trying to force his shirttails back into his belt under the light smock.

He stepped boldly around the compactor. "What happened here? He hit the rail?"

The man with glasses half-turned, startled. He quickly sized up Jesse and his partner — too quickly, thought Jaime, his heart dropping.

"I'm a doctor," announced the man. He started toward his own car, parked at the end of the pad. Just then the bottleneck ahead on the freeway unclogged momentarily, for the river of stagnating cars revved up and surged forward a few choppy feet. "Just — let this be," sighed the doctor arbitrarily, flattening his hands in the haze. "I've got him sedated right now."

Jesse ambled forward. "Looks like you're pretty near to having a dead man on your hands, doc," he said.

"Who are you people?" snapped the doctor.

"We were just passing by. Our unit's back there. Thought we might be of some —»

The doctor's cool gray eyes flicked between the two men. "You thought you might make a bootleg sale or two, eh? Well, you can just go on. Go on, now."

"We're in business to help people, same as you, sir. Now if this is an emergency, why, you know, we might be in a position to help you save this poor guy's life." Jesse stepped closer. "Any internal injuries?"

"Listen, you. I'm the doctor. I pulled off to assist, and I can only hope to God I'm not too late. I've already called for an ambulance. This man is going to Central Receiving. Go on now, get going, before I call for a COPter."

"Uh, your ambulance is close by, is it?"

The doctor fumbled with his stethoscope and shook it at Jesse. It flopped like a serpent. Impatient and indignant, he strode up to Jesse and almost struck him across the face with it.

Jaime looked down at his fingernails.

"Under the laws of the State of California I can have you arrested," threatened the doctor. "You realize that?"

"Don't know what you're getting at," said Jesse cordially. "Mr. Sandoval here and I were just returning from a two-car call on the Ventura Freeway and —»

"Not only your license to buy and sell," continued the doctor, "but my own license to practice. Oh, I know your game, all right. I know how you independents operate. I wasn't born yesterday. Moving in like vultures when you spot a quick touch, taking what you want with or without authorization, selling your wares to anyone fool or desperate enough not to ask questions! I'm going to call in a complaint right now." He turned and headed for the red phone box on the rail. "What's the number on your van?"

Jaime, facing backwards, touched his partner's arm. "Hey, Jesse, maybe we better…"

Just then an undulating wail, unnoticed till now, increased to an ear-splitting level and an ambulance, long and shiny with Day-Glow lights flashing, screeched up the connecting ramp. Its doors and tailgate flung open and a stretcher touched down before it had stopped. Two antiseptic attendants sprang down and snapped back a side panel. A new portable vacutrans unit gleamed at the ready. They lugged it out and headed for the wreck.

Jaime looked at Jesse.

"Jeezus H. Christ," said Jesse. "Looks like the sons of bitches beat us out again." He ran his stubby fingers through his short, oily black hair. "Come on, kid," he muttered. "Let's get out of here. We're wasting time."

"Do you think the van'U start now?"

Jesse whistled two descending notes. "Get in," he said.

Jaime got in. He ground the starter again and again.

"Come on, come on," growled Jesse. He climbed in and struggled with the engine cover between the seats. "I think I hear something. Let's go. Piss on it. God damn, I'll get it going."

He yanked his smock up under his arms. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway already. Jaime saw the wide segmented plastic belt hanging over Jesse's belly and swallowed his surprise. He watched Jesse unhook the belt, position it above the overheated fuel pump and pull the stopper. Amber liquid poured down over the metal, steaming, until the reservoir was empty. Jaime stuck his head out the window and took a breath.

A whirring sound began in his ear. He moved his hand to brush it away. Then he noticed the COPter dipping low. The policeman touched down on the other side of the compactor.

"Hey," suggested Jaime.

"Don't tell me."

The policeman lowered his arm, stopped the whirling blades and folded them back into the nightstick. He went to the wrecked vehicle first.

"That'll cool her down," grunted Jesse, fastening the empty belt and covering it again with his clothing.

Jaime floored the accelerator and twisted the key. The engine turned over and caught.

"Tromp on it," said Jesse.

They cut away from the freeway, slipped back onto the Harbor at Eighth and connected with the Santa Monica. The traffic smoothed out a little. They passed an empty Chinese GT buckled against the Adams off, an overturned milk tanker covered with flies in the center lane at La Brea, an impossible-looking two-car head-on at the Robertson on-ramp, five or six stalled cars on or near the next few crashpads at quarter-mile intervals and a grotesque four-car pileup smeared across as many lanes just before Washington. Jaime slowed, but Jesse pointed at the two independent units already converging on the scene; it wasn't worth their time. Above it all, lacing the sky in a dense crosshatching, were the circling COPters, officers of the law hand-strapped to their spinning, humming nightsticks, about to drop in a black swarm.

"I thought he was gonna stop us back there."

"What? Aw, they know their job. They can't hassle a unit doing legal business at an accident."

"Good thing we got started, anyway," said Jaime. "The fine for a breakdown on —»

"The bastards."

The van roared on.

"I think it's about six, Jesse."

"Don't rub it in. But we can't go back yet. I got a wife and kid to feed."

"I guess I'm lucky," said Jaime.

"My kid, she ain't got a tooth in her head. My wife made one big mistake, that's for sure."

They passed the LAST SANTA MONICA EXIT sign.

"She loses a tooth, my wife tells her to put it under her pillow for the fairy. Some fairy. I leave her a quarter. Next thing you know, she's pullin' out teeth to get more money. I can't afford to give her no allowance. She's a good kid, real smart, she understands — business is tough. But this fairy shit. I don't have the heart to tell her. So pretty soon she's got no more teeth. Whadaya think of that? Take this street here."

They prowled the blocks off Lincoln, Jesse calling the turns, and found themselves eventually on Navy. Jesse dipped his head, scanning the small houses and narrow corners in the protracted twilight.

"This is more like it," he said.

They hung a left and steered on deeper into a disintegrating neighborhood. Jaime felt tense. Once they passed an automatic patrol; Jaime straightened his arm to wave, caught himself when he heard Jesse snicker, and pretended to adjust the side-view mirror instead. He had to remind himself that nothing more than a TV scanner swept the passing streets from behind the aluminized windows. Jaime felt a familiar fear throbbing low in his back.

"Turn here," ordered Jesse. The tips of his fingers rubbed together.

"Here?"

"Yeah. I can feel it. Can't you?"

Jaime started to shrug, stopped. "I'm… not sure," he said.

Halfway along the short block, parked at an odd angle, was an old sedan. Years of unrepaired dents trimmed the body, a few half-heartedly pounded out and coated with fading primer, the edges of the dents now rusted in permanently. A shadow moved to one side within the car and a dark shape shifted by the open passenger door.

"Well, well," said Jesse, "let's see what we got here."

The van cut its lights, passed slowly.

"We got one," announced Jesse.

They pulled up in front of the car.

Jesse studied the rearview mirror. "All right, boy," he said. "Let me do the talking." He jerked open his door and lumbered to the curb.

"Hello, good evening. Any trouble here?"

A woman stood up uncertainly. Jaime saw her; something stirred in him. "Why, uh, ye-es," she said, eyeing them, their van. Then, relieved into a decision: "Can you help me, please?"

Jesse grew bolder. "Let's just see what the trouble is here." He spoke with authority. "Stand aside," he ordered.

Jaime edged out and watched by the van. His senior partner certainly knew his job — there was no doubt about that now — and he tried to listen to catch a few pointers.

". Just went out of control," she was saying. It was hard to hear. Two little faces studied Jaime from the window. She went on explaining how her husband had lost control of the car. "Just keeled over" were the words she used over and over.

"Get the litter," yelled Jesse.

The young man swung open the back panel and brought the water litter, flipping on the heater in the handle. An overweight man in a metallic green suit was sprawled on the front seat. They turned his legs and Jesse cradled his head, not too carefully, thought Jaime, as they hauled him out. His hat with the fishing lure in the band fell into the gutter.

"You going to be all right," the woman said over the man. "Oooh.»

They wheeled the litter to the van. The water pad slogged and gurgled under the body. Jesse pulled a lever and the tailgate lifted them inside.

Jesse strapped an electrode plate over the chest. He clicked on the diagnostic scanner and checked the dials hurriedly, preoccupied. The man groaned and the respiration dial wavered.

"He all right? Isn't he?" the woman called in a high voice from outside.

Jesse shot a look at the young man. It pressed him hard, relentlessly, and Jaime felt himself shrinking in his clothes.

With a grunt Jesse stumbled out and walked ominously to the car. He clasped his hands at his back and lowered his head.

Jaime heard him say, "Your husband — he is your husband, right?"

"Yes sir, we just…"

"Well, your husband is dead. At the present time."

She protested, then raged, then wailed, but Jesse talked her

through it. At last she nearly collapsed against the car. Jaime had seen it before. Only this time the sequence wasn't right. He was confused.

"Well, do something, please! Oh sweet Lord!"

"I think we caught him in time," said Jesse. "But if we had put him in suspension just a few minutes earlier —»

"Oh, Lord, Lord.!"

"I can try, that's all I can do. Uh, I'll need your card."

The woman opened the car door and practically fell inside. One of the children started crying. She dumped out her handbag and clawed through the contents.

Jesse took the credit plate from her. "We'll be right with you," he said. "I wish I could make you a firm promise. But we'll do our best," he added, almost cheerfully.

Back in the van, Jesse snapped his fingers. "Run a thermal on him," he barked.

"Jesse, why did you say he was dead?"

"Talk later! Get on the stick! We don't want no interference to drive up."

Jaime turned on the thermal table and watched the scope nervously as the shapes of organs wavered into bright color focus on the analyzer. The lungs expanded, shrank, the heart hesitated, swelled, pulsed feebly. Most of the colors were right. But streaming heat outlines of the wrong color clotted the pulmonary artery. The victim, his body a rising, straining knot, labored through congested membranes for breath.

Jesse took out a syringe.

"Give him this, quick. I don't want him to check out ahead of time. Or we'll have to work mighty fast. He isn't even in suspension. It's a massive coronary, looks like." He riffled the plastic overleaves of the anatomy directory, found the page. "Yeah. What's it matter? He's gone anyway."

"What won't matter, Jesse?" asked the young man, slipping the needle under a pinch of ashen skin.

"You're about to leam a lesson, boy. A big one."

He bounced around the interior of the van, flicking on the vacutract unit, turning on the UV in the body dome overhead, checking the temperature on the storage compartment, cursing when he snagged his jagged thumbnail on his smock. He switched on the autoclave and dared it to heat fast enough.

He hovered, his belly hanging over the edge of the table.

"No dice. Adrenalin's not enough, eh? Good, fine, I don't care." "Jesse?"

"Wha-at. Get his clothes off."

Jaime wanted to ask what they were doing. How they could operate without a certificate of death from a doctor or a requisition for parts from a regular ambulance unit. Wanted to know if Jesse was worried about their license to extract and sell. Wanted to know why — but he understood why Jesse had said the man was dead already now as the plastic blimp descended from the roof and suctioned onto the body like a leech. It was too late, anyway. The laser knife made its first incision.

"Sure, Jesse. I got it."

The autowaldoes whispered in unison, almost with anticipation under the bubble. At the first stroke came a cry from outside the van as the wife fell in despair. At the same instant a bubbling groan came from the man on the table. Then the last breath whistled out of him like air from a shriveling balloon. Jesse punched a pattern for kidneys, spleen, gall bladder, pancreas, for nearly everything but the overtasked heart. And the liver. "Damn liver," he mumbled disgustedly. "He was a boozer, the lousy — " The stainless steel pincers poised and peeled back layers and lifted and groped, severed and sutured and weighed, calipered and deposited the organs in the vacuum tube to the nitrogen bank and then finished up neatly with a muffled sucking sound. The scissor-point fingers suspended over the corpse, flashing and switching for a moment, and then retracted. The body was left gutted.

Jaime tried to say something.

"Don't mean a thing, kid. He's garbage now."

Jaime heard the sound of a car passing far away, a bird on the wires outside, the racing of his own heart. He didn't know anything to say.

His partner pulled a body envelope out of the 'clave, wrapped the body, sealed it with the sealing iron. Seconds, minutes passed but Jaime could think of nothing to say.

He saw Jesse wheel the litter to the tailgate, press the button to lower it, climb out and push it to the old car. The woman screamed. She seemed to lose her mind when she saw it. Jesse struggled with her until he could inject her with a tranquilizer. She slumped into the car. He tossed the credit plate in after her.

Then he put the bag by the lamppost on the cracked sidewalk. The bulb was burned out but Jaime saw clearly the formless encapsulated remains like a giant slug caught on the cement. He saw the two little black faces staring and crying. The children were jumping up and down on the car seat now. They kept their fingers in their mouths; spittle ran down their dark wrists, leaving their cold fingers glistening. Tears streamed alongside their flat noses, shining them, and their brown eyes wavered and glittered like jewels. When Jesse started toward them with needles Jaime called out. Tried to call out. His throat was a single dry, painful muscle. He bit down until his jaws hurt. Their eyes were looking at him.

Jesse headed back to the van.

"Get out! Up front! We're not clear yet."

Jaime moved but not fast enough. Jesse grabbed him by the smock and flung him toward the cab. "Start it up. Start it!"

Jesse took over. He stuffed Jaime into the front seat and gunned the engine. His ferret eyes darted about the empty street. "We got to make this look right." He slammed into reverse, drew back, shifted into first and pulled up to the tail of the car. Then he locked against the car and rammed it forward into the lamppost. There was a grinding and buckling of metal and a splintering of glass. A piece of the lamp hit the top of the car, rolled off and shattered on the street into a million unrepairable fragments.

On the way back, Jesse would not stop talking.

"That coon'll never find out who we were," he was saying. "Just like we used to do it in 'Nam. The first 'tract and 'trans units came in while I was over there. We used to keep the ARVN forces up with transes from the body count. 'Got to keep the war machine running!' they told us. Then there wasn't enough. We finally had to get into our own casualties. The NCOs told us to get what we needed off our own. They wouldn't let us take nothing off the whites. We got some of the brown brothers together and made sure ours got left alone. We had to look somewhere. Most of the civilians, the gooks, were too small. Women, kids. So we came down on the nigger bodies. We made sure there were always enough of 'em. Then they started transing stateside. Right away there were too many patients, not enough donors. I coulda told 'em that was gonna happen. So when we got on the outs we went into business, me and Raoul. We wasn't the only ones. There are plenty of units like us. Sure, plenty now."

Jesse settled back, moving his belly behind the wheel. "Whatsamatter, kid? We made a good hit." He patted the thermostat. "We'll sell 'em tomorrow. Or the next day. Don't worry."

They squealed around a corner and headed up the long gray ramp to the freeway. They passed a collision but two independent units were wheeled into place next to it already, the two drivers haggling over the rights. Jaime saw a fist pounding the air.

"Me, now I got something to worry about." Jesse yanked the drainage belt loose under his smock. "Damn pisser. Gotta get me some new kidneys. You ever have a tube runnin' up your dick? I'll get 'em, though. That's for sure. Long as it's not off no damn spade."

They sped past accident after accident, metal and chrome and flesh spattered over and over again across lanes for miles, as if part of the same accident. And always the vans moving in from all directions, cutting across dividers, heading against the traffic, closing in.

"I need a lotta stuff, just for myself." Jesse bit fiercely at his torn thumbnail. "Old ticker won't hold up forever. Not to mention the rest of me. Get pains in the middle of the night, you know?"

He turned his head on the thick stalk of his neck.

He glanced across at Jaime. His eyes roamed over Jaime's thin body, the strong young muscles, the firm abdomen. He smiled, a crack splitting his cruel brown face.

Jaime was hypnotized by the passing lights. His eyes focused on the sideview mirror outside the door. He saw that his jaw hung slack, his mouth half open as if to speak, as it had been for mile after endless mile. He saw the white, sharp, strong teeth, good teeth, the kind anyone would be proud to own. He sat gripping the religious medal around his neck, so tightly it burned his hand.

"Don't let it get to you, kid. It's that damn smog. It's worse'n a sacka onions." He slid his fleshy hands down to the bottom of the steering wheel. "But it's all in a day's work, I guess. Be home with my wife an' kid in a few more minutes.

Welcome to the Company, Jaime. We need somebody like you. Believe me." When he heard no answer he said,''That is your name, right? Jaime?"

But Jaime did not hear him. He was back on the dark street, waiting, but she would not stop. She would not stop screaming.