already knew about McCade and simply didn’t care. McCade’s company provided a lot of food for the High Queen’s campaigns, and McCade himself was friends with Duke Tamirlas and several other high Elven nobles. A man like him would have privileges that an ordinary subject of the High Queen would not, and if I stole the tablet, the Inquisition and Homeland Security might actually help him get it back.
No. Better to make the tablet disappear without any explanation.
I finished vacuuming the library and rejoined the rest of the crew in the courtyard. We did a quick turndown of McCade’s guest rooms, and then trooped back down to the utility garage. The security men checked us over one last time to make sure we hadn’t absconded with anything valuable, returned our phones, and bid us good day. We climbed back into the van and drove off. Most of the other workers focused upon their phones, checking their emails and messages, and few others leaned back and went to sleep. I looked out the van’s back windows, watching McCade’s mansion recede behind us, Lake Michigan like a sheet of rippled gray steel in the distance.
So I saw the man standing on the sidewalk, staring at the van.
He looked unremarkable – white, somewhere between thirty and forty, wearing athletic shoes, old jeans, a baggy hooded sweatshirt, and sunglasses. They were big sunglasses and not a bit stylish, the kind of sunglasses old people wore when they drove into the sun. Because of them, I couldn’t get a good look at his face.
But I was certain, absolutely certain, that he was scowling at the van.
That didn’t have to mean anything significant. Maybe he had used to work for EZClean Cleaners and had gotten fired. Maybe his ex-girlfriend was in the van. Maybe the van had almost hit him – I had noticed the crew boss sometimes exhibited an alarming indifference to pedestrians.
Or maybe he had noticed me looking around the mansion.
It was unlikely, but in my line of work a little paranoia is a good thing, so I memorized his features as best as I could.
###
My appointment, as it happened, was on Punishment Day.
Punishment Day happened once a week. In pre-Conquest days, criminals had been thrown into hellish prisons for decades, left to torture each other while the guards ignored them or actively participated. The High Queen took a different approach to disciplining her subjects, and the judges at the county, state, and federal levels carried out her will. Minor crimes received fines ranging from light to steep. Moderate crimes received public floggings, from twenty lashes to two hundred, sometimes accompanied by additional fines. Capital crimes were punished by death, whether by hanging or beheading. Those who could not afford their fines were sold into slavery, whether to an Elven noble or to one of the High Queen’s work gangs.
Every single punishment was recorded, and on Punishment Day, Homeland Security released the week’s videos on the Internet, to inspire the High Queen’s subjects to greater virtue by watching the shame of those who had broken the law.
When I got on the bus, most of the other passengers were hunched over their phones, watching this week’s crop of punishments. The most popular video this week was of an overweight nineteen-year-old boy from Oregon, the son of a state legislator who had insulted an Elven noble. For the crime of elfophobia, he had been sentenced to sixty lashes. His high-pitched, keening screams as he was tied to the post and flogged to unconsciousness sounded like a terrified little girl, and social media erupted with mockery and derision.
God, but I hated Punishment Day.
I knew I might be the one screaming with terror and agony in one of those videos someday, that I might have even worse in store for me. The thought of being that powerless made my stomach twist…and I didn’t have that much power to start. I looked at the other passengers on the bus, some of them laughing
No. Better to make the tablet disappear without any explanation.
I finished vacuuming the library and rejoined the rest of the crew in the courtyard. We did a quick turndown of McCade’s guest rooms, and then trooped back down to the utility garage. The security men checked us over one last time to make sure we hadn’t absconded with anything valuable, returned our phones, and bid us good day. We climbed back into the van and drove off. Most of the other workers focused upon their phones, checking their emails and messages, and few others leaned back and went to sleep. I looked out the van’s back windows, watching McCade’s mansion recede behind us, Lake Michigan like a sheet of rippled gray steel in the distance.
So I saw the man standing on the sidewalk, staring at the van.
He looked unremarkable – white, somewhere between thirty and forty, wearing athletic shoes, old jeans, a baggy hooded sweatshirt, and sunglasses. They were big sunglasses and not a bit stylish, the kind of sunglasses old people wore when they drove into the sun. Because of them, I couldn’t get a good look at his face.
But I was certain, absolutely certain, that he was scowling at the van.
That didn’t have to mean anything significant. Maybe he had used to work for EZClean Cleaners and had gotten fired. Maybe his ex-girlfriend was in the van. Maybe the van had almost hit him – I had noticed the crew boss sometimes exhibited an alarming indifference to pedestrians.
Or maybe he had noticed me looking around the mansion.
It was unlikely, but in my line of work a little paranoia is a good thing, so I memorized his features as best as I could.
###
My appointment, as it happened, was on Punishment Day.
Punishment Day happened once a week. In pre-Conquest days, criminals had been thrown into hellish prisons for decades, left to torture each other while the guards ignored them or actively participated. The High Queen took a different approach to disciplining her subjects, and the judges at the county, state, and federal levels carried out her will. Minor crimes received fines ranging from light to steep. Moderate crimes received public floggings, from twenty lashes to two hundred, sometimes accompanied by additional fines. Capital crimes were punished by death, whether by hanging or beheading. Those who could not afford their fines were sold into slavery, whether to an Elven noble or to one of the High Queen’s work gangs.
Every single punishment was recorded, and on Punishment Day, Homeland Security released the week’s videos on the Internet, to inspire the High Queen’s subjects to greater virtue by watching the shame of those who had broken the law.
When I got on the bus, most of the other passengers were hunched over their phones, watching this week’s crop of punishments. The most popular video this week was of an overweight nineteen-year-old boy from Oregon, the son of a state legislator who had insulted an Elven noble. For the crime of elfophobia, he had been sentenced to sixty lashes. His high-pitched, keening screams as he was tied to the post and flogged to unconsciousness sounded like a terrified little girl, and social media erupted with mockery and derision.
God, but I hated Punishment Day.
I knew I might be the one screaming with terror and agony in one of those videos someday, that I might have even worse in store for me. The thought of being that powerless made my stomach twist…and I didn’t have that much power to start. I looked at the other passengers on the bus, some of them laughing
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