Read After the Red Rain for Free Online

snatch it back. If she could get it back onto the belt quickly enough, no one would—
    The belt ground to a halt.
Oh, great.
An annoyed groan ascended from the workers on the line. Their ration count depended on productivity, and while an unscheduled break wasn’t the worst thing, it meant less ration with each passing moment.
    Deedra’s cheeks flamed. She’d never, not even once, been responsible for the line stopping. The anger and frustration she’d felt at others in the past now doubled back on her as shame. She couldn’t even look up. Dr. Dimbali edged away from her.
    And then she heard it.
    A great, banging
Clong!
reverberated throughout the entire factory.
    Her spine stiffened. No. This couldn’t be happening. It was her first time stopping the line! No one was punished for a first infraction!
    Beside her, Lissa drew in a deep, sharp breath.
    Clong!
It resounded again, ringing out loud and clear over the background noise of hundreds of feet shuffling, of the sound of tools shifting from hand to hand to holster. She turned—everyone else did, too—to see four figures striding across the factory floor, each carrying a long, heavy metal pipe. As she watched, the smallest of the four reared back and smote the concrete floor with his pipe.
Clong!
    “Listen up!” he shouted into the clanging echo. “Listen the hell up!”
    The Bang Boys were on the floor.
    Jaron Ludo’s four lieutenants. Enforcers, more like. They projected his will from above. Deedra froze in place. She’d seen the Bang Boys “explain” a finer point of L-Twelve protocol to a recalcitrant worker before. They weren’t just called the Bang Boys because of their penchant for banging their pipes against the floor to announce their arrival. They banged on flesh, too, when needed.
    First infraction. How could they punish her for her first infraction?
    The smallest one—Lio Delfour—stood a couple of paces before the others, grinning. Lio was always grinning. She’d heard that one time Lio had accidentally caught his thumb in a door and had kept grinning the whole time, despite the pain. Today he wore an old army throwaway camo jacket patterned in white and gray, a relic of some relative who’d fought in Antarctica.
    “Hustle up and form up!” Lio shouted, then banged again for good measure.
    Everyone on the floor rushed to fall into line, arranging themselves into rank and file on the factory floor. Deedra and Lissa ended up at the front of the pack, right where Deedra didn’t want to be.
    But Lio wasn’t looking at her. He didn’t even seem to be looking
for
her. He kept up his insane grin as he watched the workers form ranks, turning at one point to say something to Hart Graenger, who stood just behind him. Hart chuckled and passed it along to Rik Aarin, who shook his head and laughed, then passed it along to Kent Massgrove. Kent stood behind them all, arms crossed over his chest, glaring down at everyone and everything from his towering six-foot-five-inch vantage point.
    Kent’s expression didn’t change a whit when Rik whispered to him.
    L-Twelve fell silent, save for the background hiss of the air scrubbers. Deedra waited to be called out of line and reprimanded.
    Instead, Lio pointed up with his pipe. Along with the others,Deedra craned her neck to look up, where Jaron Ludo stood on one of the catwalks.
    “Thanks for your attention, everyone,” he called, his voice echoing. “We have an announcement. We need to go on a materials run.”
    A muted groan rippled through the crowd, hushing almost as soon as it began. A materials run was basically scavenging for the factory instead of for yourself.
So that’s why they’d stopped the belt.
Deedra couldn’t believe her luck. Most people didn’t want to bother with a run—factory work was easier and safer, after all.
    “We’re looking for forty volunteers,” Jaron called. “Volunteers will ration out at a hundred and fifty percent.”
    Lio banged the pipe for attention and