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blotchy and oily. She rarely wore make-up, especially when she went in late.
    "Did you see the press conference?" he asked.
    She nodded. "I did."
    Janine squeezed his shoulder. He hated when she touched him like that. It was a pat on the shoulder and proud expression and she never really looked at him when she did it. It was so... scripted.
    A melodious tone muffled somewhere. Janine finished clipping her hair and dug through her briefcase as she headed for the doors. "This is Anderson."
    Marcus followed her down the hall, hearing the lawyer-speak that he loved so much—a language of order and righteousness—before turning into the kitchen as she exited the front door. He watched the car back out of the driveway, the headlights swinging across the lawn before fading down the street.
    He returned to the office with another juice and prepared for his nightcap. The kids were asleep. The wife, gone. Still, he drew the curtains closed and locked the doors.
    This moment was forever secret.
     
     
     
     
    7
     
    Cali pulled off to the side of the road. The Center was across the field.
    The Detention and Observation Center.
    She sat twenty minutes north of Carbondale, Illinois, just off highway 51. Once a fertile field that farmers tilled for corn and soybeans, the ground that separated the road from the Detention and Observation Center laid fallow now, giving rise to yellow-flowering weeds and cocklebur. There used to be a community center over there for farmers, a place they could play bingo or drink coffee and talk about the weather. They wrecked it to build a secure building, one for detaining and observing. The farmers' sons put down their plows and took up badges for a steady sip from the government, to protect this land from the 40% biomite-infested redlines.
    This Center was just one of many across the nation. And unless the laws changed or biomite replication was solved, they would become modern day death cubicles. When that day came, overpopulation would not be a problem as M0ther shut off halfskins by the thousands… daily.
    The new age holocaust.
    That’s how Cali saw it. Of course, critics were confident that something would change, surely the human race would evolve, they would solve the replication problem. They wouldn’t allow the mass extermination.
    But those same critics didn’t have a loved one detained and observed. So Cali was a little… jaded.
    She'd been to visit her brother once a week, every week, since they took him. That was six months ago. If she wasn't visiting, she was in the basement.
    Working.
    She'd taken an unpaid leave of absence from the lab. They understood. They didn’t terminate her. She could always come back when she was ready, they told her. When Cali told people she wasn't well, that she needed some time to sort things out, they didn't ask why. Those that knew her gave her all the space she needed.
    Poor thing .
    The Center would see her car parked across the field. Someone would eventually come out. Cali just needed a moment. She came to visit every week, but it wasn't getting easier. The closer she got to this sick and twisted place, the more her hands shook. No one seemed to care that her brother would be dead without biomites.
    Now he’s imprisoned for it.
    There was no justice in this universe. And if there was a God, she'd smack him for meting out such imbalance. The Christians were right, God had to be a man. Who else could make a woman's life hell?
    She fumbled with her purse and tapped out a cigarette. It took a couple clicks of the lighter to get it puffing. She blew a cloud out the window. The mentholated smoke settled her nerves.
    She was used to southern Illinois humidity. Nix was born in Illinois, but Cali grew up in South Carolina and this was mild compared to that. However, she still wasn't accustomed to the flatness. When she drove the country roads, she could see for miles in every direction, like God had scraped the edge of his hand over this part of the world.