Chapter 9

“Markus Peterman?”

“I’m Mark. And you are?”

“FBI Special Agent Adeline Chennault. Can we talk for a moment?”

Markus looked concerned for a moment, so much so that Chennault shook her head.

“You are not in trouble, nor is anyone you know. This is not that kind of visit.”

“Okay. What can I help you with?”

“Let’s step over here, where we can talk privately,” Chennault said, motioning to a small conference room with a door that could be closed for privacy.

“First, can you please sign this non-disclosure agreement? What I am about to discuss with you cannot be talked about with anyone else after we are done, unless you are told by the FBI that someone is cleared.”

“What’s in this for me?”

“We have a special task for someone, and they will be paid a one-time fee for services of one hundred thousand dollars, which will be tax free at the federal and state levels. But we require absolute secrecy for a minimum of two months (and possibly as long as a year) concerning what would be done, and the context around it.”

“Wow! Who do you need me to kill?” He meant it as a joke, but it fell flat on the humorless FBI agent.

“Sorry, Mr. Peterman, but I can’t discuss this without a signed NDA. Will you sign, please?”

“Sure. Let me read it to understand what I am signing.”

Adeline watched as Peterman read through the five-page document carefully. It had been a long week. She had met with nearly twenty different slaughterhouse workers since Monday. Today was probably her last opportunity to find someone before the weekend sent everyone home, when people became much harder to track down. Not that that would stop her. She would find people wherever they were. This was a top priority assignment for everyone involved.

This was a smaller, boutique-style slaughterhouse, specializing in kosher and halal work for the local religious communities nearby. She was hopeful that she would find what her bosses were looking for here, but the first two had been really turned off by the whole thing. After making sure that they understood not to talk to anyone about the subject they had just been presented, they were sent on their way with a bonus of five hundred dollars in cash as a thank you for their time, and an encouragement to follow the rules.

Her thoughts came back to the present moment as Markus signed and pushed the contract across to her.

“Okay, what does the government want so badly that they are willing to pay someone a hundred grand for?”

“We want you to kill a person on film.”

“Ugh! Seriously? Trying to send a message to someone?” Well, that was hopeful, she thought. He didn’t immediately turn white as a sheet, or green and nauseous and look like he was going to present his lunch for inspection.

“Not exactly. If you agree to this, you will have to have a psychological evaluation to make sure you are not suffering from a personality disorder, and a full background check to prevent us from hiring a violent convict who would enjoy this. This will need to be done with compassion and care, and as gently as possible.”

“You want me to kill someone gently? How exactly does that work?”

Adeline presented the entire situation to Markus, or Mark as he asked to be called, while he sat back silently. His emotions seemed to run the full gamut of what she had experienced the first time she had been told about the coming famine and the three options on how to respond to it.

By the time she got through option two, killing seventeen percent of all females of childbearing age, he was shaking his head.

“Okay, I find that option, option two, to be horrifically bad. To me it is about as bad as option one, doing nothing. I know there are a lot more women running around compared to men, but in no way do I, a straight, red-blooded American male, find them to be redundant or excessive. Everyone has value, everyone is a precious soul that needs to be loved and respected. I have been wondering what was going to happen because of the birth rate disparity. It sounds like some people much smarter than me have figured this out already. Shit, this is bad. You said there is a third option?”

“Yes. The third option is to trim the birth rate curve back. If we start now, we can curve it back to prevent our population from outstripping our food supply. And the third option involves the slaughter and butchering of one percent of females of child-bearing age with the intent of adding that meat to the food supply to feed more people.”

Adeline gave him a few moments to think about what he had just heard, waiting patiently for him to work through it. So far, this was the most promising contact she’d had yet. He seemed to be thinking it through logically. She hoped.

“So, the government must be building some kind of documentary to present this to the population. That’s why you need someone to do this.”

Adeline nodded. “You figured it out. It’s not actually a factual documentary being produced. Think of it more as a dystopian drama.”

“The problem is that it is illegal to intentionally kill someone, even if the FBI does it. How does that work?” Markus definitely was thinking this through if he asked that question. None of the others had even gotten that far. Her hopes went up another notch.

“Federal and state pardons signed in advance by the President and the governor of the state where it will take place, pre-filed with the Department of Justice and with no expiration date, just in case someone decides to not believe the documentation or the orders from the Attorney General. The Supreme Court has weighed in on this already, and has agreed to issue orders preventing arrest, prosecution, and any other legal action, backed up by the U.S. Marshal’s service.”

“Okay...” He thought for a while longer.

“I am not sure I would want people to know who did this. Is there an answer to that?”

Adeline was starting to think that Markus Peterman would actually be willing to do this.

“We would use the very best Hollywood special effects to obscure your identity. Do you have any tattoos on your arms or hands? We would be removing or adding tattoos, and completely remapping your facial bone structure, hair color, and eye position and color, as well as your height, weight, and build to make sure that not even current Federal law enforcement facial recognition systems will be able to identify you.”

“I would want to see an example of this in action to make sure that I am covered and protected.”

“So, you’ll do it?” She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. “You will have to undergo a complete psyche eval and background check to make sure we aren’t enabling a serial killer or something.”

“Possibly. I’m fine with you checking into me. I want to know who the victim is going to be. I need to know that this is not some vendetta by the FBI or someone else in the government, or something similar.”

“Why do you want to know them?”

“I think it is only right. I can’t just kill some random person who isn’t trying to harm someone else. If this is for some greater cause, I need to know what that is, how they fit into it, if they are volunteering, all that jazz.”

“Fair enough. Are you onboard? We can’t have you back out from this once you start. Are you one hundred percent sure you are going to go through this, no matter what?” She asked him, an intensity in her voice and demeanor.

He closed his eyes in thought for almost four minutes, then nodded.

“If what you are telling me is true, we are going to end up down this path no matter what. The legislation you talked about will make this legal eventually, and it will be what the country will be doing. That means that eventually there will be a need for people to work in that industry. Might as well get out in front of it now. Yes, I am fully onboard.”

“Let me make a few calls. Can you step out and wait outside without listening in, please?”

“Sure.” The door closed behind him, and Adeline was on the phone in an instant.

“Boss, I got one. He asked all the right questions. He even wants to know the ‘victim’, as he called her. He seems to be stable and level-headed.”

“Yes, I got him to sign the NDA, and told him about the famine and the three options. He was as appalled as I was about the second one, almost as much as he was about the first. He understands what we are trying to accomplish.”

“Okay, I will get him in motion to meet with the shrink and get the eval process started. Should have something for you in six hours.”

“I try. Thanks.”

Adeline opened the door, looked around, and spotted Markus atanding against the wall a little way away and looking at the door. When he saw her, he walked back to where she was and came in, closing the door behind him.

“You have to sign some stuff. Here...”

Twenty minutes later, Adeline was escorting Markus up to the front of the admin office attached to the slaughterhouse where he worked, to have a quick conversation with his Anton Williams, Markus’s boss.

After a somewhat awkward conversation in which Adeline convinced Anton that Markus was certainly not in any trouble, but that he was being asked to be involved in an investigation in another state that was heavily classified (it felt super thin to Adeline, but she had to work with what she was given), Markus left with the FBI Special Agent with his job secure.

Eight hours later, at almost nine o’clock that night, Adeline put in another call to her boss, telling them they had their man for the project, and that they were in the air on their way to the location of the film shoot.

The next morning, Markus was escorted to a small conference room that was heavily sound insulated and richly appointed. He was sitting there for no more than five minutes when the door opened, and the most beautiful girl in the world walked in with a smile on her face. He quickly stood in shock, then reached out his hand when she offered hers for a handshake.

“Hi, I’m Amanda. Sharra said your name is Markus?”

“Oh my god! You’re Amanda Mickelson!” His mind was whirling as it tried to process the beauty of the young superstar across the table from him.

“I mean, yes, I’m Markus. Friends call me Mark or Markie.”

She laughed, a light, bubbly sound that made him blush in wonder.

“I think if it’s all right I’ll call you Mark, okay?”

“Sure. Mark is good.” He almost slapped himself. ‘Stop babbling, you fucking idiot! Maybe she’ll have dinner with you! Or a date or something!’

“So, good flight in?” Amanda started out the small talk, to try to get him to calm down. It took nearly twenty minutes before his pulse seemed to get back below one hundred, and he took a deep breath as he felt himself level off again.

“Sorry about that earlier. I just haven’t met anyone famous before, and you are incredibly beautiful. Then again, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “I’ve heard that once or twice.”

Then her face got a little more serious, and the smile dimmed somewhat.

“So, Mark, you know why you’re here, right?”

“Yeah. I have agreed to slaughter and butcher someone. They explained the reasons to me, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I mean, this is a life we are talking about. It should mean something. To just wipe it away seems so callous.”

She nodded seriously, but didn’t say anything, and he continued.

“Then again, if what they are saying is true, we are going to be facing a lot of this soon. The coming famine will do a lot of damage to everything and everyone and doing nothing will turn us all into cannibals anyways.”

“Yeah, I read that as well. That will suck.” She was silent for a while as they just looked at each other.

“So, I had asked to meet the person I am going to be expected to do this to. Do you know when that will happen?”

“Let me tell you about what we have been working on here first. That will probably help you out before they are introduced to you. And let me assure you, they volunteered for this. There are reasons for that. But that will become clear to you as I fill you in on this.”

“Okay.”

For the next twenty-five minutes, Amanda filled Markus in on everything that was happening around the film, including what they were doing, why they were doing it, how they were doing it, and so on. Eventually, the Kara character was explained, and how she was being portrayed. The similarities to Yin Xiulan were explained as well, and the video clip of Xiulan being terminated and butchered was shown on the huge flat screen monitor on one wall, which Markus watched with considerable interest and more than a little gastronomic unease.

At one point, Markus stopped the playback to comment.

“Wow, that entire corner of the room must have been custom built for just that purpose. The shelves, the tiles, the recessed floor with the drain, the overhead mechanism to move the body to the cart after term and bleed-out. Even the hose and sprayer. All of it was well thought out in advance. That couldn’t have been the first time they did that.”