Free Dues of Mortality by Jason Austin Page B

a
code lock then sounded, followed by a click. Beaumont opened the
door, slipped in and closed it behind him.
    Piss-yellow
walls and ugly carpeting stung the senator’s eyes on contact.
Two full-sized beds braced one wall while a television panel was
mounted on the opposite. Beaumont saw a thirtyish man with
slick-backed hair and deep-set eyes sitting on the bed farthest from
the door. The man's back was pressed to the headboard and his legs
were crossed at the ankles. He wore a brand new pair of jeans, a
black T-shirt and a black leather jacket. He looked like someone
who’d spent his formative years watching too many episodes of
Happy Days. The man was
snacking on a block of yellow cheese, shaving off one small slice
after another with a folding knife. Beaumont was about to address
him, until he heard the orgasmic moans oozing from the television.
Its pornographic display consisted of a heterosexual couple engaged
in the human rendition of a two-digit number.
    “ Ross,
I see you're working hard,” Beaumont said.
    “ Ha.
Working 'hard',” Ross laughed. “That's funny.” He
thought it so, not for the obvious erection pun, but because Ross was
never not working. If anything, Beaumont's
insistence of face-time was delaying Ross's plans. The embers of MIT
were still burning and he hadn't intended on hopping the first
red-eye from Boston to Dulles International just to hold Beaumont's
hand. Ross yawned parenthetically in the senator's direction. He then
tapped on the closed fliptop computer sitting next to him on the bed.
“Thanks for the upgrades by the way.”
    “ The
software is updated from the Bureau’s tech sector,”
Beaumont replied. “It should alert you of any attempts to hack
your secured network directly or otherwise and if any such attempts
carry FBI signatures.”
    Ross
lapped another cheese slice. “God, I love this stuff. Natural,
aged, Brunkow cheddar. You know it’s just about the only food
we got left in this country that hasn’t been injected with more
chemicals than a janitor’s mop bucket.” He stuck out his
arm, pointing the bar of cheese at Beaumont. “You want some?”
    “ Don't
pretend this isn't important,” Beaumont snapped. Ross’s
“everything’s cool”, pitch-and-roll made him sick.
“An innocent man was killed for Christ sakes!”
    “ Hey,”
Ross said smoothly. “Calm down, senator.” His steady hand
raised and lowered in the air, the tiny knife’s blade catching
the light.
    “ This
is going to set us back,” Beaumont grouched. “The
biotechs are going to use this as an opportunity to gain sympathy.”
He gesticulated fiercely, his fingertips pressed against one another
like he was addressing a crowd of voters. “How did this even
happen?”
    Ross
refused to answer, instead continuing, to devote his attention at the
pornography on the wall.
    “ This
is ridiculous,” Beaumont said. “Would you turn that off?”
    “ I
don’t see the problem, senator. Everything went off like it was
supposed to.”
    “ What?
Aren’t you listening? No one was supposed to get killed!”
    “ Have
you forgotten who you're talking to?”
    “ That
was different! Thurman was dirt; he was selling classified material
to our enemies! If he'd have been caught he would have been convicted
of treason! And that head researcher at Jenetix knew full well what
he was doing was illegal! For God’s sake, The Pentagon had a
standing order to disavow the son-of-a-bitch if anything he was doing
for them got out!” Beaumont paused. “But that security
guard was just a lowly working stiff! You should have been more
careful!”
    “ Well,
if they want the guy back so bad, I’m sure they can just scrape
up what’s left of him and make another one.”
    Beaumont
look disgusted. “You have no appreciation for this at all, do
you?”
    “ We’ve
been through this before, senator. Shit happens. It’s a
dangerous world and it’s getting worse every day.” Ross
paused, setting the cheese in his lap.