Free This Machine Kills by Steve Liszka

place. How he managed to oversee all these things was a mystery to Taylor, who couldn’t even look after himself and five other men. What made it even more amazing was that Milton was only thirty-seven years old.
       To look at him it was hard to believe the power the man wielded. He was well dressed and good looking in a preppy sort of way with thick brown hair that was just beginning to grey around the sides. His jaw line could have been used to advertise razor blades. Milton held himself well, like a man who knew his own importance and wasn’t afraid of others knowing it either, yet there was something about him that suggested that he wasn’t quite as confident as he liked to appear. Taylor had noticed that he struggled to hold a person’s stare for any length of time and occasionally, when making one of his speeches about how ClearSkies was improving life for everyone he would redden up, as if embarrassed by his own words.
       Maybe it was because after he conceived Triage, many people, particularly those in the Old-Town, had wanted Milton dead. For a while he was public enemy number one, even among some of his peers. He had survived an attempted poisoning and still walked with a slight limp as a result of the car bomb that had killed one of his bodyguards and almost cost him his life. These events however, had taken place in the early days, long before people realised if they played things right they could make a whole lot of money out of the new world they found themselves living in.
       Milton adjusted himself to the form of Mason’s chair before beginning.
       “So Mr Taylor, how are you. It’s been quite some time since we chatted.”
       He spoke confidently but refined in his American accent, like a politician or one of the morons who read the newsbites.
       “Please, call me Taylor. Only the tax man calls me Mr and it makes me nervous.”
       Milton’s beaming smile lit up his face, “Of course, and call me Freddie.”
       Taylor nodded, knowing he never would.
       Milton didn’t have his own office; he would never have had the time to be there. Instead he liked to get out in the field and borrow the space from one of his underlings when it was required, and everyone knew that was only when things were serious.
       He interlocked his fingers and placed his hands on Mason’s table, “So what can you tell me about what happened yesterday?”
    “Not a lot really, we were on patrol, Rogers was taken out, we took them out.”
       Taylor was deliberately obscure in his response. He wanted to know what Milton was fishing for.
       “I read in your report that you interrogated the girl before…” he paused, “before she-”
       “Tried to blow us up,” Taylor interrupted. He could see Milton felt uncomfortable saying it.
      “Precisely. I also read that she mentioned something about the Shepherd to you.”
       As Taylor nodded, Milton’s outlook grew serious,
       “Now I want you to think carefully,” he spoke like he was engaging with a ten-year-old, “was there anything else she said that you may have forgotten to mention in your report? I appreciate this must be difficult for you at such a stressful time. I can only imagine what it must feel like to lose one of your men.”
        Taylor’s hunch had been right. Something was up.
       “Not really sir,” he answered, “the girl just said that he was coming and to be ready for him.”
       “He?”
       “Sorry,” Taylor replied, quickly realising his error, “I just assumed it must be a man.”
       Milton smiled, shaking the mistake off, “Was there anything else?”
       “She did say something, just before she released the grenade.”
        The suited man’s eyes narrowed, “Go on.”
       “She said ‘This machine kills innocence’.”
       “Oh yes,” Milton answered absently, “I read that in your report. Strange choice of words don’t you think?”
      Taylor got the distinct