The Tartarus Directive

Chapter 3

Griff knew he wouldn't get anywhere with the corporate representatives, so he decided to travel down to D level to see if he could not get any information on the control board from the plant workers. It was nearly five p.m. by the time he had made his way down, and the workers were preparing for the ends of their shifts.

Zhao-Chen's factory floor was smaller than the other two corporations, but relied on the most specialized and skilled workers to operate. The guards at the entrance stopped Griff as he approached, informing him he would need corporate permission or a warrant to enter. Undoubtedly, Lai had foreseen Griff going over her head to dig up information. Griff thanked the guards for their time and disappeared just out of sight.

Manufacturing on the Atlas went on at virtually all times of the day, so Griff waited until the loudspeaker announced the end of the current shift at five and slipped through the doors into the factory with the incoming shift.

The factory floor was organized into a few rows of fabricators and some assembly stations. Zhao-Chen was responsible for making all the high-precision electronics on the ship: computers, telescreens, game devices, communicators--some of the most valuable and most wasteful non-essential products on the ship. This is not to say that entertainment is not a vital component in maintaining order and sanity aboard the ship or even back on Earth, it is merely that such luxuries were expensive not only in credits buy in raw materials which--with the burgeoning population--only became all the more vital for essential functions.

Griff milled about the floor for a while watching the new shift take their places. The workers never questioned the presence of a Security Service officer, they had more important things to worry about like production quotas. Finally, he approached the foreman.

"Markham, Security Service," he introduced himself.

"Ahuja, foreman," the foreman replied.

Ahuja was a portly man of about forty with thinning black hair and light beard.

"Something the matter, officer?" he asked.

"Had any thefts lately?" Griff asked.

"None that I can recall. Why?"

"Nothing really, just a routine inquiry."

"Ah, of course. I understand."

"Which of your people works on the mil-spec fabricator control boards?"

"The ones for M&L?" Ahuja thought for a moment: "Janssen, station number twelve."

Griff thanked Ahuja and went to find Janssen. He walked along the rows, passing unnoticed by the workers already fully engrossed in their work. He arrived at station twelve to find a flustered woman of no more than twenty working erratically at her post.

"Janssen?" Griff asked.

The young woman gave him no more than a glance out the side of her before returning her gaze to the components before her.

"You work on mil-spec fabricator control boards?" Griff pressed on.

"Yeah," she replied.

"You make this one?" Griff placed the control board in front of her.

She again glanced at it quickly and then responded: "No."

"Who did?"

"Browkowski, the bastard," she said almost under her breath.

"How do you know?"

"Are you stupid?" she asked, then paused for a response that didn't come. "The last six digits of the serial number correspond to the first three letters of the name of the technician who assembled it." She pointed to the numbers: "Zero-two: B. Eighteen: R. Fifteen: O."