The Product Line (Book 1): Product by Ian McCain Page B

Ernie opens the front passenger door and slides into his usual place. A sawed-off shotgun rests against his left leg; it’s mounted in a quick-release holster against the center console. It is a brutish weapon that has never been used, but is kept as a sort of last resort.
    --Claude. How we doing tonight?
    --Fine.
    --Yeah, my day was good too. Got a lot of reading in.
    --That’s nice.
    --Such a conversationalist you are.
    --Thanks, Ernie. Let’s just stay focused.
    The car rolls off into the main road heading north. Tonight they are collecting “volunteers.” It’s Gideon’s perverse moral stance on how the Organization grows its farming numbers, and for nearly a decade it has been the most effective way of rooting out the true scum of the community, the violent opportunists. Ernie has been a valuable component to the recruitment efforts, using his own deep-seated hatred for the gangs in New York.
    The tactics are quite straightforward—entrapment. Two affluent-looking young men in their twenties drive a nice car into a bad neighborhood, where they experience some sort of trouble with their car. It’s overheating. A tire is flat. Whatever. To the outsiders there is simply a problem. Then they wave a little too much money around and ask the youths in clearly identifiable gang colors to help them out.
    The bangers don’t know it, but in reality, it is the most important test they will ever take. Help the young men out and live. Try to harm them and you become one more crop in the Organization’s people farm—or worse, you just end up dead. In the last year Ernie has been on dozens of these recruitments. Only once have they come across a group that was willing to help and didn’t try to rob or kill them in the process. Who knows why the kids helped them. Maybe the rumors of the SUV that takes people have spread around, or as Gideon hoped, they aren’t all bad. Regardless of their reasons, they are currently the only group not to “volunteer.”
    The gang territories are pretty well spread out in the city. Most congregate in areas where there is very limited foot traffic, where the bridges and tunnels come into the city, where the thoroughfares are less traveled. The further north you head on the island, the darker the skin color gets, and the more desperately dangerous the gangs are. Cross over into the Bronx and you are in a totally different place, a concrete jungle, where the bangers can rule with relative impunity.
    Claude picks up his cell phone and makes a call while Ernie looks out at the road passing by. He peeks up at the roof where he witnessed the extraction team chasing something on the rooftops.
    --You been with the Organization for a while, right?
    Claude points to the phone and shakes his head. When the party on the other end picks up he gives a quick order.
    --Stay back a block at least… Uhmm… Yes, you circle by once when we get there. Then wait for the noise.
    Ernie understands the importance of knowing the plan, but it’s always the same, and Nathan knows it just as well as Claude and Ernie—it seems a waste to go over it again. But Claude is not a fan of getting shot. Who would be? So he always double-checks the same orders. Ernie guesses that Nathan just plays along to keep Claude happy.
    As soon as Claude hangs up Ernie chimes in.
    --So what do we do again?
    --Funny.
    --I was saying before, you been with the Organization for a while? You know of any other group of infecteds running around the town? Real organized-like?
    --Why?
    --Cause the Bronx is fucking forever away, and I am making conversation. Seriously, we’re the only show in town, right?
    Claude nods half-heartedly, and in no way convincing Ernie.
    --As far as I am aware.
    --Hmm.
    --Why?
    --Just conversation. So, you going with the confused foreigner thing tonight?
    --What are you talking about? I don’t act confused.
    --OK.
    Ernie reaches for the radio. When he clicks it on it plays the same music that can be heard in the back