Chapter 4
Well so much for holding out for a few more reviews. Come on guys give me some feed back! I didn't write this for a while because I forgot where I was going with it but now I remembered so I have to write it before I forget.
The rain poured down and created little streams of red and brown as the blood flowed over the muddy ground. Baird and his small gang of mechanics stood over the gruesome sight of their fallen comrade. They had finally finished the irrigation project along with various other improvements that Baird had entrusted to his not so gifted employees. Baird estimated that the system wouldn't need maintenance for at least half a year and he wasn't going to start and new projects for at least two weeks. It had just started to rain as Baird and the rest of his team were headed home to enjoy the rest of the day and the next day off. Baird was working out the maintenance schedule in his head when they had stumbled onto the gruesome sight.
"Awe man it's Shawn." One of the guys said. Baird knelt down next to the lifeless body. The kid was lying face down in the mud. Baird rolled him onto his back; lifeless blue eyes stared up at the sky. Most likely cause of death, Baird noted the gaping hole in his chest. It was messy; whoever had stabbed him didn't know how to use a knife. So it was safe to say it wasn't some AWOL gear. Baird looked at the shocked faces of his team. They had all been under his watchful eye for the past hour, he would have noticed if any of them had wandered off to murder someone. So that meant that it was either a crazy lunatic, probably stranded, or it was one of the other three mechanics that Baird had sent off on odd jobs around the farm, all of which had just shown up.
Baird shook his head, it wasn't one of them. They wouldn't have stuck around.
"Alright," Baird said standing up, "does anyone know where he lives?"
"I do," William said "He lives with his girl friend over by the river, I'll show you."
Baird nodded, "June, go tell the farmer, he'll arrange for someone to pick up the body. The rest of you go home, let's go Will." There was nothing any of the guys could do. There were laws about touching dead bodies no matter how recent or how well you knew the guy, all in the interest in curbing disease. If Baird was still a gear then he would have been obligated to take care of it. He guessed that was one plus of getting kicked out.
"So what are you going to tell his girl friend" William asked in an attempt to engage his surly boss in conversation. Baird just shrugged.
"Don't you have some company policy on this kind of thing?" He continued.
"Honestly it's never come up." Baird said.
"That's unusual in this day and age."
"Yep," Baird said.
They didn't speak for the rest of the walk. By the end of the task Baird was glad to have William along. The girl friend took it pretty hard and thankfully it was William she wanted to hug it out with. William offered to stay with her and make sure she was ok so that Baird didn't have to. Baird left the house gratefully and headed home, he ran into June along the way.
"It's all taken care of," June informed him. "So who do you think it was?"
"Probably just some stranded trying to make a point that they can do whatever they want wherever they want."
"You don't think it was any of the crew?" Baird gave him a sidelong glance, he wondered if the rest of the crew thought it was one of their own."
"No, I don't, do you?"
"I know those guys pretty well and I don't think it could be any of them, but you can't really know a person these days."
"Anyone in particular?"
"Well," June hesitated Baird arched and eyebrow. "I don't really know that Will guy. I mean it could be just a complete coincidence that he shows up and this happens but there's something unsettling about him." Baird grunted, he hadn't noticed anything off about William and though he didn't make the effort to really get to know any of his employees he usually could tell when someone was crazy. He had actually turned down several people who wanted a job on account of they were completely insane. Still Baird would keep an eye on William.
Baird was somewhat shocked to find a large beat up truck in his driveway.
"Whose is that?" June asked.
"I don't know," Baird replied, "but I have a hunch."
He opened the front door to find Jacob animatedly telling a story to a familiar grey haired woman on whose lap Kaylee was sitting.
"There's granny's boy!" Bernie Mataki said happily when she noticed Baird and June.
"What are you doing here?" Baird said aggravation mixed with surprise.
"That's no way to great your granny." She chided.
"Blow me." Baird said firmly, he stood rigidly just inside the door way, June moved in and introduced himself to the smiling old woman.
"It's good to meet you June, you can call me granny. Why didn't you tell me you finally got around to making me some grandkids? I would have come sooner." She asked Baird.
"I didn't" He growled red faced. June watched with amusement, he had never seen anyone dismantle his boss and mentor like this. Baird's face was red, either from anger or embarrassment June couldn't tell but June had never seen him look so immature.
"Well where ever they came from hopefully they won't grow up to be anything like you but I guess if you're raising them then that's the most likely outcome. That's another thing, I don't think you're really qualified to raise kids; maybe I should have Dom come over and give you some pointers. I think you'll be ok with the boys but this poor little girl doesn't stand and chance, after all you don't know the first thing about women." June, Jacob, and Kaylee were all laughing uproariously and Baird looked like he was about to stab someone. Baird took a deep breath; just ignore her he told himself. How did she even get in here? He wondered. Baird took his own advice as Bernie began telling the kids about some story about him and stalked into the kitchen for a drink. He decided to indulge in a beer. It wasn't that the drink was particularly hard to come by; it was that his clients were reluctant to include it as payment. They didn't want a bunch of drunks messing with their equipment and Baird tended to agree with them.
Realizing that a member of his house seemed to be missing Baird went in search of Amy. First he grabbed another beer out the fridge and wordlessly handed it to Bernie as he walked by.
"Oh, you're such a good boy." She said in thanks, Baird rolled his eyes and said nothing. He checked his room first but it was empty so logically she had to be in the kids' room. He looked but it also appeared to be empty.
"Kaylee!" he called "where…?"
"She's in my room." Kaylee called knowing what he wanted.
"No she isn't." He called.
Kaylee sighed and slid off of her new granny's lap. Perplexed, Bernie followed the little girl into her room.
"Hmmmm" Kaylee looked around then she walked around her bed to a space between it and the window and frowned. Baird moved Kaylee out of the way and crouched down in her place. Amy was curled up with her back against the wall with her arms around her knees. Her face was buried in her knees. Baird sighed, at a loss. Bernie bent over Baird to get a closer look at the girl and sighed too. She quietly ushered Kaylee out of the room and shut the door.
"Alright Baird, what happened?" she asked sitting down on the bed Baird sat down next to her. He told her the whole story from finding her in the ally to the incident in his room. Bernie listened grimly when he was finished she shook her head sadly.
"This isn't good."
"Brilliant deduction captain obvious," Baird muttered sarcastically.
"You don't understand. This could be a lot more than just rape."
Baird nodded solemnly.
"I'll look into it while I'm here, in the mean time, get out."
"Yeah why are you here?" Baird asked standing up
"Cog Business," she replied simply crouching down in front of the girl.
"No I mean why you are here? In my house, how did you find me?"
"Oh it was easy, I just asked if anyone knew of a really obnoxious blond mechanic, they knew you by name."
"How did you get in, the kids aren't suppose to open the door."
"I picked the lock, scared them a bit but I explained everything to them. They're good kids." Baird nodded satisfied and left her with the girl.
Amy looked up into the old lady's face, she smiled kindly at her and Amy felt better.
"Come here honey," Bernie said lifting the girl up onto the bed, "I know what you're going through, I still have flash back some times."
Bernie held the girl comfortingly as she told her own story.
"I hate this." The girl whispered.
"I know, but don't you worry, Baird will take care of you, he's a good boy for the most part and he's fun to irritate." Amy laughed a little.
"Come on, I smell something nice lets go eat." The girl nodded and followed Bernie out of the room.
I'm not sure I like this chapter, but I guess it's ok, I'm not going to update for a while again because I have more pressing matters but hopefully it won't take as long as this update. Also, thanks to gears of war 3 this certain aspects of this story are now incorrect, however I plan to continue as planned despite this.
