They met at a garbage field as usual. It was around eleven in the evening. This time Logan got to the spot before his "date".
-You late. - said Logan noticing a hooded person coming out from a huge garbage pile.
-Look. I don't have much time to talk to you. All I want to say is… no actually I want to ask firsts - a familiar voice was husky and a person across from Logan was breathing heavily.
-What.
-How is she? How is my sister?
-Ellie is fine.
-No names! No fucking names! Fuck! - the guy with a hood on coughed.
-Ok, man! What is going on with you? Are you sick?
-No… but… it worse. So, listen carefully. I got in a big trouble with some guys. I helped them to steal chemicals from our plant.
-From the Zone's chemical plant? - Logan tried to listen but his companion's voice got weaker and weaker.
-Yes. That one. We stole over thirty barrels of chemicals and got them all to the Main Land.
-Main Land?! For whom?
-I never saw an actual customer but we communicated with his assistant or somebody like that. Today was the last shipment. They didn't need more. So we were waiting for our pay and … we got bullets instead.
Only now Logan figured it out. His informant wasn't sick he was shot.
-Cheez! Man! I'll give you a ride to a hospital or … you know I know a doctor he can assist you at his house. We got to go! Hus come on!
-No. Listen. All are dead now I got off but there is no way I … - Hus coughed and grabbed his left side. - I overheard once they were storing this chemicals in the old school on the Main Land. They about to do something with it. We didn't ask questions because we got a good pay for our job but now I think they about to something very bad… there are some sick fucks. A guy named Patrick Wilson he is working on that plant he was opening gates for us but he is just a pussy who agreed to open gates for a right price. You want a good story. That is your good story… expose this theft from a chemical plant and find out who was a buyer of chemicals but don't involve Ellie in it. Those people are dangerous! - he coughed and husked again and again until his legs gave up and Hus crashed on the ground.
-Hey man! - Logan turned the guy and saw his pale face. - Come on! Your sister! Think about … your sister. - but the guy was cold dead.
His shirt was soaked in blood as well as his beard and hoodie and pants. Logan took the phone from a victim's pocket and left. He was all covered in blood, he couldn't believe it was over.
Hussein was Ellie's brother by blood and Logan's brother but only on papers. Logan's father married a second time to a woman with two kids and their names were Hus and Ellie. Later when father died and Logan was off to a college Hussein got into a gang and it was when the zoning started to be a real thing. Logan got his degree in journalism and came back but the place was never the same. The place where he grew up became Zone three and there was no job or housing. Logan tried working on the Main Land and got pretty successful in his field when he learned that his step mother died and Ellie got left alone. He came back to the zone to find out that Hus left the family couple years ago and Ellie was working in the only one grocery store in the zone. Logan made a decision to come back to the zone. He created a news channel for the zone and hired Ellie as his camera woman. He taught her how to use a camera and take good shots. He never told her that Hussein was contacting him from time to time giving him some inside information about crimes and gangs in the zone. The only one thing Hus asked in return was never to tell Ellie about him. Ellie never asked or tried to find her brother but Logan knew she wanted to see him again one day somewhere. He would never tell her what happened this night.
Logan went home and on his way stopped next to a riverfront. Hussein's phone was dead and there was no point to risk and try to charge it so he through it to the water. Later he burned his bloody clothes in an empty barrel in his backyard.
It was time to dig for the truth about the chemical plant and an unknown buyer.