Scallien’s smoky eyelids cut across her inky irises and she folded her arms. “You told Olden this was about the NDA.”
“It’s not. I’m sorry.”
“So you lied. To your employer.” Her mouth spooled into a churlish grin. “To a Patriot board member.”
Willa felt quicksand. “He’s a board member? I didn’t know. He told me he was head of security.”
“Security is a board position at the Company, Ms Wallace. But I am not concerned with Patriot’s organizational tree, I am concerned that you lied to one of its branches.” She flashed a mechanical smile and turned for the door. “Good evening.”
“I’ll be brief!” shot Willa. “I have vital information for the company. I have this!” She held up the lollipop and her breath. Scallien ceased her retreat and tilted her jawbone inquiringly. “Make it quick.”
Willa set the lollipop on the shelf of her stall.
Scallien inspected it, her face twisted with confusion. “Is that the candy Mr Hunter gave to your grandson?”
“Yes,” said Willa, feeling her nerves.
“Why is it here on the counter?” She leaned further. “Why is it open? Did someone begin to eat it already?”
“That was me.”
“Why is it here?”
“Forgive me if I am overprotective. I lost my daughter, and –”
“Make your point.”
Willa poked the candy. “This was made with sugar.”
Scallien smirked, shook her head. “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
“With all due respect, I know what sugar tastes like, ma’am,” said Willa. “Try it yourself.”
“Sugar isn’t harvested, Ms Wallace, and if it was it would be quarantined for radiation.”
“Well, this is sugar. And it’s sitting right here.”
“This is not a conversation I ever envisioned having,” Scallien scoffed. “Shielded agricultural space is reserved for necessary food crops. Sugar is not one of them. Why are you wasting my time with this?”
“Because either you’re handing out radioactive lollipops–”
“I assure you we are not,” Scallien interjected. “Everything goes through the becquerel scanners.”
“OK, great,” said Willa. “Then that means somebody has untainted sugar!”
“You’re going to have to tell me why that matters.”
Willa paused, half wondering if Scallien was just playing dumb. She finally filled the silence, “Molasses is made from sugar.”
“Molasses?”
“It’s how they make sodium citrate, ma’am.”
The air seemed to cool around Scallien as she processed Willa’s point. “I see.” She shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “This is just too rich for me. So you think you tasted sugar in a piece of candy and that means that there must be giant fields of sugar or corn or sorghum out there somewhere that we could use to produce molasses to make anticoagulant?”
“Exactly.”
Scallien laughed. “But that would mean that we’ve chosen not to do so even though an anticoagulant would allow us to fractionate. The thing that is missing from your tortured conspiracy theory is… why? Why would Patriot purposefully avoid fractioning if we could do it? What are you accusing us of, Ms Wallace?”
For the first time in their back and forth, Willa caught a hint of defensiveness in Scallien’s voice. There was something to it. She pressed on softly, “I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing. I’m saying maybe Patriot wasn’t aware of it and I– I’m just bringing it to your attention. If I’m right, Ms. Scallien, it would change everything. The Harvest, the Trade, all of it. Patriot could end so much suffering.”
Scallien didn’t respond at first, and the air seemed to stop moving.
“Wishful thinking is a powerful intoxicant, isn’t it, Ms Wallace? There is no sugar in that candy.”
Willa thought of a question and didn’t mean to voice it aloud. But it came out anyway. “How do you know? I mean – how can you be so certain, just standing there? Are you a sugar expert?”
“I’m in logistics, Willa.”
“But…” Willa said, hesitating and unsure about the decision to wander into a cross-examination of her boss’s boss, “You had no idea I was going to bring up sugar when you came in here and now you seem to know all about it.”
Scallien’s agitation cracked through. “Do you really think Patriot wouldn’t notice if the key to fractionation was growing in a field outside of Alliance?”
“Is that where they’re growing it?” Willa snapped.
Scallien’s eyes burrowed into Willa’s.
“I’m sorry. I was out of line,” Willa said. “I was just concerned that Patriot might be unaware of the… situation.” Her voice trailed off. Scallien assumed a flat expression, but Willa could see a new set of wheels turning.
“OK, alright,” said Scallien in an amicable tone. “Let’s do this: how about I take that for testing, then? If it comes back positive, then we’ll know we have an issue. If not, then we’ll just forget the whole episode. How does that sound?”
It sounded like Scallien wanted the candy. And immediately Willa became acutely aware that it was the only evidence she had to prove the company had sugar. “It’s fine,” Willa said, quickly trying to deescalate. “I’m sure I was just mistaken. I’m getting older, anyhow. Could be that.” She forced a chuckle. When she reached for the candy, Scallien’s hand fell upon her own.
“If you don’t mind,” said the young woman. “We’ll test it. Get you an answer.”
“You can just taste it for yourself, right here, if you want. Surely you recognize sugar.”
Scallien’s grip over Willa’s hand tightened and her smile spread wide. “I’m afraid I don’t like candy.”
“Just taste it,” Willa said.
“Give it to me,” growled Scallien.
“You know I’m right,” said Willa.
“Nonsense.”
“Then why are you trying to take this from me?” The uncanny strength of Scallien’s contracting grip made Willa wince. “Are you trying to steal the proof?”
Scallien wrenched her fingers between Willa’s, ripping the candy away.
“I know what I tasted,” said Willa.
“I’m sure you do.”
“I’ll tell Jesper, then,” said Willa. “He should know. Everyone should know.” She brought up her touchstone only to have Scallien swat it away. It snapped from its lanyard and spun across the floor.
“Ma’am?” Willa said, bewildered.
Scallien dropped the candy into her purse and squeezed the clasp. “You’re not telling anyone anything.”
Claude came in from the back room. “Ms Scallien? Willa?” he said. “Everything good out here?”
“Leave us be, Mr Vergenne. Ms Wallace and I are just having a little policy refresher.”
He considered the touchstone lying on the ground. “Are you sure?”
Scallien cocked her head toward him mechanically.
Claude held up his hands in surrender and returned to the back room.
Scallien took up her own touchstone. “I’ll write to Jesper myself. Tell him everything.”
“Good,” said Willa.
The woman smirked. “Not for you.”
A direct threat for her job. The idea that the woman would threaten her livelihood, something they could take away on a whim – the act of holding that over her head, the humiliation of it – it was all too much. Life had always been a tightrope and the strands were snapping. “Tell him that I know your secret,” said Willa. “Tell him the truth is out.”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling him.”
Willa watched Scallien tap away like she was ordering takeout. “Ask him why Patriot doesn’t fractionate while you’re at it,” she added.
Scallien rolled her eyes.
It wasn’t adding up. In the space of days Willa had been witness to two anomalies that, on the surf
ace at least, seemed unconnected. Yet something about it all made her think they were related. What did a crashed blood drone and sugar in a lollipop have to do with each other? The only thing that they had in common was Patriot’s desire to keep them under wraps. But why? Maybe Scallien would put it together for her. Willa worked up the courage as Scallien typed, then finally got her words out.
“That drone was empty.”
Scallien’s eyes became slits. “What did you say?”
“I’ll bet you they all were,” Willa added for good measure. “That’s why you wanted the NDA.”
“Drones…” said Scallien, working to calm herself in the face of Willa’s accusation, “…drones travel empty all the time for scheduled maintenance.”
“There were eight drones, one from each donor station,” Willa said, “and the one that crashed empty just happened to be the only one traveling for maintenance? That’s a mighty big coincidence, ma’am.”
“Well, it’s the truth. And I am about done with this inquisition.”
“Why pay me off then?”
“Bad PR, obviously,” said Scallien. “News of a drone crash would hurt confidence in the blood supply.”
“Drones crash,” said Willa. “You don’t go paying people off every time that happens, do you?”
“Not unless it happens the weeks before Patrioteer.” She went back to typing. “Think about the optics of a drone crash just as the regional higher-ups are getting to town for the conference.”
“The drones are just for show, aren’t they?” continued Willa. “There’s nothing in any of them.” Speaking so openly was dangerous, but voicing her mind was like taking a deep inhalation of fresh air for the first time in thirty years. She knew better, but the levee was broken.
“You’re in violation of your NDA right now, Ms Wallace.”
“So it’s true then.”
The tiny woman’s body seemed to flex like a coiled snake. “No, it’s not true, but leveling baseless allegations against your employer puts you in violation of your agreement. Section 2, paragraph thirty-six, clause DD, subpart one.”
“Well, then they lied about it on The Patriot Report, Miss Scallien. They reported a full take for SCS, but you and I know that didn’t happen.”
Scallien dropped her chin, leveled her eyes. “Nobody lied on The Patriot Report.”
“Without that drone being full, they did.”
Scallien was resolute. “Nobody. Lied. On The Patriot Report.”
Oddly, Willa began to think the woman was telling the truth. If The Patriot Report was correct, then the blood was going out from distribution another way. “The drones are empty then. All of them. The blood must go out through the speedloop.”
“Fine, Ms Wallace,” Scallien allowed casually. “The drones are decoys, a distraction for would-be poachers to protect the actual transport vector. They also double as a flying advertisement for all the good we bring to the world. Now are you satisfied?” She read something on her touchstone and typed a response. “There. Now you know all the company secrets. I hope you’re happy with the price you’ve paid for them.”
“All the secrets except why you don’t do fractionation.” Why not throw it out there? She was losing her job anyway. “I still don’t understand that one.”
Scallien looked up from her screen and put a slender finger to her lips. “Shhhh.”
It was too much. Rage burnt up from her stomach. “The lowbloods have nothing,” Willa seethed. “You know AB-pos is universal donor for platelets and plasma, right? But they can only donate those if you fractionate. So why aren’t you?”
Scallien didn’t answer.
“I’m AB-positive,” Willa continued. “My daughter was AB-positive.
“So I’m informed.” Scallien said, her tone darkening.
“The Trade killed her.”
“Do you think that makes her special?”
The comment caught Willa blind. “I think she was a person. Just like you.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong, Ms Wallace. She wasn’t just like me. And neither are you.” She stopped typing to twirl a finger in the air. “You lowbloods love to prop up this ludicrous notion that people are inherently equal, when one look around should disabuse you entirely of the proposition. But it’s something to put under your pillow at night, I suppose.”
“It’s how you keep us unequal,” said Willa, making the logical point. “Patriot doesn’t want to fractionate, because it would level the playing field.”
“Playing field? You think we’re on a playing field?” Scallien sneered. “We are in the sky, Ms Wallace, soaring above you, watching while you scrape by to play a game we created, unaware that you can never win. We don’t fractionate, Ms. Wallace, because it doesn’t work.”
“Of course it works!” said Willa, almost jumping out of her shoes. “I did it my whole career before Chrysalis.”
“Not for us,” said Scallien, tapping her breastbone with a finger. “We need whole blood.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” asked Willa. “Almost nobody needs whole blood.”
Scallien sighed. Not a tired sigh or an exasperated sigh. A sigh of relief, of a weight lifted. She glanced back down at her touchstone and then back to Willa. “You’ve been terminated, Ms Wallace.”
“You said ‘we’ need whole blood,” said Willa, sidestepping the fact that she’d just been fired. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
Scallien reached over a glass partition into the stall and scanned her thumbprint. Around the perimeter of the room, the wall cameras drooped. She set her touchstone face down on the counter, then oddly, stepped her feet out of her heels. Such an everyday gesture, but so entirely deliberate and out of place. It was the type of thing friends did to get comfortable before sitting down for a heart-to-heart. Only Scallien didn’t. She came toward Willa, stalking like a jungle cat.
Confused, Willa pushed out from her booth.
Scallien began sawing her jaw back and forth, in the fashion of someone nursing a toothache.
“I said what did you mean by ‘we?’” Willa’s voice was higher with panic, louder from the adrenaline that dumped into her veins.
Scallien moaned, flexing her torso side to side, stretching her ribs. “I mean,” she roared, “We!” Then her mouth fell open, the jawbone having come free of its hinge.
“What the hell?”
Suddenly, Willa was on her back. She reeled in a fog of confusion, imploring her mind to relay what was happening, but it was preoccupied by the primal task of surviving. As if separated from herself, she recalled the scene in which Scallien had screeched and thrown her body into her own with a force that belied her tiny stature.
Detached, Willa watched her hands as they pushed against the ravenous face, and she marveled at the tiny curved needles that had appeared in the woman’s maw. Sweeping down from behind Scallien’s lovely, but normal, white teeth, they glinted gold, pulling taut the tissue at the roof of her mouth like the venom-filled fangs of a cottonmouth.
Time slows down in the face of death – because that’s what this was, Willa’s death. Scallien’s intent was almost tangible, its malevolence distilled and pure like a pungent vapor rising from her skin. After seconds, or even minutes – Willa couldn’t say – the fog of shock began to twine away as if blown from a distance, and Willa returned to her body, emerging into a melee as her mind caught up to real time. The teeth gnashed. The golden barbs stretched long from the root as if reaching for a drink. Willa put an elbow to Scallien’s throat to keep the mouth at bay, but the tiny woman was strong.
Or perhaps Scallien was not a woman, but rather possessing the shape and features of a woman. The fangs, the expression, the gape of her mouth, the wet strings slavering from it, were those of something else entirely. Scallien strained against the elbow pinned to her windpipe, oblivious to her own gagging like a dog choking after prey at the end of a chain.
Willa screamed and scratched and pushed against the animal force bearing do
wn. Something else had come to occupy the space behind Scallien’s eyes, something that felt like instinct. Drive. A sound bubbled, and a word gurgled from Scallien’s throat, guttural, drawn out and visceral. Eeeye-kooooooooor.
Willa’s hold was failing. Scallien – whatever she was – would prevail and Willa would die. She remembered holding Elizabeth as she’d faded, promising to guard Isaiah with her life. From whom would Willa seek the same promise now? There was no one. She was alone.
Willa’s arm slipped to the floor and she was pinned. Scallien pressed downward, her breath hot iron, growling the same word over and over. Eeye-koor, eeye-kooor. Inching her knees forward and onto Willa’s arms, she hunched into a sinister curl, leaned low to her face, and savored.
Over Scallien’s shoulder flashed the shadow of reaper’s black.
The sound that came next was like nothing Willa’d ever heard before, like an aluminum bat to a waterlogged coconut. The metal cooling element in Claude’s hands struck with enough force to cave in Scallien’s head, and she collapsed to the side motionless. Willa scrambled to the wall and made a ball of herself against it.
Waves of adrenaline pounded with nowhere to vent, and her heart felt pressed to her ribs. Mere breaths later, tears burst, cascading down her cheeks and chin as her body heaved, keening. Her only thoughts were of Isaiah and of how he’d almost lost his only family.
“Willa?” It was Claude. “Willa?”
“Claude,” she croaked, unable to stop the torrent. Her entire body shook with each gasp, every sob.
“Are you OK?” he asked, checking her over.
Willa fought to suppress the tremors of shock and fear that continued out from her core. Finally, she managed to look up into her boss’s face, and almost smiled from the dumbness of his question. Beaten and scratched, but not mortally injured, she looked herself over and nodded in the affirmative.
“You have to leave.”
She was too busy staring at the very small and very still body lying on the tile to really hear him. “Claude,” she said, “there’s something wrong with Scynthia.”
The Phlebotomist Page 7
