The Phlebotomist

by Chris Panatier

“She’s old school,” said Lock, lightly rubbing her own arm.

  “We have to go find the children,” said Willa. “Now.”

  “How are we supposed to do that, exactly?” asked Lock.

  Willa returned from the kitchen. “Kathy, when they took you, where did you go?”

  “Central City, Riversfork,” she said. “Do you have one of those here?”

  “We do!” said Willa, getting closer. It was a piece of information. Patriot was a regimented place. They probably handled things the same in each city. “Lock, they’re in the Heart.”

  Lock nodded, taking it all in.

  “What happened there, Kathy?” Willa asked. “What did they do with you?”

  “They fed us,” she answered. “Gave us toys and games. We got to watch movies and play. In the mornings, they had teachers come in and they started little learning groups, reading and math… I don’t remember them all. We thought they were very kind,” she said, though her face was a grimace. “We’d been taken, but it was, like… relief. We didn’t worry about food. We slept through the night. A lot of the kids started to think it was pretty great, and after a few days, a bunch wanted to stay.”

  “Just as they planned, I imagine,” added Lock.

  A hole opened in Willa’s heart, emptiness crept in. She couldn’t provide much for Isaiah, but he knew she loved him. But oh, the places his mind would go with a belly full of rich food, brand new toys, and comfortable, friendly surroundings. Would he want to come back home to the districts to live with his grandmother after all that? Part of her wondered if he’d be better off – at least he wouldn’t be subject to the draw anymore. “Kathy? Did you want to stay?”

  “My parents were probably still alive then, so no. I wanted to go home,” Kathy answered. “But a lot of those kids had no parents. They were easier to go along with it. They told us it was a government evacuation to protect us. And we got to eat candy and play. There was a swimming pool.”

  “Love pools,” Everard winced.

  “How long were you there before being sent to the Oldens?”

  “A couple of weeks, till I got picked.”

  “They actually came and picked you out?” asked Willa.

  “Yeah,” said Kathy, as if there were any other way for it to happen.

  “We have to get to the Heart,” said Willa.

  “Willa,” said Lock in a doubtful tone. “This is Central City you’re talking about. The Heart. There’s no way in. I’ve reconnoitered it before. So have my associates. It’s the Great Pyramid of Khufu far as we’re concerned.”

  “We have a Patriot security drone sitting in the shed outside! Can’t we get in with that?”

  “Llydia? She’s offline, sure. They can’t find her, but if they see her and can’t hail her, they’ll shoot her down. No. Taking a stolen drone into Triple C airspace is the most certain way to die.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Willa.

  “Well by now they’ve figured out that Olden and his headless bride got charcoaled inside their abode,” said Lock. “It’s his security drone that’s missing, so I’d venture that using same to fly yourself into the Heart would result in your multiple perforation via lacegun.”

  Willa didn’t care to be reminded about laceguns. They were a relatively new horror in a world already full of them. Carried by all manner of law enforcement including Patriot security, they reminded Willa of the old toy guns she’d played with as a child that shot coin-sized, frisbee-like wafers rather than spherical or bullet-shaped projectiles. Where the toy projectiles bounced right off of your skin, the razor-sharp alloy of lace cut right through. What’s more, slight alterations in angle and pitch meant that lace could change direction, following a target as dictated by the gun’s programming. Since lace was paper-thin, even the stubby lacegun rifles could hold a few thousand rounds. “I don’t care,” Willa said, cracking. “I need Isaiah to see me. I need him to know I tried. I have nothing else.”

  “Willa,” said Lock, taking the seat next to her and draping her arm over her shoulders, “listen to me now. I’m committed to this, but we can’t just be a couple of old-lady kamikazes. We’re too slow, they’d see us coming. You are wise, Willa. Our solution isn’t going to come by force. It’s going to come by experience and brains and patience.”

  “What do you think we should do then?”

  “Well, see, I don’t know yet. That’s the patience part.”

  Later, Willa huddled near a candle set low on an empty bookcase and tried to focus on the problem before her, rather than the life-shattering consequences if they failed. Unable to bear any further separation from the children, Everard, bandaged and reenergized by Lock’s mystery mouth spray, had taken the long walk to the Bahamas to check on them. Lock had urged him to stay on account of his wounds, but he’d insisted. And who were they to stop him? The kids meant everything to him, and he blamed himself for losing the ones that had been under his care. Willa understood that. Only, the place where Isaiah was, she couldn’t go. Kathy lay curled asleep on the threadbare couch. Lock snoozed restlessly out at the kitchen table.

  Willa thought she’d done everything possible to keep her daughter’s son safe and healthy since her passing. But what was it she’d kept him safe from exactly? Were her drills and evacuation plans just empty exercises against the threat of another bomb that was never to come? While she’d been worried over how to protect her grandson in the face of another attack, the danger had always been just beyond the door, signing her paychecks, eating the blood she’d been pulling from her neighbors. So foolish, Willa. Kept your head down and did your job thinking that it would matter. And in the end, none of it did. They were going to come for Isaiah one day and you had no idea.

  She watched Kathy and wondered about her real parents. What if they were still living? She wished she could write to them, let them know that Kathy was alive and well, that she’d saved their lives. Probably leave out the part where she’d helped murder and cremate her adoptive parents.

  In just days, Isaiah would be in Patriot’s system, a child with a new name in some other city, just as Kathy had been “Ellen”. Where would they take him? Maybe it would be a family with a lavish home, offering opportunities he’d never dreamt of. She slumped against the bookcase and stared into the darkness.

  Across the room something flashed; under the couch, a light.

  It was all the way under, back up against the wall, a tiny white LED strobing in the carpet. Willa knew it immediately. It had shined from Isaiah’s nook in the corner of her apartment for years. His viewer. But how could that be? She’d told him they had to leave it behind so they couldn’t be traced. She remembered putting it on their kitchen table. The little devil had managed to sneak it out anyway.

  She crawled across the floor and reached under the couch. Kathy didn’t budge. With the viewer in hand, she retreated to the corner and tapped on the screen, bringing it to life. It asked for a password. Password? Willa had forgotten how old the viewer was. His mother had purchased it secondhand. Passwords, and the technology that asked for them were relics, almost old enough to join Lock’s attic-bound computer museum. Everything was biometric now.

  Now, other than his decision to smuggle the viewer, Isaiah was the least deceptive, most straightforward kid she’d ever known. He couldn’t be un-earnest if he’d tried. So, what password would that kid choose? Willa typed:

  P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D

  Password invalid.

  OK, maybe she hadn’t given him enough credit.

  I-S-A-I-A-H

  Password Accepted.

  Willa smiled at the innocent sweetness of her grandson’s encryption and dimmed the screen. A basic drawing program was open. Willa enlarged the sketchpad with her fingers. There, in shaky writing that reflected his surrounding chaos, was one word quickly scribbled. Attic.

  Willa looked immediately to the ceiling, heart pounding. Was Isaiah up there hiding? Did he avoid getting caught? She sprang to her feet, ready to go find him
, then stopped herself short. No, no. They’d been back for hours. The boy would have come out of hiding as soon as he saw her. She gazed into the slats of a vent just above, then back to the viewer, realizing what her grandson had left them: a warning. She rushed over to Lock, shook her awake. “Hell?” barked Lock.

  “Quiet, shhhhh,” whispered Willa, turning the viewer to Lock’s face. “Isaiah wrote this. Found it under the couch.”

  Lock’s face settled to stone and she glanced upward at the old-style ceiling vents for an air conditioning system that hadn’t run since Chrysalis. She pointed upward and cupped her ear, Willa followed suit. Hearing nothing, Lock gently pulled the barrel of her rifle from the wall and unclicked the stock, withdrew a round and opened the chamber. “Waiting for us to go to sleep, I bet,” she whispered back. “Talk normal like we’re still up.” And then in a louder voice, “I can’t sleep, you want more tea?”

  “Sure, I’ll have chamomile, do you have that?” And then, quieter, “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Lock whacked the side of her own head, whispered, “Yeah, no shit, Willa. Wake Kathy.”

  The girl was kid-comatose, and Willa prodded her awake with a finger to the ribs. Kathy rolled over and Willa whispered in her ear.

  “Sorry, don’t have chamomile,” called Lock, “just some oolong.”

  Willa slung her bag and guided Kathy toward the back door. “OK,” Willa answered, “that would be great. I just can’t sleep.”

  Lock eased the back door just enough for Willa and Kathy to squeeze through. Kathy’s pack caught hold of the broken screen door and pulled it outward. Willa saw it happen in slow motion and reached for the screen just as it released. It smacked the frame with a loud crack.

  “GO!” screamed Lock. Willa and Kathy raced toward the shed and leapt into the drone. Lock ran too, but whatever exploded through the roof was faster, and it fell upon her.

  It took a moment for her eyes to focus in the moonlight, but Willa soon realized she’d seen him before. The big, quiet guy that’d visited her house. But he wasn’t quiet now. Surrounded by splinters of the wall through which he’d launched, he hunched over Lock, eyes rolling back, pinning her to the grass, shoes off. Willa ran from the shed.

  “Mister Hunter!” she shouted.

  He looked up, eyes focused on her. Lock seized the moment to jam her Patriot lapel pin into his neck. He screamed and pulled at the pin. The top of the “P” gushed. Lock pushed him away and rolled to her rifle, balanced to a knee and leveled it. “Move and die,” she said, her voice nonchalant. “Where’s your touchstone?”

  “Come get it,” he said, ripping the pin from his neck and tossing it to the ground.

  Lock angled the rifle and fired. The man’s right hand disintegrated and he collapsed to the side, roaring in pain. Keeping her eye on him, she palmed another round and chambered it. “I’m happy to keep shooting off body parts until I find it.”

  “In my back pocket!” he cried.

  “I’ll get it,” said Kathy, emerging from the shed.

  “Careful, Kath,” said Lock, triggering the flashlight mounted to the stock. Without looking away, she picked up the lapel pin.

  Kathy found the touchstone and retreated. Baring his teeth, the man pushed up from the ground and stabilized himself with the wounded arm tucked into his ribs. He got to his knees and pressed his remaining hand over the hole in his neck. He considered Lock and then Willa. “I remember you.”

  “Is my grandson at Central City? Is he in the Heart?”

  He shook his head.

  “Kathy, let me see that touchstone,” said Willa, taking it in hand. She went over to him and put it in front of his face to unlock it. “How much money do you have, Mister Hunter?”

  “However much you want… you’re just renting it anyway,” he said with a smirk.

  Willa’s fingers danced on the interface. “Good, well hopefully we get a loaded teller drone.”

  “They’re coming for you,” he said.

  “You already did, bitch,” said Lock, checking the bolt. “How’d that work out?”

  A teller drone appeared from behind the roofline and settled a few feet away from Willa.

  “Tell it to give you fifty thousand,” she ordered.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

  Lock scoffed, “How about I shoot something off every time you ask a question?”

  “Julius Hunter, Patriot ID hexadoublesixtythree,” he called. “Withdraw fifty thousand from discretionary.” A clinking noise came from inside the drone. “You won’t be able to spend those without being noticed. No reputable business deals in tricoin anyway.”

  “Lucky for us, my associates are of negative repute,” said Lock.

  A small door opened and presented a tray with two enamel-red tricoins. Willa had never seen the denomination.

  “Two twenty-five thousand coins, huh?” Lock said. “Well, that will be tough to pass, he’s not wrong ’bout that.”

  “What are we supposed to do with these?” asked Willa, her own blood rising.

  “I don’t tell the drones what denominations to use.”

  “Are the children still at Central City?” asked Willa, pocketing the money. “How long until they’re moved?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Even if I told you, there is nothing you can do to get them back.”

  “What type blood are you?” Willa said.

  “Highblood to you.”

  “You look like a twelve-pinter to me,” said Willa.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, standing in spite of his injuries.

  “Siddown!” Lock ordered. He slowly dropped back to his knees.

  “Most people have about, oh, ten pints of blood, but every now and then… big gentleman like yourself…” Willa dug around in her bag and presented the twice-boiled catheter and a needle. “Twelve pints of blood.”

  He started to laugh – loudly.

  “Hey you. Shut up,” said Lock.

  He only laughed harder.

  “What?” asked Willa.

  Hunter stopped his cackling and removed his hand from his neck. The blood had stopped running from the wound and what was left had dried to a powder. Smiling, he ran his fingers together, freeing the red dust to flutter away in the beam of Lock’s lamp. “Come and get it, I guess.”

  Willa dropped the transfusion kit back into the bag and let it slip to the ground. She gestured for the gun. Lock raised her eyebrows at Willa’s sudden aggression. She re-bolted the MK and gave it over. It was heavy and scary. The barrel wobbled as she brought it level. “The Heart. How do we get in?”

  He just shook his head.

  “Answer me!”

  “Humans can’t enter. It’s impossible.”

  “You’ll help us, then,” she said. “You’ll help us get those children back.”

  “I won’t.”

  Willa pressed the rifle’s trigger just enough to dent her finger pad. She wiped an eye with the bend of her wrist and retrained the sights on the man’s heart, wondering briefly if Ichorwulves even had them. She knew what she had to do. Whatever Patriot knew of their activities, they would know more if Hunter lived. She re-shouldered the gun and blinked away her conscience. “Lock, get Kathy in the drone.”

  Lock said nothing and moved with Kathy into the shed.

  “It’s OK, Miss Wallace,” said Hunter. “I don’t have family. I would do it to you if I was on your end.”

  She squeezed the gun everywhere but the trigger, backed into the shed.

  “What are you doing?” Lock yelled. “Shoot him!”

  Willa backed away. “Let’s go.”

  “He has seen us, Willa. He knows we have Kathy. Think. We have to do it.”

  “No.”

  In one motion, Lock pushed Willa to the drone’s bench and stripped away the rifle. “No!” Willa cried just as a shot peeled the air from her lips.

  Lock cleared the chamber. She bent to retrieve the spent shell a
nd glanced at Willa without judgment, but rather in the way a soldier might regard a civilian who had tried but come up short. “The touchstone,” she said.

  Still in shock, Willa let the dead man’s device slip from her fingers and into the grass. Lock slapped the door switch and Willa stared at the man’s lifeless body until the view pinched shut.

  They left the Seychelles for good. And even though Willa knew they were headed to join Everard and Lindon, she felt completely lost.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  GANGLIA

  Collections of interconnected nerve cells in the brain associated with the relay of motor control, emotion, cognition, and learning among the cerebral cortex, thalamus, and brainstem.

  The Bahamas wasn’t far by drone, two minutes tops, but every passing second was torture, wasted without sight of a solution. Willa thought of all the children, prayed that the other safe house hadn’t been raided. Lock steered Llydia with one hand and examined her rifle with the other, taking a moment to flick some stray blades of dead grass from the Pic rail. Turning back to the viewer, she said, “Did you know Olden’s lapel pin is a needle?”

  “I saw it was hollow,” said Willa, still jittery from the latest murder.

  “It’s a needle though. Like an on-purpose, intentional, needle.” Lock dug in her jacket pocket. “See?” She handed it backward to Willa. Kathy scooted in to get a look.

  The pin had a fine coating of powdered blood, which dusted easily away. Behind the top of the “P” was a modified Luer connector, not unlike the hub of a large gauge needle. The P’s descender, on close inspection, was a standard, short-bevel hypodermic.

  “Fourteen-gauge lumen,” said Willa. “For getting the blood out quick as possible.”

  “Fourteen is big?” asked Lock.

  “Gauge works inversely. Higher the gauge, smaller the needle. A twenty? Small. Fourteen is just about the biggest.”

  “Jesper wore it every day,” said Kathy. “I never noticed that.”

  “One wonders if he ever used it to get blood,” said Lock, “the Old Way.” She put it to her mouth and mimed sucking on it like a straw.

  Houses blurred by, their rooftops in the night just gloomier shades of their daytime colors. Willa wondered how many might be owned or controlled by Lock and how much firepower she had aside from the sniper rifle. “Lock?”