“I’ve been feeding her hits ever since we left the hospital.”
“And yet, it is not having the effect we would all desire: her heart is not repairing itself, renewing at the cellular level the way we know a longer term exposure would result in.”
“Are you saying I just need to keep giving her hits over a longer period of time?” My heart lifts. “I can do that.” At least until I run out.
“No, no, son.” His furry eyebrows draw together. “You wouldn’t have enough to induce the desired effect, even if you transferred every bit of life you have. Once the energy enters the body, it dissipates, yes?”
I find myself nodding again. “It’s like there’s a big lake of it. Whatever I feed in just goes into the reservoir.”
His eyes light up. “Just so! You are filling the reservoir of your mother’s life energy. But her heart is a leak, one which constantly drains that energy away. Faster than you can ever replace it. What we need is not to pour more life energy into the reservoir, but to stop the leak.”
“Okay. What if I concentrate my life energy transfer directly into her heart?” I’ve seen the effects at the point of transfer before; that’s how Ophelia was able to heal my wounds. But she said it was simply my body reacting to the infusion, accelerating a response, a healing, that would have occurred anyway, given time. And my mom’s heart isn’t healing itself.
Dr. Brodsky confirms my doubts with the shake of his head. “There are small effects at the point of transfer, but they are just a temporary boost to the life processes already taking place. The life energy is not contained for long enough to have the desired local effect. It dissipates. To use your lake analogy, it doesn’t matter what part of the shore you stand on—when you throw your life energy in, it goes to fill the reservoir as a whole.”
I frown. “Because it’s not contained in her heart. It dissipates to the rest of her body.”
“Precisely.” His eyes are shining now. “However, if we could build a barrier, a cage of sorts, that would keep the life energy contained in the organ—if we can stop the dissipation—then we could accelerate those beneficial effects. The flush of energy would be concentrated, constant and intense, right where it is most needed. And that, my young friend, could reverse the damage. Stop the leak.”
“So your device is a cage? To capture life energy?” My hopes lift again. “How does that work?”
“The tissue connector device wraps around and encloses the organ it is transferring to. You can think of your own body as a cage. You contain life energy within yourself, yes? Unfortunately, you cannot take your mother’s heart inside your own body in order to heal it. But the tissue connector can: it literally takes the organ inside of its own generated field, containing and concentrating the life energy right where it is needed.”
I try to picture this, but it makes me queasy. “So it’s some kind of device that… covers the organ and traps life energy inside.”
“In a way. But it is no mechanical device. It is, in fact, living tissue.” His mechanical eye measures me, like he’s watching for my response. “I have taken DNA from collectors and identified the mutated gene—it is quite similar to the original bioelectromagnetic source material, the sea creature used in the vaccine which gave you this ability. I used this mutated gene to change the DNA of a host animal, producing an altered physiology very much like your own. From that host, I grew a tissue culture which now has the ability to harness life energy. In my experiments, I used mice, but the resultant tissue connector is not a mouse; it is simply a mass of living cells derived from the mouse’s body. It has no mind, no conscience, not like you, debt collector. It doesn’t care whether it transfers or not.”
I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. “So how do you make it transfer?”
“That is precisely the trick!” He’s fully into mad-scientist mode now. “The tissue connector’s cells are much like those you carry in your hands. Each and every cell of your body is a small electromagnetic field generator capable of manipulating life energy. This is what you do, debt collector, every time you transfer. You push and pull the life energy, directing it wherever you wish it to go. Your body generates the field, but it lacks purpose. It has no will. Until your mind generates a controlling field to shape and direct the life energy transfer. Your mind’s field and the field your cells generate… they are distinct, but they are part and parcel of the same process.”
This I understand. All the mental imagery that Ophelia taught me to use makes sense to me now. My body already had the ability to direct the energy, to generate this field Dr. Brodsky talks about—I just had to figure out how to use my mind to shape it and make it work.
“So your device mimics what I do, when I collect or pay out. Because it has living cells, like mine. But it doesn’t have a mind, so you need something else to direct it?”
He nods. “A field must be created to activate the tissue connector—to induce a transfer from one end to the other. Unfortunately, the precision of that waveform, that electromagnetic field, must be quite absolute. What you do with your mind, debt collector, when you initiate a transfer is a very complicated process. Your mind commands the forces at work in your tissues, but it is a subtle manipulation, one you probably don’t consciously understand in full. It is not an easy thing to do, I would imagine.”
“No.” I frown. “At least, it takes some practice.” It isn’t as simple as envisioning the spigot or holding back the reservoir of life energy. It’s a constant battle to fight the craving for the hit, to resist the urge to recoil from the payout, or to withstand the drowning glory of a mercy hit. To say it’s not easy is definitely an understatement.
“For me, I only have a few mechanical generators and the clumsy physical setup of my laboratory to work with.”
“So… it doesn’t always work right.”
“It is quite repeatable. But unfortunately, it must be tuned to each patient, each configuration for the transfer. And that tuning must be precise.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then instead of the tissue transferring from, say, your mother’s kidney to your mother’s heart, draining the life energy from one and bathing the other in it, the connection could go in reverse. Or drain both.”
“That does not sound good.”
“Indeed. While I do have a tissue connector of the proper size that is cultivated to work with human organs, I haven’t been able to test it. For obvious reasons. It should function much as the smaller connectors have, for my rodent patients, but it will be very uncertain. Very imprecise.”
“It could kill her.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not willing to take that chance,” I say. “I’ve only just… She only has a short time left. I don’t want you taking that from her.”
He heaves a long sigh. “You are quite right. And I was afraid that might be the conclusion you would reach. It is entirely reasonable. But, you see, my young debt collector, it’s not up to you.”
My voice drops, low and menacing. “You can’t force her to do this experiment of yours. I won’t allow it.”
He doesn’t seem to register my threat. His voice just turns sad. “You misunderstand me. Your mother has already decided. She wants the procedure.”
My fists ball up, but I can see the torment in his eyes. “You could refuse to do it.”
“I could. And I should. But I will not.”
My breathing starts to become uneven. “I could stop you.”
“Yes, you could. And perhaps you should do that. I leave that to you and your conscience, debt collector. But I would advise speaking to your mother first about it.”
My chest is tight, air fighting its way in and out of my lungs. I can’t believe Dr. Brodsky has talked my mother into this. That I was the one who allowed him to come here. That all of this is slipping out of my grasp. I heave a couple more breaths, then turn my back on him to yank open the door to Madam A’s brothel, determined to stop my mother from volunteering to
be his lab rat.
My mom’s eyes open as I approach, and she turns toward the sound of my boots on the floor of her room. I stop by her side, and the soft hum of the monitors fills the silence. All I can see is the hollows of her cheeks, the thinness of her hair, the way her chest lifts and falls too fast, as her lungs try to compensate for the failings of her heart. It’s far too easy for me to picture her body completely still as the death that’s chasing her finally catches up. But I want to cheat him of every second that I can… not have her die even sooner under Dr. Brodsky’s mad experiment.
“Mom, don’t do this.”
“Joey.” She reaches a hand out to me, and I take it in both of mine. “I want to do this.”
“But… it’s just that…” I have to fight to keep the tears burning hot inside me instead of spilling onto my face. I clear my throat. “I didn’t bring you out of that hospital to have you be experimented on.”
The back door whispers open. Dr. Brodsky closes it again, quietly, behind him, but he stays by the door. Which is good, because if he tries to convince my mother to be his lab rat in front of me, I might be tempted to do something I don’t want my mother to see.
“Joe.” Her voice is breathy, and it rivets my attention. “I’m going to die anyway.”
“It doesn’t have to be today!” My voice is more of a cry than I want. I’m not going to convince her this way, like a child. I should be stronger, but I can’t find it in me.
Her thin fingers pat my hand, reassuring me. “Joe, you have to let me do this. I know it’s not likely to work. I know it will steal some of the time we might have had together. And I am sorry for that. I would be dead already if you hadn’t taken me from the hospital. If I had paid my debt then, at least my life energy would have gone to serve some better purpose.”
My face twists. I don’t want to say that it would just go to some CEO so he can shine a little brighter in his rise to the top. I’ve seen too much to believe in the justness of the system anymore. I know how corrupt it is.
“Mom—” But I stop myself, uncertain if I should tell her.
“I want my life to mean something, Joe. I want it to count.”
Her words tear at me, given that is exactly what I’ve been desperate for.
“And this,” she lifts one hand to wave weakly in Dr. Brodsky’s direction, “will give my life some purpose, what’s left of it. I wasn’t able to be strong for you, Joe. I couldn’t take away the life that has been dealt to you. But Dr. Brodsky’s device could change things—it could change everything, even that terrible gift you’ve been given. If there was a way that life energy could be harnessed without using debt collectors… Joe, you have to let me be a part of making that a possibility.”
And like that, I am trapped. I cannot say no to her dying wish to be part of changing the world that stole her son from her. I bow my head, words stuck in my throat, tears leaking out. I give her a small nod, my gaze fixed on her hands, unable to look in her eyes as I agree to let her die.
There’s a soft whisper of sneakered feet on the floor behind me.
“Joe!” Elena’s voice is filled with excitement and a little breathless, like she’s run the whole way here from Madam A’s office. “I found it! The algorithms—” Her words break off as I raise my head to face her. “Oh.” She floats a look between me, my mom, and Dr. Brodsky, who has now approached my mother’s bed, hovering a few steps away near the monitors.
“I… I can come back.” Elena turns like she’s going to run out of the room.
“Wait,” I say. The word is soft, but it freezes her in her tracks. She slowly turns back to me, eyes round and solemn. “I want to see what you’ve found.”
I wipe my face and bend to kiss my mother’s forehead. I don’t have any words for her, so I give her a small smile instead. I don’t look at Dr. Brodsky or Elena as I stride out of the room. I hear her following behind me, but I don’t turn back, trying to master the pain that’s ripping my heart into pieces before I have to speak again. She doesn’t say anything either until we arrive at Madam A’s office. Elena’s screen lies on the desk. I press my fists against the hard wood of the desk’s surface and focus on the data shining from the screen.
It means nothing to me. “What have you found?”
“Joe.” Elena’s voice is hushed. “What happened? Is your mother okay?”
“She’s going to die.” My throat closes up, and I have to fight through it to keep speaking. “Dr. Brodsky’s going to do an experiment on her that will most likely kill her.” I look up, and Elena’s face is contorted, like she doesn’t know what to say—as if she’s afraid whatever she says will be too little or too much.
I spare us both by looking away from her big brown eyes and studying the screen again. “Please, just tell me what you’ve found.”
She hesitates, then taps the screen to bring up a file. “After I accessed Candy’s financial records, I was finally able to find the pattern. There’s a correlation between when she receives a deposit in her accounts and when certain kinds of collections are assigned. It was difficult to track down at first, but then I cross referenced it with records from the Actuarial and Assessor’s offices, and found there were no corresponding payouts.”
I rub my forehead, trying to keep in the emotions wracking my body, so I can follow her explanation. “You’re saying there are collections but no payouts. And those are the kids they’re transferring out?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t look that way in the records. I had to dig further to tie those ghost collections to kids who died in the same hospital around the same time. The ghost collection records always had an identical diagnosis—82-year-old female patient, with cancer, complicated by sepsis.”
“That’s a pretty common diagnosis. Couldn’t that just be a coincidence? And what do you mean by ghost collections?” My head pounds as I try to grasp onto what she’s saying.
“They’re ghosts because they don’t really exist. Someone has borrowed a different patient’s record and just changed the name.”
“So Candy’s falsifying the records? That’s good. That’s something we can hang on her, if nothing else.” I’d prefer to get her on murder charges for the kids, but I’ll take records tampering for now, if that’s all we’ve got.
“Well, yes, she’s falsifying records, but she’s not the only one. Someone else is setting up the ghost collection—it’s the signal that starts the whole chain of events, because it always comes first. Then the children are transferred out. Then the deposit is made to Candy’s account—always a slightly different amount from one of five unrelated accounts. But it’s made close in time, every time.”
I rub a hand across my face, feeling muddled again. Her big brown eyes look worried, and that doesn’t help with my attempts to focus. “I’m sorry. I just… can you spell it out for me? I’m going to have to explain this to my bean counter, Flitstrom, and I need to make sure I understand.”
Her lips pinch together, but she nods and swipes a delicate finger across the screen to bring up a patient record. “Here—this is a cached record of Candy’s psych officer account three weeks ago. See the 82-year-old cancer patient with sepsis? Mary Trenchant?” She points to a record that’s flagged for collection.
“Yeah.”
She taps into the record and brings up the history, then pulls up a second screen. “Mary Trenchant is a ghost. See this other record for Lucy Hoffsteder? It’s identical except for the name. Only Lucy is real. And she was transferred out a week before Mary Trenchant showed up on Candy’s screen. There’s no other record for Mary—she’s a copy, made after Lucy’s record was archived.”
“Because no one would pay attention to a dead woman’s record.”
“Exactly. At least not for the short amount of time that Mary, the ghost record, shows up in Candy’s collection notices. And deep inside Mary’s file…” Elena taps a few more levels down into the record. “…you see this code? The diagnosis? It says ‘cancer complicated by sepsis’ in the
description, but that numerical code? It doesn’t mean cancer. It’s a pediatric code.”
“That’s the kid they want transferred out?”
“Yes. This code is the same diagnosis given to Hope Salinas, an 8-year-old with leukemia in the same hospital as our ghost patient Mary Trenchant.”
“So this is the order for the hit? Candy gets this, and then what?”
“Then she assigns one of her debt collectors to Mary Trenchant. It’s always the same collector. Someone named Moloch. On that same day, Hope Salinas suddenly takes a turn for the worse and dies.”
“So the collector transfers out the kid. But what about the ghost collection?”
“It’s marked as ‘expired before collection’ and then deleted from the system. The only reason I caught this one was because it happened in the last year, which is how far back the cached records go. I pulled all that data, and that allowed me to pattern match case after case like this. Always a ghost record that shows up with that particular diagnosis, dies before collection, then is deleted from the system. Always a child dies in the same hospital. And always Candy gets paid. All within the same 24 hour period.”
I stare at the screen that she’s gripping tightly in her hands. “Elena, you’re a genius.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Not genius enough. There’s another ghost collection record that showed up in Candy’s files today, just before you tapped into her records. Julie Sanders, 82-year-old cancer patient with sepsis. Scheduled to be transferred out tomorrow morning.”
“Is there a pediatric code too?”
She nods. “It’s the same code as Sophie Miles, ten-year-old heart patient in the peds ward, same hospital.” She swallows and looks up into my eyes. “Joe…”
“I know. We need to do this now,” I say. “I hope Flitstrom is working late tonight.”
“Do you think this will convince your assessor to do something to stop it?”
The Debt Collector (Season 1) Page 31
