Outcasts

by Jill Williamson

  “Explain that to her, Mason, then I’ll need you to come and get the meds.” Ciddah handed him the CompuChart and left.

  He turned around, and Penelope hugged him around the waist. “Thank you, Mason!”

  It felt good to get something right after so many weeks of nothing. “Do you take back what you said about men being doctors?”

  “No.” She gave him a dirty look that only lasted a few seconds before changing into a smile. “But I’m glad you were here.”

  “Me too.” He steered her by the shoulder toward the exam table. “Now lie down. I’ll douse the lights. You are a very sick girl.” He tried to emphasize his words to hint to her to play along.

  “But I don’t want to stay here. Will the meds hurt me?”

  “Not at all.” Mason went to the door. “I’ll be back right back with your meds, and we’ll figure this out.”

  But when he stepped into the hallway, Ciddah was waiting. She handed him a CompuChart. “I’ll take the meds to the girl. I need you to prep the patient in exam room three.” She swept into Penelope’s room and closed the door behind her.

  What was that about?

  Penelope’s appearance in the SC wasn’t the only surprise waiting for Mason that morning. Exam room three also held a familiar face.

  “Mia,” Mason said when he entered the room.

  She was sitting on the table, giving him one of her haughty smiles. As he set about getting her vitals, it occurred to him that something good had come from the disaster of the raid on Glenrock: he no longer had to marry Mia.

  “I heard a rumor that the doctor is in love with you,” Mia said.

  Mason synced the table scale with the CompuChart.

  “Have you slept with her yet?”

  He pretended not to hear that. “Please lie back on the bed and put up your feet.”

  She obeyed him, but continued to pry. “If you do, you’ll get the thin plague, just like me.”

  He activated the scale and accepted her weight in the CompuChart. “It’s not the thin plague I fear, Mia, but being used.”

  She pushed up onto her elbows, scowling. “Rand loves me. We’d be together now if it wasn’t for the law that all pregnant women live in the harem. Since everyone else escaped, Ewan won’t risk his task to sneak me out to meet Rand. So I can’t even see him until I have the baby.”

  “I’m sorry, Mia.” And he truly was. He suspected that Mia was in for much heartache in the coming months.

  “Do you think you could ask the doctor to let Rand come to my appointments? I think he’d like to be here, you know, to see me and to see how his baby is growing.”

  Mason looked at Mia then, and her vulnerability staggered him. He’d never seen her so openly desperate. “It’s not allowed.” Nor did Mason think Rand would care.

  Mia sucked in a breath through her nose, and her nostrils flared. “But you could convince her, couldn’t you?”

  Mason swallowed back his frustration. He had enough to ask of Ciddah right now with getting in and out of the boarding school. “But Mia, what if your Rand doesn’t want to come?”

  She rolled her eyes at his foolish suggestion. “Of course he’ll come.”

  Mason nodded in an attempt to look positive. “I’ll ask Ciddah, but until then, perhaps she’d allow your mother to come in with you. Would you like that?”

  Mia lay back on the table and shrugged one shoulder, crinkling the paper beneath her. “Only if she can’t get Rand in.”

  Of course the piano player would rank higher in Mia’s mind than her own mother, a woman who’d given up freedom to stay in the harem with her selfish daughter. Mason wished he had the guts to say that out loud, but instead he settled on, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  When Mason stepped out into the hallway, he found Ciddah waiting again. He handed her the CompuChart. “She’s ready for you,” he said.

  Ciddah took the chart and slid it into the slot on the door, then turned and walked down the hall. “Can I speak with you in my office, please?”

  What now? Mason followed, bewildered.

  Ciddah closed the door behind him, then went to sit at her desk. “Take a seat,” she said, motioning to the empty chair before her desk. “I already cleaned it off for you.”

  The comment made him smile, and he sat down.

  “Mason, are we going to have a problem with you tasking here?”

  He stared at her, confused. The thought crossed his mind that she’d somehow used him again, but that couldn’t be. Could it?

  “I cannot continue to argue with you over the decrees of the Safe Lands Guild.” She picked up a pen and started writing.

  Her words made no sense whatsoever. “What did I do?”

  Still writing, she said, “Our people are dying, and we must do everything we can to build a future.” She handed him the slip of paper, which said MiniComms in every room. Be careful.

  Though he’d suspected Lawten might be listening, her words changed everything, erased any last hint of doubt as to her loyalty to Lawten Renzor and the Safe Lands. She had tried to warn him before he said something to Penelope about freeing the children. He had truly won her.

  But he needed to play along if Lawten was going to believe this conversation was real. “But the cure. If I could find one … Will you come with me to the History Center tonight? One last time?”

  Ciddah growled as if annoyed by his request, but she grinned and winked as well. “It’s a waste of time, Mason. I’ll come tonight, but then I think you need to give up this foolish dream of yours and start accepting your new life here.”

  He sighed as loud as he could. “Maybe you’re right.” But maybe instead, Ciddah would be the one who started to accept the idea of a new life elsewhere.

  Mason and Ciddah left the SC together that afternoon and headed for the Treasury Building, which housed the History Department. Through a series of note writing, Ciddah had allowed Mason and Penelope to have some privacy to plan the boarding school escape. She hadn’t even asked for the details. Mason couldn’t wait to find Levi later on tonight. But first he wanted to follow up on the lead Ciddah’s father had given them about Lonn.

  “Shall I wave us a taxi?” Mason asked.

  “Let’s walk,” she said. When they were halfway past the Noble Gardens, she added, “Lawten told me all taxis have recorders. They don’t monitor them unless they have reason, but I promise you that they’ve been monitoring us for a while now. My guess is, at least the last three weeks.”

  “In the SC? Or everywhere?”

  “In our apartments, the SC, my office, the elevators, and taxis. Yes. But not outside. They can’t get to us out here.”

  They walked a moment in silence, and Mason let this sink in. He couldn’t remember if he’d said anything incriminating to Mia or Jennifer in their appointments. He wondered how much the enforcers had learned about the people from Glenrock just from listening in.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you before,” Ciddah said. “When I saw the girl there, I knew you’d try to make plans with her. I didn’t want you to give anything away.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said. “I couldn’t let them put Penelope in the harem.”

  They walked in silence for half a block, then Ciddah looked at him, her eyes wide. “Once the children are safe, are you going to leave?”

  “We don’t know how to get out,” Mason said. “Enforcers have sealed the storm drains that lead into the canal. But I’ll have to go into hiding then. Lawten will know I had something to do with it.”

  “Will you take me with you?” Ciddah asked. “And my donors? Please? If you leave, I’m afraid of what Lawten might do to them. And to me. Plus … I don’t want to be parted from you.”

  He should reach out to her. Touch her, to show that he cared. He was always forgetting. “Of course, Ciddah.” He took her hand and squeezed. Though he didn’t know how any of this was going to work. Mason doubted Papa Eli would have supported his desire to be with Ciddah. His great
-grandfather would have been concerned about the thin plague. And her religion. With those two issues, they would have never found an elder to act as a witness during their commitment before the elders, let alone consent to mentor them.

  How would Levi respond? Would he uphold Glenrock’s traditional ways of courting? And was that Mason’s goal? He’d only known the real Ciddah for a few days. Perhaps he should slow down a little. Think all this through.

  They had dinner at a sandwich shop called Uppercrust, then went to the History Center. Ciddah warned him that it too was monitored with MiniComms.

  Mason sat at a GlassTop computer and began by looking up a biography of Richark Lonn. He’d learned some of the information from Lonn’s liberation ceremony on the ColorCast. Born in 2037. Richark Lonn had been the fastest medic to reach a rank of twenty. Lifer with Martana Kirst. Together they gave the Safe Lands eight children. Martana died in labor along with the child that would have been her ninth.

  “Didn’t you tell me Martana Kirst committed suicide?” Mason asked.

  “That’s a rumor.”

  “There’s nothing here I don’t already know,” Mason said, then he scrawled on the sheet of paper between them: I thought your dad was trying to tell me something.

  Ciddah scribbled out “dad” and wrote “donor.”

  Mason rolled his eyes, then typed “Lawten Renzor” into the search box.

  “What are you looking for now?” Ciddah asked.

  “Just a hunch.” Mason pulled up the task director general’s biography and started to read.

  Born March 12, 2049 … “He’s thirty-nine?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “He looks twice that. Ciddah, he’s older than your parents?”

  “I guess. I never really thought about his age.”

  Eww. Mason grimaced but a new thought distracted him. “He’ll be liberated soon.” He continued to read in silence. After graduating from the Safe Lands Boarding School, Lawten Renzor was awarded a medical internship under Richark Lonn.

  Mason pointed to the screen. “Did you know that?”

  “Of course.”

  Mason scanned the text and pointed to the next fact he thought was important. Upon Richark Lonn’s forced retirement, Lawten Renzor was promoted to chief medic of the Medical Center. Six weeks later he was awarded a chair on the Safe Lands Guild, the youngest man ever to serve on the Guild.

  Mason looked at Ciddah. “Six weeks later? Doesn’t that seem a little convenient?”

  She shrugged and wrote on the paper: You think Richark’s getting fired had something to do with Lawten’s promotion?

  “Sure seems that way to me.” Then Mason wrote: We need to look at Richark’s arrest file. That’s what Droe had suggested. “I bet there’s something in there that will help.” Ciddah said Droe had once been a rebel. Mason wondered how many secrets the man knew.

  “I guess I don’t understand what you’re looking for,” Ciddah said.

  Mason wrote: It was the way your dad said it.

  Ciddah again scratched out “dad” and wrote “donor.”

  Mason poked her side, and she giggled. Then he wrote: Your DONOR wanted me to look this up. “You have a CompuChart in your bag?” Ciddah often took one home with her.

  “Yes.” Ciddah opened her bag and pulled out a CompuChart.

  “See if you can look up …” He wrote down: Martana Kirst’s med history. “Just a hunch.” He wrote: What if Lawten was her medic for the last baby?

  Ciddah took the pen from him: You think Richark blamed Lawten for her death?

  The dates seemed to fit. “Just look it up.” If Mason was right, then perhaps Richark had gone after Lawten because he’d failed to save Martana.

  “Found it.” Ciddah laid the CompuChart on the surface of the GlassTop, where Mason could read it.

  Martana’s final delivery had been on September 12, 2068. Lawten had been her medic. His notes said the cause of death was likely amniotic fluid embolism, cardiac arrest, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. He read the hospital course.

  The patient was admitted to the Medical Center, where she went into labor for her ninth child at 5:58 p.m. During the delivery, the patient became hypoxic and unresponsive. She had three cardiac arrests and developed disseminated intravascular coagulation, which required multiple transfusions. Delivery was accelerated to attempt reduction of the DIC. The infant was stillborn. The patient was temporarily stabilized, but upon transport to the recovery room, became hypotensive. She again went into cardiac arrest. Resuscitative efforts failed.

  That a woman could die in childbirth in a place with so many wonderful machines sobered Mason and made him think of Joel. He had always wondered if the Safe Lands medics might have saved his friend, but perhaps there was nothing even they could have done.

  “It doesn’t seem suspicious,” Ciddah said, bringing him back to the subject.

  “No.” Mason was glad. He hated to think that any medic could allow a patient to die for subversive reasons. He wrote: But that doesn’t mean Richark didn’t blame him.

  “I suppose. But, Mason …” She picked up the pen and wrote: This was 2068. Does Richark’s bio say when he started the Black Army?

  Mason wrote: 2068. But he wasn’t fired until 2076. “Eight years after Martana died.”

  “Then her death and his termination probably aren’t related.”

  Another idea came to Mason. “What if he’d been asking the same questions you were?” He wrote: Stimulants in the ACT treatment?

  “Then he probably would have come here.”

  “Maybe.” Mason thought back to Otley’s visit to his apartment and the enforcer field medic Yarel. Have you ever tested the blood on a blood meter?

  She grabbed his pen. Yes. I’ve tested my blood, the blood of pregnant women, men, children, my donors. Over a dozen people. I was unable to identify or isolate anything that looked like a stimulant. But I know it’s there.

  Mason took the pen. Have you tested just the meds on the blood meter?

  Won’t work. Without blood, the control line doesn’t show. Makes the test invalid.

  Mason dug deep. The meds were designed to be used on infected people. Perhaps the stimulant converted in some way when it reacted with the virus and that’s why Ciddah had been unable to isolate it. Have you tested the meds in uninfected blood?

  There is no uninfected blood.

  Mason snatched the pen from her fingers. I have uninfected blood. He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows.

  Her face shone. “That might work, Mason. That’s brilliant!”

  They gathered their things and went back to the SC. It was almost eight o’clock, and the place was dark.

  “How come you make me task here all night sometimes, but tonight it’s empty?” Mason asked.

  “I’m on call tonight. Any taps are routed to the MC receptionist, and if there’s an emergency, she’ll call me. I have you work on nights when the MC is understaffed.”

  Ciddah turned on the lights in exam room one and pulled on a pair of gloves. “Sit down. I’m going to prick your finger, but if everything looks good, I’m going to draw a few vials. Then we’ll have plenty to test.”

  Mason sat on the chair beside the exam table, eager to see what stimulants might be in the treatment.

  Ciddah swabbed his finger clean, then pricked it and ran the blood through the blood meter. “Clean. Amazing, Mason. Your blood is perfect.”

  He smiled as if that were a compliment.

  “I should take your blood pressure too, just to check,” she said.

  “I’m perfectly healthy. Just do it.”

  “Okay, fine.” Ciddah wrapped a tourniquet around his arm, just above his elbow, then grabbed the pillow off the table and tucked it between his arm and lap, turning his palm up. She swabbed the inside of his elbow with an alcohol wipe, then opened a standard blood test kit and a fresh cannula. “Make a fist.”

  Mason obeyed, and Ciddah inserted the cannula into his vein. A little
pinch. She filled three vials and pressed a cotton ball over the puncture. “Put your finger on that and slowly open your fist.”

  Mason knew the drill. He held down the cotton ball and opened his fist. Ciddah disposed of the cannula, labeled the vials, and set them on the counter. Then she turned back to him and removed the cotton ball. “Looks good.” She put a round bandage over the puncture mark, then released the tourniquet. “Wait here.” She stood and walked out of the room.

  “Where are you going?” Mason called.

  But she was back before he had long to wonder. “I needed some sterile containers so we could test both meds.” She put them on the counter. He could hear her ripping open bags and the plastic dishes clicking on the counter.

  He stood up to watch her work. She’d set up two little square dishes on the counter, their lids arranged above them. Two med vials sat beside them. She wrote which was which on the sticker of each dish lid. “C. Rourke old meds.” “C. Rourke compounded.” She released a sample of Mason’s blood into each dish, then used an eyedropper to add the meds to each sample, using a different dropper for each one.

  “Okay, old meds first.” She dropped a sample of the mixed blood and meds onto the blood meter. It whirred. The Wyndo screen turned blue, a sign that the machine was processing.

  She sighed and looked up at him, gave a little shrug. “Technology. As fast as it is, sometimes it feels so slow.”

  “It’s pretty amazing,” Mason said. “In our village, we weren’t able to keep — ”

  The sound of the elevator’s ding and the doors sliding open in the reception area caused them to stare at one another. “That’s strange,” Ciddah said.

  “Safe Lands Enforcers,” a man called. “Is anyone here?”

  CHAPTER

  22

  Be right back.” Ciddah slipped out of exam room one. Her footsteps clicked over the tile floor as she made her way down the hall and into the reception area. Mason strained to hear her. “Can I help you?”

  “Ciddah Rourke?” a man’s voice asked. “The task director general has requested to see you immediately.”

  “Is there some problem? Why didn’t he contact me himself?”