After lunch, Emily goes back to whatever the interns do here, and I’m on my own. Which is both a relief and a burden. I didn’t like having her looking over my shoulder; I’m perfectly capable of following simple instructions without being micromanaged. But they moved Jack somewhere else for the afternoon, and being alone on the main floor with a bunch of people in medically-induced comas is super-creepy. I keep expecting one of them to sit up and look at me. Or stand, pulling equipment over, and stumble toward me like a zombie in search of fresh brains.
It’s possible I watch too many horror vids. Not that that’s an option for me anymore.
Unsurprisingly, not one of the patents—er, donors—sits up, but by the time I’ve made it halfway across the main floor, I’m ready to burst into song, as inappropriate as that would be, just so I’d have something to listen to other than the soft whooshing and beeping of all the medical equipment. It’s almost a relief when a door opens across the huge room, and Dr. Herrington leads several other people in lab coats onto the main floor. I recognize a couple of the interns, and though they’re all carrying thin, transparent tablets, it’s clear that the person in charge is the woman in the front, whose light brown hair has been pulled back into a severe and almost obsessively neat bun.
I can’t see her name tag from across the room, but one of the interns calls her Dr. Borden.
Dr. Borden leads her team to the opposite side of the main floor, where they begin examining the donors, working their way down some list they keep consulting on their tablets. After a few minutes, I realize they’re assessing people who’ve recently undergone surgery, discussing their recovery and future procedures.
And somehow, the organ farm suddenly feels even creepier.
“…pretty well, so far,” Dr. Borden says, as I fold up the sheet in front of me to expose a woman’s lower legs. “And he’s scheduled to donate his second lung next week, which will obviously put him out of commission. So let’s see what we can do to make use of the rest of him between now and then. Move him up in availability for bone marrow and musculoskeletal tissue, as well as corneas.” She taps something on her tablet, while the interns take notes on theirs. “He still has both of them, I believe, and they’re in good shape. Oh, and his pancreas. Not sure how he’s held on to that for so long, but let’s put a flag on that one. They typically go pretty quickly.”
The doctors move on to their next donor while I flex the unconscious woman’s leg, trying not to see the raw patches covered in a clear protective membrane, where someone’s taken the skin from her inner thighs.
I listen as I work, wishing I had access to some kind of tech, so I can look things up. I recognize all the organs they’re talking about, but I only know what about half of them do, and for the first time in my life, I’m suddenly interested in my body, beyond what flaunting it can get me. Or get me out of. But the only tech I’ve seen so far, other than the doctors’ tablets, is the headboard of the hospital beds, and I’m afraid to touch one of them, while there are people in here to see.
Emily didn’t specifically forbid me from accessing the donors’ information, but that feels like something they might not want me doing. And Lara’s warning about breaking unwritten rules is still fresh on my mind.
The doctors and interns cross my path with hardly a glance in my direction, then we’re moving in opposite directions across the main floor. I keep my head down and do my job until they finish and head back into the suite of offices. Only once the door closes behind them can I exhale and relax a little. And as curious as I was before, I now wish I hadn’t heard so much of what goes on here. Of what they’re doing to these poor people. Because now I want to know who they are, and what they did to deserve having their bodies disassembled while they lie here, oblivious.
I tap the headboard of the next donor, and I half-expect nothing to happen. It’s entirely possible that this tech is fingerprint-protected, like the guards’ guns. Like everything on Station Alpha was, according to the guard who dealt with me.
But the headboard lights up without asking for my identity. Evidently nothing it can tell me would benefit me in any escape attempt.
A file appears, and I read the name at the top.
Angela Morrison.
According to her headboard, several months ago she was convicted of embezzling funds from the government of a planet I’ve never heard of. Since she arrived in zone twelve, she’s given up one kidney, most of her liver, quite a bit of bone marrow, a length of her small intestine, and both ovaries.
I work her arms and legs, careful not to touch her still-healing scars, and try to pretend I don’t know what’s happened to her. Then I move on.
Keith Lutz. He piloted a shuttle under the influence of some mind-altering chemical and caused the deaths of three crew members. And he’s paid for that crime with the involuntary donation of both gonads, his penis, a patch of skin from the top of his scalp, and with one of his lungs.
After that, I stop looking. I no longer want to know, in part because the next donor I work on has no face. Well, no nose, anyway. And no facial skin. The entire front of her head is covered with one of those thin, transparent membranes to prevent infection of the exposed, underlying tissue. Because someone, somewhere, is walking around with this poor lady’s nose and face.
I wonder if she had freckles.
I wish I were entitled to a break.
Since I’m not entitled to a break, I turn it all off. The thoughts. The horror. I focus on the tedium of the repetitive motion, trying to carry on with my job without feeling a fucking thing.
Until I see him. The man in bed seventy-six. He’s beautiful.
His features are strong and symmetrical, and he has a broad, square jaw, bare but for the slightest hint of beard growth.
He wasn’t here yesterday, when I learned to wash and shave the donors. I would have remembered this face. This body. There’s no atrophy here. I can see that when I pull back the sheet to work his arms. They’re…large. Bulging, in fact. And his shoulders are rounded with muscle, his neck thick with it.
He doesn’t look like he belongs here. I mean, no one really belongs here. This place is horrible. But this poor guy could have stepped right out of a fitness vid.
Curious, I tap on his headboard.
Beau Desmond. Three counts of vehicular manslaughter. Though he seems largely intact, his chart says he donated a kidney two days ago, and that he was moved to the main floor from the recovery room last night.
His chart has a list of drugs he was administered following the surgery, and there’s a monitor hooked to several sensors on his chest, as well as a blood pressure cuff on his upper left arm. And as with all the other donors, there’s an IV in his right arm, attached to a bag that is constantly dripping some clear substance right into his veins. Presumably whatever’s keeping him asleep.
I press the button to pause the blood pressure monitoring just like I was taught, so the cuff won’t start tightening on him while I exercise his arm. Then I begin my work, moving him carefully, because of the IV.
His arm is heavy. He’s clearly used to much more strenuous exercise than I can do for him. But I do my best. It seems like a shame to let such a beautiful, healthy body waste away, as they carve pieces out of him one at a time.
It seems such a shame for his eyes to stay closed so tightly. I really wish I knew what color they are.
I chat as I exercise his limbs, then, as I stare down at him, a sudden impulse takes hold of me and I reach up to pull back his left eyelid.
Green. His eyes are green, and they’re beautiful. And they’re—
I let him go with a gasp. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that his eye just focused on me.
3
BEAU
“Beau Desmond,” a voice says, and I try to open my eyes. I try to lift my hand and answer, as if I’m still in school and the teacher is taking roll. But my body won’t respond to my brain’s commands, and—
What the fuck?
What the hell is happening to me?
“Prisoner number 4104929.” Whoever’s talking doesn’t seem surprised by my silence. I don’t think she’s talking to me; I think she’s talking about me.
Prisoner…?
And suddenly it all comes back to me. The guilty verdict. The sentence.
That much, I understand. I took my eyes off the road. I T-boned another vehicle. Three people died. That was my fault, and I deserve the life sentence the judge read at my sentencing. Which is why I didn’t appeal the verdict.
But this is… I don’t know what this is. Certainly not a life sentence in the general population, on the infamous Red Rock. This feels more like a hospital bed.
Was I in an accident? Did the transport crash? I don’t even remember getting on it.
Do prisoners get medical care? I’d kind of assumed that if anything went wrong, Universal Authority would just let the prisoners on board die.
If not for the voice evidently reading my vital statistics from a machine I’m hooked up to, I might assume that’s what happened. That I died, and this is hell.
And as the voice continues to talk, I begin to remember more of what happened. Bits and pieces of it, anyway.
“He’s a perfect match. The system just flagged it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s an automatic reroute from gen pop. That flag in his file is a first-class ticket to zone twelve.”
“The butcher shop? Fuuuuck.”
The butcher shop? Then this voice must belong to the butcher.
The butcher is a woman, her voice firm, but somewhat high-pitched. And now she’s asking leading questions, as if she’s teaching a class. Calling on students.
One of them answers, suggesting a dose of some drug I’ve never heard of, to accelerate my healing.
Why do I need to be healed? Fear stabs at me like a knife straight through my heart, but even worse than not knowing how I got here or what happened to me is my utter inability to move. The loss of control over my own body.
My dad was a bully, and I learned early that the only way to back him down—to protect my mother—was to be bigger. Stronger. To be a silent threat, with the power to carry out my unspoken promise with violence, if need be.
I’ve spent several hours a day in the gym since I was fifteen years old, and now…
The butcher approves one of her student’s suggestions, and a moment later, my arm begins to sting, right in the crook of my left elbow, where I evidently have an IV. Yet my body doesn’t react to the stimulus.
Despite what I’ve remembered and what I’m hearing, I don’t truly begin to understand where I am and what’s happening to me until the butcher asks her next question.
“Dr. Herrington? What’s the plan for Mr. Desmond’s recovery? How soon can we expect him to be cleared for the next procedure?”
Procedure?
“He’s recovering remarkably well, for being less than forty-eight hours post-op. And he’s in excellent shape, which is contributing to his quick recovery. With the cellular regeneration accelerant you just gave him, I expect he’ll be ready to donate again within two weeks, if not before. The moment he’s ready, I’ll put him back on the list.”
“The sooner the better,” the butcher says. “He’s a rare specimen, and I suspect he’ll be in high demand. Weller, would you like to assess the incision?”
I don’t realize there’s a sheet covering me until someone folds it back. Cold air washes over my bare torso.
“The swelling has subsided significantly,” a new voice says. It’s another woman, and she sounds young. “Sutures have not yet started to dissolve, which is as it should be.” Then cold hands press on my stomach, and I lose the rest of what’s being said as pain fires through me, originating at what is obviously an incision on my abdomen.
After that, I am aware of nothing. I think I passed out.
A new touch wakes me. It’s so much softer than the hands that prodded my incision a few minutes ago. Or was that hours ago? Hell, for all I know, a week could have passed since those cold, dry hands pressed on my abdomen, leaving me screaming inside from the pain.
This touch is different. I can’t see her, because my eyes still won’t open, but I know she’s a woman, whoever she is, because her hands are soft and because she makes this little sighing sound as she lifts my arm, bending it at the elbow over and over before moving on to my wrist.
It takes a few minutes for me to realize what she’s doing, and even longer than that to be okay with this touch, as gentle as it is. I still don’t like not being in control of my own body. In fact, I fucking hate it. But this woman’s sweet sighs are a nice distraction from the fact that the only muscles I seem to be able to move are my lungs, forever drawing in and expelling breath. Though I’m not actually in charge of that. Breathing is an involuntary process.
At least I’m not on a ventilator.
What did they take out of me? I want to ask the woman that, even worse than I want to scream from this feeling of absolute, infuriating helplessness. But I can’t do either of those. I can’t do anything.
I’m going to lose my mind here, trapped in my own head. At the mercy of the butcher and an entire staff of people who’re evidently expected to put me back together after she’s done cutting me open.
Then…
“Beau.”
She said my name.
At first, I’m not sure I heard her right. Maybe that was just another sigh. Maybe I’m imagining things—hearing what I need to hear, in order to maintain my sanity. But then she says it again.
“Beau.” Her voice is soft, as if she’s afraid someone will hear her. As if this is just our little secret—these words that don’t seem related to my post-surgical recovery. “Beau Desmond. That’s a nice name,” she whispers. “Very strong. Like you must be.”
She moves on to my fingers, bending each of them at every one of the joints. Then she gently lays my arm down and tucks my hand beneath the folded sheet.
“I wonder how you got so strong?” she muses as she rounds the bed and lifts my other arm. “You certainly don’t look like any of the other donors. They’ve been here longer of course. So some of them have lost significant muscle mass. But I doubt any of them ever had as much to lose as you do.”
A bolt of pride surfaces through my frustration and confusion, and as with her sweet voice, I’m tempted to cling to it. I was a personal trainer, in my life before the accident. Before I stupidly tried to reach across my front passenger seat to keep a cup from spilling in my new car.
And now…
Now I can’t move a single one of those hard-fought-for muscles. I can’t even frown. Am I paralyzed? Did someone snip something vital in my spinal cord? Or is there something dripping into my veins, to keep me this way?
There’s clearly something in my IV, beyond whatever the butcher and her students just administered to help me heal. At the very least, I must be on an analgesic, because I felt no pain, until some sadistic bastard pressed on my stomach. Hell, I’m probably on a whole list of post-operative drugs. Which means there’s no telling how long I’ve been asleep.
I wish I were still asleep. I’d rather not know what’s happening to me, if I can’t stop it.
Wait, that’s not true. Ignorance is not bliss.
“My name is Katerina Mathern,” the gentle woman says as she bends my left arm. “If I know your name, you should get to know mine. Not that you can hear me. Which means I’m effectively talking to myself. Does that make me crazy?”
No. It makes her a goddess. A fucking angel, for giving me something to think about, other than my own helplessness. Even if she doesn’t know I can hear her.
“My friends call me Kat. I’d let you call me Kat, if you could talk. Hell, Mr. Strong and Silent, I’d let you call me anything you want.” Her hand goes still in mine. “Sorry.
That was probably terribly disrespectful, considering what you’ve been through. It’s just that it’s so creepy in here. So quiet. I’m going to lose my mind, if I don’t have someone to talk to.”
I know the feeling. Yet I hope she’s not talking to any of the other…um donors, the way she’s talking to me.
How many other donors are there? Were they all brought against their will? Without even knowing they’d been selected? Or however that works…
Kat lays my left arm down gently and covers me up to my neck with the sheet. “You are so pretty. I wish I knew…”
She goes quiet, then a single cool finger touches my left eyelid. She pulls it back carefully, and bright light spears my brain, right through my cornea. But then the world comes into focus, and I see her face.
She’s gorgeous, a cloud of wavy red hair framing a face full of adorable rust-colored freckles as she leans over me.
Kat frowns, as if she’s suddenly confused. Then she lets my eye close.
Disappointment sits like a weight on my chest as she moves to the end of my bed and folds the sheet up to expose my legs. I want her to look at me again. At my face. I want her to see me, like I could swear she really did, for just a second there.
“Whoa,” she whispers, trailing her fingers over my left shin. “Those are some tree trunks you’re walkin’ on. When you were walking, anyway.”
I am particularly proud of my thighs. Lots of men who lift tend to ignore their lower bodies, and they wind up walking around on little chicken legs, with arms so thick they look like they’re wearing flesh-colored snow suits. But I think it’s all about balance and proportion. That, and healthy living.
Not that any of that matters anymore.
“I know you didn’t ask for this.” Kat grunts as she lifts my left leg, bending it at the knee and the hip, and though I hate being this helpless, I can’t help the swell of pride I feel at how impressed she sounds by the weight of my leg. I must not have been here long, if I still have that much muscle mass. “But just so you know, I’m pretty sure you’re saving lives. All of you.” I can tell by the slight change in her voice that she’s turned to look at the rest of the room as she speaks, and again, I wonder how many of us there are. “Besides, we don’t need two kidneys, right? That’s, like, a system redundancy? So you’re really fine. Unlike that poor bastard over there. He’ll never breathe without a machine again.”
Glass Cage Page 3