The Phlebotomist

by Chris Panatier

  “What do we do?” Willa called.

  “The MK,” said Lock, trotting up to Llydia and opening her door.

  “You’re going to shoot them all?”

  “No,” she reached in and took the rifle, “you are.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t need to hit them or anything,” Lock said, snapping a round into the chamber and punching the bolt, “just be a distraction. Give me cover to get Llydia airborne.”

  A drone slammed down nearby, showering glass and metal over them.

  “She doesn’t have enough power to get us out of here!”

  “I know that.” Lock handed the rifle over then checked the smudge. “Well that’s dead.”

  “What are you doing!”

  “Look,” said Lock, “if I hadn’t already blown Llydia’s brains out, I could just tell her to kamikaze the puppet-master up there, but on account of she’s a zombie, someone’s got to pilot her.”

  “What does that mean? What are you going to do?”

  “Get close to him hopefully, put some lace into what’s left of Llydia’s battery and see what it’s like to be a firework.”

  “No!”

  “Stop that,” said Lock, bringing Llydia’s display to life. The ground rumbled from a nearby impact. She yanked off her wig and her orange curls sprang free. She grabbed her goggles from the joystick and pulled them onto her forehead.

  The Patriot drone wheeled into view.

  Lock stepped out from Llydia and checked the sky, pointed out the lead drone. “Go across the tarmac, get your bead, and shoot that fucking thing.” Then she took Willa’s cheeks in her hands and pressed her lips hard to Willa’s. Pulling away, she smiled. “A reaper. Who’d have thought?”

  Willa’s body felt numb, paralysis stitching into her legs and fingers. If she turned away now, she’d never see Lock again.

  “Go!” said Lock, jumping into Llydia and throwing the door closed. A postal drone streaked down, cratering to the far side and sending a plume of letters skyward.

  Willa lit across the tarmac with the rifle. Another drone smashed nearby, but she kept her cool and ducked behind a compact, single-person sprinter. She set the gun’s barrel between the small drone’s ducted fans just as the Patriot drone loomed toward Lock’s position. All she had to do was pull the trigger, distract it, and give Lock the time she needed to get airborne. She trained her sights.

  The drone slowed its circling and settled just above Llydia. Willa scraped a layer of stinging sweat from her eyelids and reset her pupil to the scope. She sucked in a chest full of air, eased it out, and squeezed the trigger. Through the scope she saw the hole. The tiny spray of paint where her bullet punched through the control drone’s hull. It spun immediately and flew toward her, bringing a swarm of commerce drones behind. She ditched the gun and leapt to the ground next to a stretch limousine drone as the bombardment renewed. Exploded metal and mechanical pieces peppered her. She crawled around the front of the limo and peeked upward where the enemy drone swept the rows with a searchlight. To the far side of the tarmac, Llydia ascended.

  Willa climbed atop the limo, and jumped up and down, screaming, “Over here!” A hulking construction drone thundered down, just missing her. She rolled to the ground and pushed into the small shelter afforded by the limo’s oversized motor rack. Scrap rained down. A sliver of shrapnel bit into her cheek. One direct hit and she was done. The seconds dragged.

  And then the drone’s beam of light checked off. The bombardment ceased. She crawled out from among the destruction and stood. A formation of commerce drones charged across the grounds. They were chasing Llydia. She dodged them, then wheeled about and raced high over the redwoods while the Patriot drone gave chase, spilling streams of lace from four short barrels at its front.

  Sparks clattered from Llydia’s skin as she slowed at the peak of her climb. The Patriot drone only accelerated upward. Llydia appeared to fall and entered a dive. The pursuing drone dodged nimbly aside as they passed, but Lock had gotten close enough.

  The night flashed and for a millisecond it was daytime. The sound was a clap of thunder.

  The violent swarm that had been following stopped dead in the air, then fell like iron hail. Willa made for the woods to the northeast as legions of disabled drones hammered down around her. Their explosions chased her into the trees, and she curled up among a gnarl of roots. There in the shallow forest, she watched the last machines tumble from the sky until only the stars remained. Llydia and the Patriot drone had been vaporized.

  She pivoted her back to a redwood that seemed to embrace and protect her. Crawling to the side, she glanced behind it. Nothing moved. No machines, Ichorwulves, or children. Just silence. Minutes passed. Sitting back in her spot, she scanned the grounds in search of the Locksmith, who would surely make her gallant return while loudly delivering the tale of her narrow escape and scoffing at anyone who doubted her survival. Though Willa’s eyes had seen Llydia crack the sky as Chrysalis once did, and her mind knew the truth, her heart was stubborn.

  She scrolled back through the short time she’d known the woman, days that were moving so fast that she’d failed to notice the seedlings of affection germinating within her chest. But now in the still and quiet, it all crashed down. She squeezed the tears from her eyelids and willed her friend to appear. And she spoke her words into the biting air.

  I only just found you.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  LIVOR MORTIS

  The fourth stage of death, signified by the pooling of blood in the lower regions of the body postmortem.

  It was like having a fire alarm blaring inside her skull, the internal clock that said time was running out to go back in for the children. But she had to be smart. She was alone. Kathy and Lindon were waiting at a rendezvous point inside the districts. No one was coming to help. Willa forced herself to wait in her hovel until she was sure the coast was clear. Patriot didn’t seem to be rushing the grounds.

  She stood and braced herself against the thick bark. Still shoeless, she began up the hill through the trees on the pine straw mat. Body-shaped mounds of Ichorwulf littered the way – far more than were apparent during their earlier exit from the building. She found one that had carried a lacegun and grabbed it. The wind picked up as she made her way, disbursing the piles to the earth.

  Lock’s absence was a knife between the ribs. But as she got closer to the Heart, she felt her sorrow guttering. And in its place, the thing that had been her friend’s defining characteristic: resolve. She tilted the gun and checked the ammo.

  The tranquil music was still playing as she tiptoed through the shattered crystal door. Gun at the ready, she trotted down the corridor toward the far end. At the spot where the vrae had appeared before, she saw no sign of any type of ingress into the main thoroughfare. It was like he’d manifested into being out of thin air. Vampires were one thing. She wasn’t ready to believe in phantoms that passed through walls.

  “Willa!” A call came from behind.

  Kathy rushed in followed by Lindon. Willa ran and embraced them, squeezing them like they were the last family she had. Maybe they were. She clung to Lindon, trying to summon the courage to tell them about Lock. Each time she tried to speak, her voice wobbled and fell apart.

  Lindon gave her a squeeze. “I know.”

  Willa pushed from his chest. “How?”

  “She’s not with you.” His voice and his downward glance said he’d save his mourning for later, when he could be alone with his memories.

  “She brought all those drones down,” said Willa, gesturing with the lacegun. “Saved me.”

  “We heard it – saw it – from the rendezvous,” said Lindon. “It’s why we came. Where are the children?”

  Willa shook her head and shrugged. Her voice cracked, “I don’t know.” She wiped her nose.

  “We need to find them,” said Kathy, unsheathing the tiny sword she’d taken from the Oldens’ and giving it a facile spin. Willa hadn’t even no
ticed she was armed.

  “Lock and I swept every floor.”

  Kathy got a look on her face. “Did you sweep this one?”

  “There’s nothing on this floor,” said Willa, holding her arms open to the stark hall.

  Kathy twisted her mouth. “Hmm.”

  “What?” Willa asked, looking to Lindon, who frowned his confusion.

  Kathy meandered toward the place where the passages crossed, gouging the wall’s mirror finish with the point of her blade. At the intersection of the corridors, she put her hand to a small metal fixture, and glanced back with a self-assured grin. She brought up the sword, set the tip into the fixture, and plunged it into the wall. The entire corner where the walls met pushed slowly open, revealing a dark interior and stairs that went down.

  Willa and Lindon raced over just as Kathy drew the blade back out. The wall started closing and they slipped inside.

  “Why do you have a sword?” asked Willa.

  “It’s a saber. My liuyedao. The willow leaf,” she answered, leading the way. “Standard vrae hand weapon.”

  Red lights pulsed along the stairs as they spiraled down.

  “You know how to use it?” asked Willa.

  “I’m alright I guess,” she said, holding the blade aloft. “I hadn’t been training long. Orion was my mentor. We probably killed him though. But that’s fine.”

  The stairs terminated into a similarly dim hallway. It was utilitarian and spare – nothing like the rest of the Heart. A heavy, armored door capped the far end. Willa spotted another metal fixture just as Kathy rushed up to it with the liuyedao.

  The mechanism turned a lock. A ray of light from inside cut across Willa’s face as the massive steel barrier pulled from the wall. It was a dormitory, its walls lined with tiny bunks.

  They rushed inside, almost tripping over more piles of Ichorwulf. Willa noticed how much the room fit Kathy’s description of everything she’d seen and experienced during her own captivity. It was warm and comfortable. Immense. And so much more than just sleeping quarters. There were rows of books, an educational corner with screens and a large board for writing, surrounded by a semicircle of little armchairs. Personalized footlockers sat snugly against the foot of each bed.

  In another corner was a colossal playset that stretched from floor to ceiling, an open space with all sorts of schoolyard games painted out on the surface. A dozen balls lay where they’d been dropped. VR rigs and haptics hung next to giant video screens. It was what Willa had always envisioned – and feared – a paradise for any child living in the districts.

  Only there were no children. Just a man.

  He was seated in one of the small chairs meant for a preschooler, head in hands. He certainly didn’t seem like an Ichorwulf by external appearances. His clothes were plain – like what you might find in the midbloods.

  “Hey!” shouted Willa.

  He looked up, seeming unsurprised by their presence.

  She shouldered the lacegun. “Where are they?”

  The man’s face was somber. “They’re safe.”

  “Answer me!” she roared. “Where are our children?”

  “They’re not yours anymore.”

  Willa rushed to within a few feet of him, her blood boiling to a vapor. “Tell me!” she cried. “Now!”

  “That I cannot do,” he said, smiling, holding his hands out to the sides. “I’m unarmed.”

  She didn’t let off the trigger until he had toppled all the way back – she didn’t even realize she was shooting him until the soles of his shoes were in the air.

  Kathy’s mouth hung open in stunned admiration.

  “This way,” said Lindon.

  Willa thought she’d feel something like guilt. She didn’t.

  Between the playset in one corner and the teaching area, sat a large arrangement of tables and chairs, with what looked like a cafeteria-style serving station set into the wall. Next to that, another set of doors. They flew through them and into the kitchen. Inside were a dozen more dusty mounds. At the back, between large stainless supply shelves, was another heavy security door, this one cracked open. A larger sword was embedded in the wall fixture, a pile of dust on the floor beneath it.

  “They must have moved them when the shit hit the fan,” said Lindon. He pulled the door open and Kathy slipped inside. As Willa went through, something on a nearby shelf caught her eye. A large container filled to the top with red lollipops.

  They were back in another maze of corridors, dark and low like mineshafts. Gun drawn, Willa nudged her way past Kathy to take point. The silence was like being folded into a bolt of felt. They were several stories below ground by this point, and the angled shaft carried them further down.

  Lindon broke the silence, “What is this, Kathy?”

  She looked back, her usual bravado erased. “I don’t know.”

  After several hundred feet, Willa saw something ahead on the wall. Small and white up near the ceiling. Closer in, they made it out. A modest placard. Plastic with engraved letters showing in black and slid into a cheap metal bracket. Like something from the middle of the previous century. Archive. Below it, a simple wooden door.

  “There’s two more down here,” Kathy hollered from a bit farther in. “Archives.”

  “What do we do? Knock?” asked Lindon.

  “No,” Willa said quickly. “This could be where all the AB-positives are hiding out.” She carefully took hold of the handle and tried to move it. “Locked from the inside.” She glanced at the other two. “I think we have to kick it in and surprise them. Unless you have a better idea.”

  Kathy and Willa looked at Lindon. “Alright,” he said, backing away. Willa regripped the lacegun. Kathy switched sword hands and spun the handguard. Lindon puffed his cheeks and blew out his breath. “Here goes.” He launched forward and kicked the door in.

  It exploded open in a cloud of splinters and dust. Willa rushed inside but found herself in a soupy black with nothing to aim at. Even with the bit of light from the shaft coming through, it illuminated nothing. She inched forward. “Whoa,” Kathy said, holding the flat of the saber to Willa’s gown and nodding downward. Just in front of them was the start of a broad concrete stairway down.

  “Can’t see anything,” said Lindon, feeling along the wall just inside of the door. “Found it.”

  Lights thunked on overhead. Dim. Red. Like a dark room.

  But their eyes slowly adjusted.

  “What the hell?” Kathy blurted.

  “Yeah, what the hell?” said Lindon.

  It was like an ancient ruin. Or a natural history museum, shuttered because people were too terrified to visit the collection. Relics of unknown origin stood high atop cuboid pillars of polished concrete in the way of dinosaur bones displayed to show them as they had once lived. Only there were no dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, soaring pterosaurs, or tarpit carnivores. Just people… or something like people.

  Incomplete though they were, dozens of chrome-shining humanoid skeletons were assembled in various attitudes. Some stood, while others were posed on all-fours, their uncanny shoulder blades and hips protruding like those of a jungle cat. At the top of every neck was the one piece that Willa recognized: the Apex Ganglion. Though the ones on display were far larger than Claude’s or Scallien’s, and certainly Everard’s. The small root appendages that grew out from the underside were longer on this lot as well, twining down, over, and around the creatures’ metallic spines like wire. More disturbing even than seeing the way the ganglions seemed to have overtaken and altered what had once been human, were the numerous odd-looking growths that reached out from the skeletal figurines like antennae. Long silver projections, no thicker than a chopstick, struck out from spines, pelvises, and chest plates. Even the ganglions themselves wore an uneven halo of spikes like rays of sun. Or the Statue of Liberty before the tides took her back.

  “Kathy?” asked Lindon.

  “Don’t ask me.” She skipped down the steps and pulled out a camera t
o fire a few shots. She reached up to touch one.

  “Kathy!” Willa said. “What are you doing? You don’t know what these are.”

  The girl caressed a curving appendage. “Oh, it’s really smooth.”

  “Stop!” cried Lindon. Kathy yanked her hand away. Lindon checked his chin toward the back of the room. Willa turned and squinted. She saw it too.

  Movement.

  Willa slowly, smoothly, drew the lacegun up to her shoulder, setting her finger just across the trigger guard as she’d seen Lock do. One of the relics shifted, then fell from its perch and hit the floor. Shining bones came free from their moorings and rocketed across the concrete floor, filling the room with the deafening cacophony of bouncing metal. When the clamor faded, a tiny face peeked from behind the concrete pedestal. A little girl. Another arm pulled her back into hiding.

  “It’s them!” Willa cried, letting the gun clatter to the floor. “Isaiah! Baby! It’s safe to come out! We aren’t them!” She ran to where the child had appeared. “Sasha! Wren! Hali! Jack! Lynn! Ryan!”

  Kathy and Lindon began calling for the children as other faces emerged from deeper within the archive. They shuffled out from the shadows in waves, but they did not rejoice or run to these new people who had appeared. Mainly, their expressions were flat. Drawn. Willa rushed through the growing crowd, embracing any child who came close, whispering you’re safe now, caressing cheeks and squeezing tender shoulders, all the while searching for Isaiah.

  She’d come to the Heart needing to be seen by him, so he would know she’d kept her promise. She tore the black wig from her head and tossed it onto a nearby relic. Then, digging down to the bottom of her bag, she took the hot pink hair in hand, gave it a fluff and pulled it snug.

  Kathy and Lindon were like buoys in an ocean of kids, as Willa too was swarmed. With the discovery of the children came an abyssal drop in adrenaline, and she felt the layers of anxiety unspooling from around her body. She hadn’t found Isaiah yet, but she would. Tears blurred her vision. She pressed farther in amongst the towering statues. And suddenly Isaiah was everywhere, like a mirage viewed through a kaleidoscope. She thumbed the tears from her eyes and blinked away what remained. The many images of him had gone. All but one. The real one. And with him, Wren, Sasha, Jack, Hali, Ryan, and Lynn.