The Debt Collector (Season 1)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  I stride into the room, full of purpose.

  All three nurses hold still, as if frozen by the soft sound of my footfalls. I march straight to the head of Mrs. Riley’s bed and stand just out of her reach.

  The inexperienced nurse recovers first. “I’m sorry, Lirium, we tried—”

  I stop her with a raised hand, and her eyes go wide, as if I had wrapped my fingers around her windpipe. Whatever she was going to say wouldn’t help with the patient, but I regret having to cut her off. The nurses know me, but they don’t generally chat me up, much less apologize for not convincing a patient to go easily to their death. They keep their distance, and I let them. But in spite of my best efforts, I feel something when she says my name. It’s just my collector name, but still: it tugs at me.

  I’ve been holed up in my apartment too long.

  “Mrs. Riley?” I focus on her anger-mottled face, but I don’t wait for a response. “I promise this isn’t going to hurt, ma’am.”

  Her mouth works, but she doesn’t say anything, like she doesn’t have words for the outrage. I don’t tell her it will be a relief. I don’t say that her debt will go to someone who will do great things with her life energy. Someone full of potential to make the world a better place. Someone just like her, only who came up red on the roulette wheel instead. I simply turn over my left palm, the one I used to silence the nurse, and activate my screen implant. I bring up the recorder and turn it back to the patient, face out.

  “Mrs. Riley, I need to record your final statement, if you’d like to make one. It’s optional, ma’am, but if you’d like to make one, please feel free to take your time.” I lean a little closer, to make sure she can see the recorder already started in my palm. She should see her image, bald and trembling. Sometimes seeing themselves, ravaged by their disease and on the path to death anyway, will shock them into compliance. Or perhaps despair. It doesn’t take much to tumble down that deep, dark well, as I know too intimately.

  Just as I think she’s going to be the kind that refuses to admit what’s happening, Mrs. Riley tears her free arm from the inexperienced nurse and sails it toward my hand with the recorder. I think she’s going to hit my hand, maybe hoping to make a poetic last statement of sorts by destroying the recorder, but instead her bony fingered fist slips past the recorder and punches me in the face.

  I reel back, even more shocked than I am injured. The strength of the dying always surprises me. As if life conjures some extra battalion of energy right at the end. The nurse holding down Mrs. Riley’s leg gives up that fight and edges toward me, hesitating. The wide-eyed look on her face, plus the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, tells me Mrs. Riley managed to split my lip or something. I wipe my face with my right hand, and it comes away bright red. Facial wounds—they always bleed like you’ve cut a major artery. My lip starts to throb just as Mrs. Riley screams again, limbs flailing against the nurses’ hold once more.

  I don’t hesitate and she doesn’t see me coming. I slam my right palm on her forehead and push her head deep into the pillow. It slides a little, greased by my blood, but I maintain the contact and start the transfer.

  My hand heats immediately, her life energy pulsing into my palm and up through my arm. She stops flailing, her arm and leg dropping as if she’s been knocked unconscious, but she’s not. She’s awake and staring at me with wide-eyed horror. I know what she’s feeling now. I know the life-stealing blackness that crowds her vision and the despair that fills her chest with darkness. I know because I feel it. Every damn time I have to pay out.

  Mrs. Riley will only feel it once.

  In that way, she may be lucky after all.

  Her life energy pulses stronger in me now, juicing me, a high like no other. My body pulls it faster and faster, like it’s starving for the liquid-rush feeling and can’t get enough. My palm is hot with the transfer, too hot, and I realize that Mrs. Riley had longer to live than the bean counters calculated. Not a tremendous amount, just a month more than their estimated two weeks. But it’s enough to fill me with an unexpected burst of energy that has my hand shaking. I have to push her head deeper into the pillow to make sure I keep contact through the last drip of life force draining from her body.

  It’s a blissful feeling—and it fills my bones.

  Mrs. Riley’s eyes are still open, but there’s no life behind them. I pull my hand back, leaving a bloody handprint with five bloody fingers on her hairless head. My stomach heaves, a violent storm of disgust and jittery-high brewing and threatening to bring up my breakfast. The nurses are silent. Motionless. I hear the distant ding of the elevator arriving, calling me, and I have to leave the room.

  I shove the nurse who almost came to my aid out of my way, probably less gently than I could have, in my haste to get out. Mrs. Riley’s life energy is pulsing through me, making my steps fast and unsteady. I reach the elevator just as it’s about to close again and slip through the doors. I stalk to the back of the stainless steel box then turn and pace the perimeter, a tight circle that keeps bringing me back to the polished surface of the walls. They reflect a warped image of my bloodied face. I stop, wipe my chin with the back of my hand, and pace again. My stomach drops as the elevator moves, whisking me away to some floor, and I realize I forgot to hit the button.

  I turn to face my reflection and punch that instead.

  Pain lances up my arm, and the stainless steel dents in. I jerk back and see the dimpled impression my fist left behind—along with a smear of my blood. The elevator sways to a stop, and it’s enough to unsteady me. I fold in on myself, my trenchcoat fanning around me as I curl around my injured hand and sink to the floor. Whoever was going to come into the elevator doesn’t. The doors close again. I still haven’t pushed the button.

  I’m staring at the abyss and I know: I’m in serious trouble.

  I sit across from my psych officer, Candy Kane Thornton, and try like hell to look normal. I’m not exactly sure what normal is, or what Candy’s typing into her palm screen after she glances at me, but I need to avoid the “you look like shit” response as well as the long, drawn-out sigh that usually precedes the “What am I going to do with you, Lirium” lecture. I need a change in my collection duties, but I don’t want her to think she has to retire me. Or worse, somehow discern that I’ve done an illegal mercy hit. I haven’t been to see Flitstrom, the bean counter, so he hasn’t had a chance to find any anomalies in my tracker from the mercy hit. Candy can’t see how much life force I’m carrying just by looking at me, but then I can never tell what she’s really thinking. She approved a new apartment for me on the east side just two weeks ago, so she knows something is up.

  Candy taps her palm screen one more time and folds it in her lap. Her bright red nails are long, pointed daggers that sprout from her fingers. I have no idea how she navigates the screen embedded in her hand without drawing blood. That thought reflexively draws my hand up to my face. I cleaned up, but I still look like I’ve been in a bar fight. I cover the motion by running my hand through my hair and returning Candy’s stare. My split knuckles are taped together with a series of small band-aids from the hospital. They’re like little white arrows pointing to how messed up I am. Candy’s gaze is drawn to them, then returns to staring at me in a silent standoff. I’ve never figured out if her crazy-green eye color comes from contacts or implants, but they’re unnerving. Her too-red hair curls on her black suit jacket, which is low-cut, tight, and reveals a tattoo on her breast that I should only know about if we’re dating.

  Candy doesn’t do demure.

  She’s waiting for me to speak first. I did call and request the meeting after all.

  I clear my throat. “So,” I say, with extreme articulateness. “I was thinking about maybe getting some medical needs training. Um, you know, if there are slots open.” My voice is a wreck, and I sound like an idiot.

  Candy doesn’t say anything for moment. Then she says, “You look like hell, Lirium.”

  Shit. “Rough collection.” I hop
e she buys it. It’s the truth, after all, and that makes for the best lies.

  Candy nods her head.

  “So, I was thinking that medical needs training would be, you know, something new. I could use a change of pace.” I would still have to collect, but if I trained for medical needs payouts, maybe it would fill some of the holes I’m carrying around in my soul. I would be saving lives, not just taking them. I flash back to the burning-hot feeling of goodness that came after the mercy hit. Giving Apple Girl’s dying sister a life force hit gave me a taste of something that I wanted. Needed. Badly. Medical needs transfers go to people who have high future potential, but who need the life energy hit to carry them through an operation or treatment they’re undergoing… maybe it would give that same pure feeling of goodness afterward. It had to be better than paying out to perfectly healthy people who happened to be high potentials.

  Candy gets up from behind her desk, which is shiny black and reflects the bleak white light from the overhead panels. Her office is in the seedy section of the east side of Los Angeles, but the interior looks like an art deco installation in Manhattan. The desk and chairs are spare and lacquered, and bio artwork on the wall oozes a blood-red gel in constantly changing shapes, but the rest of the tiny room is stripped of any personal effects. There’s nothing to indicate that Candy has a life outside of this oasis of retro slickness, and I can’t imagine her anywhere but inside these walls.

  She trails her fingernails along the desktop, dragging out a scritching sound that makes my teeth ache. She sits on the edge in front of me, legs bared from her too-short skirt, and she brushes my pants leg with her foot in an accidentally casual motion that’s entirely intentional. Her bright red heels click as she crosses her ankles. I know other collectors have psych officers who force them to do all kinds of things, just to keep out of retirement. I keep waiting for the day Candy asks me to play sex worker for an afternoon, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  She towers over me. I’m slouched in her chair, still folded up, like back in the elevator. I shift in my seat, straightening, but I still only come up to her chest. I try hard not to stare and mostly succeed.

  “What am I going to do with you?” she asks.

  I have a feeling her answer to that question isn’t the same as mine.

  “Medical needs would be perfect—”

  “Lirium,” she cuts me off, leaning forward so I have a really good view of the tattoo. It’s a barbed wire that disappears into her jacket. “You’re not ready for medical needs training. Not yet.”

  I give the tattoo a good long look, since that seems to be what she wants, then let my gaze slowly travel up to her green devil eyes.

  “What would I have to do to be ready?” I’m willing to pay whatever price she wants, so we might as well cut to it. I’m in no shape to negotiate anyway. I almost didn’t make it out of that elevator under my own power today.

  She smiles, enjoying my leer, I guess. Then she leans back, examining me again.

  “Wash outs make me look bad, Lirium,” she states in that out-of-left-field way that she does sometimes. I swear, they must give psych officers advanced training in how to mess with collectors’ heads.

  “I’m not washing out. I’m fine.” I’m not convincing anyone, least of all myself.

  “You look like you’ve been hiding under a rock, drinking to excess, not sleeping, and smoking skeet.”

  “I’m not doing drugs.” Life force hits are my drug of choice. She knows this. I hold in the sigh of relief that doing mercy hits wasn’t on her list of bad acts.

  She raises one perfectly manicured brow, but lets the rest of the list slide. “Just one rough collection is enough to make you look like… this?”

  I nod. It’s not hard for me to look pathetic.

  “This is a tough business.” Her voice has gone soft. She looks at me like she wants to cuddle me up in her perfectly tailored lap. I barely hold in the shudder. “I’ve already lost one collector this week to retirement, and I’d rather not lose you as well. Like I said, wash outs make me look bad, and besides,” she gives me a lascivious grin, “you’re pretty to look at, even when you’re beat up. I’d like to keep you coming round my office.”

  I blink and say nothing, holding my breath to see where she takes this.

  “Do you know what the average wash out age of debt collectors is?” she asks.

  Of course I know, but I dutifully answer anyway. “Ten years of collecting.”

  “Ten years,” she says solemnly. “And that’s the ones who live long enough to wash out. Life expectancy is actually shorter. Did you know that?”

  I know, but I shake my head to humor her.

  “Collectors who last, the ones who manage to live past the average wash out age and keep collecting, have figured out how to stay in the game, Lirium.” Now she’s turning Life Coach on me, which actually might be the one thing I can use. “Sometimes they figure it out on their own—that’s for the best, because each collector has their own pathway, their own rituals, which allow them to keep looking in the mirror every morning.”

  I don’t mention that’s something I avoid whenever possible.

  “You’re performing a vital function in our society.” She prim crosses her legs at the knee. “You are the grease that makes things run. You facilitate the smooth, efficient operation of our world, moving the most precious resource we have—life itself—from where it’s least needed to where it’s most needed. You do it all within the confines of our laws and regulations and at no small personal cost.” She smiles kindly at me, morphing into a freakish simulacrum of a caring mother figure. “Society appreciates what you do, or we wouldn’t go to such great pains to make sure you are able to do it. But sometimes collectors need help. That’s my job, Lirium, to get you the help you need.”

  “I’m not washing out,” I say, desperation creeping into my voice. “I just need a change of pace.”

  “You need someone to help you figure out how to manage the stress of collection,” she says with finality. “I’m assigning you a mentor.”

  Shit. “Candy, I’m fine, really—” I can’t have a mentor. It’s like having a round-the-clock babysitter. A full-time spy for my psych officer. If Candy had any idea what my life really looked like, she would have already shipped me off to retirement.

  She slides off the desk and stands in her six-inch heels, looming over me. My nose comes up to her navel, and her heavy perfume assaults it. “I’m not giving you a choice, Lirium.”

  I lean back in the chair, staring sullenly at my hands clenching each other in front of me. “A mentor sounds like a fantastic idea.”

  “That’s better,” she says. “I want you to take the full twenty-four hours with this collection. You’re in no shape to pay out right now, and I’d like you to talk to your mentor before you do, anyway. Don’t check in with Flitstrom until tomorrow. I’ll send the mentor by your new place tonight.”

  “Can’t wait.” I’ll have to hide the vodka bottles before this mentor shows up, or Candy will pack me off to rehab without blinking. Rehab, for a life-force addict like me, isn’t as bad as retirement, but it’s really just the first step to sending you there. Besides, life-force addicts don’t get rehabilitated. They wash out.

  And that’s the one thing Candy and I would both like to avoid.

  It’s seven o’clock, and I’m still waiting for my new mentor to arrive.

  The swelling on my lip has gone down, and fresh bandages cover my busted knuckles. I’ve cleared out the vodka bottles, laundered the few clothes I keep, and disinfected my small apartment, trying rid it of the smell of squalor that took hold while I lay festering in my misery. I had to stop indulging in sex workers when I moved out of my old apartment two weeks ago, but that part of my ritual is sorely missed, leaving just a sea of wódka to get lost in. But as long as Madam Anastazja is giving random, unscreened hit-seekers my house number, staying there is a ticket to the morgue for me.

  In the end, it isn’t too di
fficult to clean up the place.

  I’ve paced the confines of my new apartment a dozen times now. It’s a little more spacious than the last one. The bedroom has room for more than just the bed, and I have an actual kitchen, not just a corner with a hot plate and cold box. There’s even a table with two chairs that I never use. I try to imagine sitting down with my mentor over bowls of corn flakes… and fail utterly. I don’t eat here. I drink and pretend to sleep, but mostly pass out. If I’m feeling well enough to eat, I get my sorry ass outside into the smog-filtered sun and find a place that won’t poison me with week-old milk and weevil-infested cereal.

  I have a small panic moment when I realize my cold box and pantry are empty. Unless my mentor’s an idiot, he’ll realize why in an instant. And Candy won’t send an idiot—she’ll send a spy who will figure me out in two seconds. My hands shake as I open my palm screen and wonder if I have enough time to run out and get groceries.

  7:03 pm

  I have no idea where the nearest grocery store is, but all of a sudden, leaving the apartment sounds like a tremendous idea. If I come back with groceries, all the better. That looks responsible. Like I have my life under control. I practically run to the coat closet by the front door and rip my trenchcoat off the hanger. I have it half on, the hanger still swinging, when a tone sounds from the front door.

  I look back and forth between the door and the closet, frozen, then hastily hang the coat up before striding over to punch the front door button.

  It slides open to reveal a girl in a black trenchcoat. Her hands are on her hips, parting the coat to show a form-fitting black dress that covers everything above her knees. A tiny flash of thigh peeks between the clinging dress and her knee-high stiletto boots. Her hair is raven-black and shiny, hanging in a sheet that falls well past her shoulders, competing with the jacket to cover her chest. She’s smirking at me with full lips and dark, twinkling eyes. If she’s a veteran collector, she has to be near thirty, but her pale, rosy skin is flushed with the youth of a thousand life force hits. She has an ageless beauty that has me thinking about angels and tempting demons. My first coherent thought is that the male debtors she visits probably don’t mind so much that she’s come to collect.