by J. L. Murray
“Would you rather they took it out of your neck? With their teeth?”
“No.”
“Then I suppose they are doing us a kindness by taking it out in an efficient manner, are they not?”
“I don’t know,” said Sia. “I guess so.”
“You will learn to overcome your fear of needles. Now what is your name?”
“Sia.”
“Well, Sia, how do you feel?”
“Not very well.”
“Good,” she said, smiling. “That means you are getting that poison out of your system. Soon you will be a functional member of society. My name is Evelyn Hauser. You may call me Nurse Hauser. You may not call me Evelyn. Miss or Ma’am will do nicely as well.”
“Okay,” said Sia. “Ma’am.”
“Very good. You’re not completely hopeless.”
“Am I to be a Bleeder?” said Sia.
“I beg your pardon?”
“A full time donor,” said Sia. “Is that why I’m here?”
“No, Sia,” said Evelyn Hauser. “We have something much bigger planned for you. But for now, some rest, I think. When you wake up you will feel very sick. I will not give you anything for the pain, do you understand?”
“Okay,” said Sia. She wrapped her arms around herself. “May I have a blanket? I’m so cold.”
Evelyn Hauser grunted and walked away. Sia eyed the restraints on her ankles. She wasn’t getting away. Even if she could get off the gurney, she was exhausted. Her muscles hurt. It seemed even her soul hurt. She wouldn’t get far, and then they really would bleed her. She sighed and lay back down on the padded slab.
The click of heels announced the return of Nurse Hauser. She plopped something heavy on top of Sia. A stack of white blankets. Evelyn Hauser shook one out and spread it over Sia. Then spread the other two over the first. They were hot as if they’d been in an oven. Sia began to feel drowsy.
“You see?” said Evelyn Hauser. “I am not unkind. I only want you to live up to your potential.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Sia. “What did you do before the Annex?”
“I played music in New York.”
“Rock and roll?” said the nurse, wrinkling her nose.
“No. In an orchestra.”
“Why did you come to Philadelphia?”
“I was born here. My mother lived—” Sia stopped. She suddenly remembered finding her mother, dead on the floor of the kitchen. Something was wrong. Someone was missing. Someone important.
“Well, you won’t be seeing your mother again, I can tell you that right now,” said Hauser, a haughty expression on her face. “No more mothers and no more music.”
“I miss playing music more than anything.”
“Is that so?” said Evelyn Hauser. She clasped her hands behind her back again. “Well, unfortunately you won’t be able to do that again, will you?”
“No,” said Sia. “No more music.”
“It’s not as though the world will miss one instrument, Sia,” said Evelyn Hauser. “You must learn to cope with the changing world.”
“Six,” said Sia.
“Six what, dear?” said Evelyn Hauser.
“Six instruments. I didn’t play one. I played six. I was a prodigy.”
“A prodigy, is it?” said Evelyn Hauser. “And a liar.”
“I’m not lying,” said Sia flatly. She felt a tear roll out of her eye and into her hair.
“Well then, that’s excellent news,” said Evelyn Hauser, a cheery note in her voice. “It means you can be trained.”
“Like a dog?”
“Like a woman who values her life. I cleaned blood off you, Sia. Shall I instead send you for processing, for whatever atrocity you committed tonight? Hmm?”
“No ma’am,” said Sia, quickly. “What do you want me to do?”
“For now, sleep,” said Evelyn Hauser. “We’ll work out the rest after you’re feeling better. That may take some time, Sia. You must understand that.”
“I won’t take it again,” said Sia. “I don’t want it.”
“Your body doesn’t know that yet, dear. You will not enjoy life these next few weeks. But this is a gift. A chance to redeem yourself. You want that, don’t you?”
Yes, Sia thought, she did want a chance to redeem herself. But not to the Revs. To Trey. To the mother she couldn’t save. To the husband too weak to go on living. Sia simply nodded.
“Good. Now sleep, and I will prepare a room for you. You’re the first, you know. The Revenants are calling you the Beta.”
“Why not the Alpha?” said Sia, her eyes heavy. She could barely hold them open.
“They will call you the Alpha if you survive,” said Evelyn Hauser.
Two
Mike Novak hated blood day. He cinched his trench coat and looked around, avoiding the eyes of the guards who walked up and down the line outside the Bank. Bleeders, Mike thought drily. Blood for the monsters. His chest tightened as a guard walked by. All humans: guards, processors, the people that took the blood. The Revs were the monsters, but everyone was ugly now. The Blackout had changed everyone for the worse. The wind was frigid and Mike’s eyes watered as he stomped his feet to stay warm.
“Hey, don't I know you?” said the woman in line behind him.
“No,” he said, barely turning his head. He didn't need to give her a better look at his face. It would just make things worse.
“Yeah, I know you,” she insisted.
He glanced quickly behind him. The woman's eyes were still burning into him. He saw the recognition in her face before he looked away.
“Oh my God!” the woman brayed. “It's you. I saw you on TV. You killed—”
“Quiet!” the guard said, stalking quickly over to them. He took out a nightstick and waved it. Mike snorted. “No talking in line,” the guard said, narrowing his eyes at the woman. She flinched as the guard slapped the nightstick in his palm. Her eyes darted from Mike to the guard, then back again. “No talking,” the guard said again, before walking away, sauntering up and down the city-block-long line of shivering, grumpy people.
A very thin man a few people up from Mike looked jaundiced and slightly yellow. He swayed on his feet. With the Revs taking more and more blood every time, these people were barely alive. Even the woman whose eyes were burning into the back of Mike's neck was pallid and almost gray. Mike felt weak, but he had always been robust. He had inherited his father's barrel chest and penchant for rowdy drinking, at least in his youth. These days he barely cracked a beer. It was all watered down now anyway.
“I know what you did,” whispered the woman.
“You don't know shit,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Everyone knows,” she whispered.
“And yet,” said Mike, “no one cares. Now leave me alone. It's my blood day. Let me enjoy my malaise in peace.”
“Murderer,” she said.
“Alleged,” Mike said. The woman was silent after that. The sun rose and made his head throb as its thin light burned into his eyes, the cold wind refusing to let up. The line moved quicker in the morning than in the evening, after work. It was a different crowd in the evening. Men and women in business clothes, mostly. Looking around, Mike saw elderly people, middle aged women, men with paunches who looked sad on their newly-paltry frames. There were no children, never any children, though some of the women rocked back and forth on their heels as though cradling a baby. Mike eyed the guard as he walked by again and sighed. The world was a wound rubbed raw.
Mike checked his watch when he reached the front of the line: seventy-two minutes and thirty-three seconds this time. Another guard waved him through the glass door she held open. Words painted on the door had been blacked out with sloppy swipes of paint. Mike remembered when this was an Urgent Care clinic. When the purpose of the building was to help people. He stepped in through the doors. A bored woman with a clipboard stood in the back, at the end of the hall beyond the exam rooms. She waved Mike toward her impatiently.
Light glinted off the diamond studs in her earlobes.
“Name?” she said without looking up. She wore black frame glasses, her eyes and cheeks caked with makeup. She raised an overly plucked eyebrow and looked up at him. “Name?” she said again, an edge to her voice. She tapped her heel loudly on the dirty tile floor.
“Mike Novak.” She turned pages on her clipboard and checked something with a silver pen.
“Exam room two,” she said. “Next!”
Mike turned as he passed the first room, with its four waiting room chairs packed into the small space. He saw a woman's eyes roll back, the tube pulling blood into a small plastic bag continuing to drain her. A man staggering out of exam room three ran into Mike. His eyes were red with spider-webbed veins and his skin was dry as paper. A finger of blood ran down his arm.
“I got to get out,” he whispered huskily to Mike.
“They'll find you,” said Mike. “They always find you.”
The man pushed Mike weakly and ran stumbling, zigzagging, past the woman with the clipboard. Almost looking bored, the woman picked up a walkie-talkie from the counter and called the guards.
“We have a runner.”
Mike heard yelling from the back of the clinic. He closed his eyes for a moment, before turning and walking into the room marked with a large red 2. He sat in the only vacant chair, avoiding the eyes of the other three people in the room.
He gave 1.72 pints of blood, which was all they could get before he blacked out. When he woke he heard someone slur, “This is no way to live.” He was on the bus before he realized the voice had been his. He reached up and touched his temples, his head pounding.
“This is no way to live,” he said again under his breath. He made up his mind then. It would be the story of a lifetime. Philadelphia could burn for all he cared. What had it ever done for him? He pulled the cable to stop the bus and got off at the next stop. He wasn't far from his office. He weaved from time to time, but for the most part stayed on his feet. He felt a giddy thrill run through him.
“The truth,” he said. It felt odd just to say the word. And he was surprised by a thrill that he hadn't felt since long before Kyra died. Mike smiled. Kyra would have wanted this.
Mike pulled a beer from the fridge, popping the cap on the edge of the counter. His head throbbed. He needed water and food and sleep, but those things were not going to happen in the near future. He walked the four steps to the living room and slumped on the couch. There was a half-empty bowl of stale popcorn from the night before, and he stuffed a handful into his mouth, littering kernels around him. He left them. He took a swig of beer and let his head fall back on the cushions. There was a knock at the door. Mike sighed.
“Go away,” he called. “Nobody's home.”
“Come on, man,” came the muffled voice on the other side of the door. “Let me in. I've got to talk to you.” Desmond Paine. Just what he needed.
Mike hefted himself up from the couch and hurried to the door, opening it roughly. “What the hell?” he growled. He pulled Dez into the apartment and closed the door quickly. The bastard just grinned at him. “Do you not understand the point of being a secret informant? It means you inform and it's a secret.”
Dez nodded at the beer in Mike's hand. “Got one of those for me?” he said.
Mike looked at him for a moment before shrugging. “In the fridge,” he said.
“Thanks, mate,” said Dez, patting him on the arm. “Got an opener?”
Mike slumped back down on the couch. “Just bang it on the counter.” Dez did and came to sit beside him.
“So what do you want, Paine?”
He shrugged, the leather of his jacket creaking. “Can't I come see a friend?”
“We're not friends,” said Mike. “We're business associates.”
“If that's what you want to call it. But I don't have any other business associates willing to have a beer with me at six in the morning.”
“Been a long night,” said Mike, rubbing his forehead.
“Yeah, tell me 'bout it,” said Dez. “Had to pick up this junkie tonight. Cute as hell, even under all the mess. Had to take her in. Might have let her go if Rita hadn't been breathing down my neck, but that's the way of things these days. Least she won't come to no harm now, what with the new legislation.”
“No harm,” said Mike. He barked a harsh laugh. “She's probably better off dead than what they're going to do to her.” Mike shifted to look at Dez. “Why are you here, Paine?”
The man shrugged. “Thought you might have some more questions. Plus I need a place to sleep.”
“Don't you have a place?” said Mike.
“Too much weirdness going on,” said Dez. “Saw this Rev creeping around outside my building. Made me all twitchy. Especially because of all the shit I told you.”
“Right, fine,” said Mike. He drained the last of the beer. “I'll get you a blanket. One night.”
“Yeah, cool,” said Dez. “Thanks, Mike.” He grinned again. “You're going to blow them out of the water with this story, you know that?”
“Hope so,” said Mike. “Speaking of, I've got some work to do. I'm going in to work in a few hours. Don't break anything.”
Dez looked around. “You got anything breakable?”
“And lock up if you leave before I get back,” Mike said. He went into the bedroom and brought back a moth eaten wool blanket and a flat pillow. “This is all I have.”
“You should get some sleep, too, Mike,” said Dez, lying back and pulling the blanket over him. He stretched out contentedly. “You look like shit, man.”
“Thanks,” said Mike. “I have to get some work done. I'll sleep later. Bathroom's over there, next to my room,” he said pointing to two doors on the left side of the small kitchen.
“Thanks again, Mike,” said Dez, closing his eyes. “Real lifesaver, you are.”
“Just don't tell anyone,” said Mike.
“You have my word,” said Dez. Mike plucked the near-empty bottle out of his hand and put it by the sink. Paine was snoring by the time Mike closed his bedroom door behind him. He dug some clean, rumpled clothes out of a laundry basket and dressed. He found himself smiling as he caught the bus to the office.
The real news. He could get used to this.
He sat down in his cubicle, feeling like a carcass the dog dragged in, but started typing anyway, a fire in his belly. Clacking away on his old Remington, just like the old days. Telling the truth, just like the old days. Not giving a damn about the consequences, just like the old days. He didn’t even miss the computers that disappeared during the Blackout. He didn't pine for the days when he could fact check over the internet. This was real news and called for old school journalism. At that moment, he loved the typewriter.
And yet, his hands shook every time he took them off the keys, and his whole body vibrated, making his teeth chatter. He told himself it was the blood loss and swigged coffee. People poked their heads curiously over the partition to talk to him.
“Sorry, can't talk. Got a wicked story here.”
They walked away looking confused and worried. No one was enthusiastic about working at the Post. They were typists for the press releases the Revs sent them. There was no real reporting anymore, just congratulatory puff pieces about how the Revs were improving the world.
Mike finished and tapped the edges of the papers on the desk to straighten them. Fifteen pages, triple-spaced for the copy editors. All it took was fifteen pages to end a career. To end a life, maybe. They might just jab a tube into his arm and make him sit still for the rest of his life. That would be real torture. Mike re-read his story, barely recognizing what he'd just typed. He'd been in a fugue state during the writing, pounding it out all at once in a flurry of keys. He read it again.
“Hot damn,” said Mike. “Now that's a goddamn story.” Somewhere, he thought, Kyra was smiling at him. Mike slid it under the locked door to the office of his editor, Tess, and plopped down on the smelly couch in the br
eak room. The clock above the door ticked loudly. Any second Tess would come back from lunch smelling like martinis. Any second, she would find his story – maybe the best story of his career – on the other side of her door. Any second...
But Mike was asleep and snoring loudly before Tess came through the elevator doors. It took five minutes for Vince Nakayama to shake him awake.
“Dude. Tess wants to see you.”
“Wha?”
“What did you do?” Vince wore red Converse sneakers and a tie.
“Nothing,” said Mike, sitting up and rubbing his face. He looked at his own cracked and faded loafers. “Just my job.”
“Tess sounded pretty pissed. You gonna be okay?”
“I'm a survivor, baby.”
“Dude. Don't ever call me baby.”
The lights in the hall were out when he headed toward Tess's office. Mike squinted in the darkness. All he could see was the frosted glass door at the end of the hall, bursting with light. Don't go toward the light. Mike smiled. Tess was decent, though. She'd been his colleague and a damn good journalist right beside him back in the day. They'd even had a fling once, back before he met Kyra. Tess was the only reason he still had a job after the murder accusation. They were friends. Weren't they?
“Hell,” Mike muttered. Should he have written that story? He was having second thoughts. He made his feet carry him down the hall. There was a strange smell in the air. Like the musty smell of a museum. What was done was done, though. He'd given her the story. Either she would print it or she wouldn't. If she wouldn't, he had other options. Groups that would chomp at the bit to get his information.
Another step, then another. He was halfway down the hall. The odd smell was growing stronger. Mike looked up, checking for leaks, mildew in the ceiling. He saw nothing. Figures moved in Tess's office, visible through the frosted glass. More than one person, then. Had she called someone?
Tess was raising her voice, which was nothing new. But Mike could hear a second voice, deep and increasingly urgent. He took a step back.
“You should go,” said a voice right behind him. Mike jumped, whirling around. A man stood there, towering over him, impossibly tall.