Ruthless
Author: Susan Kaye Quinn
Date: 2013-06-10 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Cyberpunk; Urban Fantasy
Description: **Urban Fantasy with a Cyberpunk Twist** ***eighth episode of the nine-part serial*** **What’s your life worth on the open market?** In this gritty urban fantasy, debt collectors take your life energy and give it to someone more “worthy”… all while paying the price with black marks on their souls. **Ruthless is approximately 14,000 words or 56 pages,** and is the eighth of nine episodes in the first season of The Debt Collector serial. With Elena's help, Lirium attempts to slash into Candy's files to get evidence about the conspiracy to transfer out kids. Contains mature content and themes. OP

Text copyright © 2013 by Susan Kaye Quinn

May 2013 Edition

Smashwords Edition

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Cover by Steven Novak
www.novakillustration.com

The Debt Collector Serial

EPISODE 8 – Ruthless

Contains mature content and themes.

For YA-appropriate thrills, see Susan’s Mindjack series.

Ruthless is approximately 14,000 words or 56 pages, and is the eighth of nine episodes in the first season of The Debt Collector serial. This dark and gritty future-noir is about a world where your life-worth is tabulated on the open market and going into debt risks a lot more than your credit rating.

Summary

What’s your life worth on the open market?

A debt collector can tell you precisely.

With Elena’s help, Lirium attempts to slash into Candy’s files to get evidence about the conspiracy to transfer out kids.

Recommend read first:

EPISODES 1-3

And

EPISODES 4-6

And

EPISODE 7

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My mom’s eyes are closed, her body lying still on the bed. She’s not dead—her chest rises and falls, rapidly, like she’s perpetually short on breath. Even in sleep her body has to fight to stay alive. I want to reach out, lay my hand on hers, and give her another hit of life energy, but I don’t. She can only take so much, and she needs her rest. I keep my hands on my knees and lean forward in my chair to peek, for the hundredth time, at the monitor by her bed. Morning sun glares off the screen, but I can still see the pulsing electronic signature that says her heart is beating: too fast, irregular, but pumping life through her, nonetheless.

The nurse set her up in a private room—Madam A didn’t want my mom out with the sick kids and neither did I. It would be too stressful, too much to explain. It's private, but there’s not much more décor in my mom’s room than the bed and the chair I’m sitting in. I think  it’s actually Grace’s apartment, but it’s devoid of personal effects, so I can’t be sure.

I lean back, rub my face, close my eyes, and wrestle with the debate that’s been raging through my head since we arrived at Madam A’s church-turned-hospice yesterday. Do I stay by my mom’s side and continue to feed her as many small life hits as her heart can tolerate? Or do I finish spying on my psych officer so I can stop her from transferring out more terminal kids? The interruption at her office yesterday might have destroyed any chance of digging through Candy’s files. Now that she’s expecting me, she’ll be more likely to shoot me than let me get close to her Agency records.

Yesterday there was no question where I had to be: my mom needed me. But now the nurse says she’s stabilized. Of course, there’s no guarantee that her heart will keep beating from one moment to the next. And the idea of not being here, for even an hour of the few she has left, has kept me in my seat ever since we arrived.

The apartment door creaks open, and feet shuffle across the polished wood floor behind me. I don’t move, keeping my eyes closed, hoping whoever it is will take the hint and leave.

“’Morning, sugar!” With that perky Southern accent, it has to be Annabelle, the girl Madam A sent while I was still trapped in Kolek’s mob. “Thought you could use a jolt. You’re moving slower than a Sunday afternoon.”

I give in and open my eyes. She stands next to me, holding a steaming cup of something. I pray that it’s coffee.

“You’re not actually human, are you?” I ask with a grin. “You’re some kind of Southern guardian angel.” Then my smile dims. I called Ophelia that, and I only managed to get her killed.

“The angels are busy looking out for your mama.” She hands me the cup. “I’m just looking after the collectors who help them.”

“Collectors and angels aren’t exactly on the same side.” But I give her a smile and breathe in the rich coffee bean smell, cradling the cup in my hands. The mercy hits I’ve been doling out to my mom have left a low-burning golden feeling inside me, but my body is running on too little sleep. Exhaustion crowds my mind. The coffee is hot on my throat, but it jump-starts my brain almost immediately.

“How is your mama?” Annabelle asks.

I look at my mom’s wrinkled brow, the torment showing on her face even in sleep.

“I’m afraid to leave her. I don’t know how much time she has.”

Annabelle eases onto a corner of my mom’s bed, her small frame hardly weighing down the mattress at all. “Everyone feels that way, sugar. We practically have to throw the parents out of here every night. But she needs to rest, and you lingering here all the time isn’t going to make her get any better.”

“The hits I can give her might,” I say, even though I know it’s not true. The hits might postpone her death, but they can’t give her a new heart.

Annabelle leans over to pat my hand. “There are others who need those transfers, too.”

I nod slowly and take another sip of the coffee. “I can do those while she rests. Are the kids ready now? I know Madam A wanted their parents present.”

“There are a few who are waiting in the main room.” She tips her head to the door. So, she’s not just bringing me coffee; she’s wrangling me to fulfill my promise. Not that I need much prompting. I want to pay out, or transfer, or whatever it is they need. And staying near my mom, just in the next room over, eases the wrestling in my mind for the moment.

I rise up from the chair, careful with my coffee. “Lead the way, Miss Angel.”

“Oh, don’t get all flirty with me, mister,” she says, batting her eyes as she rises from the bed. “I know you’re sweet on someone else.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, and I sincerely hope she doesn’t either. Annabelle’s far too perceptive—and talkative. I’m sure my special… relationship… with Elena and her sister Tilly is the talk of Madam A’s brothel, especially now that Elena literally saved my mom’s life by helping me get her out of the hospital. No one knows it was part of our deal, in exchange for me helping with Madam A’s kids, but either way: I owe Elena a debt I can probably never repay. The least I can do is not feed any rumors about her. Or us.

Not that there is an “us.”

Annabelle shoots me a knowing look as she sways toward the door. I roll my eyes with dramatic effect, hopefully quashing any rumors before they get started, then follow her out of the room.

I’ve transferred three small hits to three even smaller children, all without losing control. I consider it a major win. Or it could be the roiling inferno of goodness burning inside me, the after-effect of the mercy hits lasting well past the time I lift my hand from the kids’ tiny foreheads. Each of the transfers was donated by a different one of Madam A’s girls, and each time I doubled the payout. I’m not sure if anyone has noticed yet—I hope not. I don’t want to explain where that extra life energy is coming from.

But everyone—parents, nurses, sex worker donors—are all focused on the flushed faces and happy smiles of the children. I take a couple steps back from the little girl I just paid out to and hold onto the foot railing of the bed next to hers. The nausea is still working its way through my system, and I’m afraid the coffee will come back up. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths to fight through it. I should probably take a break. Go check on my mom. Maybe rest a little before attempting any more.

I don’t want to push my luck.

Better to pace myself than have an uncontrolled payout, like with Tilly. I don’t know why that one was so hard to pull back from. Maybe it’s the remembered connection to that first time, when paying out to Tilly was mixed up in my mind with Apple Girl pressed against me in that bathroom.

“Joe?” A soft voice, close to me, startles me out of my thoughts and pops my eyes open. It’s Elena, which makes me panic for moment, as if somehow my thoughts were written plain on my face.

She frowns. “Are you all right? Maybe you should sit down.”

I sigh with relief. She only thinks I’m sick from the payout. Which my seized-up stomach reminds me is actually true.

“I’m fine,” I say, and swallow down the sourness at the back of my throat, just to be sure. I glance at the parents still huddled around the girl and gesture Elena to follow me a few more steps away. “Hey, I wanted to thank you. For helping me get my mom out of the hospital. I can’t really repay you for that, but,” I incline my head to the girl in the bed, “I’m going to give it a try.”

She studies my face. “You didn’t need my help this time with the mercy hits. You must be getting better at it.”

My gaze drops to my feet. “Yeah.” Embarrassment makes my throat thick. “With a little more practice, maybe I can even pay out to Tilly without passing out.”

She doesn’t say anything, so I look up. She’s holding something back.

“What?” I ask.

“Before, you said you were going to visit your psych officer. To find out more about who’s ordering the kids to be transferred out. Did you get a chance to do that? I mean, before I called you away to the hospital.”

“I started to, but…” I don’t want to go into the details about my visit with Candy.

“You were with your psych officer when I called, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say, my head spinning back over that brief time on the phone. Did Elena hear anything? “My plan was to have Candy give me access to her files without suspecting that I know about the kids. If I can find some evidence of what she’s doing, and who’s involved, then I can take it to my bean counter, Flitstrom. He’s a pretty straight arrow. I think he can help.”

“You thought your psych officer would give you access to her files? Just like that?” Elena’s skeptical look makes me squirm.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly going to be voluntary,” I say, hoping she won’t think I’m a monster again.

But instead she nods, bites her lip, and looks like she wants to say something, but isn’t quite sure how to spit it out.

“These aren’t nice people, Elena,” I say, a little too defensively. “I’m not going to get the information I need just by asking nicely.”

“I know.” She nods her head more vigorously. “That’s why I want to help.” She peers up at me, her dark brown eyes catching bits of the morning sun. “If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

Okay with me? My heart does a small lurch, and I’m a bit lost for words. Then my better sense gets hold of me. “This is dangerous stuff. The people involved—they’re more than willing to kill children. They’re not going to hesitate to kill anyone else. I don’t think—”

“You can use my help,” she cuts me off in that earnest way of hers. “Can you still get Candy to give you access to her files?”

“I don’t know. It’s going to be more tricky now.” I swallow. I didn’t plan on Elena ever knowing this part. “Look, I had to threaten her. Convince her that I would kill her.” I don’t say that actually killing Candy was more tempting than I want to admit. “But now that I’ve made the threat, she’s going to be ready for me. I can’t just stroll back into her office and pick up where we left off.”

“What if she’s not expecting you?”

“She’ll definitely be expecting me. She’s probably already called Kolek to get one of his mob henchmen to guard her office. They would both rather see me dead. Even if she hasn’t called in reinforcements, I’m pretty sure Candy will shoot me before I have a chance to get a hand on her.” I wince after the words are out of my mouth. I'm basically saying I would attack her.

But Elena just nods thoughtfully again. The poisoned darts of disapproval have been sheathed, at least for the moment. “Maybe I can help you with that, too.”

“What do you mean, too?”

“What if you had your psych officer’s home address? She wouldn’t expect you there, right?”

“Maybe not, but—”

“And once you’re there, you can get access to her files. But you’re not going to have much time to search if you’ve got her looking over your shoulder, right?”

“Well… she might be unconscious.” More squirming.

“Even so, what are you going to look for?”

She has a point.

“Okay, Miss I-falsify-my-own-birthdate. What should I do?”

She digs into her pocket and pulls out a flexible film with a tiny black dot in the center. “You plant this on her computer. Once she’s logged into the secure server at the Department, it will give me ghost access to everything. I can datadump her files to a secure grid, then mine them for patterns and maybe even augur some events. Pinpoint a vector that can help us.”

“Um… okay.” I only understand half of what she’s saying. A very small half. I point to the film she’s holding between her fingertips. “So, you’re saying if I plant this on Candy’s computer while she’s logged in, you can get access to her Department files?”

“Yes,” she says, like that was completely obvious.

“And then you’ll…” I trail off hoping she’ll put it into English for me.

“Then I’ll find the evidence we need to put an end to this insanity.” She gestures around us to the beds filled with kids. Some work on their screens, while others stare at the ceiling because that’s all they have strength for.

“That’s what I thought you said.”

“So?” she asks.

“So what?”

“So, will you do it? Let me help?”

I don’t like the idea of Elena coming within a mile of Candy. But I’m really way out of my depth here. “Okay. I mean, as long as you’re just doing stuff remotely, it shouldn’t be dangerous. And it would be a tremendous help.”

She looks relieved.

I frown. “You thought I would say no, didn’t you?”

Her lips purse. She hesitates, then says, “I would be accessing your files as well as everyone else’s and… I guess, you’d have to trust me.”

I’m too stunned to say anything at first. Then I say quietly, “I’m the untrustworthy one, remember?”

She gives a small smile. “And I’m the one who’s really good at lying.”

I grin.

She holds the film up for me to take.

It’s so thin I’m not sure how to grab hold of it. “Um, how do I make this thing work, exactly?”

“You snap it to activate the adhesive.” She demonstrates by taking the two ends between her delicate fingers and pulling them quickly apart. The film makes a small pop sound and turns purple. “Snap it again and it deactivates.” She does so, and it clears. “Once it’s active, put it on your finger or your palm. It will automatically stick and become virtually invisible. Just don’t touch anything metal with it until you’re ready to transfer it to her screen. The bio-glue will preferentially lift off your finger and transfer through the film to the other side and adhere to the metal surface. After that, it will be practically undetectable.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” I ask, carefully taking the film from her.

“I read a lot.”

I lift an eyebrow.

“And I have a lot of time on my hands.”

That reaches inside me and stirs things around. An aching curiosity wells up and wants to know what she does with her time, besides spending endless nights in the chair next to Tilly. But the more I know about Elena, the less I think she’ll want anything to do with me, outside of rescuing kids. Maybe my efforts in that regard offset the fact that I’m planning to beat up my psych officer to do it. Maybe, in her mind, that makes me not as much of a monster. But she’s smart and beautiful and good and brave… the extreme opposite of everything debt collector. Still, I’m thinking of excuses to just talk to her, learn something more personal, when Grace scurries up to our side.

“Lirium,” she says, slightly breathless. “There’s a man at the front door. He’s asking for you.”

“What?” Alarm trips through my body. I shove Elena’s tiny spy film into my pocket. “What does he want?”

“He says he knows you,” she says quickly. “His name is Dr. Brodsky.”

My shoulders drop. “It’s all right—I do know him. Let me talk to him.” I leave Elena with a smile that says we’re not done talking yet and follow Grace to the front. I gave Madam A’s address to Dr. Brodsky, just in case, but I didn’t expect him to show up so soon.

That doesn’t bode well for his granddaughter.

Dr. Brodsky’s granddaughter isn’t as young as I expected. I guess I pictured Tilly when he talked about her, but she seems closer to twenty than ten. Madam A has them stopped cold at the entranceway, like she’s planning on pulling her gun on the seventy-year-old inventor and his granddaughter. Tatiana appears half-dead already, slumped in the wheelchair that Dr. Brodsky is leaning on.

Madam A gives me a look like she’d rather to pull the gun on me. She’s already fingered me for bringing more people to her cloistered hospice. And she’s not exactly wrong.

“Dr. Brodsky meet Madam Anastazja,” I say, eyeing her. She stands ramrod straight, but the gun stays tucked in her silk holster behind her back.

“Please forgive me, madam, for intruding on your home,” Dr. Brodsky says. “But you were right, young debt collector,” he says to me. “They had stopped giving Tatiana her life hits.”

“I told you, Opa, they’re just being prudent,” Tatiana says with a wheeze. “No sense in wasting life energy when it’s just putting off the inevitable.”

She adjusts her position in the chair. Her withered arms and legs take too little space in the cushioned confines and don’t seem to have enough muscle to make the movement happen. I’m uncomfortable just watching her. She should be in a hospital bed.

Dr. Brodsky pats her shoulder. “All of life is simply putting off the inevitable, Tatiana. There is no crime in that.”

“But there is in what you’re doing now, Opa.”

“Some crimes are worth committing, are they not, debt collector?”

“Yes, sir.” I turn to Madam A. “Dr. Brodsky is working on a technology that might, one day, help patients like the ones you keep here. I warned him about kids being transferred out, just in case…” I gesture to Tatiana. “Well, in case it got personal.”

Madam A’s cool, glittering eyes regard Dr. Brodsky, and he stands up to the scrutiny well, returning it with his mechanical eye dilating and measuring her. Finally, she gives a short nod. “Grace will take Tatiana in back and find her a place to rest. She needs attending.”

Grace hurries to Tatiana and wheels her toward the back of the entranceway.

Madam A watches them go, then returns her gaze to Dr. Brodsky. “Perhaps we can discuss this technology of yours. Did you bring it with you?”

“No. I keep a few small prototypes in my laboratory, which is all that really exists of the concept now, other than what I keep in here.” He taps the side of his head. “But I would be happy to discuss it with you, madam.” I’m afraid he’s coming off more crazy-old-man than brilliant-inventor, but Madam A seems to take him at his word. She beckons him to follow her.

Before they leave, she gives me a cold look. “I hope you are quite done bringing strays into my house, Lirium. We have reached our quota.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I say and hold my smile until she turns her back.

I stroll toward the apartment building that is my psych officer’s home in a slow, canvasing walk around the block. The apartment complex is more upscale than I expected, sleek white-and-gray granite blocks interspersed with glinting chrome balconies. The neighborhood is respectable as well, filled with the kind of potted palms and lush greenery that only money can maintain.

Candy must make a tidy sum selling out kids’ lives.

Elena sits in a coffee shop two blocks away. I insisted that she arrive there on her own, so we wouldn’t be connected, in case things went bad. But in spite of the upscale neighborhood, I’m worried. I swung past the café earlier, and the coffee shop clientele looked less interested in coffee than skeet. Elena and I waited until evening, hoping to gain some cover for my breaking-and-entering activities, but now I suspect the night-life here supports a hidden drug den in the back of the café. I don’t like the idea of Elena there alone, but she has to be in range for the data-dot-thing to work.

I flip open my palm phone to call her. I already checked in before I arrived, but I want to be sure everything’s still good.

She answers in one ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.” Her words are measured, tempered for whoever in the café might be listening in, but there’s worry in her voice.

“Sorry, I’m just checking on you.”

“I’m fine.” Impatience.

Okay, I’m being obvious, but I can’t help it. “Watch out for anyone trying to sell you a hit. You can just tell them you’re not interested. And keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact with anyone, just, you know, look busy. Work on your screen.”

“It’s not my first time in a café.”

“It’s the skeet den in back that I’m worried about.”

“Not my first time there, either.”

“Wait… what?” I ask.

There’s a soft laugh on the other end.

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asks, but I can hear the laugh still playing in her voice.

“Right. Sorry. I forgot how much of a badass you are. I’m hanging up now.” But I don’t. I wait to see what she says.

“Good luck. I’ll be waiting.”

I hang up, not sure if the smile on my face should be there or not. But thoughts of what I’m going to do next wipe the grin from my face.

Getting into Candy’s apartment won’t be difficult—it would be harder if she lived somewhere lower rent. But the centralized security system in her building apparently has to register with the local law enforcement, fire department, and other public safety offices: all government agencies which share information with the Department of Life and Health. Elena’s ability to get hold of the passcode both makes my job easier and scares the shit out of me. And makes me worry for her again.

She’s risking a lot to help me.

I remind myself this isn’t for me. Or her. It’s for the kids who are having their lives stolen by Candy and whoever else is involved. Part of me wants to walk in and drain the life out of her until she tells me everything she knows. We’d get what we need, and it would be immensely satisfying in the process. And I’d give that life back to the kids she stole it from—justice all around.

But that wouldn’t stop it from happening again.

If I leave Candy dead in her apartment, whoever she works for is going to start covering their tracks. And if I don’t leave her dead, she’ll call them, and the result will be the same. So, keeping Candy unaware of my true intentions is still the only way to make this work.

Really unfortunate.

I arrive at the front door of Candy’s apartment complex and stride up like I’m supposed to be here. I swipe my palm to open the door. There’s a quarter-second beat when nothing happens, and I’m afraid the passcode doesn’t work, then the door tones and slides open. I take the elevator—all mirrored walls and shiny stainless—to the nineteenth floor. I guess blood money is one way to live above the smog.

I hesitate in front of Candy’s door, one of only three on the floor. I’d like to keep this quiet if at all possible. It won’t help if the neighborhood watch decides to call the police.

I switch the passcode on my palm to the one for her door and swipe my hand past the sensor. It slides open and I stride in, hoping to find Candy before she finds me. There’s no one in the living room off the entryway, but a light shines from down the hall to the left. I walk slowly to keep my boots silent on the polished wood floor of the hall and manage to steal up to the open door of her bedroom without a sound. She sits in bed, screen in her lap, legs buried in a satiny-white comforter.

Unfortunately, she sees me at the edge of her door before I can make a move inside. My black trenchcoat and boots give me away even before she looks at my face. I sprint toward the bed, rushing at her, but she’s already rolled to the side and yanked open the drawer of her bedside table. Just as I scramble across the slippery comforter, I see the gun.

I lunge, going for the bare skin exposed by the hiked-up back of her pajama shirt, but she swings the gun toward me, so I grab for that instead. My hand locks around hers and the gun. I could drain her, but her finger is on the trigger, and the tiny muzzle is uncomfortably close to my ribcage. Plus any gunshots will bring the police.

I wrench her hand with the gun away from my body. She rakes her dagger-like nails across my face. I growl through the pain and slam her hand against the bedside table. The gun drops and tumbles across the carpet.

I start to drain her, and her body tenses up. She’s stretched half off the bed, so we both slide to the carpeted floor. I keep a grip on one of her hands, while I bring the other to my face. Life energy pulses through the contact on my cheek, giving me a hit through the raw flesh where she carved lines in my face. The sting eases, and the flush of life energy helps to calm my breathing. I’m tempted to keep drawing her down, drain her completely, but I’ve got to stick to plan. I pick up her screen off the floor, where it was flung during our brief fight. Elena’s magic dot is adhered to my pinky, so I make sure to press that to the backside of the screen before setting it in front of Candy and letting her go.

She gasps and recoils from me. While she fights to suck in oxygen and recover, I stand and scoop up her gun. It’s small, and it makes me wonder where her standard-issue weapon from the Agency is stashed. Hopefully, not nearby. Her bedside gun is probably the one she uses for her unofficial dirty business.

I hunch down to peer at her. “That’s really no way to treat one of your debt collectors, Candy.”

“Lirium.” She coughs. “I didn’t realize it was you—”

“I understand,” I cut her off in my most patronizing voice. “You were too busy going for the gun.” I tap my chin with one hand while keeping the gun lazily pointed at her. “Let’s see, where were we? Before our discussion in your office was interrupted… right, you were going to submit that transfer request for me.”

She stares at the screen I’ve left on the floor, then looks back to me. “The what?”

“The… trans-fer… re-quest.” I say it slow, like she’s mentally impaired. “You know, the official document that says I never have to see you again. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I… um…” She frowns, like she can’t believe I broke into her apartment just to get her to submit a form. And it is a fairly flimsy excuse. It makes more sense that I’m here to kill her.

I stand up, take a step closer, and point the gun at her head. “Do you have a problem with that?” I figure logic doesn’t have much of a chance when you’re looking down the business end of a weapon, even if it is a tiny, snub-nosed one like Candy’s.

“No!” She cringes, holding a hand out against the gun. “I just… okay! I’ll enter your request, just give me a second.” She picks up the screen and quickly swipes across it.

I wave the gun at her. “Show me.” I bark the words and she jumps. I don’t want her calling the police or sending some kind of message. She scoots to the side, so I can see what she’s doing. She’s on the official Agency page, tapping in her login. When it brings up the internal screen, I try not to show my relief.

Now I just need to buy some time for Elena to do her data snatching thing.

I hunch down again to talk to her, cozy, like we’re friends. “I’m really going to miss you, Candy.” A little crazy talk should help keep her off balance. “We were just getting to know each other.”

She flinches but doesn’t look at me, just keeps tapping on the screen. The transfer request form fills out in record time.

“Which…” She falters. “Which division in Florida do you want?”

“Pick one,” I say. “You know I’m not idiot enough to go there, right? So don’t bother sending any rental-thugs. I’d just like to keep collecting my government check for a while.”

She taps in more information, her fingers shaking. When it’s complete, she submits it and looks up at me.

“I did what you asked.” There’s a quiver in her voice. “Now you don’t need to… you can let me go.” She’s looking at me like she thinks I’m crazy, which will work as well as any explanation I can come up with.

“Good girl.” I switch the gun to my left hand and hold out my right arm. “Now log in my tracker.”

“I… I don’t have the tracker scanner.” Fear makes the whites of her eyes grow larger.

Shit. “It’s in your purse, right?”

She nods, a jerky motion.

“Where is it?”

“By the front door.”

“Well, get up, then. Bring your screen.” I motion her up with the gun and step aside. As soon as she’s past, I slip in tight behind her and grab her neck. She lets out a whimper. I hold her neck with one hand and shove the gun in the small of her back. “Nice and slow.”

We march down the hall, past the living room, to a small table by the front door that I didn’t notice on the way in. Her purse sits on top of it. I shift in front, keeping the gun trained on her, and dump out the bag. The tracker gleams silver on the glass tabletop.

I toss it to her. She scrambles to catch it while still clutching her screen. I hold out my arm. She tentatively reaches out, scans the tracker, then enters the information.

“Excellent,” I say. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Even in the dim light coming from her bedroom, I can see that Candy is pale and shaking.

“If you kill me, Lirium, they’re going to know it was you,” she says, obviously buying completely into the Lirium-is-crazy act. “They’ll see that I entered your information just now. They… they’ll find your prints on my purse!” She jabs the tracker scanner at the purse as if it’s going to be Exhibit A at my trial.

“I’m not going to kill you, Candy,” I say with wide crazy-eyes, just to see her reaction. She lets out a small peep. I almost laugh, but I’m afraid it would sound more amused than demented. “I got what I came for. And I sincerely hope to never see you again.”

Unless it’s in jail. I might come visit her in prison, just for a laugh.

I fling my hand out to make contact with her forehead before she can flinch away. She crumples to the ground under my life energy drain, and I have to scramble to go with her. I hover over her body, her wide fear-frozen eyes staring at me.

“You’re not going to die,” I say. “But I might take a few years off your life, if you don’t mind.” I don’t have time to do that kind of drain, and I don’t need another burn mark on my hand, so there’s no way I’m taking years from her. But she doesn’t need to know that. I drain down a couple months in no time, pulling it in as fast as I can without injury. To me, at least.

When I stop, she’s weak from the drain, but still conscious.

“I’m going to assume you’re smart enough to not call the police,” I say. “Otherwise they’ll be very interested in how you sell out your debt collectors to the mob. But just in case…” I grab her wrist and twist her palm up to show her screen. I slide the gun away from us, and it sails down the polished wood floor toward her bedroom. Then I swipe through and reset her password, locking her out of her own phone. She stares at me like she thinks I’m going to drain her again, which I’m not, but I don’t need her calling for help while I’m on my way out the door. I drag her to the side table, where her emptied purse and the rest of the room is unfortunately bare of anything to tie her up. So I reach for her red silk pajama top. She barely fights me as I rip it up over her head, but once I stuff some of the fabric in her mouth and try to tie it behind her head, she puts up a weak resistance. I stop and glare at her, and that’s enough to put an end to that. I cinch the slippery fabric tight around the back of her head, then triple knot it to the leg of the table. That should occupy her for a little while.

I leave her tied up in her apartment without a look back.

Watching Elena work is my new favorite hobby.

Not that I have any other hobbies, unless you count drinking to excess and using sex workers. Last I checked, those were actually vices, and besides, it’s been a while since I’ve done either. But watching Elena is almost as intoxicating.

She sits at Madam A’s desk, perched on the edge of an overstuffed leather chair. Her screen lies flat on the giant mahogany desk in front of her, both pieces of furniture looming large and making her thin frame seem almost child-sized by comparison. Her sneakered toes barely touch the floor, and her back is perfectly straight. The casual pants and simple t-shirt she’s wearing suit her—earnest and sweet, in a clean-scrubbed way that would normally be plenty to make my knees weak.

But that’s not what entrances me.

A computer-sensing visor wraps around her head, sleek and glittering and sexy in a technology-enhanced way that makes me shiver a bit. She stares straight ahead at whatever she sees inside the visor, presumably holographic projections of the grid she’s manipulating. Since her eyes are covered, and her attention is rapt on the data, I can watch unfettered. Her slender fingers weave a delicate dance in the air. They alternate between a slow stroking, as she teases something out of the matrix, and fast flicks that are almost angry, as she whips away offending data. Every once in a while she halts the sinuous finger motions to tap something into the screen. Programming? More data manipulation? I have no idea, but I pretend to study my palm screen until she goes back to the dance. Then I watch again, mesmerized by the silent, seductive tempo of her work. And I think dangerous thoughts about how I’d rather have those fingers dancing on my skin than on the air.

Her fingers freeze, as if stricken, and then push her holovisor up on her head. Her hair bunches behind it, and she turns to me.

“It’s hard to concentrate when you stare.”

I cough. “Stare? I wasn’t…”

She’s not buying it.

“Have you found anything interesting yet?” I ask, hoping redirection will work.

Her perfect posture slumps a little. “There’s a lot to work with. I’ve written a few algorithms for pattern matching, but I’m having a hard time pulling signal out of the data.”

“That sounds… not good.”

“No, it’s just going to take more time,” she says. “And I’m going to tap some other Department records, see if cross-referencing might bring something out of the noise.”

“Okay.” I don’t get what she’s doing, but I’m happy to listen. And would be happier if she did the finger dance again.

She stares at me.

“Can I help?” I ask, just to be nice. I know I’m useless.

She drops her gaze to her hands, which, sadly, now rest in her lap. “Maybe you can go check on your mom?”

I try not to feel the small crush of disappointment in the center of my chest. But it’s there. “I’m bothering you.”

She looks up, her gaze falling on the mostly-healed scrapes where Candy clawed my face. Elena didn’t ask what happened, and I didn’t tell—it was our silent understanding that I did what I had to in order to get the data we needed. Her gaze drags up to my eyes, and she gives me a small, apologetic smile. “It’s just hard to concentrate. You know, with the staring.”

I swallow. So busted. “Right. Sorry.” I get up from the chair I’ve been slouched in. “I’ll go check on Dr. Brodsky. See how he’s settling in.”

“I’ll let you know when I have something.”

I give her a nod and hurry out of the room, scraping my dignity off the floor as I go.

I decide to visit my mom before I seek out Dr. Brodsky, but then I find him in my mother’s room, sitting by her bedside, head bent. She’s awake, and I seem to have interrupted a serious conversation between them. I don’t know what they could possibly have to discuss, but my heart beats a little faster as I skim over the things that he knows about me that I’d just as soon my mother didn’t.

They both have guilty looks on their faces as I approach the bed.

“Dr. Brodsky? Is there something I can help you with?” I say it with a distinct undertone of, step away from my mother now and we won’t have to make this messy.

“We were just having a little talk,” my mom says. She doesn’t look much better than when I left. My annoyance with the inventor dissipates in my concern that I’ve been away too long. My mom could probably use another hit.

I step to the opposite side of the bed from Dr. Brodsky and take my mom’s hand. “As long as you’re not sharing embarrassing stories from my childhood. How are you feeling? Are you ready for another transfer?” I reach past my hand to feel the reassuring presence of her small cache of life energy and check the monitor by her bed at the same time. She’s weak, and her heart is still an irregular mess on the screen, but at least it’s beating.

“I’m fine. Dr. Brodsky was keeping me company, telling me all about his very interesting research.”

I narrow my eyes at him, hoping he’s not giving my mom some kind of false hope. “I’m glad he kept you entertained while I was gone.”

My mom’s sigh pulls me back to her. Her eyelids droop. I bend close, still holding her hand. “If you’d like, I can give you a hit right now. Just a small one. It will make you feel better.” I can hear the begging in my voice, but I don’t care. I’m desperate for anything she’ll let me do for her now.

“I think, maybe, I just need a little rest,” she says. “Besides, Dr. Brodsky has something he wants to discuss with you.”

I don’t even glance at the old man. “Dr. Brodsky can wait. How about I give you a hit first, and then you rest?”

“There are others who need it more, Joey.” She pats my hand, the one holding hers. The feel of her paper-thin skin makes my jaw clench. It’s a reminder of the shortness of time I have left with her.

“There’s no one I’d rather give it to.” Then I drop my voice to a whisper. “Please, mom. Let me do this.”

She lets out another sigh. “All right. But just a little. Then let me rest and you listen to what Dr. Brodsky has to say.”

I frown but waste no time in trickling a small hit through our clasped hands. It starts a warm glow inside me, the effect of the mercy hit, but that’s nothing compared to the feeling of relief when her hands warm and a small flush of pink races across her cheeks. I stop, being careful not to give her too much. I’m not sure what her heart can take. But she looks a little better, and my own heart calms in response.

She closes her eyes to rest, and I reluctantly let go of her hand. Dr. Brodsky is already on his feet, waiting by the door to the back. I know it leads outside, because it’s the one Grace brought me through when I first arrived at Madam A’s. I don’t say anything, waiting until we’re out in the alley behind the brothel, door safely shut behind us.

“Son, I want you to know that this isn’t my idea,” he starts, and already my stomach is in knots.

“What did you say to my mother? You know she’s dying, right? So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t upset her with any crazy ideas.”

“I’m aware of your mother’s condition.” His voice is heavy, like this is a burden he would prefer to set down. “Madam Anastazja’s assistant informed me of your situation. It is a terrible thing, and I am deeply sorry. And now, I’m afraid I may have made things worse, although that was never my intent.”

“What did you say?” But I know it before he answers: he’s told my mother about his world-changing device. The one that’s not ready yet, but that she might think could save her, giving her some kind of cruel false hope.

“I regret that I shared my research with her.” His watery blue eyes are asking for a forgiveness I’m nowhere close to giving. “Please understand, it was simply idle conversation. I was filling time, explaining Tatiana’s condition and how I hoped to someday help young people like her.” He pauses, then stops the nervous wringing of his bony-fingered hands. “Your mother is a very intelligent woman.”

My face is hot, and flattering my mom is not doing much to assuage my anger. “That doesn’t mean you have to get her hopes up!”

“No, you are quite right about that.” He folds his arms and leans against the railing. The small, three-step stoop we’re standing on is close and crowded. My hands itch to reach out and wring Dr. Brodsky’s neck, but I keep them shoved in my pockets.

While I’m trying to contain my anger, he keeps talking. “What your mother suggests is completely unethical. Something I would never consider. Have never considered until today, and even so, it is a moral outrage.”

“What?” My anger sputters, then turns into overdrive. “What are you talking about?”

“Your mother…” He holds his hands out, palm up, as if he’s defenseless. “She wants me to test the device. On her.”

“What? But… you said it’s not ready!”

“Precisely what I told her. Although she was not long fooled by that. You see, I had already shared with her the extent of my experiments. How I had tested it on smaller mammals, gauging the effectiveness and making slow strides toward a human trial. So, she already knew I was mostly lacking a means for a human trial to proceed, a critical stopping point in the research given…” He shrugs his thin shoulders. “Given that most of the scientific community believes my tinkerings are those of a crazy old man desperate to save his dying granddaughter.”

Through his speech, the heat of my anger cools. I feel the same tug of false hope my mom no doubt felt listening to him. “So, what are you saying? That it actually does work? That you can use it to cure my mother?”

“Yes, it works.” His voice grows more strident. “On animals. But no, I cannot use it to cure your mother. It’s completely untested on humans. It is as likely to kill your mother as cure her. Probably more likely to result in her death. It’s unconscionable to even consider it.”

I press my hands to my temples, rubbing the headache that’s building there. “So, it’s untested on humans. But it works on animals.” My mind zings from hope to despair and back to hope again, a vortex of confusion that makes my head hurt. “How much difference is there between the effect on animals and people? I mean… is it possible it could work?”

“Possible?” he asks, like I’m being ridiculous. “Anything is possible, young debt collector. Before the vaccine mutated, before you and those like you started to express the ability to transfer life energy, who would have ever thought such a thing possible? Any reputable scientist would have called it absurd! But, once the thing was real, an indisputable event that happened before their eyes, then… then they had to broaden their imagination. Then they scrambled to find why a simple bioelectromagnetic organism, a tiny ingredient added to a vaccine, could have mutated and spread and changed the very DNA of so many people. Then they had to decide all the reasons why it was, indeed, possible… because it had already happened.”

I swallow. I can feel it: the infectious enthusiasm these damn high potentials always have, convincing you of their theories and ideas. But this is my mother’s life we’re talking about, a life that’s quickly slipping away from her. “Are you saying it could work on my mother?”

“There is no question that it could work,” he says gravely. “The only question is whether it will work. There is by no means any kind of guarantee.”

“Tell me about this… device.”

“I do not want to get your hopes up as well.”

“Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?” My anger flares back. “You’ve already told my mother! So I want to know everything you’ve told her. Then I can decide whether it’s worth the risk.”

He frowns and doesn’t speak for a moment, like he’s weighing the risks of further explanations. As if they’re bombs to be treated with the highest care. Only he’s already exploded one on my mother, so he’d better not hold out on me. Or he’ll have one very angry debt collector on his hands. My steely-eyed look must have convinced him, because he takes a deep breath and begins.

“Are you familiar with the long term effects of repeated exposure to life energy?”

“Longer life?” I ask, sarcastically. Valac told me about some of the effects: a cessation to aging, immunity to disease, increased strength and stamina. I felt some of that myself, just from repeated collections during my time in the mob. But I want answers from Dr. Brodsky, not pop quizzes.

“Yes, of course,” he says. “But there is much more. Cellular degeneration stops. Immune function becomes unparalleled. The consistent doses of life energy act as a kind of youth serum. All the most basic cellular functions rejuvenate, as if they are flush with the attributes of the young: resilience, strength, the ability to withstand and repair damage at all levels.” An intense look takes over his face. “The problem lies in the amount of life energy required to obtain this effect throughout the body. Years and years of life would have to be used to keep the whole body in this state of perpetual youth; and it would have to continue, an endless supply, in order for the effects to maintain themselves. As you can imagine, this is not feasible, nor in any way moral. As I told you before, young debt collector, so much of this is an abomination to even consider. Those years come from others; people whose lives we have no right to take.”

“I know a little bit about the collection process, doctor.” I don’t need to be reminded of the horror of where the life energy comes from. “But you said your device wouldn’t do that—that it would use the body’s own life energy, right?” Maybe I misunderstood him before.

“Yes, yes,” he says. “That is where the fantastic possibility of my device lies! If we can harness the life energy of one part of the body and shift it to another, the moral dimension eases. We are free to make decisions with our own bodies, are we not?”

He eyes me, like this is a critical question, but I just nod. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since I arrived at Madam A’s: slowly doling out the years of stolen life I acquired while in the mob. But I would do it with my own life as well, if it came to it. Especially if it would help my mom.

“But finding a source for the life energy only solves the moral quagmire,” he says. “The technology itself has two distinct challenges: we must have a way to initiate the transfer from one part of the body to another, and we must find a way to contain it.”

“Contain it?”

“For example, with your mother,” he says. “She has a failing heart, yes? Why do you not simply infuse her with your life energy? Am I wrong to assume that you would at least consider this?”

“I’ve been feeding her hits ever since we left the hospital.”

“And yet, it is not having the effect we would all desire: her heart is not repairing itself, renewing at the cellular level the way we know a longer term exposure would result in.”

“Are you saying I just need to keep giving her hits over a longer period of time?” My heart lifts. “I can do that.” At least until I run out.

“No, no, son.” His furry eyebrows draw together. “You wouldn’t have enough to induce the desired effect, even if you transferred every bit of life you have. Once the energy enters the body, it dissipates, yes?”

I find myself nodding again. “It’s like there’s a big lake of it. Whatever I feed in just goes into the reservoir.”

His eyes light up. “Just so! You are filling the reservoir of your mother’s life energy. But her heart is a leak, one which constantly drains that energy away. Faster than you can ever replace it. What we need is not to pour more life energy into the reservoir, but to stop the leak.”

“Okay. What if I concentrate my life energy transfer directly into her heart?” I’ve seen the effects at the point of transfer before; that’s how Ophelia was able to heal my wounds. But she said it was simply my body reacting to the infusion, accelerating a response, a healing, that would have occurred anyway, given time. And my mom’s heart isn’t healing itself.

Dr. Brodsky confirms my doubts with the shake of his head. “There are small effects at the point of transfer, but they are just a temporary boost to the life processes already taking place. The life energy is not contained for long enough to have the desired local effect. It dissipates. To use your lake analogy, it doesn’t matter what part of the shore you stand on—when you throw your life energy in, it goes to fill the reservoir as a whole.”

I frown. “Because it’s not contained in her heart. It dissipates to the rest of her body.”

“Precisely.” His eyes are shining now. “However, if we could build a barrier, a cage of sorts, that would keep the life energy contained in the organ—if we can stop the dissipation—then we could accelerate those beneficial effects. The flush of energy would be concentrated, constant and intense, right where it is most needed. And that, my young friend, could reverse the damage. Stop the leak.”

“So your device is a cage? To capture life energy?” My hopes lift again. “How does that work?”

“The tissue connector device wraps around and encloses the organ it is transferring to. You can think of your own body as a cage. You contain life energy within yourself, yes? Unfortunately, you cannot take your mother’s heart inside your own body in order to heal it. But the tissue connector can: it literally takes the organ inside of its own generated field, containing and concentrating the life energy right where it is needed.”

I try to picture this, but it makes me queasy. “So it’s some kind of device that… covers the organ and traps life energy inside.”

“In a way. But it is no mechanical device. It is, in fact, living tissue.” His mechanical eye measures me, like he’s watching for my response. “I have taken DNA from collectors and identified the mutated gene—it is quite similar to the original bioelectromagnetic source material, the sea creature used in the vaccine which gave you this ability. I used this mutated gene to change the DNA of a host animal, producing an altered physiology very much like your own. From that host, I grew a tissue culture which now has the ability to harness life energy. In my experiments, I used mice, but the resultant tissue connector is not a mouse; it is simply a mass of living cells derived from the mouse’s body. It has no mind, no conscience, not like you, debt collector. It doesn’t care whether it transfers or not.”

I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. “So how do you make it transfer?”

“That is precisely the trick!” He’s fully into mad-scientist mode now. “The tissue connector’s cells are much like those you carry in your hands. Each and every cell of your body is a small electromagnetic field generator capable of manipulating life energy. This is what you do, debt collector, every time you transfer. You push and pull the life energy, directing it wherever you wish it to go. Your body generates the field, but it lacks purpose. It has no will. Until your mind generates a controlling field to shape and direct the life energy transfer. Your mind’s field and the field your cells generate… they are distinct, but they are part and parcel of the same process.”

This I understand. All the mental imagery that Ophelia taught me to use makes sense to me now. My body already had the ability to direct the energy, to generate this field Dr. Brodsky talks about—I just had to figure out how to use my mind to shape it and make it work.

“So your device mimics what I do, when I collect or pay out. Because it has living cells, like mine. But it doesn’t have a mind, so you need something else to direct it?”

He nods. “A field must be created to activate the tissue connector—to induce a transfer from one end to the other. Unfortunately, the precision of that waveform, that electromagnetic field, must be quite absolute. What you do with your mind, debt collector, when you initiate a transfer is a very complicated process. Your mind commands the forces at work in your tissues, but it is a subtle manipulation, one you probably don’t consciously understand in full. It is not an easy thing to do, I would imagine.”

“No.” I frown. “At least, it takes some practice.” It isn’t as simple as envisioning the spigot or holding back the reservoir of life energy. It’s a constant battle to fight the craving for the hit, to resist the urge to recoil from the payout, or to withstand the drowning glory of a mercy hit. To say it’s not easy is definitely an understatement.

“For me, I only have a few mechanical generators and the clumsy physical setup of my laboratory to work with.”

“So… it doesn’t always work right.”

“It is quite repeatable. But unfortunately, it must be tuned to each patient, each configuration for the transfer. And that tuning must be precise.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then instead of the tissue transferring from, say, your mother’s kidney to your mother’s heart, draining the life energy from one and bathing the other in it, the connection could go in reverse. Or drain both.”

“That does not sound good.”

“Indeed. While I do have a tissue connector of the proper size that is cultivated to work with human organs, I haven’t been able to test it. For obvious reasons. It should function much as the smaller connectors have, for my rodent patients, but it will be very uncertain. Very imprecise.”

“It could kill her.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not willing to take that chance,” I say. “I’ve only just… She only has a short time left. I don’t want you taking that from her.”

He heaves a long sigh. “You are quite right. And I was afraid that might be the conclusion you would reach. It is entirely reasonable. But, you see, my young debt collector, it’s not up to you.”

My voice drops, low and menacing. “You can’t force her to do this experiment of yours. I won’t allow it.”

He doesn’t seem to register my threat. His voice just turns sad. “You misunderstand me. Your mother has already decided. She wants the procedure.”

My fists ball up, but I can see the torment in his eyes. “You could refuse to do it.”

“I could. And I should. But I will not.”

My breathing starts to become uneven. “I could stop you.”

“Yes, you could. And perhaps you should do that. I leave that to you and your conscience, debt collector. But I would advise speaking to your mother first about it.”

My chest is tight, air fighting its way in and out of my lungs. I can’t believe Dr. Brodsky has talked my mother into this. That I was the one who allowed him to come here. That all of this is slipping out of my grasp. I heave a couple more breaths, then turn my back on him to yank open the door to Madam A’s brothel, determined to stop my mother from volunteering to be his lab rat.

My mom’s eyes open as I approach, and she turns toward the sound of my boots on the floor of her room. I stop by her side, and the soft hum of the monitors fills the silence. All I can see is the hollows of her cheeks, the thinness of her hair, the way her chest lifts and falls too fast, as her lungs try to compensate for the failings of her heart. It’s far too easy for me to picture her body completely still as the death that’s chasing her finally catches up. But I want to cheat him of every second that I can… not have her die even sooner under Dr. Brodsky’s mad experiment.

“Mom, don’t do this.”

“Joey.” She reaches a hand out to me, and I take it in both of mine. “I want to do this.”

“But… it’s just that…” I have to fight to keep the tears burning hot inside me instead of spilling onto my face. I clear my throat. “I didn’t bring you out of that hospital to have you be experimented on.”

The back door whispers open. Dr. Brodsky closes it again, quietly, behind him, but he stays by the door. Which is good, because if he tries to convince my mother to be his lab rat in front of me, I might be tempted to do something I don’t want my mother to see.

“Joe.” Her voice is breathy, and it rivets my attention. “I’m going to die anyway.”

“It doesn’t have to be today!” My voice is more of a cry than I want. I’m not going to convince her this way, like a child. I should be stronger, but I can’t find it in me.

Her thin fingers pat my hand, reassuring me. “Joe, you have to let me do this. I know it’s not likely to work. I know it will steal some of the time we might have had together. And I am sorry for that. I would be dead already if you hadn’t taken me from the hospital. If I had paid my debt then, at least my life energy would have gone to serve some better purpose.”

My face twists. I don’t want to say that it would just go to some CEO so he can shine a little brighter in his rise to the top. I’ve seen too much to believe in the justness of the system anymore. I know how corrupt it is.

“Mom—” But I stop myself, uncertain if I should tell her.

“I want my life to mean something, Joe. I want it to count.”

Her words tear at me, given that is exactly what I’ve been desperate for.

“And this,” she lifts one hand to wave weakly in Dr. Brodsky’s direction, “will give my life some purpose, what’s left of it. I wasn’t able to be strong for you, Joe. I couldn’t take away the life that has been dealt to you. But Dr. Brodsky’s device could change things—it could change everything, even that terrible gift you’ve been given. If there was a way that life energy could be harnessed without using debt collectors… Joe, you have to let me be a part of making that a possibility.”

And like that, I am trapped. I cannot say no to her dying wish to be part of changing the world that stole her son from her. I bow my head, words stuck in my throat, tears leaking out. I give her a small nod, my gaze fixed on her hands, unable to look in her eyes as I agree to let her die.

There’s a soft whisper of sneakered feet on the floor behind me.

“Joe!” Elena’s voice is filled with excitement and a little breathless, like she’s run the whole way here from Madam A’s office. “I found it! The algorithms—” Her words break off as I raise my head to face her. “Oh.” She floats a look between me, my mom, and Dr. Brodsky, who has now approached my mother’s bed, hovering a few steps away near the monitors.

“I… I can come back.” Elena turns like she’s going to run out of the room.

“Wait,” I say. The word is soft, but it freezes her in her tracks. She slowly turns back to me, eyes round and solemn. “I want to see what you’ve found.”

I wipe my face and bend to kiss my mother’s forehead. I don’t have any words for her, so I give her a small smile instead. I don’t look at Dr. Brodsky or Elena as I stride out of the room. I hear her following behind me, but I don’t turn back, trying to master the pain that’s ripping my heart into pieces before I have to speak again. She doesn’t say anything either until we arrive at Madam A’s office. Elena’s screen lies on the desk. I press my fists against the hard wood of the desk’s surface and focus on the data shining from the screen.

It means nothing to me. “What have you found?”

“Joe.” Elena’s voice is hushed. “What happened? Is your mother okay?”

“She’s going to die.” My throat closes up, and I have to fight through it to keep speaking. “Dr. Brodsky’s going to do an experiment on her that will most likely kill her.” I look up, and Elena’s face is contorted, like she doesn’t know what to say—as if she’s afraid whatever she says will be too little or too much.

I spare us both by looking away from her big brown eyes and studying the screen again. “Please, just tell me what you’ve found.”

She hesitates, then taps the screen to bring up a file. “After I accessed Candy’s financial records, I was finally able to find the pattern. There’s a correlation between when she receives a deposit in her accounts and when certain kinds of collections are assigned. It was difficult to track down at first, but then I cross referenced it with records from the Actuarial and Assessor’s offices, and found there were no corresponding payouts.”

I rub my forehead, trying to keep in the emotions wracking my body, so I can follow her explanation. “You’re saying there are collections but no payouts. And those are the kids they’re transferring out?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t look that way in the records. I had to dig further to tie those ghost collections to kids who died in the same hospital around the same time. The ghost collection records always had an identical diagnosis—82-year-old female patient, with cancer, complicated by sepsis.”

“That’s a pretty common diagnosis. Couldn’t that just be a coincidence? And what do you mean by ghost collections?” My head pounds as I try to grasp onto what she’s saying.

“They’re ghosts because they don’t really exist. Someone has borrowed a different patient’s record and just changed the name.”

“So Candy’s falsifying the records? That’s good. That’s something we can hang on her, if nothing else.” I’d prefer to get her on murder charges for the kids, but I’ll take records tampering for now, if that’s all we’ve got.

“Well, yes, she’s falsifying records, but she’s not the only one. Someone else is setting up the ghost collection—it’s the signal that starts the whole chain of events, because it always comes first. Then the children are transferred out. Then the deposit is made to Candy’s account—always a slightly different amount from one of five unrelated accounts. But it’s made close in time, every time.”

I rub a hand across my face, feeling muddled again. Her big brown eyes look worried, and that doesn’t help with my attempts to focus. “I’m sorry. I just… can you spell it out for me? I’m going to have to explain this to my bean counter, Flitstrom, and I need to make sure I understand.”

Her lips pinch together, but she nods and swipes a delicate finger across the screen to bring up a patient record. “Here—this is a cached record of Candy’s psych officer account three weeks ago. See the 82-year-old cancer patient with sepsis? Mary Trenchant?” She points to a record that’s flagged for collection.

“Yeah.”

She taps into the record and brings up the history, then pulls up a second screen. “Mary Trenchant is a ghost. See this other record for Lucy Hoffsteder? It’s identical except for the name. Only Lucy is real. And she was transferred out a week before Mary Trenchant showed up on Candy’s screen. There’s no other record for Mary—she’s a copy, made after Lucy’s record was archived.”

“Because no one would pay attention to a dead woman’s record.”

“Exactly. At least not for the short amount of time that Mary, the ghost record, shows up in Candy’s collection notices. And deep inside Mary’s file…” Elena taps a few more levels down into the record. “…you see this code? The diagnosis? It says ‘cancer complicated by sepsis’ in the description, but that numerical code? It doesn’t mean cancer. It’s a pediatric code.”

“That’s the kid they want transferred out?”

“Yes. This code is the same diagnosis given to Hope Salinas, an 8-year-old with leukemia in the same hospital as our ghost patient Mary Trenchant.”

“So this is the order for the hit? Candy gets this, and then what?”

“Then she assigns one of her debt collectors to Mary Trenchant. It’s always the same collector. Someone named Moloch. On that same day, Hope Salinas suddenly takes a turn for the worse and dies.”

“So the collector transfers out the kid. But what about the ghost collection?”

“It’s marked as ‘expired before collection’ and then deleted from the system. The only reason I caught this one was because it happened in the last year, which is how far back the cached records go. I pulled all that data, and that allowed me to pattern match case after case like this. Always a ghost record that shows up with that particular diagnosis, dies before collection, then is deleted from the system. Always a child dies in the same hospital. And always Candy gets paid. All within the same 24 hour period.”

I stare at screen that she’s gripping tightly in her hands. “Elena, you’re a genius.”

She gives me a sad smile. “Not genius enough. There’s another ghost collection record that showed up in Candy’s files today, just before you tapped into her records. Julie Sanders, 82-year-old cancer patient with sepsis. Scheduled to be transferred out tomorrow morning.”

“Is there a pediatric code too?”

She nods. “It’s the same code as Sophie Miles, ten-year-old heart patient in the peds ward, same hospital.” She swallows and looks up into my eyes. “Joe…”

“I know. We need to do this now,” I say. “I hope Flitstrom is working late tonight.”

“Do you think this will convince your assessor to do something to stop it?”

“I think so. I mean, at the least he can put the collection on hold. Or move the kid. Or something. This is perfect, Elena. Just what I need to convince him to go whistleblower and get an investigation launched.”

A better smile lights her face.

I flip open my phone and bring up Flitstrom’s number. Before I tap it to call him, I stop, realizing that I can’t just take off and bring all this to him. Not while my mom is…

I close my phone.

“What’s wrong?” Elena asks.

“Could you do something for me? I mean, something more, because you’ve already done so much…”

She looks puzzled.

“Can you make sure that Dr. Brodsky doesn’t…” I can’t force myself to say experiment on my mother. “Can you just ask them to wait? Until I get back? I would ask her myself, but if I go in there, and she asks me to stay…” Time is short—for her and for this kid that Candy has scheduled to transfer out. “If I have to choose…” I’m fighting, hard, to keep my voice level. Elena has already seen me cry today. The last thing I want is a repeat of that.

“I understand.” She hands me the screen. “Everything you need for Flitstrom is on here. I’ll make sure Dr. Brodsky waits until you get back. And I’ll see if we can arrange to have Sophie smuggled out of the hospital. If nothing else, at least we can stop that from happening.”

She has that determined look, softened only by the deep brown of her eyes peering up into mine.

“You know what?” I say. “You’re not just a genius. You’re like a really short, kind-hearted drill sergeant.” I let out a low breath. “But I think I already knew the kind-hearted part.”

She drops her gaze to her hands, then tucks them both under her arms. The small blush on her cheeks makes me smile in spite of the heartache that’s tearing around inside me.

Then she looks up into my eyes again. “Just stop these guys, Joe.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

It’s late, nearly ten o’clock, and Flitstrom isn’t happy I’m calling him at home. I’ve got my full debt collector regalia on, and I keep my voice low as I stride through the dark streets toward the metro. I’m already on my way to meet him, even though he hasn’t agreed to it yet.

His voice exudes impatience over the phone. “Whatever problems you’re having with your psych officer, you can take it to internal affairs in the morning.”

“Sir, this really can’t wait. And by morning, my psych officer may have called internal affairs herself.” Which is highly unlikely, but sounds like a good excuse. It’s only been an hour or so since I tied Candy up in her apartment. I’m sure she’s already worked her way loose, and she might have even called the police, although I doubt it. She’ll probably just go about her business as usual—which unfortunately means transferring out a kid name Sophie in the morning.

An audible sigh drifts over the connection. “Can you tell me the problem over the phone? Maybe we can work it out.”

“This really has to be in person.”

“This is highly… irregular, Lirium.” The doubt in his voice makes my chest tight. Flitstrom is so by-the-book he even schedules out his coffee breaks to the minute. Which is precisely why I think he’s the guy to bring this to, if only I can get him to step out of his routine for two seconds.

“We don’t have to meet at the Department,” I say, hoping that will reassure him. I don’t want this meeting documented by security anyway. “How about that café around the corner, where you get your coffee. The Official Bean?”

“How do you know where I get my coffee?” Definitely suspicious. And I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t. He’s skeptical of anything out of the ordinary, which is why he’s the better man to be the whistleblower on this—not a near-washing-out debt collector who may or may not have recently been involved with the mob.

“You always have a cup from the café when I check in.”

There’s silence on the line for a moment, and I can just imagine Flitstrom’s little bean counter gears turning, calculating the odds that I’ve gone rogue debt collector on him. Or that I’m dragging him out for something less dangerous, but pointless. He’s all about efficiency and making the system run like a well-oiled machine. Which is why this monkey wrench I’m about to toss into the gears will upset him—and get him to call for an investigation.

I hope.

“All right,” he says, and the tightness in my chest eases. “I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes, waiting.” I close my phone and hurry to catch the metro as it slides into the station.

Flitstrom strides into the café with a nervous look over his shoulder, like he already regrets coming out at night to this part of town. Not that the neighborhood near the Department of Health and Life’s east-side division is exactly low-rent. At least, I’ve spent time in a lot worse places. But there are probably more junkies hit-seeking out at this time of night than what he normally sees in his nine-to-five.

I hold a hand up so he’ll see me. He slouches a little as he walks over and slides into the booth, sitting opposite me. He’s dressed in the same plain blue jacket and tie he wears to the office. I wonder if he has any other clothes.

I’ve already ordered coffee for both of us, hoping that will put him at ease. I slide it over to him, but he ignores it and glances at Elena’s screen lying between the cups.

“All right,” he says. “What’s this about?”

I take a breath and go right for it. “I have evidence my psych officer is illegally transferring out underaged kids.”

He stares at me, processing what I said. I know he’s heard every word, so I wait. The café is nearly empty, just a kid making out with his girlfriend in the corner and a bored staff member bouncing his head in time to music only he can hear. Neither pay any attention to us.

Flitstrom reaches for the coffee. The liquid on top forms shuddering rings with each shake of his hand. He sips, swallows, and blinks several times as he sets the cup down.

Finally, he says, “What evidence?”

I frown. He’s not questioning that it’s possible. There’s a very slim chance that I’ve read Flitstrom wrong all along. Maybe he’s not a straight arrow. Maybe he takes illegal hits on the side himself. There’s even the possibility that he’s involved in Candy’s scheme. I don’t think so, or I wouldn’t have come to him. But he should be outraged by this, not cold and calculating about the evidence. Then again, he is a bean counter.

“I have copies of government records that show how it’s set up.”

“You’ve been accessing government records?” he asks. “How?”

There’s no way I’m telling him about Elena. “I’m a debt collector. We have ways of convincing people to give us information.”

He narrows his eyes and notices the scrape marks on my cheek. “Unauthorized access to government records is illegal.”

I meet his stare. “So is transferring out kids.”

He rubs his forehead and squeezes his eyes shut. “Okay. You’re right.” He looks at me. “It just seems likely this is some kind of mistake. That can happen. Records can get corrupted or deleted or switched. Kids die and the parents want to blame someone, so they accuse the Department of transferring them out, when statistically it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“This isn’t a mistake, Flitstrom.” He looks startled by the anger in my voice, so I lower it and try to keep it even. “I’ve seen the kids. They’re little and they’re dying and their parents are forced to smuggle them out of the hospital before they get transferred out—”

“The parents are emotionally impacted by this. Maybe they mistakenly believe—”

“I’m emotionally impacted by this.” I stop and pull in a breath. “Look, this isn’t a file or a statistic, this is a flesh and blood kid. Are you the kind of man that can stand by and let that happen?”

His voice goes cold. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not heartless—”

“I know, I know,” I say, backing off and hoping it’s true. “But some people are. People like Candy Kane Thornton are ruthless and all too happy to steal whatever’s left of these kids’ life energy in exchange for regular deposits into their debit accounts.”

Flitstrom frowns. “Okay, let’s say this is actually happening.”

“I have records to prove it.”

“Okay. Fine. But are you sure this is something your psych officer is involved in? Because the Agency carefully screens all its—”

“Don’t quote the rule book to me. It’s happening and Candy is involved. What I need to know is if you’re going to help me blow the whistle on this and make it stop. Because it’s still happening. There’s a little girl scheduled to be transferred out tomorrow. Are you going to stand by and let that happen or are you going to help me?”

“Okay! All right.” He holds up his hands, like he’s fending off my words with them. “Just calm down. Let me see what you’ve got.”

I don’t realize my fists are clenched under the table until he asks me to show him the screen, and I have to force myself to uncurl one of them. I slide the screen past his coffee and swipe open one of the records that Elena found. Or stole. Whatever.

I show him the ghost collection record. “Someone sets up this fake record. It’s a signal that tells Candy to send a collector to transfer out this terminally-ill kid.” I bring up the pediatric file. “It’s always the same collector: Moloch. After the kid is transferred out, the files are deleted from the system, and Candy gets a nice fat deposit in her account.” I quickly pull up those records as well. “There are dozens of hits that fit this pattern, all in the last twelve months.”

Flitstrom leans back, taking the screen with him. He’s fully engaged now, swiping and sifting through the data. I keep quiet, waiting, giving him time to do his analysis thing. He reads, swipes, reads some more. I take my coffee cup in my hand and sip, just to have something to do, while I nervously wait for him to come to some kind of conclusion.

Finally, he says, “So these records were obtained illegally?”

“They’re real, Flitstrom.”

“No, I know they’re real,” he says. “It looks like you’ve slashed into not only your psych officer’s records but files from my office and the Actuarial office at the Department of Health and Life as well.”

“I told you—”

He holds up a hand to cut me off and sets the screen down. “I really don’t want to know how you obtained these. It’s better if I don’t.”

“Okay.” I frown. “But it’s enough for you to start an investigation, right? Call internal affairs and go whistleblower. Or maybe the district attorney…”

He folds his hand on top of the table and stares at them a moment. My stomach clenches.

“I can’t do anything with illegal records, Lirium.”

“What do you mean? The evidence is right there! All you have to do is show them—”

“Show who?” Flitstrom asks. He’s sympathetic, I can tell. He wants to do something with this, but he’s acting as if his hands are somehow tied and he can’t do a thing. “Internal affairs will bury this. I’ll have to go to the Department Ombudsman at least, and even then… do you know who in the Agency is involved in this? Who knows that you’ve accessed these records? How pervasive is this? Is it just your psych officer or are there more?”

“I don’t know.” I swallow. “I… this is all I have. I was taking a chance, just coming to you with it. I figured you were too straight to be involved in something like this.”

He makes a disgusted face. “Of course I’m not involved. But the truth is that someone else clearly is. This goes beyond your psych officer. There could be several others involved. At the minimum, there’s someone with the ability to tamper with records and create that ghost file in the first place. And the payouts have to go somewhere. Did you think about that?”

I hadn’t, actually. “No,” I admit. “But we can prove that Candy’s involved. Isn’t that enough to get the Ombudsman or whoever to start a real investigation? I don’t know, like subpoenas and things. Get the real proof of everyone involved.”

“I’m not sure I can trust the Ombudsman with this. Not when we don’t know who all is involved.” I can see the weight of this on Flitstrom’s face now. He’s figuring the angles, and it’s not coming up good. “I’ll have to take this outside the Department. Which means we need evidence that will stand up in a court. Or at least be enough to get a warrant to subpoena government records, which is no small thing.” He rubs his face with both hands. “This isn’t going to be enough, Lirium. We need proof that the kids are actually being transferred out. And some way to tie that to the Agency.”

I like the “we” part of that sentence, but not the rest. “What kind of proof do you need?” Exasperation makes my voice squeak. I’m not sure I can wring anything more out of Candy, and the clock is ticking for Sophie and whoever else Candy has lined up to transfer out next.

Flitstrom’s lips pull into a tight line, then he leans forward. “You said there’s a kid that’s scheduled to be transferred out tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “And it would be really great if we can shut all this down before then.” I don’t mention that Elena’s already working on smuggling the kid out.

“No,” he says. “Don’t shut it down. Use it. If we can catch them in the act, Lirium, if we can get it on record, then we’ll have something I can take to the DA.”

“Catch them in the act?” The horror in my voice attracts the attention of the couple in the corner, who momentarily break their fevered clutchings to stare at us. I lower my voice and lean forward. “You mean let them transfer out the kid and somehow record it? Are you crazy?”

“You don’t have to let them go all the way through with it,” he whispers back. “We just need to get it on record, then stop them before they finish.”

“By we you mean me,” I say harshly. “And by finish you mean kill. Do you have any idea what you’re asking here?”

“I’m asking you to get me evidence that I can use to stop this.”

I put my hands over my face, wiping away the horror and trying to replace it with the kind of steely-eyed determination I’ve seen on Elena’s face so many times. If catching a debt collector palm-to-forehead in the act of killing a child is what I have to do, then that’s that. I have to do it. And somehow not let the kid die in the process, because I would never be able to forgive myself for that.

“Okay,” I say to Flitstrom, who’s watching me with the intensity of a hawk. “I’ll do it.”

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The Debt Collector Serial

EPISODE 9 - Passion

The final episode of Season One

Available 6.26.13

Lirium attempts to record a debt collector named Molloch in the act of transferring out a child, while stopping him before he can complete the job.

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It’s hard to believe we’re almost at the end of Season One. Thank you to everyone who has been reading episode-by-episode as Lirium’s story unfolds. Your reviews and tweets and facebook posts have been so inspiring! And I can’t wait to share the story with those who have been waiting for the season to complete before diving in, so I can relive Lirium’s story all over from the beginning.

Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling Mindjack Trilogy, which is young adult science fiction. The Debt Collector series is her more grown-up SF.

Susan grew up in California, got a bunch of engineering degrees (B.S. Aerospace Engineering, M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering) and worked everywhere from NASA to NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). She designed aircraft engines, studied global warming, and held elected office (as a school board member). Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist," but she mostly sits around in her pajamas in awe that she gets paid to make stuff up.

All her engineering skills come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopic worlds, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. For her stories, of course. Just ignore that stuff in the basement.

Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.

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Table of Contents

- Ruthless Cover
- Ruthless Title Page
- Ruthless Copyright
- Ruthless Chapter One
- Ruthless Chapter Two
- Ruthless Chapter Three
- Ruthless Chapter Four
- Ruthless Chapter Five
- Ruthless Other Works
- Ruthless To My Readers
- Ruthless About the Author