Outcasts (32 page)

“Yes.” Ciddah opened her bag and pulled out a CompuChart.

“See if you can look up …” He wrote down:
Martana Kirst’s med history.
“Just a hunch.” He wrote:
What if Lawten was her medic for the last baby?

Ciddah took the pen from him:
You think Richark blamed Lawten for her death?

The dates seemed to fit. “Just look it up.” If Mason was right, then perhaps Richark had gone after Lawten because he’d failed to save Martana.

“Found it.” Ciddah laid the CompuChart on the surface of the GlassTop, where Mason could read it.

Martana’s final delivery had been on September 12, 2068. Lawten
had
been her medic. His notes said the cause of death was likely amniotic fluid embolism, cardiac arrest, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. He read the hospital course.

That a woman could die in childbirth in a place with so many wonderful machines sobered Mason and made him think of Joel. He had always wondered if the Safe Lands medics might have saved his friend, but perhaps there was nothing even they could have done.

“It doesn’t seem suspicious,” Ciddah said, bringing him back to the subject.

“No.” Mason was glad. He hated to think that any medic could
allow a patient to die for subversive reasons. He wrote:
But that doesn’t mean Richark didn’t blame him.

“I suppose. But, Mason …” She picked up the pen and wrote:
This was 2068. Does Richark’s bio say when he started the Black Army?

Mason wrote:
2068. But he wasn’t fired until 2076.
“Eight years after Martana died.”

“Then her death and his termination probably aren’t related.”

Another idea came to Mason. “What if he’d been asking the same questions you were?” He wrote:
Stimulants in the ACT treatment?

“Then he probably would have come here.”

“Maybe.” Mason thought back to Otley’s visit to his apartment and the enforcer field medic Yarel.
Have you ever tested the blood on a blood meter?

She grabbed his pen.
Yes. I’ve tested my blood, the blood of pregnant women, men, children, my donors. Over a dozen people. I was unable to identify or isolate anything that looked like a stimulant. But I know it’s there.

Mason took the pen.
Have you tested just the meds on the blood meter?

Won’t work. Without blood, the control line doesn’t show. Makes the test invalid.

Mason dug deep. The meds were designed to be used on infected people. Perhaps the stimulant converted in some way when it reacted with the virus and that’s why Ciddah had been unable to isolate it.
Have you tested the meds in uninfected blood?

There is no uninfected blood.

Mason snatched the pen from her fingers.
I have uninfected blood.
He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows.

Her face shone. “That might work, Mason. That’s brilliant!”

They gathered their things and went back to the SC. It was almost eight o’clock, and the place was dark.

“How come you make me task here all night sometimes, but tonight it’s empty?” Mason asked.

“I’m on call tonight. Any taps are routed to the MC receptionist,
and if there’s an emergency, she’ll call me. I have you work on nights when the MC is understaffed.”

Ciddah turned on the lights in exam room one and pulled on a pair of gloves. “Sit down. I’m going to prick your finger, but if everything looks good, I’m going to draw a few vials. Then we’ll have plenty to test.”

Mason sat on the chair beside the exam table, eager to see what stimulants might be in the treatment.

Ciddah swabbed his finger clean, then pricked it and ran the blood through the blood meter. “Clean. Amazing, Mason. Your blood is perfect.”

He smiled as if that were a compliment.

“I should take your blood pressure too, just to check,” she said.

“I’m perfectly healthy. Just do it.”

“Okay, fine.” Ciddah wrapped a tourniquet around his arm, just above his elbow, then grabbed the pillow off the table and tucked it between his arm and lap, turning his palm up. She swabbed the inside of his elbow with an alcohol wipe, then opened a standard blood test kit and a fresh cannula. “Make a fist.”

Mason obeyed, and Ciddah inserted the cannula into his vein. A little pinch. She filled three vials and pressed a cotton ball over the puncture. “Put your finger on that and slowly open your fist.”

Mason knew the drill. He held down the cotton ball and opened his fist. Ciddah disposed of the cannula, labeled the vials, and set them on the counter. Then she turned back to him and removed the cotton ball. “Looks good.” She put a round bandage over the puncture mark, then released the tourniquet. “Wait here.” She stood and walked out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Mason called.

But she was back before he had long to wonder. “I needed some sterile containers so we could test both meds.” She put them on the counter. He could hear her ripping open bags and the plastic dishes clicking on the counter.

He stood up to watch her work. She’d set up two little square dishes
on the counter, their lids arranged above them. Two med vials sat beside them. She wrote which was which on the sticker of each dish lid. “C. Rourke old meds.” “C. Rourke compounded.” She released a sample of Mason’s blood into each dish, then used an eyedropper to add the meds to each sample, using a different dropper for each one.

“Okay, old meds first.” She dropped a sample of the mixed blood and meds onto the blood meter. It whirred. The Wyndo screen turned blue, a sign that the machine was processing.

She sighed and looked up at him, gave a little shrug. “Technology. As fast as it is, sometimes it feels so slow.”

“It’s pretty amazing,” Mason said. “In our village, we weren’t able to keep — ”

The sound of the elevator’s ding and the doors sliding open in the reception area caused them to stare at one another. “That’s strange,” Ciddah said.

“Safe Lands Enforcers,” a man called. “Is anyone here?”

B
e right back.” Ciddah slipped out of exam room one. Her footsteps clicked over the tile floor as she made her way down the hall and into the reception area. Mason strained to hear her. “Can I help you?”

“Ciddah Rourke?” a man’s voice asked. “The task director general has requested to see you immediately.”

“Is there some problem? Why didn’t he contact me himself?”

“I don’t know, Miss Rourke. I’m simply following orders. You’ll need to come with us.”

“Of course. Let me lock my office.”

“Actually, I need you to remain in the lobby while we search this facility.”

“Search it for what?”

“SimSearch shows another person at this location. A, um …” A pause. “Mason Elias. We’re to take him into custody.”

Mason couldn’t breathe. Had Lawten and his enforcers managed to figure out what he and Ciddah had been trying to do?

“Has he done something?” Ciddah asked.

“I’m sorry. That’s classified, Miss Rourke.”

Multiple footsteps clacked in the lobby, down the hall, approaching exam room one. Mason panicked. He ripped off the bandage that held his SimTag and dropped it in the trash beside the door. Then he opened the narrow clothing closet behind the exam table and squeezed inside. He tried to close the door, but it bounced off the toes of his shoes. He turned his feet sideways, and barely managed to pull the door shut.

At first Mason didn’t hear anything. Perhaps they’d gone to a different room? Then a voice on the other side of the closet door spoke.

“I don’t see anyone.” The enforcer had to be twelve inches from the closet.

“Scan for the tag,” another said, this one farther away.

In the confined space, Mason sounded like a panting dog. He held his breath a moment, then let it seep from his lips, praying they wouldn’t open the closet.

“It’s coming from the trash can,” the first man said, his voice more distant.

Another silent, agonizing pause passed. The trash can clunked on the tile.

“Got it. It’s stuck to this bandage. He cut it out.”

“Stimming rebels, anyway. Call it in, and let’s get out of here.”

“T33, a 620,” the first enforcer said.

A tinny female voice responded. “T33, go ahead.”

Footsteps faded from the room as the enforcer answered, “T33, 10 – 26 on Ciddah Rourke. 620 on Mason Elias.”

Mason wasn’t able to hear any more. The thought crossed his mind that he’d left Ciddah to the enforcers. He should have done something to help her, something that enabled them both to escape. But the enforcer hadn’t said he was taking Ciddah into custody. Only Mason. So Ciddah would likely be sent home after talking with Lawten.

He stayed put until long after he heard the elevator ding, hoping they hadn’t left behind an enforcer. When he finally climbed out of hiding, his gaze landed on the blood meter. A thrill ran up the back of his neck. He stepped toward it, looked down at the display.

Xiaodrine.

What was Xiaodrine? Mason had never heard of it. To protect Ciddah, he quickly cleaned up their experiment, washed his blood samples down the sink, and cleared the blood meter’s memory.

Now to get out of here.

The only yellow security camera that he knew of in the SC was in the lobby. He recalled how Shaylinn had snuck out the emergency exit when she’d first found herself here. But without his SimTag, he didn’t have a way to open the door.

In his medic orientation, Ciddah had mentioned emergency overrides in SimPads in case of a blackout. Mason found a scalpel and crept to the back door of the SC. He pried off the pad from the unit, which revealed a green circuit board covered in white and orange components. At the bottom was a black switch. He flipped it, and the door swung open.

Enforcers would likely detect that on the grid, so Mason ran all the way to his apartment in the Westwall. It wasn’t until he was standing outside his apartment — using the scalpel to pry the pad off the unit beside his door — that it occurred to him there might not be an override switch on the outsides of doors, as that would enable unauthorized entry.

Sure enough, no switch. He screamed out his frustration and kicked the door, paced back and forth in front of it, then tried to use his shoulder as a battering ram.

When the door swung in, he jumped back, shocked.

Omar stood inside. “Hey, brother. Something wrong?”

Mason ran in and shut the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Otley arrested me. Gave me a new SimTag and a black eye. But he drained all my credits, and I had no way to get back to the Midlands. Do you have any stims, Mase? I could really use a hit of something and my PV’s back at my place.”

Omar was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had bare feet. His eye was swollen and rimmed in purple and yellow. A 9XX glowed brightly on his cheek, and thick brown feather SimArt coated one arm.

“So, Otley knows you’re here?” If they were looking for Mason, Omar’s new SimTag might bring them here first.

“I couldn’t very well go to any rebel locations with a legit SimTag, brother. Otley told me not to cut it out, but I want — ”

“You have to. Now.” Mason ran into his bedroom. His mirror clock read 9:12 p.m. He picked up his backpack and filled it with all his medical supplies: a bottle of alcohol, his scalpels, a box of adhesive bandages, a bag of cotton balls, and a box of rubber gloves. He found his portable Wyndo on his bedside table, then got on the floor to fetch the little metal box holding the ghoulie tag, which he’d taped to a bar under his bed. He grabbed a spare pair of shoes and jogged back into the living room with a full pack.

Omar was running in place, staring at Mason’s Wyndo wall screen, which was a blur of colors that made no sense to Mason.

“What are you doing?” Mason asked.

“Playing Metaldrome. I got SimSight contacts a few weeks ago, and they’re amazing. It’s like stepping inside the wall screen.” Omar leaped around the living room, clearly seeing something Mason couldn’t.

Mason tossed his backpack onto the couch. “Wyndo wall screen: off.”

Omar whipped around. “Hey! Why’d you do that?”

“I need to cut out your tag now. Enforcers are coming. So, sit down and let me get this done. And put on these shoes.”

Omar sat on the couch and pushed his feet into the shoes, then twisted his arm so that his fist was bottom side up. “What’d you do?”

Mason crouched beside him and wet a cotton ball with the alcohol. “I don’t know. Ciddah said they’ve been monitoring us. We must have said something they didn’t like.”

“Then let’s do this somewhere else.”

Mason swabbed Omar’s hand, then the scalpel. “They’ll track us. I’d rather your trail end here.”

“Do you have any stims?”

“Not a drop, brother. Never tried them.”

“Figured. You’re smart, Mase, but you already know that.”

Mason used the razor to make an incision on Omar’s hand. His brother’s muscles tensed, but Omar didn’t jerk away. Mason pushed out the SimTag with his thumbnail. He left Omar’s SimTag on the coffee table and stuck a bandage over the wound. “Let’s go.”

They slipped out into the hall. It was quiet and Mason headed for the stairwell.

“Where are you going?” Omar asked, running alongside. The number on his face was gone now, as was the SimArt on his arm.

“I don’t trust the elevator right now.” But they passed under a yellow security camera as they entered the stairwell. They’d have to be far more careful if they were going to make it to Zane’s. “We need to hide from the cameras, brother. You’re the Owl — how do you do it?”