Donor: Part 1

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The light banks went out for the night, immense breakers tripping as ordered. Guards called their cell counts into the control tower, their short-range radios squawking into dim corners. Angry shouts echoed from behind thick steel doors.

Michael shrugged his blanket to the floor. Listening for uniform footsteps, he eased off his bunk. All was clear until the next round. After three years, he knew the patterns of each guard. LaRosa patrolled every thirty minutes. Yoder varied his rounds according to the day. He’d stagger ten, thirty, fifteen, and twenty minutes, then back to ten. The pigs were so brainwashed by their bosses that they lost all ability to think for themselves. If they hadn’t, they’d be random and thorough in their rounds.

Then again, the guards were prisoners, too. Prison doctors and collectors made no effort to disguise the bandages and healing skin patches that were so similar to those of the inmates. It was never discussed around the guards, but word had it that they only gave samples once a month. And their loved ones received generous monthly stipends in return for their services.

The guards had it easy.

Michael rubbed a healing scar on his forearm. His collector took great delight in scoring it whenever his genetic type was required. Michael lost count of how often his tissues were harvested after the first six months. When his flesh was especially high in demand, he could spend weeks in the clinic, trapped by weeping wounds.

“We leaving, mate?”

Michael glanced up at his cell mate. The Australian was a giant of a man. In another lifetime before their nightmarish incarceration, he was executed for murder. The crime had happened, the execution hadn’t.

“You got the package in place?” It was his primary reason for including Shreve in the plan. Unleashing one murderer was a small price to pay for saving countless lives and families.

“Sure as night follows day.”

Michael had no idea where Shreve found things, but he’d proven reliable. Whether the man’s intentions were as pure as he claimed, Michael couldn’t say and didn’t care.

“Let’s do it.”

☼

When Amanda dove into journalism as a kid, she imagined an exciting career as an investigative reporter. So much for dreams.

She let the VR mask drop to her desk. Another mind-numbing report uploaded to NewsVid International, another day wasted.

A message scrolled across her screen, catching her eye.

BREAKING NEWS: ESCAPE FROM NEW ALCATRAZ – NA Warden Joseph Chester will hold news conference at 1830 hours CDT. Details to be released…

Amanda scrambled for her Go-Pak. The first reporter to see the editor in person usually had a chance at fresh news. Unless one of his pets got too brave for the fluff stories that got decent ratings.

Working in the media building that house NVI’s headquarters gave Amanda a jump that satellite-based staff didn’t get. The broadcast delay gave her time to be there ahead of her colleagues’ holo visits.

Octavius Green’s secretary stood as Amanda clattered past. Cords trailed from an unzippered pouch on the Go-Pak, but it had to wait. Every second counted.

Green’s office was open, no doubt waiting for hapless peons to rush in for interesting assignments. Peons like Amanda.

“Mr. Green?”

She addressed his broad back, trying for a steady voice. No one else was there, physically or holographically. She was the first one there, for a change.

The hulking editor took his time to respond, even as vid screens lit with holo permission requests. Flinty eyes narrowed in her direction, then beyond as though he expected to see someone else.

“Amanda, isn’t it?” he rumbled.

She extended her hand to deliver her practiced handshake—firm with confidence, but pliable enough to indicate flexibility. Green raised a brow then strode to his desk. He leaned against he edge and pulled out a cigar.

Amanda dropped her arm as though she hadn’t offered it to her esteemed boss. Determined to forget the slight, she assumed her broadcast pose.

“I want the prison break story. Sir.”

There. Assertive without being pushy. Professional. God, how she wanted to chew her stubby fingernails.

“Tell me,” Green said, “what was the last big story you covered?”

She hadn’t. After eight years, the biggest report she filed was about the retirement of a decorated cop. It had been lovely, but it was well beneath even the fluff stories which were reserved for Green’s favorites.

And Green knew it.

Amanda’s throat burned as she struggled to find a response. Green chuffed around his cigar.

“A lead like this requires experience.” He cocked his head to the side with a dismissive air. “It also demands the full attention of a mature reporter. Someone who has all the facts before jumping into the fray.”

He gestured toward the oversized screen on his desk. The breaking-news scroll was on a repeat.

With a plunging gut, Amanda saw the line she’d missed in her rush to get to Green’s office.

…details to be released at that time. NVI correspondent Victoria Dale will be on site for the lead. Follow-up assignments will be announced as deemed necessary. Do not inquire unless and until further information is provided.

“Mr. Green, I…”

He waved her off as though she was an insect.

“Back to work. I understand there is an open house for the new MedTech preschool tonight. As that is more suited to your limited abilities, it’s yours.”

Desire to rage at the despot surged through Amanda’s body. Accusations of favoritism dangled from her tongue. Job be damned, the man needed a dose of reality. Then again, maybe she was the one who wasn’t seeing the world for what it was.

She said nothing to Green. She was just another peon in Med City’s system. If she quit or got fired, she wouldn’t be given any decent opportunities. Green would see to that. His vindictive nature was known to all.

“Sorry for wasting your time, sir,” she muttered.

On the way back to her cramped desk, she considered her future at NVI. Mass media competition had died out long before her parents were born. That she even knew other media groups once existed was thanks to the history elective she’d taken at University. If she had lived a century earlier, she wouldn’t be stuck in a useless position with little hope of promotion.

She sank into the unyielding chair at her desk, Go-Pak hanging from her shoulder. She pulled it into her lap. Scratches marred the metal casing, testimony to her grandfather’s decorated career as a journalist.

“Lost the lead to our precious V.D.?”

Jim, one of the guys from the newsroom, nudged her chair from behind. She swiveled to look up at him.

“It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. As the oldest guy on the floor, most of the younger reporters went to him for advice. Sometimes, he offered it without being asked.

“Depends on you,” he said.

Amanda grunted. “I’ve done all I can. The man won’t give me a good story.”

Jim folded his arms, turned, and sat on the edge of her desk.

“Time was, any reporter with his or her salt wouldn’t wait for the boss’s say-so. Not for the good stuff. They’d go out and drag the details home, consequences be damned.”

She slumped in her chair. “Like that’d work. Back then, they had all sorts of places to go if they got fired.”

Jim shook his head. “It wasn’t as easy as that. Every time they chased a lead, they took a risk. If the stories panned out, all was well. If they didn’t, well, too many cases of that, and their careers would be fried.”

Amanda chewed at her thumbnail and rocked slightly in her chair. She sensed Jim waited for something, but she had nothing to give. Losing her job meant finding a completely different line of work. With her exceptional lack of talent in every other area, her best prospect would be in seating people who went to see holo-movies.

“Do you know how Octavius Green got to where he is?” Jim asked.

She stopped chewing. “No, but it’s not like his story has anything to do with me.”

“I worked with him in the copy-edit room. He was maybe twenty-three, and I was a few years older.” Jim nodded at Amanda’s incredulous stare. “Even then, he bragged that he’d go all the way up to the Crystal Office. We used to joke that he’d only go up there to take fresh coffee. He proved us wrong, very wrong. Kid, he had confidence and then some. Without that, he would’ve turned out to be one more nameless hack in the newsroom, like me.”

Jim stood. He unfolded his arms and placed a warm hand on Amanda’s shoulder. “Girl, you got more talent in your thumb than that man has in his soul. Don’t let it go to waste.”

He squeezed her shoulder then left, allowing his words to sink in. Amanda sat frozen as headlines scrolled across her screen, meaning nothing until the prison break lead flashed past again.

Amanda sprang to her feet and grabbed the Go-Pak. She had a press conference to make.

☼

…to be continued