Ruthless (Debt Collector 8) Read online

  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.”