Ruthless (Debt Collector 8) Page 5

  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
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  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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