Chapter 5 — The People They Keep Below

I backed into the corridor without taking my eyes off the mirror.

Owen stayed bent over the sink.

The vial slipped from his fingers and struck the basin.

He made a low sound in his throat.

I pulled the door shut between us.

The maintenance supervisor returned carrying a length of pipe.

“All clear?”

I made myself look at him.

“Drain is.”

He handed me a wrench.

My hands shook once.

I tightened the fitting until they stopped.

Lena listened without interrupting.

We stood in the empty examination room beside Eli’s. Through the wall, I could hear him talking to June.

Owen was laughing somewhere down the corridor.

I flinched at the sound.

“He’s infected,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And you let him hand food to children.”

“He was assessed before his shift.”

“By looking at his eyes through fake lenses?”

“By people who knew his condition.”

“Did the children know?”

She looked down.

That was my answer.

I moved toward the door.

Lena caught my sleeve.

“If you shout this down the corridor, they’ll arrest you before you finish.”

I pulled free.

“What did you give him?”

“A suppressant. Experimental.”

“Made from what?”

She said nothing.

“Tess.”

Her silence changed.

I stepped closer.

“Made from people like Tess.”

“From blood components collected from resistant individuals.”

“People who agreed?”

“That was what I was told.”

“And now?”

Lena rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“I’ve requested access to the donor wing three times this month. Bell keeps postponing it.”

“Then stop requesting.”

She looked at me.

I pointed toward the supply-room door.

“You have keys.”

I told Tess everything.

She listened while I drew the clinic’s service corridor on the back of a ration notice.

“The loading elevator is here,” I said. “It needs a replacement bearing. I saw the maintenance request.”

“So you volunteer.”

“And find out where it goes.”

Eli sat on his bed with the portable radio beside him. Lena had allowed him to return to our rooms as long as he stayed off his leg.

He adjusted a dial.

“I’ve found their dispatch frequency.”

I stared at him.

“You were supposed to sleep.”

“I did. It was boring.”

His voice was stronger.

He showed me the notebook on his lap.

Vehicle numbers. Departure times. Call signs.

Not an escape plan yet.

But the beginning of one.

Ben stood in the doorway.

“Can I see?”

I slid the notebook toward him.

He pointed at a number.

“Seventeen. That was the truck at the station.”

“How do you know?”

“It had the number painted above the back door.”

I circled it.

Eli looked at Tess.

“If they’re looking for you, they’ll search the residence eventually.”

“Then I stay useful.”

She picked up her tool bag.

“Motor pool. People leave mechanics alone until something breaks.”

We agreed to meet before the evening meal.

Nobody would go anywhere alone if they could avoid it.

No promises about saving everyone.

Just specific jobs, specific times, and a place to come back to.

The elevator bearing wasn’t broken.

It was worn, noisy, and good enough to justify taking the lift out of service.

I posted the maintenance sign and lowered myself to the basement.

Lena waited by the lower doors.

She had brought clean scrubs for me.

“Wear these.”

“Do you do this often?”

“No.”

Her voice shook on the word.

I changed behind a storage rack.

We passed a locked door marked ARCHIVE.

Lena used her key.

Inside were file cabinets and a desk with an old computer. A printer hummed in the corner.

She searched the cabinets while I photographed pages with the maintenance department’s battered inspection camera.

Names matched donor numbers.

Some files included signatures.

Others had a typed declaration:

VERBAL CONSENT CONFIRMED BY DIRECTOR.

One woman’s nursing notes told a different story.

Refused collection. Requested discharge.

The next entry recorded sedation.

Then collection anyway.

Lena pressed her hand flat against the page.

I photographed both entries together.

A noise came from the corridor.

Wheels.

We switched off the light and left through the rear door.

A guard pushed a wheelchair toward us.

The woman in it sat folded forward, one hand dragging against the wheel.

“I need help here,” Lena said immediately.

The guard stopped.

“Transport has it.”

“She’s fainting.”

“She’s always like that after collection.”

Lena moved before he finished.

She checked the woman’s pulse.

“Bring a stretcher.”

“I have orders—”

“Then bring your orders to the clinic while I keep her alive.”

She used the tone she had used when Eli first arrived.

Certain. Impatient. Impossible to mistake for a request.

The guard hesitated.

I took the wheelchair handles.

He finally turned to fetch help.

We pushed the woman through the service doors and into a side examination room.

Her wristband read D-041.

Her name, when she could speak, was Nora Price.

“They said three collections,” she whispered.

Lena checked her blood pressure.

“How many have there been?”

Nora shut her eyes.

“I stopped counting.”

“Did you ask to leave?”

“They moved my son.”

I looked at Lena.

She didn’t look back.

She was already calling another nurse.

We hid Nora in a recovery room under a different admission number.

Lena found a colleague she trusted to stay with her.

I returned to the basement for the remaining records.

This time, voices came from the archive.

Bell’s voice.

“Who authorized the removal?”

I stopped outside the door.

A second voice answered.

“Ortiz said it was urgent.”

“Find her.”

I retreated toward the elevator.

The doors opened before I reached them.

Two guards stepped out.

Between them walked a young woman with her sleeve pushed above her elbow.

Tess.

She saw me.

Her expression barely changed.

Then she looked deliberately toward the stairwell.

Go.

One guard held her tool bag. The other held a medical chart.

“She tested clear yesterday,” the first said.

“Routine exam found the scar,” the other answered. “Bell wants confirmation.”

I stood behind a pillar until they passed.

My first instinct was to attack them.

Then I saw the locked door they opened at the far end.

More guards inside.

No way out.

I waited until it shut, then took the stairs two at a time.

Tess’s room was empty.

Her jacket lay on the bed.

On the table stood a glass of water and a single sheet of paper.

VOLUNTARY DONOR AGREEMENT.

Her name had been printed above the signature line.

The signature line was blank.