Groups of people jostled their way inside the lobby, seeming not to care about the scrutiny they received. Dade placed himself between several smaller groups entering the building, keeping his head down and walking as fast as he could without attracting attention.
Once inside, he split off from the groups, keeping his head turned and looking at the floor. Dade walked right past the reception desk and the mobbing visitors who distracted the employees’ attention. No one noticed him or asked him to stop, so Dade kept walking.
The Center was split into several wings. Most of the visitors headed toward the public wing where the sunbeds were located. There, long lines of people waited to get their weekly allotted time with the only UV contact they’d ever feel on their bodies. Even then, it wouldn’t be enough to keep their bodies producing vitamin D without help. It was just enough to slow their descent to death.
There were other corridors where people waited for news of their loved one’s passing, and others for outpatient treatments or surgeries. He didn’t look at the strangers as they cried softly or stared at the blank walls with glazed eyes.
It frustrated him that those who had power, who had the ability to change lives, refused to do so. Tech had never been the problem. They had the resources to figure it out. Their ancestors had arrived with a deep knowledge of space and the human body’s reactions to various stimuli. The original scientists who’d helped terraform the planet were the leaders in their field. After all, the Old Planet was decades from the planet they inhabited now, and they’d managed to travel the entire distance without too many hiccups.
Over the generations, though, reliance on the scientists had shifted. Scientists who were so valuable in the beginning to set up the planet to sustain life, who created VitD as a stopgap to a better cure, now worked for the Solizen, barely earning enough Govie Buy Certificates to purchase food.
Dade headed for the long-term care patients. The ones who weren’t going to make it but had enough money to go comfortably and not die on the streets. Death surrounded him. The farther he walked into the depths of the Center, the clearer he felt its presence. Its touch punctuated by wails of agony from those who suffered from Violet Death, seeking relief of the blessed dark that would come with the last coma state. There were fewer visitors here as he passed room after room of sick people. Nurses dressed in white silently roamed the wards, trying to make the patients comfortable.
He took the internal quadralift, then walked through a corridor leading to Saben’s coordinates. The room was long and narrow, and rows of beds ran the length of either side. There was no color, everything white except for the silver of the machines that made low beeping noises.
There were no nurses here. The only other person in the room besides the patients was Saben. He sat hunched over a bedside with his back to the door. He held the hand of a dying boy as he whispered things Dade couldn’t hear.
Dade walked closer. The soles of his boots squeaked against the shiny tiles. He felt out of place, intruding on a moment that was clearly meaningful to Saben. It made his steps hesitant, and he hung back until he was acknowledged. Saben would know he was there and would speak to him when he was ready.
He stood close enough now to finally get a look at the boy’s face. He had almost identical features to Saben, same nose and same eye shape. He was perhaps a year or two younger than Saben, but with all the damage he’d suffered from the Violet Death, he looked much older. The boy’s skin fell from his bones like syrup dripping off a spoon. Stretched too thin in places. He’d lost his hair from the medication they’d given him, his bald head making him appear frailer. Small rasping breaths rattled in his chest.
Dade hadn’t known Saben had a brother, or cousin, or close relative—whoever this boy turned out to be. Saben had always been secretive about his former life, before he’d been chosen to be Dade’s bodyguard. He’d said that sometimes things were meant to stay as they were and that old wounds could fester into greater things if reopened. Maybe this was what he’d meant.
The boy opened his eyes, the lids bruised deeply purple, to look at Saben. There didn’t seem to be any recognition, just a blank look, like he was dead inside. Then he hacked a cough that sounded deep and wet, accompanied by a whine of pain when his body moved. Blood dotted his lips.
Saben leaned forward to wipe at them with a tissue as the boy’s eyes rolled shut.
It was obvious why Saben wanted Shine. Besides the pain, there probably wasn’t much time left. While the hospital tried to make the boy comfortable, perhaps the narcotic would let him slip off easier.
Dade felt as if he were intruding on an intimate moment, yet he stepped forward to hold the Shine disks out to Saben. Being here as a witness was painful. It squeezed his chest too tight. His hands shook. Adrenaline, frustration, and anger all mixed together until it became a pushing need to flee.
Saben didn’t turn as he took the disk and clicked open the mouthpiece, holding it to the boy’s lips. When he didn’t make a move to inhale, Saben pinched his nose so the drug was choked into his mouth as he gasped for air.
Saben pulled his hands away when the dose was gone.
The boy stilled. His breathing slowed so the sheet barely moved, but there was no more coughing and no more blood.
Dade didn’t know what comfort he could offer. He knew he should say something, but the words that came out weren’t those he’d intended to say. “He’s too far gone. The Shine is more likely to kill him rather than help.”
“I know. I want him comfortable.” Saben looked away from the boy to the empty Shine disk. His fingers twisted it, making it glitter in the overhead lights. “I would have brought it myself, but I didn’t realize until I got here that he needed a push to the other side.”
Dade nodded even though Saben couldn’t see. It wasn’t that he agreed, it was more that he understood. He also wouldn’t be able to leave someone he loved to suffer that pain if he could help. Sometimes he even wondered if the small amount of VitD he did manage to distribute made any difference. When he saw this kind of pain, though, it firmed his resolve.
“We need to stop this,” Saben said. He looked up, his eyes red rimmed and wet. “It’s unfair.”
“I know,” Dade agreed. They couldn’t change the social injustice, not really. What little they did only made a dent. But they could try.
CHAPTER TWELVE