Second Shift: Order (Shift, #2)(20)

Mission laughed. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t take half your blood, Mrs. Crowe. The doctors are just looking out for you.”

She twisted up her face, an explosion of wrinkles like a palm as it closed into a fist. She didn’t seem so sure. “I don’t trust them,” she said.

Mission smiled. “You don’t trust anyone. And hey, maybe they’re just trying to figure out why you can’t die like everyone else does. Maybe they’ll come up with a way for everyone to live as long as you some day.”

Mrs. Crowe rubbed the bandage on her withering arm. “Or they’re sorting out how to kill me,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be so sinister.” Mission reached forward and pulled her sleeve down to keep her from messing with the bandage. “Why would you think such a thing”

She frowned and declined to answer. Her eyes fell to his sagging and mostly empty pack. “Day off” she asked.

Mission turned and followed her gaze. “Hmm Oh, no. I dropped off last night. I’ll pick up another delivery in a little bit, take it wherever they tell me to.”

“Oh, to be so young and free again.” Mrs. Crowe spun her chair around and steered it behind her desk. Mission ducked beneath the pivoting wire out of habit; the pole at the back of the chair was made with younger heads in mind. She picked up a container of the vile vegetable pulp she preferred over water and took a sip. “Allie stopped by last week.” She set the greenish-black fluid down. “She was asking about you. Wanted to know if you were still single.”

“Oh” Mission could feel his temperature shoot up. Mrs. Crowe had caught them kissing once, back before he knew what kissing was for. She had left them with a warning and a knowing smile. “I saw Jenine yesterday,” Mission said, changing the subject, hoping she might take the hint. “Everyone’s so spread out.”

“As it should be.” The Crow opened a drawer on her desk and rummaged around, came out with an envelope. Mission could see a half-dozen names scratched out across the thing. It’d been used a handful of times. “You’re heading down from here Maybe you could drop off something for Rodny”

She held out the letter. Mission took it, saw his best friend’s name written on the outside, all the other names crossed out.

“I can leave it for him, sure. The last two times I stopped by there, they said he was unavailable.”

Mrs. Crowe nodded as if this was to be expected. “Ask for Jeffery, he’s the head of security down there, one of my boys. You tell him that this is from me and that I said you should hand it to Rodny yourself. In person.” She waved her hands in the air, little trembling blurs. “I’ll write Jeffery a note.”

Mission glanced up at the clock on the wall while she dug into her desk for a pen and ink. Soon, the hallways would begin filling with youthful chatter and the opening and slamming of lockers. He waited patiently while she scratched her note. In the while, he scanned the walls at the old motivators, as Mrs. Crowe like to call the posters and banners she made.

You can be anything, one of them said. It featured a crude drawing of a boy and a girl standing on a huge mound. The mound was green and the sky blue, just like in the picture books. Another one said: Dream to your heart’s delight. It had bands of color in a graceful sweep. The Crow had a name for the shape, but he’d forgotten what it was called. Another familiar one: Go new places. It featured a drawing of a crow perched in an impossibly large tree, it’s wings spread as if it were about to take flight.

“Jeffery is the bald one,” Mrs. Crowe said. She waved a hand over her own white and thinning hair to demonstrate.

“I know the one,” Mission said. It was a strange reminder that so many of the adults and elders throughout the silo had been her students as well. A locker was slammed in the hallway. Mission remembered when he was a kid how the rows and rows of tiny desks had filled the room. There were cubbies full of rolled mats for nap time, reminding him of the daily routine of clearing a space in the middle of the floor, finding his mat, and drifting off to sleep while the Crow sang to them. He missed those days. He missed the Old Time stories about a world full of impossible things. Leaning against that little desk, Mission suddenly felt as ancient as the Crow, just as impossibly distant from his youth.

“Give Jeffery this, and then see that Rodny gets my note. From you personally, okay”

He grabbed his pack and slid both pieces of correspondence into his courier pouch. There was no mention of payment, just the twinge of guilt Mission felt for even thinking it. Digging into the pack reminded him of the items he had brought her, forgotten due to the previous night’s brawl.

“Oh, I brought you these from the farm.” He pulled out a few small cucumbers, two peppers, and a large tomato. He placed them on her desk. “For your veggie drinks,” he said.

Mrs. Crowe clasped her hands together and smiled with delight.

“Is there anything else you need next time I’m passing by”

“These visits,” she said, her face a wrinkle of smiles. “All I care about are my little ones. Stop by whenever you can, okay”

Mission squeezed her arm, which felt like a broomstick tucked into a sleeve. “I will,” he said. “And that reminds me: Jenine, Frankie, and Steven all told me to tell you hello. And I’m probably forgetting someone.”