Second Shift: Order (Shift, #2)(38)

“Of course, it wasn’t a game. She was killing people. We talked about it years later, after I was in office and she’d figured I’d grown up enough.” He laughed and shook his head. “My kid sister, waiting for me to grow up.”

A tear plummeted to the frozen pane of glass. The salt cut through the ice and left a clear track behind. Donald wiped it away with a squeak, then felt frightened he might disturb her.

“They would get her up in the middle of the night,” he said. “Whenever a target was deemed . . . what did she call it Actionable. They would get her up. She said it was strange to go from dreaming to killing, how none of it made sense, how she would go back to sleep and see the video feeds in her mind—that last view from a missile’s nose as she guided it into its target—”

He took a breath and gazed up at Thurman.

“I thought it was good that she couldn’t be hurt, you know She was safe in a trailer somewhere, not up there in the sky. But she complained about it. She told her doctor that it didn’t feel right, being safe and doing what she did. The people on the front lines, they had fear as an excuse. They had self-preservation. A reason to kill. Charlotte used to kill people and then go to the mess hall and eat a piece of pie. That’s what she told her doctor. She would eat something sweet and not be able to taste it.”

“What doctor was this” Henson asked.

“My doctor,” Donald said. He wiped his cheek, but he wasn’t ashamed of the tears. Being by his sister’s side had him feeling brave and bold, less alone. He could face the past and the future, both. “Helen was worried about my reelection,” he explained. “Charlotte already had a prescription, had been diagnosed with PTSD after her first tour, and so we kept filling it under her name, even under her insurance.”

Henson waved his hand, stirring the air for more information. “What prescription”

“Propra,” Thurman said. “She’d been taking Propra, hadn’t she And you were worried about the press finding out.”

Donald nodded. “Helen was worried. She thought it might come out that I was taking medication for my . . . wilder thoughts. The pills helped me forget them, kept me level. I could study the Order, and all I saw were the words, not the implications. There was no fear.” He looked at his sister, understanding finally why she had refused to take the meds. She wanted the fear. It was necessary somehow. The medication they’d prescribed was the exact opposite of what she needed.

“I remember you telling me she was on them.” Thurman said. “We were in the bookstore—”

“Do you remember your dosage” Henson asked. “How long were you on it”

“I started taking it after I was given the Order to read.” He watched Thurman for any hint of expression and got nothing. “I guess that was two or three years before the convention. I took them nearly every day right up until then.” He turned to Henson. “I would’ve had some on me during orientation if I hadn’t lost them on the hill that day. I think I fell. I remember falling—”

Henson turned to Thurman. “There’s no telling what the complications might be. Victor was careful to screen psychotropics from administrative personnel. Everyone was tested—”

“I wasn’t,” Donald said.

Henson faced him. “Everyone was tested.”

“Not him.” Thurman studied the surface of the pod, spoke to Henson. “There was a last minute change. A switch. I vouched for him. And if he was taking her meds, there wouldn’t have been anything in his medical records.”

“We need to tell Erskine,” Henson said. “I could work with him. We might come up with a new formulation.” He turned away from the pod like he needed to get back to his office.

Thurman looked to Donald. “Do you need more time down here”

Donald studied his sister a moment. He wanted to wake her, to talk to her. Maybe he could come back another time just to visit.

“I might like to come back,” he said.

“We’ll see.”

Thurman walked around the pod and placed a hand on Donald’s shoulder, gave him a light, sympathetic squeeze. He led Donald away from the pod and toward the door, and Donald didn’t glance back, didn’t check the screen for his sister’s new name. He didn’t care. He knew where she was, and she would always be Charlotte to him. She would never change.

“You did good,” Thurman said. “This is real good.” They stepped into the hall and closed the thick doors with their massive locks. “You may have stumbled on why Victor was so obsessed with that report of yours.”

“I did” Donald didn’t see the connection.

“I don’t think he was interested in what you wrote at all,” Thurman said. “I think he was interested in you.”





23




They rode the lift toward the cafeteria rather than drop Donald off on fifty-five. It was almost dinnertime, and he could help Thurman with the trays. While the lights behind the level numbers blinked on and off, following their progress up the shaft, the idea that Thurman might be right haunted him. What if Victor had been curious about his resistance to the medication What if it wasn’t anything in that report at all

They rode past level 40, its button winking bright and then going dark, and Donald thought of the silo that had done the same. “What does this mean for 18” he asked, watching the next number flash by.