Chapter 10: The Fourth Donor's Demand
The blue light through the curtains had gone deep, the color of something underwater. Becca lay on her side with Chloe's arm draped across her ribs, Chloe's breath warm and even against her shoulder blade. The bump between them pulsed slow, patient, the creature's rhythm counting out the quiet hours. Becca's eyes were closed. She was almost under, the dark soft at the edges, when the pain hit.
It came up through her belly like a hook, fast and bright, a wire pulled tight from her navel to her spine. Her whole body seized. She heard herself make a sound, a choked half breath, and her hands went to the bump as the creature inside her convulsed once, hard, a scrabbling panic against the wall of her.
Chloe woke with a jerk. "Becca? What is it?"
"I don't know." The pain was already fading, draining out of her like water from a basin, but something else was coming up in its place. A pressure behind her eyes. A ringing in her teeth. "Something's wrong."
Chloe sat up, her hair a pale tangle in the dark. "The creature?"
"It's not. It's not the creature." Becca pressed her palm flat to the bump. The creature had gone still, coiled tight and low, the way it did when it was afraid. She could feel its fear through the pulse on her wrist, the blue thing's tentacles quivering against her skin. "It's outside. It's coming from outside."
Then she heard it. Not with her ears, not exactly. A long low tone that vibrated through her breastbone, that lifted the hairs on her arms. Somewhere distant in the facility, something was screaming.
Chloe's face went white. "You hear that."
"I hear it."
"What is it?"
Becca swung her legs off the bed. The floor was cold under her bare feet. She grabbed her hoodie from the chair and pulled it over her head, the fabric still carrying the warmth of sleep. "The donor wing. It's the one in the fourth tank."
"Becca." Chloe was already pulling on her jeans, her voice tight. "How do you know that?"
"I just know. It's calling. It's calling for me."
They went out into the corridor together. The lights were dimmed to their night setting, a low amber glow along the floor. The hum of the facility was louder in the open air, and under it, that other sound, the tone that wasn't a tone, the pull that wasn't a pull. It tugged at Becca's sternum like a string tied to her heart.
They moved fast. The corridor turned, then turned again, past the sleeping quarters, past the dining hall with its dark windows. The door to the donor wing was ahead, heavy and sealed, the red light above it steady.
Becca hit the panel with her palm. The door didn't move.
"It's locked," she said.
"Override." Chloe reached past her and pressed her thumb to the reader. "We're program staff. We have access."
The light above the door flickered from red to green. The door slid open with a sigh, and the cold of the donor wing rolled out over them like a wave.
The tanks were arranged in columns along the vaulted chamber, each one a tall cylinder of pale bioluminescent liquid. The light from them was dim, almost sleepy, a soft green pulse that matched the breathing of the creatures inside. The floor was black glass, polished, reflecting the columns in long dark streaks.
The fourth tank stood apart from the rest, at the end of the row, its light a deep angry red.