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Abby rolled her eyes. “Sure. I’ll just go get some.”
“Isn’t there a hospital?”
“Yeah. I won’t go to that infirmary. The League has a supply of medicines, but only if you pay.”
“Pay with what?”
“Vouchers. Free time—”
“Free time?”
Abby explained, “Hard work is rewarded wi
th days off. They can be swapped or traded in.”
“I thought the Vendu provided a health service. I met the doctors. Why not go to them?”
Jean sneered. “They’re too busy assessing new arrivals for their special studies. The black market is the only way to get medicines without questions being asked.”
“I’ll get you the medicine, Abby. I’ve plenty of vouchers.”
Abby’s eyes widened. “You don’t understand, Freya. You have to go to the League. They’ll want more than vouchers.” She lowered her voice. “They might want sex.”
“They can have my vouchers. That’s the deal.”
“It’s too dangerous, Freya. You can’t just walk in there and dictate terms. Why do you think I’ve put up with the injury?”
Freya pursed her lips. She needed to make an impression and gain some credibility with her fellow prisoners. “If they demand more than vouchers, I’ll back out. Let me try for you. They’ve given me twenty vouchers to help settle me in. I don’t need them. I’ll be earning new ones tomorrow when Otto pays me.”
Abby and Jean exchanged glances. “She’s new,” said Abby. “It might work. They don’t trust me anymore.”
“Trust you?” asked Freya.
Abby swallowed. “I used to be one of the League’s girls. Then I tipped off the Vendu about the bullying and the violence—they’d beaten up members of another gang and somebody died. I witnessed it and the League doesn’t like snitches. I’m keeping low. Otto looks after us in return for, you know, sex if that’s what he wants. Jean tried to get me the medicines, but they knew we’re friends. They got frisky with her and she ran off.”
Frisky? Freya could guess at the meaning of that. “I’m sorry. Let me try. I’m new. They won’t know the drugs are for you. Where do I go?”
Abby gave her directions and after the siren blared, signaling the end of the shift, she joined the throng heading home. Close to her building, she ducked down a shady lane. Following the twisting paths, she hunted for the two-story building that had been built under the shadows of a rock formation.
She knocked on the door.
A giant of a man opened it. “What do you want, pretty face?”
“Um, antibiotics? Medicine. I’ve vouchers.”
He waved her into the building. Low voices rippled around her, a few raised in laughter and occasionally there was a squawk. In the background, she heard grunting—the rhythmic sound of exertion. She kept her back to the door, just in case she needed to exit fast.
“It’ll cost you,” the man grinned. “Kiefer! I’ve got a customer for you,” he yelled indiscriminately.
An older man entered the room. His bald head was covered in tattoos and his bare arms rippled with leathery skin. “Who’s the cute girl?” he asked in heavily accented Vendian.
“New one. After antibiotics. What’s the rate?”
Kiefer rubbed his chin and flashed a smile. “Thirty vouchers.”
Freya swallowed down a nervous lump. That was far more than she’d anticipated. “I’ve only twenty.”
“Twenty, sure, plus I fuck you.”
