The Heartbeat Log

Sarah stared down at the little black book, stolen from her boss's desk in a spur of the moment bout of desperation. A heartbeat log, a prime possession of the Heartbeat Cartel that prowled New York City. The King of the City, her boss, would kill her for stealing it. Not that she had anything left to lose.

She crushed the cigarette in her hand against the sidewalk and sighed.

“Are those even worth the heartbeats they cost, young lady?”

It took a second for Sarah to realize the crotchety old woman was talking to her and, if only just to prove a point, pulled another from her dwindling pack and lit up, laughing quietly as the woman glared harder and scurried off.

“Bitch,” Sarah said, standing, blowing the smoke into the advertisement on the wall, taunting her.

5.2 Billion Heartbeats; Make the Most of the Life You’re Given

Didn’t matter much when she had been diagnosed with Tars just a few days ago; the heartbeat eating disease that took an entire life of allotted beats and crushed them into a single week had chosen her as it's next victim. She only had 3 days left and she would be damned it she wasted them.

Her watched buzzed. You good? She ignored the text and just brushed it away with a swipe of her finger.

Heartbeats. 80 beats a minute, 4,800 times an hour, 115,200 times a day. 5.2 billion in a lifetime. At least that was the magic number the government had settled on a hundred years ago. Each person given exactly the number they needed to live a full life. They tried to claim that they hadn't counted on people making heartbeats monetary, finding a way to transfer the beats person to person. The people had been convinced that to have rationed food, electricity, and housing was wonderful but the added cost of a rationed lifetime that was easily sold and bartered. Disgusting. They had been duped, she knew that much.

No one had counted, either, on the rise of the cartels, the mafia of the heartbeat world, stealing the hearts from the innocent to keep themselves alive forever. Sarah had worked for the best in the city, recruited at only ten years old. Wan’t until she met Him that she had started to change her mind about the world. She shrugged the thought off, swiped away another text that buzzed through her watch, knowing she wouldn't see him again.

Her bit of hoplessness had led her to steal the book, use the stolen heartbeats to buy herself into one of the Tar cure test trials, but honestly, some deep part of her knew what she really had to do the second she leafed through the pages. The purpose that had filled her when she had opened up the book and seen the list of names. So she flipped the book open again, tossing her cigarette to the ground, and typed the first address into her phone’s ancient map system. Wasn’t even that far.

She hailed down a cab, sliding into the luxury only the rich and cartel members could afford, and gave him the address.

He took her there, asking if she was sure this was the right place with its run down walls and blood splattered sidewalks, and she nodded. This was the kind of place the cartels targeted: those who had no extra heartbeats and who were desperate for medicine, extra food, a chance at something more. Abandoned by the world and the system that was supposed to provide for them. She slid out, transferring a few extra heartbeats to the cabby so he would wait for her, and walked up to the rotting wooden door, knocking gently.

It was the right thing to do.

She shouldn't live on the backs of stolen beats.

It had to be right.

The door swung open, interrupting her thoughts, and a young woman with big blue eyes was staring up at her.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice low and raspy, so contrasting to her beautiful face.

“Is there a Tibby Tilman home?” Sarah asked, noting the girl's eyes go blurry, her shoulders slumping at the name.

“He passed away, ran out of heartbeats a week ago.”

“I’m so-”

“Just leave, okay. I see that insignia on your arm. He already gave all he had to the big man, just let us be, okay?”

“Do you want them?” Sarah asked, her voice cracking. But the small woman just glared up at her, a spark of anger in her eyes.

“And have the cartel come back saying I took what wasn’t mine and charge me double. Absolutely not!” the woman shouted, slamming the door in her face.

Sarah cringed, wishing she could explain, but the woman would never believe her. The poor and destitute had a reason to hate the cartels and the rich. Heartbeats were the definition of a life without money being a short life indeed.

The cabby had waited for her, surprisingly enough, and she slid into the cab gratefully.

“That didn’t seem to go well.”

“Not at all,” she grimaced, grateful for the bottle of water the cab driver offered and downing it in one go. She gave him the next address and sunk back into the plush leather seat, toying with the watch on her hand that continued to buzz with unanswered messages. She was sure by now her old boss had noticed the missing log and would have every cartel member out on the streets looking for her.

She arrived at the next address, a mirror copy of the rundown hovel she was just at. The same scenario played out there too.

Again and again, place after place, it was the same. Each person who had been robbed of their heartbeats already dead or so scared of the cartel they didn’t want them back. It felt so utterly useless. None believed her. Nor did anyone note the sheen of sweat on her skin, the dilated pupils, and her audible heartbeats. All the telltale signs of Tars.

Sarah pulled up to the last house with a grimace, swiping away another unread text message. She had promised herself, about halfway through, that no matter what, if no one wanted these beats back, she was going to donate them. Tars would just eat them away anyway, not buying her any time at all. Better a few people get a lifetime to live than someone who could only spend them on a useless fun last week alive.

She climbed the steps to the battered old door and knocked, hopeless as this point.

A young kid opened the door, his skinny frame another indication of the power imbalance in the world. He didn’t even ask any questions, saw the insignia tattooed on her arm and led her to the back room.

“Haven’t I given enough?” the occupant of the room, a frail man looking to be in his mid-thirties, shouted, his voice full of anger despite his worn out frame. The room was full of computers, vials of blue-green liquid, and numbers filled every chalkboard in the room. A scientist then, or a wannabe one at that.

“I’m not here to take anything, I just wanted to give you back what was stolen.”

He looked at her without an ounce of belief.

“Daddy found a way to fix the heartbeat system, make them bound to you and you alone, only given away if given freely without any coercion or it corrupts them but..”

“Enough,” the bedridden man said, his face stricken with fear. “She is cartel, Jimmy, not some saint here to offer us a hand. Probably the same hitman hired you, huh? Government or private?” The anger in his voice was justifiable if what the kid said was true.

A way to end the system, made sense if a hit was taken out on him, whether his claim was valid or not. Wasn’t the first time a revolutionary had been taken out.

She tossed the man the little black book.

She made up her mind in five seconds flat. His claim could be false or maybe, just maybe, he was telling the truth. Could help fix things.

“If you think you can change this system, end it.”

He looked down at the log. “I can’t-”

“They were all dead anyway. Take it. Change it. Make their deaths worth it.” Make mine worth it.

He examined the book and then her.

“Tars?”

She just nodded. “There is a revolutionary group, the Mechanists, hiding under 51st and Sabut. If what you say is true, they’ll take you. Protect you,” she said and turned around. Not needing the little boy to guide her away.

“How can I trust you?” he whispered.

“Because you’ve nothing to lose, cab is watiing for your outside,” she said, slipping outside, the truth of her words hanging in the stale air.

Sarah stepped outside, transferring the cabby a hundred beats to take the man and kid inside that building where they needed to go, and lit up another cigarette. Change was coming. She wouldn’t be here to see it, but damn it, she wasn’t going to waste her last three days moping. Three days was plenty to live a little. She set off toward 51st and Sabut and pulled out her phone, dialing her boss' number.

She pulled out her phone and dialed her boss's number.

“What the hell, Sarah, been trying to get ahold of you for hours. Are you okay?”

“Tars, boss, not much left of me. But I found you something.”

“Sarah, shit, that's, I'm so sorry.”

“You needed something to help you win. Well, by the look of it,” she said, watching the frail man and the little boy creep out of their home and into the cab driver's warm taxi, "that help is on the way. Make the most of it."

She hung up before he could answer.

Change, she thought, a smile on her face, it certainly was coming.