Subterra Heart

Chapter 2: Connor Rocha

Twenty minutes later, Connor stood at the pharmacy window. The tunnel here was coated with a thick layer of plaster, much like the rest of Flores Greens. Green and white tiles covered the floor, and warm yellow light came from delicate brass sconces set into the walls outside the pharmacy. He pressed a small buzzer set in the wall and waited. The place had been in the Ritty family for generations, and he knew everyone who worked here. Usually, it was Marina who was here at this hour. She was a pretty woman with tightly coiled hair and bright, intelligent eyes. Connor had nearly asked her out once, but that was a long time ago.

"Meow."

Connor snapped out of his thoughts and looked down to see a brown striped tabby. It was Bug, Marina's cat, and she sat waiting expectantly. Her pink tongue flicked out to lick her nose. She was allowed free roam of Flores Greens, but she usually liked to hang around the pharmacy. Over the years, she'd done a good job at training customers to give her food. Connor grinned and dug into a pocket at his right thigh. He usually kept a packet of dried fish-flakes there just for this occasion.

"Hey Bug," said Connor, crouching down. He shook a few flakes onto the tiled floor in front of Bug and gave her a quick scratch behind the ear. She nuzzled his hand, purring, and then went straight to business, lapping up the fish-flakes. Connor chuckled.

Up above, the grate of a sliding window pane caught Connor's attention. He looked up as someone popped her head out through the pharmacy window.

"Yes? Can I help you?" she asked. She had hazel eyes, brown skin and browner freckles. Her dark curls were braided away from her face, and when Connor stood up, he saw that her nametag read Tess Ritty. Connor raised an eyebrow. He didn't recognize her.

"Um, yeah," he said. "Connor Rocha. I'm here for a prescription refill."

Tess's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Connor Rocha?" she repeated slowly. Connor grimaced and nodded.

"Yeah, not who you're thinking of," he said. He placed his hand on the windowsill, palm up. There were a series of dots at the base of his shae band coded just to him. Tess would need to read his biometrics to verify his identity and get his meds. Tess blinked and scrambled to find the scanner to pull his information. She fumbled with it a bit, and when she finally got everything onto a datalog screen hidden behind the window, she blinked again.

"Connor Rocha for parlin, thirty doses of two mils each..." she turned to him, confusion written all over her face. "You've got Rochagorosis?"

Connor sighed. He hated this.

Nearly fifty years ago, Cynwrig's bloodrot had come to Flores Greens. Heart had always suffered from outbreaks of the illness. That was just an accepted part of living here. It came from outside of the subterranean city, from deep within the planet's natural tunnel system, and it attacked the blood, brain, organs, everything. Spurted out of infected bodies in black dust. Drove even the sanest men mad. Movement between Heart's sub-cities was highly regulated to try and keep it in check, but it just took one infected person – one poorly guarded exit – to set off an epidemic. There was no treatment.

Heart Central always cut off travel to and from infected sub-cities and let them rot. Sub-cities that survived did so by murdering their sick and disposing of the bodies in acid. Connor's granddad, Matteo Rocha, was a young scientist during the Flores Greens outbreak. He was also an incredibly stubborn man, and when his wife became sick, he hid her while trying to develop a cure. Well, he came up with something...sort of. The drug that Matteo Rocha developed was effective enough against Cynwrig's bloodrot, and it was administered immediately to everyone affected by the outbreak. It saved thousands of lives – definitely a better alternative to murdering sick people – but it was eventually discovered anyone born to an infected parent developed Rochagorosis.