The woman straightened as if she’d been suddenly plugged back in.

“Ma’am?” Willa asked with a gentle touch to her wrist.

“What do you want?”

“You passed out. You’ve given too much.”

The woman’s pupils tightened on the screen, where a scrolling chyron flashed yet another incentive bump and she sprang from the bench. Willa latched to her arm instinctively. “There’s no need. You’re A-neg. The price will be the same tomorrow. Please, don’t.”

“Get off me,” she growled. Willa knew it wasn’t who the woman really was, but the Trade had a way of exposing the nerves. Ripping her arm away, she returned to the back of the line.

Willa stepped into her stall and got her line moving. She processed bags, checked for fakes, but her eyes stayed on the woman. In short order, she was next in line, a new bag on her port, filling red pulse-by-pulse. “I’m feel good,” she mumbled in anticipation of Willa’s objection.

“No, you don’t,” said Willa. “That’s the gelpack talking. It’s just adrenaline. Please don’t do this.”

The woman leaned heavily on the side of the stall. “You haffto I got kids.”

She was technically correct. Willa did have to. Grudgingly, she removed the half-full bag and processed it. It was a brutal thing, the blood trade, but here she was stuck on the receiving end of it; a cog in a runaway machine.

Just before close, a notification glowed orange on her display. She deactivated her stall, sending glass barricades across the lanes and flagged Claude in Stall B. “Coolant.”

Claude summoned Willa’s donors to his line and they grumbled their way over.

Willa angled a panel open and dipped her hand into her cooling vault. Her toes curled anxiously inside her orthotics. It was warming. “How much room do we have in the big cooler?”

“Topped out after lunch.”

She had almost fifty liters. Blood couldn’t be transfused after four hours in warm conditions due to bacterial proliferation. It would go bad long before morning if she couldn’t get it cooled and her pay would be docked. “I’ll call a technician.”

“Good luck with that.”

Willa tapped the support button and sat helplessly as donors side-eyed her from the long lines in front of Claude. Sorry she mouthed.

Closing time came with no technician responding. Normally, all of the vaults would be taken to the distribution hub after hours, but with no way to cool hers, it had to go now. She wheeled the vault, about the size of an old hotel refrigerator, from under the console and unhooked the cables from the processing interface. Having taken all of the extra donors, Claude’s line was still out the door.

“I’m taking this to SCS,” said Willa.