“Sorry, Willa, I’d do it, but...” The station supervisor couldn’t leave with donors present and Patriot didn’t turn away willing supply.

“I know,” she said. “When you’re done… do you mind… can you fetch Isaiah from school?”

“Sure. He’s at the same spot?”

“He is. Thank you, sweetheart.”

“My pleasure,” answered Claude, swiping blood bags from the donors nearly as fast as she.

Outside Station Eight the sky was purple on one side and orange on the other, with clouds like gray icing layered between. The type of weather Willa described as soon-to-be. Mid October cool, soon-to-be cold. She shivered preemptively and hailed a taxi drone.

Drone rides were an absolute luxury in the blood districts and Willa felt guilty in summoning one, even if it was necessary to help her ferry the vault. After half a minute, a taxi drone in mustard yellow broke from the low-hanging clouds.

The sight of a drone descending from the sky to land right in front of you was something Willa would never get used to, even though they’d been around for decades. They seemed alien. Aside from helicopters, things that could fly were supposed to have wings. And drones were not helicopters.

To Willa they looked like flying gumdrops. Aside from some aerodynamic ridges that pinched out from the sides, they were rounded at the edges and slightly narrower near the roof. The motors were mounted in an array around the top rim, giving them a crownlike appearance. They were called “ducted fans,” though the term meant little to Willa. They resembled giant rolls of toilet paper with propeller blades tucked snuggly against the inner walls. Independent articulation allowed them to control not only lift, but direction and altitude. With small alterations to the blade shape over the years, they were hummingbird quiet. Another eerie feature.

The taxi landed and the door swept open from the bottom. Welcome aboard CROW FLIES, it said.

“Patriot Distribution, SCS,” said Willa. “Quickly please.”

We will arrive at Patriot Distribution, Southern City Segment, in two and a half minutes.

Once she’d buckled into the bench and secured the vault to the cargo clip against the wall, the drone lifted off. A screen around the inner perimeter created a false three-hundred and sixty degree window, interrupted only by an actual window, set like a porthole in the door. She’d flown in plenty of drones but, much like their appearance, she had never gotten used to them – how they felt, how they took away all control. She longed for the solid predictability of a steering wheel and the responsiveness of an accelerator. Before the war, before the Harvest, before Patriot, when the asphalt was still good and cars could be afforded, Willa owned the roads, collecting tickets like blue ribbons. Speeding – her one real vice. But that was then. Nowadays, a car would appear every so often near the business district, but only the rich had money for such extravagances.