The Charity Chip (18 page)

“Orfelia, but she’s so senile I don’t think she’ll be much help. She always mistakes me for her niece, Angelina.”

“Come on. Let’s go talk to her, and if she thinks you’re her niece, play along so we can get inside and look around.” He stuffed his skateboard into his backpack and started across the street with Angelica beside him.

Orfelia was still crying and talking with neighbors when they walked up. As soon as she saw Angelica, she cried out, “Angelina! Oh, thank you for coming at this tragic moment.”

Angelica didn’t correct the old woman. “Tragic moment? What happened?” she said, patting Orfelia on the hand.

“
Que lástima
! Graciela has been taken to the hospital after an overdose,” answered Orfelia. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. The neighbors used the arrival of Angelica as an opportunity to slip away.

Angelica glanced at Julio. “An overdose? That’s terrible! Do you know where they took her?”

“She was so young,
pobrecita.
I thought she was such a nice girl. I had no idea that she was using drugs, but then again, how can I blame her, after the life she had.” She wiped her nose.

“Orfelia, do you mind if my friend, Julio, and I take a look around her room? Maybe we can figure out what she overdosed on.”

The old woman seemed to notice Julio for the first time. “Julio? Aren’t you Clara’s son?” She kept talking like she knew the answer already. “They showed me some little white pill and told me they had to get her to a hospital.”

Angelica smiled and patted Orfelia’s hand again. “Can we come in and look around?”

“What bad manners of me, leaving my niece standing in the street.” Orfelia opened the gate. “Come in, Angelina! Come in!”

Angelica looked over her shoulder at Julio and shrugged as Orfelia ushered them into her home. Orfelia pulled back the curtain, exposing Graciela’s bedroom. “They found her lying on the floor right here,
pobrecita
.”

The bedroom was disheveled and unorganized. The sagging bed was covered with stained sheets, and a lamp without a shade sat on a cardboard box next to the bed. A pile of dirty clothes filled the corner between the cardboard box and the opposite wall. The hint of perfume hung in the air, but Julio wasn’t sure if it was from Graciela or Doctor Kozyar. He could see several white pills scattered on the bed and Graciela’s headphones had been tossed on top of the pillow.

Angelica entered the bedroom first and picked up one of the pills. “This looks like some sort of prescription medication.” She handed the pill to Julio and began collecting the rest of the scattered pills. “Do you have a plastic bag, Orfelia?”

“I think so,” said Orfelia. She let the curtain drop and went to find a bag.

Julio examined the plain white pill. “If this is prescription, where’s the bottle?”

Angelica continued gathering the scattered pills. “Usually when people get wasted on drugs, they are sitting or lying down already.”

Julio gave her a funny look.

“My mother didn’t always run with a good crowd,” said Angelica.

Orfelia slipped through the curtain and handed Angelica a plastic bag. “Here you are, Angelina.”

“Orfelia, are you sure they found her on the floor?” asked Julio.

“Yes, the
pobrecita
was lying facedown on the floor beside the bed. She was still dressed even.” She started to cry again.

“Maybe she was looking for something and passed out. Maybe she spilled the pills and dropped the bottle,” offered Julio. He knelt down and looked under the bed. At first he didn’t see anything other than dirty clothes and a couple of books, but then he grabbed the lamp from the cardboard box and shined it under the bed. Something yellow stood out among the debris. He slid under the bed to pull out a used syringe with a yellow cap over the end.

“Did they give her an injection?” he asked as he held up the used syringe.

“Not that I remember,” answered a surprised Orfelia. “The big brute of a man shoved me into the other room and told me not to interfere. I tried to get past him, but he kept pushing me back.”

“Do you know if she was on any medication?” asked Angelica as she held up the bag of white pills.

The old woman looked surprised. “How should I know? The big man told me she tried to commit suicide.”

Julio and Angelica exchanged a glance. Julio remembered how excited Graciela was to see Sofía Encuentro today. Nothing would indicate that she was thinking about suicide, but then again, he had seen more than one person give up on life in unique ways. He picked up the headphones as if somehow they could speak to him.

“No way,” said Angelica. “She had survived too much already. Not to mention that if she was going to commit suicide, she would do it some other way because she knew the chip monitored her for drug use and vital signs.”

Julio put the syringe and the pills into the bag and took it from Angelica. “I know a doctor that can help us analyze everything.” He pulled his skateboard out of his backpack and made room for Graciela’s oversized headphones.

“Why do you want the headphones?” asked Orfelia.

Julio smiled at Orfelia. “Graciela will want them while she is recovering in the hospital.” He glanced at Angelica and hoped she would play along.

“Yes, of course,” added Angelica. “She never likes to be apart from her headphones and music.” She faked a smile and glared at Julio. “We also need to take this evidence to the
policía
.”

“
Policía
? Bah! What a waste of time,” said Orfelia.

Angelica hugged the old woman. “Thanks for letting us in. We will let you know what we find out.”

“You’re such a good niece, Angelina,” said Orfelia as she patted her on the back. She walked them to the door. “Tell Clara hello for me,” she told Julio as he shuffled out the door. “
Vaya con Dios!
”

They walked to the end of the street in silence. When they turned the corner, Angelica came alive again. “Come on! Your skateboard is faster. We have to hurry back and tell Martín what happened. Maybe we can figure out a way to save her.”

Julio wasn’t as convinced that Graciela needed saving, or that they could do anything to save her, but they climbed onto his board and skated through the evening traffic. With his arms around Angelica and her hair whipping him in the face, he wanted to make her feel better, but he wasn’t sure what to believe.
Maybe Graciela really did try to commit suicide.

Martín had closed up shop by the time they got back and was sweeping the floor when they hurried through the door. “They took Graciela. We need to save her,” blurted Angelica before she even got inside.

Martín leaned against his broom. “What do you mean they took her? Who?”

“Isak and Doctor Kozyar took her away in an ambulance.”

“Did she go willingly?” asked Martín as he continued to sweep.

“She was unconscious, but I don’t think she went willingly,” answered Angelica.

“Orfelia, the old lady she lives with, said she overdosed,” said Julio. He pulled out the bag with the syringe and the pills. “We found these in her bedroom.”

Martín swept up the gathered dust and debris into a dustpan and deposited it into the trash can. “Were the police involved?” he asked as he sat down at his computer.

“No,” answered Angelica. “I’ll bet if we hurry we can still save her. You know they took her to Caritas.”

“At this point, we know very little about her fate,” said Martín as he typed at his keyboard. “If she overdosed, they would take her to a clinic or hospital. Let’s see what we can find.” His fingers tapped at his keyboard. “A few years ago the government started using a central medical database.” He chuckled to himself. “It only took us a week to find the backdoor into the program, but it wasn’t a profitable venture. No money. I haven’t bothered to go back. Let’s see if they tightened their security.”

Julio set the bag on the counter and looked over Martín’s shoulder as his long fingers flew over the keyboard. Within less than a minute, they were looking at the Peruvian central medical database.

“They never learn. Okay, what is her full name?” asked Martín.

Julio and Angelica looked at each other and shrugged. “I only knew her as Graciela,” said Angelica.

“Okay, how about the full name of her doctor?”

“Doctor Oxana Kozyar,” said Julio. “But don’t ask me how to spell it.”

Martín pecked at the keyboard and a window opened on the screen. “Doctor Oxana Kozyar arrived by ambulance at Hospital Edgardo Rebagliati with her patient, Graciela Maria Suiza de Gomez, a seventeen-year-old female.”

Julio glanced over at Angelica. “So they didn’t take her to Caritas.”

“Yes, well, don’t get too excited,” continued Martín. He continued reading the notes from the screen. “The patient was pronounced dead on arrival—cause of death, drug overdose.”

“She’s dead? Already?” asked Angelica. “They just took her in the ambulance less than an hour ago.”

“That’s what it says in this report,” answered Martín. He looked at Angelica and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Angelica.”

Angelica’s face was hard and dark. She glared at Julio. “We could have saved her.”

“How? By the time we got there, she had already taken the drugs,” said Julio.

Angelica shook her finger at them both. “No, by the time we got there they had already given her the drugs.”

“How is that possible? We watched them go through the front door. Orfelia said she was passed out already when Isak got there.”

“Simple,” interjected Martín. “The drugs are built into the chip.”

Julio ran a finger over the chip in his left hand. “You can’t be serious. They would never do that. They can’t do that, can they?”

“Who is ‘they’?” asked Martín. “Doctor Kozyar? Isak? Some United Nations bureaucrat? Do you really trust them with your life? ‘They’ don’t really care about you, and, yes, they can do that.”

Julio remembered the words he spoke into the camera just this morning.
Caritas gave me hope. Caritas gave me opportunity. Caritas changed my life.
He shook his head. “They gave me an opportunity to take care of myself. Why would they do that if they just wanted to kill me?”

“Haven’t you seen the way foreigners treat us? We are nothing more than beasts of burden or objects of pleasure for them. To them, you are nothing more than a live investment, like cattle or sheep,” said Martín. “My guess is that Graciela isn’t really dead. She’s probably drugged and on an airplane headed to Europe or the Middle East right now, and when she wakes up, she’ll find herself working as a slave for some rich family. Or worse, she’ll wake up and find herself chained to a bed.” Martín began typing at his keyboard again.

The thought made Julio shudder, and he slid to the floor with his back against the counter. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. All he had wanted was enough money to take care of himself and Raúl. He wanted to keep his promise to Mamá. Angelica sat down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “They fooled us all, Julio. We all thought we were finally getting a break in life, but like usual, fate twisted it around.”

“Fate always turns. Of one it makes a beggar, of another a king,” answered Julio without looking up. “At least that’s what Mamá used to say.” He glanced up at Martín and turned to Angelica. “If this charity chip really can drug us and control us, why don’t we just remove it?”

Martín answered for her. “If you remove the chip, you lose access, and resources. Besides, they already know everything about you now. If you take out the chip, you will have to relocate before they can find you.”

“He’s right,” continued Angelica. “Graciela and I talked about this. We didn’t have enough evidence to stop them, and we realized that if we took out the chips and ran, we never would. Martín suggested that we continue with the program. We were trying to gather evidence and allies.” She looked away. “I never thought that one of us might be the evidence we were looking for.”

“I did,” said Martín. “In fact, Graciela and I talked about it. That’s why she agreed to wear a GPS tracker.”

“A tracker?” asked Angelica. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“You didn’t need to know.” Martín nodded and pointed to the computer screen. “The silver ring she wears. Unfortunately, the location of the ring matches the hospital report. She is at Hospital Edgardo Rebagliati.”

Angelica wrinkled her brow. “Are you saying that the report is right?”

Martín shrugged. “I’m saying that the ring is at the same hospital they claim to have taken her to. Until we see the ring on her finger or discarded, we won’t know for sure.”

Julio could see the tears welling up in Angelica’s eyes. “It’s not your fault. Either she overdosed on drugs, or they took her. Either way, it’s not your fault.”

Angelica wiped a tear from her cheek and looked at Julio. “I need to figure out what is really going on at Caritas, for Graciela’s sake. She was my only ally. Will you help me?”

Julio felt a knot growing in his stomach. He wasn’t sure if he believed in all the paranoid suspicions about Caritas, and he wanted them to be wrong.
But what if they’re right?
The words of Mamá rang in his ears—
You have the power to make a difference in the world.

“I’ll help you, on one condition,” said Julio. “If we find evidence of foul play, you will come with me to my friend, Doctor Barilla, who happens to work at that hospital and have the chip removed.” He stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

Angelica hugged him and then shook his hand. “Deal.”

“Now that we got that out of the way,” said Martín as he opened the drawer of his desk, “you don’t have to take the chip out to keep it from working.” He pulled out two black gloves. “I was getting these ready for Graciela and Angelica, but it should fit you as well.” He handed each of them a glove. “I lined these gloves with a thick layer of aluminum foil. You will notice they are both left-handed gloves, since you both have the chip in the left hand. When you put them on, it blocks all signals to and from the chip, making you invisible to the system.” He held up his hand. “I know. You are about to ask—why don’t we just wear these all the time then? When you block the chip’s signals, the computer will register the fault. Small gaps in coverage are expected, but large gaps will be a red flag. So, only use these in emergencies. That way we don’t highlight ourselves.”