Resonance

by A. J. Scudiere

  No one had been around and this way he didn’t have to steal a whole bottle. Record keeping was still pretty poor, but a whole missing bottle would be pretty suspicious.

  His heart tripped along at a faster rate. Jillian walked quietly at his side, having stood guard outside the tent while he drew up the liquid. She had spoken out loud, letting Jordan know that someone was there, and loudly repeated that the man was going to the cafeteria. It was a good job of relaying the information without letting on that she was speaking to be overheard or that Jordan was following the conversation from inside.

  God, he had felt like a kid stealing a look at the files in the principal’s office, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so guilty or so low. Jillian didn’t speak as they traipsed quietly to the cafeteria, and he wondered if her thoughts were the same as his, if she ever questioned her theory. If she was wrong, and it was all a shared dream, then they were killing David. Just flat out murder.

  He pushed that thought aside. If she was right, and they didn’t do anything, she’d die if she fell under again. The trend that all five of the people going back and forth had established was to have their vital signs drop lower and lower the longer they were under. And to drop more rapidly each time they went back under. She had barely survived the last time, and Jordan was certain that she wouldn’t survive the next one.

  He saw his hand go out to the cafeteria door, swinging it wide and ushering Jillian through. She walked like nothing was wrong, like a normal human, not one who had nearly died two hours ago. Not one who had him arguing with the heads of his company, a government company nonetheless, to keep her on life support. People on ventilators shouldn’t just get up and walk around.

  And doctors shouldn’t carry syringes of potassium chloride in their pockets in case the opportunity to kill a patient arose.

  Jordan also doubted the quality of his decision making skills. He wanted Jillian here. No doubt about that. Having the threat of David removed didn’t bother him any either. Killing David to get his way did.

  He was halfway down the cafeteria line before Jillian tugged on his jacket sleeve and pointed out that he hadn’t gotten anything. Shaking his head, he started choosing food from the other side of the line, not really caring that he didn’t have anything but side dishes. He was simply here because he was hungry. His brain didn’t care what he ate, just that he did it.

  Jillian’s plate was piled high, with carefully chosen and precariously balanced foods. A moment’s surprise registered until he remembered she had eaten this much the last time she had come out.

  Her enthusiasm for the rather inedible food relayed that she wasn’t thinking what he was. How could they be certain that Jillian wouldn’t go under first?

  They had discussed the possibility of trying to medically induce coma in David. But that had problems. If they didn’t get David through to the other side, then when they killed him they might actually kill him. And if he didn’t wake up, he wouldn’t be able to cut Jillian loose. Which meant she would slide under again, and most likely die, if not just here, then in both places.

  And there was another critical problem with it: they had no idea what they were dealing with. So they had no idea if it would work. And there wasn’t time to experiment.

  So they would simply have to wait for David to go under.

  And keep Jillian here.

  And Jordan had no idea how to do that.

  Eventually he realized that all of his food was gone from his tray except a spinach side dish. He must have disliked it, because he had eaten everything else. But he had no memory of that decision at all. And Jillian was looking at him weird.

  “You ready?” His voice slipped out as his eyes finally made contact with hers, real contact in the here and now, and not in the missing world of his thoughts.

  She nodded yes, a tiny gulp showing along her exposed neckline as she blinked. Too quickly his brain registered that her eyes didn’t reopen and he forced himself to not reveal the hot rush of adrenaline he felt every time she closed her eyes for longer than a second. Every time, he was suddenly and certainly afraid that she was slipping. But she had opened her eyes wide each time before, and he waited until she did it this time, too.

  He understood again the meaning of the phrase ‘with heavy heart’ as they walked silently back to the tent. He supposed his heart would sink through his abdominal cavity if this didn’t resolve itself soon. But then again, there was a murder to commit, and the way he figured it, it was likely that Jillian would want to shed herself of him and any reminders of this night as soon as possible.

  Jordan didn’t like it. But he had to find a way to be okay with it. He’d be able to call her, or at least check up on her, and know she was all right. Killing David didn’t lead him to any fantasy worlds where he could roll over at night and watch her sleeping. And he forced himself to re-examine all his decisions.

  Was he doing this just to get Jillian? Or was there any real justification to break his Hippocratic Oath? He understood and believed in all that Kevorkian had fought for. That people had the right to die, to choose their own quality of life. And David had initiated this idea.

  Grass crunched under his feet in the chill night air as he considered the geologist’s sanity and his own ability to show proof that he had agreed to the wishes of a logical man when he came up before the judge and jury for this one. But he couldn’t come up with anything. They were operating on a theory for which the only proof was in Jillian and David’s heads. And half that proof would be dead shortly.

  Jordan considered calling it all to a halt. But one glance at Jillian beside him changed his mind. There was no way to stop this for her if they didn’t let David go back. He couldn’t even imagine David’s job on the other side, though for a brief moment he tried. Hopefully the potassium chloride would do the trick. But in the end David was a logical man to his very core. He would hold a pillow over Jillian’s face and be sure he felt her slip away if it came to that. Jordan almost laughed out loud at how well he could place his trust in David’s aberrant code of honor.

  But as he pulled back the tent flap even the cynical laughter died in his throat. David was glaring at him.

  “Yes, I’m still awake.” His teeth gritted and Jordan noted the pale clench to his jaw, figuring it was pain even before David spoke it. “I need a Percocet to get anywhere near where I can sleep. And I really want to get some sleep.”

  Jordan nodded.

  Again it was David who drove the conversation, but with him sitting on his gurney waiting to be killed by an overdose of KCl, Jordan wasn’t as threatened by it as he usually was.

  “Just give me enough to send me under.”

  “No!” Jillian’s voice jumped, strained and brittle, into the edges of Jordan’s brain.

  David glared, his eyes issuing some very serious threats for a man in slings and casts. “It’s what we all want. Are you afraid of autopsy reports or something?”

  Jordan knew what Jillian was thinking, and, unfortunately for David, he agreed. His voice ground out low and conspiratorial. “We could send you into medical coma. But we have no idea what it would do to you, if it would be the same as slipping under on your own. So you can only have the same doses that we gave you before.”

  “Then give it to me.”

  Jillian darted away, as quick as one of Becky’s lizards, and returned with a paper cup with two of the round blue pills in it. It was a large dose, but Jordan figured they were no longer concerned with addiction.

  David swallowed them down with a jerk of his head, then instantly fixed his stare on the two of them. “Go! I won’t go under with you two watching me. I’m hoping I’ll pass out from boredom.”

  They turned, and Jordan watched as his hand went out to hold the tent flap for Jillian, a dying, useless piece of misplaced chivalry if ever there was one. The night air hit them like a slap in the face, and with it came the jarred thought that Landerly hadn’t been by to check on David since he had
awoken.

  But Landerly was a pretty sharp tack and Jordan wondered if the old man hadn’t figured out what they were up to. His absence wouldn’t be a stamp of approval necessarily, but at least it meant he wouldn’t interfere.

  In the distance he could see sunlight behind the mountains. He’d never really been anyplace like the Appalachians before, where sunrise was visible in the distance while it was still pitch black where you stood. The irony wasn’t lost on him, and in a desperate bid for sanity he tried changing the subject. “So what went on with you and David last night? Around midnight?”

  He could see that he had startled her. She blinked a few times and made an attempt to gather up scattered thoughts, but she didn’t do it all that well. “What?”

  He shoved his fists deeper into the pockets of his jackets, keeping them warm and out of the way. “Both of you had EEG activity at the same time – the same activity - even though you were reading almost brain dead.”

  “I was almost brain dead?”

  “Yeah, so I figured something major must have happened . . .”

  Becky stared down at the human shape on the bed. It was so much easier to think in terms of frogs. When she distanced herself, she wasn’t bothered by the fact that she had found the two of them entwined and naked. She had reached her hand into frog terrariums before and simply removed the amphibs from all kinds of compromising positions.

  Never once had she felt she had violated the frogs’ sacred privacy. But never had she been in the position of moving the frogs, and adjusting things so that the techs wouldn’t see. Never had she had to threaten a cage cleaner so that he wouldn’t report what he saw.

  So she had nearly broken her back putting a gown on Jillian and pulling a spare pair of scrubs pants onto David. She had sweated bullets in the fear that one or the other would wake up while she was dressing them. She had even rehearsed a small come-uppance speech to level at them if they did wake.

  But they didn’t.

  She had moved Jillian rather than David, simply because she was lighter. It was hard enough lifting any amount of dead weight.

  But now she stepped back as the techs moved around the room like bees in a field - working, making rapid efficient movements, flitting from one body to the other. When she lost focus the machinery became the drone of the hive, and she could imagine she was elsewhere. Somewhere where she didn’t have to stand over two friends and wait.

  To hear vital signs that she barely understood for humans. She knew appropriate blood pressures and pulse rates for cheetahs and moose and amphibs of all types. But with humans she knew just enough to constantly ask the techs if it was time to worry.

  And from the looks on their faces it was approaching time to worry.

  She hadn’t mentioned a damn thing to David Carter The First. Even if he didn’t recognize her, she remembered him, and how upset he had gotten over being given partial information. If she kept him up to date, the man might worry about his son, and Becky wasn’t about to go spreading rumors that she couldn’t substantiate, not to Carter Senior. No, she would wait until she had all her numbers, then she would tell him the facts.

  But she could see what wasn’t being said. There were frowns, and stethoscopes, heads nodding, followed by electrodes being attached. While she stood silently, the river of activity flowed around her on all sides. Her breath heaved in when she saw one of the women return with fistfuls of supplies. Becky recognized the IV bags and needles even in their sterile plastic casings. She had seen enough of it over the past week to know what it was all about. She knew that it wasn’t good. And she knew that she should help. She just wasn’t sure how.

  So she stepped back to the edge of the square tent and bent her head. It had been far too long since she had done anything like it. She had missed church for a month of Sundays, always neck deep in one project or another. But her mother had pointed out, that with what had happened and all, the churches were now full. It came as no surprise that people would turn to God. But for the first time, she felt the need for it herself.

  The words rattled in her brain, rusty from misuse, but she felt her way around until they became clearer, cleaner.

  Please God, help my friends. Guide me to help them. Show me how I can do your work. Help me to understand. Help them to understand. She didn’t feel her hands clasp together in front of her. Didn’t know her lips were moving. Didn’t feel the activity in the tent slowly come to a standstill around her. But she felt the peace. Help all of us here to help them. To come back healthy and whole, or to find your kingdom in heaven.

  Becky didn’t worry too much about the sex the two had clearly engaged in. There was too much biology ingrained in her as deep as the Baptist teachings she’d grown up with. God wouldn’t punish them for doing what he had evolved them for. This was about finding the way. Whichever way was right for each of them.

  “Help me to be helpful.”

  “Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  The chorus of voices startled her head up, shaking her from the cocoon of prayer she had woven around herself. Her eyes shifted, focusing on the roomful of medical techs and nurses, splashes of color in varied shades of blues and greens against the white of the canvas tent.

  But, to a person, every head looked up from where it had been bent. Eyes met hers. Nods were directed her way. And hands went back to work.

  Jillian fought the yawn that escaped her mouth. She knew it would simply cause Jordan more worry. But she wasn’t good enough to hide it from him. Hell, no one was.

  “Stay awake, Jillian. Walk.”

  His fingers grasped her arm in a purely clinical manner and she had to wonder why that was. He was Jordan. And he’d never distanced himself from her before. Not when she’d thought he should. Nor when she’d wanted him to. He was always Jordan. But right now she’d have ground out the formal title “Dr. Abellard” if she could have found the energy. “Walking makes me tired!”

  “You have to stay awake!” His breath washed over her face, he was so close. And for a moment she thought of the mint gum he had been chewing. That was Jordan, friendly even when he was hauling her around, trying to keep her awake even though it was late in the evening. The sun was setting and her nerves and brain were setting with it.

  Her body pulled away from her thoughts, creating a sense memory of one of the better hotel beds where she had curled up next to Jordan’s heat, and sunk into warm soft sheets, the covers velvety beneath her fingers and across her cheeks.

  She almost drifted off there on her feet.

  But Jordan yanked her arm nearly out of the socket, and she was catapulted back into the cold night and away from her reverie.

  She sniffed in, her lungs and nose searing from the tiny icicles in the air. “Medicate me-”

  “No.” He didn’t even look at her, just interrupted before the last sound was out, his mind made up.

  “Then I’m going to bed.”

  That got his attention. And as he spun around and glared at her it dawned that that was exactly what she had intended to do - shake Dr. Abellard back into being Jordan. “If you go to sleep, you might die.” His own breath was ragged, and for a moment she snapped fully alert, realizing that maybe the cold, clinical Jordan was easier to deal with, rather than this face of fear and pain. But what would she feel if it was the other way around? And in fact it was the other way around as well. If she slipped off, she would lose Jordan . . .

  His voice cracked even as it cut a path through her thoughts. “We don’t know what the medication will do to you.”

  “True, but we have a good idea what sleep will do, and it isn’t pretty.”

  He started to walk away, conversation closed, but she held back, stopping him when her arm and body didn’t follow his lead. “You know, I have slept and woken up on the same side before.”

  “But that was several times before. It hasn’t happened recently, and I sure as hell don’t trust it.” He let go of her arm and it felt as though the night seeped und
er her skin, chilling her where the heat of him had comforted just a moment before. “I just wish David would go under.” His hand, now without purpose, scrubbed aimlessly through his hair. As usual a few pieces stood up on end, leaving him looking as frazzled as she knew he felt. “I feel like fate is fighting us here. That your body is trying to get you back over there and his is trying its damnedest to stay here.”

  “Medicate me.”

  All his peripheral movement stopped. His gaze squared on hers. “And if I kill you?”

  “I have to stay awake long enough for David to go under and to wake up and get the job done.” She couldn’t give explanation to David’s job. “There’s no way I’ll make it now. Not that long. We have to try it. My brain is shutting down. I’m beginning to not care that I might not wake up. My body wants sleep.”

  He blinked, leaving his eyes sheened in a glaze, and then he blinked again and it was gone. She wasn’t sure but that she might have imagined it or maybe she was just looking through her own frustration. Her muscles ached, and her eyelids fought for closure. She was ready to sit on the hard earth and simply cry at the injustice and frustration of it all. But the earth was too cold. Her butt would freeze. And while that might keep her good and well awake for a little while, it would quickly lead to hypothermia, and blissful, if deadly, sleep. Since that death wouldn’t be due to the coma-state sleep induced she was pretty certain it would actually kill her.

  Jillian made the best decision she was capable of, her shoulders slumping, and her head tipping forward to allow her hair to hide the tears brewing in her eyes. “Please.” The word fell out of her mouth, with no force behind it.

  But Jordan heard it. He always did. And as she started to drift away right there, she knew he was taking all of it in. The slumped shoulders, the exhaustion, the tears – he would know they were there even if he didn’t see them.