One of them threw a cigarette on the ground and commented with a gritty voice, “Hey music man. Play us a ditty.”
Nathan pretended not to hear them and kept walking.
“Nice UV jacket,” another added. “Looks fancier than the ones they hand out here.”
Nathan didn’t make eye contact as he quickly walked past.
“Are you deaf?” one of them shouted, followed by a string of obscenities related to Nathan being rich and privileged.
He swiped his thumb at a security terminal inside the hospital entrance as a heavy-set armed guard watched. Next came a body scan and pat-down.
A green light appeared and a bar raised.
“Clear to enter,” the guard said. He motioned Nathan forward and the bar fell behind him.
Nathan entered the dungeon-like lobby and removed his UV visor. A row of lights flickered in the center of the low ceiling, tossing long shadows around huddled bodies. This level was designated for skin cancer screenings, and these people were here for their required yearlies. Many earned their day's electronic rations in the unfiltered sun pouring concrete for new barracks, repairing sewage lines and maintaining solar generators that powered Sanctuary 87. Kids like Samuel put their lives on the line taxiing outsiders around with improper UV attire. Nathan had written dozens of articles about life out here.
He knew it well.
And he knew this place too well.
He located the stairwell and lumbered twelve flights down to another waiting area, mostly empty. The air was stale, like in the fallout shelter he remembered as a kid. He made his way to room 1207, located in the Post-Treatment Wing.
Ian was asleep on the bed closest to the door, his chest rising and falling with the aid of a diaphragm pacemaker. He shared the room with another patient, a little girl named Cynthia. Today a curtain was drawn around her bed, and three sets of legs could be seen from behind the curtain, one set was dressed in a doctor’s white lab coat.
Nathan set the guitar case down beside Ian’s bed, then he leaned over and stroked his matted curly blonde hair.
Ian opened his eyes and yawned. “Dad…I’m glad you’re here. It feels like it’s been forever since mom left yesterday.”
“Your mother stayed until security forced her to leave at eight p.m. Just like always. How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess. Any idea when Gramps might be visiting?”
“He’s not back from Alaska yet.”
“Gramps is still planning on fixing me so I can get out of this hole, right?”
“I talked to your grandpa two nights ago. He says the neural synaptic device is coming along.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“Soon, Ian. Why don’t I get you into your wheelchair so you can eat something.”
“Yeah, this bed smells really bad. Do you think my breakfast will smell any better?”
Nathan carried his son’s limp body to his wheelchair beside the bed. Every time Nathan did this, he fought hard to hold back his tears. As of thirteen months ago, his boy was an athletic twelve-year-old with loads of agility and muscle. In two seconds flat, a reckless dive into the shallow end of a friend’s swimming pool turned him into a withered and rubbery quadriplegic, unable to move anything below the seventh cervical vertebra of his neck. Nathan and Sarah were grateful that he was still able to speak clearly, move his head a little, and eat without the aid of a feeding tube.
Nathan strapped him in and made sure Ian’s mouth could reach the flexible tubing connected to the water bottle on the back of his wheelchair. “Has your aide been in here this morning to change your catheter?”
“Yes, but I haven’t had much to drink since mom left last night.”
“You need fluids, Ian. Is the nurse not encouraging you to drink more water?”
“The water here tastes metallic and the tube’s coated with crud.”
“You have to drink, son. That’s a non-negotiable. Promise me you’ll drink more?”
“Okay, okay, I promise,” Ian mumbled, grimacing at the yellowed tube dangling beside him. His son had a point. It looked disgusting.
Angelina, the nurse appointed to be Ian’s aide, entered the room carrying a tray of food. When Nathan first met her ten days ago he guessed her to be Hispanic and in her early-forties. Polite, but not overly friendly. But could he blame her for being a little hardened? This place was anything but a nurse’s dream job.
“When’s the last time you cleaned his water tubing?” Nathan asked.
“I’ll try to get to that today,” she responded, setting the tray down on Ian’s bed. Nathan sensed the fatigue in her voice. He noticed her glance at Cynthia’s bed.
“I’ll be back shortly to feed him,” Angelina said, shuffling out the door.
“Will Gramps be here tomorrow?” Ian asked, his deep hazel eyes hopeful.
Nathan sat on an old stool and kicked at a dead cockroach. Truth was, he wasn’t sure when his father was coming back. He had taken off for the family’s vacation cabin several months ago, claiming he did his best work in God’s country, alone and uninterrupted. He was a brilliant engineer with many fascinations, including a doctorate in neurology and a long career in aerospace communications. He was also Nathan’s only hope for getting his son out of this hellhole. If they could get Ian to move and function on his own, then they might stand a chance of convincing Barrier Admin to allow his boy to come home.
“Gramps will be here soon. I promise,” Nathan said.
“How’s that device supposed to work, anyway?”
“It’ll make you independent again, and that’s what’s important.”
Ian sighed. “Maybe I could become a sports announcer or something. Then we wouldn’t have to wait on Gramps, and you could tell Barrier Admin about my career path.”
“I wish it was that simple.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“It just isn’t.”
The fact remained, his son was an adopted Sanctuary orphan and Barrier Admin had found a loophole forcing Ian to return to Sanctuary 87. Nathan and Sarah had done all they could to convince the monsters to take a minuscule risk on Ian’s future income earning potential after the accident. But in the end, Barrier Admin viewed him as a liability. A whole year at an upscale Kansas City hospital with half a dozen unsuccessful procedures sealed his boy’s fate.
“Got you something,” Nathan said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a baseball. He held it out in front of Ian’s face. “Autographed by Keith Ramus.”
Ian’s jaw dropped as he analyzed the scribbled blue writing. “Seriously? How did you swing this?”
“The Royals owed me a few favors after that glowing write-up I did last year for the Tribune.”
Ian stared at the ball, then looked away.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just that…I wish I could feel it in my hands.”
Nathan put his arm around his son’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “You’ll be pitching again in no time after Gramps smuggles in that device and works his magic.”
“Do you think?”
“I know so.” Nathan placed the baseball on an old banana crate converted into a bedside stand. “Your grandpa is a genius and I know he’ll come through.”
Ian eyed Nathan’s guitar case. “Are you gonna play ‘Goodbye, Girl’ like you promised'?"
“If you promise to sing louder than me.”
“I’ll try.”
Nathan swallowed hard and started tuning.
‘Goodbye, Girl’ was a dreadful boy-band hit about teenage love gone sour. Nathan was sure his son had requested the song to torture him, but never-the-less, he aimed to please. If playing a pop song brought a grin to his son’s face, then it was worth the humiliation.
As Nathan tweaked the final tuning peg on his guitar, a man spoke with a hushed voice from behind the curtain around Cynthia’s bed. It sounded like medical jargon.
“Here we go, Ian,” Nathan said, grabbing a pick. “Wish me
luck.”
He strummed a G-chord with a rhythm he wasn’t accustomed to playing.
"Girl, oh girl, what's the deal? Girl, oh girl, do you know how I feel? Girl, oh girl, we both need to heal," Nathan belted, his tone nasal and his notes hideously off-key.
Ian burst into laughter.
Nathan stopped. “What’s so funny?”
“No offense, dad, but you sound like Kermit the Frog.”
“You’re supposed to sing louder than me, remember?”
"Right."
“Promise not to laugh this time?”
Ian nodded with a smirk.
Nathan continued strumming and singing while his son bobbed his head and joined in. “Girl, you hurt me too many times. Girl, don’t make me cry. Girl, this is goodbye.”
A woman suddenly wailed from behind the curtain.
Nathan froze.
The doctor spoke in a low, monotone voice. Most of his words were difficult to decipher, but Nathan clearly heard “…please understand this procedure is required by law…” and “…Cynthia is no longer in pain.”
The doctor swiftly exited the room.
“Dad, what did they do to Cynthia?” Ian asked.
Nathan jumped to his feet. “I’ll be back in a minute, Ian.”
He chased the doctor down the empty hallway, sizing him up in ten seconds, a reflex acquired from twenty years of investigative journalism. Dark thick hair and probably Greek. Mid-thirties. 5’8” and around 150 pounds. The doc might have youth on his side, but he was no match against Nathan’s six-foot sturdy frame.
Nathan caught up to him and grabbed his arm, whipping him around. The doctor’s SyncSheet fell to the floor.
Nathan pointed his finger in his face. “Did you just euthanize that little girl?”
He scowled and swatted Nathan’s finger away. “Who are you?”
"I’m Nathan Gallagher...Ian's father. My kid shares his room with Cynthia."
“Ah yes…Mr. Gallagher,” he replied, tugging at his lab coat and moving sideways. “We do need to talk. Perhaps we could continue this discussion in my office in a less threatening fashion?"
"No, we’ll continue it right here."
"Very well. We need to discuss your son’s Bedside Compassion date."
Nathan’s spine froze, the same way it had when he found Ian floating in the pool after his dive into the shallow end. "What are you talking about?" he gasped. "I was under the impression Ian would be here for several months, then moved to another facility."
"Plans change quickly around here, Mr. Gallagher. We’re overcrowded and understaffed. Your son’s condition requires a personal aide. We just don’t have the human resources to sustain him long-term. And I'm afraid I have no say in the matter, anyway. My orders come directly from Sanctuary Admin."
Nathan's blood boiled and he fought the urge to wrap his fingers around the doctor's throat. "You plan on murdering my son?"
"Bedside Compassion is a painless procedure involving one quick injection. The patient enters a relaxing, blissful sleep, then—"
"When will this happen?"
"Thirty days from now. Orders from Sanctuary Admin came through this morning."
“Then let my son leave with me,” Nathan begged. “His mother and I will move to Sanctuary 87 and take care of him. We don't need your resources."
Nathan meant it. If he and Sarah had to leave the Kansas City Barrier to keep his son alive, then so be it. It might be an inevitable scenario anyway, considering he'd been out of work for weeks and didn't see any job prospects on the horizon. Sarah made a decent income as an English professor, but earned nowhere near enough to afford the Barrier taxes for the both of them.
"I can't allow you to remove Ian from this facility,” the doctor said, straightening his collar. “All Sanctuary residents above the age of twelve must be able to perform manual labor and earn their electronic rations. I didn’t write the rules, Mr. Gallagher, but I do have a legal obligation to enforce them.”
The doctor excused himself, leaving Nathan alone in the hallway.
He pulled out his SyncSheet and frantically tapped an urgent message to his father. He needed to get here as soon as possible with the neural synaptic device. Ian didn’t have months, he had days. As he sent it another message popped up.
It was from his wife.
Nathan felt his knees buckle as he read the four words:
“Your father is dead.”
3
Fourteen Months Previously
Jillian Catterton embraced her daughter outside the restricted area of the Zathcore launch pad. In the distance, the Encounter Five spacecraft silhouetted the Nevada twilight, ready for its seventh mission to Ellis Three with Jillian as pilot and captain.
She pulled Ashlyn close and wept. "Fifteen months—that’s a long time until a mother can see her daughter again."
"We go through this every time, mom,” Ashlyn said. “At least it’s not like the old days when it took you nine months to reach Ellis Three.”
"That doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier. What if something happens to you while I’m gone?” Jillian said.
"I'm a big girl, mom. I can take care of myself."
"I know you can. It's just…"
Ashlyn lifted her UV visor and offered a reassuring smile. "I’ll be fine, mom. I promise.”
_____
Kendall Rouhoff watched all seven astronauts board Encounter Five through binoculars. He was thrilled with his informant’s cooperation. Every detail supplied had been accurate: launch date, location, personnel, itineraries. Kendall’s client, Rankcon Corporation, would also be pleased.
He had to hand it to Zathcore for the great effort they put into concealing this mission. Unlike previous trips to Ellis Three, Encounter Five wouldn’t be bringing back ancient relics to sell to museums. From the data he’d gathered, this mission had far broader implications. It was funded by Elliot Gareth, the mastermind who invented Barrier technology forty years ago. Shortly after selling his patent to Rankcon Corporation, he fled to Ellis Three and hadn’t been heard from since. Rankcon wanted to know what the old recluse was up to, and Kendall had to admit he was curious too.
4
The funeral was held inside his father’s massive greenhouse.
Nathan wrapped up a stiff ten-minute eulogy and took a seat at an empty table toward the back. His mind was elsewhere, rehashing the facts for the umpteenth time. A handwritten suicide note had been found at the cabin in Alaska, along with the LifeTracker chip that had been surgically removed from his thumb. Seven empty whiskey bottles were found on the kitchen table. According to local Alaskan authorities, he vaporized himself with a molecular separator set to maximum. All that was left of his body was radioactive soot blown across windshield of his old Cessna 172 seaplane. Docked in front of the isolated cabin, he’d done the deed in the pilot’s seat. The note said his father wanted to be remembered for his life’s work and not by his corpse. Forensic analysis confirmed a positive match of his DNA in the buckets of powdered remains.
But Nathan wasn’t buying any of it, not for a second.
His father wasn’t the depressed recluse the Journal of Aerospace Engineering made him out to be in a recent article, a two-page editorial written by an old colleague of his father. Neither was he an alcoholic. But after four days of deliberation, the family came to the consensus that a Celebration of Life ceremony on his father’s treasured estate—specifically in the greenhouse—would be the most sensible course of action. “People need closure,” Nathan’s sister, Briana, had said. “It’s the least we can do to honor dad’s memory.”
Nathan agreed with little more than a nod over coffee the morning the decision was finalized. Anything resembling a funeral was the last thing he wanted, but he wasn’t about to be the bad guy holding up everybody else. Good for them. They’d accepted his father’s appalling fate. But the investigative journalist in him found it all a little too suspicious.
So much for closure.
He looked around the greenhouse. A hundred or so guests were in attendance. Maybe someone here knew something he didn’t? Perhaps he had overlooked an old friend or a distant relative who might have information proving his father was alive. Nathan had made dozens of calls over the last week. His father’s close friends and colleagues were as shocked and clueless as Nathan was about the news.
“Mind if I join you, Nathan?”
An old man in a loud blazer plopped down in a chair across the table. He looked mid-seventies, about the age of Nathan’s father. Dark stains plastered the gold lettering of his old GCTF ball cap, fingerprint smudges clinging to its warped bill. His father had a couple hats like that lying around.
The man lit a cigar and puffed. A smoke cloud floated between their faces. “What's the fine up to now, anyway?”
“Ten grand and a night in jail,” Nathan said without hesitation. He'd bailed out his father less than a year ago for lighting up in downtown Kansas City.
He removed the cigar from between his teeth. “Any snitches in the vicinity? I assumed we’d be amongst friends.”
Nathan shrugged. The greenhouse had little ventilation. Guests would notice. He wasn't fond of hosting illegal activity either—at least not today with dozens of people he didn’t recognize loitering around.
The man extended his hand. “Benjamin Hutchinson...but call me Bennie like your father did.”
Nathan shook his hand, his name ringing a bell. His father had mentioned him a few times over the years. “You served with dad on the Global Communications Task Force, didn’t you?”
“Sure did, and I can’t believe it’s been forty years,” Bennie said. “Cellular technology was a wonderful luxury while it lasted, but it became obsolete after the flares started wreaking havoc on cell towers and carrier waves.”
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