“We’re chasing down leads, narrowing the options. Once we’re sure, we’ll strike.”
The senator walks around to look at the map.
By triangulating feeds, Lucifer is able to determine the placement of people and objects within the room to within a millimeter. The artificial intelligence may not be able to see the map but records allow it to pull up an original version, and as the legend and locations are all noted from the vantage point of someone facing the map, it’s simple enough for the synthetic intelligence to confirm the orientation. Lucifer knows exactly what they’re pointing at—the hospital.
23
Hope
The nurse brings us dinner, apologizing because it’s cold, but I don’t care. I mush up some potatoes and gravy, and spoon-feed Jianyu.
“I feel like an infant,” he says as I wipe his mouth.
“A baby,” I say. “You feel like a baby.”
“Yes.” He laughs and utters the Chinese equivalent, but that goes over my head.
There’s some Jell-O and custard for dessert, and it’s surprisingly good. Perhaps my standards have dropped after a couple of years in space.
“So, what do you want to do next?”
“I don’t know.” He thinks for a moment. “I’d like to take you to my hometown, Yuyao. It’s about an hour south of Shanghai.”
“I’d love to go to Shanghai.”
“You’d hate it.”
I’m surprised he’d say that. “Why?”
“Smog. It’s like Mars during a dust storm. No sun. Just a yellow dot in the haze. From Yuyao, though, I could take you to Zhousan. It’s an island, but they have a bridge there now. It’s beautiful. There’s nothing quite like watching the sun rise over the Pacific.”
“I’d like that.”
“I could open a medical practice, and you could—”
“Look at rocks,” I say, and we both laugh. Micropaleobiology isn’t the most practical of the sciences.
We talk for a while, but Jianyu tires. By the end, I’m holding half a conversation with him. A few words are spoken, he has a mini-nap, only to wake five minutes later and continue talking as though nothing happened. From his perspective, it probably seems uninterrupted, and I try not to laugh. Once he’s properly asleep, I roll the other bed over next to his and curl up beneath the covers. Life is good. I didn’t think it would be possible to ever feel this way again, but I do, and that frightens me. I’m aware how quickly everything can change. We can make this work. I know we can, and yet in the back of my mind, there’s a gnawing doubt. Is any of this real?
Dawn breaks with the sound of a helicopter flying low over the building, with its downdraft rattling the windows. The heavy thumping of the rotor blades scares me. I peer out the window as the tail rotor passes over the building. Down below, soldiers pull up in Hummers. They pour out of their vehicles, carrying rifles and running for the ground floor of the abandoned wing.
The nurse rushes in, pushing a wheelchair.
“We need to get you out of here.”
“Jai.” I shake him gently. Jianyu’s groggy, dazed. He can barely move. His legs are stiff, while his arms and fingers are floppy. He has no fine motor control at all. We shift him into the wheelchair. The nurse fixes a Velcro strap around his chest to keep him from falling forward, and she rushes him out of the hospital room, dumping a duffel bag on his legs as we head for the elevator.
“There are IVs, meds, painkillers, and bandages. Read the instructions. Read them carefully. Then read them again.”
She’s running ahead of me, madly pushing Jianyu along the main corridor. The small wheels on the front of his wheelchair hit a pair of double doors, throwing them open. Thunder echoes through the empty ward. I’m out of breath, rushing to keep up.
One of the four elevators is open. She rushes in and hits the button for the top floor.
“Good luck.”
There’s shouting in the hallway. Doors are thrown open. Boots pound on the floor. She steps out of the elevator, looking away from us.
“Get down! Get down on the ground!” a soldier yells. The nurse has her hands raised. As the doors close, she kneels. I’m madly punching the buttons on the control panel, willing the elevator doors to move faster. Shadows loom outside. A blur flies past and the nurse is crash-tackled and thrown to the floor. Dark-clad soldiers charge at us. Gloved hands reach for the doors. I back away, pulling Jianyu into the corner of the elevator, but the doors close. There’s swearing outside. Fists pound the aluminum doors.
“Come on,” I mumble, watching as the floors tick slowly by. I’m anxious, antsy, fidgeting. My sweaty palms grip the handles of the wheelchair. Jianyu’s head rolls to one side, leaning on the chair back. He’s saying something, but his words are incoherent. He’s struggling to hold his head upright. His brain seems so fragile beneath the plastic, almost as though it’s a specimen preserved in a jar. It’s hard to realize that’s him, that’s me, that’s all of us. That pulsating mush is all we really are.
The doors open on the tenth floor, and I’m desperate for them to open wide enough to race out, but why? Where the hell am I going? I’m rushing, driven by blind panic. The elevator opens in a sheltered portico on the roof. There is a set of glass doors, and beyond them a ramp leading up to a helipad. A military helicopter touches down as I push through the doors into what feels like gale-force winds. My heart sinks at the sight of the olive drab color and U.S. markings. My hair swirls before me.
“No!” I’m yelling, but I’m not sure who I’m yelling at or where I’m going. I feel I need to go somewhere, anywhere. I have to do something. We’re trapped.
Behind us, a light comes on above one of the other elevators, signaling it’s about to open.
“Please, no.” Looking around, hoping for a miracle, despair tugs at my heart. It’s then I see it. There’s no one in the helicopter. It’s being flown remotely. I run, pushing Jai ahead of me in the wheelchair. The ramp is steep. My lungs are burning. My legs feel like lead weights. Behind me, there’s yelling.
I rush up to the open door of the helicopter. I’m clumsy. Jai’s wheelchair clips the landing skids and tips. I grab at the rails, fighting to stop it from toppling. The bag falls to the ground. There’s no time. Soldiers run toward us, brandishing firearms. I tear the Velcro from around Jianyu and drag him from his wheelchair, flopping him on the deck of the helicopter. His body flails around. He grabs at a loose strap, trying to hold on as the helicopter dances across the ground, skidding slightly, on the verge of lifting off.
He needs those meds. I’ve got one hand on the edge of the door. The other reaches for the bag. My feet are on the skids. The helicopter lifts off as my fingers grab the bag. A soldier lunges at me, throwing himself through the air. I swing the bag, catching him on the side of his helmet and knocking him to one side. He grabs one of the skids as we rise from the helipad, swinging wildly beneath the fuselage of the helicopter. He loses his grip as the helicopter drags him across a rooftop, and falls, landing on his back with a thud.
The helicopter gains height, peeling to one side and banking as I heave the bag inside. I’m expecting the helicopter to break for the skies, but it plummets over the edge of the building, twisting, turning, and falling as it races toward the ground. Floors and windows rush past. My heart rises in my throat as an entire planet rushes toward us.
Jianyu slides across the deck. I grab his hand, locking my fingers around his wrist and pulling tight. With my feet on the skids, my chest pushing against the side of the open door, and my arm outstretched, the helicopter pitches, turning away from me and flinging me outward. It’s all I can do not to let go and fall. Jianyu’s legs lift off the deck. I can see through the open sides of the helicopter. Trees rush by. Concrete. Cars. Street signs. People running for cover.
The helicopter pulls up, banking the other way, and I feel myself slipping. I’m not sure how long I can hold on. Jianyu flops, sliding toward the door. The chopper twists the other way, and lampposts pass
just inches from my feet, rushing by as we race down the street at a ridiculously low altitude. Cars swerve. A bus rides up on the pavement. Like me, the driver thinks we’re about to crash, but we weave between buildings, passing beneath a pedestrian footbridge.
The helicopter swerves between billboards, racing for the river and ducking over the edge of the road before soaring out over the water. The skids of the chopper skim inches above the dark water. Spray whips away from us, rushing out across the surface. The front of the helicopter pitches forward so that it seems as though we’re about to plunge into the depths. Somehow, we continue on, following the river. As we bank, the rotor blades appear to come in contact with the water, churning the river into whitewater.
Somehow, I muster the strength to swing my legs up and into the helicopter.
Green paint drips from the fuselage. I’m confused. We’re flying so low, spray swirls within the open back of the chopper. My clothes are covered in green stains. The noise is overwhelming. The howl of the wind, the angry pounding of the rotors, and the whine of the engine make it difficult to think, but I look at my fingers. Green paint.
There’s no time to worry about that. I have to help Jianyu. Blood seeps from his bandages. With so little muscle control, his body has been flung around like a rag doll. It’s a struggle, but I drag him up into a seat and strap him in, all the while spreading my legs wide to keep my balance. As I’m facing the rear of the helicopter, I have no warning of upcoming twists and turns and have to fight to not be thrown out of the fuselage as we swing around a corner.
The helicopter races over a forest. I’m convinced we’re in the process of crashing. Trees slap the underside of the chopper. Branches become caught in the skids, being torn off and dragged along with us. Leaves swirl within the back of the helicopter. We dip, and my heart rises in my throat. I hold on to the roof as the floor drops beneath my feet.
Before I realize what’s happening, we’re hovering serenely barely ten feet above the water. There are container ships on either side of us, towering above us. We drift between them without a care, staying well below the decks. The ships are old. Paint peels from aging metal hulls. Rust seeps from portholes.
I take advantage of the lull in our frantic escape to grab a lifejacket and fit it on Jianyu, being gentle as I feed his head through. He says something, probably “Thank you,” but I can’t hear him over the sound of the engine echoing off the ships. I’m not worried about him falling into the water. I’ve grabbed the lifejacket because it acts as a neck brace, keeping his head upright. He raises his hand, touching my arm. I think he wants me to sit while I have the chance, but I can’t. I feel as though I need to stay mobile, not that there’s anything I can actually do.
We’re in the hands of some electronic god now.
The helicopter drifts forward at what feels like a walking pace.
Looking out through the cockpit, I see two jets of water coming from the stern of the ships on either side of us. At a guess, they’re pumping seawater through firefighting equipment, but they’re spraying the air between them. Our helicopter keeps a slow, constant pace, drifting through what seems like torrential rain. Within seconds, I’m soaked. Green paint pools by my feet, slowly washing away. When we emerge from the other side of what seems like a car wash, our flight becomes sedate, lifting high in the air without any sense of urgency. We could be sightseeing.
As we pass by an office block near the docks, I catch our reflection in the windows: U.S. COAST GUARD. The nose of the helicopter is bright orange, while the body is white with an orange strip running the length of the tail boom. Smart.
Now that our flight is smooth, I turn my attention to Jianyu.
“Are you okay?” I yell above the noise of the rotors. Jianyu points at a set of headphones. I fit them over his head, positioning a small microphone by his mouth, and slip on another pair. “Jai. Are you okay?”
“I am fine,” he replies through the industrial noise-cancelling headphones clamped down over his ears.
“Liar.”
He smiles. His smile is crooked, but it’s just as I remember him on Mars.
I’m fooling myself and I know it. As much as I want to divorce myself from any doubt, this isn’t the man I left on Mars. Not physically. I’m trusting that it’s him mentally, but I have no way to be sure. I want to believe, but I’m aware of the folly of belief. The universe has a way of laughing at our hopes and desires.
We listen in to a conversation being held between our invisible pilot and a military air traffic controller.
“Coast Guard Rescue, this is AWACS Oversight. You are entering restricted airspace.”
“AWACS Oversight. This is Coast Guard Rescue 6040 responding to distress call off the coast of Chincoteague. The captain of the tanker Maizey Day has reported a crew member with a burst appendix. We have a flight plan logged for rendezvous at latitude 37.853, longitude -75.054. Conducting mercy flight. Over.”
There’s silence for almost a minute.
“Coast Guard Rescue 6040. AWACS Oversight. Please enter a holding pattern. Awaiting confirmation of mercy mission. Over.”
“AWACS Oversight. This is Coast Guard Rescue 6040 complying. Over.”
We hover high above the outskirts of Annapolis, looking across the Chesapeake Bay, with my heart racing as fast as the rotor blades. Finally, the reply comes.
“Coast Guard Rescue 6040. AWACS Oversight. You are clear for mercy mission. Godspeed. Over.”
The artificial intelligence controlling our helicopter responds in a manner that, to me, is utterly convincing. “AWACS Oversight. Coast Guard Rescue 6040. Much obliged. Kurt and I owe you a beer. Over.”
Our invisible pilots respond calmly. The helicopter accelerates smoothly, carrying us out over the narrow bay and across the peninsula. There’s no rush. Everything’s routine.
Although it’s to our benefit, I feel uneasy with how convincing the A.I. is when mimicking humans. It played the air controllers for fools. At a time when they’re locking down air traffic, it’s convinced them that rather than taking someone out of the airspace over the capital, they’re going to retrieve someone to bring them back. The A.I. has manipulated their emotions, their sense of compassion. I guess they would have verified the request through some other means, but when everything is electronic, no channel can be trusted. Short of walking over and talking to someone in person, there is no way for anyone to bypass the electronic world, and the A.I. exploits that with astonishing precision.
It’s cold. Jianyu shivers. We’re both wet. The wind swirls within the open cabin. I put my arm around him, holding him tight, trying to share what little body warmth we have.
“C-can you close the doors?” I ask over the headset and the two side doors slide shut. At a guess, the A.I. has no video surveillance of us back here. I doubt it knows how close we came to falling from the helicopter or how cold we are. With the doors shut, I can think again. I rummage around in a kit bag and find a survival blanket, just a thin sheet of flexible foil, but it will reflect our body heat back at us. I tuck it around Jianyu, working it under his legs and over his shoulders.
He shivers but manages, “Thank you,” which is good because it reveals something about his mental state.
“Are you in any pain?”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Jianyu forces a smile.
“I am in some pain, but it is tolerable.”
I look through the duffel bag provided by the nurse, sorting vials of medicine and looking at tablets, trying to make sense of them. The terms are foreign to me, and none of the descriptions are helpful. They’re more concerned with side effects and avoiding dose conflicts than actually describing the role each drug performs.
“What are these?” I ask, holding a few of them up for him to see, wanting him to interpret the drug names.
Jianyu says, “I can wait.”
“Okay.” I put the bag down and examine the blood seeping from beneat
h his bandages.
“You fuss too much.” I know what he’s trying to do. He wants me to avoid becoming too alarmed, knowing there’s next to nothing I can do while we’re stuck in the back of a helicopter. I look regardless, unwinding his bandage. Jianyu is compliant, not protesting any further.
The wound is raw. His flesh, close to the plastic skull cap, is angry, which generally means an infection; however, in his case it could simply be that the skin is still aggravated following surgery.
“Is there a mirror?”
“You want to see yourself?” I ask. “You’re not pretty.”
“Hah. Not out of vanity. To see the wound.”
I search around within the bag. “No. Sorry.”
“Apply Neosporin,” he says. “Gently. It is a topical antibiotic.”
I slip on some disposable gloves and use a sterile cloth to apply the cream. Then I wrap his head with a nonstick bandage, and finally a compression bandage.
“Not sure I’m ever going to get used to seeing an exposed brain.” I wrap the bandage around his head like a bandana.
“Me neither.”
The helicopter descends. I look out the window and see an oil tanker the length of several football fields. There’s a helipad at the stern of the ship, behind the bridge. It’s small with a clear drop into the choppy seas on either side.
24
The Maizey Day
We land on the rear of the oil tanker and the side door opens automatically. I hoist the bag over one shoulder and help Jianyu onto the deck. He holds the survival blanket around his neck as it flutters wildly in the downdraft. Keeping our heads down, we make for a metal door leading to the bridge. The Coast Guard helicopter lifts back into the air. Within seconds, it’s but a distant sound, like the monotonous drone of the ship’s engines and the rumble of the coming storm. Rain begins to fall.
The door handle is stiff. It hasn’t been opened in a long time, and I’m so weak it takes all my weight to push the lever down and open the watertight bulkhead door. Inside, it’s cold. There are no lights.
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