Into the Fire

by Peter Liney

  “What do you want?” he asked, immediately looking over my shoulder for someone to come and rescue him.

  I came right out with it. “I need you to look at my partner’s eyes. She’s blind. I wanna know if there’s any chance of her seeing again.”

  He just stared at me as if he couldn’t believe my nerve. “Have you got an appointment?” he asked, plainly not having heard a word I said.

  “She’s been blind for four years—got caught in an explosion,” I told him, determined to tell him everything before I was thrown out. “She can’t see a thing, but there’s no visible damage.”

  “Make an appointment. My secretary will tell you my fees and availability,” he told me, again looking to the door.

  “I don’t have time for that!” I growled, knowing I’d never get back in again, that this was my only shot. “I need you to see her right away.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” he replied, getting that look about him, that tone, as if he’d just realized he was dealing with a madman—one who might have to be pacified.

  I heard someone enter behind me and saw his look of relief. Security had arrived. “Please,” I begged, ’you gotta help her!’

  Two guys grabbed me and one stuck a taser in my back and told me to calm down. They half-wrestled, half-shoved me toward the door, ignoring my efforts at digging my heels in.

  “Please! Dr. Simon, you have no idea what she’s been through. She’s the bravest woman I’ve ever known—she lived all alone for four years in the old subway tunnels on the Island,” I cried out, willing him to listen. “Can you imagine? Could you’ve done that? Please, give her a chance!”

  There was a pause and I realized that not only had the security guys stopped pushing me toward the door, but Dr. Simon was actually listening.

  “I know I shouldn’t’ve come here like this, but she’s everything to me. And she deserves to be helped, more than anyone you’ll ever meet.”

  Dr. Simon took a deep breath and told the security guys to release me and wait outside. “You’ve got five minutes,” he told me.

  That was all I needed, a chance—and I tell you, I was as persuasive as I’ve ever been, assuring him over and over what a wonderful person she was, that if he met her, he’d know what I meant . . .’course, he realized straight off we were Detainees, but that didn’t seem to worry him—in fact, oddly, it seemed to make Lena that bit more interesting to him.

  “She’s perfectly healthy otherwise?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she’s fine,” I told him—and she is; whatever her sight problems, and maybe ’cuz of her change of circumstances, these days Lena looks so much more healthy.

  He asked me a lot more questions, mainly about her surviving underground: what she ate, where she got water—but after a while he started glancing at his watch and I knew my time was up.

  I had just one more question. “How much would it cost?”

  “Do you have money?” he asked, unable to stop himself looking me up and down.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, though I didn’t have the slightest idea how.

  “I’ve been doing research into the growing incidents of blindness in the City—she might fit into that program. I could waive my fees but my support staff would have to be paid. They’re not a charity. Probably somewhere in the region of eight to ten thousand.”

  It was a lot of money, but it had been his fees I’d been really worried about. Thanks to Mr. Meltoni, I knew how much these guys charged. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. “That’s really kind.”

  He just shrugged as if it was nothing, but I was genuinely moved. A few minutes later, having made an appointment for Lena for the following day, I was in the elevator, smiling to myself, ignoring the lingering doubt that I was getting into something I didn’t understand. It was the first real act of kindness I’d experienced since we arrived in the City, and I gotta say, it made me feel a little better about the place.

  However, when I got to the ground floor, I was in for a shock. There was a whole room jam-packed with those zombie-sick, just like the ones on the beach. In fact, there were so many, people were queuing out into the corridor.

  I walked by, moving to one side to let a couple of nurses pick a guy up who’d collapsed, taking the opportunity to snag several bottles of water that’d just been delivered and stuff them in my backpack.

  As I got to the door, I glanced back. What the hell was wrong with those people?

  It was well into the afternoon before I got back, and the amount of sidewalk-crunching I’d done, I should’ve been exhausted—but I wasn’t. I was too excited at how things had gone, what it might mean, and it was all I could do to keep it inside.

  The others were sitting around up-top, slowly appearing out of the smoke as I approached like a circle of stones.

  “Clancy! Where’ve you been?” Lena asked, obviously having heard my approach.

  “Sorry. I went looking for more water,” I said, taking out the bottles I’d liberated from St. Joseph’s. “All I could find . . . Oh, and I got something for Jimmy.”

  I thought bringing the little guy back a mini-screen was a real brainwave, a distraction from my behavior, but he didn’t react the way I’d expected.

  In fact, it was Delilah who eventually took it from me. “Oh God!” she groaned. “I thought things had been peaceful.”

  No matter how she might feel about reuniting Jimmy with his precious technology, she still started to look for the power switch.

  “Don’t turn it on,” he told her.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  There was a pause, then little Arturo started giggling. “He doesn’t want you to see him.”

  “Gordie!” I groaned, realizing he must’ve told Arturo the whole story.

  “What?” Delilah asked.

  Jimmy knew he had no choice, that he had to tell her. “They know it was me who brought down the satellites,” he admitted sheepishly.

  “What?” she cried.

  He played it down, like it was nothing, that there was no way they could be sure—and anyways, as soon as the fires died down and we got away, what would it matter? But Delilah was a long way from happy, especially when Arturo blurted out there was a price on his head.

  “Jimmy!”

  “Public Enemy Number One,” he nodded, with just the faintest suspicion of pride.

  “How much is it?” she asked. “’bout time I got something for all these years of aggravation.”

  “Nowhere near enough,” he told her.

  Delilah stood there for several moments, glaring at him as if ten cents might be a temptation. “Where’s that knife?” she asked.

  He knew what she had in mind immediately. “I’m not cutting my ponytail off—not for you or anyone!”

  “You’ll cut that stupid thing off and shave what little other hair you got,” she told him.

  “What?”

  “Clancy?” Delilah implored. I raised one hand in a gesture of submission and used the other to tug Lena downstairs to the crypt. I couldn’t go another moment without telling her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, once we were alone.

  I hesitated for a moment, suddenly not sure how she’d take this. “I been to see someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A techno-doctor . . . Dr. Evan Simon.”

  Just for a moment there was this expression on her face, like a close friend she’d fallen out with a long time ago had walked into the room. “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Clancy! I’m never going to get my sight back—”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I told her the whole story, all the places I went, the way Dr. Simon’s name kept cropping up, and finally, about barging into his office, and most important of all, that he thought there might be a chance of restoring her sight. “But first he has to see you—do some tests.”

  It was like all the rigidity went out of her body. S
he gave this kind of little whimper as if the subject was just too painful, and slowly slumped down the wall to the floor.

  “I did it for you!” I told her, not understanding her reaction. “I don’t care if you’re blind—well, I do, course, but . . . on your behalf. I want you to be happy.”

  “Oh, Clancy,” she sighed. “I am happy. With you—”

  “You were happy. On the Island.”

  “Yeah. What does that say about me?” she replied. “Everyone else’s life was hell.” Again there was silence. She reached out, took my hand and tugged me down next to her.

  “You gotta give it a try,” I said. “You got to.”

  “What about money?” she asked.

  “He’s doing some research. He said he’ll make you part of it,” I told her, deciding not to mention the other costs for the moment.

  She just sat there, gently shaking her head, as if it was all too much.

  “Just see him, Lena, please? If there’s nothing doing, well . . . But if there’s any chance . . .”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “You’re the most wonderful man in the world.”

  “I know,” I joked.

  “I’d do anything to be able to see you.”

  I hugged her, kissed her head, burying my lips in that warm profusion of thick brown hair, aware that, actually, that was probably the last thing I wanted to hear her say. All I could do was to try to put it out of my mind, but it wasn’t gonna be easy. See, if she does get her sight back—and I know that’s a big if—but if she does, what the hell’s she gonna think when she comes face to face with this big old bag of sad wrinkles and bent bones?

  The next day, as arranged, I took Lena to Dr. Simon’s private clinic. He had patients all morning, but he’d assured me he’d do his best to fit us in at lunchtime. We didn’t tell the others, not yet, not with so much hanging on it.

  Dr. Simon’s clinic was at his home up in the hills, where the smoke smelled a little more like wood instead of giving off that chemical odor she hated so much. It was one of those swanky enclaves, with security so tight they can read the whole place at any given moment and tell you how many people are in there, where they are, even what they’re doing.

  When we got to the gate they really gave us the once-over: initially ’cuz of our appearance, I guess, but then ’cuz they discovered we had no implants—we were nonpeople. They made us wear those bracelets that not only monitor you, but damn near take your hand off if you’re caught doing anything you shouldn’t, officiously informing the driver Dr. Simon sent down that they weren’t happy about “nonpeople” in the compound and it would have to go down in the records.

  The guy drove us the few hundred yards up to the house without a word, obviously no more relaxed about the situation than security were. He kept glancing in his rearview mirror at us, as if he couldn’t wait to get this odd-looking couple on his back seat out and give it a damn good clean. Mind you, it was a nice limo: long, shiny as a dinner plate and clearly bullet- and laser-proof, just like the ones Mr. Meltoni used to have. As for the house, well, it was every bit as huge and imposing, every bit as stylish, as you’d expect from someone like the Doc.

  Naturally, we weren’t taken to the front door where we might embarrass one of his wealthy patients but ushered around the back and in through a side entrance, then hurried into his office.

  “The doctor will be with you shortly,” the receptionist said, as Lena immediately started to find her way around the room, feeling the large expanses of shiny minimalism, stroking some pretty expensive-looking ornaments, checking the acreage of the Impressionist originals.

  “How much did you say this would cost?” she asked.

  “It’s not a problem,” I told her. “Just, er . . . a few thousand for the staff.”

  “Clancy!” she protested.

  “Nothing for him . . . I said, he’s doing some kind of study.”

  She groaned as if having second, or even third, thoughts.

  “Just see him,” I begged. “What’ve you got to lose?”

  It’s funny: there was this moment when Dr. Simon first entered the room when I felt really uncomfortable, almost like he’d forgotten something—the quality that made me trust him the previous day. He seemed much more businesslike, and probably ’cuz it was his private clinic, looked even smarter in a silver-gray sharkskin suit with swirly blue silk tie and soft leather slip-ons.

  “Clancy.” He nodded at me, making no attempt to shake my hand. “And this must be Lena?”

  She didn’t say anything, which slightly surprised me—normally she’s pretty friendly.

  “Take a seat,” he told us, and Lena immediately headed for the two chairs in front of his desk. “Very impressive,” Dr. Simon noted.

  He proceeded to ask Lena an almost endless list of questions—not only about her blindness, but also every aspect of her background, feeding every detail into his computer.

  Lena was plainly reluctant to fill in so many blank spaces, particularly when he asked her about her time living with the Wastelords. On more than one occasion she simply refused to answer and he was forced to move on.

  At last he stopped talking and started to examine her, shining attachments into her eyes, using a scanner over her head to draw across her, over and over, as if taking the thinnest slices of salami. The screen was showing all kinds of colorful images—hot-spots, stimulated areas. It meant nothing to me, but the Doc was concentrating as hard as could be. Meanwhile, Lena did whatever he asked without comment or reaction. Her face was a real study of seriousness; I couldn’t begin to guess what was going through her mind. Finally he got a nurse to take blood tests and a bunch of different scans, more standard stuff.

  At last she resumed her seat and the Doc sat across from us scrolling through the initial information.

  “Mm. Interesting,” he commented.

  I turned to Lena, expecting her to ask the obvious question, and when she didn’t, I did. “In what way?”

  “Well, as best as I can make out, it is possible.”

  “What are the odds?” I asked, wanting to hear it in layman’s terms.

  He made a face like he really didn’t want to reduce it to simple terms, but eventually he hit a few keys on his computer as if checking something before saying, “Well, my program, her profile—it’s not complete but . . . I’ve got a provisional forecast of eighty-two percent success with a corneal graft. It would be greater, but there’s always a risk of infection and perhaps even rejection.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “The computer minimizes it, of course, but in cases like these the possibility of rejection one day never goes away completely.”

  I turned to Lena, again expecting her to make some kind of comment, but still she said nothing.

  “It’s up to you,” Dr. Simon continued, “but . . . at the very worst, you’d be no worse off.”

  “How much would it cost?” Lena asked, finally joining in on the conversation.

  Dr. Simon hesitated, looking to me as if he expected me to say something.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I told Lena, in something of an aside.

  “Clancy, we have no money,” she reminded me, obviously irritated by my continued refusal to discuss the subject. “And we have no way of getting any.”

  I took her hand and squeezed it. “Let’s wait and see, huh?”

  She sighed and turned away, and I could see she was as much bemused by my behavior as annoyed by it.

  Faced by her obvious doubts and degree of antagonism, Dr. Simon visibly softened, even resorted to a little persuasion himself. “Well, talk it over,” he said. “I always program in a degree of caution—it avoids disappointment later. The odds are probably a little better than I said.”

  “Wow,” I commented, trying to wring a little enthusiasm out of Lena.

  “As for the cost, I’ve already told you, I’m happy to waive my fee. Maybe some of my technicians, too . . . it’s possible.”

 
; There was a pause, as if he felt he’d just delivered his knockout blow and was giving us a chance to appreciate it, then he checked his watch and announced, “I must go.”

  Realizing I had no way of receiving a link, he pulled out a drawer and started hunting through until he produced an old appointments card and wrote the details on the back. “I can fit you in on the weekend.”

  We said our goodbyes and declined the offer of a lift back to the security gate. Lena was still surprisingly mute, despite him repeating his more optimistic prognosis. Plainly she had her doubts about the guy, and in a way, I could see why. He was certainly smooth, but there was this suspicion that he saw her as nothing more than an intriguing specimen.

  “Clancy?” she said, as we neared the gate.

  “What?”

  “It’s out of the question, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t have any money!” she repeated. “No matter how little it costs—”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “You wanna run that by me again?”

  “We can get money.”

  “How?”

  I didn’t answer, mainly ’cuz I’d been thinking about it all night and still hadn’t come up with anything that resembled a solution.

  “I’ll adjust,” she told me firmly. “Once we find somewhere to settle and I get to know it, I’ll be just fine.”

  “Why should you have to if you can see again?”

  We made it to the security gate and had our bracelets removed before we were allowed to leave.

  “You heard what he said. There’s a good chance,” I persisted, as we walked away.

  “Clancy,” she begged, “just leave it, huh?”

  But of course, I couldn’t, not for long. Later, back at the church, I waited for my moment, then told the others. It wasn’t exactly fair: I knew they’d be on my side and start pressuring her. I guess I was just hoping that weight of numbers would eventually tell.

  Sure enough, they all got stuck into her, telling her that even if there was only a one percent chance, she should grab it.

  “We don’t have the money!” she cried, yet again.

  “We’ll get some!” Delilah reassured her.