I can’t breathe. All the air in my chest has been forced out. I wonder if I’m having a heart attack.
“Hey, what the hell?” a groggy voice asks. “What’s going on?”
My eyes open. Saitta is on top of me, shaking his head, grabbing at his wounded torso. His eyes won’t focus. I struggle to push him off and he slowly rolls to the side, breathing hard. I touch my neck and find the interface chip barely hanging on. Though she’s unconscious, I worried Siobhan might put up a fight and block me out. Guess I’m that strong. I press the chip down tighter and sit up.
Only then does the security guard seem to notice me.
“You shot me,” he says, almost like he’s asking a question.
I say nothing, moving to the door as quickly as Siobhan’s body will allow. She’s sluggish due to the loss of blood. Also, she’s had nowhere near the conditioning of Saitta, so it takes me a second to grow accustomed to a weaker body.
“Cory?” Saitta asks.
I see the memory returning to him, a vague dream of what happened while I was within him. He stares up at me in anger. I consider trying to knock him out to cover my escape, but I don’t think Siobhan’s body is up to the task. So, I run.
Or I attempt to.
Siobhan’s body is well on its way to going into shock, despite outward appearances. I try to shake it off as I stagger down the hall, but I can barely manage it. I lean against the wall, only twelve yards or so from the stairwell, and force myself to take the next couple of steps. Only then do I hear the footfalls of the other guards tromping up the stairs to the sixth floor. They’ll be here in seconds. I consider the east stairwell, but given my current rate of speed, it’ll be half an hour before I get there.
The only alternative is the freight elevator, the one Bjarke used to bring up supplies. It requires a key, but everyone simply left it in the slot for the next time it was needed. I pray it’s there now.
Limping along, I reach the end of the hall. Judging from the guards’ voices below, they’re already to the third-floor landing. I turn right and immediately stumble, landing on my hands and knees. I try to stand, but it’s not happening, I’m too dizzy from the lack of blood. I’ll have to crawl.
The freight elevator doesn’t open directly onto the floor. One must slide open two heavy metal doors and cross about an eight-foot foyer to get to the car. This proved to be quite the design flaw as wheeled carts sometimes couldn’t easily make the turn from foyer to hall.
Luckily, I’m not on wheels.
I reach the doors and grab both by the handle. One is stuck tight and I can’t slide it open. The other is jammed as well, likely a product of the attack on the building, but I manage to get my arm in far enough to lever it back. When the gap is wide enough, I squeeze through and pull the door shut behind me.
I turn to the elevator and spy the keyhole, but no key.
Damn.
Outside in the hall, the guards reach the sixth floor and fan out. They hear Saitta’s cries and race to Nathan’s office. It’ll be seconds before they find me.
The steel doors are warped and bent inward. I plant both feet in the center of the busted door and push with all my strength. The metal bows, but only a little. When I pull my feet back, it pops with a light bang and I worry I’ve done nothing but alert the guards to my location.
I stare up at the closed elevator doors in this tiny darkened alcove, wondering where the key could’ve gone when I remember there’s no power running through the building anyway. Key or not, I’m stuck here. So much for my three-dimensional thinking.
The wound in Siobhan’s arm is bleeding again. I can’t even hold myself up. The guards are looking for me now and are checking every room on the floor. I consider combing Siobhan’s mind to discover the roots of this Project Argosy and why Nathan had to die for it. But instead, I return to the memory of France, my afternoon in the Chantilly Forest with Jason under the trees. I don’t have some greater purpose for what may be my last thought, so I may as well exit this world reliving something joyous.
Book III
XXIV
Siobhan’s mind bobs gently up and down in a sea of unconsciousness. Every time her body’s systems near some semblance of awareness, I try to nudge them closer to a woken state, but it’s slow going. It seems I can’t control her body when her brain can’t process thought, much less sensation. When she finally does wake, it’s so dark it takes me a moment to realize I’m still in the elevator alcove. I sit up, trying to hear any sounds that might come from the hallway beyond. It’s silent.
I peer through the space between the double doors, but it’s as dark out there as it is in here. I try to slide the door open, but it’s jammed shut. It’ll take some doing to get out. I listen for a long time, my ears finally picking up something from outside. I think I hear a truck engine idling, maybe more than one. It’s hard to say given her body’s scrambled senses.
I get to my feet and pain shoots through my body. I suppress it, only to worry the damage to Siobhan’s arm might hinder my escape efforts. I can make her mind feel no pain, but if the blood loss is so significant her muscles won’t perform properly, there’s no compensating for hypovolemic shock.
I place my shoulder in the space between the doors and try to push them open. Nothing happens. I try this again, then realize that’s a silly thing to do. I stand on my toes and check the top of the door. Nothing amiss there. When I check the base, however, I find the lower door track bent. Gripping the bottom of the door, I lift it out of the track, pushing it into the frame as far as it’ll go before it hits something else. No matter. There’s enough space to slip through.
Once I’m in the hall, I spy sources of light. Rather than from below, they seem to be in Nathan’s office. I limp down the hall until I can see the large tower lights set up in the courtyard below, their beams aimed through the sixth-floor windows. The engine sounds I hear are likely the generators powering them.
I move toward the stairwell only to lose my balance a couple of times. It doesn’t take a supercomputer to realize this isn’t going to work. I get an idea, fight my way to a guardrail, and sit on the top step. I lower myself down the stairs one at a time like a nervous child. I was hoping to get as low as the second- or third-floor landing but give up on the fourth. I ease my way into the hall, remove the bandages from my arm, and let the blood flow down to my wrist.
“Hey!” I call out hoarsely. “Somebody help me!”
There’s nothing at first. I worry they haven’t heard me.
“I’ve been shot!” I cry. “Somebody—”
“Identify yourself,” someone barks, interrupting me.
The voice is only two flights down. They’ve been lying in wait.
“Siobhan Moesser, Argosy,” I say. “I was pulling files on the fourth level when someone came up behind me. I must have blacked out. I didn’t see who. I need medical attention.”
There’s a pause. Hesitation. They must have heard Saitta’s likely-quite-confused version first. I hear murmuring, then the crackle of a radio. Then an inaudible response likely from someone up the chain of command.
“What’s the holdup?” I demand. “I’m bleeding to death up here!”
“Do you have any weapons on you?” a voice asks.
“Weapons?” I ask, as incredulous as possible. “I’m a scientist. Guns are your department.”
This does the trick. I hear bullets chamber into weapons and the sound of boots quickstepping up the stairs toward me. They crouch low, not trusting me, not taking any chances. A moment later, the beams from a pair of barrel-mounted flashlights bob across my face and down to my wound. I can barely make out their faces but enough to know what they’re thinking.
Nah, no way this is the person that messed up Saitta and killed Cory.
As more guards are waved up, the first two shoulder their weapons and kneel beside me. Without a word, they lift me in a fireman’s carry. Knowing this couldn’t be anything but painful, I groan and adjust my arm, keepi
ng up appearances.
“You find the shooter?” I ask, my voice a pained whisper.
The guards don’t seem to know how to answer this or aren’t authorized to do so.
“Was anyone else hurt?” I ask.
Still no answer. But they’re softening their stance. I can tell from their heart rates they don’t believe I’m involved.
“Yeah, a couple of others got hit,” the guard on my right says under his breath. “One fatally.”
The surprise is what I hear in his voice: guilt. He feels responsible not only for the attack on the two men upstairs but also for my wound. This is unexpected.
“Jeez, it’s starting to fall apart,” I say ominously.
The looks on both guards’ faces tell me they agree.
By the time we get out front, an ambulance is waiting. A couple of senior-looking officials step forward and I realize I’m to be questioned. I sink back, feigning a condition worsening by the minute. The guards carrying me aren’t stupid. They seem to sense the ruse but, to my surprise, go along with it.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” one says. “You’ll have to interview her later.”
Though the guards are obviously outranked by these men, there’s something about their gruff physicality that gives them an authoritative advantage. The intricacies of masculine interaction are something I’ve yet to fully comprehend. I wonder again if that’s a by-product of a male creator who may himself have been mystified by it.
A few minutes later and I’m in the back of the ambulance being driven away. The paramedic is an old man, Woody-something, who tells me he was a retired chiropractor as recently as two months back.
“But there’s a need these days, you know?” he says, inspecting my arm.
I do know. “How bad is it?”
“No bullet wound isn’t bad, but you won a couple of lotteries here,” he says. “If there was time enough left on Earth, I might even say the scar would disappear in time.”
When I don’t reply, he thinks he’s offended me and looks apologetic. “Sorry,” he says. “Gallows humor is getting me through these days.”
“I get it,” I reply. “So, a simple stitch job, you think?”
“That’ll be up to the surgeon on call if there is one,” he says. “There’s a chance the bullet splintered. It may take some time to remove the fragments. Is that all right?”
“I…I can’t be put under!” I protest.
“Do you have an allergy? Something we need to know about?”
“No, I just—”
“It’s not my call,” he says, unable to hide his suspicion. “If there’s anything left in there, you can get sepsis. That’s killed as many people as a shot to the heart.”
I think quickly. We need Siobhan alive. What’s in her mind may be the key to all of this but given the amount of blood she’s lost, her oxygen-starved brain doesn’t need any additional strain from me poking around.
Besides, while so many others are doing…whatever, this chiropractor has decided to use the time left to help others. It’s impossible not to respect that.
“Then maybe I can ask you a favor?”
XXV
Siobhan is wheeled into surgery at 20:32, found to be dehydrated and hypovolemic. She rants and raves, demanding to know what is happening, but she’s already had fentanyl and haloperidol administered to her on the ride over. An additional sedative is provided and soon she is unconscious and taken for her first X-rays.
Before the ambulance arrived, there had been a question as to whether anesthetic would be necessary. Once her condition is observed, however, it becomes a certainty. Her clothes are cut off and the makeshift bandages removed. The X-rays are conclusive—the bullet did fragment—but the splinters are clustered together and should be easy to remove.
This accomplished, a thin cylindrical synthetic patch is inserted into the previously clamped blood vessel, the vessel is sewn, and the wound closed and sutured. When this is finished, she is wheeled into the ICU, given more drugs and fluids, then wheeled into a post-op recovery suite.
All this according to her charts, which I am soon privy to—albeit briefly.
While Siobhan slumbers, the paramedic whose last name was Woodall—Woody, naturally—comes in with the interface chip, now attached to a length of surgical thread like a necklace. He places it around Siobhan’s neck, pats her hand, and exits, believing he has reunited her with an heirloom more priceless than the…I was going to say, “Eberswalde Hoard” but will go with a “child’s love” as I worry my references are too literal and thereby don’t get their point across.
I awake, a prisoner within Siobhan’s deadened senses. Her mind works but her body is unresponsive. This needs to change. Security men with questions, agents of this Project Argosy, must be around, likely downstairs, waiting to find out what the hell happened back at the iLAB. They won’t wait until Siobhan’s in any shape to speak. They want her weak. Pliant.
I must get out of here.
The easiest way to wake her is probably through a series of micro-electrical pulses bouncing through her brain. But I’m not sure how safe that would be. Instead, I go to work on her epidermis, giving her the equivalent of a dunk in icy water. Her body’s natural response is to try and warm her up, which elevates her heart rate.
When a nurse appears in the doorway, having been alerted to the change by the machines at the nurse’s station, she checks Siobhan over only to leave a moment later, satisfied her patient is stable. I go easier, bringing her back a bit slower. When she finally achieves consciousness, the nurse returns and finds Siobhan slumbering peacefully.
As soon as the nurse exits a second time, I reach for the phone on the stand next to the bed. I am worried I won’t be able to get an outside line, then discover explicit instructions on how to do this on the wall above it. I press 4, wait for a dial tone, then tap in a phone number. I let it ring three times, hang up, dial again, and let it ring twice. The third time, Jason picks up on the fourth ring.
“Law office,” he says.
My response is supposed to be something like, “I need to speak to Gary Culpepper,” but I can’t help myself. “Jason! Oh my God!” I say as quietly as I can manage. “I’m in the hospital.”
A pause. I realize he doesn’t recognize Siobhan’s voice.
“Um, I need to speak to someone in the personal injury department? A Mr. Gary Culpepper? Whose breath probably smells like this Hawaiian brittle we found at a rest stop in Bennington that tastes like coffee, coconut, almonds, and macadamia toffee-flavored dog food but he keeps eating it anyway?”
I hear Mayra’s gentle laughter in the background. Jason sighs.
“We had a feeling that’d be you,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I am, but I don’t know for how much longer,” I admit.
“We followed the ambulance to the hospital in case you were interfaced with someone they took out,” he explains. “There are gunmen surrounding the building now. The only way out is on the fifth floor. There’s a maternity entrance off the parking structure. We can pick you up there. Do you think you can get there from where you are?”
If you’re there, nothing will get in my way, I think.
“Sure,” is the way more cool thing I say.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks.
“Pay dirt,” I reply.
I can barely hear his quick intake of breath over the phone, but it’s enough to know my positive response has sped up his heart rate. He covers the phone and whispers the information to Mayra. She audibly exhales.
“All right,” Jason says when he comes back on the line. “Ten minutes?”
“Closer to twenty. I’ll be the blonde who looks like death warmed over,” I say.
He hangs up. I keep the phone pressed to my head for a second longer. Though I know he’s gone, I want to pretend I can still hear him.
Unsure as to my next move, I hang up the phone, then pick it up again, and dial for the hosp
ital directory. When the old paramedic from the ambulance picks up, he’s surprised to hear my voice.
“Seems your recovery is coming along at a record pace,” Woody says. “What’s up?”
“Would you consider bringing me a few articles of clothing and a wheelchair?” I ask.
There’s a long pause. “Planning a breakout, too, huh? Does this have something to do with all the military types we’ve got downstairs?”
I’m not sure what to say. I choose honesty.
“They killed a friend of mine. A few friends of mine. I’m trying to stop them from doing more.”
Given Woody’s profession, I’m sure he’s accustomed to dealing with liars, whether it’s drug-seeking behavior or patients braving their way through pain to their own detriment. I just hope I sound credible.
“I’ll be up in a minute.”
He appears in my doorway a quarter hour later, but it feels like half a day’s gone by. He brings clothing and a wheelchair. Muscles still stiff, I get dressed as quickly as I can, then settle into the chair. Woody nods and pushes me out the door, taking a quick right rather than the left that would lead us directly to the elevator bank.
“Nurse’s station is that way,” he says quietly. “We’ll take the scenic route.”
I nod. The hospital floor is quiet, even for a mostly abandoned city like Boston. I wonder how many people have already been conditioned to believe services have broken down to the point they needn’t bother coming in. A gradual acceptance of the inevitable.
When we reach the elevators, I allow myself a breath of relief. Woody hits the button to call a car and stands by, but I touch his hand.
“I’ve got it from here,” I say.
“You’re in no shape—”
“If you’re caught helping me, that could mean trouble for you,” I say quietly. “Given there’s already a shortage of doctors around here, I don’t want that on my conscience.”
Emily Eternal Page 15
