by Brad C Scott
The fourth floor, I think. God, I don’t know if I’m ready for this.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” says Evans beside me.
“It’s nothing.”
We board an elevator going up. A physician in a plum lab coat gets on at the main level, scrutinizing us both through a violet eyeblade. Evans gives him a smile as I study my shoes.
“James Hill, Amanda Bates,” says the physician as the doors close. “From St. Louis. Welcome, welcome. I’m Doctor Carter.”
“Doctor Carter,” I say with a nod.
“Thanks for the warm welcome,” says Evans.
“Have you been to our Final Extradition Ward yet?”
The answer is yes, though I remain silent, for I was here once before, three hundred and ninety-eight days ago. It was darker then, in the dead of night.
As dark as it ever gets.
◊ ◊ ◊
I rode the elevator up with the facility’s chief administrator. I had a hand on his shoulder and my SWAT pistol digging into his back, having taken him hostage after lobby security failed to stop me. Either I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time or was thinking too clearly – there was no middle ground that night. Doesn’t matter now, and definitely didn’t matter to me then.
I had a mission and would allow no one to stop me.
On the way up, I explained the situation to my hostage: “I want security in the Final Extradition Ward to stand down. If I see any of your people, any drones, I’ll put a round through your heart. Are we clear?”
“Do you think you’ll get away with this?” said the chief administrator, defiant, though sweat dripped down his temple.
“Yes,” I said, moving the gun barrel up to dig into his cheek. “Make the call.”
He got his breathing under control enough to comply.
◊ ◊ ◊
“Hill, are you still with us?” asks an irritated voice. Doctor Carter has turned to face me, brows knitted.
“Yes, Doctor. I, sorry, Doctor, got lost in my thoughts for a moment.”
The doors open to a security checkpoint manned by four armed administrators.
“Well, here we are,” he says. “Since the system hasn’t assigned you anywhere yet, I can use your help here. Follow me, please.”
The doctor steps out, as does Evans, turning to give me a concerned look as I hesitate, her eyes asking, What’s wrong? I shake my head and follow.
An administrator uses a portable scanner to check our IDs as another pats us down. I hand over the black case with its concealed stub pistol. The administrator opens the lid and stares. Then he reaches for the ophthalmoscope.
The doctor clears his throat. The administrator closes the lid and hands back the case. “Sorry, doctor. Go on.”
“All right, follow me,” says Doctor Carter, leading us past the checkpoint and down a corridor lined by closed golden doors.
Like gilded mausoleum doors. Or portals to private hells.
◊ ◊ ◊
The corridor was deserted, security and medical personnel having cleared the floor at the chief administrator’s order. Stalking past the golden doors, my hostage before me, I strained to hear something other than the pad of our boot heels on the floor tiles. There was nothing to be heard – those who embrace death are silent.
Then as now, this is the place where the hopeless come to die.
◊ ◊ ◊
“We’re short-staffed today,” says the doctor. “We also have more patients than normal, the reason I’ve enlisted you. You’ll begin –”
“Is patients the correct terminology, Doctor?” interrupts Evans. “There was some debate over that in St. Louis.”
While Evans has him distracted, I check my holobracer for Conry’s ID signal. It’s close, only a handful of doors down on the right. Counting off door numbers, that would put it in… No… That sinking feeling in my gut becomes a resistless fall.
“Understandable,” he says. “Obviously, the patients here are not being treated in the conventional sense. We may not be administering medical services to treat disease or injury, yet end-of-life care is a vital part of our mission to serve the public. Remember, this is their choice, not ours. Transfusion treatment makes their final hours as comfortable and painless as possible.”
I follow in a fog of confusion, past and present blurring together. A nurse wheels a patient past on a gurney, a pair of orderlies step aside as I almost collide with them, the doctor’s voice drones on – none of it seems real. I’m beginning to question whether this is one of my recurring nightmares when I see the brass plate labeled “451” on one of the golden doors: my destination, then as now.
The breach in my heart becomes a sinkhole, pulling all of me in.
“James?” Evans’ voice is a whisper in my ear from miles away.
“Why have you stopped?” says another voice too distant to reach me. “Come along, the cases I need help with are this way.”
451. 451.. 451…
I grab the handle and open it.
◊ ◊ ◊
Father, is this the hell you’ve made for me?
Rachel laid in bed with her eyes closed. My wife. Here, in this place.
Crushing the need to look at her, I guided my hostage by gunpoint into the room while scanning for threats. Only the transfusion rack next to the bed qualified, a close cousin to the electric chair, an antiseptic monster feeding her a slow dose of poison through the tubes taped to her frail arms. A display covered one wall of the room, but it was dark. The shades stood open, revealing more darkness beyond.
I closed the door and fired a stunshock round into the chief administrator, collapsing him instantly. I activated a field controller and set it on a shelf. A few seconds later, it synched to my eyeblade, its scans detecting no threats in the vicinity.
“Mal,” said Rachel, “what are you doing here?”
She stared at me, awakened by the clatter of the steel tray the chief administrator’s body upended. Her face shone in the room’s dim lighting, a pale and lifeless moon, stark as an empty promise. Her eyes, normally hazel, conveyed mild reproach. Nothing more.
“Rachel.” I holstered my sidearm and approached the bed.
“I didn’t ask you to come. I didn’t want you to come.”
“Rachel…” I swallowed, unsure how to respond. “You’re my wife.”
“Ex now, remember?” The divorce she requested had been finalized only last week. She reached out a hand to touch my cheek, trace my mouth. “I’m so sorry to drag you into this.”
I grabbed her hand and kissed it. “I came as soon as I heard.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” She sucked in a breath before sighing in apparent ecstasy.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, it’s just the treatment.”
I stroked her face. She rested her hand on top of mine, stopping me but not letting go. Her expression spoke of more than a year of sorrow, but of a lifetime. I’d always known, deep down in that place I was too afraid to peer into, that a night like this might come.
My commset pinged. I ignored it. “What happened?”
“I took too many sleeping pills. And a few other things. I botched it.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
I shook my head.
“I knew you wouldn’t agree to this. You don’t see things like I do. It’s one of the things I always loved about you.”
“Rachel, I’m just glad you’re…” I choked up, blinked back tears. “Don’t worry about any of that. Whatever it takes for you to recover, we’ll get through it together.”
She smiled, raised a hand to stroke my cheek. “Such a gentleman, Mal.”
“Rachel…”
“But it’s too late for that,” she said. “They’re going to help me. The arrangements are made. The state plan will cover everything.”
My commset pinged again, so I pulled it off and set it aside. Reaching out a trembling hand, I stroked her hair.
I shook my head at her, at the whole goddamn universe for allowing this. I took a few deep breaths and wracked my brain for a solution. “You remember our trip to Santa Barbara? The walk through the gardens, along the beach?” I forced myself to smile. “The perfect day, remember? My God, you were beautiful in that dress, the one with the shells.” The smile turned real. “You kept telling me to stop staring, that I was creeping you out. Laughing at me the whole time, loving it. The gazebo. Remember what you said?”
“Things change,” she replied, not taking the bait, not smiling.
“You said that on that day alone, we could live a whole lifetime. That everything that came afterward, no matter how bad, could never take it away. That day would justify everything that came after it. We would endure anything, anything, because of it.”
“Rosalie,” she whispered.
“Rosalie,” I agreed, lowering my head, smile collapsing.
“I won’t go through it again. I’m done fighting.”
I gripped the bed’s handrail with both hands in a losing bid to keep it together, blinking at the moisture in my eyes. It was too much for me to accept, far too much.
“I’m sorry, Mal. For this. For hurting you. But I have to go.”
I straightened up and over her, temples throbbing with rage. “I won’t allow this. I won’t let you die in this place! Not like this! Do you want to die here, alone, surrounded by strangers?”
“It’s my decision to make.”
“Rachel, you’re stronger than this. I’ve seen how strong you are. This is just that shit they’ve pumped you full of speaking. I’m taking you out of here.”
“Oh, Mal.” She reached up again to touch my cheek. “I was strong for my mother. Then for our daughter. I was strong for you. Never just for me. I don’t need to be strong anymore. You’ve moved on, in your own way. The world’s moved on. I can’t.”
I bowed my head again, unable to speak, trembling like a building on the verge of collapse. I felt an overpowering urge to pull away from her, beyond the reach of her icy touch.
“I forgive you, Mal.”
I stepped away from the bed, from her.
“I forgive you for everything. But mostly, I forgive you for letting our daughter die.”
I turned away to stare into the blackness beyond the window, tears wetting my cheeks.
I’d found my way into Hell at last.
“It’s OK, I understand. I always have. I want you to…” She paused, sighed at some pleasure inside, then continued, “I want you to make a new life for yourself. I want you to be happy again. If you can, if anyone can. Please tell me you’ll try.”
“No,” I replied, turning. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“It’s too late.”
I got to work freeing her right arm from the tube connecting it to the transfusion rack, being as careful as my shaky hands allowed. As I pulled the needle from her vein, my eyeblade flashed a warning – the field controller detected two men approaching, both armed. I freed her left arm next, yanking the needle out just as sounds of movement came from outside the room.
Rachel sat up and grabbed my head. “Malcolm, you can’t hide from it anymore.” Her hands slid down to cup my face, pulling it close, her eyes, though clouded still, suddenly shining with passion. Voice tremulous and urgent, she said, “You have to fight them. You have to fight!”
The door opened behind me. As it did, Rachel pulled me down for a kiss. I did not resist, heart imploding at the knowledge that it might be our last. Heavy steps announced the entry of the administrators into the room, but I didn’t care.
She released me. “Goodbye, my love.”
“Sir, you’ll need to come with us,” came a blunt masculine voice.
The administrators were ready for trouble but still too slow. I turned and drew my sidearm while stepping away from the bed, firing a pair of stunshock rounds at the closest. He dropped his raised stun baton and cried out as electroshock energy fried his hard suit and coursed into him. Idiot didn’t bother to don a helmet. I clocked him hard in his exposed face, ending his cries and toppling him, before firing again at the next in line still clawing for the pistol at his side. He went down like the first. I pistol-whipped both to be sure.
I used their inert bodies to bar the door. As I did, the hum of a drone approached from down the hallway. The field controller sent its specs to my eyeblade – a sentry model like those in the lobby I’d taken out earlier. I had no more EMP grenades left, making for a losing battle to come. And it had plenty of friends with it.
I returned to Rachel’s side. She gripped my arm as we locked eyes, trying to connect a lifetime in moments. Caressing her cheek, I bent down to kiss her one last time. With the other hand, I raised my pistol to rest on the pillow beside her head, muzzle at her temple.
I deactivated stunshock, selected normal fire.
She smiled at me in invitation, eyes glistening with perverse hope. She wanted me to do it. What I said was true – she didn’t want to die here, alone. My tears pattered her throat, a sob tore free from my chest. She reached a hand up toward my face. Pausing inches from my cheek, she instead sent it over to rest on my wrist. She applied gentle pressure, pushing away, her final gift to me. I pulled the pistol off the pillow and lowered my forehead to hers.
The door blasted open behind us, falling in a shower of sparks.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“I know.”
The vibrating hum of the sentry drone entered the room, along with the heavy tread of more administrators. “Put your weapon down and place your hands on your head!”
I straightened and turned, tears wetting my cheeks, one hand still grasping Rachel’s.
“This is your final warning! Put the weapon down!”
I snarled and raised my pistol. The drone was quicker.
The world flashed and was gone forever.
CHAPTER 18
“Are you listening to me?” Doctor Carter steps in front of me, blocking my view of the bed and its occupant. “This patient is in the final stages. I know it’s painful to watch.” He places a hand on my arm. “Come along, young –”
I seize his hand and crush it, causing him to cry out in shock. Yanking his arm out, I twist him around into a sleeper hold. He chokes out a single mangled word before succumbing to the pressure on his carotids. When he goes limp, I release the hold and grab his head, right hand cupping his chin, left palming the top, prepared to snap his neck.
Hands grab my left forearm, preventing me from carrying it out. I whip my head over to stare stubborn rage at Evans. She says nothing, just meets my eyes and pulls at my arm. The doctor’s body is dead weight getting heavier, but I do not relent, nor does she.
“Let go!” I growl.
She doesn’t blink. “No.” Through my insanity, I see the concern in her eyes.
I let the body go and it slumps to the floor. She releases me.
The stranger sitting up in bed looks at me, a woman in her twenties with pale skin and short brown hair, her expression empty of any interest for all the excitement. I take a single step toward her and stop, prevented by the perverse denial in her unfocused eyes. A spasm of pleasure contorts her face before desolation claims it again. She would neither complain nor compliment were I to plant a knife in her chest. She’s gone.
Just like Rachel.
“This is where your wife died, isn’t it?” asks Evans, voice low.
I say nothing. What is there to say? That I couldn’t save her? That we somehow deserved this? I continue to stare at the dying woman on the bed. As the Doctor said, it is her choice.
But who’s to blame for a world where such a choice is abetted?
A groan announces the doctor’s regaining consciousness. I yank him up into my fist a few times. That does it. It’s all I can do to let go without
killing him.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and flinch away. “Redeemer, you need to focus,” says Evans. “Is this it? Mal!”
Tearing my eyes away, I see that she’s closed the door and has her stub pistol out and ready. One of us at least has retained their senses. I breathe deep and say, “Yeah. This is it.”
“The target’s not here. Only her.”
I lock eyes with the woman in the bed, mirroring her desolation. She reaches back and unclasps her necklace, holding it out at me. A heart-shaped locket dangles from it.
Taking it from her, I unclasp the lid. An ID chip fits inside, either Krayge’s or one designed to emulate its CID code. “He’s not here,” I say.
“So what’s this about?” asks Evans. “Why go to all the trouble to bring us here?”
The woman in the bed convulses, head snapping back and tremoring violently, her face a rictus mask of pain. Guttural sounds issue from her throat as blood leaks from her nose. With a final gurgle, her head slumps over, eyes wide and staring.
Bloody hell, what the fuck was that? I check her pulse – nothing.
“Jeezus, Mal.” Evans’ mouth hangs open, eyes wide. “We should clear out.”
“Yeah. There’s nothing –”
Omega! sounds in my mind from Patton. Unknown hostiles are – It cuts off.
Patton, I thoughtspeak, continue your last. Patton, your transmission cut off. Patton!
“Mal?”
His automated duress alarm sounds in my head, an indicator his systems have been compromised. That’s never happened before.
My commset pings – message incoming from Cato. “Master Tech, what’s going on?”
“Malcolm, you need to get out! They –” The call cuts off.
“Master tech?” Nothing. I try to get a call out. More nothing.
“What’s wrong?” asks Evans.
“We’ve been compromised. Patton’s down.”
“Let’s go,” she says, pocketing her pistol as I get mine ready.
Checking the action, I lead us out.
◊ ◊ ◊
The app on my holobracer tied to Patton’s transponder says he’s stationary, parked or crashed outside the loading dock entrance. Something or someone must have drawn him in before he went dark. Krayge, most likely.