The Terminals

by Michael F Stewart

  Chapter 28

  I stood out in the scything rain as the chopper bearing Julie Wilshire touched down. The rain had brought evening early and saturated everything a dull gray. Pat was off-shift; Saba piloted the craft. I knew less of Saba than I knew of Pat, which wasn’t a great deal, but I waved, bent over, and ran forward against the driving wind before the blades ceased to whirl. I’d made one stop before my dash for the helipad, and my mother’s ruby tiara hung on my belt loop, bouncing against my hip as I ran. I drew back the door.

  “Hi, Ms. Wilshire?” I did my best to sound familiar and friendly, while speaking loud enough to be heard over rotors, rain, and wind.

  The woman inside wore a Yankee ball cap pulled tight down over her face and bleached blonde hair, a jean jacket, and an assortment of clothing that looked a decade out of fashion. I couldn’t see past the bridge of the cap, but it nodded, and she took my proffered hand. Her nails were bitten back nearly to their beds. After unclipping the harness, Julie ducked as she climbed out of the helicopter and hunched in the rain.

  “I’ll take care of her from here,” I told Saba, who offered me a sidelong stare. Rain ricocheted from the windscreen.

  “Where’s the general?” the pilot asked. “The general normally makes these pickups.”

  “He charged Attila with it and he’s awaiting my orders, Corporal.”

  “You’re taking Ms. Wilshire to see the general.” He fingered the radio button.

  “Yes, Corporal.” I straightened, letting the top of my coat fall open. I’d purposefully donned my Army Greens for extra authority should I require it. He saluted, and I returned the gesture.

  I pulled Julie Wilshire to the edge of the helipad, then glanced back. Saba’s mouth kissed the radio as he spoke into it.

  I jerked Julie forward by the elbow and ushered her through the rain. Beyond the stairs was an elevator used to transport patients to the ER. From the rooftop it could be overridden, offering an express trip to the first floor. I was depending on this as we passed the threshold out of the weather and hit the down button. The external steel door snapped closed, and the weight of the quiet was heavy. The only sound was the throb in my throat, Julie’s labored breathing, and boots scuffing on steel as someone climbed the stairs.

  “Don’t do it, Christine,” the general called from several flights below. By pressing the button, I’d forced him to make the climb.

  Julie gave me an odd look. It was the first time I’d seen her face, although still shadowed by the cap, and a wave of recognition struck me, déjà-vu, but I surely would have remembered where I’d seen a woman with such bleached eyebrows. The elevator arrived and I indicated for her to enter the car, but she didn’t move.

  “Hello, Ms. Wilshire, this is General Aaron, we spoke on the phone,” the general’s voice rasped but held a congeniality I didn’t recognize.

  Standing straight, Julie was only five-two, and she slouched. She took a hesitant step backward, shaking water loose from the beak of her cap. A puddle had formed where we stood.

  “General,” she said over the landing, with a slight drawl, which immediately made me think she’d side with him. But we were both women. That had to count for something.

  “Ms. Wilshire, do you want to live?” I asked in a hush.

  Her dark eyes shone with intelligence, and she gained another inch in height. “What kind of question is that?” The drawl was gone.

  “I am prepared to pay for your bypass surgery. Seventy-five thousand dollars, no questions.”

  The slow ponderous ascent of the general rang out. Oddly, no flare of hope ignited in her eyes with my proclamation. Julie only looked confused, frightened, and uncertain.

  Her gaze shifted up and to the left, as if she searched for the right lie. “You know my job?”

  “I know you’re a nurse, Julie. Ask the questions you’ve got.”

  “I’m self-employed. Not easy, working for yourself—no medical, no benefits,” she said. “If I can’t work. No money.”

  “I’ll pay you more,” I said, contemplating her all-denim attire, the slight build. This woman did not fit my image of a nurse. The nurses I knew were decisive and straightforward. “The surgery, plus another two hundred thousand to keep a roof over your head while you convalesce.” The tiara was worth double that. She could take it and run.

  “Convalesce,” Julie said.

  The general’s chortle morphed into a wheeze. “Not quite the five million we’re paying you, hey, Julie?”

  I stepped forward and held Julie’s wrist, my fingers reached all the way around, and I felt her quick pulse at my fingertips.

  “But life, Julie, you’re young, you could have kids still.”

  She returned a blank stare. I had reread the file; she wanted children. I was certain, but why wasn’t it registering with her?

  Her eyes darted left and right, resting briefly on the general whose age-spotted hand gripped the rail.

  “Tell me how much you need.” I couldn’t match five million.

  “This will get expensive for you, Christine,” the general announced. “If you keep saving Euths, they’ll grow scarce. The less supply, the greater the price. But know this. I’ll always find a new one.”

  “Julie’s sick, not dying.” My eyes never left Julie’s, who hesitated. “And she’s not a commodity.”

  “If you wanted to change the healthcare system, you should have joined the Democrats,” the general said, cresting the final stair. “Without money to pay for the operation, she’s terminal.”

  “I don’t want the cash,” Julie said. “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, can’t?” I was puzzled. What was stopping this woman? Where did I know her from? Why the fake accent? “You’re not going terminal.”

  The general had his hands at his waist. It could have been to catch his breath. It could have been to grasp his pistol.

  “Sure she is,” the general wheezed. “She already knows about us. She wants to go. Just ask her.” It took him three breaths to finish.

  “I’m paying for her operation.” I stepped protectively between the general and Wilshire.

  “And who’s going to save those trapped kids?” the general demanded.

  “Me,” I said, glad that Attila wasn’t listening or I might not have had the strength to say it with such conviction. “I know most of the Archon names. I’ll find some reference books, give me two hours.” With Coumadin on board, I was dead anyways.

  “It won’t work, and I want to save those children,” the general said. “Sometimes I wonder if I want to save them more than you do.”

  “Then I guess I’ll just die.” I could at least give Julie a head start.

  “You’re real good at killing things, I’ll say that.” His hand left his hip, and he cocked his head toward the stairs. “All right, if it has come to this, I agree. You give it a shot. You want two hours, you’ve got them.”

  “No,” Julie began to protest, but I tightened my grip. Why did this chick want to go terminal so badly? Most Euths would be second-guessing to the end, like Siam. I was offering Julie her health back. Her life. Or was I?

  I wavered between Julie and the general. “You’ll let her go,” I said, pointing at Julie.

  “Of course, I’ll let her go.” The general huffed. “Think this is some big secret club where those who want out are killed?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “That’s what I think.” I pushed Julie toward the open elevator. “Go, Julie. Leave the hospital, and then move.”

  “What about Charlie?” Julie asked. Her cap was off, making visible long blonde hair with dark roots. In the elevator, the fluorescent light revealed the pockmarks scarring her cheeks.

  I stumbled a bit and eyed her. “What the hell?”

  A hitch of concern entered the general’s tone. “I’ll release her when you’ve found the kid
s. If your going terminal doesn’t work, Julie’s next.” The general’s expression clouded, and his hand went to his holster.

  “I know you,” I said to Julie, wrenching her forward and pushing her chin up to the light. “You’re not Julie Wilshire. You’re the nun. Charlie’s nun. And there’s no way you’re dying today.”

  Both the general and the nun stood while the doors of the empty elevator shut with a thump.

  “Save the kids,” Julie said, the confusion gone. “Or I go next.”

  Despite the weakness I’d initially supposed, her voice didn’t falter.

  “Deal,” the general replied. “When Christine fails, you can fill her boots and collect your five million dollars.” To me, he said, “I’ll page Deeth. You’ve got two hours.”

  “But Julie isn’t—” I started.

  “You wanted a chance, you have it. Let me worry about what a terminal is. After you’re dead, you don’t care. You know it and I know it.”

  The nun regarded the puddle we’d made on the floor. I released her wrist.

  “Your real name,” I ordered her.

  “Angelica Wilshire,” she said, head bowed and hands overlapping in a stance that would have identified her as a nun even had I not known.

  “Why do this, Angelica?” I shook my head, went to punch the down button, but stopped. What was the point? The general could track a nun down. “Charlie wouldn’t agree to go terminal until he realized he had to.”

  Angelica rubbed at her forehead.

  “He told you about Valentinus and Pius?” she asked. “Seth and Theudas?” I nodded. “My reasons may not seem so strange to you then. When the general called, I had already sensed that something was wrong. I can’t speak to the dead like your medium can, but used to be able to feel Charlie and Hillar, too. Charlie was my mentor; fate drew me to the monastery. The day you came, he told me the whole truth, made me see the truth. That if he was Valentinus, then I am the incarnation of Pius. If Charlie is lost, then I must help him, and maybe I can prevent the reincarnation of the killer.”

  “No, Angelica, I can’t let you do that, and if I know Charlie at all, he would agree with me.” I didn’t see dissuasion in her eyes. “I go. What you do afterward is for you and your god, but I would think Charlie would want you to track Hillar down and kill him in his crib, or better yet, try to influence him somehow so he doesn’t do evil this time round.”

  The force of my response surprised me.

  Angelica shook her head. “I’m sorry. But if you fail, I will take your place.”

  A sudden chill swept through me as the general grasped her wrist and drew her down the steps.

  The general’s disembodied voice loomed up from the stairwell. “Welcome to Purgatory, Angel.”

  I couldn’t fail, not again.

  Chapter 29

  I was stunned by the general’s subterfuge, but it held undeniable logic. Angelica was a willing candidate, perhaps the right candidate, excepting the false diagnosis that was clearly on the books only to satisfy me and Deeth. The single reason why the general could be agreeing to my plan to try first was to get me out of the road. I needed to determine if it was worth it. The only way I could save Angelica would be to succeed. Little would be gained should I die and simply disappear; I’d been an atheist for thirty of my thirty-eight years. I had less than two hours to prepare for my final adventure.

  I entered the common room and the three men looked up at me from their game. Jaws dropped at the apparition of a soaked, fierce-eyed colonel. I needed their attention.

  “Ahem!” I tried to keep the tremor from my hand and told myself it was the Coumadin.

  They slowly eased to stand, Sundarshan actually groaning. Arthur still looked too pleased with himself and held his chin in a jutting challenge. A slab of pizza spread between them, laid on the gut of a comatose terminal I’d never met with a scattering of creased ten- and twenty-dollar bills. Grease dripped from Francis’s chin, and he swiped at it with a translucent napkin. Each palmed a hand of cards.

  “At ease,” I said as I strode to the gurney, leaning against it for support.

  “You play poker?” Sundarshan asked. “Could use another now that Attila’s busy all the time.”

  “What can we help you with, Colonel?” Francis asked.

  “I’ve got a metaphysical question for you.” The man on the table was wasted, and I counted at least six tubes leaving or entering him. The breaths of the ventilator provided steady background noise.

  “A metaphysical question? Are you sure, because that’s an awfully big word?” Sundarshan grinned, likely disappointed at the sodden trench coat I left on.

  “Sorry, Sundarshan,” I retorted. “By you, I actually meant Francis and Arthur.”

  “Ouch,” he said lightly and went back to studying his cards. I immediately regretted my words, but I hadn’t time to apologize. I needed an answer and there were few people who could even understand the question.

  “Francis, is it possible that the afterlife is real, but fades? So our energy … belief in it say, sustains the afterlife?”

  “We talked about this earlier—” Sundarshan cut in.

  “No, not the fading part,” I clarified. “What if the afterlife starts out real, sort of, but fades as our life energy dissipates.”

  Arthur held a finger to his prominent chin, but it was Francis who replied.

  “Not possible. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Law of conservation of energy.” He took a bite of pizza and closed his eyes in ecstasy. “This is it! Why only at the end do we learn the taste of true ambrosia?”

  “That’s just your beta-blockers talking,” Sundarshan muttered. “If you could taste, you’d know this was greasy cardboard.”

  Arthur tapped his index finger on the patient’s thigh.

  “What is it, Arthur?” I asked.

  “Francis said that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but that is true only of a closed system. In an open system, it could seem to fade.”

  “Like a glacier melting to nothing. We know the water’s still somewhere but we can’t see it?” I asked.

  “Less definitive than that. Different religions have interim periods. The Zoroastrians believe that the soul sticks around for three days before traveling to the Chinvat Bridge where the deceased meets the embodiment of his conduct in life.”

  “A smoking hot maiden,” Francis said, and Sundarshan looked up with interest.

  “Or a particularly ugly woman,” Arthur added. “It depends on where she’s taking you.”

  “I like the Zoroastrians,” Sundarshan replied and went back to his cards. “If you’re going to play, ante-up.”

  Arthur ignored him. “Krishna said, At the hour of death, when a man leaves his body, he must depart with his consciousness absorbed in me … so perhaps you lose what you’d call identity. So if your sense of self fades, so might the concept of afterlife.”

  “Oblivion,” I repeated.

  “Some definitions of Buddhist Nirvana border on oblivion. It’s a complete nothingness, peace, bliss,” Arthur explained. “What’s the difference between nothing and bliss?”

  “I bet you never realized you atheists were actually Buddhists,” Francis said.

  “It’s true,” Arthur replied. “Buddhists don’t believe in a god, but their concept of the Bardo would be tough for you to swallow. They also believe that the spirit wanders at death for forty-nine days. Up to one hundred if they have a strong attachment, cravings, or resentment. Definitely doesn’t fit atheistic philosophy. Does this help?”

  I ran through my calculations. What if the transition across bridges, through purgatories, between systems, whatever, what if it broke the connection to Attila? Or if the spirit lost its sense of identity as in the case of Buddhism, or the Gnostic Pleroma even, then how could Attila retain a link? And could an afterlife i
ndependent of religion, but dependent on belief, exist? I’d told myself that all religious people were atheists in their own right, in that they didn’t believe in the gods of other religions. I simply took it one god further. But if it was belief that mattered rather than a specific doctrine, then my argument was false. If I was going to take a run at Hillar, I wanted to have some part of me think it possible, otherwise everything truly was lost.

  Francis must have taken my look for frustration. His half-eaten crust slapped down on the cardboard lid. “Listen, I don’t believe this hooey, either. But if the afterlife exists at death, it exists afterward and will keep on existing. But let’s be clear that all these religions are talking out of school. There’s no such thing as an afterlife. Only an afterdeath.”

  My head whipped up. “What d’you mean by that?”

  “An afterlife presupposes something like we have here and now, something we can possibly understand. An afterdeath is unknown. Another frontier.”

  I caught the glint in his eye. Francis had once made a shot for the South Pole on skis, dragging a sledge, entirely unsupported except for an emergency beacon. After thirty-two days, five of them trapped in a storm, he’d activated the beacon. He hadn’t made it to the pole, but death was one adventure he was sure to take.

  I thanked the men and left them to their gambling.

  As the laptop booted, I set it on the hospital tray table. From where it hung over the chair, my trench coat dripped water into a growing pool. I had stripped to my panties and a white tank top, spotted with damp patches. I shivered in the dry hospital air and slipped my legs beneath the bedcovers, stubble rasping against the coarse sheet.

  Beside the laptop lay a permanent marker. I snapped the cap off and carefully inscribed on my forearm the names of the Archons I knew. The names straddled the scar, and that made sense to me.

  I knew I needed more information to go to hell on than a communal brain-dump, but I had to start somewhere and pulled the laptop onto my bed and opened the Wikipedia entry for Gnosticism.

  The irony of searching for wisdom in a crowdsourcing application was not lost on me, and I wondered if this was why Gnosticism had been unsuccessful. Why Christianity, which accepted everyone willing to believe, had vaulted to popular approval while Gnosticism—a religion that promoted only the few wisest to spiritual discovery—had failed.