by Ann Benson
The Biocop used his magic card to open Janie’s cell door. “All right, Miss Merman, we’ve got your results. Would you follow me, please?”
And before Bruce could say, “Miss Merman?” Janie shot him a warning glance. He read it clearly. After a day and a half of uninterrupted communication they were reading each other almost sublimely well. He managed to suppress the snicker he desperately wanted to let loose and wisely kept his mouth shut.
The Biocop, however, had more to say. “I don’t know what the law is in your country, miss, but here we must show you the results of your print and provide immediate counseling for any questions you might have.”
As he led her away she said, a bit too imperiously, “We give our citizens a choice. We’re still unregulated.”
He gave her a patronizing look and said, “Naturally. Your country has always been unregulated, at least since our country let it go. It was a regrettable lapse in judgment on the part of King George.” He smiled as he opened a metal door for her, and motioned her to enter.
She thought to herself, Polite to a fault. They’ve obviously decided I’m no threat. Only one guard, and a comedian at that! He’s hardly even watching me. Then she saw the chemical pistol strapped to the guard’s belt and understood why she was allowed to walk with only one escort. Armed as he was, this one guard was quite capable of keeping her in line without help.
The small room they entered had obviously once been an office in the toy firm that had occupied the building in the pre-Outbreak days. There was a desk with a chair, and another chair on the opposite side of it. On the desk was a computer console. The Biocop directed her to the far chair and, when she was seated, sat down at the desk. Janie saw two projection machines, one mounted overhead, and one mounted on the floor. He flipped a switch that lowered the light level dramatically.
“Ready?” he said to her.
Am I ready? she wondered. Will I ever be ready to see all my own flaws? She sat silently for a moment and thought about what she was going to see. She had always taken her health for granted; illness was rare for her and she’d never been seriously hurt. When people all around her were dropping like flies, she had managed to survive the Outbreaks. Suddenly, she was filled with fear. What if my luck’s run out? What if there are tumors there? What if there’s some genetic time bomb that’s all set to explode? Do I want to know these things?
Yet despite her fear and uncertainty there was a part of her, the part that loved medicine, which wanted to know all there was to know. The only thing I really can’t change is the day I’m scheduled to check out, she thought to herself; almost anything else can be fixed. She knew that even a sophisticated tool like a bodyprint couldn’t determine the length of her life, so she gathered up her courage and nodded yes.
“You’ll want to pay attention to the area between the two projection devices,” the guard said.
As she watched, a holographic image of her own body slowly took form before her. Suddenly she was standing in front of herself in all her middle-aged naked glory. The image clearly showed her tension and the grimace on her face at the precise moment the print had occurred. Seeing her look of dismay, the Biocop said, “Don’t worry. No one ever looks good in these things.”
“Some people look good in anything,” she countered. “I just don’t happen to be one of them. But never mind about that. What did you find?”
“Let’s see now.…” He flipped through a series of pages, saying “Normal, normal, normal,” then he stopped and pushed a few buttons on the console before him. Everything but Janie’s circulatory system melted away, leaving behind a Janie-shaped mass of veins, arteries, and capillaries. A tiny light glowed in one vein-in her lower right leg. “There.” He pointed. “You’ve got the potential for a varicose vein.”
Janie watched, astonished, as he pointed out several minor glitches in her physical being, small abnormalities that had little significance. A protruding middle toe on one foot, the result of an ancient toe-stubbing, memorable still for the throbbing pain it had produced years before. Her appendix, still present, but tucked up under her intestine.
“Ever have indigestion?” the guard asked.
“Oh, yes.…” she answered.
“That’s probably why,” he said. Then he smiled and said, “But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?” As he passed through the image of her reproductive system, he said, “Sterilized, I see …” then stopped on that page.
He peered at the image and then glanced back down at the written page before him. By adjusting a few knobs on the console he made the image more transparent, then grabbed a pointer.
“Here’s something you’re not aware of, though.… I’m not sure if you can see it from here, but just there”—and he extended the pointer right through the image to a specific spot on her left breast—“something microscopic shows up. It might be a developing lesion of some sort. Or more precisely, a tumor-in-waiting. You should have it excised as soon as possible.” Janie winced as he withdrew the pointer, as though it were actually leaving her flesh.
She looked at the small dot on her breast, and considered that before bodyprinting, it would not have been noticed until it was large enough to show up on a mammogram. Had she lived earlier, before advances in breast-cancer treatment, that small unchecked lesion might have been the cause of an untimely and painful death. She also considered that once her image was entered into the system, everyone on earth with access to her print would know that she had some sort of breast lesion. She suddenly felt very confused, but she could not deny that she was grateful to have found out in plenty of time to have the poison dot removed. After all, I know plenty of surgeons.…
The Biocop looked at her in smug satisfaction, knowing that he’d justified what she’d gone through by showing her the immediate benefits of such a procedure. “Are there any questions, then?”
She was too flabbergasted to think of anything germane, and too realistic to consider an attempt at escape, so she simply followed him out of the room and went compliantly back to her cell.
The scruffy woman was simply too tired to push the cart any more that day. She was having difficulty seeing after the descent of the sun, and decided to seek a safe place where she could rest. Her companions had all deserted her to seek rest for themselves. They would find her in the morning, she knew, but she needed help now. There was an overpass not far ahead, with a well-established clan living under it. By this time of night, she thought, everyone would be settled in to await the blessing of daylight. She had a friend or two there who might help.
She stopped the cart and leaned over the railing, then softly called out a password. In a few moments two dirty men appeared from under the overpass and they all exchanged quiet greetings. She asked for their help, and they willingly gave it. Together the Marginals lifted Caroline gently out of the cart and carried her down the embankment. Under the bridge other Marginals readied a place for her to sleep by piling up an assortment of blankets and extra clothing, until the resulting bed was soft enough to please a princess. They set her gently down on the makeshift bed and covered her with newspaper. The woman sat down beside her and talked quietly with the two men; a small fire in a metal pot cast an eerie glow on their weathered faces. Finally the woman leaned close to Caroline and listened to her breathing, then placed her dirty hand over Caroline’s forehead. Though terribly ill, her charge seemed stable enough, so the woman propped her ratty brown bag against a pile of bricks, then curled up on it and went to sleep.
Once again the door to the holding area opened and a Biocop entered, this time alone and with no visible weapon. He said to Bruce, “We’ve found the materials you were looking for. They’ve been processed and you may take them with you.” He pushed open the door to Janie’s cell and then did the same to Bruce’s. “By the way, Dr. Ransom, I sincerely apologize for putting you through all this. I had no choice, really. The regulations are quite specific about what we must do. And you might be interested t
o know that we were never able to contact Dr. Cummings in London. It’s a good thing you had the necessary clearances. Otherwise you’d be spending a lovely week in Leeds.” He laughed and said to Janie, “Miss Merman, I do hope you’ll come back to visit Leeds again. I’m certain your next trip will be more pleasant.”
Not bloody likely, she thought silently, but she gave him a saccharine smile and said, “Thanks. It’s been grand. And highly educational. But I think I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself,” the guard said, and motioned for them to follow him. He escorted them to the main reception area where the missing tubes were stacked neatly in a pile, each one wrapped in protective yellow plastic and sealed with red tape. Bruce and Janie shared the heavy load, and as they walked out the door, one of the Biocops deposited another yellow plastic bag on Bruce’s pile.
“Your watch and other personal items,” he said.
They were surprised to discover that it was full dark outside. With no windows in the building they’d lost all track of time. But the cool night air was invigorating, and the freedom was heady, and for a few moments they both felt renewed and energized. After storing the tubes in the trunk of his car Bruce took his watch out of the bag. “Holy smokes, it’s almost midnight!” he said.
“Damn!” Janie said. “I wanted to call Caroline! She’s probably already asleep.”
Bruce handed her his phone, which he’d left in his case in the car. She dialed Caroline’s number in London, expecting to apologize for waking her.
“She’s probably wondering what the hell happened to us,” Janie speculated as the phone rang. But the hotel voice mail came on and Janie said with great irritation, “Where can she be at this hour?” She looked at Bruce as she listened to the message and said, “I’ll bet she turned her phone off.”
“Sounds like something Ted would do,” he said, thinking of the difficulties they’d had because Ted had not responded to his pager. “Here’s a thought!” he said. “Maybe they’re together!”
“Not a very pretty thought,” Janie commented. “From what little I know of Ted, they’d be like oil and water.”
As soon as they were settled into the car with their belongings stowed and the maps ready, the adrenaline of finally being released was replaced by the brittle weight of fatigue and disorientation. Bruce reached wearily forward and punched in the car’s ignition code. As the engine hummed to life he looked over at Janie and said, “Do you think we should attempt to drive back to London tonight?”
“I think we should get as far out of Leeds as we can right now. I don’t like it much here.”
They drove off, and Janie looked back through the rear window as the distance between them and the storage facility widened. She waved and said, “Good-bye, Ethel …”
Not far out of Leeds it started to rain, a sweet good rain, steady and calming. Janie closed her eyes and leaned her face against the cool damp glass of the car window and slipped in and out of consciousness. Bruce leaned forward and switched on the wipers. It wasn’t long before their rhythmic thrum thrum thrum had an unwanted soporific effect on him. His head nodded up and down as he stared over the steering wheel into the dark wet road ahead of him, and for a few seconds he closed his eyes. He snapped back to alertness just in time to avoid hitting a signpost and steered the car back to the delineated roadway. Knowing he could no longer drive well enough to get them back to London safely, he pulled off at the next exit and found the nearest lodging.
As the car came to a rest in the gravel drive of the old stone inn, Janie woke up in the passenger seat. “Where are we?” she said sleepily.
“An inn,” Bruce said. “I’m falling asleep at the wheel.” He shut down all the car’s systems and pulled out the locking card. “Why don’t you stay here, and I’ll go in and see if they have any rooms.”
“Okay,” she said. But as he was getting out of the car, Janie reached over and put a hand on his arm. “Wait,” she said. “Wait a minute.”
He turned back and looked at her. “What is it?”
She searched his eyes, looking for an answer to a question she hadn’t asked yet. He looked terribly tired and drawn. She hesitated, wondering if it was the right time.
Do it, Janie, she said to herself. It’s been too long and you might not get another chance.
She squeezed his arm gently. “Why don’t you just get one room,” she said, then quickly added, “I mean, maybe that’s something you want to think about.… I don’t know if it is.…”
He laughed softly and gave her a warm smile. “Right now it’s just about the only thing I’m thinking about.”
Relieved, Janie said, “I guess I don’t want to be alone right now.”
He placed his own hand over hers, then leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You’re not,” he said.
They stood with their arms wrapped around each other in the shower and let streams of hot water wash the foul contamination of imprisonment off their tired bodies. They kissed long and hard and clung fiercely to each other, melting and blending together in an almost desperate act of coupling. When they emerged from the shower, cleansed and renewed, into the cozy room of the friendly old inn, they dried each other with soft towels and embraced again. Together they pulled down the quilt. The sheets below it were cool white cotton, and the bed looked wonderfully inviting. Janie slipped her freshly showered body between the sheets and pulled the soft quilt up to her neck. As soothing warmth spread through her aching, drained body, she watched Bruce look through his travel bag in search of his alarm clock.
She hated the notion that it would ring in a few hours and take them away from the quiet perfection they’d found, back to the uncertainty and the frustration of the real world, out of the comfort of privacy, to the jarring reality of schedules and demands and limits. It’s always an issue of time, she thought. There never seems to be enough of it to do what needs to be done. His slim silhouette moved before the moonlit window and she thought, Time’s been very kind to him; he’s still a good-looking man. She wondered briefly what he would say about her, then shoved that insecurity out of her mind for what she hoped was all eternity. It didn’t matter. He’d already said plenty with the way he’d touched her.
He climbed in beside her and she felt herself being gathered up in his arms. They shifted their positions until the hollows and bones of their bodies were lined up as closely as possible, then lay there, experiencing the strange new fit of each other. “This is the first time I’ve shared a bed in a very long time,” Janie whispered. “It doesn’t feel as small as I thought it might.”
He kissed her lightly. “It feels just right,” he said. And soon again, though they were both desperately tired, they rolled in each other’s arms, and rocked away whatever distance remained between them. As dawn was breaking over the lush green hills, they were asleep in each other’s arms, and until the alarm rang, all was well in that tiny part of the world.
Janie listened to the unanswered ringing on the other end of the line and felt her patience growing thinner with every repetition. “She’s still not answering,” she said to Bruce, who was brushing his teeth in the bathroom. “It’s the middle of the morning! I can’t imagine where she’d be.”
“She’s probably just out sightseeing,” he said, “or maybe she got lucky. You aren’t the only one that can happen to, you know.”
She raised her eyebrows and smirked. “Me, lucky? Or you?”
Bruce put away his toothbrush and crossed the room. He took the receiver from her hand and replaced it, then scooped her up in his arms and kissed her fiercely.
“Hey, listen. We were great together. We should have done this twenty years ago.”
She kissed him back with equal passion, and soon their hands were roaming all over each other and groping for pleasure points. She breathed deep, the scent of his skin filling her lungs, his scent, the unique essence of Bruce. Oh God, let me just lose myself in this, just for a day or even an hour … let all this other stuff just disa
ppear.…
But unbidden, tubes of dirt danced through her consciousness, all fifty-four of them in a neat, unbroken row, followed by lists and letters and computer files; the distraction proved too much, and the exploratory mood snapped. She pulled away slowly, a sad look on her face, and said, “I’d love to do this now, but we really should go back.”
He smiled, a little what-might-have-been grin, and nodded his agreement. “I know. You’re right. But it was a nice thought, wasn’t it?”
“Really nice,” Janie said. And then another thought, a big, resented Nazi of a thought marched into her brain and called her to attention. What will you find when you get back? it demanded to know.
The glow of the previous night was slowly replaced by the pressure of her now even tighter schedule. “I just hope Caroline isn’t out there digging up more dirt,” she said to Bruce as they gathered up their bags. “We’ve got enough trouble with what we already have.”
Seventeen
It began to rain as they neared Kate’s mother’s house, so Adele and Alejandro stopped momentarily under a tree to lift the hoods of their riding cloaks. Still dazed and somewhat shaken from his leap through the oaks, Alejandro shivered and drew his cloak more tightly about himself, then leaned over and rearranged the folds of Adele’s. As he fussed with her garment, she reached up with one hand and stroked his cheek.
“Tell me why you’re so sad,” she said.
He sighed sadly as he buttoned her collar. “How well you read my mood. You are a lady of many talents.”
“It would take little talent to see the melancholy on your face, for you have no talent in hiding it.”
“I am sad,” he admitted, “and to the very core of my soul. I feel as though we have left Eden, and are cursed with the knowledge of what might have been. We were innocent there, and everything was beautiful; now we know far more than is bearable. And we return to a place where more sorrow awaits us.”