The Greed

by Scott Bergstrom

  No answer from Max.

  I swallow again. “Max…”

  “Shh,” he says, arms tightening. “Relax. If you can.”

  “Max,” I say again. “Get me out.”

  * * *

  When I wake, the blankets, and Max, are gone. My right side is paralyzed, or at least that’s how it feels, because I’m lying on that side and the water and floor are so very cold. I think about turning over, but that’s all I do, think about it. Because I would just get other parts of me wet, and I don’t have the energy anyway.

  It’s the sound of the door opening that wakes me, that terrible scream of pain the steel makes. The guards come in, then Dr. Simon.

  “Your father’s—testimony, whatever that was—is pretty innocuous, I’m afraid,” she says, no hint of gloating in her voice. “The public, nothing surprises them anymore. A day of outrage, maybe. Then it’s chum for the conspiracy bloggers. Sorry.”

  I blink at her.

  “You should know also, we found the duplicates. NSA did a global search using the—I don’t know what they call it—file hash, checksum, whatever. All the copies are gone now.” She crouches beside me, wipes the hair out of my eyes and tucks it behind my ear. “You’re so strong, Gwendolyn. Doing the right thing like that. Couldn’t have been easy.”

  All the copies, gone, just like that. The idea that the NSA is so potent it could scrub the Internet and find all of them comes as a shock, or would if I gave a shit any longer. Because now it’s time for the child hero, example to all, to receive her hero’s reward. Slowly and with effort, I prop myself up.

  “He’s out there somewhere, your father,” Dr. Simon says. “How long since you last checked in with him? He’s probably wondering if you’re okay.”

  At the mention of him my mind snaps back, just enough to form a clear, or clearish, thought. No, my father’s not wondering. He’s desperate. Panicked. Fearing the worst, because really, what else could it mean, my going dark like this? I picture him in my mind, someplace hot, because that’s where people always run to in the movies. His shirt is sticking to his back as he sits in a grungy Internet café, drumming his fingers, waiting for the TOR to connect, and praying today’s the day I come back. The buzz in his mind is louder than the buzz of motor scooters out in the street.

  “You use an e-mail address to contact him.”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “It wasn’t a question, Gwendolyn. We know about it. It’s how we tracked you down, actually.”

  “It was encrypted.”

  “Yes. And it probably slowed the NSA down by a few minutes. Anyway, Gwendolyn”—the concern on her face, it’s so real—“your father may know it’s compromised, which is why he doesn’t answer you. But we’re sure he’s at least monitoring it.” Dr. Simon pulls a notepad and pen from her pocket. “Go ahead,” she says. “Write down what you want to tell him, to let him know you’re okay.”

  My hands tremble as I take them from her. The idea of thinking something cogent, and then setting it to paper, seems impossibly hard. But I have to warn him. Somewhere I’ll have to work in the duress signal, All’s going fine, so don’t worry, which is to be written or said exactly that way, innocuous and banal.

  Which is what Dr. Simon wants.

  To tell him I’ve been captured. That I’m in danger. That I’m going to die.

  I know him, and so does she: He’ll reappear in an instant—a phone call to make a hasty deal, his freedom for mine, then a cab to the nearest consulate. And that will be that. Neither of us will be seen again. How had Max put it? A helicopter ride over the ocean.

  I hesitate, the pen pressing into the paper, a circle of ink expanding outward like a wound bleeding blue.

  My body shakes, but I manage to rise to my feet and stand uneasily. I print the word DAD in sloppy caps, then IM OK DO NOT—but then my hand freezes, refusing to go any further.

  The male guard, LaBelle, takes a step closer.

  And then, from somewhere, it comes, a burst of power, what you get when you hold a match to fury. I dive toward him, spiking the pen into his right shoulder.

  Then my body jerks into the air, carried on pulses of light and sublime, rhythmic pain. I land on the floor, conscious of every muscle convulsing in time to a racing metronome at my side.

  I inhale spit, taste blood, cough, and feel pee flow warm and steady down my legs.

  Dr. Simon stands, a stun gun loose in her hand.

  LaBelle approaches, hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder, jaw set. He’s going to drive a boot into my side, but Dr. Simon raises a hand and he steps away.

  She crouches beside me, presses two fingers to my neck to take my pulse. “That was very naughty, Gwendolyn,” she says. “So off to bed you go without your supper.”

  * * *

  My heart rate, frantic, is too fast for my breathing, which is too slow and shallow to keep up. I don’t even feel the cold anymore.

  Withdrawal is the point of Theta Compound. The love is just a side effect. Still, I would do anything to have it back, Dr. Simon. Come now, tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Tell you anything. Even pull the trigger myself. How many iterations of your love potion had come before, and how many lab rats just like me had it cost? However many it was, it’s worth it, though. Here in your lab, your lair—underground and off the grid—you can do whatever you like. No oversight. No consequences. Just you and your noble work, curing citizens like me of what ails us. You’re the god here, Dr. S. So show me your forgiveness.

  He’s holding me, again, Max. As he did the last time, with his chest to my back, and a blanket around us both to keep the heat in. He’s given me another Zofran, and it’s finally kicking in. “Do you want some broth?” he says.

  I swallow, try to think whether I do or not, then can’t remember the question. “Can you get it for me?”

  “The broth? I brought some. In a thermos.”

  “Another syringe,” I hiss.

  He squeezes his arms tighter. “It’s killing you.”

  “I know.”

  Max wraps his arms around me tightly. “You’ve been twenty-four hours without it. So stay strong. Fight.”

  He unscrews a thermos and pours broth into a plastic mug, the steam rising luxuriously. The warmth of the cup in my hands makes me tremble with gratitude. I take a sip. It’s the same chicken broth they served me before, too salty and tasting of metal. But it works.

  “Easy,” he says. “Take it easy.”

  A pang of nausea, but just a pang, easily suppressed. I take another sip. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Being human.” I turn my head a little so I can see his face. “Your patients, they must love you.”

  “You’re the only one.” He works the blanket in front of us to close a gap. “The last one.”

  I shudder, wondering again how many there have been. Is the timing right to push him further? But it’s a stupid question: There’s no time left.

  “I have a million Swiss francs,” I say. A lie, but so what. “We can split it.”

  Another long silence. I see his jaw tighten as if he’s chewing the words. He shifts his weight to the side and I touch his hand.

  “I don’t care about money,” he says.

  “Everybody cares about money. Can you do it?”

  Max breathes in and out, fast and nervous. I feel it, hot and nice against my neck. Then his mouth is next to my ear. “I gotta go.”

  “Max. Stay.”

  “Sorry—”

  * * *

  She wakes me by whispering “Morning, sunshine,” six inches from my ear. But my eyes don’t open, so she checks my pulse and I hear her tell the guards to sit me up.

  They prop me against the wall.

  “Sleep well?” she says, readying a stethoscope. She listens to my heart, takes my temperature and blood pressure. Jots them down in a little notebook.

  “Can you hear me, Gwendolyn?”

  My lips flutter out of sync wi
th the words. “I-I n-need…”

  Arched eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “Blanket.”

  “You want a blanket?”

  I nod.

  “Tell me the message you want to send to your father,” she says softly. “Then you choose: blanket or Theta.”

  My mouth opens again, but no sound comes out.

  “You want to tell me the message, Gwendolyn?”

  I shake my head.

  She motions for the guards to leave, then turns before she steps through the door. “Last chance,” she says.

  I stay where I am, staring blank-eyed at the sad yellow canary in its cage.

  The door closes behind her.

  * * *

  I picture a syringe of Theta in my head. A syringe of amber glass, or amber plastic that looks like glass. And an impossibly slender needle at the end. Hard to imagine that such a universe of wonders could pass through something so narrow.

  I’m not shivering anymore. I don’t feel the cold.

  Get here soon, Max.

  I’d shown Dr. Simon my best bitchy self, the proud petulant child who braves whatever punishment might come. But she’d responded coolly and in kind with her own bitchy best, you chose this, not me. Now, the consequences of my behavior. Of my disloyalty. Of my unlove.

  Tick tock, Max.

  I strain to hear the world beyond the cell, anything at all. But the steel and stone give up nothing.

  He lost his nerve, poor Max. His dedication to a righteous mission, faltering in the transition from my world back to his.

  I won’t be here when you come back, Max.

  Thirty

  The first thing I’m aware of is the sensation of vomiting. This is what wakes me. When my eyes open, I’m upright, kind of. Max has his arm around me, and my arm is around him, but he’s holding my entire weight, the only thing that’s keeping me from falling over. My bare feet are red from cold and are pointed inward.

  Max hisses at me to be quiet and hold on. There’s a pool of what I’d spit up on the floor, but it’s not the floor of my cell. It’s diamond plate steel, scraped up and dirty. Above me, an engine is whirring and I feel motion.

  We’re in an elevator.

  My eyes sweep around, trying to make sense of my surroundings. Max’s jaw is set, but his eyes are all worry. He holds a small Glock pistol in his right hand. It’s the preferred toy among CIA types, but given the unease with which Max holds it, the preference probably doesn’t extend to CIA nurses. The elevator itself is enormous and designed for cargo far bigger than two humans. The engine above alternates between a purr and a whine as it hauls us upward.

  “Wh-where—”

  “I’m getting you out,” he whispers. “Can you stand on your own?”

  In principle, or right now? I want to ask. But I nod that I can, and so Max slowly lets go. I wobble side to side for a moment, catch myself on the elevator wall, then find my balance, an accomplishment that in that moment feels absurdly big.

  “When the door opens, we’ll be in a garage, on the surface,” Max says. “I’ll go first, then you. Six or seven meters ahead, you’ll see a red sedan. Get on the floor of the backseat. Understand?”

  I squeeze his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Save it for when it’s over,” he says. “I don’t want to jinx it.”

  How prepared is he? How good is his plan? I want to take his gun myself, and while we’re at it, the keys to the car, too. But just as this thought manages to come together in my mind, nausea sweeps through me once more and I buckle at the waist. I can barely stand, which means whatever comes next is up to him. I’m just a wobbling, puking piece of luggage along for the ride. Why is he doing this? Why does he give a shit about me? The million francs? Or could it be that a human on this earth is motivated by goodness alone?

  A groan of metal colliding with metal, then a jolt. I fall against Max’s shoulder as the elevator shudders to a stop. As the doors slide open, Max lifts the pistol and releases its safety.

  The smells of motor oil mixed with mildew drift in. Over Max’s shoulder I see the red sedan, a small Volkswagen, maybe two decades old with rust along the fenders. Behind it is parked an unmarked white delivery van. Max steps into the room, waving his pistol slowly back and forth, then hisses, “Go!”

  I stumble forward, barely keeping upright, and land hard against the sedan. The latch for the back door suddenly seems impossibly complicated and my mind struggles with how to open it, as if it were a calculus problem.

  Behind me, an explosion, the report from Max’s gun echoing off the vaulted ceiling. My eyes snap in the direction Max fired and see the guard LaBelle standing at the back of the garage ten meters away. His own pistol is raised and tracking Max’s movements. Max fires again, and this time LaBelle staggers backward into a stack of cardboard boxes before sliding to the ground.

  Then I’m on the floor of the backseat pulling a plaid wool blanket over my body. Max starts the engine, and the tires chirp on the floor as we burst forward.

  * * *

  The road is unpaved and I bounce in an uneven rhythm as we speed through darkness. Max’s window is open, and I can smell pine and mountain air. I can taste it as I inhale deep, grateful breaths, the air itself sweet and dense. With effort, I lift myself up so I can see out the windshield.

  A forest at night, with a narrow dirt road cut through it, illuminated by overlapping yellow cones from the headlights. Moths scatter madly as we race along. I reach forward to squeeze Max’s shoulder.

  “It’s not over yet,” he says.

  Shining through the chills and waves of nausea, my chest pounds with love for this man, a kind of love that has nothing to do with romance or Theta. Love as admiration, of the desire that the whole world could be filled with people just as good and kind and brave as he is. “Where are we headed?” I ask.

  “You tell me,” Max says. “Toward Dresden if we’re going east. Nuremberg if we’re headed west.”

  “West. Go west.”

  We round a corner at speed, the back end of the car kicking out before straightening again. “West to where?” he asks.

  “I don’t know yet. Just drive.”

  Then, ahead of us, a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, and a closed gate. Even in the yellow of the headlights, I can tell it’s new and sturdy. Max slows to a stop, takes a pair of bolt cutters from the passenger seat, and exits the car, leaving the engine running.

  I watch him, his uncertain steps, his fumbling with the chain as he searches for a weak spot—they’re all the same, handsome; any one will do. He’s a brave fool, risking his life, and almost certainly losing it, to save mine. But maybe that’s not exactly right. Maybe I’m just a variable in this equation, and my life is swappable for any other. Maybe he’s doing this for the sake of some principle, some idea of justice, larger than me, but invisible and abstract. So, yes, a brave fool, with the accent on the second part.

  He’s back in the car again, spinning the tires as he guns first gear, and revving the motor all the way up before throwing it into second. We burst past the gate and continue down the dirt track, the trees blurring by faster and faster. I can see his clenched-teeth grin in the rearview mirror. I can even smell the adrenaline on him like sweat. One million francs that I don’t really have well spent.

  * * *

  Stillness and the sound of birds, then the sensation of cold air on my face, nearly freezing my nostrils as I breathe in. My eyes flicker open and I see an old-fashioned alarm clock, hands stuck at 1:24, and beyond it a wood-paneled wall.

  My body is encased in something warm and soft and wonderful. I can tell from the feel alone that it’s a fat eiderdown, heavy and weightless all at once. I roll onto my back and feel the mattress beneath give way and suck me in like an act of supreme welcome.

  But it’s not so easy to sit up in. My elbows tilt and falter as I try to raise myself, every muscle fighting back, telling me to keep still. The pain from even this simple movement shoots from my
head like steel bands bent the wrong way, through my abdomen, radiating up and down my legs and arms. It’s literally incredible, defying belief, like the summary of every workout I’d ever had, every fall off the beam in gymnastics, every torn muscle, every bruise, has come back for some sick reunion in my body. Then the room spins and I tumble back down into the mattress, where I’m stuck in infinite softness. I fight back the nausea but feel pressure going the other way, too.

  I stay just where I fell, hoping it’ll go away if I don’t move. The light in the bedroom is soft and gray, and it comes in through windows of warped, old glass fenced in between diagonal mullions. It floats gently over a sturdy and uncomfortable-looking wooden chair, painted with swirls of blue and white, and an intricately carved chest of drawers with a white ceramic washing bowl on top.

  It’s a cottage. Missing only the cheerful singing of seven dwarves.

  The idea of cheerful singing, and cartoon dwarves, and cottages as such makes me ill. My veins thrum like guitar strings, and then the compulsion to purge through vomit and shit roars back.

  I try again, forcing myself up to a seated position, then swing my legs over the side of the bed. I taste the puke, spicy bile, in my throat, but I hold it in as I climb to my feet. Somehow I’m dressed in thick sweatpants and a too-large sweatshirt—Max’s maybe—but the air outside the embrace of the eiderdown is frigid nonetheless. I scramble toward the room’s only door, praying the bathroom is nearby, then see that the uncomfortable, intricately painted chair is a kind of toilet, with a hole in the center of the seat and a porcelain pot beneath. I pull the sweatpants down just in time and snatch the bowl from the chest of drawers. Everything comes out both ends at once, the smells wretched and commingling.

  My body shudders in the cold, and each shudder sends more convulsions of pain coursing through my muscles and bones. Even through the pain, I imagine a syringe of Theta floating in front of me like Macbeth’s dagger. I imagine grabbing it, shooting it into my arm. I imagine the tsunami of love that would come seconds later, sweeping away the cold and nausea and diarrhea.

  The itching in my brain descends like cascading water to my face, my neck, my collarbone, my chest and arms. I scratch at my skin through the thick fabric of the sweatshirt, and when that isn’t enough, I take the sweatshirt off and scratch harder. The cold air is sharp and wonderful, but still, the itch won’t relent. My nails dig harder until my skin turns red.