by Jacob Gowans
“Uh. . . . ” He hoped that “uh” meant “thousands” in whatever primitive language his brain had slipped into using. The beeps from his monitor sped up noticeably, and Jeffie glanced at the screens, grinning knowingly. Her third step brought her only half a meter away from him. He could already feel the softness of her lips on his cheek again, the scent of her skin enveloping his senses. It was as clear as if she’d made that promise to him only minutes ago. How is that possible?
Then someone knocked on the door.
Sammy thought of every curse word he knew as he stared at the door with an intense loathing. He slowly sat up, ignoring the headaches, and he and Jeffie turned to see who had interrupted them. Dr. Maad Rosmir entered waving with one hand, pushing a wheelchair with the other, and totally unaware of the incredible moment he had ruined. The feeling in Sammy’s stomach slowly deflated, along with his lungs.
“Hello, Gefjon,” he said when he looked up from his holo-tablet. “It’s nice of you to visit Sammy. Did anyone tell you that you’ll be taken back to headquarters this evening?”
Jeffie scowled at Rosmir. She hated being called by her real name, though the doctor did not seem to notice his offense. “Yes, the nurse told us.”
“Right, well, I need Sammy for some testing, so now would be the best time to say goodbye to him.”
“But Brickert’s not back from lunch yet,” Jeffie began.
Sammy knew the doctor wouldn’t budge and decided to interject. “Tell Brick we’ll talk some more when I get back and that I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
Jeffie did not look happy about having to part with Sammy so soon, but her displeasure made Sammy feel somewhat better about the situation. “Okay, I’ll tell him. You take care and—and we’ll finish our conversation another time.”
Sammy struggled out of his bed and into the wheelchair. He turned back to see her one more time, and she waved at him.
“Bye,” they told each other.
Sammy did not enjoy being wheeled through the hospital floor dressed in nothing but a gown that flapped with even the slightest of breezes. His gown hadn’t been properly tucked under him, and his bandages prevented him from doing much about it. Rosmir spoke to him as they moved from corridor to corridor and up an elevator, but Sammy wasn’t paying attention. His thoughts stayed with Jeffie and Brickert—but mostly Jeffie—while Dr. Rosmir droned on about something regarding a baseline test.
“Are you even listening to me, Sammy?” Dr. Rosmir asked.
“Huh? Yeah,” Sammy said as he pulled his gown back down after the elevator door opened. “How come you’re here and not a psychiatrist?”
“I oversee the treatment of all the Psions. You’ll be seeing a lot of me over the next few days, but I won’t be diagnosing you.”
Dr. Rosmir stopped in front of a pair of doors with a sign above that read: PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT CENTER. Sammy rolled his eyes. Yay for me, Sammy the psycho.
The doctor scanned the doors open. Directly in front of them was a desk where an armed guard stood and chatted flirtatiously with the overweight nurse sitting behind it. On the left, he saw a sign that read OUTPATIENT TREATMENT/TESTING/COUNSELING. To the right was another set of secured doors marked INPATIENT MENTAL CARE. Through the doors on the right, Sammy could faintly hear shouting.
“Yikes.” Dr. Rosmir turned Sammy’s wheelchair left. “Don’t think we want to go that way. Better to steer clear of rough waters, agree?”
They went inside a small exam room, and the doctor asked Sammy to sit on the examination table while he washed his hands at a small sink. “How are those glass wounds feeling today?”
“Not bad. A little tender, I guess.”
“And the leg?”
Sammy shrugged. “Hurts.”
Dr. Rosmir seemed to expect that answer as he lifted Sammy’s gown and inspected the wounds. “The stuff we use to stimulate the muscle to repair itself is pretty nasty, but it gets great results. Tomorrow, it’ll hurt even worse, and Thursday will be particularly unpleasant. After that, the pain will subside quickly. Does it hurt when I push here?”
Sammy nodded as Dr. Rosmir turned to a cabinet full of equipment and began rummaging through its contents.
“Eureka.” He set a box on the table next to Sammy’s exam chair, removed a visored helmet from inside, and wiped it down with alcohol pads. Then he plugged most of the cords into matching sockets in the wall.
“What is that?” Sammy asked. “Do my tests involve me playing video games?”
Dr. Rosmir chuckled. “That would be nice. I call this helmet Medusa. Most of these wires connect the helmet into our computers. It’s kind of like a VR game, the test.”
“What test?”
Rosmir’s eyebrows went up. “The baseline test I told you about when you said you were listening to me.”
“Oh right, yeah.”
“Right. These three cords attach to cups—” he said pointing to suction cups with small metal plates in their centers, “—which act like the metal plates that interact with your brain on a normal VR helmet, only they’re far more sophisticated than what you’d usually see with gaming equipment. I’m going to try them on you, make sure they fit, then get the team who will observe you. Okay?”
After wiping Sammy’s recently-shaved head with enough alcohol that his skin practically sizzled, Rosmir attached the three cups to Sammy’s forehead. They were tight and the suction cups felt like they were trying to extract Sammy’s brains through his pores.
“I’m going to flip the switch and then turn it off again to make sure it works,” the doctor said. “You should experience a sort of white flash.”
As he said this, Sammy’s field of vision went completely white for several seconds. Then everything came back into view. Dr. Rosmir pulled on the cups; each came off with a loud POP! Then off came the helmet. Despite rubbing the spots, Sammy still had the feeling that something was sucking blood out of his forehead.
“You saw the flash?” the doctor asked.
Sammy nodded. “Bright and white.”
“Good. That means it’s working. I’ll be back in a couple minutes to get you started. I have several other doctors who want to witness the test.”
The room went quiet after Rosmir left. The last time Sammy had been in a hospital psych ward was in Johannesburg after his parents died, but that room had movies to watch and games to play. Here he had nothing. His thoughts went back to Jeffie and Brickert. He wished he’d had a chance to talk more with Brickert. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if Jeffie and Brickert had planned Brickert’s exit to the cafeteria so she could speak to him alone.
Wouldn’t surprise me, he thought, chortling.
As the minutes passed, Sammy wondered what was taking Rosmir and the other doctors so long. His position on the exam table made his leg throb uncomfortably. He tried to occupy his mind with pleasant thoughts, but they inevitably fell upon darker subjects: Al’s near death in Baikonur, Toad and Dr. Vogt’s death in Omaha, Katie Carpenter, and Stripe. He knew he didn’t have to dwell on these things, and he tried not to, but he needed more time to replace the bad memories with some good ones.
Like kissing Jeffie.
“Come on, Rosmir,” he muttered. “What’s taking you so long?”
There was no clock in the room, so he couldn’t be sure how long he’d been alone, but he guessed at least fifteen minutes. Finally the door opened, but it wasn’t Dr. Rosmir. It was a boy of about seven or eight. He wore a hospital gown identical to Sammy’s, chewed gum, and held a blue racquetball. He bounced it twice as he came in, dribbling it off his hand like it was a basketball. He had a very small nose and one of his eyes always seemed to drift off in the opposite direction of where the other eye stared.
“Oh, hey,” the kid said when he saw Sammy. Then he blew a large pink bubble between his lips. “What’re you doing in here? Are you a wacko?”
Sammy frowned at the boy. “No. I’m waiting for someone to come b
ack very soon. Are you allowed to be in here?”
“Sure!” the boy said. “I own this place.” He bounced the ball a third time, and as he did so, his right shoulder and facial muscles twitched badly enough that he missed the ball and it hopped away from him, resting between a garbage can and the equipment cabinet. “I own the whole hospital.”
“Sure you do. What’s your name?”
“Nope,” the boy answered matter-of-factly.
“What is it?”
“Nice try.” The kid gave Sammy a melodramatic glare as he retrieved his ball. Then he sat on the floor and bounced the ball off the wall in a well-timed rhythm. “Strangers . . . ” he added, shaking his head.
For some reason Sammy found the beat of the bouncing to be exceptionally grating, especially when the boy’s right side jerked up after every few throws. Sometimes his tic wasn’t too bad, other times the twitching made him miss a catch.
“Do you always come in here to do that? Bounce the ball?”
“Every day. Sheesh, I told you that I own this place.”
“Right. And you don’t want to tell me your name?”
This time the boy didn’t answer, but kept throwing his ball against the wall and catching it. Sammy wondered if he’d scared the boy and thought about apologizing. “So where do you sleep?” Then he realized that question sounded like something a pedophile would ask. “What I mean is, do you live here?”
Again there was no answer. He couldn’t see the boy’s eyes, but noticed how the ball smacked the wall and rebounded with perfect rhythm. The right-sided jerks had stopped, too. Had the kid gone catatonic? Sammy made another attempt at conversation.
Again, no response.
“Will you please say something?” he asked with an edge of frustration in his voice. Where are you, Rosmir? He rubbed his temples to calm himself, but it didn’t work. “Can you please stop bouncing that stupid ball!”
The kid turned and scowled. Then he threw his ball and hit Sammy square in the forehead.
Sammy cursed at the kid as he grabbed his forehead where it stung. “Okay, get out!” He stabbed his finger at the door. “I’m serious. Leave right now!”
But the boy didn’t move.
Sammy hobbled up from the exam table and ushered the kid out the door with a firm grip on his arm. The kid stood outside the room scowling. “Jerk!” Then he walked off in a huff. “Big, stupid jerk!”
Sammy didn’t respond, but checked up and down the hall for Dr. Rosmir. No sign. “Are you kidding me?” he said aloud as he closed the door again. He picked up the boy’s ball and lay back on the examination table so he could toss the ball against the ceiling and catch it. When he got bored with that, he began blasting it from hand to hand. After another fifteen or twenty minutes, someone tapped on the door.
“Finally.”
He got up and opened it. Someone blew in past him and slammed the door shut so hard it hurt Sammy’s ears. A lady leaned against the door, panting for air. Just as quickly, she turned and looked at the door as if there were a peephole there; only there was no peephole.
“No one coming east . . . or west. Coast clear.” She reached up to her temple and pretended as if she were holding down a button like on the older coms that required touch activation. “All quiet on the eastern front,” she announced. “Move in.”
She waited, stared for a moment at Sammy, then turned her attention back into the non-existent peephole. Her long red hair was matted in several places, sticking up in others, and most of her teeth were a light brown, although she didn’t look old. Sammy guessed she might be in her early or mid thirties.
“Yes,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I copy that.” She touched her temple again and paced, wringing her hands together as she did so.
Sammy watched her with his mouth hanging open.
“You a Beta, kid?”
Due to confidentiality agreements, Sammy could not answer that question.
“Of course you are. Which corps are you in?”
“Huh?”
“Which corps,” she repeated slower. “Are. You. From?”
“Uh. . . . ” Sammy didn’t think he was allowed to answer her.
“It’s not a difficult question. Psion, Ultra, or Tensai.” She looked him over skeptically. “You don’t seem very smart, so probably not a Tensai.” She darted forward and smacked him on the cheek.”
“What the heck!” Sammy shouted. “Don’t touch me!”
“Not very fast, either. Not an Ultra. Is your dad or mom a senator or something? How come you’re here?”
“This is my exam room! Get out!”
The woman continued to gaze at him with a creepy passivity that made Sammy very uncomfortable. “Mission control, come in,” she said with her hand back on her temple. “Possible spy spotted. Undercover child Thirteen, perhaps? Will observe and report back. Over.”
“I’m not—” Sammy started to say in a heated tone as he glanced around the room for a call button. Finally he saw it on the wall behind him and pushed it. “Whatever, lady. You’re outta here. This is nuts.”
The lady’s pacing began anew. “What do you know about the CAG initiatives? Poisoning water sources? Attacking energy plants? Creating chaos to destroy civilization?” With each question she asked, her voice grew louder. She stepped closer to Sammy until she was right in his face. “Stripping citizens of their basic rights! What do you know about that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
She sniffed him several times. “You reek of the CAG. Mission control, I have a suspect. Possibly interrogation . . . even using hostile methods.” She crossed over to the cabinets above the small sink and took things out at random. Then she hurled them at him one by one.
“Stop it!” Sammy shouted as he covered himself with his arms.
“Then you stop pretending to belong in here!” She shoved him hard in the chest.
Sammy pushed her back. “Shut up! If you touch me again, I will hurt you. Get out of this room!”
“Mission control—”
“GET OUT!” he ordered even louder.
“Must subdue at all—”
Sammy prepared to blast her away from him. His heart thundered as the familiar rush of action threatened to conquer his reason. However, before he acted on that impulse, the door burst open and three security guards came in. Two of them grabbed the woman’s arms while a third prepared to tranquilize her.
“CAG AGENTS!” she screamed. “CAG AGENTS! HELP!”
As the chemicals took effect, the crazy lady’s eyes rolled back and closed, her chin fell to her chest, and a long stream of drool fell from her lips. The security guards dragged her to a wheelchair outside the door and were about to wheel her away when Sammy called to them.
“Do you think you could find Doctor Rosmir and remind him that I’m waiting?”
One of the guards grunted something unintelligible as they escorted her away. Sammy watched them go as the door closed. Then, with a long sigh, he threw himself back onto the exam table and looked around for the ball, but it was gone. He lay back and stared at the ceiling, remembering the time Commander Byron had forced him to watch a video about proper etiquette. He wondered how many other videos like that Byron had at his disposal. As bored as Sammy was right now, watching another one didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
Not more than a minute later, the door opened and Dr. Rosmir reentered the room.
“Finally!”
“Sorry for the delay,” the doctor said in a harried voice as he brought the wheelchair over to the bed. “It turns out they want you in another room so more people can observe you.”
“How many people?”
“I don’t know,” the doctor answered. “Keep in mind there will be several doctors working on your case over the next few days. They are all interested in you, so they’re all interested in seeing your test.”
“You mean because of my double anomaly?”
“That might have somethin
g to do with it.” Dr. Rosmir’s tone told Sammy that his double anomaly had everything to do with it. “We have a long walk ahead of us. Relax.”
The doctor pushed Sammy out the door and farther down the long corridor. They had just taken a turn down a new hall when the speakers on the ceiling began to blare:
ATTENTION ALL STAFF, PATIENTS, AND PERSONNEL. WE HAVE A SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK. WE HAVE A SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK. ALL PERSONS ARE TO LEAVE THE BUILDING THROUGH THE NEAREST EXIT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK. SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK.
Dr. Rosmir had stopped pushing Sammy as soon as the announcement had begun. His face was pale and his eyes darted in all directions.
“What does that mean?” Sammy asked. “Code black?”
“It means . . . combative person or persons. It means attack—we’re—we’re under attack.” His voice was barely audible over the uproar that commenced when the announcement ended.
Nurses and doctors and janitors alike scurried from their workstations, heading for exits. Someone running past knocked into Sammy’s wheelchair and nearly sent him onto the floor. Whoever it was stumbled, caught his balance, and ran on, never glancing back. Dr. Rosmir slowly began to step away from Sammy as if Sammy were a poisonous snake.
“Where are you going, Doctor?” Sammy asked.
The doctor didn’t respond to the question. His eyes continued to shift wildly as he picked up his pace.
“Please, don’t leave me!”
But Rosmir turned and bolted for the nearest door.
“WAIT!” Sammy called after him, but to no avail. Coward! Several more people sped by him, oblivious to his plight. A group of nurses came by leading a train of children all wearing hospital gowns and bracelets. One of them was the boy who’d had the bouncing ball. He saw Sammy and waved, showing off a toothy grin.
An explosion went off in the distance, too far away for Sammy to know from where it came. The floor shook and rattling sounds mixed with screaming surrounded him. Sammy forced himself to stay calm. He locked the wheels on his chair and pushed himself up into a standing position. His injured leg quaked under his weight, forcing him to favor it almost entirely. All the kids were crying; one of them lost all control and ran straight into a wall, knocking herself out cold. Two more ran back toward the children’s wing. The nurses tried to cope with the bedlam, but there were only three of them helping more than twenty children.