But clearly Rupa had never really wanted this. She had come to the Panah by force. No wonder she’d held so little regard for its structure and rules. In her mind, she was only waiting for the day that she could leave the Panah and never come back.
“Come with me, Rupa.”
Lin took Rupa’s hand and pulled her down the corridor and into her own room. She prodded Rupa into the middle of the room and made her stand there while she checked her device again for news from Reuben. She already knew there would be nothing, but she couldn’t stop herself from pressing the device over and over, hoping that if she tried enough, a response would miraculously appear.
Her eye caught the tiny memory slip, resting in a small receptacle at the edge of her desk. Rupa’s diary! She’d put it there, meaning to confront Rupa after having worked out a rational response to its contents, but things had happened too quickly after Sabine’s disappearance.
Rupa’s words came tumbling into her mind again: “He was so good to me. So kind and gentle. And when it was over, he kept touching my nose pin and telling me how beautiful it made me look. Like a Gedrosian princess.” In light of everything that had happened, the words had new weight; they felt like murder instead of betrayal. Lin was certain now that Rupa had slept with Joseph and had sent Sabine to him for the same purpose. Either he was paying her, or she was getting some obscene feeling of power out of pimping herself and then Sabine to the same man. The very thought made Lin recoil in disgust. But Lin’s own guilt was clamoring at her now, whispering that she was the one truly responsible for Sabine’s disappearance. Not Rupa. Not Joseph.
She turned around to face Rupa, who was sitting on the floor, one knee up, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow. “You had sex with Joseph.” It was not a statement, but an accusation, savage and furious.
Rupa lifted her head, her eyes wide. “No!”
“I read it. In your diary.”
“What diary?”
Lin held up the memory slip to the light in front of Rupa’s face. “You should be more careful with what’s precious to you.”
It took Rupa a moment to focus on the tiny slip, but then her face darkened. “That was mine. You had no right...”
“You slept with him. And then you thought you’d give Sabine to him. I don’t know what kind of sick game the two of you thought up, but...”
“No, you’re wrong. I swear, I didn’t sleep with Joseph.”
“The truth? What is the truth to a Gedrosian princess?”
Lin expected Rupa to flinch, but to her surprise, a small, rueful smile crossed Rupa’s face. “That was someone else, not Joseph,” she said.
“Who, then?” Lin crossed the room and sat down next to Rupa. “Tell me. Sabine could be dead because of you.” Because of me, she thought.
The girl winced when Lin reached out towards her, expecting a blow, but Lin held Rupa’s chin in her fingers and turned the girl’s face gently towards her. The nose ring sat delicately in the fold of her skin, the diamond mocking Lin and all her illusions about her role in these women’s lives.
“It was Le Birman.”
“Le Birman?” For a moment the name made no sense to Lin. Then she remembered: he was the head of a pharmaceutical company, a widower, innocuous. She’d even asked Reuben to check him out before she’d added him to her list of Clients. “The businessman?”
Rupa nodded. “He was kind to me. I wanted to know what it was like, and he was willing to show me. But he told me he was still in love with his wife, who died a long time ago, so I shouldn’t get any ideas. Lin? What does this have to do with Sabine? Do you think Joseph hurt her? I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Lin tapped her device to quickly check her records. The Client called Le Birman had asked for Rupa on three different nights in the last eight months or so. He was reluctant to talk, or to leave many messages, but he’d always paid for each assignation promptly and generously. Lin had studied him thoroughly, had even asked Reuben to run a security check on him. Reuben had said he was no threat: a businessman whose wife had died of the Virus, like so many women. Rupa would be safe in his hands.
Lin needed to think coolly and calmly, to get her mind around all the new information. She still wasn’t sure if Rupa was being honest. She let out a long, slow breath and touched Rupa’s nose ring with her forefinger. “This is so beautiful. Strange how I never saw that before. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Rupa. And I’m sorry for all of them. But please, if we’re going to help Sabine, you have to tell me the truth about Joseph and Le Birman, about everything. I promise I won’t be angry anymore.”
Julien
Julien sprinted to Bouthain’s office, the muscles in his calves and thighs burning as he ran in long, desperate strides. He’d hated leaving Sabine lying there alone, but if he didn’t get to Bouthain, someone would alert Security and have them all arrested as soon as she was discovered. Julien would plead for a misdemeanor charge, arguing that he was a doctor, in the business of helping first, asking questions later. But God knows what the Agency would do to Sabine if they found her. Bouthain’s sympathy, if not his permission—he would certainly not give his blessing, Julien wasn’t naïve enough to imagine that, but he could promise to look the other way—might buy them a little more time.
Bouthain’s office was at the top of the building in a skyway that connected two wings of the building. He perched up there like a bird, keeping an eye on everything that happened down below. The room was simple and sparse, brightly lit. On one side of his wide desk was a bank of displays showing him different scenes of the hospital: he surveyed the operating theaters, the busy wards, the consulting clinics, and even the men trooping in and out of the staff rooms throughout the day. From his vantage point Bouthain could see if a doctor was sleeping too much, and make a note to have the doctor evaluated for depression. He could tell if a patient was being cared for properly or mistreated by the night staff, and he reprimanded or commended the supervisor accordingly.
He was standing at the window, looking up into the sky when Julien burst into his office without knocking.
“What on earth—Dr. Asfour?”
“I’m... sorry...” Julien pushed the words out with effort, then bent over and clutched his knees, gasping for air. “Didn’t want to... disturb you...” He’d neglected his body during his medical training and his work at the hospital; there was never time to exercise, once meetings, rounds, clinic, and more meetings had eaten up most of his day.
“Is it an emergency? Tell me quickly.”
Bouthain had an unwritten rule: any doctor could interrupt Bouthain’s office time if a medical emergency presented itself and Bouthain’s assistance was needed. The medical emergency for Sabine was over, but Reuben’s threat had catapulted both of them into danger again. But how to tell Bouthain about Sabine? Where to begin?
“Dr. Bouthain, I... I’ve done something terribly wrong. Promise me you’ll hear me out until the end, and then you can discipline me, or kick me out if you want to. But please, I need your help.” His voice had risen as he shrank in both age and stature. He was no longer a junior doctor consulting with his superior; he was a desperate boy begging his father to step in and fix his mistakes before it was too late. Taking in Sabine, helping her, reporting none of it: he didn’t even know if there was any way to fix everything he’d done wrong.
Bouthain regarded Julien for a moment with an inscrutable expression. Then he went over to the display bank and waved his hand across it. All the displays instantly turned black. When he spoke, his voice was low and hoarse. “Is this about the woman in Room 3214? The unfinished floor?”
Julien blanched. “How do you know?”
“I saw her,” Bouthain said, simply.
“I tried to be careful,” said Julien. “I erased everything. Did I forget something? Did you get an alert?”
“No. I was working late two ni
ghts ago, and I went down to the reception to look for someone on the night shift I needed to speak to. I couldn’t find him. I was passing by the storeroom on my way back to the elevator. That’s when I saw her in there. I hid myself around a corner until she came out, and then I followed her up to the thirty-second floor. You were there, too.” Bouthain paused. “Playing doctor after hours, were you?”
Julien blushed. Bouthain was long rumored by the doctors to be superhuman: he could discern many hidden things about patients just by sizing them up with those pale gray eyes of his, half hidden by heavy, white-fringed eyelids that hid and revealed them like the blinking of an owl. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you report me?”
Bouthain shrugged. “Not until I spoke to you. I was just waiting for you to come and tell me. It wouldn’t have been fair. So who is she?”
The nights of disturbed sleep, the tension-filled days, and the fear and worry all gathered into a mass that hit at Julien’s knees, and he staggered. Before he knew what was happening, Bouthain was leading him to a chair and pressing a glass of water into his hands.
Julien felt thankful for the shelter of Bouthain’s momentary tolerance. Usually, when something was wrong, everyone rushed immediately to the authorities. People feared anything that would implicate them; they needed to announce their innocence as loudly as they proclaimed another’s guilt. Bouthain’s kindness made Julien want to clasp the man’s hands in his own and kiss them in gratitude. Instead, he put his arms around Bouthain and hugged him hard. Bouthain seemed nonplussed, but he held Julien for a few moments, then pushed him away.
When Julien calmed down, he confessed to Bouthain. The whole story: Sabine, the operation, the recovery in the hidden room. The mysterious drug, Ebriatas, in her body. The Panah, and Reuben Faro: it all came tumbling out.
“A place for women? Where they’ve been hiding from the Agency all this time?” said Bouthain.
As Julien explained, Bouthain whistled, a small appreciative wisp of sound through his thin lips. “Insane. Brave, but insane. So she isn’t just illegal, she’s a Rebel. No wonder she’s so dangerous to Faro.”
“He mentioned another one that he seemed to know already: a woman called Lin Serfati. She’s their leader.”
The older man narrowed his eyes. “I’ve never heard of her. But the name is familiar. I don’t know why. How does Faro know her, though?”
“He’s probably been trying to capture her, but I didn’t ask. I just wanted to get away from him, and make sure Sabine was safe.”
“And who helped you during surgery? Ram? Mañalac?”
“And George,” said Julien, reluctant to name any of them, but there was no point keeping anything from Bouthain now. The blush bled from his face down to his neck and chest as he thought about the night he and Sabine had shared the room, and then the bed. “Do you have a display on in her room? Did you alter the records?”
Bouthain shook his head. “There wasn’t one there to begin with, and how would I have one installed without alerting maintenance? Besides, I prefer to do my spying the old-fashioned way. You were in the room with her. She wasn’t in any shape for you two to get up to any trouble.” He grinned, his face breaking into a dozen wrinkled segments. Then he became serious once more. “However, we’ve got a real problem with Reuben Faro. He’s the one that changed the records, not I. He’s got the power to do it.”
“I know,” said Julien. “He wants Sabine.”
“And he’ll get her,” said Bouthain. “If I know Reuben Faro.”
“What? Do you?” Julien was taken aback. How many surprises did Bouthain have up his sleeve?
“He was at school with me. Don’t look so surprised. Green City’s a small place. Or you didn’t realize I was that old? You’re shaking your head no, but I know you mean yes,” Bouthain chuckled. “He was younger than me. Nobody liked Faro. He was the one who’d do anything to get into teachers’ good books, ingratiate himself with anyone who had power or privilege. He was always ambitious, even back then. But he’s a ruthless man. I don’t know who’s more unfortunate to know him: his friends or his enemies.”
“I can’t let him take her.”
Bouthain tapped his fingers together. “How will you stop him?”
It was like being back in medical school, sitting his exams. If Julien could only pass the test, then both he and Sabine would be safe. “I’ll get her back to the Panah somehow.”
“But Faro must know where this Panah is, no? I doubt he’s going to take her there himself, though. Probably wants to get her into a cell and save his own neck.”
Julien bit back a curse. “Why has he let them go on?”
“If I’m guessing right, he thinks of the women as toys, or puppets. It amuses him to let them exist in their own limited way, doing what they do. In a way, he thinks of those women as his creations.”
“He’s a hypocrite.”
“Well, he can afford to be, because it’s rebellion on such a small scale. But he’s not invincible. Those women are supposed to quietly do their job behind the scenes, and then conveniently disappear. Not pop up in a hospital for all of Green City to see. Faro will be blamed.”
“So why did he bring her here? Why didn’t he just let her die?”
Bouthain rubbed his hands together, then shook them out to relieve a cramp. Julien noted the knottiness of arthritis in Bouthain’s fingers. It was strange to think Bouthain was as human as the rest of them. “I don’t know why he helped her. Maybe he was afraid to leave her there in case someone else found her. Or maybe he felt sorry for her, and couldn’t just leave a young woman to die. It’s a sign that there’s still a human being left in there somewhere. But he’s unpredictable, dangerous, and therefore an even bigger threat to you. I guarantee it.”
Julien nodded. “I think he’s going to make a show of ‘capturing’ her, bringing her to justice. As a way of distracting from his own crimes.”
“Yes,” said Bouthain. “It’s about keeping up pretenses. Saving face. She’s going to be sacrificed as a ‘clean-up’ so that the larger rot can remain. That way Faro gets to maintain his position, his status. And even the Panah is permitted to continue. But he’ll also have to deal with you.”
“What can I do?”
Bouthain turned his chair around to face the window once again. The view from his office, on the fifty-sixth floor, was spectacular. On overcast days, the clouds made a thick white carpet through which the upper halves of skyscrapers pushed like trees made of steel and glass. It was hard to imagine how the business of Green City went on underneath: the three-dimensional kaleidoscopic movement of cars and buses, high-speed trains, and Metro cutting through the air at different elevations, pedestrians flowing in and out of buildings, rising up and down in glass-walled elevators. It was as if this room existed on a different plane, purer and more elemental than the one closer to the ground.
With every passing moment that Bouthain spent in contemplation, rocking slightly in his chair, Julien grew more and more convinced that he would have to give Sabine up to Reuben. Maybe Bouthain would tell him to let Sabine go, and save himself. If so, he might as well sign her death certificate then and there. He lowered his face into his palms.
Bouthain tiptoed over to Julien, put his hands on Julien’s shoulders, and bent close. “There is a way to get Sabine out of Green City.”
Julien looked up at him, scarcely breathing. “How?”
“Reuben may be Leader, but he doesn’t know the human body as we do. We can fool him into thinking Sabine is already dead. He’ll report it back to the others, or maybe he’ll cover it up. He can’t make an example out of a dead woman. It won’t matter.”
“I don’t understand...”
“I’m going to inject Sabine with a substance. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while. Induces a coma with a heart rate so slow that even you’d be fooled.”
/> “What is it?” said Julien.
“Ebriatas.”
He stared in horror at Bouthain. “But... you can’t be serious, Dr. Bouthain. It’s not safe. It nearly killed her! You can’t possibly use it on her again. I won’t allow it.”
The white-haired man shook his head. “I understand your concerns, Dr. Asfour. So let me explain: a few years ago, I was working on Ebriatas at the Science Ministry with the company that was producing it. They sent it to me for trials, after its early versions looked promising. It wasn’t meant to be mixed with alcohol, but that was a minor issue; that only intensified the sedative effect. But we couldn’t run as many tests as we wanted to because there weren’t that many women for the clinical trials. The few women whom we could test it on handled it well at first, but after the trials were over, when they got pregnant, they underwent spontaneous abortions. Miscarriages. I advised that it not be used because its safety was in question.”
“Exactly my point! I can’t imagine how it ended up in Sabine’s system.”
“They shelved it as far as I knew. They said they didn’t want to bother with more tests. But I continued to experiment with it on my own. I thought it still had some promise. Then by sheer chance I isolated an active molecule in Ebriatas that deepens the REM cycle of sleep. At least, that’s my theory. It produces a syndrome not dissimilar to sleep paralysis, but the patient is also unaware of her surroundings, as if she were asleep.”
“But how safe can it possibly be?” said Julien, struggling to make sense of Bouthain’s revelations.
“I combined it with a few other compounds to refine it, and I tried it out on myself before I gave it to anyone else. It seems safe enough for our purposes.”
Julien pulled his hand through his hair, trying to ease the ache at the top of his skull. “Safe enough. But have you given it to anyone else?”
Black Diamond Fall Page 48