by Libba Bray
She puts her hand on mine, and it’s as soft as her wings. “Cameron, we’ve exhausted every other option.”
“You still haven’t told me who ‘we’ is!”
She sucks air through her teeth, nods. “Yeah. I know. Cameron, you’re our last best hope. I’m asking you to save the world, cowboy.”
“Wait,” I say, pushing myself up again. “That’s a line from Star Fighter.”
She gives me that big goofy grin. “Yeah! I couldn’t resist. Great movies, right? Well, the early ones. The later ones … ehhh. Oh. Almost forgot. There’s just one more thing,” she says, biting her lip. “You need to take Gonzo with you.”
“What?”
“You need a pal on this trip. Everybody needs a friend.”
I drop back against the pillow, fold my arms over my chest. “Not me. I travel solo or not at all.”
Her eyes crinkle. “Now who’s quoting Star Fighter?” She deepens her voice, swaggers. “‘Not me, princess. I travel solo or not at all.’ Right. Not the point. The point is, you’re gonna need a mate, a pal, a sidekick and coconspirator. And frankly, Gonzo could use a little help, too. I mean, look at him.”
She parts the curtain a crack. Gonzo’s asleep, mouth open, snoring slightly, a Captain Carnage video game guide crumpled under his chin.
“You’d be providing a valuable public service,” Dulcie says.
“No, no, and no.” I tick off the reasons this is a bad idea. “One, he’s a compulsive talker. Two, he calls his mom, like, five times a day. Three, he snores. Four, he’s completely phobic and thinks everything’s going to kill him.”
Dulcie shrugs. “Nobody’s perfect.”
“The other day he said there are chemicals used in the processing of toilet paper that can give you rectal cancer. So now he’s bringing his secret stash of special recycled toilet tissue in with him in the mornings. He will never say yes.”
“You won’t know until you ask. Besides, his fate is tied to yours. Everything’s connected.”
“There’s no such thing as fate.”
“Except for random fate.”
“That’s … insane.”
“Yeah.” She grins. “Insanity. Brilliance. Such a tough call. Look, Cameron, I’m just a messenger. I don’t know everything. But I do know this: you’re being given a chance. Take it and you might live. Stay here and you will surely die.” Dulcie cuddles Mr. Bubbles Kitty, fluffing him with her fingers. “Whaddaya say—you, Gonzo, connecting the dots, finding Dr. X, getting a cure, saving the universe? You down, cowboy?”
My head hurts; it’s almost time for my pain meds. Where’s Glory? I want to check out for a while. Not think or feel. I roll onto my side, away from her. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” Dulcie reaches over me and tucks the cat into the crook of my arm. “But Cameron? Don’t think about it too long.”
NIGHT
Mom and Dad and Jenna are here, camped around me. They’re all watching some stupid episode of an even stupider show on YA! TV called What’s Your Category? where kids have to answer questions to prove they know more than anybody else does about a particular stupid topic, and if they get too many wrong, they’re dunked in a stinking pool of mystery yuck.
“Dude,” Gonzo whispers without taking his eyes off the TV. “You ever watch I Double Dog Dare You?”
I shake my head. It throbs, and I can’t help thinking about what Dulcie said, about those prions attacking my brain being some mysterious agent from another world. It would be so nice to blot this all out with a big fat dose of pain meds, but I can’t have any for another hour, according to Glory, who was here … when? I don’t know.
“It’s awesome. Once they made this guy shave his butt on national television—and the guy did it! Totally rocked the house.”
How long till the pain medication? I could count the minutes. Go to sleep and not wake up. I could stay here and wait for the inevitable.
Saving the world. That’s impossible. Insane.
Still.
A cure. I could be cured. That’s what she said. And some little atoms come awake inside me, swirling into a question I can’t shake: “Why the hell not?”
I could have a chance.
And a chance is better than nothing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wherein I Try to Convince the Dwarf to Leave Behind the Comforts of Recycled Toilet Paper in Order to Accompany Me on a Mission to Possibly, Maybe Save the World
Once my family thinks I’m asleep and they step out for dinner, I wake Gonzo.
“Hey, dude. What’s up?” He sits up and wipes the drool from the corner of his mouth. The newsprint from his video game manual has smeared over half his face from where he fell asleep on it. This is the guy Dulcie thinks I should take with me on the road? Holy crap.
“Um, look, I know this is going to sound completely crazy, but I had this, I don’t know exactly what you’d call it. A vision, maybe.”
“What kind of vision?” he asks, yawning.
“This angel spoke to me and—”
Gonzo stops mid-eye rub. “Hold up. How did you know she was an angel, amigo? What did she look like?”
“Uh … wings. Breastplate. Pink hair. Fishnets and combat boots.”
“Awesome! Punk-rock angel! You think God’s a metal-head?” Gonzo gives me a thrashing air-guitar solo while banging his head and flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth. It’s like watching a snake die slowly and painfully. “What’s angel girl’s name?”
“Dulcie. So—”
Gonzo frowns. “Doesn’t seem like an angel name to me. My mom’s really big on the saints, and I’ve never heard of a St. Dulcie. You sure you weren’t just dreaming, man?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I say, though I’ve never been less sure of anything. “She gave me this mission, Gonzo. The most important mission of our time.”
“Awesome. Lay it on me.”
“Well …” I tell him everything Dulcie said about Dr. X and his time traveling and the cure and the end of the world approaching if we don’t locate him and get him to close the wormhole.
Gonzo stares at me. “Dude, you sound like those geezers who hang around the bus station wearing tinfoil hats and pissing into empty soda cups.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you the truth. I swear. She was here. She ate my pudding snack.” The spoon. Her lipstick. I run for the trash. “I can prove she was here. Hold on.”
The linoleum’s bitter cold against my feet. The postal workers in my brain finally come off break and send the message to my legs that it’s okay to walk, and I stumble over to the trash can. Nothing’s in there but my mom’s half-finished crossword puzzle.
“They must’ve taken it with the tray,” I say.
“Sure they did.” Gonzo holds up some fingers. “Let’s do a quick sanity check. How many fingers?”
I flip him the bird. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Harsh.”
“I’m not crazy, okay?” I say, even though what I’m saying has every hallmark of a stadium-sized crazy concert.
“Okay. So how do we find this miracle guy, this Dr. X?”
“She said we have to look for signs—billboards, tabloids, personals.”
Gonzo stares at me. “Seriously, what are they putting in your IV? Wack on tap? Even if we entertain the idea that a winged being in combat boots gave you a secret mission to find a doctor with a magical cure, how are you gonna go anywhere, dude? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re in a hospital bed at St. Jude’s and sometimes you have trouble just getting to the bathroom. Did 1-800-Punk-Angel give you some pointers there?”
“She gave me this.” I show him the laminated wristband. Gonzo puts his face near and reads.
“An E-ticket?”
“It’s got some cosmic, stabilizing mojo to combat the prions.”
“Cool! Punker Angel gave you more health.”
“Yeah, exactly. But it’s only good for two weeks.”
&n
bsp; Gonzo whistles. “Man. Bummer. Well, good luck, dude.”
“I’m supposed to take you with me,” I say very fast.
His hand flies up. “Oh, hell to the no.”
“Gonzo—”
“No, no, no, and no with a side of no.”
Gonzo plops down on his bed and makes a big show of opening his video game manual, turning pages way too quickly to read them.
“I told her you were too chickenshit to go.” It’s a low blow, but I’m pissed that Gonzo is such a chickenshit and that Dulcie set the bar so high right away.
“I’m not a chickenshit,” Gonzo says, sounding hurt. “I’m not an unnecessary risk taker.”
“Gonzo,” I say, playing my final card. “She said this dark energy Dr. X brought back is bringing about the end of the world. You. Me. This. Everything will be gone if we don’t find him.”
He sits up and dangles his legs over the side of the bed, swinging them so that his heels bang softly against the metal railings like a chime. “Everything everything?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Dulcie said you’re part of this, too. That you’d find your purpose on this trip, and that’s why we were put in the same room together. No accidents. Everything’s connected. In a random sort of way.”
Gonzo’s eyebrows crease into furry caterpillars of concentration. “So, like, when’s this big mission supposed to go down?”
“Tonight. Right now.”
Gonzo stares at me. “Dude, this is insane! You know, we probably need shots wherever we’re going. I’ve only got one roll of my special toilet paper—”
“We can get more. Gonzo, this is my only chance to stay alive, okay?”
“I don’t know, man. I gotta talk it over with my mom.” He reaches for his cell and I pull it away.
“No. Sorry. If we go, we can’t tell anyone. They’ll try to stop us. It has to be a secret.”
“Dude, my mom will freak.” Gonzo’s breathing gets shallow and wheezy. He grabs for his ever-present inhaler, his version of a blankie, and puffs away.
“Gonzo, if Dulcie’s right, in two weeks, your mom will be dead.” I toss his cell at him. “Do what you want. But I’m going to find Dr. X. And I’m leaving tonight.”
I throw my backpack on the bed. All I’ve got are a few pairs of clean underwear and the clothes I came in with. My jeans feel strange against my legs; they wake my skin up. I grab the puke-yellow bin with its array of helpful products—toothbrush, toothpaste, scratchy tissues, mouthwash, comb, and lotion—and dump the contents inside, tossing the bin back on the bedside table.
Gonzo’s got his chubby hands on his hips like a weary camp counselor. “Dude, you are insane.”
“Yeah. Documented.”
“All right,” he says with a sigh. “Give me a minute to get dressed. I’m going with your bovine ass.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Which Treats of Our Daring Escape from St. Jude’s and Our Talk with a Stinky Dude in a Tinfoil Hat
Nurses are a little like cops—they’re never around when you need them. But when you want to avoid them, they are everywhere.
“How are we gonna get past the nurses’ station?” Gonzo asks, panicked, as we open the door a crack and peek into the long corridor that leads from our room, past the nurses to the bank of elevators around the corner.
He has a point. This would be an ideal time for somebody around here to flatline like they always do on TV shows, all the bells and whistles going off and creating a big, noisy distraction. But this isn’t a TV show; it’s an actual hospital with sick people doing what sick people do best, which is largely to lie around with a minimum of fanfare.
“This is a bad idea. Let’s blow it off,” Gonz says.
“Don’t chicken out on me.”
“I’m not! It’s just, I mean, come on, dude. This is so not possible.”
My eyes scan the corridor for something useful. Glory’s standing at the nurses’ station, gossiping with two other women sitting behind computer screens. She’s wearing her mauve scrubs today. I know the angel pins ring her neck. Someone says something amusing, and Glory laughs. “Oh Lord, help me, girl,” she says in that accent that sounds like music. Off to our right is a red Exit sign that I know has to lead to stairs.
“Come on,” I say, pulling Gonzo out behind me. “Don’t look up. Just keep moving.”
The bright lights of the corridor wash over us in waves. A maid comes by with her disinfecting cart. A doctor strides past, trailing residents like a kite’s tail. Visitors wander carrying overly festive flowers and balloons. The gifts are a lie meant to disguise the fear and worry hiding in their eyes.
I don’t want to die here. That’s the only thing I’m sure of.
My right leg twitches and I will it to keep functioning. For now, it’s gotten the message. We round the corner and there are the stairs.
For some reason, I turn back for a final sweep of the hall, and when I do, I see Glory has left the nurses’ station. Clipboard in hand, she’s heading for her rounds. In fifteen minutes tops, she’ll pull into our room for a temperature/blood pressure/pulse rate check and all hell will break loose. I’d hoped for a longer head start. Shit.
“What’s the matter?” Gonz asks.
“We need to move,” I say, pushing into the stairwell for the long climb down.
* * *
When the hydraulic front doors of St. Jude’s release us into the world, the sky is the blue-going-to-purple of late sunset. Above the praying-mantis-style lights of the parking lot, bashful stars flutter like they’re not sure whether it’s okay to show their full light just yet. The air is warm and sweet. I breathe in as much of it as my lungs will hold. It hurts in a good way, like my insides are holding a deep stretch.
“Ah shit. Taste that air, man. So good.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now what?” Gonzo asks, looking left and right like a wanted man.
“We need to get out of here. Got your cell?”
He pats his bag. “Yeah.”
“Great. Call for a cab.”
“What’s the number?”
“I don’t know. Call Information.”
“That’s, like, a dollar seventy-five. My mom will kill me.”
“Gonzo, she’s gonna kill you for breaking out of the hospital and going on an unscheduled road trip with me. Calling Information’s kind of incidental, don’t you think?”
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Gonzo grumbles, but he punches in the three digits anyway, and ten minutes later, a battered cab picks us up on Eldorado Street, two blocks from the hospital.
“Where to?” the guy asks, flipping on the meter.
“Good question.” Gonzo glares at me.
This would be a good time for Dulcie to show herself, give us a little divine intervention, put her money where her “there are no accidents, my friend” mouth is.
The meter goes up another fifteen cents and we haven’t even moved. I’m waiting for a sign. This is what it’s come to: I’m now believing in supernatural visions of punk-rock angels and last-ditch missions to save the universe/my life and random signs to point the way forward. Right. I’m just about to say, “Okay, you got me—game’s over. Let’s go back to the hospital and laugh it up about this over a nice cafeteria tray of gelatinized mystery meat” when I see something glinting over the rooftops. It’s a sign, all right. A large, peeling billboard advertising the Roadrunner bus depot. The smiling roadrunner is in a full run, going so fast that one of his feathers flies loose behind him. JUST FOLLOW THE FEATHER TO BIFROST ROAD, the sign says.
Follow the feather.
It’s not trumpets or thunderclaps, but it’s the best we’ve got right now.
“Bus station,” I say at last, hoping the prions in my brain are right.
The bus depot has been carved out of dirty tile, ancient plastic benches, half-empty candy machines, and overflowing trash cans. It’s run by people who were offered a chance at a job in hell or the bus depot and lost the coin toss. Also, i
t smells like piss.
Some grizzled man in a janitor’s uniform is swishing dirty water around on the floor with an even filthier mop. An empty information board hangs from the low ceiling, taking up most of the middle of the mostly deserted room. No buses. No info. Nothing to go on.
“What now?” Gonzo asks.
The clerk at the ticket counter doesn’t even move his little partition when we get up there.
“Hi,” I say. “Um, there’s nothing on the information board.”
“A-yup.” He flips the page in his comic book without looking up.
“Great. Thanks for that,” Gonzo mutters.
“When’s the next bus?” I ask.
“Not till seven-o-five tomorrow mornin’. But y’all cain’t stay here. Ten minutes till closin’. Won’t open up again till six a.m.”
“Okay, thanks.” I leave the window and sink onto a bench.
“I told you this was wack.” Gonzo sucks down a mouthful of asthma medicine.
Signs, signs. Dulcie said to look for the “seemingly random.” How do you look for the random? Doesn’t the random generally find you and that’s what makes it random?
A hollowed-out, gray-skinned dude who smells like pee sits next to us. It’s the same guy I saw in the parking lot the night we went to Luigi’s. He’s still wearing his tinfoil hat. “What are you boys doing?”
“Saving the world,” Gonzo says, scooting away.
“Ah. Good. It’s going to end, you know. It’s all going to shit. That’s why I got me one of these.” He points to his wrinkled silvery cap.
“Hank, you need to let these boys be, now.” The guy with the mop has reached us.
“Piss off,” the old guy snaps. He takes out a bag and inspects the things inside.
“’Scuse me,” the janitor says. “Could you lift yer feet, please? I need to get that spot.”
Dutifully, Gonz and I raise our legs, drawbridge style, and he mops underneath.