Jennifer stopped just inside the doorway. The hotel door swung shut automatically behind her.
Otis joined Michael by the bed.
“Perhaps we should have called that ambulance,” said Michael, not taking his eyes off Page’s wounded body.
“Thought you wanted to get information out of her,” said Otis.
“We won’t get anything out of her if she dies.”
Otis put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “She’s not gonna die, Michael mate.”
Michael looked him in the eye. His expression was serious. “If I could perceive you, Otis, would I find out you were just saying that to make me feel better?”
Otis chuckled, not unkindly. “Just as well you’re a norm, my friend.” He turned away. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
“We haven’t got time for tea!”
“To boil water to sterilise some towels. We need to get her cleaned up. Reduce the risk of infection.”
Otis took the kettle and squeezed past Jennifer to get to the bathroom door. She didn’t even glance in his direction, so absorbed was she by her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. Her head listed to one side, like an animal confused by its own image.
“Jennifer, why don’t you sit down?” said Michael.
She didn’t move, she didn’t say anything. The only sound was that of a running tap drifting through the open bathroom door.
“Jennifer?” He approached her. “Must have been a hard couple of days, eh?”
He touched her gently on the arm.
She gasped and jumped away from him.
Michael pulled his hand back. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Michael?” as if she had only just noticed he was there. “I didn’t ’ceive you … I meant, I didn’t see you …” Tears suddenly appeared.
Michael wanted to comfort her. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to tell her everything was okay. But he daren’t touch her again.
“Come on, why don’t you sit down, eh?”
She nodded.
He pulled the chair out from under the desk and stood back. Her fragile body dropped to the chair, shaking slightly.
He pulled a tissue from the box. As she took it from his hand, her silent tears turned to gentle crying. Like giving her the tissue had given her permission.
Michael perched on the windowsill. He felt hot. The radiator at his legs was blazing. He turned to the window, twisted the handle and swung it open. The cold of approaching winter surged in. Michael stuck his head outside and breathed a lungful.
The room was on the first floor at the back of the hotel. A couple of metres below, a rough bit of tarmac was home to plastic dumpster-style recycling bins which huddled outside the back exit. The door probably led to the kitchens because, standing by the bins, was a man in chef whites puffing on a cigarette.
When he turned back into the room, Page was resting with her eyes closed. The steady rise and fall of her chest showed she was still breathing, still alive.
Jennifer had stopped crying. She still had the tissue Michael had given her and was fiddling with it in her lap.
Otis leant against the wall in the entranceway, having emerged from the bathroom, as the kettle rumbled away next to him.
“Michael?” said Jennifer all of a sudden.
“Yes,” he said.
“What’s it like to be a norm?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s normal, I suppose …”
“How do you know what people are feeling?”
“Well … you don’t really. Not for sure.”
Jennifer seemed disappointed at the answer. She turned away from him.
Lobotomised was how Otis had described people who had been cured, like a part of their soul had been thrown in the rubbish.
“You use your other senses, I suppose,” said Michael, desperate to say or do something to comfort her. “If you look at someone’s face you can tell if they’re happy or sad. There’s body language … and you can tell a lot by what people say.”
“But they lie,” said Jennifer.
Michael looked up at Otis for some sort of support, but Otis didn’t meet his gaze. He stared out ahead, beyond Michael, beyond Jennifer. Because Michael was a norm, he couldn’t tell what Otis was thinking. Maybe he was deciding whether to abandon Jennifer like he had done to Jack all those weeks ago.
“It’s going to be okay, Jennifer,” said Michael. “The human race has been norms for two million years. We seem to have got through all right.”
“How can you say that?” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the mangled tissue. “Didn’t you say you thought this had happened to you, that they took your perception away?”
Otis snorted a laugh.
The kettle shuddered to the boil. He grabbed it and returned to the bathroom.
“I don’t know anymore.” Michael shrugged. It had been a theory. Probably a stupid one.
Otis re-emerged from the bathroom with an armful of steaming towels. He dumped them on the bed next to Page. She moaned. Her eyes flickered open.
Otis leant over her. “I need to clean you up, okay?” His words unexpectedly soft and caring.
She let him unbutton her blouse and winced as he peeled back the blood-soaked fabric to reveal the wound. Where the bullet had entered was a dark hole glistening with fresh blood that oozed from her shoulder and down under her armpit. Everything was red; from her once-white bra to the flesh of her chest and arm. Otis wiped at the mess with a steaming wet towel.
She cried out in pain.
She breathed fast and shallow as he touched her. But she let him clean the wound.
Otis was incredibly gentle and patient. He seemed to know what he was doing. First, addressing the front of her shoulder, then asking Michael to lift her up as he cleaned her back. She whimpered and she cried, occasionally shouting with the pain, until Otis laid her back on a clean pillowcase he’d found in the wardrobe.
Blood continued to trickle from the wound. Page’s moans got quieter. Her eyes closed for longer periods as she clung to consciousness.
Otis shook his head. “We need to stop this bleeding. Mike, help me sit her up, will you?”
“Isn’t she better lying down?”
“We need to elevate the wound. Harder for the heart to push blood up hill,” said Otis. “Take her good arm.”
Michael went round the other side of the bed. They lifted her nearer the headboard and Otis put a couple of pillows behind her back to prop her up.
“We need a bandage,” said Otis. “Michael, see if there’s a spare sheet somewhere that you can rip into strips. But wash your hands first. With hot water. Thoroughly.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” said Michael.
“First aid badge at scouts.”
Michael let out a tiny laugh. “Seriously?” In the middle of their desperate situation it seemed so ironic. “You were a boy scout?”
“I was a lot of things before the world went crazy,” said Otis.
They bandaged Page’s shoulder. Blood seeped through the cotton strips. But, after a while, the red mark didn’t get any bigger and it looked like they had stopped the bleeding.
Otis filled a tea mug with water from the bathroom tap and handed it to Michael. “Get her to sip this. She’ll need to replace lost fluids.”
Michael took the mug. “What are you going to do?”
“Find some food. She’ll need to replace energy too, not to mention the rest of us.”
Otis left. The hotel room door clicked shut behind him.
Michael put the mug to Page’s lips and, with his other hand supported her head. “Sip this.”
She hesitated.
“It’s water,” he said.
She sipped.
Some of the water spilled from her mouth and ran down her chin. He allowed her head to rest back on the pillow and reached for one of the cotton strips which hadn’t been used to bandage her. He wiped her chin.
He helped her sip again.
&
nbsp; “Doctor Page …?” said Michael.
“Don’t call me that. Call me Rachel.”
Calling her by her first name didn’t seem right somehow. He brought the mug to her lips again. She took a mouthful.
“Who am I?” he said.
Page coughed. Water spat from her mouth. Michael put the mug on the bedside table and helped her sit forward until the coughing subsided.
“Am I Ransom’s son?”
“Michael …”
Frustrated, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper; the photograph taken from Ransom’s office. It was smashed from the frame, crumpled and creased, but the image of his younger self, Ransom and the woman was still clear.
He held it up in front of Page’s face. “Am I Ransom’s son?”
She lowered her eyes. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because of Cooper.”
“Cooper? What does he want from me?”
“He wants you because of who you are.” She lowered her eyes. “And because of what he thinks you can do.”
“I can’t do anything. I’m a norm, I’m …” But he wasn’t sure anymore. He remembered the way he felt when he looked into Jack’s eyes all those weeks ago in the park. When he saw the blank expression of a cured teenager and related it to his own memory-wiped mind. Otis had laughed at him back then. But now he wondered if his instinct had been right. He turned to look at Jennifer, closed up within herself, sitting quietly at the edge of the room, contemplating the raggedy tissue in her hand. Part of her lost. Like part of Michael was lost.
“Does Cooper think I’m a perceiver?”
“Yes,” said Page.
“Because I used to be a perceiver?”
“Yes.”
“Because you cured me?”
“Yes.”
Michael deflated. His body sagged onto the bed. The realisation weighed heavy. “Why?”
“It was to protect you,” said Page.
Michael chuckled. How ironic. And not funny at all. “Like that worked.”
“It would’ve. But you ran away before we could put you somewhere safe. It would have been somewhere secret. Away from Cooper.”
The hotel door opened.
Michael stood back from the bed like a child embarrassed at what he’d been doing.
Otis stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene. “Nothing happened while I was away, did it?”
“No, Otis,” said Michael.
“We were just chatting,” said Page.
Otis raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He walked in and threw what he’d bought onto the bed: a collection of chocolate bars and two packets of different painkillers. He pressed two paracetamol and two ibuprofen out of their blister packs and helped Page swallow them down with more water.
“Help yourself to the chocolate,” Otis told the room. “Not exactly healthy, but it’ll give you energy,” he said.
Page reached out for one of the chocolate bars with her uninjured arm and brought it to her mouth, where she ripped at the wrapper with her teeth. Jennifer snatched away another for herself. Michael – suddenly desperately hungry – grabbed the first one he came across that didn’t include nuts. The glue that sealed the edges of the wrapper resisted him for a moment, then gave way and tore down the edge of the chocolate. He took a large bite. Larger than his mouth really had room for. And he chewed. Flavour overwhelmed his mouth, the smooth chocolate melting into a sensual river of sugar and fat and cocoa.
All too soon, he had crammed the last piece into his mouth and screwed up the empty wrapper.
After a few minutes, only Otis was left eating. He looked less hungry than the others. He’d probably helped himself to one of the bars before he got back to the room. Eventually, all eyes were on Otis. He chewed, slowly and silently until the last mouthful of chocolate and toffee had melted.
He looked across at Page. “So,” he said. “Here we are.”
Page shifted her back against the pillow. Michael suspected it wasn’t her position that made her uncomfortable. It was the way Otis was looking at her. He only had to use his expression to emphasise that he was taller, more muscular and stronger than her, especially in her wounded condition.
“I saved you from Cooper,” said Otis. “I patched you up, watered you, fed you. Now I want your end of the bargain. I wanna know about the cure.”
“Okay.” Page sighed. “What do you want to know?”
“How does it work? And don’t give me no skank about injections, ’cos I know they ain’t nothing but a sedative.”
Page took a moment to compose herself. A hint of a smile formed on her lips. “You lot are quite some detectives, aren’t you.”
Otis was not smiling. He shuffled his weight from his right foot to his left foot. It was only a tiny movement, but it was enough to emphasise that he was the one in charge.
Page nodded an acknowledgement that it was time to come clean. “You’re right about the injection. It helps subdue the patient and wipe their short term memory so they don’t know what happened during the procedure. It’s a useful cover story for us, but it’s not the cure. More of a pre-med, you might say.” She smiled again as if she’d made a little joke. No one else in the room was laughing. “Norms can’t perform the cure. It has to be done by perceivers. Two, strong perceivers. That’s why there are so few clinics. There are not many natural-born, adult perceivers. And the strain of performing them … well, you can’t do too many in a short space of time.”
“Do what? What is the cure?”
“It’s kind of difficult to explain.” She paused. Took a breath. “You know when you perceive someone? When you deeply perceive them? You can almost go into their head and feel their mind? Feel that they’re a perceiver – like you did with me?”
“Yeah.” Otis shrugged. “I suppose.”
“We do that with the cure. Except when we feel the perception, we try to contain it. Close it off so the mind can no longer access that part of itself. Like brain surgery without a knife.”
“You don’t destroy it?” said Otis.
“I don’t know if we could,” said Page. “Blocking it off is safer. And seems to be effective.”
Otis looked thoughtful. His hands fell from his hips. He stepped back and leant on the wall. “Could it be reversed?” he said.
“Unblock the mind and allow it to access the ability to perceive again?” said Page. “We think it’s possible. Although, we never tried it.”
Otis pushed himself off from the wall. His eyes suddenly bright, reflecting a mind firing with ideas. “Could you do it for Jennifer?”
Jennifer squashed herself up even further against the wall. “No, Otis …” she said.
“Could you?” said Otis again, approaching the bed.
“There needs to be two of us,” said Page.
“I’m a perceiver,” said Otis. “I can do it.”
“You’ve not even performed a cure before,” said Page. “You can’t just go into someone’s head and perform a procedure. You’ve not had training.”
“Then teach me,” said Otis.
“I don’t think your girlfriend is keen.”
Otis turned towards Jennifer. She looked like a scared little girl. Fragile and vulnerable. “How about it, Jen? You want to perceive again, don’t you?”
“Yes, but …”
He walked towards her and put his arms around her. He pulled her close. Her head rested on his chest. He ran his fingers across her hair. She seemed serene.
“You’re one of us, Jen.” His voice was soft and soothing. Meant just for her, even though in the quiet of the room, Michael could hear every word. “You don’t want to be one of them for the rest of your life, a norm.”
She burrowed her head deeper into the folds of his shirt. “What if it doesn’t work?” she said.
“We have to try. It’s our only hope.”
“What if it damages me?”
�
�I’ll be with you the whole way,” said Otis. “I won’t let you get hurt.”
“But you don’t know!” She pulled back from him. Her face emerged from his chest and she looked up to face him. “You’ll be experimenting on me!”
“She’s right,” said Page.
Otis glared at her.
“Are you sure you want to experiment on your girlfriend’s mind?” said Page.
A moment of doubt flickered over Otis’s face. A moment for Michael to step in. “Experiment on me,” he said.
“No!” said Page.
Michael turned on her. “Why not? You’ve damaged my mind already. You took away my perception, my memory, my family, my life … You owe me this.”
Almost in desperation, Page looked across at Otis for some kind of backup. But Otis seemed excited by the idea.
“It’s risky, Michael,” said Page.
“I don’t care. If it works on me, you can help Jennifer. If it doesn’t … well, I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?”
Page looked at Otis. “I’ll have to teach you some techniques.”
“Fine.”
“You understand, I’ll be in charge. You’ll have to follow my lead.”
“Whatever, lady. Let’s do it already.”
She turned her attention to Michael again. There was an unspoken question in her expression. Was he sure? Was he ready?
He nodded a silent reply.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MICHAEL SAT cross-legged on the bed facing Page.
“Close your eyes, Michael,” she said softly.
He didn’t want to. He looked across at Otis. He was sitting on the bed, propped up on a pillow next to Page looking as nervous as hell.
“Look straight ahead,” said Page.
Michael did as he was told. His breathing was rapid and unsteady, betraying his unease. He was like a little kid at the head of the queue for the rollercoaster, excited and terrified all at the same time. But she had to know that. She was a perceiver.
“I can’t give you an injection of a sedative, so you’ll have to try to stay calm and still, okay?”
“Okay.”
She looked into his eyes. Deep into his eyes. Like she had done that first time in the clinic, and again in the office. Her green irises with flecks of yellowy brown drew his gaze into her intense, black pupils. As her perception entered his mind.
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