"You'll see. You'll see that you can't go around changing things. There's a reason things are as they are. There's a reason the Hulk was green. You're not supposed to change him."
"Burnt umber," she said.
"What?"
"He's not green, he's burnt umber."
His hands slammed down to his sides and his eyes went so wide she thought he'd burst.
Rebecca's throat was the Serengeti Plain before a storm. A thousand gazelles had grazed leaving hoof prints in the soft tissue of her lungs. Her lips bore cracked fissures. Her tongue felt swollen and wrong. She tried to speak, but a leafy fall gust of crackled air was all she heard.
A door opened and closed.
Footsteps.
A face came into view. She could almost make it out through the haze of her vision.
"Rebecca? Are you awake?"
Please. Water.
"Can I get you some water?"
God, thank you.
Footsteps departing, then returning.
She felt a straw press against her lips. She sipped tentatively. When the water hit her throat, it stimulated a million cells, waking them from dormancy. She sucked harder, gaining strength as she went.
"Slowly now. We don't want you to get sick."
"Where am I?"
"Don't you know?"
I don't know anything.
"Let me go and get someone." When she left, she took the water with her.
"No, please comeback!"
Her answer was the slam of a door.
Her mind was beginning to thaw from whatever coma she'd been in. She felt old. She felt sore. How much time had passed? Where was Andy? Did he make it? Part of her feared he'd burned into Pony, the reason for the explosion. A hundred more questions pressed at her and kept her thinking until the door opened once again.
Quick steps, then a face she recognized—Kumi.
Tears spilled down Rebecca's cheeks. She'd thought herself lost. "Kumi? Where am I?"
"Oh, Rebecca. We'd thought you'd never wake." Kumi laid a hand on Rebecca's cheek, her worried expression canceling a smile.
"What happened? I was in...an accident."
"I saw it replayed in inVid. What an incredible jump. I can't believe you survived."
"And the others?"
"I'm sorry, Rebecca." Kumi closed her eyes and lowered her head. When she looked up, she added, "They didn't make it."
"Who...?"
"All of them. The two gravBoarders and the man you knew as Andy Hoke died in the accident. There was nothing that the authorities could do to save them. The fire from the gravBoards burned too hot for rescuers to get close enough to douse it."
Dead. All of them. Her worst fears realized. A wave of ennui struck her dead center. Now she had no one. Everyone she'd loved, everyone she'd befriended, was dead. She hadn't even had time to mourn her grandma before Andy passed. What was she supposed to do now? She tried to speak but wanted to scream instead. She snapped her mouth shut.
"Listen, I can't stay right now. The doctors have to do some things. You were pretty bad off, Rebecca. I'll be back in a little while." She stepped back, then paused. "I'll be close by, so if you need anything, just let someone know. Okay?"
"Okay."
"We're going to work through this, Rebecca. This isn't the end of the world. We're going to beat this."
She'd slept some. She'd even managed to sit up to drink the water that kept being replaced next to her bed. Her arms, once raw hamburger from the crash, had healed, leaving barely a scar. Likewise her knuckles had been healed. If she hadn't had the memory of her wounds, Rebecca would have never known that they'd existed.
The large, square room held her bed and a side table to the left. A bank of machines sat against the wall to the right of her bed. She couldn't fathom their purpose, but they weren't intrusive. Wireless leads had been pasted to her chest and back. A band encircled her forehead.
The walls and floor were institutional gray. The floor bore the slick sheen of painted concrete. The ceiling was made of acoustic tiles, showing small black pits in an otherwise white skyscape. A door was to her right, but it had no handle. A window set high in a wall let outside light in. A floor to ceiling mirror covered a good portion of the wall directly across from her. She couldn't help but watch herself as she sipped water through a straw.
Dressed in a loose hospital gown, she'd already checked her chest and stomach for incisions. She was at their terrible mercy, whoever they were. If they wanted to take her organs, they could. She knew that there was nothing that she could do about it.
Her emotions were so overtaxed she was numb. A permanent ache had formed like a waterfall in the back of her mind. It was always there, the volume of her sadness forever cascading over imaginary cliffs, but she chose to turn her back upon it. She hadn't the energy anymore. Too much loss.
Time passed. The light from the window dimmed, then vanished. Still, no one came. She was alone except for the occasional beep or chirp from the equipment.
Finally the door opened. A petite blonde nurse entered, followed by Kumi. Wearing a POD, the nurse checked the equipment as Kumi came to the side of Rebecca's bed.
"How do you feel?"
"Numb."
"That's from the healing gel they applied. Your wounds from the crash were nasty, but superficial. You won't have any lasting scars."
Yes, she would.
"Where are we?" she finally managed to ask.
"The San Gabriel Rehabilitation Clinic. It took a few weeks, but you seem to be as good as new."
"Weeks? I've been here for weeks?"
"We placed you in a coma to help manage your pain. They drew you out of it this morning." Seeing the look of horror on Rebecca's face, Kumi added, "It's a normal procedure in cases like yours. Skin grafting has come a long way in the last twenty years, but it still requires the patient to be immobile. A coma is a way for the rehabilitation staff to manage the process."
The information washed over Rebecca like acid rain. "What is going to happen to me?"
"Happen to you?" Kumi laid her hand on Rebecca's. "Why, nothing is going to happen to you. You're as free as you were the day they commuted your sentence. You're free to come and go as you please with the previous stipulations."
"I'm free?"
"Of course you are. Did you think that we were going to keep you here? Put you back in prison?"
That had crossed her mind.
Kumi laughed. "Bad things were done to you, Rebecca. By all rights you almost died. You can't be blamed for what they did."
"I don't understand. The Hei Xin, the Black Hearts—they were after me."
"The Hei Xin? What are they?"
"Those assassins who've been chasing me. You know, you fought them in David's apartment."
"Oh!" Kumi considered Rebecca for a moment, then shook her head almost imperceptibly. "They were common thieves, gang members called the Black Hearts. They're headquartered in Chinatown and would sell their mother for a vid."
"They weren't after my organs?"
"No. More likely they were after some of the high-end electronics in David's apartment. It happens sometimes when a person dies alone. Gangs like the Black Hearts monitor the organ levies for opportunities. So, no, they weren't after your organs. Your organs are already been bought and paid for, Rebecca. No one can take them. That's the law."
"But Andy told me—"
"Andy Hoke was not who you thought he was. He had a comprehensive record of crimes and is wanted in, not only the North American Free Trade Congress, but the Pacific Rim Amalgam."
"For what?" There had to be a mistake. Not her Andy. She'd known him better than she knew anyone. Sure, they'd only been together for a short time, but they'd hardly been apart. Their four days had been like a month for anyone else.
"Illegal organ trade." She pulled a portable vidScreen from her pocket and punched up some information. "The best we can figure is that he was trying to get you aboard a plane so that he could tran
sport you to a waiting buyer."
Mammoth Cave...had that been a lie? Was the whole Velvet Dogma a lie?
"Can you check something for me, Kumi?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"Can you check and see whether my grandma is still alive?"
"I can tell you without checking that she is. After you visited her, she contacted us. She was worried about you. She said you seemed out of sorts."
Alive! What else? Had it all been lies?
"Could you check and see if a woman named Olga Pavarnick is alive or dead? I think she lives somewhere off Melrose."
Kumi nodded and began punching information into the vidScreen. Rebecca waited with baited breath. She found it almost impossible to believe. Weeks had passed since she'd been with Andy, yet some of the emotions seemed as fresh as if they were yesterday. She didn't know if she'd loved him, but she'd adored him more than any man she'd ever known. To find out now that he'd been scamming her…it was almost too hard to believe.
"There is no record of an Olga Pavarnick living off Melrose."
But he'd lied to her. He'd told her that her grandma had died. Now there was no record of Olga. What was going on?
"I cross-referenced the search and found an Olga Pavarnick living in San Pedro. Our records show that you were roommates with her in college. Is this the one you were looking for?"
"She isn't dead?"
"On the contrary, she's the mother of three girls and teaches English at Dominguez Hills."
But Rebecca could still see the woman—robe hanging open, sagging breasts, stained underwear, a river of drool falling from the corner of crusted lips. If that wasn't Olga, then who was it?
"There was a death on Melrose however," continued Kumi. "Organ squads responded to an inVid junkie who'd OD'd, but found her organs unusable."
Olga was alive. Her grandma was alive. What was going on? Panic flooded her system. All of the good feelings, all of the warmth that had lingered in her heart turned to ice. She remembered the vid that Andy had taken from David's apartment and given to Panchet. She'd never been able to see it. Even when she'd asked, they'd kept it from her. She'd wondered why at the time, but had never gotten a satisfactory answer. Now she understood. There must have been something on the vid that would have alerted her to the fiction.
She turned inward and stared at the waterfall of her emotions. The deep currents of sorrow were being replaced by something else. Indignation. Anger. Acrimonious thoughts invaded her system. How could Andy have lied to her? She'd trusted him. She'd slept with him. God!
"Don't feel bad, Rebecca. Con men like Andy are experts at emotional manipulation. You had no chance. It's better to be angry at him than hate yourself."
"So everything he said, everything we did—"
"Was an effort to get you out of the country and away from the organ squads. See, once he took one of your organs, the organ squads would descend upon your location to claim the others. But out on the Pacific Rim things are a little different. It's the Wild West out there. One can get away with a lot."
"But what about my program? What about Velvet Dogma?" She'd seen it kill people. It had to be real.
"They found your program in year ten of your incarceration. There's no other note on your file other than that." Kumi shrugged and pocketed the vidScreen. "I don't know what else I can tell you, Rebecca. You were had. Frankly, I blame myself for letting you out of my sight. If I'd paid closer attention, if I'd kept you from hurrying to your brother's apartment when he'd died, then you wouldn't be lying here right now with your heart broken."
It had all began with the announcement of her brother's death. Rebecca had convinced the Asian woman to rush out to the apartment. Once there, Andy had come into her life, the Black Hearts had attacked, and things had never been the same again. The Day Eaters. The Ack Acks. The slum. Andy had gone to such extremes. Then she realized that each of those groups represented a counter-culture. They ran beneath the purview of the government. They were criminals, all of them, and perfect foils for her ignorance. After all, she knew nothing about the world. She was a canvas from which was created the most gullible woman on earth—one who not only believed her chaos-hacking program had become something world-changing, but one who believed that she might have found someone to love.
Chapter 24
They moved her to a new room, but other than having a bathroom with a shower, it was identical to the one she'd left.
Two hours later, Kumi returned with new clothes, toiletries and a few other odds and ends, not the least being an old fashioned bar of vanilla-scented soap. Rebecca sat on the edge of the bed. Kumi sat on a sofa that had been pushed against the wall that, were this the other room, it would have held the diagnostic equipment.
"It took some doing, but we were able to find a bar." Kumi passed the soap over to Rebecca, who immediately drew it to her nose and inhaled. "Why'd you want it anyway?"
Rebecca shook her head. "You'll think it childish."
"After all you've been through, the last thing I'd think is that you're childish. I'm just curious."
"If you must know, my grandma used this kind of soap. I remember when I'd have a bad day, she'd hug me, and sometimes she'd hold me on the couch for hours, and the smell of vanilla was always there. The smell makes me feel better. It makes me remember that there are those out there who care about me."
"It's funny how the things we smell key different memories."
"They say that smell is responsible for the way food tastes. Without smell, there would be no taste."
"I've heard the same thing. Funny." Kumi touched her nose with her fingertips. "I've always hated my nose."
"Me, too." Rebecca touched her own nose. "I mean my nose."
Kumi gestured towards the clothes. "When you get cleaned up, put those on and I'll get you out of this place. I bet you're ready to get your life started finally, aren't you?"
Rebecca remained silent for a moment as she replayed the last few days at hyper-speed. "I am," she sighed. "I just want things to be normal, like I was just anyone with no past and no predetermined future."
"That's how it should be." Kumi started to leave, then turned back. "One more thing. A policeman will be stopping by to ask some questions. I've spoken with him and he knows what happened, so don't be at all worried that you're in trouble. It's nothing at all like that, I promise."
"Then what is it about?"
"They want to talk to you about Abraham."
"Who?" Rebecca knew who, but needed time to think.
"They say you went to the City of the Eaters of the Dead where you met Abraham. They want to know about him. They're hoping you can help them find him."
"What could they possibly want with him?" With no arms and legs how much of a danger could the poor boy be?
Kumi shrugged. "That's not my area, sorry. I'm just the messenger here. Tell you what—when the policeman comes, we'll both ask him."
Rebecca shrugged, then watched Kumi depart. She didn't look forward to talking to the police, but she'd known it would happen sooner or later. Part of her was happy that Kumi was on her side and speaking for her, but another part wondered about Abraham. She'd genuinely liked him. It was clear that he'd been raised to be the Day Eater's spiritual leader and their politics notwithstanding, she didn't want him to come to any harm.
And that was a predicament. Could she protect him? She wasn't sure.
She grabbed the stack of clothes and toiletries and took them into the bathroom. Placing them on the counter, she ran the water until billows of steam obscured the mirror. She undressed and took the soap into the shower, where she spent half an hour beneath the hot water, long enough for her mummy-wrinkled skin to radiate vanilla and figure out the rest of her concern.
A hollow thud filtered from the hallway. Or was it a door slamming shut? She turned her head toward the sound and heard three more muffled thuds, closer than the first. The lights dimmed, but remained on. What was happening?
Rebecca struggle
d into her pants and stepped from the bathroom. She looked around the room, then headed for the door. She tried the knob, but the door was locked. An explosion knocked her off her feet. Concrete dust fell from the ceiling as the lights blinked out. She coughed as she climbed to her feet, and stood, but in the pitch blackness didn't know which way to go. She took a tentative step with her arms out in front of her, and after several steps she finally found the foot of the bed. She used it for reference and turned towards the door.
Realizing that she was still topless, Rebecca took a moment to shrug on the shirt she'd been holding in her hands. She glanced around the ruthlessly dark room. She couldn't see anything– no trace of light, not even the small service light embedded in the fire alarm. Nothing. What type of natural disaster could kill the power from even the battery back-up? It didn't take her long to figure it out.
Day Eaters.
They'd sapped power with EMP bombs. The next question was why? For a terrible moment Rebecca imagined them after her, as if they somehow knew she was about to be questioned about Abraham and his whereabouts. But that was impossible—even if they did know, she found it hard to imagine that Abraham would do her any harm. She could still picture his beatific smile etched across his face.
Another thump shook the building and she heard escalating screams through the stout metal door. Someone pounded on it from outside, then moved away.
Rebecca found herself shifting into a combat stance, feet shoulder-width apart, arms at the ready. If they were coming for her, she wasn't going to go gently. Remembering a book she'd read, she closed one eye. If they shone a light in the room, she'd be blinded. The closed eye was held in reserve, to be opened if the room darkened again so that she could operate in the dark.
She could taste her heartbeat–- kerthump kerthump -–the beat filling her mouth, her head. Nervous fingers scraped the back of her stomach.
Suddenly something struck the door shaking it on its hinges. There were more muffled shouts, then a yell of victory. The door shook again. Blinded by the darkness, Rebecca strained her every sense trying to figure out what was going on, trying to be ready. The door shook mightily, then was pushed inward. She tripped back to the edge of the bed as it plummeted to the floor in front of her.
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