by W D County
“Doc’s on the way,” I said.
“It’s nothing.” Her words came fast and clipped. “Nothing a Band-Aid can’t fix.” Her left hand stayed in the coveralls pocket.
“Probably,” I agreed, “but let’s make sure.” The outer door opened, and I led her to the used clothing bins and stripped off her hood. Kingpin rummaged through a first-aid kit, Mopes mouthed assurances, and Steampunk eased Brainiac’s hand from the pocket.
An inch-long diagonal slit crossed the palm of the glove like a tiny irrigation canal. Both shores were moist with blood but not saturated. The flow had slowed considerably if not stopped.
“Gray?” I asked.
Mopes and Steampunk looked puzzled for a moment, and then Steampunk said, “Yes.” Kapoor closed her eyes and muttered something about being stupid.
Kingpin said, “We need to get the glove off.”
I pulled but it stuck, matted to the wound. I tugged harder until it came free and dropped to the floor. Blood oozed from the exposed cut.
“Gray?” I asked again.
This time Mopes answered. “No. Her blood’s red. Skin looks normal.”
Kapoor pulled her arm free. “Of course it is. That’s why we wear protective clothing.” She studied her hand. “Mr. Maxwell, hand me a Band-Aid.”
“Wait,” said Doc, pushing between Kingpin and the women. He took Brainiac’s injured left hand in his own. “What happened, Sonja?”
She explained as Doc cleaned the wound with an alcohol swab, applied a dab of antibiotic, and covered it with a medium-sized bandage. “Shallow, no stitches needed. You were lucky.”
“Good,” said Kingpin. “Zita, you’re next.”
I thought she’d back out after this bout of excitement, but Steampunk seemed eager. Doc double-checked her protective clothing, and when he pronounced her ready she scampered to the airlock. I followed, resenting her enthusiasm.
***
“Hi, Barry, I’m Zita. I’ve seen some of your photographs and they’re so wonderful I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances but the government has their own way of insinuating itself into the affairs of people don’t you think?” She smiled, then wondered if the smile were appropriate given that Barry was a patient, a victim, and a prisoner; but a lack of smile would make her appear to be one of those government automatons that she, and probably he, despised, so she kept smiling.
She continued, “I’m usually the most colorful person in the room but you have that honor today, not that you want it I’m sure, but once we understand what’s going on with your colorization there might be a way to restore you to normalcy, though personally I think normalcy is a euphemism for mediocrity.”
Barry smiled. “Are you always this loquacious?”
She giggled. “It gets more pronounced when I’m nervous.” She forced herself to position a period at that point and take a breath while counting to fifty.
“What is your specialty?” he asked. “Linguistics?” One hand ran along his bald head. His left hand remained tucked under the pillow.
“I’m a puzzle solver. I see patterns really, really well, sometimes when they don’t even exist, which is the biggest problem, because I tend to be a bit paranoid, and there’s practically no difference between a skillful government conspiracy and normal bureaucratic blundering.”
“So which of those situations have I fallen into?”
She liked the way the conversation was going, and she liked his attention, the way his eyes stayed focused on her. “I don’t know. There’s a slim chance that it’s neither. May I conduct a little experiment of my own?”
“Sure. Thanks for asking.”
She removed a black metal ink pen from her pocket. She tied to it a piece of string (also retrieved from her pocket) and let the pen dangle near the patient’s colored skin. The hollow metal rod hung straight down. As expected.
She removed the string, placed the pen in her pocket, and removed her name tag, to which she tied the string. When dangled, the string slanted off-vertical, away from the colored skin of the patient’s shoulder.
“See! See!” She hopped up and down, delighted her hunch that the coloration would affect or be affected by magnets had proven true.
She turned the magnet around to determine the polarity of the patient’s skin, but the magnet displayed no preferred alignment. The phenomenon repelled each pole with equal force, as if the magnet were just a piece of iron, and the patient’s skin were an anti-magnet.
She stared at Barry’s right arm. “The pattern is shifting. Red to blue, circles to spirals, squares to triangles. Stereograms, I think. If I could just get the right perspective I bet I could see into it. Maybe when there’s more of the picture. It’s important, I know it’s important. A message trying to tell us something.”
“What?” asked Barry.
“Are you doing it or are the colored bits moving by themselves? Can you feel when they shift?”
“Look closer.”
She leaned forward and yelped as Barry lunged to his feet, wrapping one of his arms around her waist. Something sharp pressed against her neck.
“I’m sorry, Zita, but you’re my ticket out of here.”
Gordon’s voice came over the speaker. “Let her go, Barry.”
“When you let me go.”
The psychiatrist’s voice came through the speakers. “Barry, what is it that you want?”
“Who are you?”
“Laura Dubov. A friend you have yet to meet. We’re ready to listen to you, Barry. I know it’s been difficult on you. But, to be honest, I’m concerned about that glass shard slipping and harming Zita.”
“Finally, I have someone’s attention.”
“You’ve been getting a lot of attention for quite a while.”
He shook his head. “Not me. This stuff covering my body.”
Zita slipped the name tag into her pocket and lifted her hands slowly. If she could get a grip on Barry’s arm, she could twirl out of his clutches.
He pressed harder against her throat. She lowered her arms.
Barry said, “Gordon, open the airlock.”
“You know I can’t do that. You’re infected with God knows what.”
“Exactly,” said Barry. “And God will get me through this. Open the door!”
Gordon yelled, “Miles, no! Don’t!”
The inner door of the airlock swung open and GI Joe entered with his gun drawn.
***
I didn’t have a clear shot, not with Choirboy using Steampunk as a shield and wielding a piece of broken mirror that could slash her throat in half a second. That didn’t stop me from leveling the Colt at his head. Sometimes collateral damage is unavoidable. “Let her go.”
“I want this to be over. I want to go home.”
Mopes said, “If you kill Zita, you’ll never be free. You know that.”
I froze. For a second, I thought Mopes was talking to me.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Choirboy’s voice quavered. A desperate man is unpredictable. My finger hugged the trigger.
“Just bad luck,” continued the psychiatrist. “But there’s hope for you. Please, let us help you. Let’s figure out what happened to you and fix it.”
“There is no fix.” He looked up, face distorted in anguish. “They have cameras everywhere and they’re always on. They record me using the bathroom. Did you know it takes only five seconds for shit to turn gray?” His broken laughter decayed to sobs. He shoved Zita away and raised the shard to his own throat.
Steampunk said, “He’s gonna do it, can’t you feel it? The colors know it. They’re shifting again. See? Look at his neck. Swirling. Pooling together. Changing patterns.”
I holstered my gun and pulled out the Taser.
Choirboy ripped off his hospital gown, standing bare-assed as the statue of David and looking neither ashamed nor arrogant. “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return: Lord has given, and Lord has taken away; blessed be the name o
f the Lord.”
He drew the shard across his neck, waiting for the blood, waiting for death. He’d have a long wait, because there wasn’t a scratch on him.
Steampunk said, “It’s the colors. They won’t let him. They’re intelligent. Or maybe the colors aren’t a they, could be an it, a sort of collective intelligence. It-they doesn’t want him to be harmed.”
The patient looked flummoxed. His gaze turned to the ceiling. “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Tears streamed down his face—but he kept hold of the glass.
I pulled the trigger and let twenty-two thousand volts put him on the floor.
Kingpin practically screamed. “What happened? Is the patient all right?”
Steampunk spun and planted her fists on her hips. “You didn’t have to stun him. He wasn’t going to hurt us, just himself, and I don’t think it-they would have let that happen either. The colors are intelligent, maybe even alive. That doesn’t rule out Doc’s idea of a virus, because viruses are alive, too, but no one’s ever found an intelligent strain.”
I didn’t pay much attention to her words, because I was staring at his arm. “Look.”
We both leaned over the patient. Half the mirror was lodged in his right arm. “I don’t see any blood. Do you?”
“The colors are swirling around it like a whirlpool.” She reached forward and pulled the mirror out, quick and clean. “No blood, either red or gray.”
Dead people don’t bleed much, but his chest was still moving. “He’s alive.”
She pressed the jagged edge of the mirror against his arm again. The damn thing sank in and out as if the patient were a ghost.
I wrapped Choirboy in a sheet and hoisted him onto the bed. “Is his other arm normal?”
She nodded. “Wow, the colors are swarming like angry bees.”
I slapped one end of my handcuffs around his left wrist and the other end to the bed rail. “Let’s not get stung.” I herded her to the door and punched in the pass code. Once we were safe inside the airlock, I asked, almost rhetorically, what the hell just happened.
“A puzzle,” she said, half laughing. “As Winston Churchill once said, ‘It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.’”
I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. What I did know was that Choirboy had become a whole lot more dangerous. The vault was the cave of a bear waking up from hibernation. I didn’t want to be its first meal.
Chapter 8
After confirming that Zita was physically unharmed and not in emotional shock, Laura turned to Gordon. “I need to be with him when he recovers.” She’d check Zita later for signs of post-traumatic reactions, but for now Barry was the immediate concern.
“When Doc gives the okay,” Gordon replied.
A few minutes later the doctor emerged from the vault and announced that the patient was conscious and had suffered no permanent injuries. Laura immediately strode to the airlock with Miles close behind. He seemed agitated, muttering what sounded like sometimes the bear eats you. The soldier obviously had unresolved mental issues. Killers often did.
She hoped to earn Barry’s trust, a task made progressively more difficult by each of the preceding team members. If only Gordon had let her go first... she should have insisted. Probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Fate rarely granted what you wanted.
Inside the airlock she said to Miles, “Don’t come inside. Don’t try to rescue me. You’ve already traumatized the patient quite enough.” She set her Pavlok watch for five minutes. If the weird coloration had a hypnotic component, the high-voltage shock from the customized watch should snap her out of it.
Miles drew a noisy breath. “Believe me, I have no desire to go in there again.” He paused, probably wearing an expression that he didn’t realize couldn’t be seen beneath the protective clothing. “If you need me, I’m five seconds away.”
The inner door swung open and she stepped inside.
“Hello, Barry. I’m Laura. How do you feel?”
Flat on his back, the patient lifted his left hand a few inches, rattling the handcuffs that chained him to the frame of the hospital bed. The arm dropped. “I just had a whole-body Charlie-horse. How do you think I feel?”
The key to the cuffs hung on the wall far from the patient’s reach. The temptation to free him surprised her. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, stuck in here, studied like a lab rat.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re the shrink.”
“I’m a psychiatrist, which gives me a deeper appreciation for what you’re going through.” When he didn’t reply, she continued, “I don’t think anyone realizes how hard this has been on you. I promise things will be better.”
“You don’t call the shots,” he said in a tired voice. “Gordon doesn’t either, though he thinks so.” His chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “God is in charge and all is in divine order.”
Hopeful affirmation or genuine belief? “I’ll treat you with honesty and respect, regardless of what anyone else says.” She reached out to touch his untainted hand. “Trust me.”
“Trust? When I’m treated like a leper?” He grasped her hand with his right. She pulled away from its shifting colors. He didn’t try to hang on.
“See? You’re afraid of me. Everybody is.”
He’s right. She had to get past that fear. “I don’t like to be forced, Barry.” Holding her breath, she touched the coloration of his cheek. The skin felt warm and pliant through her glove. Real. She hadn’t touched another person since... six months ago. The colors swirled around her fingers, retreated, then returned, like a cat rubbing against a person’s legs, although she felt no pressure, only moisture. Barry was crying.
“God is punishing me, and I don’t know why, just like he did to Job.”
“You’re not Job,” she said. “God isn’t testing you.”
He sat up, clearly irritated. “You’re testing me. All of you. As instruments of God. It’s His tests I have to pass, no matter who administers them.”
In a still, quiet voice, she asked, “Was suicide part of the test?”
The question silenced him for several seconds. “I was weak. But He won’t let me die. He will ensure that I endure.” A strained smile twisted Barry’s lip. “God has chosen me.”
“For what?”
“He has a plan, even though I can’t see it.” He lifted his free arm and stared at it. “I didn’t ask for this, Laura. There is no need for you to feel jealous or afraid. Or guilty. We are all part of God’s plan.”
She straightened the sheet and sat beside him, grateful that the hood, mask, and glasses concealed her nervousness. “Tell me what happened, Barry. With the explorers and the tesseract.”
“You’ve seen my video, right? You tell me.”
Laura had dealt with sullen, uncooperative patients before. She kept her tone light. “It’s not the same as being there. I’d like to know what you were thinking. Feeling.”
Barry stared at the ceiling. “I’m not crazy. The video proves it. The thing was real.”
“Yes. Those poor men.” She remembered their haunting screams, fading away. Where did they go? Did heaven exist? Was John there?
“I don’t think they’re dead,” Barry said. “They’re just... gone.”
“Where?”
Barry shrugged. “Another dimension. Another planet. The past or future. I don’t know.”
“Why do you think you didn’t go with them?”
Stubborn silence.
Laura said, “You prayed during the incident. It’s not one I recognized.”
Barry continued staring at the ceiling.
“It’s lovely. Very affirming and comforting. Did you write it?”
“It’s the ‘Prayer for Protection’ by James Dillet Freeman,” Barry said. “It dates back to World War II. Buzz Aldrin carried a copy with him
to the moon in 1969. Unity churches use it a lot.”
“Do you think the prayer saved you?”
His head turned toward her, and he sat up. “God saved me.”
“Why you and not the others?”
A light seemed to go on in his face. “Because I asked to be protected.” He paused as if thinking. “Matthew, chapter 21, verse 22, if I remember right, says ‘If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.’”
“Tell me more.” The colors of his body danced. John liked to dance. Around and around, holding her in his loving arms.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Barry stared at his own arm. “Beautiful and terrifying as befits tiny angels, laboring mightily for the Lord.”
The colors pulsed, a living tattoo of ever-shifting patterns that held her attention and refused to let go. John had been such an attentive and interesting man.
“Laura, you want me to trust you.”
“Yes.” Gaining trust was important. John had trusted her, though she hadn’t deserved it. Had he guessed the truth before he died?
“There’s something I need.”
“I have nothing to give,” she murmured. The colors pulsed and flickered like lights on a Christmas tree.
“My belongings must be nearby. Find my Bible. Bring it to me.”
“Your Bible,” she said dreamily.
“Laura? Are you falling asleep?”
She liked the teasing note in his voice. John often spoke to her in that same—
She jumped and grabbed her wrist as an electric shock jolted her to full awareness.
Gordon’s voice blared. “Laura, are you all right?”
She blinked. Was she? Barry stared at her with concern. The colors swirled, masquerading as an innocent, albeit liquid, tattoo. Had it tried to pull her into a trance, or was she simply tired and vulnerable?
“Laura, are you all right?” repeated Gordon.
“Barry, my time is up. We’ll talk more later.” She patted his shoulder, but the smile he returned sent shivers through her body. She hurried to the airlock, silently insisting there was nothing to fear.