The Collapse: Time Bomb

by Penelope Wright

  When they’ve decided I’m wet enough, the water shuts off and someone in a paper suit scrubs me all over with soap and a soft cloth, then I’m hosed down again. I don’t talk, and neither does my handler. I almost feel like I’m outside my body observing the whole thing at this point.

  Finally, I must be clean enough because the water turns off for good, and the paper-suited person helps me stand, towels me off, then holds out a fresh hospital gown. “Arms out,” a female voice says firmly but not unkindly. It’s the first thing she’s said to me this entire time.

  Obediently, I thrust my arms into the short sleeves of the gown and she ties it in the back, then supports me as she guides me through a doorway and over to a bed.

  There, she reinserts a new IV. It’s a little uncomfortable going in – the skin on my hand feels thin and abused – but it doesn’t take her long and she seems happy with her work. When she straightens the needle and tapes it down, the ache goes away almost instantly.

  “Try to relax,” she says. “The doctor will be in in a moment.”

  Try to relax? Is she delusional? I have little time to ponder that thought, however, because almost as soon as she’s stepped out, a man in a similar but different colored paper suit comes in.

  He looks me up and down. “So, you’re the young lady who has this place in quite an uproar.”

  I lift my chin, but I have no reply for him.

  “I’m Doctor Blank. I’ll be taking over your case. We’ve recalled all the staff members who’ve worked with you, and we’re following decon protocols with them as well.”

  “Everyone’s getting a surprise shower?”

  The doctor nods.

  “Becky must be thrilled.”

  The doctor snorts behind his paper mask, fogging up his eye shield a bit. He waits for it to clear, and he has himself under control by the time it does. “She’s not your biggest fan.”

  I don’t argue.

  “I know you only woke recently, and I understand you didn’t have a close connection with your nursing staff.”

  “I liked the first nurse,” I say.

  Despite how nice and reasonable he seems, I’m certain this guy couldn’t care less who I did and didn’t like. He’s looking for answers. “You’ve indicated you’re from Colombia.”

  “That’s right.” I cling to one of the very few things I’m absolutely certain of. I won’t let him take that away from me. But he tries.

  “Your accent is intriguing, but I can’t place it. However…it doesn’t sound South American to me.” He taps his gloved fingers together. “More likely Ukrainian, or possibly East Asian?” He leans forward. “What I want to know is, where did you come from? By way of Chernobyl perhaps? Or Fukushima? And how did you get here?”

  I shake my head. “I’m from Columbia. I know that for sure.”

  The doctor sighs. “That’s difficult for me to believe, but I suppose I’ll have to – for now. Though I can assure you if the CDC decides to investigate your situation, they will probably not simply take you at your word.”

  I can’t give him anything else. I decide to lay my cards on the table. This guy isn’t my friend, but for some reason, I trust him. He’s not out to get me. Not like Becky was. “I don’t know what happened to me,” I say quietly. “I don’t have any memories before just a couple of days ago. I don’t even remember my name.” I swallow. “But I know I’m from Columbia. I’m righthanded. I’m scared of elevators. And… And…” I scrabble around for something else to say, a fact about myself that I’m sure of. “And I can pick locks. But I don’t know why.”

  “The boys who brought you to the ER in the first place. What were their names?”

  Instantly my guard flies up. “I don’t remember,” I lie. “Just some random guys I met on the street.”

  The doctor raises his eyebrows behind his mask. “I understand one of those ‘random guys’ didn’t leave your side until you woke up a few hours ago.”

  “He’s homeless,” I say, plucking the word that Becky used to describe him. “He had nowhere else to go.”

  “Mm-hmm.” The doctor murmurs, but I know he’s not convinced. “I’d like to get them back here and admit them for decontamination as well. We don’t need a radiation exposure issue trickling through our homeless community.”

  I tilt my head and furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”

  The doctor puts his gloved hand on top of my hand, the one without the IV poking into it. “I mean that your toxicology report came back clean. You’re not a drug addict, or if you are, you’ve been sober for quite some time. There were unidentifiable compounds in your sample, but I believe that’s due to the fact that you have enough nuclear material in your bloodstream to power a small city.”

  My mouth drops open.

  “And everyone you’ve come in contact with is at mild to moderate risk of contamination themselves. We’re taking no chances.”

  The doctor stares intently into my eyes. “This news doesn’t jog your memory?”

  I look down and shake my head.

  “It’s why I asked you about Chernobyl and Fukushima. Those are the biggest radiological disaster sites on our Western radar. Neither of those ring a bell?”

  I keep my eyes downcast and shrug. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Eastern Washington?” the doctor says hopefully. “Hanford?”

  I look at him again. “Nope. Nothing. I really am sorry. I wish I could help you.”

  He sighs. “I wish you could too.” He claps his hands together. “But despite the fact that you can’t seem to give me what I want, I’m still going to help you. I’m going to put you on potassium iodide and Prussian Blue. I’ve already got you on a DTPA drip.” He waves his hand at the IV bag hanging from the metal stand. “We’ll see how you respond to that, and I’m also prescribing two weeks of Neupogen injections. We’re going to try to take your radioactivity level from weapons-grade to that of a delicious microwaved pizza. You do remember what a microwave pizza is, don’t you?”

  Whatever makes him feel better. “Sure. Of course I do.”

  Chapter Ten

  July 1, 2018

  Doctor Blank says I’ve improved tremendously. He says I’m not ‘shedding isotopes’ anymore, whatever that means, and he gets me transferred to a new room. This one, thank god, has a television. For the last week, other than Doctor Blank and the occasional tight-lipped nurse, my only companionship has been the beeping machines I’m hooked to.

  I can’t wait to catch up on the antics of Leonard, Sheldon, and the other people in their quarters. I wonder what they’ve been up to. But the remote is just barely in my hand before two men in suits arrive. One is tall and powerfully built. The other is slender, with eyebrows that meet in the middle. They don’t introduce themselves the way all of my nurses have. They just stand by my bedside, notebooks in hand, and fire question after question at me in hard, cold voices.

  “Where are you from? How did you get here? Are you in the country legally? What were the chemicals in your bloodstream?”

  Forty-five minutes later, they’re still harassing me and writing in their little notebooks, and I can’t stop darting glances at the remote control on my bedside table. I’d much rather be watching the people on the television. This is both boring and annoying. Their questions are total repeats of the ones Doctor Blank has asked me, but they’re not being even slightly nice about it, and no matter how many times I tell them I don’t remember the answers to their questions, they act like I’m lying.

  I almost wish I could just tell them what they want to know so that they’ll leave me alone, but I can’t say where I was exposed to radiation, where I came from, who my parents are, or what the unidentified chemicals in my bloodstream were, because I don’t know.

  One of the men instructs a nurse to take a new vial of blood from me for testing, and I feel smug. I know my blood will keep my secrets because it’s clean now. Doctor Blank had me on a ton of different medicines over the last week, and he told m
e before he moved me to my new room that the unidentified chemicals are gone. The doctor said something about a half life, and I thought he was talking about the chemicals, but he could just as easily be talking about my existence because that’s what it feels like to me in this boring hospital.

  The man with the intersecting eyebrows looks up from his notepad and finally asks me something different. “The boys who brought you to the hospital. I understand they stayed with you for some time. Who were they?”

  My heart pounds painfully. Only one of the boys had stayed with me. I never expected to see Dez again when he left my hospital room a week ago. It’s not thoughts of him that have been keeping me up at night. I close my eyes and picture warm brown eyes and a crooked smile. I really thought Carlos would return. I felt like I’d meant something to him. Like I’d mattered. But as the long days and interminable nights ticked by, I had to face reality. Carlos isn’t coming back.

  “Hey,” the eyebrow guy barks. I hear a snapping sound and my eyes fly open. His fingers are right in front of my face. “Pay attention when I’m talking to you.”

  Anger surges through my body and I want to break his offensive fingers snap, snap, snap before he even knows what I’m doing. But I ball my fists at my sides and force myself to take slow, controlled breaths. They don’t know how strong I’ve gotten. I’m not going to give away any of my advantage now.

  “I don’t know their names. They were just some homeless kids whose tent I fell into. They were only here for the free food.” It’s the first time I’ve lied to these guys, and I feel great about it.

  Eyebrow frowns and exchanges sighs with his partner. He jots something else on his notepad.

  The nurse draws my blood, and she doesn’t say anything, but she has a sympathetic look on her face. She can’t stand up to these guys, either, whoever they are. I feel for her, but she’s not in their crosshairs like I am, so I feel a lot worse for myself.

  Even though Carlos is gone from my life, I’m proud of myself for keeping him anonymous this whole time. I never once mentioned his name to Doctor Blank or any of my nurses. Carlos helped me when I had no one, and for that I’m in his debt. I might have asked about him. I might have said something to Doctor Blank or one of my nurses. Have you seen him? Has he stopped by at all to check on me? But I stayed silent. Because even though I’d grown to trust Doctor Blank over this last week in the hospital, I’ve never had anything but suspicion for the camera mounted in the corner of my room. I have the distinct feeling I’m being watched day and night, through that cold, clear lens, and if I owed Carlos anything at all, it was privacy.

  The men finally appear to have grown sick of me, because they flip their notebooks shut, tell me they’ll see me again soon, and leave. Huffing irritably, I grab the remote control for the television and my thumb is on the power button when Doctor Blank walks in the door.

  I heave a huge, theatrical sigh.

  Doctor Blank totally ignores it and greets me in his typical fashion. “How are you feeling today? Thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs sideways?”

  I curl my fingers into a ball and stick my thumb out parallel to the floor. I’m always ‘thumbs sideways’ for Doctor Blank.

  “I understand you had visitors.”

  “Yeah. They were jerks.”

  Doctor Blank’s naturally droopy eyes turn down a little more at the corners, and he glances at one of my beeping monitors. “I think it’s about time we got you in for that kidney ultrasound,” he says, tapping the business end of his pen against my chart. “I have some concerns about your blood pressure. It tends to spike when I enter the room.”

  “Do you ever think maybe it’s you?”

  Doctor Blank gives me a perturbed look.

  I shrug. “I never know what you’re going to say to me. Is my blood radioactive? Has it turned purple? Did I die, and you’re just now coming to tell me? It’s stressful.”

  Doctor Blank chuckles. “You’re a very changed young woman from when I met you a week ago. And not just because you’ve lost your green undertones and you’ve grown two centimeters.” He pats me on the knee. “Maybe I do stress you out. But I still want to rule out kidney issues. Besides, you should be delighted. An ultrasound means you get to leave this room, even if it is for only a little while.”

  “Oh, wow, a different hospital room for yet another test. I can’t wait.”

  “It’s still a step in the right direction. Take what you can get.”

  “I know,” I mutter. “I just wish…”

  “What?”

  I stare at the corner of the room, the one away from the camera. “I don’t know. I wish somebody cared.”

  “I care.”

  “You’re my doctor. It’s a job requirement.”

  There’s a tap at the door. “Radiology transport.”

  I’m disappointed. I’d been hoping I would see Bereket again, but this is a female voice. Doctor Blank’s right, though. I should be happy about getting out of the room. I paste a look on my face that might be a smile, but which is probably a grimace. I think about pushing myself to standing but decide against it. I let the woman from transport come around to my side of the bed, and she and Doctor Blank help me into the wheelchair.

  Doctor Blank lingers in the doorway. “You’ll have more visitors this afternoon, so I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to discuss your kidney results with you.”

  “More visitors like the guys in suits?”

  He nods, and I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to be able to tell them anything that I couldn’t tell the other guys.”

  Doctor Blank swallows. “It’s been a real pleasure helping you get better, Lita. Thank you.”

  “Um…you’re welcome?”

  The doctor laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He squeezes the door frame. “Let’s get a look at those rock star kidneys.”

  I curl my fingers into a ball and hold my thumb sideways, then stick it up to a ten-degree angle.

  “Thanks.” Doctor Blank says. “I’ll take it.”

  The lady from transport wheels me silently through the hospital. I know I should be thrilled to get out of the room, but there’s little to be enthusiastic about in the deserted, echoey hallways.

  A tall janitor pushes a mop at a spot on the floor with an excitement level that matches the beige colored walls. He lifts the mop into his bucket, swishes it around, then leans down to wring its floppy gray strands out as we pass, the muscles on his right arm standing out as he works the lever, his face hidden by a mask.

  That’s an N95 respirator, I think to myself, but I barely have time to wonder where that thought came from before we turn a corner and a set of wooden double doors marked ‘Radiology’ stands in front of us. The transport woman slaps a silver square on the wall and the doors open with a hum.

  A woman with a round face and curly reddish hair looks up from behind a desk. “Whatcha got for me?”

  “Blood pressure spikes. Rule out kidney issues,” my transporter says.

  “When do you get those pressure spikes, sweetie?” the receptionist asks.

  “Whenever the doctor comes into my room.”

  She chuckles. “Idiots. Your kidneys are fine. But we’ll wand you and get it on record. Have you ever had an ultrasound before?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, they’re nothing to worry about. Just a little cold when the gel goes on.” She taps a few buttons on her keyboard and nods at my transport. “Okay, she’s all set in the system.”

  The transporter positions my wheelchair in a small waiting area. “Where to next?” she asks the receptionist.

  “I don’t have anything else for you right now; the census is pretty light.”

  The transporter tightens her ponytail. “Do you mind if I take my lunch then?”

  The receptionist shrugs one shoulder. “It’s as good a time as any. This one” – she smiles at me kindly, so I know she’s not belittling me – “ought to take about twenty minutes. I’ll page
you when she’s ready to return to her floor, but make sure you take your full lunch. You don’t mind if you have to wait a bit for transport, do you, sweetie?”

  It appears I’ll never get to watch television like I want to, but what am I supposed to say? I shake my head. “It’s fine with me.”

  “Thanks.” The transport woman smiles her goodbye, presses a silver square on this side of the doors, and walks through once they’ve opened.

  “Oh, hey,” the receptionist calls, but it’s not the transport lady she’s speaking to. Her voice has changed – it’s higher-pitched and flirty. “Do you have time to make your way in here? Dayshift cooked fish in the microwave and I’m about to keel over from the smell.”

  A voice from the corridor replies. “I’m yours anytime you need me, Anna.”

  The hair on my arms stands straight up.

  “Oh, Steven, you are the best. I’m putting you in for employee of the month. Don’t think I won’t.”

  The tall janitor we passed in the hallway walks in, his brown eyes trained on Anna, his face hidden behind the paper hospital mask that loops behind each ear. “Employee of the month?” he says in a joking voice muffled by his mask. “I’m too new.” My portable heart rate monitor emits a peal as my pulse accelerates.

  “Keep up the way you’re going and you’ll be running this place,” Anna says with a toothy grin.

  The janitor walks behind the desk and down an angled hallway without looking at me once.

  A tech steps around the corner with a clipboard in his hand. “Lita Hofstadter?” he says, raising his eyebrows.

  I glance around the lobby, devoid of all people except me, and I jump a bit in my seat. “Oh, yeah,” I say. I’m still unfamiliar with my hastily made up last name. And my first name, for that matter.

  The tech circles behind me, grabs the handles of my wheelchair, and maneuvers me down the hall that shoots off the opposite angle from the way the janitor went. I crane my neck, hoping to catch one last glimpse of him. I’d thought for a second…but no.