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Authors: Ben H. Winters
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There’s no urine, which is warning me of something but what exactly I don’t know, because my medical training is limited and specific, first responder material, crime scene material: administering rescue breaths and patching wounds and minimizing blood loss. Piecing together bedside medical clues is uncharted territory. It’s a crossword puzzle in a language I don’t know.
I stand up on a chair and I carefully unhook the bag and switch it out, and that’s all she wrote for my saline-solution supply. Whatever else is going on with this girl, I have reached the limits of my ability to affect medical intervention. At this point her condition has become binary; she will either die or not.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her. “You’re going to be fine.”
And that’s it, I’m ready to go, except for a sharp jag of memory, a flash from last night’s dream: Nico, scowling and untrusting, whispering urgently,
keep an eye on your goon
.
Disturbed, uneasy, I look back down the hallway at the garage, where he is sitting, smoking, waiting. It’s not fair; it was a dream; Nico doesn’t even know the man. But then neither do I, exactly. He is good company, and I have taken advantage of his various competencies, but I suddenly feel how far I am from really knowing him—certainly from knowing him enough to trust him.
And meanwhile, the girl: asleep, vulnerable, alone. I picture Cortez’s crooked smile, his eyes dancing along Lily’s recumbentfigure, admiring her like a bowl of fruit.
It’s an old-fashioned jailer’s key they’ve got here, hanging on an old-fashioned hook. I push closed the door of the cell area, give it a good shake to make sure it’s closed and locked. Then I take the key off the hook and toss it through the bars, where it lands and skitters to the back wall of the cell.
I’ve got Abigail calmed down now, I’ve got a conversation going, I’ve got lucidity flickering in and out of her eyes.
I showed her my badge and my gun, explained that I am a retired Concord police officer working on a case, not an alien trailing a veil of cosmic dust, not someone from NASA here to inject her with antimatter. We’re at a small, rickety table in the back of the store, in the same back room where I once sat behind Jordan and watched him access the Internet, access the NCIC database, subjected myself to his taunting contempt to gain his help on my case.
We’re sitting at the table and Abigail is telling me haltingly, tiredly, that Jordan is not here and she does not know where he is.
“He is supposed to be here. We were supposed to be here together. Those were our instructions.”
“Instructions from who?”
She shrugs. Her body movements are jerky, pained. “Jordan talked to them.”
“To who?”
She shrugs again. She is staring at the table, pushing a torn corner of a piece of paper around with her finger, first this way and then another, like she is moving it on an invisible game board.
“What were the instructions?”
“Stay—stay here.”
“In Concord?”
“Yeah. Here. Resolution had been found. At a base. Gary, Indiana.”
“Resolution. That’s the scientist? Hans-Michael Parry.”
“Yeah. And the others were going to find him, go to the last phase, but we were to stay.” She looks up, sticks out her bottom lip. “Me and him. But then Jordan went away. Gone, gone. I was alone. And then the dust started to float in.” She stammers. “It—it—it just floated in.”
It’s like she reminds herself of it, of her invisible torment—she starts looking this way and then that, scowling into the corners of the room, rubbing at her skin where it’s coated with the cosmic dust.
“And when was this? Abigail? When did he leave?”
“Not that long. A week ago? Two weeks? It’s hard because then the dust started coming. Coming on in.”
“I know it’s hard,” I say, and I’m thinking, stay with me, sister, just a bit further. We’re almost there. “So the group,
I stand up on a chair and I carefully unhook the bag and switch it out, and that’s all she wrote for my saline-solution supply. Whatever else is going on with this girl, I have reached the limits of my ability to affect medical intervention. At this point her condition has become binary; she will either die or not.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her. “You’re going to be fine.”
And that’s it, I’m ready to go, except for a sharp jag of memory, a flash from last night’s dream: Nico, scowling and untrusting, whispering urgently,
keep an eye on your goon
.
Disturbed, uneasy, I look back down the hallway at the garage, where he is sitting, smoking, waiting. It’s not fair; it was a dream; Nico doesn’t even know the man. But then neither do I, exactly. He is good company, and I have taken advantage of his various competencies, but I suddenly feel how far I am from really knowing him—certainly from knowing him enough to trust him.
And meanwhile, the girl: asleep, vulnerable, alone. I picture Cortez’s crooked smile, his eyes dancing along Lily’s recumbentfigure, admiring her like a bowl of fruit.
It’s an old-fashioned jailer’s key they’ve got here, hanging on an old-fashioned hook. I push closed the door of the cell area, give it a good shake to make sure it’s closed and locked. Then I take the key off the hook and toss it through the bars, where it lands and skitters to the back wall of the cell.
I’ve got Abigail calmed down now, I’ve got a conversation going, I’ve got lucidity flickering in and out of her eyes.
I showed her my badge and my gun, explained that I am a retired Concord police officer working on a case, not an alien trailing a veil of cosmic dust, not someone from NASA here to inject her with antimatter. We’re at a small, rickety table in the back of the store, in the same back room where I once sat behind Jordan and watched him access the Internet, access the NCIC database, subjected myself to his taunting contempt to gain his help on my case.
We’re sitting at the table and Abigail is telling me haltingly, tiredly, that Jordan is not here and she does not know where he is.
“He is supposed to be here. We were supposed to be here together. Those were our instructions.”
“Instructions from who?”
She shrugs. Her body movements are jerky, pained. “Jordan talked to them.”
“To who?”
She shrugs again. She is staring at the table, pushing a torn corner of a piece of paper around with her finger, first this way and then another, like she is moving it on an invisible game board.
“What were the instructions?”
“Stay—stay here.”
“In Concord?”
“Yeah. Here. Resolution had been found. At a base. Gary, Indiana.”
“Resolution. That’s the scientist? Hans-Michael Parry.”
“Yeah. And the others were going to find him, go to the last phase, but we were to stay.” She looks up, sticks out her bottom lip. “Me and him. But then Jordan went away. Gone, gone. I was alone. And then the dust started to float in.” She stammers. “It—it—it just floated in.”
It’s like she reminds herself of it, of her invisible torment—she starts looking this way and then that, scowling into the corners of the room, rubbing at her skin where it’s coated with the cosmic dust.
“And when was this? Abigail? When did he leave?”
“Not that long. A week ago? Two weeks? It’s hard because then the dust started coming. Coming on in.”
“I know it’s hard,” I say, and I’m thinking, stay with me, sister, just a bit further. We’re almost there. “So the group,
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