If It Were Not So - Part 5
Jo Anzalone and Sharon Ferguson
But the following words told her exactly who it was
that had joined them, and Rachel faced the new voice with a small groan,
feeling simultaneously sick at the stomach and euphoric with gratitude. She
knew the figure sliding out of the dark side of the shack well, the hitch of
the shoulders, the tilt of the head, the voice; and it was as welcome as it was
dreaded, because his presence could only mean that Terry had reached him, but
with a price she would have to pay.
Cort, however, could think only of a stranger with
nefarious intentions, so he placed his arm around her and pulled her close,
ready to step in front of her if need be. She looked up at Cort to find him
looking back at her, wondering if he needed to intercede. She shook her head
‘no’, hoping her expression of knowing was visible in the thin light.
Sid 6.7.
“How often must I tell you junior broom-handlers to
cover your butts?” was the nanocomputer’s first volley at her.
Yep. Good old Sid. THAT was why she tried to find
Terry first.
She could feel Cort pull her closer, tensing, every
nerve alive with alarm, anger.
“Sid,” Rachel greeted, smashing the word between her
teeth.
Her employer circled them, perfectly angled in every
step to catch the full effect of moonlight on his face. She could see that his
standard Armani suit was dark in tone, everything in perfect alignment, not a
smudge anywhere. She wondered how long it would take him to become unnerved by
all the desert dirt he was kicking up as he paced.
And if Cort had been a dog, she was sure he would have
been growling.
“Made a botch of it, eh?” Sid aimed for the jugular.
Oh, God. Terry must still be in Peru, otherwise Sid wouldn’t be so willing to
lay waste to every ounce of defense she could muster. The nanocomputer passed
by close enough to try and touch Cort’s bandaged hand, but the gunslinger edged
away, keeping Sid in a line of sight. “Testy, are we?” Sid laughed. “Just
because we’ve been hauled off in chains, beaten, almost hung…though not quite,
thanks to the lovely though overly stolid Miss Ellen…been bashed, battered,
bruised, lost our home…”
“That’s quite enough,
“…our work, our…um…calling, shall we say…”
“SID!” Rachel barked.
“…our whole life. Now now now, Cort…can you not be a
bit more…light-hearted about it all?”
“Shut up, Sid!” Rachel moaned wearily, but knew it was
useless. Sid was winding up for the pitch.
She supposed she finally got his attention, because
Sid paused in front of her with a particularly lethal gleam in his eye.
“And you,” he spat. “You give new meaning to the word
‘incompetent’.”
Rachel felt her lower jaw drop.
“And I’d so hoped you’d show at least a … little …intelligence….”
“Don’t talk to me about intelligence…” Rachel began,
but Sid rode over her protests. Somehow she knew he had been preparing this
little speech, relishing it now as she and Cort stood, about ready to faint
from cold, hunger, fatigue, injury. * Oh God, could he just get on with taking
us home? * she thought.
Sid dangled the remains of her Warp-shell from his
fingers and Rachel found herself unable to say anything. She * had * been
careless. Sid was quite right on that point.
"Trust you with something...just one simple
something that even a four-year-old could accomplish, and what do you do? You
end up with....this."
Snake venom was more palatable than this, she thought,
choosing to stare at the ground where the parts lay. She’d have gladly been bitten
by a hundred rattlesnakes than to look at that particular failure at this
moment.
"And just how, may I ask, did you think
to...return....with...him?"
Rachel looked up at Cort. The poor man was utterly
devastated, so drawn in the face, clinging to her, to something he wanted to
mean he wasn’t going crazy. He was beginning to flag again…would Sid never shut
up? For all his posturing about not getting the job done quickly, he was
wasting Cort’s energy pounding her. She was tired too, damn it all! When was
Sid going to just push the button and…
“Is it true, Rachel?” She heard Cort ask and she looked
up to see his expression, cold and withdrawing as he absorbed Sid’s
confirmation of Rachel’s status with NanoCorp. “Do you work for him?”
She found herself staring up at the gunslinger,
everything in her filling up with panic again, just like on the stairwell,
certain that it would only take one truth to be revealed for Cort to turn away
and drop her, out of horror, out of self-preservation. How would he take the
news that her presence there was a result of someone HIRING her to get him? How
could she reconcile that with the fact that she did the professionally
unthinkable by falling deeply in love with him before ever stepping through the
Warp?
“Yes.” She choked on that one word, its sound sticking
in her throat like gum. “I was hired by him to come to Redemption….”
“Movie, my dear…oh wait, you didn’t get that far in
your explanation, did you?” Sid groused, voice laced with acid. Rachel gave him
the most withering look she could muster in the face of her sinking heart. “Oh
God, how precious this all is now!”
“I was sent to bring you to another place,” she
continued, trying to reach up to reassure him, touch his face, but wilting fear
stymied her limbs. She could only manage to look him in the eye, face up to the
truth. “What you see on the ground are the remains of the tools I was going to
use. I would have….” She stammered, her mouth working to find air, to find
words, comprehensive words that would boil it all down, to make him see…convince
him….
She could see realization make its way deeper and
deeper into Cort’s eyes, spread through a depleted awareness.
He was wondering if Sid…if SHE…was going to do the
same thing Dimetri did to her…was going to do to him…Herod…
Dimetri!
She forgot Cort’s confusion…she had him, the
nanobastard!
“Who’s Dimetri, Sid?” She asked, anger returning with
a hot burst in her chest. She’d be damned if she was going to let Sid dress her
down like this without a response. “Damn you, asshole. You heard me. Who is
Dimetri Zoloft?”
Sid stared at her, taken aback.
“What ARE you on about?” he sneered, but even in the
navy blue light, Rachel could see he had been put off after all.
“The man who came and destroyed my laptop, my ability
to communicate with you, my ability to complete my job! That’s how all of this
ended up this way! Answer me!” She advanced on Sid, flinging the words into his
perfectly groomed face. “Is Dimetri some sick joke of yours, some stupid game
you want to play while Terry’s not around? If so, you can expect my resignation
first thing in the morning!” Rachel practically shouted. Cort stumbled over to
the phaeton, giving way to pain and exhaustion…and shock…to sit on the ground.
“And don’t give me this ‘good riddance’ crap, either. I was successful on other
missions, and Terry’s told me how much difficulty you’ve had in replacing
others!”
Sid stared at her, wordless.
“How do you know about Dimetri?” He finally asked,
voice like a cobra preparing to spring.
“Because,” Cort’s voice came through for Rachel,
somewhere over by the wheel of the carriage, stronger than he had looked. “I
saw her fight with him. And he carried something like what you’ve got in your
hand…only…whole…they both fought each with swords. And…and he said…he was after
me, too.”
Rachel felt like she had to sit after those words. It
wasn’t the fact that Cort had let on that she’d brought her swords against
express instructions not to…she figured she was going to have to own up to that…eventually.
It was that the words pronounced of the fate he was living, no matter who
showed up…or didn’t…those words struck her heart with a cold harshness that
hadn’t occurred to her until now. Yet again, Cort was being dragged into
something he had no control over, no idea of his fate, and she had been about
as underhanded and sneaky about it as one could be.
She didn’t dare look at him, shadowed as he was next
to the phaeton. She just knew he was sitting there, hating her.
And if that were true, she’d live through a thousand
Sid 6.7 dress-downs to erase it, erase the feeling that she had killed a man's
heart.
**********************************************
Cort leaned against the wheel. He felt...what? Hollow?
Yeah, that might be the right word for it. Someone had pulled his plug and all
the fullness he'd been feeling just a few moments ago, had drained out into the
sand, sinking into its dryness...gone.
Good Lord! Nothing was as it had seemed. It was too
soon, too soon, to have his world destroyed again. This new world, this one
he'd set his boots to travel despite its lack of ground for him to walk
on...this new venture into faith in something, someone. He looked wearily at
Rachel, arguing with Sid in the starlight. God! She...worked...for the man?
That man? And she'd been...sent? No wonder she stayed close to him. He was
her...assignment. Oh, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. He lifted his left hand in her
direction, then let it drop heavily.
After the destruction...after the burning of the
mission...he should have known it was over. He HAD known it was over, but,
then, she had come and gradually little snatches of hope had linked themselves
together into love and he had come with her, saying, meaning, that it didn't
matter where her destination, their destination, might be. He studied Sid. HE
was where she intended to take him? A place where this man was in control? Oh
God, oh God, oh God. His chest hurt and he pressed his hand against
it...hard...rubbing. It didn't ease a thing. He knew it wouldn't. How can the
pressure of a hand hold a heart together?
It hadn't been real. Except what he felt for her. That
had been real. So real he'd staked his life on it. A deadly, small laugh
escaped his lips. Now what? He had no intentions of going where that man wanted
him to. What did they want with him anyway? No. That was not going to happen.
Rachel was still preoccupied with Sid. The name
'Dimetri' came to his ears, but he tuned them out. No. He shifted his body,
pulling on the wheel spokes to help him get to his knees. He stopped, panting
for breath. Didn't matter. None of it mattered. Gritting his teeth he gained
his feet and walked around the phaeton, holding on to its side for support. He
stood on the far side of it a long moment, the sound of their voices only a
slight roar in his head. He stood there and
Empty, void of life.
Like him. That was where he belonged. Where he fit.
"I'm coming," he whispered, walking slowly
forward into the dark nothingness.
*************************************************
"Forget Dimetri...you brought a *what*?" Sid
hissed, standing over Rachel with every ounce of nanogoo in him boiling with
fury. "Did I hear Cort say 'a sword'? Not only are you incompetent, you're
fucking reckless!"
"I had to," Rachel moaned, not looking up
from the ground. Let Sid pour whatever fire and brimstone he could summon upon
her. It would be the cool edge of the white-hot devastation she would meet in
Cort's face if she dared to cast her eyes his way, dared to travel along the
thread spun between them for connection. It was there the moment she looked up
at him to affirm his question, felt it in the way his arm slid from her
shoulders.
"Terry wouldn't let me bring a gun," she
began to sob. All *their* plans ruined, all *her* hopes and desires dust at her
feet now. "What would I have done if I couldn't defend myself?" A
gurgle of madness began in her chest, rising like nausea. Certainly there was
no defense now. The gurgle threatened to become vomit, but met resistance in
her throat. It came out as a sob she recognized as pure grief.
"Where is it?" Sid asked, his voice low.
Rachel felt as if Hell itself were turning the moments one notch tighter, one
more over again, in his tone. She indicated the phaeton with a shaking hand,
finally turning her head to watch as Sid strode to it, her eyes falling to the
wheels, seeking the long figure of her Preacher, where she had seen him crawl
to hide...
"OH SHIT," Sid exclaimed, and Rachel got the
vague impression of blue nanogoo flaring like a plasma lamp. He was standing in
the spot Cort had limped over to...
Gone. He had summoned the last of his strength and
quitted them both. He had revoked his choice.
She was on her feet...did abandonment really feel like
shards of glass ripping through her bones?...running around the phaeton,
calling out his name, feeling as raw and as thirst driven as she would if she
had spent all day in the desert sun...calling out for Cort..."come back!
Come back!"
"We'll find him in a minute, you little..."
Sid shouted at her, but Rachel didn't care. She began weaving among the tall
brush, the high chaparral...whatever you called the spiky-thorny-hairy-alien
vegetation of the Arizona landscape...Rachel wanted it out of her way, so she
could see...where did Cort go? She had to find him, had to let him know...she
didn't do it for Sid....
Because it was so dark and the waning moon so dim,
already casting its reflected light in longer shadows, Rachel had a harder time
navigating a way through a ridiculously endless patch of tall scrub, so it was
no surprise at all that something large, some obnoxious and overgrown root got
in her way and sent her sprawling. She pushed herself up to go on, but a spark
of intuition told her that was the softest root she had ever collided with. She
turned and found Cort face down in the dirt, overcome.
Her mind had her body do one thing: throw itself over
Cort and try to collect him up in her arms, heavy and unyielding in his state
of unconsciousness. Her eyes and voice had other ways to search: call his name
in sobs and entreaties, shedding liquid fear and sorrow on his shirt, his neck,
his hair, until she could do neither. Cort remained resolutely silent, as
absent from her presence as he could be. Soul and body had submitted to
something far more dreadful than pain.
She didn't hear Sid stomp up to her, lugging her
satchel, her sword, sneering and bitching under his breath the entire way,
didn't see him stop to take in the entire scene. It wasn't until her boss
dropped her things at her side and bent to haul Cort up into a limp stand and
lean him on his shoulder that she saw Sid hold up the Warp-shell that had
brought him in the first place. She grabbed onto the left arm dangling over
Sid's shoulder, trying to watch for any sign that Cort knew what was happening.
Then, she heard the click of finely manicured nails on
the button of the Warp-shell and closed her own eyes as they left Redemption
forever.
************************************
Cort was not in the river. The river was going
someplace. He had decided not to. He made it about 50 yards or so out into the
scrub, the black horizon keeping its distance, always keeping its distance. Why
was he going there? Was there something on the horizon he needed...wanted? He
paused, trying to remember. No. There was nothing left he needed. Needing
things. No. Never got him anywhere. His vision was fading. Was the river taking
him? No, there was green in the river. The river hadn't been real. The river.
He'd floated in the river. Nice. Smoothly turning floating. This was sharp.
Barbed wire. Thorns. Cougar teeth. All tearing at him, all ripping at his mind,
his heart. No rippling waters soothing
"OOOOMPH!" Sid groused, making a big show of
having to lift Cort, though the weight of a human man was nothing to him.
"Click your heels three times, Dorothy," he smirked at Rachel.
"The balloon is about to leave Oz." Then he pressed the button.
Going through the warp field took him differently than
it did inferior beings. Something in his circuitry felt strangely at home as
the lights moved past, weaving then interweaving their intricate patterns of
color and form. There was that dratted hum, though. He looked at Rachel and saw
her eyes were scrinched tightly shut, her hands clamped over her ears. At least
she'd learned to hold onto consciousness in transit. Not every human could
manage that. With her eyes closed, he looked down at her face, a certain light
of...possessiveness...in his expression. Then he looked at the unconscious Cort. If he dropped him...say, just slipped enough to let the cowboy touch the
warpcore...just for a split second? It was a tempting thought.
Or...later...perhaps...if no one noticed...he could dissect him in the
lab...like a frog or a grasshopper? That would be fun.
Ah, he shouldn't engage in such pleasant daydreams
whilst warping. But one had to do something to pass the nanoseconds...didn't
one? How could he help it if his brain just thought faster than, well, anyone
else's?
He looked then at Cort, the long dusty hair
entirely
hiding his face as he hung, completely limp. So, according to what Rachel had
said, Mikol must want this one. Interesting. Very interesting, indeed. As
furious as he was with Rachel for having taken Sindri on assignment,
yet...still...it would have been amusing to observe her fight with it. For
real...for her life...not just in practice. Though only a fraction of a second
had passed since he'd pressed the button, his mind ran through thought after
thought. He had...evolved...since that disgusting bit of celluloid with Mr.
Washington. There were rumors there would be a new movie soon. A rematch! He
licked his lips in anticipation. No one would know who
Rachel was sagging almost as much as Cort so he
chucked her under her chin, saying, "Oh, Auntie Em! Auntie Em! There's no
place like home, Auntie Em! There's no place like your own back yard." Then
silence fell around them so sudden, so profound, it hurt. Well, it hurt Rachel.
A panel slid open, revealing a large room, all glass and smooth metal. Beyond
the glass waited a medical team. Sid scooped Cort up into his arms, striding
quickly toward them. Leaving Rachel a bit behind, he said over his shoulder.
"We'll take him from here, Rachel. Your work, if you can call it work, is
done."
******************************************
Hurricane.
That's what the warp felt like, a blue elastic
maelstrom buzzing with energy; a ripping force that she could feel all around
her, shielded as she was by the field Sid had developed for this technology,
this startling technology that could take them from one dimension to another.
She couldn't help herself; she had to let go and hold her ears against the
dreadful noise...just like Sid to add that for an extra dig at humans. She
closed her eyes too...to keep them open as they passed meant throwing up,
heaving for hours once they landed.
Silence.
If she had thought the perpetual grinding buzz had
been jarring, the sudden drop in sound cut through her. She felt as if the cold
air of the receiving chamber was sharp enough to dissect her for all the world
to see. She opened her eyes to see Sid hitch Cort up on his shoulder one last
time. Cort showed no sign of life at all.
Two nurses! A doctor! NanoCorp was such a well-funded
operation, there was an on-site medical team to handle emergencies, most of
which involved those things as a small-town emergency room could handle. The
three on call for them stood waiting patiently with a gurney.
Rachel shoved her way into the room beyond as the door
opened and Sid strode away with his prize, strode to plunk Cort down. At last,
people who could do some good...!
Sid turned as if he knew what she was thinking,
pausing ever so slightly to toss one last coal upon the fire.
"We'll take him from here, Rachel. Your work, if
you can call it work, is done," the nanocreature sneered, blue eyes, blue
teeth, blue evil flaring with disdain.
"No!" She called out, voice hoarse.
"Don't do this...don't leave me behind!"
"Don't you know when you are dismissed?" Sid
snapped.
"Where are you going with him?" They had all
started down the hallway, Cort now on the gurney, an IV unit speedily inserted,
the bandages, her pathetic bandages unwound and discarded as they trotted.
"Let me go with you!" She cried, panicking. Cort looked so
pale...blue around the lips, those once-warm lips!...his brow looked so even,
as if all the weight of thought and life had drained away. She tried to grab
for the hand without the IV, the one that had held hers so tenderly before,
caressed her face....
She nearly tripped on the person in front of her,
blinded by tears, by sorrow.
Sid seemed to run along beside her, taunting her.
"It's all been arranged, Rachel. Nothing of
concern to you longer," said he, trying to corral her away from the
gurney. Rachel found she was keeping pace, despite the speed with which the
medical team raced to take him to pre-op. Sid grabbed her arm and yanked her
back just as the electronic doors swung open, the nurses driving the Cort into
the wide open room beyond.
Rachel found herself struggling to unleash herself
from Sid's tightening grip.
"It IS my concern!" The pitch of her voice
went up and up. "I want to see what they are going to do to him. It's just
his hand...!"
"You're too familiar, Rachel, too familiar with
him to do him any good...as if you did from the start," he seethed, voice
cold. "They're going to repair what you could not. Now leave." With
that, he literally threw her to the side and marched through doors just as they
were coming to a center to close her off.
All air between herself and the doors turned
violet-red, horribly hot in her nostrils. She rammed against the doors and
began kicking as hard as she could, pounding with her fists, screaming as loud
as she could push air out of her lungs "let me in! Let me in!" Each
contact with the metal doors was not loud enough, so she did it again.
"Let me in, damn you! Let me in!" Each ringing blow made her want to
scream harder. "You can't keep me out! Let me in!"
Finally, an orderly charged her from an open space,
tried to subdue her. She went beserk. A doctor joined them, trying to pull
Rachel off the stunned orderly. Somehow, one of their voices penetrated her
with the words "okay, okay! You can sit nearby if you promise to be
quiet!"
Rachel walked in not caring if she strutted or not.
She glared around at the staring staff and found the bay where Cort had been
sequestered.
They were administering anesthesia. It took her a
minute of calming down for it to make sense. Why wake him up for a procedure he
wouldn't be all that keen about anyway? Easier to deal with pain in a relaxed state,
and there was no need to stress him further...Rachel found herself looking at
the busy nurses, wondering if the anesthesia was their idea, or Sid's.
Still blue! Rachel waited until there was a lull in
the activity to reach out to take his left hand...cold! She nearly began
weeping again right there. She searched his face. Implacable. Unreadable.
Lifeless. Her eyes fell to his chest.
Just the barest of movement.
To keep panic from overtaking her again, she reassured
herself this was only because of the medicine. He'll be all right, she repeated
again and again.
Then they wheeled him out, took him down another hall,
into a smaller room, but far more sterile, far more clinical. She nearly burst
into a tantrum again, afraid they would choose this checkpoint to leave her out
until one of the nurses handed her scrubs to put on. She rushed as quickly as
she dared to wash her hands and entered to find that they had started already.
One nurse assisted the doctor, who appeared a lot more
calm than any of them. Another nurse, or doctor, she couldn't tell anymore,
hovered like she did, covered completely in scrubs and face mask. He seemed too
preoccupied with observing the operation. There was a small moment of barest
happiness when the doctor cast a kindly crinkle of the eyes in Rachel's
direction. "You did just fine," he told her as she hovered as close
as she dared. "Considering the conditions Sid explained he had been in,
you were about as close an angel as he could have."
Rachel nearly fainted with relief, but that still
didn't alleviate the growing dread that the injury was far deeper than broken
bones. She sidled in ginger steps to Cort's left side, slipped her hand in his,
tried to seem as obscure and innocuous as possible under the bright operating lights.
There was no stool to sit on, but she would have been glad to stand in
eternity. She listened to the patter of the nurses and the doctor who had an
easy rapport; tried not to listen to the noises made in working with shattered
tissue, leaning in on Cort to whisper in his ear periodically: "Hold on,
sweetheart, hold on."
Tried to tell herself it would be a matter of hours
and then it would be all right.
What then?
She shook off that thought once or twice. Too much
going on.
*Hold on sweetheart, hold on!*
There was a sharp beep. The heads of the doctor and
nurses snapped up in unison. More sharp beeps. Then a nurse was shoving Rachel
away from Cort's side, shouting, demanding a defibrillator...the
respirator...the sharp whine of an EKG machine powering up...
Rachel stumbled backwards, trying with her feet to
find foothold in a swiftly tilting world. The floor kept angling up from all
directions, and she couldn't find a place to be straight and tall, or a place
where she could gain equilibrium. Cort was going into cardiac arrest. Chaos
zoomed around him. The buzz and pop of a defib bursting electricity into Cort's
exposed chest.
It wasn't until she finally fell to her knees at the
edge of the room, in a dark corner, giving up on the lack of purchase her feet
were experiencing to try and find balance there, that one of those in scrubs
noticed her and descended upon her. Then the floor righted itself and Rachel
went into full pummeling mode, scratching at arms, tearing at face masks,
kicking...
"Stop it, stop it!" said the scrub, pulling
off his mask, holding her at arms length with two very powerful arms.
"It's me...Bud! Your friend, Bud White!"
Only then did Rachel give her last and most anguished
sob. Tearing away her own mask, she fell into the cop's arms and held on as if
he were the last clump of earth in space.
"Oh, Bud, I've killed him!"
*******************************
Bud White made his way back down the hallway, a coffee
in one hand, a bottle of Vanilla Coke in the other, trying to think of ways to
comfort the distraught Rachel who sat in the lobby of the NanoCorp medical
clinic. This section of the office complex was a more stodgy branch, not
completely merged with the avant garde design of NanoCorp proper, but served
its employees well. The office complex itself sat in the middle of
Sid-only-knew how many acres of landscaped parkland, the building itself a
glittering tribute to late 20th century architecture. Curves and blocks
expressed themselves completely in thick greenish glass and black slate floors,
but the medical wing retained the respectability of a partition that cloistered
privacy.
All in all, Bud mused, it was not for nothing that had
It had been dubbed "Emerald City" by the townspeople : everyone was
aware of it and thought it amazing, but could never quite be sure what its
purpose was...nor was it as easy to access as they would have liked.
*Which was the way Sid 6.7 liked it, apparently*, Bud
scowled, turning the corner to see Rachel still hunched in her armchair, one
heartbeat away from doing something desperate. His heart twinged hard for what
she was going through...how could it not? He saw Rachel as a sister he never
had, a sister he would like to have, one he could tease and baby and give
embarrassing parties for because...well, that's what fond brothers do for their
favorite sister. And up to this point, Rachel had eaten it all up, easily
molded by his brotherly advice.
But now his friend, his sister, sat in complete
disarray, a crease in her forehead he had never seen before, dark circles under
her eyes...blood speckled her left shoulder. She only shrugged it off when he
tried to ask her about it. Later, her gesture said. She wouldn't think of anyone
but the newest addition to Sid's "collection" in the other room as he
hovered between the here and now and some Other World they had yet to figure
out how to connect.
But this was not as disturbing nor as heartbreaking as
witnessing her reaction to being separated from Cort, her reaction when Cort
went into cardiac arrest. She looked as if...he sat down next to her, handed
her the cola, sipped his coffee, tried to find the right words to describe what
emanated from her, what impression he had seen...as if the roots of some
tremendous tree had been yanked out, leaving scarred and riven earth. Damage
beyond repair. Damage that would be covered up eventually, but would never
produce.
They sat in silence for a few minutes more. They had
been sent to the lobby by one of the nurses who lost all patience with them,
practically chasing them out with a surgical knife as they lingered...hoping...
Bud glanced over at Rachel, who had taken about two
sips of her Cola before recapping it and letting it fall to the floor.
Completely listless. His coffee was almost gone. He needed that.
He set the empty cup down on the floor beside his
chair and then twisted to face Rachel across the low arms of their chairs. She
sat curled up with her feet on the edge of the chair, arms wrapped around her
legs, head tilted to the side as she tried to sleep sitting up.
"Rachel," he began, patting the hands
tightly clenched together in their hold around her legs. "Rachel, honey,
you look so tired, you should go lie down. There's a couch in the ladies room,
I hear," he offered, helpfully. Rachel gave him a wry look.
"And you would know this how?" She asked,
apparently not too tired to crack wise with a Brother.
"By my charm and wit, as usual," he replied
with a grin. It was a traditional answer between them, born of banter that was
as comfortable as a childhood blanket. "The things the ladies like to tell
me!" He rolled his eyes, also traditional with that admission.
Ah. Good. A little smile. A fragment, ghost of a
smile. He waited a few beats before he capitalized on that.
"I am someone you can talk to," he said,
somberly.
"I haven't the words, Bud," Rachel replied,
and he could see that it was true. She had been sitting there trying to think
of what to say, but emotions were so raw, so wild in their scope, she seemed to
have resigned to just waiting for the next onslaught. She shook her head to
emphasize it. "If he dies, I'll never speak again."
Something in the way she said it gave Bud a stab of
ice, the kind of cold one feels when they imagine the sun exploding and all the
earth being burned away. All that would be left was the cold vacuum of space,
not a nano-ounce of oxygen, not a glimmer of green to nourish it.
"Those are good doctors in there," he said,
and meant it. Sid had only the best in Emerald City. Rachel said nothing.
One of those good doctors appeared before them. He was
a deeply brown man of India, brown eyes containing a merry light, the same eyes
that had crinkled at Rachel when she came into the operating room. He stood
before Bud and Rachel, waiting until he had their full attention before
pronouncing the verdict.
"He has returned to normal heartbeat and blood
pressure," he told them and paused...oh a well-practiced pause! From the
many times he's had to give this speech, the many times he's had to pause for
the opposite reason..."From what we can tell, there was little or no
damage to the heart itself, and he appears to have stabilized for now, but we
will keep him here for a time under observation," the doctor ended. Short
speech done, hold back for questions. A little bit at a time.
Rachel looked as if she wanted to dance and sing and
fall as loose skin in a puddle at his feet. Cort was alive. Bud glanced at her,
catching her eyes in return: savor it now. Worry later.
"What caused it?" Bud asked.
"Well, I do not have history to go by, and
certainly no x-rays. But in the prime of his life, I must say, it caught all of
us by surprise...although such things have been known to happen," the
doctor demurred.
"Can we go see him? Is he awake?" Rachel
shot to a standing position.
"It will be some time for
the anesthesia to wear
off, but I don't see a problem. Just be very quiet. He needs to rest."
*Damn. Didn't know little things like Rachel could
move so fast*, mused Bud, as he followed the dust cloud left by her once they
found out Cort's room number. She was already seated in the lounge chair at the
side of his bed in the room by the time he sauntered in, perched at the left
hand that was free of binding. His right hand was encased in a thick white
cast, an e-bar pin rising out of it for the one carpal shattered by Ratsy's
gun-butt. It was then that it hit Bud, just as reviewing his origins had struck
him by the physical evidence he had found on his body: the action had been
real, the harm real, the scars...real. Cort's damaged hand was real. The
effects, as had been the case for Bud's injuries, would be long lasting as
well.
And Rachel's dilemma in trying to fix him when she
arrived had been real as well, Bud had heard her scream at Sidney. He had been
rushing to the room to see, to greet...to find the medical team ready to
transport. And the haggard look of a man in long illness lay about the exhausted
sleeping Cort like a wet and dreary thoroughly unwarm and unwelcome blanket.
Rachel's eyes were fastened upon Cort's face now, her
hand trying to move beneath his one good one, trying to reconnect in a way that
was all too familiar for someone who was supposed to go in and retrieve at
NanoCorp's employ. Nonchalant, Bud sat down in the window seat where the view
overlooked some of the grounds beyond large bushy globular boxwood.
He waited until he had been in the room long enough to
get comfortable, for it to be established that the only disturbance they would
get would be the routine nurse.
"What happened, Rachel?" He asked the moment
she looked up briefly and caught his wondering gaze.
Tears must be contagious in hospital as well, because
the look on her face made Bud feel as if he had punctured a baby with an
ice-pick.
"I watched his movie...and I fell in love with
him."
*******************************************
When Cort closed the door, all sound, all sense of
place, of time, was left on its other side. It was dark...black...nothingness
where he was. He liked it. And, so, he stood there in
it...alone...quiet...still. Waiting for nothing. There was nothing to wait for.
He would have sighed with relief, only neither sighs nor relief existed beyond
the door.
Time, outside the door, passed, but was no concern of
his, not part of his awareness. A sudden crack of light pierced his blackness
and instantly he was on alert, more curious than anything. The crack widened
swiftly, its motion smooth, and so he moved toward it, his boots silent in his
floorless space. It was a door...another door...and he paused a moment, his palm
resting on its edge. Everything before him was white light, light that moved
and vibrated with Presence. He turned his head, once, glancing behind him at
the empty dark. Then he smiled and stepped through the door. Immediately he saw
a shape, a human form, slightly off to the left, rays of light dancing around
it from some distant source. He walked in that direction and the shape held out
its hands to him, saying softly, "Oh, my darling boy!" It was his
grandmother. He gasped with the joy of the sight of her. Her long, pure white
hair was pulled up atop her head in that big, loose bun she always wore. She
had raised him since he was 4 months old and his parents had been killed in a
wagon accident. For 14 years it had been just the two of them, a little patch
of land his grandfather had left, a few animals, a hard life, filled with
endless work. He looked at her and smiled. Endless love. She had loved him with
her entire heart. She had been his anchorage for the whole beginnings of his
life, the center of everything, watching over him, protecting him...and as he
got into his teens, him protecting her. Until the day the rattler in the shed
got her and she'd died in his arms, leaving him alone in the world. It was then
that Herod had come.
She was looking at him now with this absolutely
radiant smile and he didn't know when he'd EVER been so glad to see anybody.
All he wanted was to continue walking to her, to take her in his arms and feel
hers wrapping about him. He bet she even had a honeycake in the pocket of her
apron! God, he was glad to see her! He walked quickly now in her direction,
almost sprinting in his eagerness.
He made it far enough so that in one more long stride
he would have his arms about her...but suddenly she was pulled back, back into
the streaming rays of light...and there was some barrier forming between them
that he could not cross. "NO!" he shouted, clutching desperately at
the empty space where she had been. Then he began to fall, twisting, turning,
helpless...back into the dark space. He lay there, heaving in the pain of loss,
alone again.
Again time passed beyond his awareness, and in slight
gradations, his black began to turn greyer and greyer. "Grandmother"
he called, soundless in his chamber still. He was walking now through a great fog,
looking for her. Using his hands, he pushed away the clinging dampness of the
heavy particles of air and moisture. He seemed to be climbing some hill, steep
and trackless. He struggled, trying to gain its top. Perhaps he could see her
from there? Finally he made it and the fog was lifting. He heard voices, soft
and murmuring, and his soul vibrated with the hope he'd found her after all. He
became aware, then, that he was lying in a bed. It was too big, too confusing a
thought to deal with, so he decided just to listen to the voices, hoping beyond
hope that one of them would be the right one.
*********************************************
How could she describe to Bud the thread, the spider
silk woven between herself and Cort?
She loved Bud dearly, a kind and gentle man despite
the rough past he had known, despite the violence of his own story. A brother,
a friend. Someone who had been her confidant since he first came over, had
become trusted, although there had never been any sparks between them, other
than the funny and encouraging ones between two people who just...*liked* each
other.
But now, even with Bud’s reassuring presence, waiting
for her to explain herself, she struggled to grasp the means to label what she
saw, what she knew in her heart: she loved Cort. And if he rejected that....
She couldn't contemplate that.
As if she’d been having a long conversation already,
she opened her mouth to try, thankful Bud was there, sitting across the room,
patient, silent.
"I mean it when I say the words 'I love you,' you
know," she began. Bud murmured some agreement and urged her to go on.
"I don’t say them lightly. I’ve been hurt once too often before to know
you don't trash those words and live to tell about it.”
“Is that what you said to Cort?”
“I said it to him,” Rachel affirmed. “He asked me
'why' and I blurted it out, because it was all right there, as big and rich and
full in my heart as I could ever dream. More than that!” She paused, feeling
even those words inadequate. How does one describe...? She shook her head. “Has
been since the moment I saw him…when he was standing there in the street,
preparing to fight, rolling up his sleeves, looking so…so determined, so…independent,
strong, in and of himself. I saw something Bud! I don’t know what it was...but
I think…I think I saw the real ‘him.’ Not a gunfighter, not a killer, not a
priest whose calling was ripped from his grasp. A man facing what he was…and…and…I
don’t know, Bud. To me, that was…I wanted to go up and tell him that. I saw a
man, a man worthy of a fight.”
She shifted in her seat now, thoughts now crowding in
one after the other.
“He told Ellen he was damned…and she just sat there,
the bitch. Well, I don’t believe that! And I wanted so hard, so badly to tell
him that…but I never got the chance…never could sit long enough with him in a
lucid state to try and explain how I knew…why I knew….” She gave a short laugh,
remembering her faux pas. “He got real suspicious when I started asking about
things and Katie and Horace kept interrupting…and then he would fall or…” she
trailed off, suddenly feeling too tired to give a report of what happened with Dimetri.
Considering Sid’s reaction to that news, she wasn’t sure how Bud would take it
either. Best focus on the issue at hand.
Right.
“I could see it in his eyes, Bud. That conversion was
real…and so much more than most of us ever bother with.” A sudden epiphany
struck Rachel with that thought. “I saw someone who was always caught in a trap…that’s
what I was responding to, that’s why I fell in love with him. I wanted him to
be free.”
"Oh God, Bud!” Fresh tears, black accusations,
horrible realization…Rachel gathered her feet up onto her chair again, trying
to curl up against the bitterness. “I've had Cort trade one monster for
another. I sat there and fell in love with him and decided he was what I
wanted, consequences be damned…and I agreed to work for Sid and now…now he'll
wake up now and see me as a monster too, and there’ll be nothing I can say to
defend myself!”
Bud took a deep breath. Ever the pragmatist, he
pointed out, "I think Sid might have a problem with your perspective.”
"Sid's not human,” she snarled. “What perspective
could he have that would ever involve freedom?" Bud just shook his head,
took a deep breath. He knew Rachel was in deep pain, but he had seen how angry,
infuriated Sid was…how nasty to someone who had actually quite a favorable
reputation…and his mind had followed trails of thought…worst possible scenario,
of course, but knowing Sid…
"Honey, Sid may not forget how much you've
rebelled against him. Hon," and here Bud shifted uneasily, not knowing how
to break this news to her, "he's not above the damage to your career if
you no longer work for this company. He's not going to forget what he thinks is
mutiny on your part...I know, I know, hon," Bud crooned as Rachel began to
protest what she really thought of Sid. He crossed the room to come kneel down
before her, trying to get her to meet his gaze. “But you might best start
thinking of a way to...that is, if he decides to let you go, make it as
amicable a break as you can...one that will let you live in the world."
Rachel felt her cheeks go numb, angry that Bud would
bring this up at a time like this…no! Not angry at him, not her Brother…she
looked down at him from over the top of her knees, melting under the concern in
Bud’s aqua eyes. She saw he was trying to prepare her for more of the same,
give her the chance to brace herself, that Cort’s recovery was the least of her
problems….
She took in her breath sharply at the following
thought.
“You’re thinking he may fire me? Send me away?”
“That would hurt me, you know,” Bud said. “Would hurt
Terry…all of us. But Sid…well…this one was important to him, I think.”
Rachel let fly with an expletive that made Bud give a
snort of appreciation, but she hid her face on her knees to quell the tremble
in her lips. She was so tired of crying!
Shaking her head as she raised it again, she answered
his unspoken implication, denying to Bud that she had not been completely
thoughtless…
"It won't matter if he does, Bud...let Sid do his
worst....let him blackball me from every known company in the world. I don’t
care. If Cort doesn’t want me when he wakes up, if I'm not able to be with him,
the rest of the world will be my coffin no matter where I go. It will only be a
matter of time before I lay myself down...and it may as well be now, if not a
hundred years. If Cort isn’t in my life, I'll be as dry as that dust in
Redemption, as dry as that fountain he was chained to. And I won't feel it. I
won't care. I'll be as good as dead, too."
Bud laid a hand on her head. "Oh...hon....”
Rachel sniffed pathetically and he was beginning to see a pattern of
ever-descending depression. “Don’t you think you’re guessing at things right
now? You know how difficult it was for me to immigrate to this time period, but
I was already part of the 20th century. Cort’s from entirely different world…he’ll
have so much to catch up on!”
Rachel sniffed for a few minutes, absorbing Bud’s
words, wanting to release the blockage of her mind, her heart. Accepting a
handkerchief from the cop, she then asked, "Did you ever read the Lord of
the Rings, Bud?"
"I saw the movie," he replied, brows
furrowing.
"Do you remember what Elrond said to Arwen about
choosing a mortal as her husband? About choosing to stay in Middle Earth?"
Bud nodded slightly, remembering the scene, a father
trying to impart to heart-driven elven daughter just exactly what her
heart-driven choice would mean....remembering the images Elrond showed her, of
her final days...falling leaves, a dead city....
"...and I will linger on in darkness and doubt,
will dwell bound to grief...until the long years of my life are utterly
spent," Rachel paraphrased, head too full to quote exactly. "That’s
what it will be like for me if Cort rejects me."
She turned her eyes back to Cort. "Let Sid do his
worst. For me, it's already happened."
******************************************
Cort lay there, unmoving, listening. At first he had
hated it that neither of the voices were his Grandmother's. He didn't want to
hear any but hers. He wanted to stay on the side of the door where she was. But
things Rachel was saying began to penetrate and so he lay still, letting her
words fall onto him like rain in the desert. They began to run over him in
little rivulets, their meaning filling up all the dry crevices that had opened
in his soul. He heard another man speaking with her, softly, comfortingly, as
though he cared. The voice was similar to Sid's...but not exactly. If Sid had
been the one speaking with her, he probably would have shut them both out, gone
back into his fog.
Rachel said so much. It was hard to take it all in, to
let the meaning, the full meaning of what she said, get sorted out in his head.
He was still very fuzzy and it took great effort not to float away.
She was there when he'd rolled his sleeves? He hardly
remembered the doing of it himself. It was just a natural movement on his part,
an act of preparation. He didn't comprehend why she knew what she knew of him,
why he had never seen her in Redemption before that first moment on the steps.
There was so...much...he didn't understand. But he lay that aside right now,
concentrating on her words. When she said with such utter feeling, "I
wanted him to be free...," something in him moved, shifted position,
realigned. "I sat there and fell in love with him and decided he was what
I wanted." He listened. Her job, whatever that was, was in danger.
"That's what it will be like for me if Cort rejects me." The words
were there, hanging in the air, spoken without knowing he heard.
Unmanipulative, from the heart.
Was it possible? He was suddenly very afraid. To
trust...again? Could he do that? He listened to the sound of her tears, his
mind almost closing down again due to the medications, the endless weary hours
of pain and hurt. He forced himself to stay there in the room, not to go back
to the foggy hill. When she said, "...and I will linger on in darkness and
doubt, will dwell bound to grief...until the long years of my life are utterly
spent...," he felt the tears welling behind his closed lids, but was
unable to lift his arm to wipe them away. He had felt her hand upon his
sometimes as she spoke, and his fingers moved across the blanket, seeking it
again. Finding it, he slid his through the curl of her palm, feeling her sudden
start of shock. He thought of his Grandmother and what he had learned of love
flowing from a pure heart, and tears ran unhindered down his cheeks.
Still with eyes closed, his voice hoarse from the
breathing tube, he paraphrased the words from the Song of Solomon that were
coursing into his heart.
"Her left hand is under my head, and her right
hand doth embrace me. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes,
and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he
please. My beloved spoke and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one and
come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth and the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice
of the turtle dove is heard in our land."
He opened his eyes, tears sparkling on his lashes,
looking at her then. "My beloved is mine, and I am hers until the day break,
and the shadows flee away. All beautiful you are, my darling," he paused,
almost unable to continue, swallowed hard, and finished the verse, "and
there is no flaw in you."
A convulsive sob tore through him then and he lay
there, gasping with the force of it, with his world shifting on its axis once
again, his fingers locking hard around hers.
**************************************
She had placed her hand next to his loosely curved
palm at his side, despite the total conviction she had that he would push it
away from him if he were conscious...no more traps!...but it was a gesture
become habit now after several days of doing it in Redemption. There it had
been to let him know he wasn't alone; she had liked to sit and compare her hand
to his, small to large, long to short, white to tan. Here, in the cold reality
of her world, the way it arched in suspended animation gave her a sense of
bittersweet regret. Any minute now he would wake up and remember how his Rachel
had morphed into something...not good. She had returned her gaze to watch Cort
for signs of awareness, so she could save him the trouble, draw her hand away
so there'd be no contact. She didn't want to think about *feeling* the
rejection, much less hear it from him.
And so there it was, a long finger twitched, her hand
remained. The arched hand flattened, curved again, fingers reaching
out...towards hers. Rachel stared at its movement...would she go ahead and do
what she knew she must and pull away the hand?
Before she could bring herself to do so, Cort's hand
found hers, and it seemed to twitch again, as if charged with electricity,
curling fingers around hers in a conscious grasp.
She looked up in amazement at Cort's face. His mouth
was opening and his cheeks were...shiny! He was crying! His eyelashes showed
signs of a veil of rain brimming behind his eyelids.
Rachel turned to speak to Bud, only to find him half
disappeared out the door, giving her a smile and a wink before leaving
altogether and letting the door slide shut. She was alone with Cort now. At
least, there would be no one to witness her rejection.
Cort's voice began low and Rachel was taken back to
the night when he first showed signs of coming out of his fever, a sign that
she could at last begin the process of telling him...telling him what, Rachel?
She couldn't get far on that thought, because Cort's words were becoming
clearer as his respirator-scarred voice rose to a song...as if he were rising
up through some otherworldly choir in one plaintive note: "....my beloved
spoke and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away. For, lo,
the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth
and the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle dove
is heard in our land."
Then, as if those words had released him from the trap
of unconsciousness, his eyes flew open, bright green with feeling, looking
straight at her. "My beloved is mine, and I am hers until the day break,
and the shadows flee away. All beautiful you are, my darling." He
faltered, his face expressing an emotion so profound Rachel was sure he would
split apart. His chest heaved in a great sob as he took another breath, the one
that Rachel could not find at the moment, releasing it again with words that made
her shake with fiery joy: "and there is no flaw in you."
As if he knew she was going to slip away to nurse her
wounds, depart in loneliness, his long fingers, his strong warm hand closed
around hers in a firm grip. He wasn't letting go after all.
Now she was in suspended animation, for the only thing
Rachel could find it easy to do is smile and wonder if her body would split
apart from the relief, the happiness...the Joy...of seeing him, hearing
him...knowing him more in that moment than any other intimacy could give.
Cort shifted his grip on her hand, taking another deep
breath, answering her smile with one of his own. He pulled her hand towards him
and kissed the knuckles as he had before, eyes never leaving hers...
She couldn't remember doing it, but somehow the
moveable railing on his bed was lowered and Rachel slid into the tiny space
next to him, tucking her shoulder up under his. It was a precarious situation,
but she didn't care. She only wanted his arm around her, lay her head next to
his, be close. He brought his cast arm over to pull her closer, turning to his
side somewhat to give her more room. Then, they just stared at each other in
silence for a long while, feeling too intense to do more than kiss with light
kisses each others cheeks, noses, lips.
Well, more lips than anything, Rachel realized, but
the joy was felt the most there.
It wasn't until Cort shifted his right arm again that
he realized what a change it had undergone. He turned his face from her to
stare at it as he held it up, the E-bar gleaming in the florescent light, the
IV line trailing to the pump behind him. The white cast was as heavy as it
appeared, covering most of his upper arm, leaving only the last phalanges of
his fingers showing.
"They operated on your hand while you were
unconscious. They gave you medicine to stay that way," Rachel quietly told
him, bringing his arm back down once more to rest on her side. She touched the
IV line connected to the stint in his arm. "This," she explained,
"is to feed your body with the nutrients it needs while you are here.
They'll remove it once they decide you are well enough to go."
Cort stared at his arm for a moment longer, then back
at her.
"When will that be?" He asked, his voice
hoarse. He blinked as if that were another question he wanted answered.
"I don't know. You..." Rachel hesitated,
wondering if she should just let the doctor say something. "You went into
cardiac arrest while under the anesthesia. Your throat is probably sore from
the respirator tube they had to put down your throat. Its the way they make
sure you can breathe. They may want to keep you another day for
observation," she added.
Cort looked at her searchingly, working those words
through to find some trust in what she said. "Cardiac arrest?"
"Your
heart stopped. It happens sometimes when a
person is...well, when they are unconscious and being operated on. You scared
everyone. You..." Rachel took a deep breath, meeting the green eyes with a
renewed emotion. "You terrified me."
******************************************
"Grandmother," he murmured.
"What?"
"My Grandmother. She raised me." He smiled
almost dreamily and far away a moment. "She was there." He looked
back at Rachel. "I saw her."
"Oh, God," she said, burying her face in his
chest.
He began to stroke her hair with his good hand,
soothing, soft. "Look at me, Rachel," he whispered after several
minutes. She lifted her face and he saw the tears in her eyes. "Weeping,
my love, may endure for a night...but joy...yes, my Rachel, joy comes in the
morning." He kissed her again. "It does not matter what time of day
it is. Here, in this room, Rachel...here it is morning." He pressed her as
close as he was able, finding the experience of the heavy cast new and
cumbersome when all he wanted to do was use both his arms to press her even
closer.
It was the first time ever she had lain beside him,
the full length of her lying beside him. How, he wondered, could it be the
first when she felt so familiar to him, felt like she'd always been there,
fitted to his form? No woman had ever satisfied him, not like this, not this
new and total satisfaction where she became bone of his bone, flesh of his
flesh.
"Rachel," he said.
"What?"
"Nothing, my love. I only wanted to feel your
name."
"Feel?"
"Yes...feel."