Forty Leap (29 page)

“Neville, you have to go to a hospital,” I
said.

He nodded in agreement, which surprised me.
With all that had happened, I was almost ready to believe that he
was just going to accept his death. It seemed a hospital would be a
risky maneuver for us, but as I thought about it I wasn’t so sure.
There had been absolutely no interference since the gun battle. I
wondered if the installation itself was still a secret. If it was,
then there wouldn’t be any news reports or warnings. Of course, a
wound like Neville’s didn’t just happen, but we could worry about
explanations after he was treated.

We climbed out of the helicopter and waited
for a car to come. Neville was in and out of consciousness, his
breathing irregular and his pulse starting to weaken. Almost an
hour passed before we saw the first car. It slowed as it
approached, seeing the helicopter and not having a way around it.
Holding up one of the military badges, one of the men in our small
group waved the car down. It was s small car, not too different
from the ones I remembered. A man and a woman were inside and they
looked fit and healthy. Once they got a look at us, they knew that
stopping had been a bad decision. My three conscious companions
surrounded the vehicle and threatened them with guns. The man and
the woman stepped out of the car and we took it, just like
that.

The man with the ID badge drove and a woman
sat in the front with him. I helped Neville into the back seat and
sat between him and the last of us, another man.

“I’m not going to a hospital,” the driver
said. “It’s too dangerous.”

I looked at Neville. “He’ll die.”

Neville made no move. The driver shrugged.
The woman in the passenger seat, sensing a confrontation, steeled
herself for it. The man on my left just stared out the window.

“If you just pull up near the hospital, I’ll
take him inside myself. You don’t have to wait.”

“That sounds fair,” said the woman.

“It’s too dangerous.”

I felt a rage boiling up inside me. It had
been there a while, just simmering under the surface, squashed by
the fear and the shock. But the helicopter ride and the wait for a
car to come by had given me enough time to recover. Was Neville my
responsibility? Was he my friend? He was all I had.

“You’ll do it,” I said. “You’ll drop us off
at a hospital and then be on your way.”

“No.”

I reached forward, grabbed the back of his
hair, and pulled. His head whipped back against the headrest and
the car swerved this way and that. He began shouting at me while
the woman clawed at my hand. The man on my left just stared out the
window. I tightened my grip. Once good jerk and I would pull a tuft
out by the roots. With my free hand I reached over and grabbed
Neville’s gun. I pointed it at the woman. I can’t say for sure, but
I think I might have been able to pull the trigger. I think, at
just that moment, I had it in me.

“You’re all wasting your time,” the man on my
left finally said over the noise.

We stopped our quarrelling and looked at him.
He chose not to return the favor.

“We’ve got one choice and one choice only. We
have to ditch this car as soon as we can and try to blend into
civilization, whatever civilization may be at this point.” He
addressed the driver. “If he wants to go to the hospital, then let
him have the car and go.”

Breathing heavily, the driver made a slight
affirmation with his head, wincing against the pain. I released him
and his hand came up to survey the damage. I pulled the gun away
from the woman and she eased up noticeably.

“Good,” I said. “Good.”

We rode the rest of the way without talking
to each other. As it turns out, we were no longer in Colorado.
Neville had flown us farther out than we thought. The first city we
reached was Rapid City, North Dakota. I had been there once, as a
child, on a trip to Mount Rushmore. The city was much larger than I
remembered, with wide streets that were probably very busy in
daylight. It was now approaching half past three. Neville was
unconscious, but breathing. The driver of the car pulled off into
an alleyway and got out. The woman got out, too. The man on my left
wished me luck before getting out. By the time I had Neville laying
securely on the seat and had put myself into the driver’s seat,
they were all gone.

There wasn’t much of a change in the way that
cars were operated. I suppose it made sense. If you change the way
a car works, you need to re-teach everyone how to drive. In a
drivers’ nation, that probably wouldn’t work out so well. I drove
slowly down each city street, looking at the names of the large
buildings and looking or signs. Too much time had passed already, I
knew. I needed to be quick if Neville was to have any chance at
survival. That is, if he even still had a chance at survival. I saw
an all-night diner and pulled the car into a spot. I kept telling
myself that no one knew who we were and no one would be able to
identify us. Of course, I was wearing a maintenance man’s uniform
with blood on it.

The hostess looked up with a smile on her
face as I entered, but that smile quickly turned to a frown. I knew
what I looked like.

“My friend is hurt,” I said. “I need to get
him to the hospital.”

She looked at me blankly. A waitress in the
background was edging toward the kitchen.

“My friend is hurt,” I repeated. “He’s in the
car. Do you know where the hospital is?”

Her eyes went back into focus. Stepping away
from the counter, she stuck herself out the door and began to point
and rattle off directions. I memorized them as best I could, noting
the names of the streets. She said they were all main roads and I
shouldn’t have too much trouble. For Neville’s sake, I hoped not. I
thanked her and left, getting into the stolen car and starting down
the road in the direction she’d indicated.

The trip seemed to take forever. Maybe I made
a wrong turn. Who knows? It’s hard enough to follow directions when
there’s no pressure. When someone’s life is on the line, it’s
almost impossible. At least she steered me in the right direction.
I happened upon signs that were big and blue, with a large white H
printed on them. I followed the signs and found the hospital.

By the time I got out of the car, I wasn’t
even sure if Neville was still breathing. His skin was cold and his
hair was damp with sweat. Like automobiles, hospitals didn’t seem
to have changed much. Maybe there were new departments with new
ways to save people’s lives, but there was still an entrance for
visitors and still and entrance to the Emergency Room. That was
where I went and that was where I ran through the doors. I tried to
be calm as I explained to the charge nurse that my friend was in
the car and he was bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. My story
immediately grabbed the attention of the charge nurse who shouted
out someone’s name. A burly man with a scraggly beard appeared at
her summons and the two of them followed me out into the lot. I
stood back while they took charge of Neville. He was alive. That
was a blessing at least. He was covered in blood, much of it dried,
but much of it still wet. The wound, when they uncovered it, was
ugly. I had seen a lot of death in the ruins of New York City, but
all of that had been so old and so removed. The wound on Neville’s
shoulder affected me in a way I had not anticipated. I wondered if
he would ever have proper use of his arm again.

The doctor and nurse were soon joined by two
men with a gurney. They lifted Neville carefully aboard and wheeled
him into the hospital. The doctor glanced back once at the car,
then once at me, and then rushed inside after his patient. Before
following him, I looked into the car and saw what he saw. There was
blood all over the seats and Neville’s rifle lying on the
floor.

I knew I should run. I had done what I could
to save Neville’s life, but now we were in danger of arrest. There
was nothing to be done for Neville. Even if they could save his
life, he would be unable to leave the hospital. I don’t know how
long the recuperation period is for a wound of that magnitude. They
were pumping unit after unit of blood into him. I saw them use the
shock paddles once. All those years gone by and they were still
using the very same defibrillators. All it took was one shock and
his pulse evened out. I guess they did it time after time on
television for dramatic effect. Or maybe Neville was just lucky.
Everyone worked so fast and there were so many people. Different
faces moved in and out of view and there was so much talking. I
couldn’t follow any of it.

Finally, in what seemed like an abrupt
conclusion, a doctor declared that Neville was stable. They began
to move him out of the room, no one paying attention to me.

“Wait,” I said. “Where are you taking
him?”

“ICU, Mr. Goldberg,” someone said to me.

Goldberg?
That had been the name on
the fake GEI badge given to me by Wil Lowenburg. I looked down to
see that it was still clipped to my maintenance man’s shirt.

I started to follow them, but found myself
grabbed about the arm by a strong hand. Someone whispered something
in my ear.
This way
. I was led off without any real ability
to assume control of my own fate. We moved quickly through the
bustling hallways of the Emergency Room. The person leading me was
a man in his mid twenties. At least, that was my guess. He wore a
white coat over a stylish pair of pants and a shirt and tie. The
style of the shirt was a bit odd. The collar was very narrow and
the seams around the sleeves were decorative. His tie was
shoe-string thin and yet still retained the familiar shape of a
tie. He peeked into a few rooms and behind a few curtains, frowning
at each. I didn’t know it at the time but he was looking for
someplace private. When he met with utter failure, he led me out
the doors of the hospital and into the parking lot.

I was beginning to get agitated when he
finally pulled up short next to a car and punched the key code into
the handle. The door unlocked. We got in.

“My name is Lewis Kung,” he said. “I’m an
intern here at Rapid City Memorial and I know who you are, Mr.
Cristian.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral and
imagine I failed miserably.

“Don’t worry about your identity; it’s safe
with me. But we don’t have a lot of time because all gunshot wounds
are reported to the police.”

“How do you know who I am?” I asked.

He waved me off. “I’ve been studying you
since I was a child. My father worked for GEI. He was, fortunately,
on leave from the Rocky Mountain facility when the government took
it over. He used to talk about the work that went on there and I
was always fascinated by it. When I was a kid, I would pretend to
jump through time. I was always Mathew Cristian.”

Again, I started. I didn’t know whether to be
flattered or saddened. As a boy, this young man had been captivated
by my grand adventure. But how could a child ever realize all that
I had given up because of my leaping. I looked into his eyes,
wondering suddenly if he still had that child-like captivation with
the concept. Had he grown out of it?

“I’ve studied time leaping for as long as I
can remember. Yours is the most complete case, although the time
you spent in United Arab Occupied territory has some gaps in it.
Mr. Grundel, the man who ran GEI, filled in some of those gaps, but
nothing was ever fully completed. Anyway, I’m here at this hospital
because of its close proximity to the Rockies. There are others of
us who’ve placed themselves at other nearby facilities. We had
always hoped to be able to act on your behalf, but your presence
here tells me that you managed to escape.”

I shook my head, burying my eyes into the
tips of my fingers. What was he telling me? Was this some sort of
revolution?

“I have friends inside as well,” he
continued. “We know what goes on in there. How many people
escaped?”

“Forty,” I mumbled. “There were forty of
us.”

“Forty? That’s almost everyone.”

I shook my head again. “Most of them are
dead. Some of them leaped. The place is destroyed. So many people
died.”

“Is there somewhere you can go?”

I looked up at him. “Where would I go?”

“You can’t stay here. I’ll try to protect
your friend, but I can’t guarantee anything. Here.” He handed me a
set of keys. “Take this car and get as far away as you can.”

I looked down at the keys he offered me.
Again, they were different from the kinds of keys I was used to.
How long had it been since I’d eaten? How long had it been since
I’d slept? I was thirsty. I told him so. I told him I had nowhere
to go and that I couldn’t leave Neville. He argued and I didn’t
have the strength to argue back. The rapidity with which events
were taking place was too much for my frazzled mind to overcome. I
couldn’t question. I couldn’t debate. I could only take the keys
and ask him the way to Wisconsin.

I drove out of Rapid City, still clinging to
wakefulness but knowing that I wouldn’t get very far. At the first
small town, I pulled into a service station. I can’t really call it
a gas station because they didn’t sell gas. But they sold water and
they’d charge your car’s battery for a fee. But I didn’t have any
money. I just needed to use the bathroom. The attendant pointed me
around to the side and I went in. I locked the door and looked at
myself in the mirror. I’m not sure which was worse. My reflection
in the mirror or the real me. I was unshaven and pale. My features
were drawn and my eyes were shot with red lines. I splashed some
water onto my face and more into my mouth. It’s uncanny what a real
thirst will do to a person. There was a time in my life when the
notion of drinking from the tap of a public bathroom was well
beyond my comprehension. At that moment, I would have taken water
from a puddle. There was little I could do about my outfit,
unfortunately. It was frayed and dirty. There were blood stains on
the shoulder and chest where I had supported Neville, but they had
dried and set so they were a much darker brown than red. They could
have passed for chocolate syrup stains. At any rate, no one asked
about them.