Into the Fire (11 page)

I smiled to myself as I watched him go. He might be just a kid, but sometimes his simple approach to everything was really reassuring.

I waited another ten minutes or so, just to see if the noise would start up again. When it didn't, I too returned to my sleeping bag: slipping in beside Lena, doing up the zip every last quarter of an inch and putting my arms around her.

I don't know what the hell happened out there, but it'd heightened this feeling that the threat to us was growing by the day. For some reason it reminded me of what Yoshi said earlier, about the crazy people coming for us—and that maybe it wouldn't be much longer.

The following morning, almost at first light, I was up and out. Lena and me were heading up to see Dr. Simon later, hopefully for the operation, but first I wanted to know what had gone on the previous night.

If you turned left at the entrance to the churchyard and headed up the hill, you eventually got to Victory Square and all the many streets that led off from there. If you turned right, it was a bit more leafy, more residential, though not the nicest part of town. All the commotion the previous night had been somewhere up near the Square—and even if it hadn't been, it was a pretty good place to pick up a rumor or two.

In fact, I didn't need to ask anyone anything. One of the streets leading off the Square was cordoned off by Specials and I promptly took the next street over and followed it down. Block after block, every time I tried to turn, finding it was still closed off, which was kind of frustrating. I was about to give up and head back to Lena when I saw this empty office building and figured that if I broke in on this side, I should be able to make my way through to the other and maybe get a look at what had gone on.

There was a sturdy chain and padlock clamping the door handles together, but the hinges are generally the weak point and after a few minutes of searching I found a scaffolding pole I used to lever the doors apart.

I went up a couple of flights of stairs and made my way down a long corridor that plainly hadn't been used or cleaned in quite a while. Eventually I found myself in an office on the far side of the building.

I looked out on this sort of pedestrian precinct, with a few potted trees and a lot of benches dotted about. It looked like the sort of place you might eat your packed lunch—but not that day. It was thick with Infinity Specials all busily clearing up, taking stuff away, hosing things down. You didn't have to be a genius to work out why, not with those dark stains everywhere. On the far side there was a line of slightly sinister-looking white trucks: like field ambulances, windowless apart from heavily tinted slatted screens, and as I looked, a body-bag was disappearing into the back of one of them.

So that was it; Infinity had been wielding its iron fist again. And yet, still something didn't feel quite right. This was where the shooting had happened for sure—the buildings were pitted and scarred, windows had been shot out, fires were still burning—but the variety of the damage set me wondering. Normally, if there's a force involved—army, Specials, whatever—you'll see damage caused by two or three types of weapons at the most. But all kinds had been used: I could see the scoring of lasers, the dotted lines of automatic weapons, even the precision of high-powered hunting rifles. What the hell had happened? It looked like some kind of wild come-one, come-all bloodfest.

As I watched I realized there were far too many Specials around for my liking, and who knew what kind of surveillance they'd set up? They could've been scanning the building for life forms at that very moment. The last thing I needed on the day I was taking Lena to the doctor was to get picked up. And taking one last glance out, I quickly hurried away.

A little later, with noticeably few words being exchanged between us, Lena and me were once again making our way through the smoke to the hills, arriving at the security gates and asking them to inform Dr. Simon, being made to wear pressure bracelets again, the same disapproving driver coming down to collect us. This time, I gotta say, the doc didn't keep us waiting—in fact his attitude was altogether more friendly, more positive: maybe 'cuz we had the money, 'cuz he realized we were serious about this.

The first thing I did was to insist on paying him, handing over the entire ten grand—well, less a few hundred I kept back for emergencies—even though he told me it wasn't necessary, that he didn't even know what the final cost was going to be. But I just wanted it out of the way, for his staff to know that, no matter how we looked, we paid our bills.

All the tests were really encouraging. He'd matched up a program to her profile and told us he was convinced he could give Lena back partial sight at the least—and that was something he'd never mentioned before. The only disappointing news was that he wanted to keep her in overnight.

“It's a fairly standard operation but the computer needs to monitor her for at least twelve hours, run its checklist,” he told us. “It's also critical her eyes aren't allowed to dry out. The last thing she needs is to go out in that smoke.”

“Can I stay with her?” I asked.

For a moment he just stared at me, tugging his shirt cuffs out from beneath his jacket sleeves, as if subconsciously wanting everyone to see his gold cufflinks. “No, Clancy, I'm sorry. She'll need to get all the rest she can.”

“I'll be fine,” Lena said, taking my hand.

“Stay for the operation,” Dr. Simon suggested, “just to put your mind at ease. After that, you'll both need a good night's sleep.”

It took a little bit of rescheduling, but in the end—as good as his word—he booked her in for the final operating slot of the day.

I stayed with her as long as I could, even though as the day wore on neither of us knew what to say. I had no idea what this really
meant to her—how could I? I'd never been blind; I didn't know what it was to be in endless darkness, missing all the colors of the rainbow, the sun setting over the sea, the expressions on a child's face. Nor could I begin to imagine the torture of trying to find your way around somewhere utterly unfamiliar, having no idea if you were about to collide with something or what repercussions there might be. And maybe that was the reason why I was even more nervous than she was. For sure, I wasn't helping matters, so when they finally came to tell me to leave, I think both of us were that bit relieved.

I waited out in the corridor, leafing through magazines I didn't have the concentration for, making the situation worse by going to the restroom and catching sight of myself in the mirror.

The next time I saw Lena there was every chance this was what she'd be looking at: a sad-faced, dull-eyed, greying old bag of bones. I took a deep breath, determined to ignore it; this wasn't about me, it was about her.

It was surprisingly quick. Dr. Simon came out less than three-quarters of an hour later, smiling as he approached, which I hoped was a good sign.

“Everything's fine,” he said. “Couldn't have gone better. Now we just have to wait.”

“Can I see her?”

“Clancy, no,” he told me, as if we'd been over this before. “More than anything, she needs to rest.”

“Just a look—I won't even let her know I'm there.”

He shook his head, and I guess he thought I was being a bit of a pain in the ass, which was probably true.

“Go home. Come back tomorrow. With any luck she'll be able to go home with you.”

In all my life I don't think I've ever felt as alone as I did when I finally forced myself to walk away from that clinic. I kept glancing back, hoping she'd appear at a window somewhere, but of course I was being foolish. From what the doc said, she was probably fast asleep.

Oh God, keep her safe, will ya. Let me come back tomorrow and find everything the way she'd want it to be; just for this one night, forget everyone else on this planet and devote all your time to her.

When I got back and told the others the whole story—about the money, where Lena was—they were a little put out: Jimmy and Delilah at being kept in the dark, at not being able to at least wish her good luck, and the kids, I think, at not getting to see all that dough. Nevertheless, they were quick to understand how worried I was; repeatedly reassuring me she'd be fine, that I'd done the right thing.

And maybe it was the fact that I was so preoccupied, that I couldn't settle to anything, that prompted Jimmy to suggest we went out after dinner.

I was a little surprised. He hadn't left the churchyard since Infinity put a price on his head. “What for?” I asked.

“I gotta do something, Big Guy,” he complained. “It's driving me crazy.”

“Jimmy!” Delilah protested.

“It's okay. They're looking for an old man, not a young cool one,” he told her, indulging in his new habit of stroking his shiny bald head from forehead to nape.

“I'm not living with junk again,” she warned, obviously having a fair idea what he had in mind.

“Not junk—new stuff.”

“Jeez!” I muttered, no more enthusiastic about the idea than Delilah. “What for?”

“I want to block their ability to locate that screen so we can use it,” he said.

I gotta admit, put that way, it was pretty hard to deny him. Delilah groaned, but I could tell she was also conceding it made sense.

“I'll be fine,” he told her.

“If you're going to a computer store, bring me back a game,” Arturo begged.

I started to shake my head, but he threw himself at me, pleading, looking up with those big brown eyes—I tell ya, all the old tricks.

“Clancy!” Delilah joined in.

I half-wrestled with the little guy; after all, I was almost as fond of him as Delilah. As I did so, his sleeve rucked up and I caught a glimpse of something on his arm. “What's that?” I asked.

He gave this fanfare, like I'd just discovered his buried treasure. “Taa-da!” he cried, pulling his sleeve right up and revealing a large picture of Mickey Mouse on his arm.

Gordie sneered, like it was too pathetic for words, then promptly pulled up his own sleeve to reveal an Asian-style dragon on his rather more developed bicep.

“Are they tattoos?” I asked.

“Just transfers,” Hanna told me, in her “boys will be boys” voice. “They got them when we were out with Lena.”

“Whose is best?” Gordie asked.

“I dunno,” I replied, not in the mood for diplomacy.

“Arturo's,” Hanna ventured.

“Mickey Mouse!” sneered Gordie.

“I like it,” she told him.

“You would.”

“I've always liked Mickey Mouse,” Delilah chipped in.

“Big Guy?” Jimmy interrupted, still waiting to go out.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” I replied. “But no kids.”

For a moment Gordie didn't get it; he just sat there nodding as if he was in complete agreement, glaring at Arturo and Hanna in case they got any ideas.

“That includes you,” I told him.

“What?” he protested.

“I'm not taking any of you out at night.”

“I can take care of myself!” he said, pulling his sleeve back up, flexing his muscle, showing off his dragon.

“Not this time,” I said, and he got really angry with me, as if I was disrespecting him somehow, giving me that sharp stony look that reminded me of the crazed little animal he used to be out on the Island. He threw down his food and went storming off up the steps.

“Keep an eye on him,” I said to Delilah.

“I'll try,” she said, attempting to get her arms around little Arturo, as if he would always be her first responsibility, but he wriggled free and ran after Gordie.

“Let's go,” I said to Jimmy, anxious to get away before Dragon Boy and the Mickey Mouse Kid came back and started giving me the evil eye.

There's this street, Melville Highway, they nicknamed Hi-Tec Alley, it's anything to do with technology, computers, screens, scans. It's all there, as well as spare parts stacked up to the ceiling, some so old you couldn't believe anyone would still have a use for them. Fortunately, it wasn't that far—less than thirty minutes even at Jimmy's pegging old pace—so I was kind of relieved to hear that was where he wanted to go.

The story of the City at night was pretty well still on the same nightmare page: a fathomless sea of smoke, fire after fire, gangs of looters and muggers frequently fighting with each other, having to watch your back all the time. Though there was this sense that in some areas everything that could be taken had, and that the new strategy was to try to frighten functioning streets into closing down, abandoning everything to the mob.

Mind you, it depended on what you were looking for. If you wanted a good read for example, you were in luck, 'cuz wherever looters got their ideas, it wasn't from the printed or electronic page—I hadn't seen one bookstore broken into—well, not until we made our way to Hi-Tec Alley.

Out on the Island, I'd really got into reading, not just for the story, but also for the appreciation of the words, the way the writer used them. Yeah, I know that don't sound like a big guy, but I'd never really had the chance before. Tell the truth, I was really missing it, and when I saw that smashed window, all those books just lying there and no one seeming to care, I couldn't help myself. It'd been a display of classics and I grabbed some titles I recognized but had never read:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
,
A Tale of Two Cities
,
The Grapes of Wrath
and
Dr. Zhivago
.

Jimmy kind of frowned at me as I stuffed them in my backpack, like I was wasting his precious time, but I just waved him on. “Let's go.”

There wasn't a lot left of Hi-Tec Alley. I wouldn't've minded betting it was one of the first places visited when the satellites came down. Jimmy and me went from store to store, but the theft and destruction were pretty well total. Arturo could forget all about his computer game.

If it'd been me, I would've given up then and there, but Jimmy wasn't there for laptops, game glasses, screens or whatever, he just wanted some parts, and down the side alleys, some of the little repair shops were still relatively intact.

I shouldered open one door for him and he swept in like an overeager ant, going from shelf to shelf, actually trying to climb up to some of the higher ones, until I pointed out that there was a ladder. Every now and then he'd let out a little whistle or cry of appreciation.

“I ain't carrying nothing,” I warned him.