Reflex (5 page)

"Right. When I'm with clients, the mike is going off. Otherwise, it'll be on and I'll just have to watch what I say."

Something wasn't right.

Davy was sure of it but he couldn't put his finger on it.

There was light on the other side of his eyelids. He knew he should get up—Millie got pissed if he spent all day in bed—but he couldn't even make himself open his eyes, much less sit up.
Maybe it's a virus. Maybe I just don't want to get into the having-children argument again.

Millie must've been listening to something on the television or the radio. A distant voice, deep, male, said, "Uh, oh, that looks like an arousal pattern."

"Where?" A tenor, or was it an alto?

"That K complex... and those theta waves are increasing in amplitude."

"Hit him with some more fentanyl IV. Then increase the drip on the fentanyl/midazolam." Definitely an alto, a woman.

He felt something cold in his arm and thought it odd that it should be
in
his arm rather than on it and then he went back to sleep.

The TV was on again. It sounded like some sort of daytime hospital soap. "—an infection?"

"Probably. Either from the IV or the catheter or when we intubated him—something from the sinuses. You can't keep someone sedated this long without depressing their immune system. I've started him on Zyvox and Synercid, and we're working him up with blood cultures, UA, and chest film for now." A man.

"Dammit—the surgery's scheduled for tonight." The woman from before, the alto.

"Well, you open him like this—"

"I know, I know. It's just that the surgical team is not in on it. Getting them together was... difficult." She paused. "We'll abort if his temp doesn't drop below ninety-nine five before seventeen hundred. What's his white blood cell count?"

"Fifteen five. There's some thrombocytopenia and his iron's down."

"Well, he's fighting it. Hey, those theta waves are awfully sharp. What's the fentanyl/midazolam drip? That high?"

"You can't leave him on it for days and not expect some tolerance increase."

"Well, we can't have him waking up, either. Bump it. Hopefully we can take him off it in a couple of days."

"Okay, I'm increasing it to three hundred."

"You see any sign of beta formation, you hit him with more fentanyl."

"Well, okay, but we could lose him to drug interactions."

"You've got a crash cart. We're taking that risk. You have a problem, take it up with
her."

The man cleared his throat, but didn't say anything, or if he did, the TV must've been turned off first.

He hurt.

His back hurt, his head hurt, his neck hurt. His lips were cracked, and his sinuses burned, and he was hungry. Ravenous.

What on earth did I do last night?

He remembered going to dinner with Millie, then pastries in the village, and then he was supposed to meet—
Christ. Brian!

Images flooded back.

Glass flying over a streetlight-lit sidewalk mixed with rain. A dizzying view of an upside down street. Brian, lying on his side in a sidewalk puddle, asking him to tell his wife something. Then the bullets and the bleeding-eyed waitress from the coffee shop shooting Brian in the face.

Brian's blood spraying onto his face.

Davy's eyes ripped open. That was the only word for it—the eyelids were stuck together. The room was dark gray and the lighting was indirect, putting puddles of light on the ceiling that hurt his eyes.

The blanket and sheet were pulled up to his neck and his head was propped slightly up, as if he were on multiple pillows or one very thick one. He tried to lift his hand to push the covers down but his hand seemed stuck. He tried the other one and though there was a bit of motion, he couldn't pull it up either. He tried to sit up and fell back, pain shooting from his shoulders.

Am I that weak?

"I shouldn't try and move just yet." The voice was digitally distorted, a cross between
2001's
Hal and a washing machine on spin. It came from a speaker over the mirror on the wall to his right.

Mirror? Probably not,
thought Davy.
They're watching.

"Who—" Davy's voice was the barest husk and the word was completely unintelligible. He tried to clear his throat and winced. It was incredibly raw.

"Best not to try speaking, either," the voice said. "Not just yet."

The door opposite the foot of his bed opened. It was brighter lit in the hall, a painful glimpse of a wall painted white on its upper half, wood-paneled below, and then it was occulted. When he opened his eyes again, the door was shut again and there was someone standing in the room with him.

He blinked again, trying to get the afterimage of the doorway out of his eyes. He was having trouble focusing. "Drink up for Mummy," said the distorted voice.

The figure guided a straw to his lips.

It was ice water and Davy suddenly realized that he was parched, like a man lost in the desert. He sucked greedily and then broke into a spasm of coughing as some of it went down his windpipe.

The figure backed away and Davy's eyes finally focused. It—he—was a large man wearing blue scrubs complete with a cap, paper surgical mask, and latex gloves. His eyes looked concerned as he watched Davy cough.

Davy coughed a little longer than actually necessary, using the time to look for identifying marks. The man had bushy brown eyebrows. There was a faint reflection from his eye, the edge of a contact, and his ears were flat to his skull with large attached lobes.

Davy stopped coughing and licked his lips. Another shock. His face, normally clean shaven, had a quarter inch of beard.
How long?

"More, please." His voice was a bare husk but at least this time the words were discernable.

The man cleared his throat, as if to say something, but stopped and instead held up his hand, palm out, as if to say, "Slow." Then he offered the straw again.

Davy drank small sips this time and managed not to aspirate any more water. He was oddly heartened by the fact they were taking such care to avoid recognition. It implied they weren't going to kill him outright. It also implied they were scared of him.

When he finished, the man went through an open door to the side. Davy heard running water briefly, then the man was back, placing the Styrofoam cup on a side table.

Davy remembered Cox's blood splashing across his face.
They're right to be scared.

He considered jumping away, immediately, even though they were watching, but he'd prefer to do it silently.

Who knew about the meeting? I'm
never
working for the NSA again.

Then a horrible thought occurred to him. "Why can't I sit up?" His voice sounded better this time, still an octave lower than usual, but less raspy.

The man in the surgical mask looked over at the mirror.

The distorted voice came over the speaker.

"Do. Show him."

The man reached over and pulled the covers slowly down, all the way to Davy's feet.

He was dressed in a hospital gown and his bare legs stuck out. A clear plastic tube ran out from under the gown with stretches of clear yellow fluid within.
Oh, Christ!
It was a urinary catheter. He thought about jumping with it in place and winced. However, that wasn't what was keeping him from sitting up.

They were more elaborate than the usual ICU restraining straps. The cuffs were padded but they were surrounded by stainless steel and the chains attached to them with small padlocks looked heavy enough for playground swings. The man lifted the covers a bit higher and he saw the same restraining cuffs at his ankles.

They know.

The distorted voice on the speaker confirmed this. "We were relieved to find you're restrainable. You tried to teleport several times as you were coming out from under the anesthetics."

The stiffness in his shoulders suddenly made sense. He lifted his right knee and winced. Those joints had been stressed, too.

"What do you want?"

There was a noticeable pause. "Ah. Well, we'll get to that. You rest for right now. You've still got some recovering to do."

The attendant chose this moment to pull the covers back up to Davy's chin.

Davy blinked. "Recovering? From what?"

Again, there was a pause. "Just recovering."

They brought him food two hours later. One of them was the first man, recognizable by his ears and bushy eyebrows. The other was obviously female but dressed and masked the same. The chains clanked behind him, lengthening to the point where they could crank the back of the bed up and he could lift his hands high enough to feed himself. They worked without talking and the voice from the other side of the mirror was silent, making Davy wonder if one of his attendants was the voice, or if it had been this man
or that bitch who shot Brian.
He remembered the ambulance crew and wondered how many people were involved in his capture and keeping.

The food was a surprise. The soup was lobster bisque, the bread was fresh whole-grained, the salad was baby greens.
This is not from an institutional kitchen.
On the other hand, the silverware was plastic and the plates and bowl were paper. His brain thought he was starving but his body quit abruptly after a few bites of each dish.

"What if I need to defecate?" He asked abruptly. The male held up his hand and reached under the bedside table, bringing out a stainless steel bedpan.

"Yuck. Why don't you just bring a portable toilet and put it beside the bed. Surely you could loosen the chains enough for that."

The man exchanged glances with woman, who shrugged, then they both looked at the mirrored window.

The distorted voice came on, still sounding like a cross between Hal and machinery, but, somehow sounding different than before. "We'll see what can be arranged. Do you need the bedpan now?"

Different shift,
Davy thought. "No. Not now." He wondered if they'd loosen his hands enough to wipe himself or if someone else would be doing it. He shuddered and rolled his neck, trying to relieve a kink. His chest itched and he lifted his hand to scratch it but when he touched the area, just under his left collarbone, it hurt.

He pulled the gown's neck up. There was a light dressing taped to the skin, a three by two square of gauze. A line of inflammation came up from the dressing to his neck. He traced it with his fingers, a ridge of discomfort that crossed his collarbone and moved up the right side of his neck. It terminated in another dressing, a large Band-Aid really, to the right of his trachea. He poked it and winced.

"Don't do that," the voice from the loudspeaker said. The male attendant pulled his hand gently away.

"What did you do to me?" Davy asked.
Did they shoot me when Brian dropped me on the sidewalk?

No, they cut you open and they put something inside you.
He couldn't help it. He knew he shouldn't jump, that his restraints would keep him from succeeding, but he tried anyway, an almost flinching reaction.

It was bad, but, luckily, there was more slack in the catheter than the cuffs for he only had the mildest discomfort from his crotch, but his shoulders felt like they'd been pulled from their sockets.

Stop it!
he told himself.
You're just giving them more data.

As much as possible he curled in on himself, groaning.

The computer-distorted voice from the loudspeaker said, "I feel safe in saying that that activity is contraindicated, eh?"

She reached the breaking point nine days after Davy disappeared.

She started telling her clients, "I'm going to be gone for the next three weeks. I'm sorry, but a family emergency has come up and I don't have any choice." She did her best to arrange help for the most needy, loading up the other therapists in her practice, but, still, she knew she'd lose some of them. She tried to care but it was hard.

She turned on the bug before leaving the office.
Speak into the bra.
"Anders, I need to talk to you. I'm going back to the condo. I suggest you meet me in the parking garage."

She'd driven that day. The glorious crisp days of autumn were giving way to sleet and rain. On the way back, she recognized in herself a desire to floor the accelerator, to drive recklessly, just to be doing
something,
but controlled it, traversing the slick streets with care.

Anders was waiting in the shadowed corner farthest from the stairs, his breath forming a cloud around his head.

"I'm going to D.C.," she said without preamble. "I can't sit here anymore pretending nothing is wrong."

He blinked. "What do you imagine you could do?"

"More than I'm doing here!"

He exhaled slowly, a technique Millie often used with excited clients. It was a way of saying "easy does it" without irritating them, usually without them even noticing it consciously. Often the client would match the rhythm without realizing it and they would calm down.

This just pissed Millie off more.

Anders said, "You're doing useful things here. You're helping your clients. You're still the bait that will lure them in."

"It's been over a week. They're not biting. Either that or they've spotted you and got scared off. If I'm in D.C. they'll have even more chance at me. That's why I'm telling you—not to get your permission—but to give you time to shift your base of operations or hand off to your people in Washington. If it helps, you can make the arrangements, but either way, I'm leaving in the morning."

She took one carry-on bag—mostly underwear, toiletries, and the five thousand dollars from the emergency pack tucked under a spare pair of jeans. The forecast for D.C. was cold and wet so she wore a blue raincoat with a wool liner and the NSA locater bug in her bra.

At Will Rogers World Airport the damn bug set off the metal detector, but when they sent her to the side for a "female wand," the security guard loudly diagnosed the offending object as an underwire bra.