The Terminals (3 page)

“I'd like to run some more tests,” Dr. Singh said. “We're hoping that…”

Cam pretended to listen, but he'd already seen the vague image of the killer tumor in his head in the exact spot where the books said a kidney bean–shaped shadow meant you were doomed. It looked more like a pear to Cam, but he was pretty sure any silhouette of a food item in your primary somatic sensory cortex was bad news. The rest of it didn't matter—the name of the disease, how it worked, why it chose his life to mess up. Didn't know. Didn't care. Didn't listen. All he knew was that he sure as heck wasn't going to see the world now.

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

2. ROADKILL
  

by Suicide Squirrel

3. SOUL ON A STICK

by Dog Breath

4. WELCOME TO THE ZOO

by The Way Chunky Monkeys

“Gotta have fleet feet to

play in the street.”

The sun abandoned Cam, escaping over the western horizon, but he didn't fall asleep. Instead, he wandered through a half-waking dream in which he could feel something coming, but couldn't quite see or stop it. He moved slowly, like he was running through sand, and a strange guy was sitting next to …

Cam's eyes popped open. A strange guy dressed in a tan jumpsuit and leather gloves was sitting next to his bed. He was obviously not a doctor or nurse, and visiting hours had ended two playlists ago. He appeared to be around thirty and reasonably fit—neither fat nor skinny. His ears were an irritated red color, and his hair was sticking up.
Like he's been wearing a headset
, Cam thought. The man loomed over Cam's bed, as though inspecting him.

Cam sat up suddenly. “Whoa! Dude! What the hell?”

“How are you feeling, Cam?” the man asked, unfazed.

“Are you a doc?”

“Do I look like a doc?”

“No. So who are you?”

“I'm someone with an opportunity for you.”

“Maybe you didn't get the memo,” Cam said, settling back into his pillow, “but I'm sorta fresh out of opportunities.”

The man grinned. “Oh, but I
did
get the memo. And your medical chart. And your transcripts, your standardized test scores, your application for volunteer service opportunities. I've been a busy guy for the last few days. I even have your soccer stats—no goals last year, but six assists. You're a team player. Your report cards say you also listen carefully and follow directions well.”

Cam was fully awake now, all of the cobwebs of sleep suddenly gone. He cocked an eyebrow. “Impressive. So you're a counselor?”

The man nodded. “In a sense, but I'm more than that.”

Cam didn't want to be counseled, but he didn't want to be rude either. He let the man keep talking.

“The way I see it, you can spend the last year of your life slowly deteriorating and coming here once a week for uncomfortable, futile treatments until you climb into this comfy adjustable bed one last time like a cat crawling under a porch to die—”

“Wow,” Cam interrupted. “Not here to paint a cheery picture, are ya?” He eyed the man, suspicious. “But it sounds like there's an ‘or' coming.”

“Perceptive.” The man grinned. “
Or
you can join our organization and help save your fellow man.”

Cam shook his head. “I thought so. Sorry, I'm not interested in joining some religious cult just because I'm dying.”

“Ah, but the special young men and women we recruit travel to exotic locations, drive insanely fast cars, and jump out of planes. Does that sound a bit more interesting?”

Cam couldn't help but perk up. “A bit. Yeah.”

“What do you want from the last year of your life, Cam?”

“I dunno. Soccer, girls, maybe all that cool stuff you mentioned?”

His visitor chuckled. “Besides all of that.”

“What else is there?”

“Anything else. Name it.”

“Money, maybe? Or at least the stuff it buys.”

“Okay.”

“Awesome food? Great workouts?”

“Sure. But those are just
things
. What do you want to do and be?”

“Well, as long as we're dreaming big, I guess I'd like to be a leading man. You know, win the fight and get the girl, cheesy stuff like that.”

“You want to be a hero?”

“I guess you could put it that way.”

The man nodded. “Ahh. Well, that's the interesting part, because we recruit an elite group of youth. You and nine others just like you. All with glioblastomas. All terminals. All with superior talents. We train you and send you on clandestine operations—secret missions, if you will. It's ferociously dangerous. But then, nothing's more dangerous than what you're facing here, right?” When Cam didn't answer, the man continued. “I'm not promising you your life back, Cam. You'll still die. But we give you the chance to be special, and to live your last year to the fullest.”

Cam felt his pulse quicken. He glanced at his heart-rate monitor. Elevated. Over one hundred. Higher even than Kristi Banks had sent it. “What is this?” he said. “The Make-a-Wish Foundation for spy kids?”

“If that simplistic description helps you process what I'm telling you, sure. It's a commitment to do something meaningful with your time here on earth, and the length of that commitment is—”

“Let me guess. One year.”

“Right. Or until you die, whichever comes first.”

“This sounds crazy.” Cam puzzled over the man. He was strangely honest. Blunt even. No sugarcoating. “How do I know you're telling the truth?”

“Your family got a letter yesterday that said if you die they might be eligible to receive two hundred and fifty thousand dollars through a credit card insurance policy you didn't know you had, correct?”

Cam nodded, wondering how the man knew what they received in the mail.

“We sent that. Your credit card company doesn't have such a policy. If you decline to join, the letter becomes junk mail. But if you sign on, the money will arrive within two to three weeks.”

Cam's eyebrows rose again.
So much for my poker face.
The money sounded like the sales pitch part, but he had to admit it was a pretty good offer. His parents would be able to retire, or maybe help his evil sister get a house and a real life.

“So you just send my folks a quarter-million-dollar check for my shortened life?”

“We prefer ‘condensed' life.”

Cam didn't know if he should believe the guy, but the whole thing seemed too outrageous
not
to be true. It was a lot to consider.
I'll need time
, he thought.

The man was nodding, gauging his reaction. “Take some time,” he said, as though reading Cam's mind. “Think it over. I'll be back at five in the morning before visiting hours. You'll have one chance to join.”

“I have to talk to my friends and family.”

The man shook his head. “No, you don't. In fact, if you tell anyone, I won't return.”

“But I have questions.”

“And
we
are the answer. Good night.” With that, he rose and walked out.

Cam struggled to untangle himself from the monitors and bedding. Moments later, he was in cavernous corridor 3C. The nurse was just returning from her break.

“Where'd he go?”

“Where did who go?” she said.

The hallway was empty. The man had disappeared like a whisper.

“Right.…” Cam walked back to his room, lay down, and stared at the ceiling.
Time for some thinkin' music
, he decided. He hit
PLAY
and pushed his earbuds deep into his head.

*   *   *

Cam drifted in and out, glancing at the clock. Soon it was 4:55, and still no visitor.
Dude's not coming back
, he thought. It was all part of a stupid dream, he decided. A figment of his emotional distress. Cam refused to beat himself up for having weird dreams, though. He'd just found out he was dying, and that had to mess with a guy's head. In fact, he figured bad dreams were pretty standard in this wing of the building.

Then he heard the knocking. It came from the window. Not the door, the
window
. It might not have seemed so incredibly odd, except that the window was forty feet in the air.

The clock read 4:59
A.M
.

Cam abandoned the comfort of Numo, scrambling onto a chair so he could see outside. There was a face in the glass. Bigger than life. Four floors high. Upside down. It was the man in the jumpsuit. He pointed at his watch. Cam opened the window.

“Decision time,” the man said. “Yes or no?”

Cam had been thinking all night, but hadn't decided. His mind was going in too many directions. Now his recruiter was here, dangling four stories up like Spider-Man, which he had to admit was kind of cool. And the organization he represented wanted Cameron Cody. Kristi didn't want him. His soccer team wouldn't be working him into their future plans. No potential employers would invite him to a second interview if he was going to be too dead to work by the time he graduated. In fact, nobody else was going to be picking him for much of anything anymore.

Cam nodded, and the man nodded back. And that was it.

His recruiter rotated right side up, produced a miniature blowtorch from one of the many pockets of his jumpsuit, and went to work removing the safety screen. He chattered as he cut through a rivet, producing an acrid, burning smell.

“You're coming out this way. I'll tie you on. Don't look down if you're queasy.”

He slid the screen loose and pulled Cam through. Cam clung to him like a panicked monkey while the man strapped him to his own body with a nylon rope. Then he nonchalantly welded the screen back into place.

“We'll fake your death,” he was saying. “You were rushed off in the middle of the night for emergency treatment. Medics heli-ported you across the country. You expired on the way. Quite sad. I saw that your parents signed a form donating your body to science. Very progressive of them. We'll use that. Your remains will have to be shipped out for preservation and dissection, and no one will try to see them. I'm sorry you won't get to say good-bye. We can arrange for your family to find a note among your belongings, which you wrote to them before you ‘died.' What would you like it to say?”

Cam imagined his mother finding his empty bed. She would have wanted to say good-bye. His dad might have understood. It was not the best way to go and not what they deserved, but it was better than the dying-cat-under-the-porch option.

“You were great parents,” Cam said at length.

His recruiter nodded. “That's nice, Cam. Best one I've ever heard. Sheesh, I wish I'd told my own mom and dad that. Anything else?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Then we're off.”

Cam looked down. He was not crazy about heights. “Why go out the window?” he asked, still holding tight despite being roped on.

The recruiter gave him a serious look. “Because it's more fun.” Then he laughed. “Besides, we can't drag you through a building full of witnesses and cameras. I already risked being seen last night. Don't want them to record me near you at the time of your departure.” He began to ratchet them up the rope using a hand crank.

Moments later, they were running across the helipad on the hospital roof, the tail of Cam's hospital gown fluttering open in the morning breeze, making him glad there were no witnesses.

“Are we getting on that medical helicopter?”

“Yes, but not really. We just painted it that way.”

Then they were boarding and strapping in, Cam wedging himself into one of the rear seats and securing the safety belt. The man put on his headset and quickly, but carefully, ran through a checklist. The blades started thumping, accelerating along with Cam's heart. Soon the sound overwhelmed his ears, like a song by the thrash metal band Demonkeeper. It was scary, but exhilarating too. The chopper lurched, Cam felt weightless for a moment, and then they were airborne and all he could think was,
Holy crap, what did I just do?

As they climbed, his town stretched out below him. First the hospital where he was born, then his neighborhood, his high school, and the sprawling campus of the university. His entire life. For a moment he wondered if he'd already died and if this was his trip to the grand eternity. But he reached up and felt his earbuds still draped around his neck. They were real enough.

His recruiter advised him to get some sleep. It was going to be a long trip. Cam tried to take one last look back, but there was no rear-facing window. He turned his attention ahead. The sun was rising, and he was flying straight into it.

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

3. SOUL ON A STICK