“No! No!” yelled a man, stopping her.
“I must get my husband”
“Suicide bomber! No,” said the man. He started pushing her back. Breanna resisted, but another man, this one in uniform, grabbed her and together they carried her down the hallway and out a back door.
“DO YOU WANT TO WALK?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“Do you want to walk?”
“How?” demanded Zen.
“Do you want to walk?”
“What do I have to do?”
“Do you want to walk?”
Zen decided it was a trick.
And then a face appeared, a small pinkish-white face, the face of a baby.
“Do you want to walk?” asked the voice again. It didn’t come from the baby, but the baby was all he could see.
“Well, who the hell wouldn’t want to walk?” said Zen finally.
“Then come with me.”
“No,” said Zen. “No.”
“Do you want to walk?”
Zen shook his head. “No, I don’t want to walk!” he yelled. “I don’t want to walk!”
The baby’s face morphed into a dragon’s snout, leering at him. Zen closed his eyes.
“Are you there? Are you there? Are you there?”
“I’m not here,” he said finally.
“Are you there?”
Something moved to his side.
“Are you all right?” said the voice again.
“Yeah, 1 guess I’m okay,” he said. He saw that he was on the ground, in a little space formed by part of the ceiling, which was angled against the pillar that had been near his table.
“We’re going to get you out,” said the voice.
“Fine with me,” he said.
“Your legs are pinned.”
“It’s all right.”
“Can you move them?”
“I’m a paraplegic. I haven’t been able to move them for a long time,” he said. The words were loud and strong, almost as if he were bragging.
Maybe he was bragging. Imagine that.
“I couldn’t use my legs before the explosion. I’m okay. Just get me out.”
Of course I want to walk, he told himself as the rescuers pulled off the debris piece by piece. Who the hell doesn’t? The question is, where?
“Zen! Zen!” shouted Bree a few minutes later as the Brunei rescue people carried him on a stretcher to the back of the building, where a triage center had been set up.
Zen raised his head. “Hey. Hope you had a good leak.”
“I’m glad you can joke,” she said.
“So am I”
He could tell she had been crying, but Breanna had daubed her face so he wouldn’t think so.
Ever since the accident, Breanna had tried to never let him see her cry. He knew she was doing it for him — the doctors had probably told her she had to keep his morale up — but it irked him sometimes. Not now, though. Now he was just glad as hell that she was okay.
It seemed to Mack that it happened in reverse. It seemed that he found himself covered with ice, then felt incredible pain, then saw the bomb exploding. Only after it exploded did he reach out.
By then he was already dead.
Except that he wasn’t dead. If he were dead he would not feel pain, and he felt incredible pain.
And ice under his back.
Maybe you did feel pain when you died. Maybe saying that you felt no pain was just what people said. After all, who would know?
He knew. Because he had died and then the bomb exploded and then he was alive, in ridiculous pain.
“You will be okay, Minister.”
Mack blinked his eyes, struggling to get them to focus.
He was in a hospital bed. At least he assumed it was a hospital bed — he heard machines, saw white, smelled something antiseptic.
His back was tremendously cold.
“You will walk again.”
Who was talking to him?
Mack forced his eyes to find Prince bin Awg, who stood on his right.
“Is this a dream?”
“No, Minister. You’re awake. And alive.” The prince had a faint, slightly patronizing smile. “The doctor says it is a temporary injury, very severe but temporary. You will walk.”
“Don’t let them operate on me,” he told the prince.
Bin Awg looked embarrassed. “The operation was two days ago.”
“Two days?”
“You had many injuries.”
“I had many injuries?”
The prince nodded grimly.
“I–I’m not going to stay. I have to go back to Dreamland,” Mack said. “I’m sorry — this administrative stuff, the job isn’t for me”
“Rest,” said the prince, putting his hand on Mack’s chest. “Rest.”
“I have to go back.”
“You will.”
Mack tried to push his elbows up beneath him. He got the left one in place but the right one didn’t move. The right one felt as if it didn’t exist.
In a panic, he looked over to the side of the bed, then turned away, then looked back.
But his arm was there; even though he couldn’t feel it, at least it was there.
He couldn’t feel his legs either.
His toes?
Nothing on his legs. They were like — a buzz? No, it was more like a thought of something that he just missed seeing. His back felt ridiculously cold and the side of his neck — that buzzed.
“God, my legs:’ he said.
“You’ll be okay,” said the prince. “You’ll be okay.”
“I tried to stop him. The suicide bomber. I tried to stop him.”
“You kept him from getting very far. He detonated himself so close to the doorway that there were not many injuries. Your friends were all okay. They’ve been waiting to see you for four days now. Do you wish to see them?”
God, my legs, thought Mack. Oh God, my legs.