"The problem with you, Tachyon," she said as she walked out of the office, "is that everything is the most important thing in your life."
A routine appendectomy. He shouldn't have taken the time, but Tommy was Old Mr. Cricket's nephew, and you don't ignore old friends. Tach stripped out of the bilious green scrubs, brushed out his cropped hair, and made a face. He then took a turn through each of the clinic's four floors.
The hospital had been dimmed for the evening. From various rooms he heard muted televisions, the low hum of conversation, and from one a sad, hopeless sobbing. For a moment he hesitated, then entered. Powerful mandibles and opaque oval eyes stared out framed by stringy gray hair. The emaciated body beneath the hospital gown revealed it to be a woman.
"Madam?" He lifted the chart. Mrs. Willma Banks. Age seventy-one. Cancer of the pancreas.
"Oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean… I'm fine really. I don't mean to be a bother… that nurse was so sharp-"
"You're not a bother. And what nurse?"
"I don't mean to be a talebearer or unduly troublesome." It was obvious that she was, but Tachyon listened politely. No matter how tiresome a patient might be, he insisted upon courtesy and service from his staff. If someone had violated this most basic rule, he wanted to know.
"And my children never come to see me. I ask you, what's the good of children if they abandon you when you most need them? I worked every day for thirty years so they could have the advantages. Now my son, Reggie-he's a stockbroker with a big Wall Street firm-he has a house in Connecticut, and a wife who can't stand to look at me. I've only been to their house once when she was away with my grandchildren."
There was nothing to say. He sat, her hand resting lightly in his, listening. Brought her a glass of cranberry juice from the nurses' station, and had a few rather sharp words with the floor staff. Moved on.
The coffee he'd been drinking all day was jumping in the back of his throat, sour with stomach acid. Well, if he was going to feel bilious he might as well get it over all at once. He pushed open the door to a private room and entered. He could ill afford the space, but no patient deserved to be placed with the horror that lay comatose behind his door. After forty years of viewing wild card victims he had thought he was inured to anything, but the man who lay twisted on the bed made a mockery of that assumption.
Caught partway between human and alligator, Jack's body was warped by the unnatural pressures of the wild interacting with the AIDS virus. The bones of the skull had elongated, producing the snout of an alligator. Unfortunately the lower jaw had not transformed. Small and vulnerable, it hung below the razor-sharp teeth of the upper jaw. Stubble darkened the chin. In the torso area, skin melded to scales. The line between the intersecting areas had split into angry red lines, and serum oozed from the cracks.
Tachyon shuddered and hoped that deep within his coma Jack was beyond pain. For this had to be agony. For years Jack had faithfully, patiently visited C.C. Ryder. Now, ironically, she had been cured and released into a new life while the faithful, patient Jack had taken her place.
"Oh, Jack, what lover grieves for you, or did he die before you entered this living death?" he whispered.
Lifting the chart, Tachyon read again his notes, which indicated that the AIDS virus did not advance when Jack was in his alligator form.
Memories lay like scattered leaves, black and sear. Tachyon walked among them, flushing with guilt for this was an intrusion. Deep within Jack's dying mind lay a spark of light, a fitful glitter. The human soul. Deeper yet the trigger that would throw Robicheaux completely into his alligator form. A touch from Tachyon, and the transformation would be permanent.
He was a physician. Sworn to the task of saving lives. Jack Robicheaux lay under sentence of death. The presence of the wild card twined into the code of his cells currently held the AIDS virus at bay. But it merely delayed the inevitable. Eventually Jack would die.
Unless.
Unless Tachyon changed him forever. What was not human could not die from a human disease.
But was life worth any price? And did he have the right?
What should I do, Jack? Do I make this choice for you since you can't make it yourself,,
Was it any different than unplugging a respirator? Oh, yes.
Later, as he leaned back against the elevator wall as it whined slowly to the ground floor, he considered again Queen's advice that he bring in help. But so much of this only I can do. And there's only one of me. And everyone wants a piece. Shaking his head like a tired pony, he stepped out into the emergency room.
And was nearly run down by a nurse hurrying past with a vial of the trump. Thirty-two, he thought, upping the count, and followed her through the screen. Finn was preparing the injection. Stepping to the gurney, Tachyon began a fast exam. The woman's blouse was open, revealing the rich cafe au lait of her skin. Monitors were taped to her chest; a nurse held a mask over mouth and nose. A noxious slime covered the patient's body, wetting her clothing, pouring from every pore. It was a measure of his physician's detachment that he didn't recognize her until he peeled back an eyelid. The nurse removed the mask to give him room to work, and…
Gagging, he pushed aside the smelling salts. Fought free of the restraining hands.
"Are you all right?"
"Doctor?"
"Drink this."
"Forget me!" Clinging like a drunk to a nurse's arm, he struggled to his feet. Catching Finn's wrist, he forced away the syringe. "WHAT
THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
"It's… it's our only shot… it's wild card."
"IT CAN'T BE! I KNOW THIS WOMAN! SHE'S AN ACE!" The joker recoiled from the madness in Tachyon's face. The Takisian resumed his examination. Finn pranced forward and gripped him hard. "You're wasting time! You're costing her the one chance she's got! It's wild card!"
"Impossible! The virus was designed to resist mutation. She's a stable ace. She's can't be reinfected."
"Look at her!"
Panting, Tach stared from the syringe to Roulette's oozing body and back again. "Give it to me!"
His fingers slipped on the foul-smelling mucous film, and the needle scraped across the vein. Roulette cried out. "Wipe this away."
But as fast as they wiped, it bled still faster from her pores. Finally Tachyon jammed home the needle. Ancestors. Let it work. Let this be one time when it works!
But recently it seemed his prayers had only been met with silence.
Roulette was beginning to resemble a thousand-year-old mummy as the moisture leached from her body. Suddenly her lids fluttered open; she stared blankly up into his face.
"Tachyon." A croaking whisper. " I was coming back. To you." She sucked in air-a sound like a dying accordian. "Are you still waiting?"
"Yes."
"Liar. I'm dying. You're off the hook."
"Roulette." His skin crawled to touch her, but he forced himself to lay his cheek against hers. His tears mingled with mucus.
"You destroyed my life. You and your disease. Finally it's finishing the job. I'm… so… glad."
Long minutes later Finn tugged Tach away and drew up the sheet. Pain shot through the alien as his knees cracked onto the cold tile floor. Hands balled against his mouth, he fought back sobs. Partly from grief Partly from guilt, for he hadn't been waiting.
Mostly from terror.
"I got really mad today, but I thought about it like you said, and I didn't control them."
"Good." Tachyon stared into the refrigerator as if seeking enlightenment from a carton of sour milk and a bowl full of moldy peaches. "What was that?" The boy stiffened. "Oh, Blaise, I'm so proud of you." The rigidity went out of the small body under Tachyon's tight embrace. "And you're speaking English. I noticed that, too. I'm just so tired it takes me a few beats to catch up."