Text message from Sarah Redmond to Emilio Rodriguez, 6:31 P.M.
Hey, they’re telling me it’s time to leave the building and that there’s a helicopter waiting for me! Text me back and let me know where you are. I love you!
Text message from Sarah Redmond to Emilio Rodriguez, 7:02 P.M.
Change of plans — we’re taking the helicopter to find Pete and Mark Soames, and Sharon Blake. They all got caught in the storm. I hope they’re okay. And I hope YOU’RE okay, too. PLEASE text me back or call me when you get a moment. I’m sure you’re busy, but I’m starting to get a little scared now. I love you SO MUCH.
Text message from Sarah Redmond to Tim Evans (Director of EMT Services), 7:12 P.M.
Hi Tim. It’s Sarah R. Have you heard from Emilio? He hasn’t been in touch with me in a while, and that’s very unusual for him.
Text message from Tim Evans to Sarah Redmond, 7:13 P.M.
Umm… yikes, I was just about to ask you the same thing.
He heard every cheerful bing! in a muted, distant fashion, like a pinpoint of light at the end of a long tunnel. She’s trying to reach me. The messages were arriving with increasing frequency, although he only knew this in a general sense; his thoughts remained too muddled for greater precision.
I have to respond. I have to—
Get help.
I need help.
Help me, please… Sarah…
He knew the cellphone was his only chance, and he was absolutely certain it was in the front left pocket of his pants. But it might as well have been on the other side of the planet, for he was also reasonably certain the humerus bone on that side had become detached from the scapula — a classic dislocated shoulder — and that his left wrist and possibly both the radius and the ulna in that forearm were fractured. If I move… the smallest movement…
No choice.
I have no choice.
“God…” he said in the voice of a ninety-year-old. Then he shut his eyes again and thought through every word of the Lord’s prayer.
He prepped further by taking several deep breaths. “Cleansing breaths,” he called them when trying to soothe his patients, but there was nothing remotely cleansing about those he labored to produce now. Each one carried a wheezing rasp that told him there was something seriously wrong with his respiratory system.
First step was to roll onto his back. This couldn’t be done slowly, he decided. The broken bones and floating fragments would crunch around like potato chips wrapped in a towel. I’ve got to do it quickly, he told himself. One rapid motion, then it’ll be over.
He tested his right arm by flexing the fingers first; stretch and close… stretch and close… Then he rotated his hand and, finally, lifted his arm. He was momentarily alarmed by the crumpling sound that accompanied this until he realized it was nothing more than the protective suit’s brittle outer material. There was no discernible physical pain through any of this, which seemed like a minor victory.
Setting his gloved hand on the cracked and filthy concrete, Emilio steeled his nerves and pushed off hard. Brilliant agony raced from his left arm through the rest of him with electric speed, stopping at the nerve center of his brain and ringing it like a carnival bell. The scream he let out was a single gruesome note at the peak of his register. The damaged arm lay motionless beside him, feeling like a sock full of broken glass.
He paused again to let his traumatized system recover. Perspiration streaked down the sides of his head, some of it running into his ears and behind his neck. Something very similar often happened on warm nights while he was lying in bed, and it drove him crazy. Today, however, he barely noticed.
Next he had to get the suit open. This was simple enough in theory, but it would leave him fully exposed to the irradiated rainfall that was still coming through the windows overhead…
There’s no choice.
No choice.
Using his right arm, he felt around under the front flap of the head-covering until he found the plastic slider of the suit’s zipper, which was parked all the way at the top of the strip. He brought it down slowly so it wouldn’t snag on his EMT uniform. Cool air rushed greedily around his body like a living thing, and it felt amazing. He got the zipper as far as the middle of his thigh but could stretch no further.
He had to stop and catch his breath again, and the fact that he was growing winded so easily set off alarm bells. I need air. Good air. He remembered the mask — he had been wearing an oxygen mask, to protect himself against the… the bad air.
What happened to it?
His good arm flailed around on the floor, seeking the mask. There was nothing on the concrete but puddles.
Could it still be…?
“Oh, no,” he said aloud.
Lifting his hand to his head, Emilio immediately discovered the mask, protruding like a giant wart from right side of his face. Exploring further, he found that it was still attached to its rubber straps, one stretched over the bridge of his nose and the other in a broad stripe across his forehead.
I can’t feel it… There’s no feeling in my face.
He probed around with his fingers to confirm the point. It was like pressing against the pliable rubber of a child’s doll.
Neuropathy. My God… The parts of his body exposed to the radiation were suffering a total loss of sensitivity. The nerves are dying.
He tried to move the mask back into place but it wouldn’t budge. Only after several attempts did he figure out he had to lift his head first. Adjusting the mask required significant stretching of the straps, a process he loathed under normal circumstances because it often produced mild rashes on the skin and painful pulls in the hair. This time he felt nothing at all. It was as if he was positioning the straps on a mannequin.
Once the mask was in place, he went back to the business of retrieving the phone. It had binged three more times since his second voyage back to consciousness, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t felt the sympathetic vibrations against his leg. From this he could only conclude that the neuropathy was gradually spreading to the rest of the body. Which makes perfect sense if you consider how much radiation you’ve probably absorbed into your lungs, which in turn has been seeping into your bloodstream, and then into your nervous system. And once it’s firmly rooted there, you will—
He forced himself to stop this train of thought and refocus on the current objective.
The phone is your only chance. The phone is your link to Sarah, and Sarah is your hope.
An image of her bloomed in his mind, sending warmth through him. She had always been his source of hope, his reason for rolling out of bed every morning. He had never told her in direct terms how deep the need had become. He never wanted her to feel burdened by his emotional dependence, fearing it would drive her out of his life forever.
Now he focused on her to the point where she and that accursed device became one in the same—get the phone… get Sarah… get the phone… get Sarah…
He managed to hook two fingers into the top corner of his left pants pocket, but the laws of physics prevented him from going any further. When a second, slightly more determined attempt achieved nothing, he wondered what would result from jerking the right side of his body toward the left. Might he be able to slip his hand into his pants?