Jesse gave himself credit for staying upright. The damage to his arm was significant. An ominous numbness, almost worse than the pain, propagated through his right hand. Some of the fingers were reluctant to obey him. He turned and walked away. The sound of Dekker’s laughter followed him as he stumbled down the tunnel.
Dekker was savoring his victory. He would probably continue to savor it, Jesse thought, right up until the moment he realized that in the course of the struggle Jesse had taken from him both his pass card and Talbot’s phone.
Local employees of the City of Futurity had been herded into the commissary in the basement level of Tower Two, where they could surrender en masse to federal forces once the evacuation was complete and the Mirror shut down. None of these people was responsible for August Kemp’s crimes, and in principle none of them had anything to fear from the troops. But guns had been fired in earnest, and City employees were understandably nervous about the consequences of that. The crowd consisted of a hundred people or so, and some of them must have recognized Jesse, but apart from a few startled exclamations they left him alone. Limping slightly, bleeding from his arm, his clothes ragged and bloodstained, he guessed he looked as if he might be followed by an undertaker or a flock of carrion crows.
He spotted Dorothy, the war widow who used to sell him muffins from the Starbucks booth, seated on an upturned trash bin. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, but she was brave enough not to flinch. “Jesse Cullum, is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was away, but I got back this morning.”
“How is that possible—did you fly over the wall?”
She meant it facetiously, but he nodded. “In fact I did.”
“I’m tempted to believe you. You’re hurt!”
“Not fatally. Tell me, have you seen Doris Vanderkamp today?”
“Do you see how few of us are still here? Most of the local hires left as soon as the evacuation was announced. The rest of us took cash bonuses to stay behind and help, for better or worse. If Doris had been prudent she’d be long gone. But when was Doris ever prudent? I saw her heading for the dormitory section a few minutes ago, probably packing up what’s left of her possessions. Jesse, do you know what’s going on? We haven’t heard from management for hours. Has the wall been breached?”
“Kemp’s people mean to hold off the soldiers until the Mirror is shut down. But I’m guessing you’ll see soldiers inside by nightfall.”
She smiled wanly. “I liked it here, Jesse. Oh, I know it was all pretend. The amity, the smiles. Past and future clasping hands in friendship. But it was a pretty dream, wasn’t it?”
Jesse felt a surge of affection for this solemn woman who had served him coffee on countless winter mornings. “For some of us it was. Best of luck to you, Dorothy.”
“And to you, Jesse Cullum, wherever you’re hurrying off to. Have someone see to that arm!”
He found Doris Vanderkamp in her cubicle in the dormitory wing, just as Dorothy had said. The door to her room was half ajar, but he knocked so as not to alarm her. It didn’t work. She saw his face and emitted a small shriek. “Jesse!”
“Yes,” he said, “it’s me.”
She came to him and took his arm—his uninjured left arm, luckily—and steered him inside. He sat on her bed and let a wave of dizziness wash over him. “Lord,” she said, “you’re bleeding like a butchered hog!”
A coin-sized drop of blood stained the bedsheet. He gazed at it dully. “I’m sorry…”
“You need a bandage.”
“I already have one.”
“Then you need a fresh one, or a tourniquet.”
“It’s a kind thought. But what I really need, Doris, is a uniform.”
“What? I thought you said ‘uniform.’”
“I did. A City security uniform.”
“Are you drunk? That’s the last thing you need. All of us here already traded our uniforms for civilian clothes. The army will be inside sooner or later, and you don’t want to get caught wearing City colors. It would only make a target of you. Lie down and let me look at that wound.”
“Did you take medical training in my absence?”
“No, but I can tie a cloth.”
He was tempted to take her advice, at least the part about lying down. But if he closed his eyes he might not open them again for hours. “My case is different. I’m serious—I need a uniform that fits me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What business are you caught up in now?”
“It’s a long story, Doris, I’m sorry. A City uniform—can you get me one?”
“The lockers are full of them.” She sighed. “If you’re willing to wait here, I’ll bring you one. I guess anything would serve you better than that bloody rag of a shirt.”
“One more thing. Do you have paper and a pen?”
She waved at her desk, the kind with which every dormitory cubicle was equipped. “Top drawer.”
“I thank you,” he said. But she had already left the room. Time was slipping away from him. He located a pad of paper embossed with the City logo and a City pen with a rolling point. Paper in his lap, pen in his left hand, he gathered his unruly thoughts and began to write.
He had filled two pages by the time Doris returned with a uniform that looked as if it might fit him. He set aside the pages and let her help him trade his civilian pants for City trousers. That was easy enough. The shirt was more difficult. He took Dekker’s pass card and Talbot’s phone from his pocket and put them on Doris’s desk.
“That’s an iPhone,” she said.
“How do you know about such things?”
“I was courted by a Tower One man last winter, when you were off chasing runners or whatever you were doing. He had a pass card like that. He used it to sneak me into his quarters. And he had an iPhone, too. He liked to take pictures with it. Moving pictures,” she said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
Jesse understood that Doris liked to think she possessed the power to make him jealous. “What kind of moving pictures?”
“The intimate kind.”
“The cad,” he said, to please her.
Doris grinned triumphantly. “I didn’t mind! He said there are women who do it for a living, where he comes from, and they’re perfectly respectable, and I’m as good at it as any of them.”
“Seems like you were born too soon.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Far from it.” He clenched his teeth and pulled off his shirt. The shirt and the bandage beneath it and the flesh of his arm had been glued together with blood. Peeling it all apart caused black spots to cloud his vision. Doris sucked in her breath when she saw the exposed wound. “Jesse … I think I can see bone.”
He wished she hadn’t spoken. “Bind it,” he said. “Any old cloth. Tear a strip from my shirttail if you have to. Bind it for me, Doris—I can’t do it myself.”
She looked queasy but followed his instructions. The bleeding wasn’t stanched, but it slowed. He used his old shirt to wipe some of the spilled blood from his arm, and he covered up the rest with the fresh City shirt and the blue City blazer with the City of Futurity insignia on it.
“And I got these for you,” Doris said.
A pair of Oakley sunglasses. The kind he had once considered supremely desirable. Tinted plastic and a thimble’s-worth of aluminum. He put them on and regarded himself in Doris’s mirror.