Silently, I count down from five and then pull. I’m prepared for searing agony, but what I feel is more pressure than pain.
Freed, I swing my legs off the bed. Most of the machines I’m plugged into are on one side but one apparatus is not, and its cords aren’t long enough to swing around the end of the bed. I have no choice but to unhook myself from it.
I hurry over to the cabinet, the other machines rolling along most of the way there. I find my clothes in the large upper section. They’re designed to be worn in 1775 colonial North America, but they’re better than the open-back hospital smock. I pull on my pants and shoes. My shirt and jacket can’t go on until I’m unplugged. Before that, though, I look for my bag.
I pull open the lower drawers and finally find the satchel in the bottom one. When I open the flap, I tense. My Chaser isn’t there. I look around the room, thinking maybe I’ve missed a cabinet, but spot nothing.
The police? Please, no.
I close my eyes and try to remember my arrival four days earlier. Bits and pieces come to me — flashes of the house, the windows, the floor.
Then a flash of my Chaser, lying several feet away. Another flash and it’s gone.
Did I put it in my bag or not?
Concentrating harder, I think about my satchel until I can almost feel it flopped across my back. What I sense, though, is that it’s not where I put the Chaser.
Hurry! I tell myself, sure that Clara will return at any moment.
A flash of another window, then a wall, and then—
— a fireplace.
Yes. I remember now. I stuck it in the chimney.
My eyes shoot open and I yank off the tubes and wires. Clutching jacket and satchel in one hand while pulling my shirt on with the other, I hurry to the door and open it enough to peek out. Beyond is a wide, well-lit corridor. There are several closed doors along the other side that I guess lead to other rooms like mine. Here and there, rolling equipment sits against the wall. Though I can hear someone walking in the distance, I see no one.
I widen the opening and slip out.
I hoped to find an empty hall, but to the left are several people walking in both directions. Some are wearing white like the nurse who’s been helping me, while others are dressed in clothing that again looks odd to me. To the right, the hall is less occupied, but about fifty feet down is an open area with a counter where several nurses sit.
I decide my best bet is to go left, away from where the nurses are gathered. I don my jacket and pull my satchel over my shoulder as I move into the hallway. I feel the urge to run but resist it and turn down the first intersection I reach. Now that there are more walls between me and the room I was in, I feel a bit better, but I know I’m not out of trouble yet.
Ahead I hear a bell, followed by a whooshing sound. The hall soon widens to accommodate a row of metal doors. One is open, revealing a small room where several people are standing.
A lift, I realize.
The door starts to shut, but a hand juts out from inside and stops it.
“You going down?” the man whose hand it is asks me.
“Yes, thank you,” I say as I dart into the compartment.
“Lobby or somewhere else?” The man’s outstretched finger is hovering near a panel with numbered buttons on it.
“Lobby,” I say.
The lift is larger than any I’ve ever been on, and could hold at least twenty people. At the moment, there are only four others beside myself — the man who held the door, a young couple, and a female nurse. The nurse is the one who worries me most, but she doesn’t seem to have any interest in me. The other three, however, do.
“Nice getup,” the male half of the couple says.
“Excuse me?”
“Is it Fashion Week already?” the woman asks.
“Fashion Week?” I ask, then realize her question was triggered by my clothes.
“No. I bet you’re an actor, right?”
“Right. An actor.”
“You’re in a play?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which one?”
I’m backed into a corner. Theater is a subject I have paid little attention to. It wasn’t an extravagance my family could afford. But I do know a few titles. “As You Like It.”
The woman cocks her head. “Shakespeare? Which theater?”
I’m saved from answering by the ding of the bell and the doors opening. I start to step off but the man by the panel says, “Not the lobby yet, buddy.”
I move back in and press against the wall as several more people enter the lift, separating me from the inquisitive couple. One of those closest to me takes a long look at my clothes but says nothing.
Thankfully, the rest of the journey is made in silence. When the doors open again, I wait until I see the light in the L button turn off before I join the other passengers filing out.
Following signs marked EXIT, I pass through a door into a large room with dozens of chairs, most of which are occupied. At the far end of the room are several glass doors. Through them, I see fading daylight. Before I can feel any relief, I notice the police officers who visited me standing off to the side, one of them holding something to his ear that he appears to be talking into. It looks like a com-phone but it’s smaller than any I’ve ever seen.
I slow my pace so I can hide behind a group headed toward the exit, and arrive outside unseen.
As I move away from the entrance, I look around. A parking area full of strange vehicles stretches out from the medical facility’s entrance. I’m surprised by how different they are from the carriages I know, but it’s the variety that’s the most shocking. Dozens of different colors and shapes and sizes. Where did they all come from?
One of the vehicles drives by me, its motor humming in an unfamiliar way. There’s only one person inside, which at first makes me think he must be no lower than a Four, but the vehicle itself is dented and scratched in a way no one of that social standing would be caught in.
“Either move out of the way or walk,” a man says as he steps around me, his shoulder brushing roughly against my arm.
I look around and realize he’s not the only one who’s had to alter his course to avoid bumping into me. But before I can step to the edge of the walkway, a voice shouts, “Hey! You!”
I turn toward it, and see one of the police officers has exited the medical facility and is looking in my direction.
When we lock eyes, he yells, “Stay where you are!”
A rush of adrenaline shoots through my body. I ignore his command and sprint in the opposite direction.
“Hey! Stop!”
For a few seconds, I weave in and out of the other pedestrians, then it dawns on me that I can make better time if I cut into the street. A horn blares from one of the vehicles and the driver shouts something through his window, but I don’t even look in his direction as I keep running. A few more drivers honk but most don’t seem to care that I’m in the middle of the street.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” The police officer again.
His voice sounds farther away so I chance a look. He, too, is in the street, but he’s older than I am and fatter so he’s already slowing.
Instead of easing up, I increase my speed. Ahead is an intersection with a traffic-control system that’s both familiar and not. The ones I’m used to are mounted horizontally and the lights are green, orange, and red. The one ahead of me is vertical with red on top, yellow in the middle, and green at the bottom.
Red still seems to mean stop, though, so when the light turns that color, I cut across the road and continue down the new street. After a block, my breaths start feeling heavy, and my days spent unconscious begin to catch up to me.