I’ve seen snakes at the zoo and usually they don’t make any noise. But these were deafening, more of a buzz than a hiss, and it got louder and louder every second, making me feel like my head would crack open. When I said my formula of protection I stumbled over the words twice before I could get it right.
Holding on to my medallion with one hand I grabbed Paul’s arm. “Get away from there!” I screamed at him. “Say your formula. Say it!” He shoved me and I fell back on the floor. As loud as I could I said my own formula and then the Standard Recognition. In my head the buzzing softened. But in the elevator the snakes didn’t go away. Paul covered his ears. “Paul!” I called again. He turned to me and shrugged. When he stepped into the elevator the door closed behind him.
I ran up and kicked the doors, hit them as hard as I could. “Give him back!” I yelled. “You promised! Give him back.” Someone grabbed me. A cop, I think. A moment later a needle slid into my arm. I remember I looked at it amazed and then tried to pull my arm away. Too late. “Ferocious One,” I said. “Please release me…” And then the drug hit me and I was gone.
I woke up in a hospital bed with my mother slumped over in a chair next to me. “Mom?” I said, and her head jerked up.
“Ellen,” she said. “Thank God.”
For some reason my arms were folded across my body. I tried to reach out a hand but couldn’t. Shit, I thought, I’m paralyzed. But when I flexed my muscles there was nothing wrong with them. The hospital, or the cops, had tied me into a restraining sheet. I tilted up my head to look at it. Sky blue, with an eye of power in the centre radiating circles of protection, it held me like a huge bandage, with my arms pulled over each other like someone about to bow in a sacred pose of purification. “Get this off me,” I said.
“Honey, please,” Mom said.
“Get this goddamn thing off me.”
My mother stuck her head out the door. “Help,” she called, and just like in the movies a couple of nurses came running into my room.
Looking up at their masked faces (a duck and a pig) I tried to sound as calm as possible. “Do you mind telling me what this is about?” I said, nodding my head at the sheet.
“For your own protection,” the duck grunted. She should be wearing the pig mask, I thought.
“Well, can you take it off me?” I said.
The duck said to her pal, “Go get the portscan, okay?” So I had to wait while they wheeled in a white machine with lots of dials and screens, and long wires with tiny rubber tips at the end to place against my face, head, heart and groin.
“How do I configure?” I asked the pig.
Instead of answering she said to the other nurse, “Readings all fall within the 210-225 range.”
I asked, “Is that normal?” She hesitated, then nodded. “Great,” I said, “now will you unstrap me?” They didn’t move. I looked at my mother. “Mom,” I said, “can you get them to take this off me?”
“Honey,” she said, and stopped. Her face scrunched up.
I realized suddenly why they didn’t want to unstrap me. “Oh God,” I said. “Paul.” I could still see his shrug before he stepped into the elevator. “Where is he?” I asked. Nobody answered. “He’s dead, isn’t he? They got him. Tell me they got him.”
My mother just nodded. When I started to cry she came and reached toward my face with a crumpled tissue, but I did my best to turn my head. I guess crying was the right response, because a few moments later the nurses undid the sheet and I could blow my own nose.
The hospital kept me overnight. Observation. I didn’t mind. I didn’t want to think. I don’t think I wanted to go home. Some time in the afternoon I suddenly noticed stitches on my right arm just below the elbow. It didn’t look like a wound. It was too neat. It looked more like surgery. “What’s this?” I asked my mother.
Once again, she looked all embarrassed, even ashamed. Finally, she said, “It’s a chip.”
“A chip? What do you mean?”
“A microchip,” she said. She held out her arm and pushed up the sleeve of her blouse. “Look,” she said, “I’ve got one too. The hospital put them in. Daddy too.”
“Why are they sticking microchips in us?”
“It’s…it’s to monitor what happens.” She looked so scared she could hardly talk. “They said this way they could intervene if…if anyone…anything should threaten us. They’ll know before it happens, they said.”
“Great,” was all I could say. “Terrific.” Goddamn them, I thought. Why couldn’t they have given one to Paul? Stupid bastards.
With the chip in, the hospital let me walk around. After visiting hours that night, when my folks had gone, I just went up and down the floor. I thought of watching TV or calling people on the pay phone at the nurses’ station. But I just kept walking until they gave me a pill and sent me to bed. I remember some Ragged Healer by the side of my bed, hopping from one bare foot to the other, and shaking maracas over me as I was falling asleep.
There was one phone call especially I thought of making. My folks had told me that Alison Birkett had wanted to come see me, but thought she should ask first. Good thing, I told them. Because I didn’t want to see her. I had her home phone number, though, and after my folks left I kept thinking of calling her. Except I didn’t.
At home the next few days, I didn’t do much more than I’d done in the hospital. My folks didn’t push me to go back to school. Most of the time I sat in my room. I tried to read or watch TV, but couldn’t concentrate. When the phone rang, I just let it go on and on and didn’t answer.
And then, on the fourth day I was home, I put on the all-news cable station. And there lay my cousin Paul, all alone in an empty elevator, his hands and face so puffed up you could hardly tell he was a human being and not some lump of clay stuffed into a suit.
I didn’t cry or scream. I just sat there, watching the TV and shaking. When the report ended—I didn’t hear a word—I grabbed the framed picture of Alison Birkett—it still hung above my desk—and threw it at the TV as hard as I could. Then I grabbed all the money I could find and jumped on my bike to head for the train station.
When I got to the office it was almost like Marjorie, her secretary, had been waiting for me. She jumped up from her desk to tell me, “You can’t go in there.”
“Get out of my way,” I ordered.
“She’s in conference,” Marjorie insisted.
“With whom? Jack Morally? The president? God?” When I tried to run around her she grabbed my arm.
I heard a voice I’d once thought was the most beautiful sound I knew. “For heaven’s sake,” Alison Birkett said, “let her in.” Marjorie dropped my arm and I stood there, out of breath, just looking at her.
She looked all worn out, like somebody in pain, or someone who’s been crying for days. It shocked me, but it didn’t make me feel better. Over her shoulder she said, “Robert, will you please excuse me? I’m sorry to break off our talk. I’ll have to get back to you later.” Someone mumbled something and then a man in a suit left the office. “Come in,” Ms Birkett said. “Please.”
Inside her office, she knew better than to offer me a seat. We just stood there, looking at each other. Finally, Ms Birkett said, “I’m sorry, Ellen. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why?” I said. “Because your little scheme failed? Because you’ve tarnished your perfect reputation?”
She just said again, “I’m sorry, Ellen. Please believe me.”
“I believed you when you said you’d protect him. I fell for all your big buddy buddy talk with the goddamn SDA. I believed you!”