So would it be the same with her? With “Kelly White,” as she’d been calling herself?
See there. Even the name was different. That alone would have taken its toll on her features.
His contact within CI-6 had said she’d been “incapacitated.” The Operator hoped that she wasn’t too far gone to be brought back. They had unfinished business, the two of them. Maybe they could go to a secret prison in Thailand. Where it would be just the two of them, once again. Even for a few hours.
Zero a.m.
Pennsylvania Hospital
She was awake but not awake, In this world but not of it. She could feel the sensations of movement, of hands, of needle sticks. Shed been this way since collapsing onto the carpet of the hotel hallway, and since then she had not been alone. If she had, the Mary Kates would have finished their job. She would be dead.
I should have thought of this days ago, she thought, and imagined herself laughing. And that was all she could do, because she was still paralyzed.
Which was going to make it difficult to get out of this one.
Oh, she was cracking herself up here tonight. This morning, tonight. Whenever. Wherever.
She stared at the insides of her eyelids and saw fields of stars and pulsars rushing past her She wished she could open her eyes at least. See where she was. It was a hospital; she could tell that much. She could hear the beeping and gushing of oxygen tanks and faraway voices on an intercom. She could smell the harsh disinfectant. But it would have been nice to know which hospital.
She had been born on Holies Street, the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin. Was there any kind of symmetry with this hospital? Maybe this was Americas National Maternity Hospital. National to National. Dublin to Philadelphia. The last of the great emigrations.
Because soon enough, she would be left alone in a room in this hospital, and she would die.
What gave her comfort in these final minutes—and she was sure that it was just a matter of minutes—was how much she’d accomplished in these past two weeks.
How gravely she’d wounded the Operator.
He’d never be able to recover from this.
And she would never have to look at his face, that mask of balding banality, those piercing black eyes like a manhole cover on a sewer of insecurity and depravity.
She never wanted to see that face again.
She preferred the dark.
4:30 a.m.
Sybian Lounge
Angela seemed to be considering Jack’s proposal, as ludicrous as it was. My contact lenses, he’d explained. They dried up a couple of hours ago; I had to take them out.
“You know, I’m not like most women,” she told him. “I like to look. But then again, I’ve always been a tomboy, so maybe there’s that. Some circuits crossed in my head, you know?” Jack said he knew what she was talking about. He didn’t.
Finally, she agreed to move the table closer, but she warned him: “If you spurt all over me, I’ll beat the hell out of you.” Jack said he could agree to that.
But the few seconds it took her to move the table closer were excruciating.
First the ticking away of the ten seconds, which Jack counted off too fast, and he hit ten and nothing happened and he thought he’d be fine and was relieved to think that maybe the effect had worn off or he hadn’t been infected as badly as he’d thought….
And then the first nauseating twist, deep in his brain.
Do not scream.
Then belt straps, wrapped around his skull and tightening, like someone had slid a steel rod through the buckle and was rotating, squeezing the leather against his hair and scalp and skull.
Scream and it’s over.
And the icy hot needle sticks in his brain, with inflatable black balloons rapidly expanding …
Scream and she’ll run, and the Mary Kates will finish you off….
Then, Angela’s palms were warm against his cheeks. “Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”
Jack was incoherently grateful, and he mumbled something about being tired. She gave him an uneasy smile in return. “You ready?” she asked politely. Of course he was ready. He’d do anything for her now. She’d come back to him; she had saved him from the abyss. He wasn’t thinking of Theresa. Or his daughter, Callie. He was thinking only of the woman who was standing in front of him, wanting to watch him masturbate. How easy the slide into debauchery.
The Sybian hummed to life, and Angela mounted it.
“Take it out,” she ordered.
She was shaved down to her skin, not a single strand of hair in sight. Jack’d been lying, of course. His contact lenses were in and his eyesight was perfect. And he could vividly see the buzzing fat rubber tip press up against the lips of her vagina. Her fingers worked the area for a few seconds, presumably trying to tease out her clitoris. Angela looked up at him.
“Dick?” she asked, nodding to his crotch.
Jack fumbled a moment, and though he could have sworn he felt nothing but white-hot fear from the hips down, as if his legs had completely melted away into the white noise—and buzzing—of the room, he was faintly relieved to find he had a modest erection.
He took his cock out of his pants.
Angela moaned in delight and thrust her hips against the Sybian. Her straining leg muscles made it look as if she could use her heels and knees to snap the saddle in half.
“Rub it,” she said, eyes shut.
Jack was only slightly dismayed to find himself doing what he was told, and his body responding….
Angela bucked as if he were touching her.
“Down to the head.”
The door kicked open behind her.
Someone said, “Step aside, sweetie. We’ve got to ask this man a few questions.”
Jack, with his dick in his hand, looked past Angela and saw two men standing in the doorway. A dark, curly-haired man in a suit, and an Aryan Nations poster boy, also in a suit, which was considerably more wrinkled. Aryan Man was more muscular, but the other guy looked harder, somehow. Leaner.
“We didn’t see your FOP card in your wallet,” said the curly-haired man.
“You’re not on the job, are you, Mr. Eisley?” said his partner.
“We know you’re not, by the way. We ran your license. You’re not a cop.”
The buzzing stopped. Angela quietly dismounted. Brushed strands of hair away from her forehead.
“I came here with someone,” Jack said, trying to find his dick. Where was it? Oh God, oh God. Let’s get it away. Quickly. “The cabdriver. He’s still here, delivering something.”
“What’s his name, then?”
“You like being married, Mr. Eisley?” asked the curly-haired man. “What’s she doing right now, your wife, back in Gurnee, Illinois? Think she knows you’re here?”
Angela, meanwhile, seemed to float backward, gathering up her clothes from the concrete floor. Mostly, she looked disappointed, like she’d had a long day at the office and had been looking forward to that first ice-cold beer, and, wouldn’t you know it, the damn tap was busted again. As she moved away, the two guys in the suits loomed closer.
“Want us to give her a call for you?” Aryan Man asked.
“I just want to leave.”
“Gotta head back to your newspaper convention, right? Is that why you’re here, newsman? Or you planning on writing about this place?”