The room lies in near-total darkness, lit only by running LCD readouts on screens that rise up from the head of the hospital bed to the ceiling. In their flickering rainbow light, she can dimly make out Koda’s face on the body lying so still and stiff on the bed, a white sheet drawn up to its chin. Oddly, none of the instruments seem to be connected to her—no tape, no tubes, no needles.
Oh gods, no. It’s the morgue. No.
“No, it isn’t. Not quite.”
Kirsten follows the sound to the corner of the room. A white-coated figure stands there, the multi-colored lights playing about him like an acid-dream aura. The person takes a step forward, ostentatiously checking a Rolex the size of a saucer that lies against his slim brown wrist.
His brown furry wrist.
“There is not,” he says, “very much time.”
Another step forward, and Kirsten can see him clearly now, partly in the instrument lights, partly in the glow from the lighted dial of the immense watch. Bottle-bottom round spectacles perch over his pointed black nose, and a brushy tail, grey stripes and black protrudes from beneath the pleat of his lab coat. The hand that turns the Rolex so that she can see the time bears five long fingers, and no thumb.
“You!” she snaps. “What the hell—”
“Tch. Again with the manners. Your mother should hear you.”
“What the hell”— Kirsten can hear her voice rising, out of her control—“What the fuck are you doing here? I don’t need you! I need someone who can help!”
“On the other hand, your mother shouldn’t hear you. What a mouth you’ve got.” He gives an indignant sniff. “Besides, look where you are. Have some respect.”
Kirsten’s gaze returns to the still figure on the bed. She stares fixedly at the sheet for a moment, willing it to rise and fall with Dakota’s breath. It does not stir.
All the fight goes out of her, her spine slumping with the sudden weight that falls on her. “She’s dead,” Kirsten says in a voice so flat she does not recognize it as her own. “I couldn’t help her. The infection got out of hand—” She swallows hard against the dry contraction of her throat. “We didn’t have the medicine, and I couldn’t help—”
“And it’s all your fault, yadda yadda yadda. Suck it up. You can help.”
“Wha— Didn’t you hear me? The medicine doesn’t do any good! What are you going to do, give me somebody’s grandmother’s recipe for a magical herbal tea? She needs a doctor. She needs a hospital. She needs—”
“This prescription.” Tega extracts a notepad and a pen from his coat pocket and begins to write, holding the ballpoint between the middle joints of his third and fourth fingers. He tears off the script and passes it to her across the bed. “Here. Any questions?”
Kirsten glances down at the paper in her hand. Printed in fine, flowing letters across the top is the legend, W. T. Kunz, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A., F.R.C.S., D.V.M., LL.D., K.C.B.E.
Half the alphabet soup she does not understand, and it occurs to her that that is probably just as well. Beneath it, in clear block print, is “Levaquin Injectable. 500 mg 2/day for 10 days. Packet 10 3cc syringes w/needles.” It is the most lucid prescription she has ever seen, and the most useless.
She says bitterly. “It might as well be skunk cabbage tea. Where the hell am I supposed to find this? There’s no Walgreen’s over the next ridge, or if there is, it’s looted.”
“How about the hospital pharmacy?” Tega cocks his head to one side, looking at her as if she is a slightly backward child.
“What hospital? There is no hospital, dammit! This is a dream. We’re marooned in some god-forsaken fishing shack in the god-damned middle of god-damn nowhere!”
“Craig,” says Tega.
“What? Who’s Craig?”
“Not who. Where. Over the state line in Colorado. There’s a clinic. In Craig. With medicines. You can fill the prescription there.”
“But—”
He glances at his watch again, steadying its immense dial with one hand. “Get out the map, put on your boots, and go. There isn’t much time.”
“Wait! What—”
The intercom interrupts her. “Dr. Kunz. Dr. Kunz to Emergency. Code Purple. Stat.”
“Gotta go, schweetheart. It’s been fun, and it’s been real, and get up off your ass and go get the meds.” With that he begins to fade, and the hospital room around him. Kirsten’s eyes snap open, to the now-familiar sight of the fire and Asimov’s anxious gaze, and the too-quiet form beneath the sleeping bag.
“Gods, what a damn dream—” Without thought, she raises a hand to rub at her aching forehead.
There is a paper in it. A paper that was not there before.
Hardly trusting her sight, let alone her mind, Kirsten looks down at the words that march across the corner of the Wyoming/Colorado map from Koda’s rucksack. In her own neat handwriting it says, “Levaquin Injectible. 500 mg/day for 10 days. Packet 10 3 cc syringes w/needles.”
“Ok,” she says, wiping her hands on her pants. The script crinkles in protest. “I can do this. I have to do this. Even if that nutty striped Marcus Welby wannabe from my very weird subconscious didn’t tell me, I’d still have to do it. So let’s get going. First things first. It’s gonna be a long hike, so I need to be dressed for it. Or as dressed as I can be, anyway.”
Slipping off her sweats, she tugs on a dirty pair of jeans, then pulls the sweats back on over them, then pulls Dakota’s sweats on over them, changing her appearance to that of a housewife who’s spent a little too much time with the bon-bons and soaps. They have two dry t-shirts left, and she pulls both of them on, then one of her own flannels, then one of Dakota’s, and finally Dakota’s heavily lined flannel that is more jacket than shirt. A third flannel is tied, babushka style, over her head. A pair of heavy, clean socks double as mittens. “I know, I know,” she remarks to Asi, who seems to be laughing at her, “I look like the bagperson from Hell, but at least I’ll be warm. I hope.” Three pairs of socks and her boots come last.
Fully dressed for whatever may come, she waddles over to Dakota and, with the effort of a small child in a full snowsuit, lowers herself to her knees. “I’ll be back soon, sweetheart. I promise you.” She strokes the damp hair from her partner’s forehead. “I’ll have the meds you need and you’ll be better in no time. Then we can finish this shit and get on with the rest of our lives, ok?” Tears sting her eyes and she swipes at them. “Just…hang in there while I’m gone, alright?” Bending still further, she places a tiny kiss on Dakota’s forehead, and a longer one on dry, cracked lips. “I love you, Dakota Rivers. Never forget that. Ever.”
Pulling away, she pauses for a moment, and looks up at the ceiling. “Ina Maka? I don’t know if you can hear me. Hell, I don’t even know if I believe you even exist. But Dakota does, I know that, and that’s enough for me. I don’t pray much—heck, I don’t pray at all, really, but I’m doing it now. Please, please watch over her while I’m gone, ok? I know that you and her are close, and you might be thinking of calling her to your side so you can be together all the time, but…don’t do it just yet, ok? I need her. I need her and I love her…so much. And if you really are up there, you know that. So please, just…watch over her for me, alright? Thanks.”
Struggling back to her feet, she takes one long, last look at her lover, then turns to her dog. “Guard her with your life, Asimov. I mean that. Do you understand me?”
A stern bark is her answer as she exits the cabin without looking back.
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
WITH A SOFT GRUNT, Kirsten lays the crumpled map flat against a rock whose cap of snow has melted away in the warm summer sun. Removing her makeshift mittens, she pulls out the old-fashioned compass, surprised she still knows how to read one in these days of GPS tracking, takes a reading, and looks back down at the map, frowning. “The compass says I’m going the right way. The damn map says I’m going the right way. So would someone please tell me what the hell this mountain is doing here?!?”