Doctor Bragg positions me in front of the chair and lets me go. I’m standing where Squint stood yesterday. I can see the door to the outside where Eric and I escaped last time. Everything in me wants to sprint for the door, throw it open, and run for the river, but I beat the feeling down. I could easily get caught. I only have this one chance or I’m dead. With Doctor Bragg, I’m way worse than dead, I’m a living experiment. It takes all my determination to keep from trembling.
“No, I don’t need you,” the Doctor answers, looking back to Randy, who is standing far from me. “I want you to tell me what is happening, why we are meeting President Barber, why we are moving from here.” The Doctor stands up and faces Randy, his face a blank. “You never tell me what is happening until it has already happened.”
Randy crosses his arms, looking at him. Then he smiles his toothy smile. “It works out, doesn’t it?” He throws his hand toward me like I was a chair or a table, just some object he was able to find.
“That is not the point,” Doctor Bragg says flatly.
Randy laughs. “It kind of is the point though,” he says. “Look, you’re good at this.” Randy points at me. “And I’m good at everything else. You lost her, I found her. I wanted her to die with the rest at Cairo, but this is even better, isn’t it? You do your thing, I do my thing. It works out for us, let’s not change things now.”
“It disturbs me that you are so reluctant to share your plans.”
Randy studies him and then shifts from one foot to the other. Doctor Bragg doesn’t move. He just stands there, eyes fixed on Randy, his back straight, his long face emotionless and disturbingly steady. As they focus on each other, I study what I can of the room without moving my eyes. On the chair next to me, where I was strapped down the day before, I see an aluminum tray. On it glimmers a scalpel and several glass tubes, some of which are filled with some dark liquid. I can almost feel the scalpel in my hand.
“Yeah, all right,” Randy says to the Doctor suddenly. “I’ve convinced the Stars that the Gearheads have been spreading the Worm. They’ll give you all the people you need to find the cure for the Worm that they think the Gearheads are spreading. You’ll have all you need. I’ll make sure of that.”
Doctor Bragg is silent, thinking. After a moment, he says, “Good. Thank you.”
As the two eye each other, I study the scalpel. It’s only a couple feet from me. I could have it in a flash, and, before the two were even aware I wasn’t infected, I could slash the scalpel down Randy’s face and then slice out at Doctor Bragg. Then I could run for the door. But I doubt I could move fast enough. All it would take was one of them to be a little quicker, to grab me, force the scalpel from my hand, and I would be caught. By the end of the day, Doctor Bragg would have me sliced open like a fish on his surgical table. I have to be patient. I have to wait for my time.
Doctor Bragg comes back to me, turning away from Randy. He turns my head to one side. His hands are strangely warm on my neck, hot and dry as a desert. His face is so close to mine, I can smell warm eggs on his breath. Over the Doctor’s shoulder, as he examines me, Randy watches us. His face is filled with disgust and scorn. Then the Doctor pushes my head back. With a movement of his hand, his gently shuts my jaw. Then, urging me forward with a slight push, he makes me stand next to the chair. He tilts my head to the side, and I can feel him looking into my ear. I can’t see Randy anymore, but I feel him glaring at us. I hear the sound of the scalpel being taken from the aluminum tray, and a shudder of horror moves up my body before I can stop it.
“Ergh,” I say, to hide my terror. The Doctor puts a hand on my shoulder almost tenderly, as if to comfort me.
“No worms yet,” he says and makes a snapping sound with his tongue. Doctor Bragg turns to Randy. “It means I’ve caught it before the worms have had a chance to colonize the auditory nerve.”
“So?” Randy says. He sounds like a petulant teenager who refuses to admit that knowledge is useful.
“So if I remove the ear and the auditory nerve,” the Doctor answers, “I’ll be able to observe how the organism reacts.”
“You’re going to cut out her ear?” asks Randy in a disgusted voice.
“Just one of them,” he answers coldly. I'm glad they’re not looking at me because I’m trembling. I fight to control myself. I have to be patient, I have to wait my time.
The Doctor turns to me, scalpel glistening in his hand.
“This is too much for me,” says Randy with a laugh. He waves his hands toward us and then walks to the door leading outside. “You have fun with that.” He shuts the door behind him, and leaves the two of us alone.
I steel my resolve. My moment is here.
142
Time is a strange thing. Sometimes there’s more of it than you could ever need. It’s all around you, flowing in abundance, a flood, and you drown in a kind of eternity. Then suddenly time is a knife, sharp, detailed, and profound, and there is not nearly enough of it. You exist in a drought, moving as if through sand, hoping that what you do in that exact moment is the right thing because there isn’t time for a second try. It’s simple, brutal, unforgiving. Either it is done right or it is not. A choice. An action. A single movement. There’s no going back. There’s no way to try again. Time is a killer because all of the things that could’ve happened, never will. All those possibilities are gone and they’re not coming back.
I feel time like that now. It’s sharp and unforgiving. I have to wait, just moments as Doctor Bragg prepares his scalpel to cut into my ear. I have to wait. In my mind, I see Randy walking away from the door. I must give him time to get farther away, time enough so that he might not see me as I burst out the door. He’s walking so slow and the Doctor’s scalpel is moving toward me. I feel his hand on my shoulder. I feel him behind me, lifting himself on his tiptoes. In my mind’s eye, I see that Randy is still in sight. He will see me if I move. I have to wait. I have to wait.
My heart is speeding forward like a shooting star. I can feel the Doctor steady himself for the cut.
In a motion, I release all my energy. I jab my elbow back into the Doctor as hard as I can, and at the same time, I whirl around. I see the Doctor’s face in a painful grimace as both my hands grab at the wrist whose hand holds the glinting scalpel. I jerk the wrist forward, hoping to get him to release the scalpel, but the Doctor has recovered a little and resists the pull. Desperately I kick out, but the Doctor twists away and my feet only hits his thigh. We stumble forward, struggling with the scalpel. I twist my body and his wrist, and the scalpel loosens in his hand. As the Doctor cries out in pain, I jerk his arms forward. The scalpel falls from his hands and clatters on the floor, but now the Doctor surges forward and grasps me in a tight hug, lifting me off the ground.
“You’re immune!” he cries, his voice filled with equal surprise and happiness.
I cry out and stamp down as hard as I can on his foot. I feel bones crunch and Doctor Bragg releases me with a screech of pain. I stumble out of his reach into the chair before I feel his hands at my shoulders. I shake him free, grasping out at the tray. I turn around, holding one of the test tubes in my hand as the Doctor moves toward me, his arms wide. In desperation, I stab at his face with the test tube. It shatters and slices his face under his eye, splattering his face with dark ooze. The Doctor stumbles back, eyes wide, holding his face. He looks at his hands, covered in blood and black ooze. Then his face falls in disappointment and I know he’s been infected. He’ll be dead in a day or two. I see that he knows it too, but there’s no fear on his face, no sadness, just disappointment.