Escape (51 page)

Surprise, surprise,
Kieran thought. It wouldn't be easy to cure, or even diagnose, what was wrong with them.

Reading his thoughts, Dimmi asked, “You think that's why they came here?”

Kieran turned from the data terminal to face her. “Why else?”

“To treat their wounds? They never had a chance to do so at the Constantic Temple.”

Kieran smirked. “You stabbed me through the heart with a dagger, and all I have to show for it are the blood stains on my clothes. I doubt if they have any injuries left to treat.”

“Good point.”

Kieran turned from the data terminal and began walking in what seemed to Dimmi to be an arbitrary direction. She kept pace beside him, already knowing without having to ask that he was headed for the ER. She also knew without having to ask that he didn't know where to go. A moment later she spotted an overhead sign pointing the way at the head of a corridor that branched off the ostentatious lobby.

They turned in that direction and started down the corridor. Before long they heard the groaning, shouting, screaming, and crying of the patients and doctors in the ER. When they reached the waiting room, they strode up to the admissions desk, and Kieran cleared his throat to get the attention of the bored-looking receptionist.

She looked up, her eyes widening fractionally upon seeing the red color of theirs. But she wasn't about to remark upon it. She'd certainly seen stranger maladies.

“May I help you?” she asked, sounding as though there were a million other things she'd rather do.

“We're looking for some friends of ours who came here for treatment about an hour ago,” Kieran said.

The receptionist frowned. “Names?”

“Jilly Claassen and Ferrel Catrel,” Kieran supplied.

The receptionist spent a moment querying her data terminal, then looked up. “Well, they haven't been logged out of the system, so they are probably still being treated. You're welcome to wait here for them,” she said, gesturing to the banks of hard, uncomfortable looking chairs in the waiting room.

“We would prefer to see them directly.”

“That's against med center policy. Only patients are allowed beyond the waiting room.”

Kieran gritted his teeth and fought the rising tide of rage that was threatening to overtake him. He smiled blandly at the receptionist and asked, “Couldn't you at least put us in contact with the doctor who was assigned to treat them? Doctor Coragail?” The receptionist pursed her lips, still looking reluctant. “I'm Jilly Claassen's husband,” Kieran added.

At last, she relented. “Let me see if he's available.” She pressed a finger to the comm piece in her ear and said, “Yes, please put me through to Doctor Coragail.” A moment later: “I have two people here requesting to see you, one of them claims to be husband of one of your patients.”

Kieran watched her nodding her head, and he knew Coragail's answer from her thoughts even before she ended the comm call and looked up at them with a strained smile. “Straight through there
—
” She pointed to a corridor which began a few micró-astroms to their right. “
—
Examination room 166.”

Kieran returned her strained smile and started toward the corridor. Dimmi followed at his side and muttered under her breath: “Cretitch.”

When they reached the door numbered 166, Kieran knocked twice, quickly, and then tried the doorknob. The door swung open to reveal a boxy room with an L-shaped counter, examination table, and a stool on rollers that was standing empty in front of a data terminal along the wall opposite the counter. The doctor himself was lying on the examination table, his head pointing toward a conspicuous hole in one of the white-painted walls. Kieran frowned upon seeing the hole in the wall, and the doctor sat up to see who had come into his office.

“You'll have to excuse me,” he said. “I haven't been feeling very well, I'm afraid
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
” the doctor trailed off softly, and his thoughts were suddenly crowded with private musings about their red eyes. After a moment, he supplied a likely explanation for himself: cosmetic contacts.

Kieran closed the door behind him and Dimmi. “We were hoping to speak with you about a couple of patients you treated about an hour ago.”

The doctor cocked his head. “What were their names?”

Kieran told him, and the doctor frowned, his green eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “I can't say I recall either of them, but my memory hasn't been very reliable lately.”

That sparked Kieran's interest. He'd had a few memory gaps of his own in the past few days. Perhaps it was going around.

“You're sure you don't remember them?” Dimmi asked. “The girl is tall, blond, blue
—
that is
—
red-eyed, pretty
—
the guy, medium height, long, greasy black hair, kind of rodent like features, also red-eyed.”

The doctor shook his head. “I'm sorry, they don't sound familiar, and I'm sure I would have remembered the red eyes. Perhaps you should check the registry to see who is listed as their physician.”

Now it was Kieran's turn to frown. “We already did that. You are Doctor Coragail, aren't you?”

“Last I checked,” he said with a wry grin.

“Then, according to the registry, you
are
their physician.”

Doctor Coragail's mouth opened as if he wanted to say something to that, but no sound came out. His thoughts echoed with an unspoken,
What?
and Dimmi exchanged a dubious look with Kieran.

His thoughts mirrored hers: something very strange was going on at the Tekasi Medical Center.

* * *

The comm chimed and Fesha Lesteran slapped the receive/transmit button.

“Yes?”

“Madam Director? Sorry to disturb you, but you asked to be notified if anyone inquired about a Jilly Claassen or a Ferrel Catrel.”

The director's brow lifted. “And?”

“Well, there have been several inquiries to the patient registry, all within the last 10 minutes.”

Fesha Lesteran's chubby face stretched into a grin. “Where were the inquiries made?”

“The first was made from the lobby, and the second was made from the admissions desk in the ER, both on level 112.”

“Thank you for letting me know.”

With that, Fesha ended the call and stood up from her overstuffed executive chair. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her plush, electric blue suit, and started toward the double tesk wood doors of her office.

* * *

“Well, this is a very curious situation,” Doctor Coragail said, scratching his head. “Perhaps
—
”

The door opened and a short, chubby woman dressed in a blue suit entered.

“Madam Director, what are you doing here?” Doctor Coragail asked, standing up from the examination table.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that any way to greet your boss?”

“Well, I mean,” he stammered, “with respect, you're not exactly my boss.”

“No, you are right. I'm your boss's boss's boss.”

“My apologies, Madam Director. I wasn't expecting you.”

She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Nevermind, I didn't come to see you, anyway,” she said, turning to Kieran. “I believe I can help you locate the patients you're searching for.”

Kieran cocked his head. “How did you even know that we were
—
”

“I know many things,” she said, regarding him steadily. “Come,” she commanded, and then with a rustle of fabric turned and left the room.

Kieran and Dimmi followed her from the examination room, leaving Doctor Coragail to close the door behind them.

“Where are we going?" Kieran asked as they followed the director down the hall.

“You'll see.”

They walked on in silence until they reached a bank of lift tubes. The director pressed the down arrow and turned to them with a smile. “I couldn't help but notice,” she began, “that the two of you have very
unusual
eyes.”

Kieran returned her smile. “Contacts,” he explained.

The lift tube chimed its arrival, and the director turned away. “Very unusual,” she repeated, and stepped into the lift tube.

Kieran and Dimmi stepped in after her, and noticed that floor number 55 was lit on the control panel.

“They're a long way down,” Kieran remarked.

“Yes
 
.
 
.
 
.
” The director turned to him with a slow grin. “They are.”

Kieran frowned, wondering what she was smiling about. He focused on what wasn't being said, trying to read her thoughts, but his frown only deepened. Her mind was a steady blank.

“What's down there?” Dimmi asked, her eyes on the glowing green numerals above the lift tube doors, watching the numbers rapidly scrolling down to 55.

“Oh, nothing very much,” the director said. “Just more of the same.”

The lift tube chimed, and the numbers stopped scrolling, glowing a solid green double five. The doors opened and the director stepped out into a dim gray corridor with pools of yellow light splashing out from the runners at the tops and bottoms of the walls. They followed her down the corridor, passing door after numbered door.

Kieran couldn't see anyone in the corridor, and it was incredibly long.

“Pretty quiet down here,” Dimmi said.

“Yes, it is,” came the director's reply.

Kieran frowned to himself. “She was being unnecessarily cryptic. “How much further?”

“Not much.”

Dimmi exchanged a worried look with him, and they both stopped walking. The director stopped a moment later, having probably noticed that her footsteps were the only ones still echoing down the corridor.

She turned to them with a smile and cocked her head. “Aren't you coming?”

“Not until you explain where we're going,” Kieran said.

“Very well,” the director replied. And with that, she reached into her electric blue suit and pulled out a neural disruptor. Kieran blinked, wondering for a split second if he were imagining things.

In that split-second the director managed to pull the trigger twice, hitting Kieran with the first crackling blue burst of energy. Dimmi turned and tried to run away, but unfortunately for her, there was nowhere to run. The second crackling burst of energy struck her between the shoulder blades, and she collapsed to the floor barely half a dozen micró-astroms from Kieran.

Madam Director Lesteran tucked the pistol back inside her suit jacket and strode calmly down the corridor toward the next two applicants for the Tekasi Medical Center's
voluntary
stasis program.

Carnage

Chapter 31

K
ieran awoke in darkness. The air was close and cold around him. When he blinked, his eyelids rasped across his eyeballs as though they hadn't been used for days. He couldn't see anything
 
.
 
.
 
.
ahead
of him? No, he was lying down, he could feel the tug of gravity below his back, giving a frame of reference. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It billowed out above him in a white cloud of condensation. At least he could see that.

He tried to sit up, but his back spasmed and his forehead collided with a hard surface just above his head. He lay back with a groan. Where was he? How had he gotten there? The last thing he remembered
 
.
 
.
 
.

Was being shot by the supposed director of the Tekasi Medical Center. For a brief, heart stopping second he wondered if he were in a coffin. It was a ludicrous thought, or was it? Had he been buried alive? His palms grew clammy with sweat and he could hear his heart begin thudding in his chest. Panic gripped him and he extended his arms to either side, hoping that he was merely lying in the low-ceilinged bunkbed. Both hands immediately encountered the cold, sloping sides of his coffin. Kieran's head swam and he felt faint. He kept himself awake with the disconcerting thought that if he passed out, he might simply run out of air and never reawaken. He tried to force his thoughts to rationally attack the problem. If he were really in a coffin, perhaps they hadn't had time to bury him yet. Kieran raised his arms the handful of micenté-astroms to the ceiling (lid?) and pushed with all his might. He heard a metallic groan and pushed harder, thinking he might be able to break the lock, but the lid didn't give way. His arms fell to his sides, spent from the exertion. His breathing became quick and shallow
—
panicked. He tried in vain to calm himself; he was using up precious air!