Mirror dance (44 page)

Dr. Durona looked ten years older, and had grown cool. Cold. Her hair was parted in the middle and hung down in two smooth wings, chopped off at jaw-length, with threads of silver gleaming in the ebony. Her hands on his body, helping him to sit up, were dryer, colder, more severe. Not caressing.

I've gone into a time-warp. No. I've been frozen again. No. I'm taking too long to recover, and she's pissed at me for making her wait. No . . .
Confusion clogged his throat. He'd just lost the only friend he had, and he didn't know why.
I have destroyed our joy. . . .
 

She massaged his legs, very professionally, provided him with a loose patient gown, and made him stand up. He almost passed out. She put him back to bed and left.

When she came back the next time, she'd changed her hair yet again. This time it was grown long, held back tightly bound in a silver ring on the back of her head, and flowing down in a blunt-ended horse-tail with wide silver streaks running through it. She'd aged another ten years, he swore.
What's happening to me?
Her manner was a little softened, but nothing so happy as at first. She walked him across the room and back, which drained him totally, after which he slept again.

He was deeply distressed when she returned once more in her cold, short-haired incarnation. He had to admit, she was efficient getting him up and moving. She barked at him like a drill sergeant, but he walked, and then he walked unassisted. She steered him outside of his room for the first time, to where a short hallway ended in a sliding door, and then back.

They'd just turned for another circuit when the door at the end hissed open, and Dr. Durona came through. She was in her horse-tail morph. He stared at the wing-haired Dr. Durona beside him, and almost burst into tears.
It's not fair. You're confusing me.
Dr. Durona strode up to Dr. Durona. He blinked back the water in his eyes, and focused on their name tags. Wing-hair was Dr. C. Durona. Horse-tail was Dr. P. Durona.
But where's my Dr. Durona? I want Dr. R.
 

"Hi, Chrys, how's he doing?" asked Dr. P.

Dr. C. answered, "Not too badly. I've just about worn him out for this therapy-session, though."

"I should say so—" Dr. P. moved to help catch him as he collapsed. He could not make his mouth form words; they came out choked sobs. "Over-done it, I'd say."

"Not at all," said Dr. C., supporting his other side. Together they steered him back to bed. "But it looks like mental recovery is going to come after physical recovery, in this one. Which is not good. The pressure's on. Lilly's getting impatient. He has to start making connections soon, or he'll be no use to us."

"Lilly is never impatient," chided Dr. P.

"She is this time," said Dr. C. grimly.

"Will the mental recovery really follow?" She helped him lie back without falling.

"Anyone's guess. Rowan has guaranteed us the physical. Tremendous job, that. There's plenty of electrical activity in his brain, something has to be healing."

"Yes, but not instantly," came a warmly amused voice from the hallway. "What are you two doing to my poor patient?"

It was Dr. Durona. Again. She had long fine hair bunched in a messy wad on the back of her head, pure ebony dark. He peered worriedly at her name tag as she approached, smiling.
Dr. R. Durona. His
Dr. Durona. He whimpered in relief. He wasn't sure he could take much more confusion, it hurt more than the physical pain. His nerves seemed more shattered than his body. It was like being in one of his bad dreams, except that his dreams were much nastier, with more blood and dismemberment, not just a green-coated woman standing all around a room arguing with herself.

"P.T. stands for Physical Torture," Dr. C. quipped.

That explained it. . . .

"Come back and torture him again later," Dr. R. invited. "But—gently."

"How hard dare I push?" Dr. C. was intent, serious, standing with her head cocked, making notes on a report panel. "Urgent queries are coming down from above, you know."

"I know. Physical therapy no oftener than every four hours, till I give you the go-ahead. And don't run his heart rate above one-forty."

"That high?"

"An unavoidable consequence of its still being undersized."

"You have it, love." Dr. C. snapped her report panel closed and tossed it to Dr. R., then marched out; Dr. P. wafted after her.

His
Dr. Durona, Dr. R., came to his side, smiled, and brushed his hair out of his eyes. "You're going to need a haircut soon. And new growth is starting on the bare patches. That's a very good sign. With all that happening on the outside of your head, I think there has to be something happening on the inside, hey?"

Only if you counted spasms of hysteria as activity . . . a tear left over from his earlier burst of terror escaped his eye at a nervous blink. She touched its track. "Oh," she murmured in sympathetic worry, which he found suddenly embarrassing.
I am not . . . I am not . . . I am not a mutant.
What?

She leaned closer. "What's your name?"

He tried. "Whzz . . . d'buh . . ." His tongue would not obey him. He knew the words, he just couldn't make them come out. "Whzz . . . yr nme?"

"Did you repeat me?" She brightened. "It's a start—"

"Ngh! Whzz
yr
nme?" He touched her jacket pocket, hoping she wouldn't think he was trying to grope her.

"What . . . ?" She glanced down. "Are you asking what's
my
name?"

"Gh! Gh!"

"My name is Dr. Durona."

He groaned, and rolled his eyes.

". . . My name is Rowan."

He fell back onto his head-pad, sighing with relief.
Rowan.
Lovely name. He wanted to tell her it was a lovely name. But what if they were all named Rowan—no, the sergeantly one had been called Chrys. It was all right. He could cut his Dr. Durona out of the herd if he had to; she was unique. His wavering hand touched her lips, then his own, but she didn't take the hint and kiss him again.

Reluctantly, only because he didn't have the strength to hold her, he let her pull her hand from his. Maybe he had dreamed that kiss. Maybe he was dreaming all of this.

A long, uncertain time passed after she left, but for a change he did not doze off. He lay awake, awash in disquieting, disconnected thought. The thought-stream carried odd bits of jetsam, an image here, what might be a memory there, but as soon as his attention turned inward to examine it, the flow of thoughts froze, and the tide of panic rose again. Well, and so. Let him occupy himself otherwise, only watching his thoughts at an angle, obliquely; let him observe himself reflected in what he knew, and play detective to his own identity.
If you can't do what you want, do what you can.
And if he couldn't answer the question, Who was he?, he might at least take a crack at
Where
was he? His monitor pads were gone; he was no longer radio-tagged.

It was very silent. He slipped out of bed and navigated to the door. It opened automatically onto the short hallway, which was dimly lit by night-strips at floor level.

Including his own, there were only four rooms off the little corridor. None had windows. Or other patients. A tiny office or monitor-station was empty—no. A beverage cup steamed on the countertop next to a switched-on console, its program on
hold.
Somebody would be back soon. He nipped past, and tried the only exit door, at the corridor's end; it too opened automatically.

Another short corridor. Two well-equipped surgeries lined it. Both were shut down, cleaned up, night-silent. And windowless. A couple of storage rooms, one locked, one not. Two palm-locked laboratories; one had a bank of small animal cages at one end, that he could glimpse dimly through the glass. It was all crammed with equipment of the medical/biochemical sort, far more than a mere treatment clinic would require. The place fairly reeked of research.

How do I know
—no. Don't ask. Just keep going. A lift-tube beckoned at the corridor's end. His body ached, breathing hurt, but he had to grab his chance.
Go, go, go.
 

Wherever he was, he was at the very bottom of it. The tube's floor was at his feet. It rose into dimness, lit by panels reading S-3, S-2, S-1. The tube was switched off, its safety door locked across the opening. He slid it open manually, and considered his options. He could switch the tube on, and risk lighting up some security monitor panel somewhere (why could he picture such a thing?); or he could leave it off and climb the safety-ladder in secret. He tried one rung of the ladder; his vision blackened. He backed down carefully and switched on the tube.

He rose gently to level S-1, and swung out. A tiny foyer had one door, solid and blank. It opened before him, and closed behind him. He stared around what was obviously a junk-storage chamber, and turned back. His door had vanished into a blank wall.

It took him a full minute of frightened examination to convince himself his sputtering brain wasn't playing tricks on him. The door was disguised as the wall. And he'd just locked himself out. He patted it frantically all over, but it would not re-admit him. His bare feet were freezing, on the polished concrete floor, and he was dizzy and dreadfully tired. He wanted to go back to bed. The frustration and fear were almost overwhelming, not that they were so vast, but that he was so weak.

You only want it 'cause you can't have it. Perverse. Go on,
he told himself sternly. He made his way from support to support to the outer door of the storage chamber. It too was locked from the outside, he found out the hard way when it sealed behind him.
Go on.
 

The storage room had opened onto another short corridor, centered around an ordinary lift-tube foyer. This level pretended to be the end of the line, Level B-2; openings marked B-1, G, 1, 2, and so on ascended out of sight. He went for the zero-point, G. G for Ground? Yes. He exited into a darkened lobby.

It was a neat little place, elegantly furnished but in the manner of a business rather than a home, with potted plants and a reception or security desk. No one around. No signs. But there were windows at last, and transparent doors. They reflected a dim replica of the interior; it was night outside. He leaned on the comconsole desk. Jackpot. Here was not only a place to sit down, but data in abundance . . . hell. It was palm-locked, and would not even turn on for him. There were ways to overcome palm-locks—how did he . . . ?—the fragmentary visions exploded like a school of minnows, eluding his grasp. He nearly cried with the uselessness of it, sitting in the station chair with his too-heavy head laid in his arms, across the blank unyielding vid plate.

He shivered.
God, I hate cold.
He wobbled over to the glass door. It was snowing outside, tiny scintillant dots whipping by slantwise through the white arc of a floodlight. They would be hard, and hiss and sting on bare skin. A weird vision of a dozen naked men standing shivering in a midnight blizzard flitted across his mind's eye, but he could attach no names to the scene, only a sensation of deep disaster. Was that how he had died, freezing in the wind and snow? Recently, nearby?

I was dead.
The realization came to him for the first time, a burst of shock radiating outward from his belly. He traced the aching scars on his torso through the thin fabric of his gown.
And I'm not feeling too good now, either.
He giggled, an off-balance noise disturbing even to his own ears. He stifled his mouth with his fist. He must not have had time to be afraid, before, because the retroactive wash of terror knocked him to his knees. Then to his hands and knees. The shivering cold was making his hands shake uncontrollably. He began to crawl.

He must have triggered some sensor, because the transparent door hissed open. Oh, no, he wasn't going to make that error again, and get exiled to the outer darkness. He began to crawl away. His vision blurred, and he got turned around somehow; icy concrete instead of smooth tile beneath his hand warned him of his mistake. Something seemed to seize his head, half-shock, half-blow, with a nasty buzzing sound. Violently rebuffed, he smelled singed hair. Fluorescent patterns spun on his retinas. He tried to withdraw, but collapsed across the door-groove in a puddle of ice water and some slimy orange glop like gritty mold.
No, damn it no, I don't want to freeze again . . . !
He curled up in desperate revulsion.

Voices; shouts of alarm. Footsteps, babble, warm, oh blessed warm hands pulled him away from the deadly portal. A couple of women's voices, and one man's: "How did he get up here?" "—shouldn't have gotten out." "Call Rowan. Wake her up—" "He looks terrible." "No," a hand held his face to the light by his hair, "that's the way he looks anyway. You can't tell."

The face belonging to the hand loomed over his, harsh and worried. It was Rowan's assistant, the young man who'd sedated him. He was a lean fellow with Eurasian features, with a definite bridge to his nose. His blue jacket said
R. Durona
, insanely enough. But it wasn't
Dr.
R.
So call him . . . Brother Durona.
The young man was saying, "—dangerous. It's incredible that he penetrated our security in that condition!"

"Na' sec'rty." Words! His mouth was making words! "Fire saf'ty." He added reflectively, "Dolt."

The young man's face jerked back in bewildered offense. "Are you talking to me, Short Circuit?"

"He's talking!"
His
Dr. Durona's face circled overhead, her voice thrilled. He recognized her even with her fine hair loose, falling all around her face in a dark cloud.
Rowan, my love.
"Raven, what did he say?"

The youth's dark brows wrinkled. "I'd swear he just said 'fire safety.' " Gibberish, I guess."

Rowan smiled wildly. "Raven, all the secured doors open outward without code-locks. For escape in case of fire or chemical accident or—do you realize the level of understanding that reveals?"

"No," said Raven coldly.

That
dolt
must have stung, considering its source . . . he grinned darkly up at the hovering faces and the lobby ceiling wavering beyond them.