Prism (14 page)

For as long as I can remember, my perfect way of waking up is with someone gently touching my hair. I opened my eyes and blinked. Colors and shapes danced before my eyes, and I was having trouble focusing. Everything was dark and murky. There was a rumbling beneath me, and I realized I was lying prone in a moving vehicle. How I got there was anyone’s guess.

“Hey, honey,” a hoarse voice croaked.

It sounded like a guy. “Dad?” I said. My voice was like a gasp.

Different forms of laughter overlapped one another.

“It’s Ozzy,” a scratchy voice said.

“Ozzy?” I choked. “Ozzy, were you just touching my hair?”

The laughter spilled over again.

“No, honey…” The same croaky voice. “I wish I could. I’m cuffed.”

Dreams could be treacherous. I blinked again and saw his bruised face, a gash tracing itself from his eye to his chin.

There was more laughter.

“Shut up!” Ozzy muttered under his breath.

“What’s going on back there?” a man barked. When Ozzy didn’t answer, the man said, “Shut the hell up.”

“Wha…?” was all I managed to get out.

“It’s okay, Kaida,” Ozzy whispered.

It didn’t feel okay. “Where are we going?”

He sighed. “Jail.”

I shut my eyes. As much as I liked Ozzy and would miss his smile and his voice, I was ready to wake up and have this whole scenario be one hellish dream. So why was I still handcuffed, lying in the back of a van, my head throbbing in pain?

I started to cry, soft sobs that I was trying to stifle.

Ozzy brushed his foot against mine. “I’m going to get us out of—”

“That’s it!” someone in the front seat interrupted. “Shut up! Both of you. Not one damn word more, you got it?”

Not one damn word more
meant we couldn’t even respond.

More than anything—more than wanting to go home or wanting the pain to stop—more than anything I wanted sleep. Sleep seemed like the only plausible solution in my grasp. And if I forgot about everything enough—forgot about how our cuts and gashes would probably get infected, forgot about how we’d probably rot away in some corrupt prison, and forgot about how this could very well likely be the end…well, then sleep wasn’t too difficult at all.

I willed myself to close my eyes. A few moments later, I felt my consciousness drifting away until someone had opened the rear doors and light was shining into my eyes. Again the rude awakening.

“All right, delinquents,” said one of the cops. “Up you go like good little ones.”

The other cop snorted. I think he was the driver. “We’ve arrived at your new place of residence.”

“Cheer up,” the first one said to us. “You two look like you have some rich mommies and daddies to bail you out of jail.”

The driver chuckled. “Bail? There isn’t going to be any bail for this one.” He was referring to Ozzy, I think. “Spill-dealing, resisting arrest, assault of an officer—you got three marks against you. And this little witch isn’t much better.”

“I’m only fifteen!” I gasped.

“Did I say speak?” the driver barked back. “Fifteen doesn’t mean nothing. Fifteen means you’re a young criminal instead of an old criminal.”

“But we’re minors,” I protested.

“What the hell is she saying, Marty?”

“Not a clue, Simon.” Marty yanked Ozzy out of the car. The other man grabbed me and pulled me out and onto the sidewalk.

It was a strange time to feel weightless.

“We got ourselves Romeo and Juliet here,” Simon told Marty in a mocking, overly sweet voice. “Getting themselves into all sorts of trouble.”

I wondered if, in this world, the play would include the part about the poison and the antidote? If only the characters hadn’t been so impulsive. If only they’d had someone to stop them. Their friends, maybe? Their friends…

“Joy.” I coughed. “Zeke.”

“Shut up,” said Simon. “You dunno what the hell you’re saying.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to talk to your Romeo,” Marty growled.

The dynamic duo of Marty and Simon shuffled us like cattle into an ugly building that was peopled with men who doubled as gargoyles. It didn’t look like any police station I’d ever seen. There were no desks anywhere, just nasty-looking drones sitting in folding chairs, drinking beer and smoking. My head hurt and my shoulders ached from having my hands cuffed behind my back. I didn’t know what my face looked like, but it had to be better than Ozzy’s.

Someone opened a door from the main room, and the
two cops shoved us inside. They walked us through a series of ocher-painted hallways with closed doors on either side. Marty finally found a door he liked and unlocked it. He took the cuffs off of Ozzy and threw him into what seemed like a windowless closet.

“Enjoy the last bits of light because you’re not seeing anything for a while.”

From behind I felt my handcuffs loosen. Simon turned to Marty. “Sure you don’t want them cuffed?”

“No need. There’s no chance in hell they’ll get out.”

The door closed, and once again I was surrounded by strangling darkness just like in the cave. I had come out of one pitch-black hell to find myself, again, in a bleak, sightless void.

“It’s okay,” Ozzy mumbled into my ear. “We’ll get out of this…somehow!”

Then I thought of something. “Our one phone call,” I reminded him. “Don’t we—”

“You watch too much television,” he said. “When it comes to spill dealers, they don’t really care whether we live or not.”

“We’re not spill dealers,” I said wryly. “We’re spill buyers.”

He kissed my nose. “I was aiming for your cheek. Can’t really see where I’m aiming.”

“I can’t see anything either.” I felt hopeless. No light and no space.

“There’s a crack at the bottom of the door,” he pointed out. “I’m going to sit up, okay?”

“Okay, let me just…”

I flopped over like a dead fish. My senses seemed to all kick in at the same time, and suddenly I was smelling the fetid stink of the room. The floors were sticky and the walls were uneven. I sucked in air and then immediately regretted it.

I could make out a sliver of yellow at the bottom of the door. “Oh, thank God, you beautiful little crack of light!”

“The crack?” a voice grumbled from outside. “The crack’s no more.”

And suddenly it was gone. Our one source of light, our one slice of sanity, had disappeared. They must’ve put a towel or something in front of the door.

“Shit,” Ozzy swore. Any hope he was holding on to had faded from his voice. We were both fatally screwed.

My voice trembled as I spoke. “Our parents will come.”

“I don’t know where the hell we are, Kaida. Your parents might look for you, but the guys here are corrupt. They don’t want us out. Eventually your parents will probably assume something bad happened, and that’ll be that.”

I bit my lip. I’d never heard anything so fatalistic.

“So you think they’re just going to figure I’m dead and leave it at that?”

“Where you are now, that’s not that strange.” Ozzy exhaled. “We were driving for a long time. I don’t know where they’ve taken us. We could be hundreds of miles from where you live. And there’s no way my mother will be able to look for me. She can barely…” His voice drifted off. “I don’t know what to do, Kaida. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Here was the part where the tears came in buckets. “I dragged you into this.”

“No, I dragged you into this.”

“We can’t both be the dragger. Someone has to be the draggee.”

We twisted and tangled until we were facing each other. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his breath, the only thing that smelled human. He put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me to him until our noses were touching.

I had kissed people before and it had been fun: worry-free stuff by public pools. One time it was after French Club by the parking lot. Those moments hadn’t been especially passionate or especially enjoyable. But they hadn’t been rushed, frantic touches emerging out of despair.

For what it was worth, I decided this time was better.

“Kaida?” he whispered in my ear.

“What?” I felt a hum spreading from my ear to my neck.

“I’m going to get us out of this mess.”

I rested my head on his chest. He ran his fingers through my hair and down my spine.

“Are you crying?” he asked.

“No,” I lied.

“You’re crying.” He kissed the top of my head. “I can feel it.”

“Ozzy, how many girlfriends have you had?”

He stroked my hair. “I can’t believe you’re thinking about that right now.”

“A lot, right?” I persisted.

“No, not a lot.” He chuckled. “And I’ve never had a girlfriend named Kaida with whom I got arrested.”

“We need to get out of here,” I stated.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Any ideas? I’m certainly open.”

My eyes flicked around, unable to adjust to the blackness. “We should both just think about it.”

“Good idea.” He lay down and pulled me on top of him. I rested my head on his chest, turning it sideways. With one hand, he walked his fingers up and down my back, giving me the chills. The movements became slower until they stopped and I rose and fell with each of Ozzy’s breaths.

“Snack time!” a voice boomed.

My body was jolted awake.

I hadn’t slept long enough to forget where I was, nor did I feel any better about it.

Something clicked and popped and then the door opened. A paunchy guy in what looked like yellow pajamas held a tray. “You can eat it with the lights off alone.” He switched on the electricity. “Or you can eat with the lights on under my supervision.”

With the room lit up, its true repulsiveness was finally illuminated.

“What’ll it be?”

“Lights on.” Ozzy was still lying on the floor.

“Lights on for me, too,” I told him. Anything was better than suffocating blackness.

“You got it, chickadee.” The man seemed more cheerful than the other two had been. When you get yourself in a bad way, you learn to count your pluses. He entered the room and closed the door, ducking because the ceiling was so low. Miraculously, he managed to sit in such a confining space.

“We got biscuits, crackers, jam, and some lukewarm tea,” the man said. “I can get you extra if you want.”

“Thank you very much.” I was shocked by the humane treatment we were getting.

Ozzy said, “Thank you, sir.”

“It’s Officer Maurice.” He added, “I also brought a couple cans of soda.”

“Thanks.” Ozzy sat up. “Thanks a lot, Officer. We really appreciate it.”

“Anything else I can get you kids?” Maurice offered.

The truth is, there was a lot he could get us, thank you very much, but nothing we were stupid enough to ask for. I shook my head.

“This is fine, thank you.”

Ozzy sneaked a sidelong glance at me. He was as mystified as I was. Maurice set the tray down on the floor. I picked up a plastic knife and slathered jam on my biscuit. Ozzy followed suit.

We ate everything on the tray. Maurice just kept smiling like we were old chums dining out after a high-school
basketball game. When we were finished, he again offered us anything we wanted.

“I think I’m okay.”

Ozzy nodded. “Thank you.”

A smile slipped from Maurice’s lips. He rubbed the side of his face. Picking up the tray, he attempted to get up, but couldn’t do so without opening the door. “If you need some more grub, just knock.”

“Thanks so much,” I said. My voice was absolutely dripping with gratitude.

When he closed the door, he did it gently. Again we were encased in darkness.

I said, “What was that all about?”

“He was treating us like jailhouse royalty,” Ozzy said. “Not that I’m complaining.” He burped. “Man, that stuff’s even worse coming up.”

“At least we’re full.”

“I hope he didn’t poison us.”

“God, I hope not.” I slid into his open arms. “If so, it’s been nice knowing you.”

“Ditto.”

“He seemed genuinely nice.” I waited a beat. “Could be wishful thinking. At least it’s easier to think on a full stomach. I wonder where Joy and Zeke are.”

“No idea.”

“If we are going to re-create the exact-same scenario as
the accident, we’ll need them.”

“Right now, Kaida, our brains need to be thinking about the present and not the future.”

“Agreed.”

We thought and thought and thought.

We thought ourselves to sleep.

When I was little, I used to rub my hands against my closed eyes to see what colors would pop into my brain. I’d get a headache afterward, and I was never sure that a few seconds of kaleidoscopic images were worth the pain. But in jail those patterns were the only ones I could see, and even those came in dark colors.

We were trying to fall sleep again—there was nothing else to do—but my circuitry was still running at full speed. “Ozzy?”

“Wha…”

“We need to get out of here,” I said for the fiftieth time.

“…kay.”

At least one of us was resting. It was all right, though, sort
of peaceful lying beside each other in a closet without light or ventilation or sheets and a pillow.

Or a bathroom.

My stomach lurched, churning as if to say, “Yup! No bathroom! That’s right, babe!” The snack may have been the last straw for my overworked, nervous stomach.

“Oh, God,” I said quietly, clutching my belly.

“Mm,” Ozzy hummed.

My intestines were performing acrobatics. I jumped up, hitting my head on the ceiling. “Damn!” I pounded on the door. “I need a bathroom! I need a bathroom! I need a—”

“One second!” a muffled voice called back.

The door swung open and Maurice was there, this time dressed in bright orange scrubs.

“I need a bathroom.”

“No problem. Follow me.”

I turned to Ozzy. “I’ll be back.”

We began to walk, but almost immediately I tripped and fell facedown. There was too much light, and I was already cramped all over in pain.

Maurice helped me up with his meaty palms. “Can you walk?”

I had erupted into a cold sweat. “With help.”

“Lean on me.”

I did. He took me down a flight of stairs and into a hallway, passing a few doors before he opened one of them. Inside it was clean and white.

“This is my bathroom, darling,” he said gently.

“Thank you so much!” Despite my sore limbs, I nearly leaped out of his arms.

The next twenty minutes weren’t fun.

When I came out, Maurice was waiting for me.

“Anything else you need?” he offered.

I thought about it. What did we have to lose? I could say no and sit in a closet with Ozzy for the next thirty years or I could be honest. He seemed decent enough, although he could just be fattening me up for the slaughter. But even if he was, things couldn’t get much worse.

“Yes, there is something.”

Maurice raised his bushy gray eyebrows.
Yes
clearly wasn’t the predicted response.

“Help me find my friends and help me get home.”

There was a long, long pause. I felt I’d blown it.

Finally he said, “Who are your friends?”

My heart was beating so fast I could barely talk. “Joy Tallon and Zeke Anderson.”

“How can I help you get home?” His eyes met mine. “I can’t even get myself home.”

I tilted my head to one side. “Don’t you guys ever get a break?”

He smiled sadly. “I need to get you back.”

There was something about his face that captivated me: his droopy brown eyes, his sad, speckled nose, his glistening forehead marked by a scar.

It was a captivating scar, and I couldn’t figure out why.

Then it dawned on me.

There had been stitches holding the seams together at one point.

“No!” I gasped, nearly keeling over again. I could count them: six neat parallel hash marks over a crooked line. “You’re not from here, either!”

Maurice’s eyes got wide. He let out a laugh, but it was tinged with anxiety. “I think the darkness got to your brain. Let’s get you back.”

I pointed to my forehead. Then I pointed to his. “You have stitches,” I whispered.

The hesitation was minuscule, and I caught it only because I was looking for it. “Stitches?” he said. “What are those?”

“You know what I’m saying—”

“No, I don’t. Look, little one, you’re a kid and I feel sorry for you, but—”

“You come from where I come from,” I interrupted him. “Where there are doctors and nurses and hospitals and medicine and cures, and where spills aren’t illegal!”

He grabbed my arm. “You have to whisper!”

I nodded feverishly. I don’t know what came over me…to talk so freely. I guess it just came out in an uncontrollable rush.

He loosened his grip. “I don’t…” He faltered. “It can’t be.”

“I came through a cave,” I told him. “How did you get here?”

He screwed up his face, like he was really thinking about it, but then his eyes got hard and his mouth set in a stony frown. “Back to your room!” He led me by the nape of my neck.

“Ow!” I cried.

“Enough out of you!” He led me back up to the closet and carelessly threw me on top of a dozing Ozzy.

“Shit,” I swore as Maurice slammed the door.

“Ye Gods,” Ozzy gasped while wrapping his arms around me. “Are you all right, Kaida?”

“He comes from where I come from,” I answered breathily. I still felt his fingers digging into the nape of my neck. The pain had trickled down to my sore shoulders.

“What?” Ozzy tried to sit up while still holding on to me. It took a few moments. “What are you talking about?”

“Maurice. He’s from my world.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. He’s scared to admit it. That’s why he was so nice to us. He knows about medicine, so he’s probably sympathetic to spill dealers.”

Ozzy’s grip around me tightened reflexively. “Why would he be working here?”

“I don’t know.” I felt defeated, as if my one chance had been blown sky high. My eyes watered. “Maurice is the only decent human being we’ve encountered in the last six hours, and now he’s lost to us because of my loose lips.”

“Nah…” Ozzy brushed it off. “They’re all beasts. They’re all corrupt. I’m sure Maurice is just like the rest of them.”

I was panting. “We need to find some way to get him to realize that we’re not the enemy. We’ve got to get him on our side!”

“That, my dear, is impossible.”

“He sympathizes with us, Ozzy. I know he does. It’s just that he can’t admit it.”

“How do you know he’s from your world?”

“He had markings on his forehead…stitches. Do you know what stitches are?”

“No.”

After I explained it to him, he didn’t answer.

Then he said, “I’m nodding, Kaida, but I guess you can’t see.”

“Look, he has to give us another meal, right?” I reasoned.

“Yeah, someone has to. It might not be him.” The room turned deathly still. “If he’s scared of us finding out the truth, maybe he won’t be our guardian angel anymore.”

I thought about it. It depended on whether or not the guy had any conscience. Tricky.

I thought about calling him back, but I was afraid it was too soon.

There was nothing we could do right now.

The closet remained silent, both of us feeling too hopeless to talk.

It must have been only a half hour later when the door opened and a beam of light shot into the cell. I held my hands over my eyes.

“How did
you
get here?”

The voice was almost inaudible.

I thought:
You should know how I got in this damn cell. You’re the police.

But when I looked through my fingers, I saw Maurice.

The meaning of the question shifted entirely.

I went out alone with him, leaving Ozzy and a part of my heart behind. Maurice took me to a private room and closed the door. We sat with the lights out so as not to attract attention. It felt good to sit on a chair, albeit a steel one. At least it was a surface that wasn’t coated with muck. I told him my story. Then he asked me to repeat it. I gave him a summary this time: the trip, the accident, the storm, and finally the cave.

“I fell in through a cave.”

I could feel his breath on my face. It smelled like cigar smoke, not very pleasant but much better than the room I had been in.

“Actually, I got lost in a cave and fell into a pit. When I woke up, I was in my own room. Everything looked the same…but it wasn’t. The entire field of medicine had been wiped away from the face of the earth.”

It took a long time for Maurice to speak. Then he said,
“I’m going to tell you a story. It may be true, but it may not be true, get it?”

“I understand.” I paused as my ears perked up. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“I heard something.” We stopped talking, but the sound had disappeared.
Cease the paranoia, Kaida.
“I’m nervous.”

“You don’t trust me, kid?”

I didn’t answer.

“Being suspicious is being smart. What was I saying?”

“You were going to tell me a story.”

“That’s right.” He cleared his throat. “One day a man was hiking. It began to rain and he also took shelter in a cave. The storm got very bad, so bad that he had to back into the cave a little farther to keep from getting wet. It was dark, it was muddy. He didn’t see too well. And then all of a sudden he fell into a puddle.” He paused. “Not in a puddle, into a puddle.”

“A puddle that wasn’t a puddle.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Maurice finally said, “What about your boyfriend?”

“He’s from here…from this world,” I answered. There was no reason to trust Maurice, but I figured I didn’t have too much too lose. “He’s a spill dealer with a very sick mother. He was getting some medic—some spills for my friend. That’s why we’re here.”

“And your friends—what about them?”

“Also from my world.” I waited a beat. “
Our
world.”

“I want to help you, Kaida, but I don’t know what I can do.”

You could do a lot…like getting me out of here.
But it was important not to rush things. “I’m sorry if this is personal, but how did you end up working here?”

Maurice’s voice was a hush. “I started as a dealer. When I got caught by the cops, I panicked and told them everything. About where I came from and how I didn’t belong.” He paused. “It was just the kind of information they wanted, those jerks. They kept me around to interrogate me. It started out as weeks, then it was months, then it lasted for more than a year. They asked me question after question until I dried up. When I ran out of information, they decided to use me as a jail guard…you know, to keep an eye on me. Better that they watch the enemy than have me running around loose.”

“Why didn’t they just kill you?”

“Good question.” Maurice paused. “There’s a woman who studies people like me. She’s a full professor with a lot of grants.”

“Iona Boyd,” I said.

“So you know.”

“Ozzy does research for her.”

“Tell him to watch his back. She’s not what she seems. She has a lot of clout because she’s married to someone who’s high up in the government in covert investigations.”

“Like the CIA?”

“Something like that. The point is Iona Boyd was one of the people who interrogated me. She learns things from people like us.”

“I know about the testimonials,” I told him.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” He sighed. “And did you ever wonder what happened to those people?”

“I hadn’t, but I was wondering now.”

Maurice said, “I’m a prisoner here, one with a nice office, but I don’t have any freedom. I have no home, I live here. I stay here, day in and day out, doing dirty work.”

I had to tell Ozzy about Iona Boyd. As I thought of him, my heart leaped in my chest. “Maurice, why are these people so opposed to the concept of health care?”

“Because they’re cowards and hypocrites!” He snorted quietly. “They kept accusing me—accusing spill-dealers—of trying to change the natural order…that we’re tampering with the natural ebb and flow of the earth.”

It sounded like a theory that could have come from my world.

“But they don’t believe a word of that,” he growled. “The government agents take care of themselves. Iona Boyd makes sure of that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She uses the information that she’s learned from us for the select few, Kaida.” An angry grunt. “They all have secret spills and their own personal spill dealer. They have spills to help them get better, but just for themselves and for their families.
They’re just too greedy to share them. It makes them powerful. It makes them strong and leaves the rest of us weaklings to die from neglect.”

“There is some minimal form of health care,” I said. “People still shower and wash their face and brush their teeth and dry them with a tooth rag.”

He let out a quiet but wry “Ha!” “They want their society not to stink. Odor offends all of us.”

I tapped my fingers against my leg. “Maurice, do you want to get out of this world?”

“Of course.” His voice was choked up. “Of course I do. But I don’t know
how
!”

The next few pleas came out in a hot rush. This might have been my last chance to beg. “Then help us escape. My class is going on a trip to the same caves that we were visiting before we fell down the pit. Maybe if Joy, Zeke, and I go back on the trip, maybe, just
maybe,
everything will happen again. The crash, getting lost in the desert, the storm, escaping to the cave, falling down into the pit, running to the light and then falling…maybe we can go back to where we came from!”

“And what if it doesn’t happen?” Maurice’s voice quavered. “What if you just crash and die?”

“It couldn’t be much worse than this.” When he didn’t answer, I said, “The sooner you get us out, the closer we can come to finding a link, however faint, between these two places. And if we do discover that door, maybe we can bring you back.”

“But how?”

“I’m not sure. But isn’t it worth a try?”

Maurice touched the scar on his forehead. “It’s more complicated than you think, Kaida. The government has people working everywhere. Anyone you know could be a member of the secret police. Hell, they might be watching us right now. You could have been sent here to frame me.”

“Then we’ll have to be quick.”

“I’m not sure there’s enough time to get you out without arousing suspicion,” Maurice said.

“At least show me where Zeke and Joy are. Maybe they’ll have some ideas.”

“Too risky.”

I paused, trying to think up a plan to convince him that I was his only hope. I figured the only way to get him to stop worrying about himself was to make him worry about something else.