Pandemonium

Page 43

I easily find the year my mother was taken—the year I turned six, when she was supposed to have died. It is a section of five or six pages, and probably two hundred names.
I track my finger down the page, feeling dizzy for no reason. I know she will be in the book. And I know, now, that she is safe. But still, I must see it; there is a piece of her that exists in the faded ink traces of her name. Her life was taken by those pen-strokes—and my life was taken too.
Then I see it. My breath catches in my throat. Her name is written neatly, in large, elegant cursive, as though whoever was in possession of the log at the time enjoyed the looping curls of all the l’s and a’s: Annabel Gilles Haloway. The Crypts. Ward Six, Solitary Confinement. Level 8 Agitator.
Next to these words is the prisoner’s intake number. It is printed carefully, neatly: 5996.
My vision tunnels, and in that moment the number seems lit up by an enormous beam. Everything else is blackness, fog.
5996. The faded green number tattooed on the woman who rescued me from Salvage, the woman with the mask.
My mother.
Now my impressions of her are shuffling back, but disjointed, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite interconnect: her voice, low and desperate and something else. Pleading, maybe? Sad? The way she reached out, as though to touch my face, before I swatted her away. The way she kept using my name. Her height—I remember her being so tall, but she is short, like me, probably no more than five-four. The last time I saw her, I was six years old. Of course she seemed tall to me then.
Two words are blazing through me, each one a hot hand, wrenching my insides: impossible and mother.
Guilt and twisting disbelief: shredding me, turning my stomach loose. I didn’t recognize her. I always thought that I would. I imagined she would be just like the mother in my memories, in my dreams—hazy, red-haired, laughing. I imagined she would smell like soap and lemons, that her hands would be soft, smoothed with lotion.
Now, of course, I realize how stupid that is. She spent more than a decade in the Crypts, in a cell. She has changed, hardened.
I slam the book closed, quickly, as though it might help—as though her name is a scurrying insect between the pages, and I can stamp it back into the past. Mother. Impossible. After all that, my hoping and wishing and searching, we were so close. We were touching.
And still she chose not to reveal herself. Still, she chose to walk away.
I am going to be sick. I stumble blindly down the hall, out into the drizzle. I am not thinking, can hardly breathe. It is not until I’ve made it to Sixth Avenue, several blocks away, that the cold begins to clear the fog from my mind. At that point I realize I’m still clutching the key to the forbidden study in one hand. I forgot to lock it again. I’m not even sure I closed the front door behind me—for all I know I have left it swinging open.
It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters. I am too late to help Julian. I am too late to do anything but watch him die.
My feet carry me toward 18th Street, where Thomas Fineman will be attending his son’s execution. As I walk, head down, I grip the handle of the knife in my wind breaker pocket.
Perhaps it is not too late for revenge.
Northeastern Medical is one of the nicer lab complexes I’ve seen, with a stone facade and scrolled balconies, and only a discreet brass sign above the heavy wooden door indicating that it is a medical facility. It was probably once a bank or a post office, from the days when spending wasn’t regulated; from the days when people communicated freely across unbounded cities. It has that look of stateliness and importance. But of course Julian Fineman would not be put to death among commoners, in one of the city wards or hospital wings of the Craps. Only the best for the Finemans, until the very end.
The drizzle is finally letting up, and I pause on the corner, ducking into the alcoved doorway of a neighboring building, and shuffle quickly through the stack of ID cards I stole from the Scavengers. I select Sarah Beth Miller, a girl who resembles me pretty closely in age and looks, and use my knife to put a deep gouge in her height—five-eight—so you can’t read it clearly. Then I whittle away at the identification number below her picture. I have no doubt that the number has been invalidated. In all probability, Sarah Beth Miller is dead.
I smooth down my hair, praying that I look at least halfway decent, and push through the front door of the lab.
Inside is a waiting room decorated tastefully, with a plush green carpet and mahogany furniture. An enormous clock, ostentatiously antique or made to look like it, ticks quietly on the wall, pendulum swinging rhythmically. A nurse is sitting at a large desk. Behind her is a small office: a series of metal filing cabinets, a second desk, and a coffee machine, half filled. But the clock, the expensive furniture, and even the scent of freshly brewed coffee can’t conceal the normal lab smell of chemical disinfectant.
At the right-hand side of the room are double doors with curved brass handles; these must lead to the procedural rooms.
“Can I help you?” the nurse asks me.
I walk directly to her, laying both hands on the counter, willing myself to seem confident, calm. “I need to speak with someone,” I say. “It’s very urgent.”
“Is this regarding a medical issue?” she asks. She has long fingernails, perfectly filed into rounds, and a face that reminds me of a bulldog—heavy, low-hanging jowls.
“Yes. Well, no. Kind of.” I’m making it up as I go; she frowns, and I try again. “It’s not my medical issue. I need to make a report.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Unauthorized activity. I think—I think my neighbors have been infected.”
She drums her fingernails, once, against the counter. “The best thing to do is make an official report at the police station. You can also go to any of the municipal regulatory stations—”
“No.” I cut her off. Sign-in sheets, clipped together, are stacked next to me, and I straighten them, scanning the list of doctors, patients, problems—poor sleep/dreaming!, deregulated moods, flu—and pick a name at random.
“I insist that I speak to Dr. Branshaw.”
“Are you a patient of the doctor’s?” She drums her nails again. She is bored.
“Dr. Branshaw will know what to do. I’m extremely upset. You have to understand. I’m living underneath these people. And my sister—she’s uncured. I’m thinking about her, too, you know. Isn’t there some kind of—I don’t know—vaccination Dr. Branshaw might give her?”
She sighs. She turns her attention to the computer monitor, makes a few quick keystrokes. “Dr. Branshaw is completely booked up today. All of our medical specialists are booked. An exceptional event has made it necessary—”
“Yeah, I know. Julian Fineman. I know all about it.” I wave my hand.
She frowns at me. Her eyes are guarded. “How did you know—”
“It’s all over the news,” I interrupt her. I’m getting into my role now: the rich, spoiled daughter of a politician, maybe a senior member of the DFA. A girl used to getting her way. “Of course, I guess you wanted to keep the whole thing hush-hush. Don’t want the press charging in. Don’t worry, they’re not saying where. But I have friends who have friends and … well, you know how these things get around.” I lean forward, placing both hands on the desk, like she’s my best friend and I’m about to tell her a secret. “Personally, I think it’s a little bit silly, isn’t it? If Dr. Branshaw had just given him the cure early, when he was already in there—a little cut, a little snip, that’s how it works, isn’t it?—this whole thing could have been avoided.” I lean back. “I’m going to tell him I think so, too, when I see him.” I say a silent prayer that Dr. Branshaw is, in fact, male. It’s a decently safe bet. Medical training is long and rigorous, and many intelligent women are expected to spend their time fulfilling their procreative and child-rearing duties instead.
“It isn’t Dr. Branshaw’s case,” the nurse says quickly. “He can’t be blamed.”
I roll my eyes the way that Hana used to when Andrea Grengol said something especially stupid in class. “Of course it is. Everyone knows Dr. Branshaw is Julian’s primary.”
“Dr. Hillebrand is Julian’s primary,” she corrects me.
I feel a quick pulse of excitement, but I hide it with another eye roll. “Whatever. Are you going to page Dr. Branshaw or not?” I fold my arms and add, “I won’t go until I’ve seen him.”
She gives me the look of an injured animal—reproachful, as though I’ve reached out and pinched her nose. I’m disrupting her morning, the routine stillness of her hours. “ID, please,” she says.
I fish Sarah Beth Miller’s ID from my pocket and pass it to her. The sound of the clock seems to have amplified: The ticking is overloud, and the air in the room vibrates with it. All I can focus on are the seconds, ticking away, ticking Julian closer to death. I force myself not to fidget as she looks it over, frowning again.
“I can’t read this number,” she says.
“It went through the dryer last year.” I wave the issue away. “Look, I’d appreciate it if you could just speak to Dr. Branshaw for me—if you could tell him I’m here.”
“I’ll have to call you into SVS,” she says. Now the expression of unhappiness is deepened. She casts a doleful look behind her at the coffeepot, and I notice a magazine halfhidden underneath a stack of files. She is no doubt thinking about the evaporation of her peaceful morning. She hauls herself to her feet. She is a heavy woman. The buttons on her technician’s uniform seem to be hanging on for dear life, barely keeping the fabric closed over her breasts and stomach. “Have a seat. This will take a few minutes.”
I incline my head once, and she waddles through the rows of filing cabinets and disappears. A door opens, and for a moment I hear the sound of a telephone, and the swelling of voices. Then the door shuts, and everything is quiet except for the ticking of the clock.
Instantly, I push through the double doors.
The look of money does not extend this far. Here, at last, are the same dull linoleum tiling, the same dingy beige walls, of so many labs and hospitals. Immediately to my left is another set of double doors, marked EMERGENCY EXIT; through a small glass panel, I see a narrow stairwell.
I move quickly down the hall, my sneakers squeaking on the floor, scanning the doors on either side of me—most of them closed, some of them gaping open, empty, dark.
A female doctor with a stethoscope looped around her neck is walking toward me, consulting a file. She looks up at me curiously as I pass. I keep my eyes locked on the ground. Fortunately, she doesn’t stop me. I palm the back of my pants. My hands are sweating.
The lab is small, and when I reach the end of the hall, I see that it is laid out simply: Only a single corridor runs the length of the building, and an elevator bank in the back gives access to the remaining six floors. I have no plan except to find Julian, to see him. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to achieve, but the weight of the knife is reassuring, pressed against my stomach, a hard-edged secret.