Beggars and Choosers (36 page)

“Billy? What is it?” She grabbed my arm hard, her. “Your face…
Lizzie
?
Is it Lizzie?”

“She’s sick really bad, her. It got worse so fast… she’s going to
die!” It just came out. I thought I’d faint, me.
Lizzie. .
.

“Get Paulie to unlock the clinic. I’ll help Annie.” She was gone,
her, running like I could of, once.

Paulie got up right away, him. By the time we got to the clinic
Annie and Dr. Turner were there. Dr. Turner carried
Lizzie. Lizzie
was crying, her. Her poor legs dangled like broke branches.

It felt like hot coals burned in my stomach, I was so scared. No
normal kid sickness should get that bad that fast.

The clinic ain’t nothing but a locked foamcast shed, no windows, big
enough to hold the medunit and four or five other people who might be
standing around. Paulie said, “Put her there, her… right there…” Paulie
didn’t really know nothing, him. He was as scared as we were.

Dr. Turner laid
Lizzie
on the medunit couch, strapped her
down, and slid the couch inside the unit. We could see
Lizzie
,
us, through the plasticlear windows. The needles came out and went into
Lizzie
, but she didn’t cry out, her. It was like she didn’t
feel nothing that was happening.

A few minutes went by.
Lizzie
didn’t move, her. She looked
almost asleep. Maybe the medunit gave her something, it, to sleep.
Finally the medunit said, “This unit is inadequate to make a diagnosis.
Viral configuration is not on file. Administering wide-spectrum
antivirals and secondary antibiotics…” There was more. Nobody never
listens to a medunit, them. You just let it fix you.

But Dr. Turner jumped like she was shot. She shoved Paulie aside,
her, and talked at the medunit.

“Additional information! What class is the viral configuration?”

“You have exceeded this unit’s capabilities. This unit responds only
manually to specific medical requests.”

“Cheap politicians.” Dr. Turner spoke again, her, to the medunit and
a panel opened on the side, where I never noticed no panel. Inside was
a screen and keyboard. Dr. Turner typed hard, her. She studied the
screen.

“What is it?” Annie said. “What’s Lizzie got, her?” Annie’s voice
was tiny and thin. It didn’t sound nothing like Annie.

This time Dr. Turner didn’t have the chess-playing look. This time
she looked, her, like my stomach felt. The bones in her cheeks stood
out like somebody drew them on her skin.

“Billy… did
Lizzie
touch the end of your walking stick?
The end you poked the brown rabbit with?”

I saw
Lizzie
, me, dancing around the apartment with my
stick, riding it, waving it by one end, singing about them Godel’s
proofs. Something inside my belly dropped, it, and I thought I was
going to throw up.

“Yes. She was playing, her…”

Dr. Turner slumped, her, against the wall. Her voice was thick. “Not
Eden. Eden didn’t engineer that rabbit. The other ones did, the illegal
lab that released the dissembler… oh my sweet Jesus in hell…”

“Don’t blaspheme, you,” Annie said, her, but there wasn’t no fire in
it. Her eyes were big as Lizzie’s.
Lizzie
, who I saw was
going to die.

Paulie said, “Eden? What about Eden, it?” His face looked tight and
small.

Dr. Turner looked at me, her. Her eyes, all genemod violet and as
unnatural as a brown snowshoe rabbit in a hard November, didn’t see me.
I could tell, me. She saw something else, her, and her words didn’t
make no sense. “A pink poodle. A pink poodle with four ears and
hyperlarge eyes…”

“What?” Paulie Cenverno said, bewildered. “What about a poodle?”

“A pink poodle. Sentient. Disposable.”

“Easy there, easy,” I said, because she was out of her head, maybe,
and I just realized, me, that I was going to need her. Need her
sensible. To carry Lizzie. No, Annie could do it. But Annie wasn’t in
no shape to carry
Lizzie
. Paulie, then. But Paulie was
already backing out of the clinic, him. There was something strange
going on here, and he didn’t like it, and when Paulie don’t like
something, him, he gets away from it. He ain’t no Mayor Jack Sawicki.

Besides, I couldn’t think, me, of no way to keep Dr. Turner from
following us, short of killing her, and I didn’t have no way to do
that. Even if I could of made myself do it. And if Dr. Turner was
carrying
Lizzie
, then Dr. Turner couldn’t fire no gun, her,
when the door to Eden opened.

Dr. Turner’s eyes cleared. She saw me again, her. And she nodded.

I looked again through the medunit window.
Lizzie
was
getting some kind of medicine patch, her, even though the unit said it
wasn’t the right medicine. Probably the best it could do, it. It was
only a fancy ‘bot.

The big-headed girl who had saved Doug Kane’s life and killed the
rabid raccoon wasn’t no ‘bot.

I was going to do what I swore, me, I’d never do. I was going to
take Dr. Turner with me to Eden.

==========

The sun was just coming up when we left town. I walked first, me,
leaning on a different stick that Dr. Turner tore off a maple tree. She
carried
Lizzie
, her, wrapped in blankets.
Lizzie
was still asleep from whatever the medunit gave her. Her skin looked
like wax. Annie came last, her, stumbling through the woods, where
Annie didn’t never go. I think she was crying, her. I couldn’t look,
because it might be that hopeless kind of crying women do at the very
end, and I couldn’t of stood it. It wasn’t the very end yet. We were
going, us, to Eden.

The sky turned all the colors of a pine-knot fire.

I tried to lead them, me, where the snow wasn’t too deep. A few
times I guessed wrong and fell into a hollow packed with snow, sinking
up to my knees. But it was okay because only me fell. I stayed enough
ahead, me, for that. Still, each time I fell, me, I could feel my heart
go a little faster, and my bones ache a little more.

The thaw we’d been having, it helped. A lot of snow had melted,
especially in the sunny places. Without that thaw I don’t know, me, if
we could of made it through the mountains.

Lizzie moaned, her, but she didn’t wake up.

“Just a… minute, Billy,” Dr. Turner said, after about an hour. She
stopped in a sunny patch, her, and sank to her knees, Lizzie laid
across her lap. I was surprised, me, that she’d kept going that
long—Lizzie ain’t as light as she was even a year ago. Dr. Turner must
be stronger than she looked, her. Genemod.

“We don’t have any extra minutes, us!” Annie cried, but Dr. Turner
didn’t pay her no attention, not even to scowl at her. Maybe Dr. Turner
was just too tired, her, to scowl. She’d been up all night, watching
the newsgrids about the President’s martial law. But I think she knew,
her, how scared to death Annie was.

“How… much farther?”

“Another hour,” I said, even though it was more. We weren’t making
good time, us. “Can you make it?”

“Of… course.” Dr. Turner stood up, her, struggling with Lizzie, who
hung like a sack. For just a minute I thought, me, that I saw Annie put
her hand on Dr. Turner’s arm, real gentle. But maybe Annie was just
steadying herself.

The woods never seemed so big to me.

After a while the ache just started to live in my bones, like some
little animal. It chewed away, it, at my legs and knees and the
shoulder of the arm holding my stick. And then it started to chew away
near my heart.

I couldn’t stop, me. Lizzie was dying.

Now we climbed higher, us, up the wooded side of the mountain. The
brush and trees got thicker, them. There wasn’t no sunny patches. I
wasn’t taking them, me, the way Doug Kane and I had gone last fall—too
much snow. This way was harder, and longer, but we’d get there.

It took us nearly until noon. Dr. Turner made us stop and eat from
the food Annie carried. It tasted like mud. Dr. Turner watched, her, to
make sure I ate all my share.
Lizzie
couldn’t take nothing,
her. She still didn’t move, not even her eyes. But she was still
breathing. I melted a little clean snow, me, with Dr. Turner’s Y-energy
lamp and poured it over Lizzie’s lips. They were blue.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread…”
Dr. Turner stared at Annie in disbelief. I thought she was going to say
something sharp about who gave Livers their daily bread, like I’d heard
others donkeys say. Donkeys ain’t religious, them. But she didn’t.

“How much farther, Billy?”

“Soon now.”

“You’ve been saying ‘soon now’ for two hours!”

“Soon. Now.”

We started off again, us.

When we headed back down the trail to the little creek, I thought,
me, for a panicky minute that I was in the wrong place. It didn’t look
the same. The trail was a slick of mud, it, and the creek ran fast but
was clogged with ice chunks and fallen branches, which made it wider
than I remembered. We slipped and slided, us, down the steep trail. Dr.
Turner held
Lizzie
over her shoulder with one hand, the other
clutching tree after tree to keep from falling. We waded careful, us,
across the creek. There was a flat, mostly clear ledge of ground, with
just one birch, and one oak with last year’s leaves rattling in the
wind. They were my landmarks, them. We were there, and there wasn’t
nothing there.

Nothing to see. Nothing different. Creek, mud, rock shelf, the side
of the mountain. Nothing.

“Billy?” Annie said, so soft I hardly heard her, me. “Billy?”

“What do we do now?” Dr. Turner said. She sank to the ground, her,
trailing
Lizzie in
the mud, too tired to even notice.

I looked around. Creek, mud, rock shelf, the side of the mountain.
Nothing.

Why would the SuperSleepless let in two muddy Livers, a turncoat
donkey, and a dying child? Why should they, them?

That was the minute I knew, me, what Annie meant when she talked
about Hell.

“Billy?”

I sank down on a rock, me. My legs wouldn’t hold me up no more. The
door had been right here. Creek, mud, rock shelf, the side of the
mountain. Nothing.

Dr. Turner shoved
Lizzie
onto her mother. Then she jumped
up, her, and started screaming like some crazy thing, like somebody
wild person who ain’t just carried a heavy child for hours and hours
through the snow.

“Miranda Sharifi! Do you hear me? There’s a dying child here, a
victim of an illegal genemod virus transmittable by wildlife! Some
illegal lab engineered it, some demented bastards who can wipe out
entire communities in days, and probably want to! Do you hear me? It’s
genemod, and it’s lethal! You people are responsible for this, you’re
supposed to be the big experts on genemod tailoring, not us! You’re
responsible, you Sleepless bastards, whether you made it or not,
because you’re the only ones who can cure it! You’re the big brains we
all kowtow to, you’re the ones we’re supposed to look up to—Miranda
Sharifi! We need that Cell Cleaner that was trampled on in Washington!
We need it now! You baited us with that, you bitch—you damn well owe it
to us!”

I couldn’t believe it, me. She sounded like Celie Kane screaming
about donkeys. I whispered, “You can’t boss around a
SuperSleepless
,
you!”

She didn’t pay me no attention, her. I might of not even been there.
“Miranda Sharifi! Do you hear me, you bitch? In the name of a common
humanity… what the hell am I doing?”

She stood looking dazed, her, like she wasn’t never going to move
again. Then Dr. Turner started to cry.

Dr. Turner. Started to cry.

I didn’t know, me, what to do. It’s one thing when Annie cries,
Annie’s a normal woman. But a donkey crying, sobbing and carrying on
like she was the bottom of the apple bin, her, instead of the top… I
didn’t know what to do. And even I had known, I couldn’t do it. The
aching animal was gnawing, it, at my chest too bad, and not even for
Lizzie could I of got my body up off the ground.

“Please…” Dr. Turner whispered.

And the door in the mountain opened. No, it didn’t open, it— that’s
not how it works. There was a kind of hard shimmer, some kind of
shield, and then the earth sort of vanished, mud and dead oak leaves
and moss-covered rocks and everything, and there was a solid
plasticlear square at our feet, only it wasn’t really plasticlear,
about three feet by three feet. And then that vanished and there was
stairs.

Dr. Turner went down first, her, and reached up for Lizzie. Annie
handed her down. Then Annie eased herself down the stairs. I went last,
me, because even though my chest hurt so bad my eyesight squiggled, I
wanted to see what happened after we were all under the square. It
might be the last thing I ever saw, me, and I wanted to see it.

What happened was the shimmer came again, it, and the
plasticlear-that-wasn’t-plasticlear came back over my head. I reached
up, me, and touched it. It was hard as diamonds. It tingled. On the
other side dirt and rocks started to grow—they
grew
— and the
dirt wasn’t loose but hard-packed, joined to all the other dirt. I
could see, me, that in a few minutes there wouldn’t be no signs
anything had happened, except maybe our footprints in the mud. But I
wouldn’t bet, me, on any footprints being left.

We stood, us, in a small room, all white and bright, with nothing in
it. The walls were perfect—not a nick or a scratch or nothing. I never
seen such walls, me. We stood there a long time, it seemed, though it
probably wasn’t. I wrapped my arms across my chest, me, to keep the
pain from gnawing straight through. Dr. Turner turned to me and her
face changed. “Why, Billy…” And then a door opened where there hadn’t
been no door, and she stood there, my big-headed dark-haired girl from
the woods, not smiling, and I had just enough time, me, to see her
before the animal in my chest reared back and sank its teeth into my
heart and everything disappeared.