Out of the Black (35 page)

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Authors: Lee Doty

BOOK: Out of the Black
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All settled in. She scanned her monitor windows with an intensity she believed the surfer would have found both impressive and mystifying. Of course, her life and that of her friends depended on her vigilance. She considered opening a commlink to the surfer to ask for the authorization to monitor the hospital's alert notifications. She decided against it; mostly not wanting to arouse any suspicion.

After perhaps five minutes, she noticed that something was wrong.

Uniformed police officers began to arrive at a disturbing rate, eight within the next ten minutes, including two plainclothes detectives. "Uh, oh." She muttered, scanning the camera portals on her tablet.

As the eleventh officer arrived, she rose to the surface of her panic long enough to open portals to all the cameras in the elevator cars. There were no officers in any of the cars. Of course, she'd have to check the camera logs to find who may have already used the elevators, but she knew that nobody had gotten off at her floor since the elevator bank was in sight to her right.

She was still scanning the elevator logs when an orderly arrived to move Alex.

Grudgingly, she suspended her tablet and went to investigate.

When she arrived at the door of the holding room, the orderly was already on the way out with Alex's gurney.

"This guy going to surgery?" Rae asked, raising a hand in greeting.

"Nope. Doctor says move him to a semiprivate. They had to send his scans to an expert in Delhi... could take a while before we hear back."

Rae tried not to show any relief, which wasn't too hard, since she was still pretty worried about the cops on the first floor.

"What's up on the first floor?" The orderly asked, looking conspiratorial.

"What'cha mean?"

"Oh, I thought you were with the badges downstairs. Heard there was some kinda ruckus down there."

R? She and the vegetables didn't qualify as a ruckus, so she hoped he was right. Rae shook her head, shrugged her shoulders. She felt downright suspicious. Time to go. "I've got to get a statement when he wakes up... where're you taking him?"

"Seventeen thirty-eight."

She nodded, "Thanks." She strode away. Time to find another private corner... maybe a closet. As she walked, she opened her tablet. Nothing exciting was happening at the level one exits, but Ping was gone.

Not waiting to find a quiet place to work, she pulled up the camera logs for OR-1 and cued through them as she walked.

"Seek medical attention, my butt!" she grumbled as she walked and worked. She had no idea what that meant, other than it was derisive- she'd heard her grandma say it once when she was six. It made her laugh. After she'd heard it said, she'd been insufferable. She had repeated it with anything she didn't like. "Clean my room? My butt!" "Bedtime? My butt!" "Stop saying 'my butt'? My butt!" Her dad had been patient, but her mom had been less patient with grandma.

There! As she scanned backward through the OR-1 logs, Ping was wheeled backward through the doors by an orderly. Then, as the reversed playback continued, he moved back into position, the orderly left backwards, and the surgeons and tech returned to surround him. She breathed a sigh of relief.

She stopped briefly in the waiting area. Without sitting down, she pulled up the logs for the camera outside the fifth floor elevator bank. She scanned back until she found Ping and the orderly getting off elevator three backwards. She closed that window and accessed the logs for the camera in elevator three. Continuing this pattern, she found that Ping had been transferred to a post-operative recovery room on the seventh floor. The live feed from his room showed that he was not yet conscious, though that annoying medkit had been replaced with a white bandage bound around his head. She wondered briefly if he was bald under there. She hoped so.

Scared but smiling, Rae moved to the elevator bank.

On her tablet, she closed all the monitor windows except the five elevators, Ping's and Alex's rooms, and the elevator bank on the seventh floor. After insuring that the elevators weren't packed with cops, she pressed the call button.

A few minutes later a car arrived bearing a mother in her thirties and a five-year-old girl whose blonde hair was pulled up into a single vertical ponytail that only children and mental patients can wear well. The mother was looking pensive; the little girl was carrying a festively-beribboned plant from the gift shop. Like all five-year-olds on a mission, the little girl looked giddy with excitement. Rae returned her smile.

Two minutes later, Rae entered Ping's room. The room was dim, with lights only bright enough to keep her from bumping into the furniture. He was an inky shadow in the bed. Putting her back to the room's camera, she pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noticed that he was stirring.

"Detective?" Rae shook his shoulder lightly, "Ping?"

He moaned, shifted.

She knew it would probably be an hour or so before he was allowed visitors, and probably a few more before they would allow him to move about, but this was kind of an emergency. She shook just a little more aggressively. "Ping, wake up!" she hissed.

"Don't start slappin' me." He said.

"Well I ain't kissin' you, that's for sure." The relief was an uncomfortable weight in her voice. She was no longer alone.

"Where are we?"

"Hospital. Downtown."

He tensed. "Either you're kidding, or I don't remember the situation correctly."

"Hey, you're the one whose been nagging me for two days to 'seek medical attention'."

"Two days!" He tried to sit up- failed.

With a groan, he lay back on his pillow. "I feel like I've been clubbed on the head with a rifle butt."

"Ah, at least your memory hasn't failed."

"Rae, why are we in a hospital... why aren't we dead... is it over?"

Rae ticked her answers off on three fingers. "Alex sent me a message. Dumb luck maybe? Nope."

"Where's Alex?" Ping asked after a few seconds of processing time.

"He never woke up from that nap he took while we were driving on Roy's lawn."

"Not in two days? But he sent you a message. From where?"

"Good question." She took a few minutes and told him the basics of what had happened.

"Sounds like we're in trouble," Ping concluded, "still."

"Hey, at least you got a nap."

"You bring my sword?"

"
Your
sword?" Rae raised her eyebrows.

"Dek gave it to me. Made it sound like a holy charge. I had the most disturbing dream about it. Help me up."

Rae patted the duffle on her back. "Got your Excalibur right here babe, brought clothes and all the toys." She put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into the sitting position. After a few more seconds, they worked together to get his legs over the edge of the bed.

Ping sat in a swoon, rocking from side to side. "I need a wheelchair. Where's Alex?"

"Ten floors up, in a semiprivate. You gonna be okay while I get your chair?"

Ping thought he might have nodded. He must have, because Rae let go. He didn't fall, though he had to clutch the bed with both hands to prevent it.

After a moment of swaying nausea and blurred vision, she returned with a wheelchair in tow.

"So, before this is over, how many more times do you think I'm going to be beaten unconscious?"

"About once every two days." She gave him what he perceived as a blurry smile, "...more, if you can regain consciousness quicker."

Even the small snort hurt his head. "Ow. I think I was only awake for two hours between my last two comas."

"You think that's a scary prospect? Try this: You think you're bald under those bandages?"

His elbows were on the armrests of the chair and his palms were pressed to his head to stop the agony the laughter cost him.

"Personally, I'm betting on the Ernie-Bert uft."

"Stop. You're killing me." He groaned, laughing weakly.

"Don't try to stop me, you don't know how long the line was."

"Stop!" He managed from under the pain of the laughter.

They wheeled down the hall toward the elevators.

***

Dek sat like a medieval lord surveying his fiefdom from the ramparts of his baroque brown stone castle.

He crouched on the ornate Façade that adorned the hospital's roof, soaking in the beauty of the surrounding city. This was one of his favorite view spots, though he was sure no Chicago tourist brochures listed it. Perched like a gargoyle on the neo-baroque stone of the hospital, surrounded by the skyscrapers that jutted up on all sides, night filled with the city lights that lit up the clouds above- moments like these could stretch out into hours of wondering appreciation... if he had the time. It had only been hours since he'd left Alex and company in Lake Geneva, but he could feel the clock ticking.

Below him, vehicles of every type coursed around the buildings like electric blood moving through the body of the nighttime city. Tonight was going to be something special. If only he had time to stay. There was a storm brewing... a big one. The air was already lush with the fragrance of the first sporadic showers. Wind drove rivers of clouds across the lowering sky. Soon the clouds would brush the tips of the buildings. Perhaps there would be lightening. He loved stormy weather.

Reluctantly, he stood. He took a final look at the surrounding spectacle. He breathed deep, then leaned out and dropped headfirst over the edge.

The hospital's dark gray windows slipped by slowly. Again, he spread his arms, feeling this was the preferred configuration for the in-flight Superman. He raised his arms above his head, caught a ledge three floors from the top of the building. As he fell past, he applied pressure, bending his elbows as his momentum drove him into a somersault. Halfway through the roll, as the lights of the city spun through his field of vision, he reversed his grip on the ledge- gripping with his fingers where before he had pushed with his palms. Head tucked, his back slammed into the stone wall. He rolled down the wall the length of his spine, until his feet fell flat on the wall with his legs crouched. He let go of the ledge and his momentum carried him into a tight crouch with his feet against the wall. At about ten degrees elevation, he jumped with all his strength. Behind him, the brown stone cracked as he rocketed nearly horizontally away from the wall.

The sound of rushing air filled his ears. Below him, the bright street slipped by as he threw himself into a midair roll. He added a full twist because he had the time, and because it was fun. Still more time, so he did the flip in layout position, limbs outstretched, fingers scything the chill night air, back straight, head moving from side to side, drinking in the show as the city swung around him.

The parking structure across the four-lane street approached before gravity had time to pluck him from flight. He hit the top level perhaps five meters from the edge, landing on his feet, but then rolling twice to absorb some of his horizontal momentum. He came up from the second roll, did a half twist and planted his feet. He leaned forward and crouched slightly as he skidded backwards across the floor for two meters before coming to a stop, arms outstretched, head lowered. He loved city travel.

/div>

After a motionless second spent savoring the action passed, he dropped his arms and turned around.

...and almost slammed into a horrified family of three. The parents were perhaps thirty, and stared in slack-jawed wonder at Dek's big show. They were still too amazed to be frightened, but if he hung around long enough, he knew that's where they'd be going. Between them, a girl of perhaps three slept in a stroller. Perhaps they were returning to their car after a day of sightseeing in the city. Dek had a feeling he'd just been the big finale.

"Hi!" He said brightly, feeling both embarrassed and terribly cool. He touched his forehead in salute and then burned it on out of there. To the shocked parents, he seemed to simply disappear in a rush of artificial breeze.

He still had quite a few blocks to go before he reached his destination.

***

Thankfully, they weren't alone on the elevator. This kept Rae quiet long enough for Ping to think.

He assessed their situation, which was pretty desperate. He knew they had only a few hours at most before the macro daemons flagged Rae's hacked Uni. Once that happened, the police would be here within minutes. They had to get out of the hospital right now.

And then there was Alex. The hospital seemed his only chance after two days in a coma, but to leave him here would be to give him to their hunters. Ping remembered Good Cop's talk of torturing Alex to death before Good Cop's own grisly death in the library archive had spoiled his plans. It was clear that Alex was the one "they" were primarily gunning for. He knew that Rae would never leave Alex here.

Ping knew he wouldn't leave Alex here either, so he was at a loss for what to do next. He relaxed in his chair and cleared his mind. If he ever needed inspiration, it was now. Nothing came to him except for memories of dark coma dreams from the last two days- dreams filled with Alex's blood and Rae's screams.

***

The room was bright with the glare of artificial sunshine. Bright music from a pair of harmonizing classical guitars and the crisp smell of rain on fallen leaves filled the air.

Rae knew from some IQ Channel show seen in the distant past that coma patients were kept in artificially stimulating environments. The light would shift from deepest night to equatorial noon; the music would shift in type and volume and sometimes lapse into silence; the scent in the air would rotate from pleasant to foul, from strong to faint. The idea was to try to engage the patent's senses and entice them back to the real world.

The bright lights, jovial music and fresh smell depressed her terribly. Somehow, all the pleasant sensations confirmed her tragedy- made it more real somehow. Alex wasn't coming back.

She faced one of the inky windows, trying unsuccessfully to keep her tears from the wounded detective. He was trying unsuccessfully to pretend he didn't notice. She studied her reflection as it mingled with the shifting lights of the city behind the black glass. She raised her right hand, put her palm on the glass, fingers spread. The reflection's lip quivered, its face streaked with desperate tears.

Ping was in his wheelchair, feeling somewhat stronger, but not wanting to risk a fall; he still didn't feel confident in his equilibrium. He felt even less certain about his plan stopped turning the collapsed sword over in his hands.

He leaned over Alex's comatose form and put a hand on Alex's chest. He felt the regular breathing, closed his eyes, pondered black thoughts. Sometimes you have to do things...

"You know what I studied in school?" Ping said, surprised that he'd spoken.

Rae shook her head, still facing the window.

What was he doing? "Family counseling."

Rae shook her head. "Share how that makes you feel, detective."

Ping's laugh was more release than humor. "Yep, I wanted to help people. I really thought I could make a difference." He put a hand on the monitor panel next to Alex's bed. He lifted the plastic guard and hit the panic button beneath. The alarm was silent here in the room, but he knew the floor nurses and the on-duty doctor would be joining them in a hurry.

"You said 'thought'. What changed your mind?" Rae asked, voice thick. She seemed grateful for the conversation's distraction.

"I had this family... they came to the clinic I was interning at while I finished my dissertation. They'd been having trouble: abuse, drugs- the whole enchilada. I got assigned to them from the pool because I'd requested the tough ones. I was going to write my dissertation about motivating dead-enders to try, about the benefits of keeping the family together at all costs." The words were just tumbling out now.

"You're not kidding." Rae realized. "You know, I think you'd be good at it, come to think of it..."

"You'd be wrong." Ping winced, swallowing hard. "The father was an insurance exec, the mother was the substance abuser, the child abuser; emotional and physical. The daughter was eight, but she had this look- like she was ancient- wise like the Buddha. She had a quick draw sense of humor, but the smile was a lot slower out of the holster. It was worth it when you saw it, though.

"The daughter?" Rae said.

Ear to ear. Dead eyes accusing. She was before him now whenever he blinked. His hand closed around the sword. "Yeah." His voice caught. "Yeah, the daughter. We were making real progress I thought. They had all committed to see the process through. They were happy the last time I saw them... going for ice cream after they left. I had this warm feeling inside- I was doing something valuable." He was speeding up now... he could hear the commotion at the end of the hall.

"Nobody knows what went wrong. On the night before our next session, they found the husband shot in the bathroom, the daughter they found in the kitchen, throat cut ear to ear. The mother ate the gun in the garage; her bag was on the passenger seat all packed for her big getaway trip... guess she changed her mind."

The business end of the collapsed sword pressed against Alex's chest. Running footsteps outside; Rae turned around. Her eyes went first to the door, fear and misery in her expression. But then she noticed Ping and Alex. She saw the sword. Her hand went out toward them, imploring. "NO!" She screamed.

"It was my fault." Ping pressed the activating stud; the blade rang out through blood, bone, and mattress, finally burying its tip in the floor below..

***

"Look at this dad!" Roy shouted, prodding the corpse with the end of his blade.

"Just a sec." Ivo said as the corpse of the last Savant from Asado's little hit team disintegrated in the lattice of his Cast. Attempted murder is always a drag, especially when it's your murder that's attempted, but cleaning up afterward was always a distasteful task.

Ivo took a few more seconds to touch up the hasty mend he'd put on his broken femur then hobbled over to where Roy was standing. The battle had been much tougher than he'd expected. Some kind of chaosing energy had actually pushed him out of the Loom in the middle of the battle. It was like nothing he'd seen before. If it wasn't for Roy, he'd have been killed right then.

"Am I not cleaning these fast enough for you master Peter?"

"Roy, Dad... It's Roy, comprende?"

You'd think he'd pick 'Ace' or 'Spike' if he was going to pick his own name. But what could Ivo expect from someone who loved circus peanuts so much?

"Sorry Peter," Ivo smiled, "I'm sure I'll remember next time. What've you got?"

"Look at this..." Roy drove his blade through the chest of the dead creature. Sparks leapt from the wound, crept along the length of the blade. "Someone's forged these things... it's in their flesh."

Ivo looked at the chaotic energy bleeding out of the wound for a long time. It was a struggle for him even to maintain his view into the Underworld this near to the body's chaos. Was this Asado's secret weapon- some new kind of Forged demon?

"That's not a Forge." He said, not bothering to hide the concern in his voice. "It's something else. Primitive. Powerful."

***

Dek looked through the new glass and into the examination room. Here was where it had all started for him, the beginning of the beginning, the beginning of the end. Here, about eighty years ago, Ivo wove new life into him- here he had been born again. Upstairs, in the penthouse, he had met Issak Kaspari for the first time. It was here, three days ago, that he had heard Roy's last words and smashed through this very window.

Symmetry.

The new glass exploded inward around his fist. He stepped into the small room. His coat still hung on the hook on the door. He retrieved it, put it on. He paused to indulge vanity, checking his look in the mirror on the wall by the exam table. The long coat made him look like Harrison Ford. Right on!

He stepped to the door and moved silently from the room. He moved through the darkened hallways to the elevator bank. Inside the elevator, he hit the emergency stop, but not before putting the tip of his sword through the two camera nodes inside.

He really didn't know what kind of reception to expect here. Wasn't sure whether Issak would be alive or dead, held prisoner, or waiting with the cavalry. For all he knew Issak had gotten bored and left. In any case, Dek wasn't taking any chances. He opened the maintenance hatch in the top of the elevator and slipped through it. Above him, the four corners of the elevator shaft seemed to converge in the distance.

He grabbed the cable, intending to climb to the penthouse. Grease squished between his fingers. "Eww!" he whispered, looking around for something to clean his hand. He looked at his newly recovered coat, his shirt, but in the end decided on the wall of the shaft.

Plan B He jumped to the narrow ledge one floor up. He repeated this procedure, jumping upward from ledge to ledge, spiraling from wall to wall and floor to floor as he jumped up the concentric ledges like a spiral staircase.

Fresh and warmed by the light exercise, he arrived at the eighty-second floor. He balanced with one foot on the service ladder, the other on a junction box, and leaned into the doors. He wedged his fingers into the crack between them and slid them open. He emerged from the shaft's darkness into the low ambient light that Issak preferred when he stayed here. He took a deep breath to sample the air. He could smell food prepared not long ago and a hint of the cologne that Issak wore. But also something else... sharp and corrupt, like copper filings sprinkled on rotting meat. Nice.

Collapsed sword in hand, he crept deeper into the penthouse. He moved down the hallway toward the kitchen, where light spilled out of the doorway. From the kitchen, he could make out the soft, hesitant notes of a piano- Schubert. Yep, Issak was definitely here, and understandably troubled.

For such an excessively disciplined man, Issak sure had a weakness for the most sentimental of sissy music. Dek found this one of the most touching details of his adopted father. Ok, perhaps the only really touching detail. Dek loved Issak; he was bright and energetic- kind even, but he would come off as chilly even at a convention of Nazi math professors.

Whenever Issak was really feeling down, he pulled out the Schubert and lost himself in the intimate, perhaps even schmaltzy music. Dek's heart extended toward his father. Just like him, Issak had lost almost everything.

A warm smile emerged on Dek's face. Listening to the faint piano tinkling, he leaned on the wall, remembering happier times. For Christmas in 2004, Dek had given Issak the complete Barry Manilow boxed set. Issak was not amused. But from time to time, Dek would hear it at night, coming from Issak's room.

This was Issak: Hard on the outside, squishy and warm on the inside. Kinda like monkey crap.

"What are you laughing about, Dek?"

"You, of course, you old softie."

The music died, "If you're done lurking, please come in."

Dek rounded the corner into the kitchen, smile still on his lips. Issak was sitting at the small kitchen table, a tumbler of scotch half empty on the table near the half-empty bottle. Before him on the table were a few volumes of Ivo's scrapbook. The non-sealed part of Ivo's thirty-something volumes of picture-adorned history was a fun read, but if this was the sealed part, there wasn't anything Issak would be able to do to keep Dek away. He'd use the sword if he had to.

"I've been expecting you," Issak beleaguered the obvious.

"That's not..."

"Nope. I still haven't found his sealed books."

"Too bad. I hear he's got a nude painting in there of you from the 1600's."

"That's a lie." Warm humor escaped through the cracks the scotch had made in Issak's composure. Dek noticed the plastic seal for the scotch lay on the table near the bottle; he'd never seen Issak drunk before.

Issak seemed to realize that he'd lost his ironclad composure like most people might realize their fly was open. He seemed to clamp down on the emotion, but as he did so, Dek saw self-loaomething in his face. Misery.

"Don't worry," Dek said, "Hey, we're together now. We're gonna work this out. I was afraid I'd be too late."

"Too late..." Issak mused, face darkening.

"What's all this about? Why did we drop everything and come to Chicago?"

Issak raised his tumbler. "The end of the world."

"Yeah, we couldn't have seen that from New York." Dek rolled his eyes and slipped into the chair across from Issak.

"I'm sherious." Issak slurred. He gave Dek a melodramatic wink. What was that for? It was probably just the alcohol winking. In more than eighty years, he'd never seen Issak wink.

Dek gave Issak his full attention, and perhaps a full minute to realize it was still his turn to talk.

"Not long before we came to Chicago, Ivo was attacked by three Savants and perhaps twelve grunts from Asado."

"Yeah, I remember Roy telling me about that. Asado has never been that major of a threat. Their kung fu is not strong."

Issak smiled... the scotch again. "Nope, but they had a major advantage. It was a lot closer than Roy probably let on." He paused for effect, and to refill his cup. "A new alliance."

"Not with Ciarac again..."

"Ciarac is gone."

"Gone, meaning..."

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