Reflex (46 page)

Millie, more desperate than calculating, just snatched the weapon from Hyacinth's hand, grabbing it from the side as she appeared and jumping away immediately, back to the rim. She nearly dropped it then, but managed to shift it around until she held it by the grip.

And all without shooting myself.

Millie
hated
guns.

Down in the pit a string of curses floated up, but she didn't wait to make sense of them. In Davy's room she crouched low, held the gun with both hands, and aimed it at the chain just short of the floor-mounted anchor loop. She squeezed the trigger.

She ended up on her back, her ears ringing. A line of bullet holes crossed the floor and climbed halfway up the wall. It was, she realized belatedly, set on full auto. She didn't know guns this size could
be
full auto.

A chain link had parted, bent and distorted. She put the weapon down on the floor and slid it away. It came to rest under the toppled dresser, in the wet shadows.

Davy's breathing was worse, ragged, stopping for seconds, then resuming with a catch.

She put her hands under his shoulders, pictured the George Washington University Medical Center's Trauma Center, and jumped.

There was a mask over his mouth and nose, and his lungs were rising without effort, inflated like a party balloon. The pressure stopped and he could feel the air rushing back out. Then the positive airflow began again. Whatever he was lying on felt like it was spinning slowly and his scalp tingled. His mouth felt like a desert, desiccated and granular, as if all the water had been baked out of it.

Several people were talking at once and someone shouted over the babble, "Where are those flack vests?"

"Coming!" a distant voice called.

He felt someone holding his hand and, with great effort, opened his eyes. He immediately closed them again. The light was blinding and his eyes weren't working right. Everything that wasn't a glaring light source was an over-bright, blurred mass of white, blue, and skin tones.

Something stabbed into the skin of his upper chest, burning, and he flinched away from the pain and the light into soothing darkness.

He was "in the box" sprawled across the floor but he didn't feel right. The room was dark and the floor was wet and cold. He smelled salt water—low tide—and remembered something about the ocean and Simons and bombs. The oxygen mask was gone and it took forever to take a breath. There was a light shining on the floor beside him but it was nowhere as painful as the lights in that previous room. He had a stabbing pain on the inside of his right elbow.

Then someone was crouching over him. He wanted to push them away but his body wasn't working right. All he managed was a weak flop with one arm.

"Davy. Oh, Christ! You can't do that. We'll
never
get the damn thing out if you jump away in the middle of the operation."

He knew that voice. He tried to speak but it took several tries. "M—Millie?"

"Yes, heart. I'm jumping you back to the trauma center." She knelt and put her hands under his shoulders. "They were getting ready to pull the vagus stimulator when you jumped away."

"Stop!" His voice was a rasp, half groan, half gasp.

Millie stopped lifting. "Did I hurt you?"

"It's wired... it's booby-trapped. The implant."

"Yes. We know. We've got the pieces from the other one and multiple x-rays. There seems to be a light sensor and we learned the hard way that if you cut the leads it will blow up."

The other one?

He opened his mouth again and she said, "I love you and I want to hear everything you have to tell me, but for the moment, just
shut up and trust me!
Jumping."

They were back in that bright room on the floor and his eyes squeezed shut against the brightness.

There was a collective gasp and a sharp voice said, "Will he stay
put?"

Millie took Davy's hand. "If you keep him conscious and rational. Talk to him. Tell him what you're doing so it doesn't surprise him. He woke up just as you stuck him with that needle. What do you expect?"

The man's voice sounded both exasperated and amused—almost stunned. "We don't get that many people who can do that. I got it, though. Let's get him up on the table, people!"

Through his eyelids the light dimmed slightly as several people bent over him.

"And... lift!"

The table felt hard and cold. The mask went back over his face and the doctor said, "I'm Doctor Sullivan, Davy. We're bagging you to help you breathe. We've been continuing the atropine your wife administered to counteract the effects of the vagal stimulator. Do you understand what I just said?"

Davy lifted a hand weakly, thumb extended up.

"Good. We're going to make an incision to pull the implant itself. It's going to be pretty long—we have to get enough play in the electrode leads. If I'm talking too fast hold up your hand, flat, like you're saying 'halt.' "

Davy extended his thumb again.

"Great. Fortunately, the thing is only subcutaneous—we won't have to cut through any muscle. You'll end up with a nice scar but hopefully nothing worse. Where's that pipe?"

A woman's voice said, "I have it, with the sandbags."

"All right. I was numbing the skin over the implant but you jumped away before I injected more than a fraction of the lidocaine. I'm going to do it again but if I got any in the first time, you probably won't feel this.
Don't
bug out on me again, all right?"

Davy squeezed Millie's hand and she squeezed back, saying, "I've got your back, Davy. I'm not losing you again."

Davy held up his forefinger and thumb in a circle.

"Right," said Doctor Sullivan. "First shot."

Davy did feel it but he stayed, squeezing Millie's hand until the lidocaine stopped burning.

"There. Okay. We'll wait a minute for it to numb. You all right?"

Davy tried to speak. The mask was lifted. "Mouth. Dry."

"Ah. That's the atropine. Bet the light hurts your eyes, too. They call that side effect 'photophobia.' "

Davy nodded as the oxygen mask lowered again.

"We can't give you something to drink just yet. You could choke. Give me fifteen minutes and it'll all be over."

Someone else muttered quietly, "One way or the other."

Sullivan cleared his throat, then spoke again. "We'll put your IV drip back in. It's just saline for drug transport. You ripped it out when you jumped away but it looks like the needle came out the way it went in, luckily." Aside he said, "The back of the hand.
That
lovely vein."

There was a stab in the back of his hand and he almost jerked it away, but Millie was holding the wrist down. "Easy, Davy. Let's get this over with," she said.

Davy's nausea seemed to be increasing and he coughed, then a female voice said, "Heart rate dropping again."

"One milligram atropine, IV. No, half that. We don't want him so disoriented he teleports again."

Someone muttered, "I wonder what we'll get in here next. Little green men?"

The nausea dropped back again and the female voice said, "Pulse is back up."

"Okay. Do you feel this?"

Feel what?
Davy shook his head. The table felt like it was bucking now, as well as spinning.

"Good. We're cutting. Sponge that. Good. There it is. Clamp that little bleeder. Good. Okay—let's avoid nicking the leads. Who's got the lightproof bag?"

"Here," said a pleasant alto.

"Okay. I'm going to extend the incision two centimeters on either side then we're going to turn off the lights. Did we fix the emergency lights so they won't come on?"

A nasal tenor said, "Yeah. I disconnected the battery—both terminals."

"So, Erin, show me where you're going to hold the bag open."

The alto said, "I thought
here.
I'll rest my wrist on his collarbone for reference—you'll be able to feel my fingertips on the rim of the mouth. I'll cinch it up at your command."

"Okay. Ready?"

"Ready, Sully."

"How about you, Davy? It's really important you stay with us on this. You teleport away while we're holding onto this device and it could rip out your vagus nerve. Trust me, you don't want that."

Davy gave him a thumbs up.

"Right.
Lights."

The blessed darkness was a relief, holding Davy like the womb. He heard a sound like someone pulling their shoe out of the mud.

"There. In the bag. Cinch it. Double check. We're sure it's inside?"

"I confirm," said the alto.

"Lights on."

Even through his eyelids, the light was like a blow.

"Okay. Jerry, put in a drain and close it. Staples."

"Right—speed."

There was pressure and tugging and the sound of the surgical stapler was an odd little "chunka, chunka, chunka." He tried to look but the light still hurt too much and everything was blurred. He squeezed his eyelids together.

"Okay. Throw a temporary dressing over that and let's have the flack vests."

For who?
He made an agitated sock puppet talking motion with his free hand.

Millie said,
"Talk
to him, Doctor. Tell him what's going on!"

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Feel that, Davy?" They placed something heavy across Davy's lower chest. "We're draping body armor over you. This one's over your stomach and groin. This one's going over your upper chest and face."

Something cast a shadow over Davy's face lessening the palpable beat of light against his eyelids. He had a sense of something tented over his face, a heaviness across his shoulders.

"The electrode leads from the implant are sticking up between the two Kevlar vests and we've got the device in a lightproof bag." The voice lessened in volume. "Pipe, please." The volume increased again as the doctor turned back toward Davy. "I've got a nice piece of half-inch steel pipe here, six inches in diameter, two feet long. We're putting the implant inside it then..." Davy heard the sound of duct tape being ripped off a roll. "We're taping a plywood board over the bottom of the pipe—the leads are pinched between the pipe and the board. Sand, please. Okay, Davy, while I'm holding the implant through the open end of the pipe, we're filling the pipe up with sand."

The weight over Davy's chest increased and he could hear the sand whispering against the pipe. He coughed.

"Support that! It's putting too much weight on his chest."

The weight lessened.

"Good. There, the implant's buried in the sand. Now we're putting another board over the top of the pipe." The duct tape sound repeated. "And we're wrapping the pipe in more body armor—just a precaution." More duct tape. "The last device had two blasting caps in it. If so, the sand alone will suffice. The device is mostly battery, so it can't have much of an explosive."

Davy thought there was an underlying quaver in the doc's voice.
What last device?

"Rig an instrument stand to support the pipe."

There was a clatter and the sound of rolling wheels across the floor.

"Oh—kay. Who's got the wire cutters? Thank you. Right, then. Everybody out."

There was the sound of footsteps. Millie squeezed Davy's hand but didn't let go.

"You, too, Mrs. Rice."

"You already tried that, remember? If security couldn't keep me out, what makes you think you can?"

Davy let go of her hand and pushed it away. Then he pushed the Kevlar vest aside and the oxygen mask off his mouth. The anesthesiologist lifted it up. "Back up at
least,
Millie. You can't watch my back if you get... hurt." The anesthesiologist started to put the mask back over his face and Davy pushed it away again, "You, too. I can breathe on my own for this."

Millie leaned over and kissed his forehead. It felt odd and he realized she was wearing a surgical mask. "Okay," she said. "I'll back up to the wall."

"Whatever!" said the doctor. "But do it!"

The alto voice said, "Pulse dropping again. You want to hit him with some more atropine?"

"No. Get behind me!" Feet shuffled across the floor. "Stay with me, Davy. I'm cutting the wires—now!"

There was a muffled "THUD" and sand stung the back of Davy's hand, then drifted across his face. He felt it then, like being back in the box, the cessation of the nausea, a background feeling so faint he noticed it only in its absence. He tried to open his eyes but the light still hurt.

"Je—sus," said a voice. "Maintenance is gonna freak about all the sand."

Footsteps approached in a rush. "Pulse rising. Respiration strengthening. Wow—it's like you threw a switch. See his color improve?"

Millie took up his hand again. When she spoke he could tell she was crying.

"Shhhhhh. It's okay," he said.

"It is
now."

They put the wire back under his skin, sterilizing it as best they could. "I grounded each lead to the other. Even if you got a transient because you walked through an electromagnetic field, it shouldn't shock the nerve. But I don't want to go near the vagus without a neurosurgeon and I wouldn't be surprised if a neuro would say just leave it. Less risk."

They hooked the drain tube up to something that looked like a clear plastic cylinder with accordion-folded sides. They opened a cap in the end and compressed it vertically to squeeze the air out, then sealed it again. As the accordion folds tried to expand, they pulled a vacuum on the drain, sucking Davy's stapled skin down over the void left by the implant. Clear reddish liquid started up the tube. It felt odd now, under the numb skin, but he suspected it would hurt later.

"We've got vacuum bottles and pumps, but this one you can take to the bathroom."

Davy approved. He'd had it with being attached to
things.

They rolled him down to a recovery room and turned the lights off. They gave him water—lots of lovely ice water with a straw—and the desert in his mouth was slowly greening.

In the dim light he tried his eyes again and fared better. Things were fuzzy, but not impossible. The new Millie, the one with the short hair bleached blond and the gauze dressing on the side of her head, asked, "Is there an antidote for the atropine? Something to clear it out?"