Part 27 (1/2)
He went quiet, contemplating this. Then he sniffed in a breath.
”Will you teach me how you do it?”
”Maybe.” Her smile looked surprised. ”Maybe I will.”
At the roundabout where he should have exited to join the motorway, he continued turning, into a second rotation.
”I need to do something,” he said.
”Visiting hours must be over.”
It was scary how she understood what he intended.
”I'll manage to get in.”
”Then let's do it.”
He took the Swindon road, and continued on to the hospital. Suzanne said nothing until he pulled in and parked the car. Outside, the night was darkening.
”Do you want me to come in with you?”
”No. Thanks.”
Reaching over to the glove compartment, he became sensitive to her warm proximity, and the fragrance she was wearing: airborne molecules propelled by the heat of her flawless creamy chocolatte skin. Swallowing, he extracted a dull silver ring from the compartment.
”Fake ID?” asked Suzanne.
”A dummy, to make me look genuine.” Josh extracted his phone from the console. ”This is what will get me past the scanners.”
He walked to the main entrance, nodding to the security guard beyond the gla.s.s doors, then held his ring close to the door, and faced the cameras. What should happen was a three-way check among data stored on the ring (including fractally compressed facial images), the camera scan, and the staff database; what actually occurred was fast intrusion from his malware, a false recognition code, and the clicking open of magnetic locks.
”Hi,” he said to the guard.
”Evening, doctor.”
Beyond reception, he walked corridors now half in shadow, conserving energy and helping patients sleep. The wall signs glowed, but he did not need them to find his way. At the nurses' station outside the coma unit, he stopped, opening up his senses while remaining still inside. From the sounds and other subliminal cues, he understood there were two nurses inside the open office, drinking lemon tea he could smell it. Their chairs creaked as they rotated them, one leaning close to murmur something to the other; and as they naturally faced away from the doorway for a moment, Josh slipped past.
Inside Sophie's room, machines sucked and hissed, susurrating as they worked her small lungs. Medicinal smells were strong. Monitors glowed and beeped, tracking her physiology and rendering a clear message in steady coloured graphs: no change.
Sophie's face was delicate, luminescent grey in the half light. He brushed a curl, fine and wispy, away from her forehead. Then he took her fingers in his, remembering her as a baby, grasping a single finger, smiling her heart-splitting smile.
My little girl.
For a long time he held still; then he leaned over, kissed her forehead, and stepped away.
”Good”
I can't say it.
A complete farewell was impossible.
His exit route was irrational, perhaps from the need for physical action. He raised the window of Sophie's room he was three floors up went through, pulled the window shut the automatic lock clicked home then spidered his way down in the dark. Brickwork was hard and gritty against his palms. His shoe soles made sc.r.a.ping noises as he descended. Then there was ground beneath his feet: an anticlimax that came too soon.
Everything people do is for unconscious reasons. Wasn't that what Suzanne had been trying to tell him? He knew symbolic logic, could design software in Evolutionary Z, but it seemed to have little to do with the way his mind worked, or the way Sophie's image remained in his mind no matter what he was doing.
When he opened the car door, Suzanne flinched.
”Where did you come from? I was watching the entranceway.”
”Sorry.”
He slid in and closed the door. And sat there.
”What happened, Josh?”
”I... I tried to say goodbye.”
”What stopped you?”
He closed his stinging eyes as his mouth turned down. Then he blinked a few times.
”It's too late, because she's gone. It was too late the moment the car hit her.”
Suzanne's hand was on his forearm. No psych trick, just a human gesture.
”That's not Sophie,” he went on. ”It's a remnant, like a fingernail or a a lock of hair.”
”I'm so sorry.”
He nodded.
Time pa.s.sed. Epochs or minutes, he could no longer tell the difference. Then he slid his phone back into the console, and turned on the engine.
”Let's get you home.”
Once they were on the motorway and cruising, Suzanne told him how things had gone with the Brezhinski family.
”The parents are less stressed, and young Marek will be practicing healing visualisation.”
On the battlefield, Josh had seen men who gave up and died from survivable wounds, while others fought, living against horrific odds. The worse the physical injury, the more vital was the mind controlling the immune system. Many soldiers developed a form of autohypnosis to cope with small combat wounds.