“Billy — are you. positive the coat shouldn’t still be brown?”
I didn’t even answer, me.
She sat back on her feet, thinking hard. Then she looked up at me, her, with the damnedest look I ever saw on anybody’s face. I didn’t have no idea, me, what it meant, except it reminded me of Jack Sawicki when he played chess. When he was alive, him, to play chess. People used to snicker, them, at Jack for liking chess. It wasn’t no game for a Liver.
Then Dr. Turner smiled, her. She said, “ ‘Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ ” which didn’t even make no sense. “Billy, you have to take me to Eden.”
I leaned on my stick. The end of it was mucky from poking at the rabbit. “There ain’t no Eden, Dr. Turner. The government blew it up, them.”
“ ‘There is no rabbit,’ ” she said, smiling, her, in that same voice that didn’t make no sense. “Down the rabbit hole, Billy. Off with their heads. You and I both know they didn’t blow it up. They missed.”
I looked, me, again at the dead rabbit. The fox had done a job on it. “What makes you say, you, that they missed?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they did miss, and that there are things I need to know. And I’ve decided that the only way left to discover them is to go to Eden and ask. Nicely direct, don’t you think? Will you take me there?”
I picked, me, a place in the river, and stared at it. Then I stared at it some more. I wasn’t going, me, to get into no argument with no donkey. There ain’t never any way to win those arguments. But I wasn’t going to take her to Eden, neither. She had called the government once, her, to blow up Eden, and she could do it again. She wasn’t going to learn nothing from me.
After a few minutes Dr. Turner stood up, her, wiping mud off the knees of her jacks. Her voice was serious again. “All right, Billy. Not yet. But you will, I know, when something happens. And something will. The SuperSleepless aren’t releasing genemod rabbits that everyone can see are genemod rabbits for no reason at all. This is a message. Pretty soon the meaning will come clear, and then we’ll discuss this again.”
“Ain’t nothing to discuss,” I said, me, and I meant it. Not with her. No matter how many genemod rabbits turned up.
The sun was lower now, it, and the air was getting cold. And my walk was pretty much ruined anyway. I climbed the riverbank, me, taking my time. Dr. Turner knew better than to try and help me.
Lizzie was dancing around the apartment, clean from a bath, waving her study terminal. “Godel’s proof!” she sang, her, like it was a song. “Godel’s proof, Billy!”
She was as bad as Dr. Turner with her looking glasses and rabbit holes. Still, I was glad to see Lizzie so happy.
“Look, Vicki, look what happens if you take this formula and just kind of sneak up on these numbers…”
“Let me get my coat off, Mr. Godel,” Dr. Turner said, which didn’t make no more sense than her talk at the river. But she was smiling, her, at Lizzie.
Lizzie couldn’t hardly stay still, her. Whatever she had on that library terminal must of been pretty exciting. She grabbed my stick, her, and started dancing around with it like it was a partner. Then she stuck it under her and rode it like a hobbyhorse. Then she raised it up over her head like a flag. I knew from all this, me, that Annie wasn’t home.
“All right, let’s see Godel’s proof,” Dr. Turner said. “Did you access Sven Bjorklind’s variations?”
“Course I did, me,” Lizzie said, with scorn. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was like a light, her. A sun. My Lizzie.
By the next morning she was so sick she couldn’t move.
It didn’t look like no sickness I ever saw, certainly not like the fever she’d had last August. Lizzie was shitting bad, her, with blood in it. Annie kept emptying the bucket and cleaning her up, but the apartment still smelled awful. And Lizzie couldn’t move her legs or head without it hurting her. Annie and me were up with her, us, all night. By dawn she wasn’t even crying no more, just laying there, her eyes open but not seeing nothing. I was scared, me. She just laid there.
I said to Annie, “I’m going, me, to get Dr. Turner. She’s down at the cafe, her, watching the news about martial—”
“I know, me, where she is!” Annie snapped, because she was so worried, her, about Lizzie, and so exhausted. “She’s been there all night, ain’t she? But Lizzie don’t need no donkey doctor, her. This time our medunit’s working.”
I didn’t say, me, that donkeys invented the medunit. I was too scared myself. Lizzie groaned and shit in the bed.
“You go ahead, you, and wake up Paulie. I’ll bring her as soon as she’s cleaned up.”
Paulie Cenverno’s been mayor, him, since Jack Sawicki was killed. Paulie keeps the code to the clinic. I grabbed my stick, me, and set off as fast as I could go to Paulie’s apartment building.
Outside was cold and gray but sweet-smelling, which somehow made me feel even scareder for Lizzie. Halfway down the street I met Dr. Turner. She looked, her, so tired and upset that her genemod face was almost plain.
“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 anti-virals 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?”