“You’re very handsome,” she said, and looked down at her hands. A blush spread across her cheeks. “I don’t see a lot of white people in here. Most of the nurses are Spanish or Negroes.”
“… okay,” Chapel said. “Christina, it was nice meeting you, but I think I should go now. Be… well.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, and for once Angel was no help. “Be safe.”
“You look nice. Nice and handsome. That’s a very good combination in a gentleman caller. I don’t get as many gentleman callers as I did when I was younger,” she told him. “Will you come again, Mr. Selleck? Please tell me you’ll come and see me again sometime. I’d like that very much.”
Chapel stood up and walked over to the door. “Perhaps, Christina. I’m, uh, very busy with work right now, and—”
“You know what they say, a young lady with no social connections is at high risk of recidivism.” It sounded like something a doctor might have said to her once. “I could backslide. I could lose all the wonderful progress I’ve made if I don’t get to see people sometimes. If I don’t get to talk to people, get social stimulation, if I—”
She stopped talking then.
Her face went white and her eyes very wide.
Chapel looked down and saw she had grabbed his arm. His left arm. Her fingers squeezed at the silicone that was wrapped around the motors there.
She grabbed the fingers of his artificial hand and brought them up to her face to look at them more closely. And then she started to scream. Piercing, hysterical cries of utter terror.
“You’re not real! You’re a robot! You’re a robot!”
Chapel pressed up against the wall to one side of the door as Christina ran around the room, grabbing the blankets off her bed, tearing the picture of Tom Selleck off the wall. She held them close to her like armor, like they could protect her.
“He’s a robot,” she shrieked as the nurse came into the room. “He’s not real! Don’t let him touch me. Don’t let him put that thing inside me! Don’t let him touch me!”
The nurse stared at Chapel as he took Christina’s shoulders and tried to calm her down.
“I have an artificial arm,” Chapel tried to explain. “A prosthetic. She grabbed it and — and—”
“Just go. Get out — Ruth can check you out,” the nurse said. He turned to Christina and tried to shush her, his hands stroking her arms.
“You’re not real! You’re a machine man!” she shouted.
Chapel hurried out into the hall and down toward the nurses’ station, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Christina wasn’t running after him. At the station the nurse named Ruth leaned out through her window. She looked at him, then down the hall toward Christina’s room.
“I, uh,” Chapel said. “I seem to have—”
“This is a psychiatric hospital, sir,” Ruth told him. “It happens. It’s best if you just leave now.”
“Not a problem,” Chapel said. He signed the form she put in front of him and headed for the locked doors that led off the ward.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+12:16
Julia’s receptionist was taking advantage of this very weird day to catch up on her filing. Portia Artiz loved her job, but she didn’t know what to make of any of the things that had happened so far. The morning had been perfectly normal, a parade of dogs and cats coming through the front room, phone calls and forms to be filled out. Then Julia had said she was going to her mom’s place for lunch and everything had just gone weird.
First Julia had called to tell Portia to cancel all her appointments, but she wouldn’t explain why. She’d been crying on the phone and Portia begged her to say why, but Julia had a way of not letting anybody in. Portia blamed that on her mother, who everybody said was such a saint but the couple of times Portia met her she’d been a real frosty bitch.
Oh, man, she shouldn’t even think things like that. Julia’s mom was dead, attacked by some weirdo looking for drugs. The very thought made Portia’s skin crawl. They got junkies in the office all the time, looking to score from the supply of animal tranquilizers they kept in a closet at the back of the office. Most of them were scrawny little guys, no threat to anybody but themselves. They were more annoying than dangerous — they came up with the craziest stories about why their pets needed the drugs really bad, right away, and they just didn’t give up. Half of Portia’s job was getting rid of them, threatening to call the police if they didn’t leave. What if one of those guys was as jacked up and dangerous as the one who got Julia’s mom, though? Portia shivered as she bent over the filing cabinet.
Someone rapped on the glass door behind her, and Portia jumped right into the air. She gave out a little squeak and turned to see a man standing at the door, a big guy with a smile on his face. Probably another junkie, she thought, until he held up a police badge and pressed it against the glass.
He started laughing and Portia realized she must look hilarious, jumping straight in the air like that. He chuckled wildly and she couldn’t help herself, she had to join in. She giggled behind her hand and shook her head as she opened the door. “You scared me half to death,” she said, still laughing. “What can I do for you? If this is about that guy who came back here earlier, the one with the concussion—” she started.
“Nope,” the man said, and then he grabbed her by the throat and squeezed, hard. Portia’s vision started to dim as she struggled for breath. “Not him. I’m here for your boss.”
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+12:17
While Chapel waited on the roof of Bellevue for his helicopter he spoke to Angel, trying to figure out why someone like Christina Smollett would be a target for the chimeras.
“She’s definitely not CIA,” Angel said.
“Definitely. But then why is she on the list?” He crumpled the list in his hand. “Maybe this is all a snipe hunt. Maybe the list is meant to send me down the wrong path. Maybe I’m wasting my time chasing phantoms just so the CIA can have a good laugh at my expense, and—”
“No. The list is real. The names are all there for a reason,” Angel said, and any trace of flirtation or sultriness was gone from her voice. “Every one of those people is marked for death, including Christina Smollett.”
Chapel looked up at the sky as if he would see Angel floating there.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
“You know things you aren’t telling me,” he said.
“Now, sugar,” she said, her voice softening again. “You already knew that. Don’t be silly, there are all kinds of secrets that I can’t—”
“In fact, you knew all about Christina Smollett before I came here on this fool’s errand,” he said, very carefully.
“How could I know that?”
“Because you called here, back when I asked you to let the targets know they were in danger. You knew she was a patient in Bellevue, you must have — because you talked to somebody here. Her doctors, the security guards — somebody.”
“I… spoke to them. Yes.”
“You didn’t mention that before I got here. You let it be a little surprise for me. We’re not exactly on the same team, are we, Angel?” he asked. “I’m trying to save lives here. I’m trying to stop a bunch of killers. And you’re not on board for that. Not fully. You have another agenda you’re working here, and it’s not about keeping these people alive.”
He waited for her reply. For her to try to smooth things over, to explain things away. But she didn’t say anything.
Eventually the helicopter came to pick him up.