“What button did you press?” I asked.
“Wait here,” Paul whispered and stepped out cautiously. Having made sure the empty room was empty he returned with an arm-chair, jammed the elevator’s doorway and motioned me out. On the left there was a door. Paul checked it. Locked from the inside. The wall on the right had a dozen monitors, all tuned in to the news. I recalled the Pope’s morning announcement, which seemed like it had happened last year, expecting to see broadcasts from Vatican. Instead, I saw myself. And I seemed to be in a lot of trouble again, only this time it was worse.
This time, I was dead.
They were showing an extended collage of images, which included frightening, sudden close-ups of initially distant, grim, some bordering on catatonic shots of my face recycled from the fugitive days broadcasts, a shot of me grinning maniacally while brandishing the “Silver Killer” from the day before, and assorted other pictures or short feeds of me being an asshole to someone on the show. Then they decided to let us see the “disturbing footage from this morning’s bombing” one more time. I figured it would be the Ace. And boy, was it ever.
There I was, sure as Friday, seated beside Dr. Coughlin in the BMW, having a pretty heated argument with some guard in regular, non-white uniform. The guy reminded me of Ted from Waukegan. The angle switched, so that you couldn’t see the inside of the car any longer, and Ted’s look-alike pulled out a gun and screamed something. Next was the explosion and the camera feed was finally cut off. From the commentary that followed I learned that two other doctors were missing and feared dead. “Dr. Benjamin Young, a retired ex-employee of Freedom Corp., and Dr. Colin Wright, Whales’s supervising psychiatrist.”
“Damn,” Paul remarked in a hushed and largely unenthusiastic voice.
His lack of interest surprised me less than his voice control. When I turned, he pointed at a new door in the corner. Before following, I limped towards the window and looked outside. The BMW was still mostly there, but parts of the wall and the whole guardhouse were missing. Four police cars, two fire trucks and an ambulance were parked in a semi-circle on the outer side of the black smoking crater. Behind them, on the road (neither yellow nor brick) several more of each kind were approaching and leaving. Various emergency response people talked in groups beyond the screen of their vehicles. None of them had entered the compound. I wondered if any of them had the chance to see the news. Then it occurred to me that there were no news vans out there, despite the footage on the national TV, but that thought was pushed back by a more pressing one.
I wondered what would happen if I shot out the window and called for help. Even if they had seen the news, I was almost certain I could convince them I hadn’t gone up in flames inside that BMW. Maybe I would be rescued. Probably arrested for something minutes later. But guards in white overalls would not shoot at me any more. I would be alive. I would get some pain medicine.
I turned and walked to where Paul was waiting. Dr. Young’s persistent chanting reminded me why I was there. If all I had wanted was to stay alive, I would not be. Iris, my Iris had to be somewhere close. We needed to hurry.
Through the door, then. To see the wizard. Prepare your wishes. And your guns.
The door was unlocked. The Silver Killer entered the stage. Paul turned the knob and we were inside the adjoining room. The chanting stopped.
“Doc?” I called in a whisper.
“I said not to bother me,” an irritated, whiny voice complained. I couldn’t see the man, so I immediately assumed he was behind a curtain. But there was no curtain. The man was seated in a deep, high-backed, emerald-colored, velvet armchair with its back to the door. He got up, a glass of something dark in his hand, and turned to face us. His haircut was goofy at best. The top was combed to the left, while the hair on the sides was curled into thick muffs covering his ears. From the spot between his tiny eyes and heavy, drooping cheeks, a rather meaty proboscis pointed at my boots. He measured us both with a stare a studio exec directs at a camera man.
Then he recognized me and nearly fell over. He didn’t drop his glass, however, clutching it instead to his heart.
“You,” he breathed. And then another voice, one that almost made me fall over, cried, “Luke?”
“Iris!” I shouted and ran towards the man, gun outstretched in my hand. As he sagged to the left and whimpered, I saw her, all at once, face bruised, the red sweater torn, bound to some grotesque offspring of a marriage between Procrustean bed and a gynecological exam table. Her skirt had been lifted to reveal the black panties she’d worn to our date.
“Luke,” Paul said quietly behind me.
Forgetting the pain, I grabbed the gun with both hands and spun around to face the bastard. He was slinking slowly towards the window. Covering the distance with two steps I would later not remember taking, I pushed the muzzle of the gun into his cheek and screamed in his face.
“I didn’t do anything!” he pleaded. “I swear! Please.”
“Luke…”
“It’s true, Luke.” That was Iris now. “I’m sure he was planning it, but between the blast and now he just drank and complained.”
She sounded frightened, and awkwardly serious. After a pause I was able to bend my elbow and pull the gun back. Then I smashed his face with the handle. He cried out and fell backwards, writhing and covering his mouth. The green carpet got stained with blood, in a small puddle of which pieces of teeth appeared to swim.
Putting the gun away I hurried to release Iris. Outside, in the larger office someone was banging on the door. Paul went to see and I heard several shots. The bleeding man on the floor moaned. The banging stopped.
“We have to leave,” Paul shouted.
I helped Iris off the contraption. “He said it was you in that explosion,” she said, staring at me as I untied her.
“He wasn’t lying, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true, does it?”
Suddenly, she grinned the old Iris grin and jumped on me, covering my face with kisses. I did it! I thought. Here I was and here was Iris, both alive. I laughed, then gasped and almost fell with her on top of me, as my wounded shoulder reminded me of itself with momentary darkness. Iris noticed and jumped off.
“Luke, you’re hurt.”
I chuckled against despite the pain, but my grin disappeared quickly.
“Iris, where’s Doc?” I scanned the room. There must have been a hidden passage somewhere, a cell, a cage, something.
“They kept us in a cell downstairs before bringing me here,” she said.
“No, no, no,” I was saying. “He led me here. His… chanting led me here. I heard it all the way, then it stopped as soon as we entered this room. He must be here somewhere…”
I turned to the toothless guy.
“Where’s Dr. Young?”
“I don’t know!” he groaned. I started walking towards him. “Please! Last time I checked he was down in the dormitory. They might have moved him if he isn’t there.”
Suddenly, it dawned on me. “No. He is there. Damn it, Doc.”
We couldn’t go back for him. I knew it, and Dr. Young had known the same thing when he had begun his weird telepathic chant. The crazy doctor-priest I barely knew had led me straight to her, and with her freedom I’d accumulated a debt I couldn’t repay. We had to leave. Now.
“Luke!” Paul shouted. More shots were coming from the other side of the locked door.
Taking Iris’s hand in mine I hurried back into the TV room. Paul was pushing the armchair across the floor. He wedged it under the locked door, which was now under heavy fire. It gave in just as the elevator closed. More thuds.