"You look a lot better than the last time I saw you," Calliope said.
The woman in the bed nodded. Her expression was flat, as though someone had carefully rubbed the life out of it. "So do you. I'm surprised you're walking."
Calliope pointed to the plasteel tubes beside her chair. "On crutches. Very slowly. But the doctors can do some amazing things these days. You should know."
"I'm not going to be walking, no matter what they do."
There wasn't anything much to be said to that, but Calliope tried. "Would dying have been better?" she asked gently.
"That's an excellent question."
Calliope sighed. "I'm sorry you've had such a bad time of it, Ms. Anwin."
"It's not like I didn't deserve it," said the young woman. "I wasn't an innocent. An idiot, yes—but not an innocent."
"Nobody deserves John Dread," Calliope said firmly.
"Maybe. But he isn't going to get what he deserves, is he!"
Calliope shrugged, although the same thought had been burning in her own mind for days. "Who ever does? But I've been meaning to ask you something. What exactly were you doing with the pad after I made the emergency call? What were you trying to send?"
The American woman blinked slowly. "A dataphage." She read Calliope's expression. "Something that chews up information. It had eaten half my system a few hours earlier, so I figured it might do him some damage. I wrapped it in his own . . . files. Those horrible images. So he wouldn't know at first what it was."
"Maybe that's what put him in the coma."
"I wanted it to kill him," she said flatly. "Painfully. Anything less was a failure."
They sat for a few moments in silence, but when Calliope at last began to shift her weight, preparing to stand, the woman suddenly spoke. "I . . . I have something on my conscience." Something came into her eyes, a strange mixture of fear and hope that made Calliope uneasy. "It's been . . . bothering me for a long time. It happened in Cartagena. . . ."
Calliope held up her hand. "I'm not a priest, Ms. Anwin. And I don't want to hear anything more about this case from you. I've studied the reports and your interview with Detective Chan. I can read between the lines as well as the next person." She stilled another attempt with a glare. "I'm serious. I represent the law. Think very carefully before you say anything else. Then, if you still need to do something to . . . ease your conscience, well, you can always call the Cartagena police. But I can tell you that the jails in Colombia are not all that nice." She softened her tone. "You've been through a lot. You're going to have a lot more time to think while you heal, then you have to decide what you're going to do with the rest of your life."
"You mean because I won't be able to use my legs, don't you?" There was more than a hint of self-pity; Calliope's anger sparked.
"Yes, without your legs. But you're alive, right? You have a chance to start over. That's more than a lot of people get. That's more than Dread's other women got."
For a moment Dulcie Anwin glared at her with something like fury and Calliope braced for the harsh words, but the American woman stayed silent. After a moment her face sagged. "Yeah," she said. "You're right. Count my blessings, huh?"
"It'll be easier to do that later," Calliope told her. "Listen, good luck. I mean that. But now I've got to go."
Dulcie nodded and reached for a glass of water on the bedside table, then hesitated. "Is he really gone?" she asked. "Not coming back? Are you sure?"
"As sure as anyone can be." Calliope tried to keep her voice calmly professional. "He hasn't shown anything for a week—no change, no sign of waking. And he's guarded day and night. Even if he comes out of it, he goes right to prison."
Dulcie didn't say anything. She took the water and held it close to her mouth with trembling hands, but did not drink.
"Sorry, but I really do have to go." Calliope picked up her crutches. "Call me if I can help with anything. Your visa's been extended, by the way."
"Thanks." Dulcie finally took a drink, then put the glass down. "And thanks for . . . for everything else."
"Just doing my job," said Calliope, and made her way slowly to the door.
The guard recognized her but still made her wave her badge in front of the reader before he would allow her in. Calliope silently approved. The heavy door clunked open and she stepped through into the hallway with the big oneway windows. The guard leaned past her to make sure the door closed again behind her.
"Anything?" she asked.
"Nah. Two more doctors today. Nothing. Reflex tests, pupil dilation, you name it. If he isn't dead, it's a technicality. They might as well bury him."
The idea started a shiver of superstitious horror. I'd have to stand over the grave with silver bullets and a sharpened stake. "He's already been dead once," she told the guard. "Let's not get too cocky." She moved to the window, stared through the crosshatching of tensor-wire. The figure in the pool of light was strapped to the heavy bedframe and festooned with tubes and wires and dermal sensors, which evoked further horror-flick thoughts—the Frankenstein monster rising, crackling with electricity, snapping his restraints. Dread's eyes were open just a tiny fraction, his fingers slightly curled. She tried to fool herself that she could see a twitch of movement here or there, but except for the slow expansion and contraction of his torso, the automatic pumping systems moving breath and blood, there was nothing.
He's not coming back, she told herself. Whatever happened to him, charge, some kind of data-eater, he's somewhere else now—as good as dead, like the man said. You could come here every day for the rest of your life and nothing would change, Skouros. He's not coming back.
Oddly, this did not bring her much relief, let alone the release she was only beginning to realize she badly needed. But that means he's escaped, she thought, and did not realize how her fingers were tightening on the windowsill until she felt the stab of pain in her healing back muscles.
He's gone out the easy way. After everything he did, he just got away. He should be in hell, screaming. Instead he's probably just going to sleep out the rest of his life, then slip away quietly.
She pulled her crutches tight against her forearms again, gave a last look at the still, almost handsome face, then made her way slowly back toward the security door.
Life goes on, she told herself. Sometimes it ends this. way. The universe isn't a kid's story, where everybody gets their just desserts at the end.
She sighed and hoped Stan would have found a parking place close to the facility. Her legs hurt and she badly needed a cup of coffee.
He wanted to sleep, ached to sleep, but would not get the chance. It had been days since he had slept, maybe weeks. He couldn't remember. As it was, he had not even regained his breath, which still sawed in his throat, when he smelled the smoke.
Bushfire. They've set a bushfire to drive me out of the trees. For a moment he was so filled with rage and despair that he wanted to stand and shriek at the sky. Why wouldn't they leave him alone? Days, weeks, months—he had lost track. He had no more strength.
But he could not give up—what they would do was too terrible. He could not let his fear overcome him. He never had and he never would.
The smoke ran past him in tendrils, curling like beckoning fingers. He could hear the noises now, not just behind him but closing in on his left as well, the shrill cries whispering down the flame-hot wind. He stumbled wearily onto his feet and took a few limping steps through the tangle of undergrowth. They were driving him out of the stand of gum trees and back into the empty lands. The light was dim—it was always so dim! Where was the sun? Where was the daylight that would drive these terrible things into hiding in the earth, that would allow him to rest?