“The 12th System. The one they injected into you, Sherlock. The hub and his forty thousand little friends to supercharge the other eleven.” He puts the cool towel on my forehead. “You’re cold. You want me to find another blanket?”
“No, I’m burning up.”
“It’s a war,” he says. He taps his chest. “In here. You gotta declare a truce, Ringer.”
I shake my head. “No peace.”
He nods, squeezing my wrist beneath the thin blanket. Squats on the floor to gather the fallen chess pieces. Curses when he can’t find the quarter. Decides he can’t leave the vomit just lying there. Grabs the dirty towel he used to wipe my chin and swabs the deck on his hands and knees. He’s still cursing when the door opens and Claire comes into the room.
“Good timing!” Razor barks at her. “Hey, can’t you at least give her the anti-puke serum?”
Claire jerks her head toward the door. “Get out.” She points at the box. “And take that with you.”
Razor glowers at her, but he does it. I see again the tightly contained force behind his angelic features. Careful, Razor. That’s not the answer.
Then we’re alone, and Claire studies the monitor for a long, silent moment.
“Were you telling the truth earlier?” she asks. “You want to live so you can kill Commander Vosch? You’re smarter than that.” In the tone of a mother scolding a very young child.
“You’re right,” I answer. “I’ll never get that chance. But I’m going to have the opportunity to kill you.”
She looks startled. “Kill me? Why would you want to kill me?” When I don’t answer, she says, “I don’t think you’re going to live through the night.”
I nod. “And you’re not going to live out the month.”
She laughs. The sound of her laughter causes bile to rise into my throat. Burning. Burning.
“What are you going to do?” she says softly. She yanks the towel from my forehead. “Smother me with this?”
“No. I’m going to overcome the guard by smashing his head in with a heavy object, and then I’m going to take his gun and shoot you in the face.”
She laughs through the whole thing. “Well, good luck with that.”
“It won’t be luck.”
CLAIRE TURNS OUT to be wrong about me being dead by morning.
Nearly a month later, by my reckoning of three meals per day, and I’m still here.
I don’t remember much. At some point they disconnected me from the IV and the monitor, and the silence that slammed down after the constant beeping was loud enough to crack mountains. The only person I saw during that time was Razor. He’s my full-time caretaker now. Feeds me, empties my bedpan, washes my face and hands, turns me so I don’t develop bedsores, plays chaseball in the hours when I’m not delirious, and talks nonstop. He talks about everything, which is another way of saying he talks about nothing. His dead family, his dead friends, his squad mates, the drudgery of winter camp, the fights borne of boredom and fatigue and fear (but mostly fear), the rumors that when spring comes the Teds are launching a major offensive, a last-ditch effort to purge the world of the human noise, of which Razor is very much an active part. He talks and talks and talks. He had a girlfriend, her name was Olivia and her skin was dark like a muddy river and she played clarinet in the school band and was going to be a doctor and hated Razor’s dad because he didn’t think Razor could be a doctor. He lets it slip that his given name is Alex like A-Rod and his drill sergeant named him Razor not because he was slender but because he cut himself shaving one morning. I have very sensitive skin. His sentences are without periods, without commas, without paragraphs, or, to be accurate, it’s all one long paragraph with no margins.
He shuts up just one time after nearly a month of the verbal diarrhea. He’s going on about how he won first place in the fifth-grade science fair with his project about how to turn a potato into a battery when he stops in midsentence. His silence is jarring, like the stillness after a building implodes.
“What is that?” he asks, staring intently into my face, and nobody stares more intently than Razor, not even Vosch.
“Nothing.” I turn my head away from him.
“Are you crying, Ringer?”
“My eyes are watering.”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me no, Razor. I don’t cry.”
“Bullshit.” A tap on the blanket.
Tap-tap on the railing. “Did it work?” I ask, turning back to him. What does it matter if he sees me cry? “The potato battery.”
“Sure it worked. It’s science. Never a doubt about it working. You plan it all out, follow the steps, and it can’t go wrong.” Squeezing my hand through the blanket: Don’t be scared. Everything’s set. I won’t let you down.
It’s too late to go back now anyway: His eyes wander to the food tray beside the bed. “You ate all the pudding tonight. You know how they make chocolate pudding without chocolate? You don’t want to know.”
“Let me guess. Ex-Lax.”
“What’s Ex-Lax?”
“Seriously? You don’t know?”
“Oh, so sorry I don’t know what Ex-Lax-who-gives-a-shit is.”
“It’s a chocolate-flavored laxative.”
He makes a face. “That’s sick.”
“That’s the point.”
He grins. “The point? Oh God, did you just make a joke?”
“How would I know? Just promise me nobody slipped Ex-Lax into my pudding.”
“Promise.” Tap.
I last for a few hours after he leaves, long after lights-out in every other part of the camp, deep into the belly of the winter night, before the pressure becomes unbearable, and then, when I can’t take it anymore, I start shouting for help, waving at the camera and then rolling over to press my chest against the cold metal railings, pounding my fist into the pillow in frustration and fury, until the door bursts open and Claire charges in, followed closely by a big bear of a recruit, whose hand immediately flies to cover his nose.
“What happened?” Claire says, though the smell should tell her all she needs to know.
“Oh, crap!” the recruit burbles behind his hand.
“Exactly,” I gasp.
“Great. Just great,” Claire says, throwing the blanket and sheet onto the floor and motioning for the recruit to help her. “Fine job, missy. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“Not yet,” I whimper.
“What are you doing?” Claire shouts at the recruit. Gone is the soft voice. Vanished are the kind eyes. “Help me with this.”
“Help you with what, ma’am?” He has a flattened nose and very small eyes and a forehead that bulges in the middle. His belly hangs over his belt and his pants are an inch too short. He’s huge; he’s got about a hundred pounds or more on me.
It won’t matter.
“Get up,” Claire snaps at me. “Come on. Get your legs under you.” She takes one arm and Jumbo Recruit takes the other and together they haul me out of the bed. Big Recruit’s smushed-in face is twisted with revulsion.
“Ah, God. It’s everywhere!” he softly wails.
“I don’t think I can walk,” I tell Claire.
“Then I’ll make you crawl,” she snarls. “I should just leave you like this. It’s so perfectly metaphorical.”
They haul me two doors down and into the shower room. Big Recruit is coughing and gagging and Claire is bitching and I’m apologizing while she strips off the jumpsuit and throws it at Jumbo Recruit, telling him to wait outside. “Don’t lean on me. Lean on the wall,” she orders harshly. My knees are buckling. I hang on to the shower curtain to keep upright; I haven’t used my legs in a month.