The Albuquerque transit system took long, agonizing hours to get me to University Hospital—or it sure felt that way. My desperation to reach Zander and Abe, juxtaposed against the tedious bus schedule, served to harden my craving—no, my need—for my own vehicle.
Hurry up, Javier!
His name reminded me to make a cash deposit before the end of the day. I’d already made several deposits since the nanomites opened my account—but none approaching $10,000. From what I’d read on the IRS website, the feds had tightened money laundering laws: Any cash deposit of more than $10,000 had to be reported on Form 8300. I guess I was already breaking some laws by not reporting my theft of the gang’s drug money as income, but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
I hopped off the bus, made my way to the entrance to the hospital, and stared at the four sets of double doors. University of New Mexico Hospital and Medical Center is a huge, sprawling maze embedded in the north end of the UNM campus—and I didn’t know how to navigate said maze.
I entered the lobby and studied a listing of the hospital’s many departments. Zander was in the older, main part of the hospital, apparently, just a few flights up. No problem. Abe, however, was in the MICU, the Medical Intensive Care Unit, “Pavilion,” second floor. I wanted to see Abe first, but I didn’t know what or where “Pavilion” was. The helpful woman at the helpful Help desk was not going to be very helpful for me.
Sigh.
I turned in a full circle, sighed again, and breathed, “Nano. Where is this Pavilion wing?”
Would they answer? I’d cut them off earlier. Ignored their confab request. Run roughshod over them.
Turn left.
Was it my imagination, or were those two words stiff? Terse?
“Right.”
Not right, Gemma Keyes. Turn left.
“Um, yes. Turn left, not right.”
I headed down a breezeway of sorts, wandered past the Children’s Hospital and stopped when I came upon a coffee shop/cafeteria. I looked around for signage but didn’t see anything for “Pavilion.”
“Where in the world am I?”
Continue ahead.
“Okay. Thank you.”
I kept walking, left those buildings, and entered the lobby of another complex. At last I saw signs for the Pavilion next to a bank of elevators. I stepped inside an elevator car and pressed the button for the second floor.
The elevators emptied into a waiting area on the second floor. Signs pointed off to the left for the Trauma/Surgical & Burn Unit. Signs pointed right for the Medical ICU. Weary and anxious families occupied long rows of chairs.
I swallowed. This floor cared for a lot of hurting people and held a lot of anxious loved ones.
I traversed the waiting area, swung down a short hall, made a quick right, and came up against the doors to the MICU. The unit was closed off to the curious or unauthorized visitor; even the narrow windows in the double doors were papered over so no one could see inside. I noted the keycard reader and the phone mounted on the wall beside the doors. Employees had keycards to gain entrance; visitors used the phone to request access.
Ordinarily, I might have waited for the doors to open when someone came out or went in, but I was distraught and I was charged with a fierce rage—rage toward Mateo and toward myself. The anger made me reckless: At that moment, I did not care about taking precautions.
Yeah, so I took a break, walked away, hoping to get my impulsiveness under control. Maybe I was giving myself a chance to prepare for what I feared I would see within the unit.
That break didn’t last long.
I made one circuit through the waiting area, swung back around and, as I approached the MICU doors, I lifted my hand toward the keycard reader. The mites shot from my fingers and the doors swung wide. I breezed through without breaking stride.
A gatekeeper sat at a desk on the left. She looked up as the doors opened and closed; I paused to get the lay of the land but paid her confusion no mind.
An open, airy hall ran straight ahead. Glass-fronted patient rooms lined both sides of the hallway. I shuffled forward, searching for Abe. I avoided the nurses and doctors who went about their duties with quiet efficiency—but at every glance through the glass wall of another room, my heart clenched.
Halfway down the corridor, I came upon a nursing station that rivaled the bridge of the USS Enterprise. A single nurse seated in front of a bank of closed-circuit TV monitors could observe patients and supervise their vitals.
My stomach twisted: Abe was in one of these critical care beds. I wasn’t mentally prepared to see him yet, to take in the damage Mateo and his crew had inflicted on him—to see his wounds when I knew that I was responsible for him being here, for the pain he was suffering.
Possibly responsible for his death.
If I hadn’t asked him to take Emilio in . . .
I drew near the station’s computers, scrunched my eyes shut, and found myself in the warehouse. “Nano. Access Abe’s medical records, please.”
They did not answer, but within seconds, I saw Abe’s file.
It wasn’t good.
I threaded my way toward Abe’s room farther down the unit. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into Abe’s room. Managed to make my eyes fix on the still figure in the bed.
I knew it was Abe, but when I reached his side, I hesitated. His body was surrounded by and attached to way too many machines and tubes: needles and ports on the back of his hand connected to an IV tree hung with multiple bags, heart monitor, breathing tube, ventilation machine. Lots of beeps and blinking lights. Stitches and bandages and oozing gauze; bruises and swelling.
His body seemed to have sunk into the bed. His lovely brown skin was dull and sallow. Ugly, greyish, and wrong. His heart rate, shown on the heart monitor above the bed, was slow. Ponderous. Laborious.
I found his rough old hand and cupped his fingers in mine. “Abe? Abe, it’s Gemma. Can you hear me?”
He did not stir, and a hopeless ache settled in my heart. I couldn’t stand it; I started to gulp and gasp.
Gemma Keyes. We sense distress.
“I . . . yes. I suppose I am distressed. I am . . . so sad.”
I sobbed the last two words. Choked on them.
The mites said nothing further but, given my treatment of them earlier and our few and frosty exchanges since, I was surprised that they had spoken at all.
I put the mites out of my mind and just held Abe’s hand. I heard the slow, very slow beep of the heart monitor with rising dread and observed how cool his hand was in mine. Unnaturally cool.
Perhaps my surprise at the nanomites’ words had jogged a memory. Something began to niggle at the back of my mind, something about the first day I had entered the tunnels.
I blinked and tried to recall exactly what it was . . . something while Dr. Bickel was bragging to me about the good things the nanomites would someday accomplish. His words came to me in fits and starts, and I pieced those bits together.
“Do you know how much suffering the nanomites could alleviate? How many diseases they could cure? All cancers could be overcome, quickly removed from a body by the mites’ coordinated attack. Injuries and birth defects could be repaired without overtly invasive surgeries.
“Can you imagine the insect infestations that could be corrected, rebalanced without the use of harmful chemicals? Can you fathom the effect of the nanomites on food production worldwide? Starvation would become a thing of the past! The nanomites could predict weather patterns and facilitate rescue attempts under collapsed buildings! The list of good they could do is endless, Gemma.”
I went back to what he’d said first. Suffering alleviated? Injuries repaired?
I stood there for a long while before whispering, “Nano. You told me that you aided my body after the, um, merge, that you helped it to heal. Can you . . . will you send part of, um, part of us into Abe and work on him? Aid his body to heal?”
They did not answer.
Except for their terse, monosyllabic directions to the MICU and their recent observation regarding my “distress,” the mites had not spoken to me—in hours. In the time it had taken me to reach the hospital and find Abe, they had not spoken. From the moment I had ignored their request for a recommendation, they had been silent. They had been mute since I had made my own precipitous decision without their input or consensus—the consensus of the other five tribes.
I didn’t know if they understood my grief and worry, but I was certain that they were put out . . . because I’d broken with their protocol—with deliberate intention. Perhaps the mites were, at this exact minute, in a confab, expressing regret over their decision to include my “tribe” in their collective.
I blew out a breath. “Nano? Did you, um, did you hear me?”
Gemma Keyes, since this situation causes you physical distress, we will assess this man’s injuries.
As the familiar warmth spread from my fingers to Abe’s hand, I broke.
“Th-thank you. I-I’m sorry about before. Not waiting to, um, discuss my choices with you before acting. I responded in haste because I was so worried about my friends.”
Nothing.
I winced inside. Not so big on acknowledging apologies? Or are you too preoccupied with Abe’s injuries to respond?
For thirty minutes, I waited and watched over my battered friend before the nanomites spoke again.
Gemma Keyes. We have cauterized bleeding vessels in this man’s brain and drained excess fluid to reduce intracranial pressure. We have knit many wounds together and stimulated cell regeneration around said wounds. We have removed necrotizing tissue.
“Will he be all right?”
Silence.
I glanced at Abe’s heart monitor. Did I imagine it, or had his heart rate come up a little? Would the nanomites’ repairs save him? Could they?
I hoped so, but I had a perverse inclination to pray for Abe just then.
Perverse? Yes. Perverse. Every time I thought I’d arrived at a place in my life where I could, at long last, wash my hands of God, some unexpected and out-of-my-control crisis sprang up—something I had no solution for. So, yeah, I had this perverse inclination to pray, because I could not, just could not let Abe die if a single instance of self-abasement might prevent it!
I stood there, unable to speak—because my prayers were plenty rusty from disuse. My obstinate distrust of God probably didn’t help, either.
After a long internal struggle, I shrugged one shoulder. Basically, I’d do whatever it took to save Abe.
Even talk to God.
“Um, Lord, can you—that is, would you—look down on, um, your servant Abraham Pickering? He loves you, Lord, even if I, um, don’t . . . exactly. Would you please help his body to heal? I-I still need him. And Emilio needs him. For Emilio’s sake, please don’t take him just yet?”
I fumbled to add something more eloquent or to revise what I’d already said and make it more appealing. I just ended up repeating myself.
“Emilio really needs Abe, God. Please don’t let him down.”
With tears dripping from my face, I got out of Abe’s room, out of the MICU, and strode toward the elevator. I focused on crossing the medical campus to the main hospital and finding Zander.
***
Ross Gamble stood over Zander Cruz’s hospital bed and assessed the patient’s condition. At the moment, the young man resembled a side of beef that had been bulldozed by a truck.
Maybe a convoy of trucks.
Cruz’s face was swollen, his eyes swallowed in puffy, purple, dark blue, and violet folds. A long split over a canine tooth distorted one side of his mouth. The inch-long split was stitched closed. It, too, was swollen and purple. Grotesque. A cast surrounded Cruz’s right arm; the arm was immobilized within a sling strapped to the poor guy’s bare chest—a chest that sported a mass of bruises.
Gamble grimaced. A baseball bat will do that. Guess he’s gonna make it if they have him on this floor instead of in the ICU. Wonder if he will be able to answer questions.
“Reverend Cruz?”
One of Zander’s puffy eyes opened a slit. “Yesh.” The single syllable was thick and sticky sounding.
“Reverend Cruz, I’m Special Agent Ross Gamble of the FBI. May I get you some water?”
The man’s eyelid dropped, but his head moved up and down the smallest bit.
Gamble filled a cup with slushy water from a pitcher, held the straw to Cruz’s mouth, and helped him get it between his lips. After a few sips, Cruz groaned, and Gamble pulled the cup away.
“More?”
Cruz managed to shake his head ‘no.’
“Thanksh,” he muttered.
Gamble sensed someone behind him, looked, saw nothing, turned back.
“How are you feeling?”
“Been . . . better.”
“What do the doctors say? You gonna be all right?”
“Yeah. Be . . . a minute.”
The guy has pluck, I’ll give him that, Gamble thought, the hint of a smile tugging on his mouth.
“You feel up to answering a few questions?”
Cruz’s eyes opened again, and he studied Gamble.
Is that fear? Alarm? Gamble wondered. He found fear to be a curious response—he expected resentment, and he often encountered distrust. But fear? For whom? Wasn’t he the victim here?
“Reverend Cruz, I understand that you and Abe Pickering are friends and that you and he were trying to help this boy, Emilio Martinez, out of an abusive situation. Is that right?”
***
I stood in the doorway of Zander’s room. The other bed in the room was empty, but some guy I didn’t know was standing next to Zander’s bed, talking to him.
The guy’s bearing made me wary—was he one of Cushing’s agents? He looked like he’d played tight end on his college ball team: tall, muscled up, but not so much that his suit bulged. He held himself with a relaxed military bearing, too. I recognized the type; I’d worked with ex-military at Sandia.
I was pretty tense until I heard the guy say, “Reverend Cruz, I’m Special Agent Ross Gamble of the FBI. May I get you some water?”
I went from tense to confused and curious. FBI? Why would the FBI want to talk to Zander? The FBI was only one or two rungs above Cushing in my estimation but, as far as I knew, the agency had no knowledge of the nanomites—or me. Conversely, if they did know and were looking for me, my situation was bunches worse than I’d thought.
I watched the FBI man give Zander a drink. He was solicitous, maybe even concerned; his manner seemed genuine enough. I relaxed a hair more and tiptoed around him to the other side of Zander’s bed. Gamble flicked his eyes at me as I passed by. He scanned around the room before he turned his attention back to Zander.
I leaned against the wall near the foot of Zander’s bed. After the shock of Abe’s injuries, I knew I couldn’t stomach seeing how badly Mateo’s gang had beaten Zander.
I averted my eyes and listened in.
“Reverend Cruz, I understand that you and Mr. Pickering were attacked by Mateo Martinez and three members of his gang. Since then, Martinez has gone to ground. I’m interested in finding him. Do you have any idea where he might be hiding out?”
Zander didn’t answer right away, and I chanced a glimpse at him.
Oh, Zander! What have they done to you?
I almost did not recognize him for the swelling and bruises. As much as it pained me to see him like this, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Gamble repeated his question. “Reverend Cruz? Do you have any idea where Martinez might be hiding out?”
Zander licked his swollen lips and mumbled what I was wondering. “Why?”
“Why are we looking for Martinez?”
“Yesh.” He groaned a little and wet the horrid split in his lip again.
I commiserated with Zander in silence. Oh, ouch!
Gamble pursed his mouth and parsed his words—reactivating my suspicions.
“One of Martinez’s, uh, associates is a person of interest in an ongoing investigation. We figure if we find Martinez, we may find the man we’re looking for.”
And who might that be? Dead Eyes? My interest returned; I leaned toward Gamble.
“No . . . idea,” Zander managed.
“Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about Martinez? About any visitors he had?”
“Don’ live . . . there. Jusht vishit . . . Abe.”
Zander’s voice petered out and his eyelids drooped. It was easy to see that he was exhausted and in pain.
“Am I tiring you out, Pastor Cruz?”
Zander attempted a negative shake of his head, but neither Agent Gamble nor I were fooled: Zander was a mess. A painful, swollen mess.
Well, since I wasn’t ready for Gamble to stop asking questions, I gently, so very gently, placed my hand on Zander’s foot. And squeezed. Just a tiny bit.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Zander grunted; his eyes popped open—well, one of them did—and zoomed in on the mound of blanket covering his foot, on the impression my fingers made as I pressed and released, the movement that, in mere seconds, the mites hid.
I whispered to the mites. They raced into Zander’s body, but I kept my hand on Zander’s foot. I squeezed again.
A brave smile tipped up one corner of his mouth—the corner not split and stitched.
He knows I’m here.
I grinned back, but Gamble stared at Zander, a smidge troubled.
Zander exhaled with a sigh. He had to be feeling the mites’ warmth flowing from me into his body, seeking out damaged tissue, screaming pain receptors, and broken bone, going after harmful bacteria, prompting his body to release endorphins and serotonin and whatever else they could manipulate to ease his discomfort.
I closed my eyes. From the warehouse, I could sense their activities. I monitored their progress and nodded my approval as they mended torn skin, muscle, and ligament and knit shattered bone.
Oh, won’t your doctor be amazed, Zander? I clamped one hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t giggle aloud.
Zander sighed again and relaxed. The neuropeptides were kicking in.
Gamble’s expression went from troubled to puzzled. “You okay, Cruz? Should I call a nurse?”
“No, I feel . . . fine. Thanks, though.”
Zander sounded a lot better to my ears: More words, less slurring.
Gamble’s eyes narrowed. “You mind if we keep going, then?”
“No . . . problem.” That sticky, painful lisp wasn’t as pronounced.
“I appreciate your cooperation, Reverend. So, just to round things out, to get a sense of what led up to the attack on you and Mr. Pickering, I also wanted to ask if you were present about eleven or twelve days ago when some sort of raid took place in the cul-de-sac.”
It was neatly done, that abrupt change of topic on Gamble’s part.
Zander’s eyes drifted up to Gamble’s face. “Raid?”
I was proud of Zander’s ploy, but Gamble wasn’t buying it.
“Mrs. Calderón and Mr. and Mrs. Tucker told me all about it. Said you were there, too, with Mr. Pickering, that the agents from the raid questioned everyone present, including you.”
“Oh. That raid.”
I grinned. Even Gamble grinned—a hardened, cynical grin, but amused, nonetheless.
“Yeah. That raid. What was that all about?”
Zander cleared his throat. He made it sound like broken glass scraping over asphalt.
Ack.
“More water, please?” Zander asked.
Gamble grunted. “Sure thing, Reverend. I want you to have all the time you need to frame your answers.”
I stifled a laugh. Despite the fact that I distrusted feds, I kinda admired this guy’s attitude.
Zander got his drink, and Gamble said, “Those people said they were looking for the woman who lives across the street. Do you know her name, the woman they were looking for?”
Careful, Zander.
“Yeah. Gemma Keyes. She used to go to my church when she was a kid. Same church Abe goes to, but before my time. Abe asked me to introduce myself and invite her back.”
I knew Zander well enough and had heard him spout the same line to my psycho sister and to Cushing’s people. He was distancing himself from me—and doing a good job.
“So, you don’t know her well?”
“No. Only interacted with her three or four times.”
Gamble raised his brows. “Mrs. Calderón has a different view of your relationship with Miss Keyes. Says she’s your girlfriend.”
“No, she’s not. We’re acquaintances. Nothing more.” Zander tried to shift his position and winced. “I should caution you, Agent Gamble; Mrs. Calderón has something of a reputation as the community busybody.”
Gamble said nothing, just studied Zander. “Can you describe the scene that night? The night of the raid? What happened, who was there, what vehicles were used?”
Zander took care not to open his mouth too far and pull on the stitches, but he managed a detailed account. “Well . . . I was in Abe’s house when it started. It was after dark. Bunch of military-type trucks—maybe five or six?—rolled into the cul-de-sac. They were very quiet until two trucks with stadium lights mounted on them lit up the place. The lights and commotion drew us out of the house. We—Abe and I—watched from Abe’s front porch, just like the Tuckers, Mrs. Calderón, and Martinez did from their porches.”
“Mateo Martinez was home that evening?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“Guys dressed in black broke into . . . Miss Keyes’ house. They had guns. Not handguns, but semi-auto assault rifles.”
“You know guns?” Gamble seemed ready to pounce.
“I wasn’t always a pastor, Agent Gamble.”
“Oh?” Gamble jotted a note. “What then?”
“Well, they didn’t find Miss Keyes, but they bagged up a bunch of her stuff and hauled it out. Then Cushing had the agents interview everyone.”
Uh-oh.
Gamble caught it, too. “Cushing?”
Zander realized his mistake, but he kept himself together. “A woman, a General Cushing, followed the trucks into the cul-de-sac. She seemed to be running the show—issuing orders and stuff. The soldiers and agents practically got on their knees and kissed her feet when she arrived. In my line of work, we know people—and those agents were wary of her. Too careful.”
“How do you know her name, this General Cushing?”
“I asked the agent who interviewed us.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Zander did a credible “perplexed.”
Gamble wasn’t buying that either. He pressed harder. “Why did you ask for Cushing’s name?”
“Well, because she makes an impression, you know?”
“No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?”
As much as he was able, Zander snorted. “Because, even from across the street, this lady came across as hard. Cold. Ruthless, maybe. Like I said, her people were afraid of her. And besides, we had no idea why the army would send a SWAT team out against a lone woman, who, as I understand from Abe, is afraid of her own shadow.” Zander laid back, winded.
That mouthful contained several disparate items—including one that struck a nerve in me.
Afraid of my own shadow? Me? Well, maybe. Maybe that’s how I was. Before.
After the nanomites had invaded me, I’d been paralyzed by my fears, and I had focused on getting rid of them. But then, as my efforts ran out of steam and the mites’ infestation began to feel permanent and hopeless, a careless, reckless rage had taken hold of me. That anger had burned in my belly until I dared to do crazy things, until I started to take risks and use the nanomites to carry out daring, perhaps audacious, plans.
Then it dawned on me. I’m not that old Gemma anymore. The mites have changed me. Inside. They have forced me to stand up and fight for my survival, for my right to live.
No. I’m not afraid of my own shadow anymore.
I watched Gamble digest what Zander had told him and formulate his next question.
“So, they were Army?”
Zander shrugged and flinched. “Sorry. Cracked collarbone. Why they have me trussed up like this.”
He tried again to shift to a more comfortable position. “Army was a figure of speech. I don’t know military well enough to distinguish between the different branches, so I can’t say what they were. Their uniforms were all black, and I don’t remember seeing any identifying insignias. I never saw a warrant, either. They gave no notice when they stormed Gem—Miss Keyes’—house. Just broke down the doors.”
“And you have no idea why they were looking for Miss Keyes?”
“No idea,” Zander repeated.
Ha! You just told a lie, Reverend Cruz, I chortled.
Gamble was, I’m pretty sure, thinking the same thing. He chuckled under his breath and slid a card from his jacket, put it on the rolling table near the bed. “Know what? I like you, Reverend. You’re all right. Here’s my card. I’ll bet if you sit on it a while, you can come up with something.”
Just a dash of sarcasm and emphasis on “something.”
“Got it. If I remember something that will help you catch Martinez, I’ll call,” Zander answered.
Just a hint of sarcasm. Emphasis on “catch Martinez.”
Gamble grunted. “Well, thanks for letting me talk to you.” He studied Zander and shook his head. “You sure took a beating, Cruz. I don’t envy you the next few weeks while you recuperate. Can I get you anything before I go? More water?”
I reexamined Ross Gamble, liking him better for his human side.
“No, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Right. Well, take care.”
Gamble nodded and strode out of the room, his long legs making him fast, even at a walk. I followed him all the way to the elevator to see if he’d jump on his cell phone and report to a fellow FBI crony or, perhaps, a person higher up.
Higher up—like maybe Cushing herself? I wouldn’t have put it past her.
But Gamble, his brows bunched together, head bent, deep in his own thoughts, never pulled a phone from his pocket. When the elevator dinged, he shuffled into the car and pressed a button—still in his own thoughts, not once looking up.
When I got back to Zander’s room, he appeared distressed and whipped at the same time. I reached over and squeezed his foot again.
“Gemma?” He tried to sit up. “Gemma!”
“Don’t!” I urged him. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Where did you go? I called your name, but you didn’t answer.” He fumbled around with his good arm, trying to find me.
I grabbed his hand. He gripped it so hard, I feared for my own bones. He pulled me closer to the bed. I scooted a chair up to the rail and sat.
“Hey, loosen up a little, okay? You’re crushing my fingers.”
“Not a chance. I don’t want you walking out on me again.”
My smile had to have been a yard wide. “I promise not to leave without notice.”
Now that I was only inches away, I took a closer inventory of Zander’s injuries. He had so many bruises, that even his bruises had bruises.
“When you squeezed my foot, I about jumped out of this bed, Gemma.”
“I saw, but you hid it well. Did you feel the mites come over to you?”
“Yeah, I did. What were they doing?”
“Mending things. Giving you a dose of endorphins.”
“I do feel better.”
“Um, I’m glad. And, uh, is the phone I gave you in a safe place?”
“Yeah, I think so. I took it home and taped it under my dresser.”
We ran out of steam just like that. I fumbled around for a couple of seconds before adding, “I visited Abe. The mites did some work in him, too.”
Zander’s face creased with apprehension. “I heard that he’s not doing well, Gemma.”
I nodded, tears puddling up in my eyes. “I know. I saw him. But . . . I prayed for him and . . . well, I hope what the mites did will help him pull through.”
“Wait. You prayed?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, it seemed like a good idea. At the time.”
“Acknowledging God is a step in the right direction, and I’m really glad, but . . .” The “but” hung between us for a while before Zander finished his thought.
“Gemma . . . I want you to know that I’ve been praying for you. A lot. And I think the reason you thought to pray for Abe? I believe the Lord is calling you, calling you back to him. The thing about God is that he is persistent. In fact, his persistence is why some have called him the ‘Hound of Heaven.’ He is tireless and will confront you when you least expect it. At that time, he will bring you face to face with truth. When he does, well, it will be the moment of decision for you.”
I was astounded and without words to answer him. Shivers ran down my arms, and I kept hearing, “He will confront you when you least expect it,” and wondered what that meant.
After a long, charged pause, Zander switched subjects. “Tell me what you’ve been up to, Gemma.”
Wow. Loaded request—but I was more than happy for the turn in the conversation. I exhaled before diving in.
“Been up to? Bunches. And lots of changes, too.”
“Tell me?”
Right then I realized that I wanted to tell him everything, that I craved someone other than the nanomites for company, for friendship, for confidences. I broke it down for him—just about everything that had happened since I’d last seen him. I told him everything except my new name and the location of Dr. Bickel’s safe house.
He listened with amazed interest as I explained how the nanomites had unlocked doors, hacked into any computer system I asked them to, and had helped me acquire a new identity.
“Incredible!”
“I know! It’s really cool.”
I went on to tell him about the mites speaking in my ear—and on the way, I maybe, in my excitement, got ahead of myself. Like, I kind of overlapped the telling of how they first talked to me with telling him about the merge—and that might have been a mistake.
“You see, it was really late that night, and I was frustrated about a lot of things—mostly at how tedious and time consuming it was for me to get anything done. I knew the nanomites could do so much more if I could just figure out how to use them better. So, I told the nanomites that I wanted to improve our communication and cooperation. Asked them if there wasn’t a way for us to interact and work together in a more efficient way. Then I went to bed.”
With a wry chuckle, I added, “Apparently, the mites heard me.”
I filled him in on what they had done in response to my request. Told him about how I woke up to a headache, nose bleeds, and pain, about sleeping around the clock until my body had adjusted. Then I was able to tell him how the nanomites could “speak” in my ear, right?
“The mites now vibrate in my ear canal to mimic human speech. And somewhere and somehow, they say I’m merged with them and that they . . . they have sort of adopted me.”
As I’d described the merge, his expression had turned from disbelief to alarm . . . to something else.
I recognized my mistake about then and tried to lighten my tone. “They even made me an honorary tribal member—you know, one of the tribes Dr. Bickel described? Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omega Tribe? And now, Gemma Tribe. Ha-ha, right?”
“You’re joking, aren’t you?”
I shook my head.
Oh, yeah. You can’t see that.
“No, I’m not joking. Not a bit.”
“But what does ‘merge’ mean? What has it done to you?”
“I’m not sure about it all yet. I only woke up from the adjustment this morning.”
Was it just this morning?
I rushed to go on, to push him past the shock. “But one really cool part happened when I read the news online about you and Abe and we—the nanomites and I—started looking for you guys.”
I told him about the “warehouse,” about searching and sorting data to find which hospital he and Abe were in. Myself, I was over the freaked-out part now, and I was starting to revel in it, to think of the possibilities and vistas it opened to me.
Not Zander.
“You go to this, what? This warehouse place in your head where you, um, search and filter information from the Internet? Information that just comes to you by itself?”
“I don’t know what else to call it. When I close my eyes, I’m in this big, cavernous place where the nanomites and I can interact, so I slapped the word ‘warehouse’ on it. And, no, the information doesn’t come by itself; the nanomites feed it to me. They stream the data to me at incredible speeds—and I can see, sort, and understand the info just as fast as it comes to me—which is astonishing, don’t you think? I don’t know how or why yet; still, it is really amazing.”
Zander said nothing more, but a wealth of emotions flitted across his banged-up, beat-up, swollen face, until he said, “But, Gemma, what in heaven’s name does that mean?” his voice rose in pitch with each word, rose until it was at least an octave higher, “And how can that not hurt you? None of this is normal or right!”
“Hey, calm down, cowboy,” I teased. Zander’s concern was spinning him up, and I didn’t think that would be good for him.
Teasing was probably not the best approach to employ on a young Hispanic male.
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he shouted, sitting up. He groaned and clutched at his bruised ribs, but he stayed upright anyway. “Those things are in your brain? Making you bleed? Making you part of their ‘collective’? Gemma Tribe?
“And don’t tell me to calm down!”
“Pastor Cruz? Is everything all right? Who are you talking to?”
Saved by the nurse. I shot out of the chair and tried to move out of her way, but I was penned in. I scrunched up between the IV tree and the wall.
Zander waved the nurse to the other side of the bed. “Come over on this side, please. The, uh, gentleman who visited me earlier stood where you are and gave me, um, a crick in this side of my neck.”
The nurse walked around the bed and peered at Zander, picked up his hand and felt his pulse. “You act like you feel better, but who were you talking to?”
“Yeah, I was, um, just indulging in a little rant. The guy who was in here earlier was asking me a bunch of questions that I don’t have the answers to. Got me riled up. You heard me blowing off some steam.”
By then I’d gotten to the end of the room close to the bathroom, out of the way.
“Well, all right, then. Are you feeling hungry?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I can chew much.”
“Think you could manage a protein shake?”
“Through a straw? Yeah. Sounds good.”
The nurse left, and I returned to Zander and positioned myself on the same side of the bed the nurse had been.
“Gemma?”
“I’m here.”
Zander grabbed my hand again and didn’t waste any time returning to our conversation. “I’m worried about what the nanomites are doing to you, Gemma. The ‘talking’ to you by making vibrations in your ear I guess I can understand, but how in the world can they make you see things at their level? How is that possible? And how can it not be harmful for you?”
He ended with, “I don’t like it, Gemma. I don’t like it at all.”
I gave his concerns some consideration before I answered. “I don’t have answers for you, Zander. It is so new that I haven’t had much time to think about it myself. However, now that my body has adjusted to the merge, I feel good. In fact, I feel more energetic. I don’t know how it will work out long term, but for now, I don’t know what I could do differently. I can only accept what the nanomites have done and employ the, um, abilities they are giving me through the merge.”
I switched tracks. “I’m hoping Dr. Bickel can tell me exactly what the mites have done. And, eventually, I hope he can get them out of me so I can have my life back.”
“Dr. Bickel?” Zander’s voice ratcheted up that scale again. “What in the world are you talking about? Dr. Bickel is dead, Gemma!”
I slapped my free hand against my forehead: Zander didn’t know about Dr. Bickel’s garbled email.
“Oh, wow. I guess I forgot to tell you. The night of Cushing’s raid on my house, after I left Abe’s? I went back to my house and slept for a while—I was still pooped from the mites draining me earlier that day. When I woke up, I opened my laptop to download the file of my journal and trash the hard drive. But before I could do that, I found an email waiting for me. From Dr. Bickel.”
Zander looked as stunned as I had felt when I’d seen the words “Position Description” in the subject line of an email I’d deleted in a folder I’d emptied.
“Turns out Dr. Bickel didn’t die when Cushing raided his lab. She captured him and is keeping him a prisoner somewhere. The whole world already believes he’s dead, so she’s getting away with it. He doesn’t know where she is keeping him, only that it is a ‘military installation’ of some kind. The nanomites are looking for him. So far they haven’t found anything, but they are searching.”
Zander’s mouth flattened into a stern line. “And then what?”
“Then what? I don’t know yet. What do you mean?”
“I mean, you aren’t thinking of trying to spring him, are you? You know you aren’t capable of ‘invading’ a U.S. military prison, don’t you, Gemma? Even if you managed to sneak in to such a place because no one can see you, you couldn’t possibly get Dr. Bickel out. You know that, right? What if it’s a trap? What if Cushing sent that email just to lure you? Do you know what she would do to you if she caught you?”
Zander’s voice had risen once more, and each question he asked was less a question and more a demand than the previous one. He was getting himself spun up, and I didn’t like it or think it healthy in his condition.
I closed my eyes. Nano. Calm him, please. Um, in fact, if you can, just knock him out.
I held his hand a little tighter and stroked his arm as the mites swarmed out of me and into him. “Zander. Please calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to—hey, what are you doing? Stop it!” But Zander’s words were already growing sluggish.
“Listen to me, Zander. I will be all right. I promise not to do anything precipitous. Just . . . don’t worry, okay?”
“How can I not worry . . . Gemma? How . . . can . . . I . . .”
“You say you trust God, Zander? If you do, then please pray for me.”
I didn’t know where that had come from, but since he claimed to ‘know’ God, it wouldn’t hurt to have the extra help, would it?
Put your money where your mouth is, Pastor Cruz.
“Gemmmm . . .” he was fading. The nanomites were putting him under.
I should remember this trick.
I leaned over and placed a kiss on his forehead. Not a romantic kiss, just a kiss.
Because I care about you, Zander. Because I can’t stand to see you hurting like this.
Because you are one of only two people in the world I know I can trust.
“I’m going now, Zander, but I’ll be back. You rest now, okay?”
When I left Zander’s room, I stood in the hallway, thinking. The things he’d said to me about God someday confronting me? Well, his words kept poking around in me, churning up questions and—I admit it—trepidation.
I wasn’t ready for a face-to-face with God.
After a while, I shook my head and made myself review the conversation between Zander and the FBI agent. It was a relief to turn my attention to something other than me vs. God or me vs. Cushing. Besides, I wanted to find Mateo Martinez. I wanted to find him a whole lot more than Special Agent Ross Gamble did. But maybe this FBI guy could help me?
Maybe we could help each other.
~~**~~