Mercy 6

On screen, the gel-block ballistic experiment had been replaced by another loop. This one showed the very old and famous clip of the circus strongman taking a cannonball to his stomach. Over and over, in slow motion, the cannon fired point-blank into the man’s belly, the huge iron ball trampolining harmlessly away while the strongman stood his ground. Claiborne had muted the sound, but Mendenhall heard it anyway, the prolonged and hollowed groan. Mullich and Silva were kind enough not to chuckle, but Mendenhall felt their smiles behind her.

“Okay, fine,” she said. “But it shows the same thing, just from the polar opposite. And I bet the guy died from it. Eventually.” She paused the video at the point of impact, the ball buried in the man’s stomach, just missing his lower ribs. “It’s the fat that saves him.

And those big legs. But look, in this second he’s a bag of jelly with eyes and a mouth.” She pointed to the grotesque flap of his arms, the impossible angles of his elbows, the lifeless hands. “And there in the extremities you see the most damage being done.”

She felt the sting of tears, a mix of frustration and fatigue. She set the loop into motion again and sympathized with the strongman.

“Screw them,” she said. “Right, big fella? Screw them.”

* * *

She headed to the surgeons’ lounge to take a nap. She would wake up and this nightmare would be over. Thorpe’s quarantines would expire into mere advisory and high caution, controlled exits.

All the beds and chairs and couches in the surgeons’ lounge were taken. On one bed two nurses had doubled up, both snoring.

She considered waking them, claiming the space. But her heart rate was up.

Before she could leave the lounge, she felt a message ping. Two surgeons looked up from their magazines, one a cigar, the other a men’s health. At first Mendenhall thought to take it outside. But it was the magazines, their sheen. And the surgeons, with their legs crossed, their eyes going from the shallow pages to her, the disheveled ER fool who might mess with a personal communication to the outside. Her aunt started with the dog again.

My friend loves Cortez.

Give him.

That cold?

Mendenhall clenched against a sad shiver, a hurt that dropped along her left side. The surgeon with the cigar magazine appeared to notice, recrossed his legs, and pushed his pages flat and away.

Give.

Wait.

She had nothing, no reply. She looked to the surgeons, and they turned back to their magazines, the health one first, then, a second later, cigar.

How are you doing?

Surviving. Scratch behind his ears for me.

* * *

She took the elevator to recovery, found an empty physical therapy room, took off her cap, changed into scrubs, and stepped onto the treadmill. She set the incline and pace, began her run. She closed her eyes and pictured the trails outside, orange-lit in the night, shadow-crossed, air something between cool and humid — but moving, brushing her face and neck.

When she opened her eyes she was startled by how much time had passed. Next to the LCD recording minutes was her pulse, the rate higher than what she felt. Her legs still thrummed with energy, ready to begin, amplifying her sense of disconnection, the illusion that the body is not the self. That particular defense mechanism.

Even the sheen of sweat was not hers; it was cool and cleansing.

She had once had an arrival who had dragged himself with his elbows for more than a mile. In an advanced stage of alcohol poisoning — years of poisoning combined with one more final lethal dose — he had lost function in his lower body. He had dragged himself to her because he did not want to die alone. He remembered her but could not remember anyone else in his life.

“How?” she asked him. An athlete in his prime could not have done what this derelict had done. He looked at her as she pressed two fingers to his carotid pulse. She eased the pressure, let it be just a touch, the last thing he felt.

She heard the door to the Physical Therapy room open behind her. She remained on the treadmill, waited to hear some nurse’s apology, the “Sorry, Doctor” that always grated on her nerves.

Instead she heard Claiborne’s voice.

“Those things never quite cut it for me.”

She turned to him but stayed on the treadmill, surfing a little as it eased to a stop. “You need to find your inner hamster.”

He had shed his lab clothes, stood straight in his shirt and tie, thin leather belt neat about his waist. “You have a much better imagination than I do.”

“I dunno. Cannonball Man was pretty imaginative.”

“I apologize for that.”

“No,” she said. “I deserved it. It’s your lab.”

He let the door close. “Okay. Here we are on neutral ground.”

He opened his hands to her.

“How did you find me?”

“I asked Mullich.”

“That’s scary. He’s scary.”

“He guessed the surgeons’ lounge first. If that’s any consolation.”

The ground did not feel neutral. The slant of the treadmill matched the tilt in her senses. She asked anyway. “What do you think it is? If you had to stop now, if all information stopped now?

What would you say?”