Mercy 6

Mendenhall rescued her glass from the interruption. Jude Covey slid in front of the guy, shouldered her way onto the stool, set her tablet on the bar. He hovered close, eyed both of them. Covey gave him an over-the-shoulder glare, and he returned to his former place. She pointed to Mendenhall’s wine and made eyes with the bartender, tucked then licked her lips.

“I hoped you’d be here,” Covey said.

“Isn’t that why you marked it on the map?”

Covey eagerly received her wine from the bartender. “Yes. I aimed you here.”

“I’m not going home.”

“You are.” Covey looked her over. “Nice. Will I get my dress back?”

“I think so.” Mendenhall unclasped her necklace and gave it back to Covey.

She waved it away. “Keep it for a while. It looks good with that.

Dresses it.”

Mendenhall shook her head. “I can’t wear this in ER. Nothing that hangs. Certainly not from the throat.”

Covey grimaced and took the necklace.

“The crescendo,” said Mendenhall. “What might that be? Like?”

“Sorry I used that term.” Covey brushed her tablet to life and positioned it between them on the corner top. “I refined some things. Some things on your line. Using what I did for mine. It’s crude because you just gave me two general locations. With some travel and a GPS I could be exact. But I did find some GPS readings for your boiler room and that street corner in Reykjavik.”

“You can do that? Who has those?”

“Geocachers. Live gamers. Hashers. You look like you could be a hasher.”

“Because of this?” Mendenhall raised her wine.

“And your legs.”

Covey took a sip, then a longer draw. She spoke facing the bar mirror. “The entire globe is now measured into one-meter squares.

If you know how to look, you can do it from your lap.”

“So that’s your standard of deviation?” Mendenhall held forth the chart Covey had given her. “One meter? Or one meter on each side of the line?”

“Each side.”

“So a hallway.”

“Kind of.” Covey fingered circles over her tablet. “An undulating hallway. I made some quick refinements for you.”

On screen was a 3-D gridded globe. The globe was sliced in half diagonally with a circular plane. “In a perfect universe, that would be our crush line.” Covey motioned her fingertip around the disc that sliced the Earth.

“Our crush line?”

“Yours. Mine.” She prodded the tablet, adjusting the brightness to the bar light. The room was beginning to crowd; patrons sought standing space, shouldered between sitters. “Different latitudes of the Earth rotate at different speeds.” She tapped the screen and the slicing disc warped slightly.

“I never knew that.”

“You could tell me things, I’m sure.”

Mendenhall wanted to tell her about Albert Cabral, how he had been struck while fashioning shadow puppets on the ER wall, had spent his limbo trying to help, had died. She sipped and pursed her wine.

“There’s the Earth’s magnetic field.” Covey made another tap, and the disc became wavy, a rippled slice around the globe.

“Solar wind. Current solar prominences, major and minor. Current alignment of Jovian planets. Of inner planets.” Each statement came with another tap, the rippled slice growing wavier.

“Inclination.” Tap. “Eccentricity.” Covey offered a coy peek.

“Those aren’t metaphors.”

“I know.” Mendenhall pointed to the equations for orbital inclination and eccentricity. She considered the equation beneath the inner-planets calculation. She thought she saw a shortcut, motioned to it without touching. “Why can’t you just—”

“The planets don’t circle the sun on the same flat plane. Only in pictures and first grade classrooms. They revolve on their respective orbital planes, tilting around one another, all elliptical. No circles.

Nothing’s perfect in all this. Still.” Covey looked at Mendenhall.

“Not bad for a hasher.”

“Why are you here?” asked Mendenhall.

“For the good pinot.”

“I mean out. Out here.” Mendenhall pointed to the floor, angled her wrist for emphasis. “Here?”

Covey looked over her shoulder into the crowd, beyond the crowd. The doors swung open.

“What are you thinking?” Mendenhall followed her gaze, traced her thoughts. “What do you know?”

One of her followers was silhouetted against the late-afternoon light. He was taller than the rest of the crowd, tilting his way through happy hour, his white t-shirt a wedge between dark lapels.

Mendenhall checked his flank, saw another who must’ve entered a few seconds earlier.

She stood. Covey gave her a pleading look, shook her head.

Mendenhall cut toward the left side of the wide doorway, decided, and drew her line. Who could razor a crowd better than she? Maybe Pao Pao. She saw that it was going to be close, the figure quicker than she had anticipated. She pushed through a pawing couple, severing them. The follower appeared to stretch himself taller, sensing Mendenhall meant business. Then something struck him low, buckled him. He was swallowed by the crowd, dipped, a splash. Mendenhall slid along the tangent, swung out.