Mercy 6

Through the small door window she could see the adjacent room, another level of quarantine. Pao Pao was in there, tending to those who were still in their beds. Two patients played chess at a folding table. Pao Pao stopped by their game and adjusted one of the table legs, wedged a tongue depressor underneath for stability.

The players smiled thanks as she moved to the next bed.

Mendenhall pressed her face to the glass, palms to the door. Pao Pao was helping a patient flex his ankles and legs. She kept him covered as she fitted the heel of her hand into his arch and then pushed. She asked a question, then repeated the exercise.

Mendenhall backed away. She toyed with the copper standpipes as she watched the flatscreen. A newscaster was talking in front of footage showing covered bodies on gurneys being rolled into a building. Mendenhall didn’t recognize the area of the city. The story changed to live shots of the brush fire. TV depressed and alienated her. She couldn’t translate it, couldn’t focus on it because it never explored or even touched what was fascinating. It slid by her, a dream of frustration.

She needed sleep, hours of it, a half day of it. The hospital was approaching the twenty-four-hour mark of containment. She resisted the bed. She didn’t want to lie there and feel sick about what she had done to Claiborne, Pao Pao, Silva, what she had allowed Mullich to do to her.

The entire space reminded her of him. She could imagine a few possibilities: an interrogation room, a spa for surgeons and DC people, a gym — a room for crazies. A wave of fatigue passed through her. She poured herself a glass of water and sat on the bench, back straight, shoulders square, a muscle refresher taught by her mentor. Spend a little energy, gain a little more.

She faced straight ahead as she sipped her water. Someone had drawn an arrow on the wall. In pencil, it pointed to a back corner. When she stood to follow its direction, she noticed that the arrow disappeared. It reappeared when she sat back down and straightened herself on the bench. She tested this effect three times, making the arrow disappear with any angle outside 90 degrees.

Mullich.

She stepped through the row of standpipes and turned to the back corner. The walls were whitewashed, bare. She pressed her left shoulder to one and looked 90 degrees forward. Nothing.

She touched her right shoulder to the adjacent wall and faced 90 degrees. A thin pencil outline of a square, much the same as the one that had marked the dumbwaiter. With her thumb she brushed the line. Something as if from a moth wing dusted her fingers. It vanished with slight movement, reappeared.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to follow this, wasn’t sure she was up for it, wasn’t sure her legs and brain could make it. She could sleep away containment, quarantine, wake up to the normal chaos of the ER. In the far corner the TV showed fire, then the guy in the lab coat, then the newscaster.

The pencil outline was square, ruled. But it was drawn, not cut like the previous one. She looked behind her, directly facing the opposite wall. Stepping over pipes, she kept her eyes level on the wall as she paced toward the other back corner. Nearer, she watched for an appearance, a shimmering line or arrow, a red dot of light, her tired eyes aching for it.

Her drop began slowly, knees buckling, head faint. The wall eluded her reach. The corner pitched to one side. The floor hinged with a creak and a clang, throwing her into darkness. She slammed inside hollow metal, slick against her clothes, impact acid on her tongue, a blood taste.

And she was falling.

The metal gave whenever she struck and ricocheted, so there was little pain besides friction burns. She covered her head with her arms. The upward blast pushed at her. She almost passed out from the acceleration. The darkness was complete. She was collapsing, going terminal, nerves flaring. She sought to cover herself, to hold the hem of her skirt with one arm while wrapping the other about her head.

She screamed as though underwater, the sound thickened into bubbles. The air gained substance, slowed her, grabbed her. Clothed her. Linen covered and blinded her with white. She came to a stop, then bounced softly, pushed to the surface, sank back. Her pulse was racing. Everything else felt all the more still: the nest of linens and laundry bin that held her, a clean room, the distilled air of the basement.

She was now more angry at Mullich. She stared into the black square, a laundry chute suspended from a white ceiling in a small room. In the distance, from beyond the door, she could hear faint notes from some of Claiborne’s music. She remained still, letting the cloth suspend her, letting her pulse normalize. She counted three full and even breaths.

The black square directly above her was silent.

Then, “Anna.”

The A echoed foreign, almost an H in front, soft, deep, down the chute, falling over her.

Mendenhall raised her head.