Passage

Gone. Through a tunnel and into the passage, where a golden light shone from under a door. And passengers milled around out on deck in their nightclothes, wondering what had happened. And the mail room was already inches deep in water, the boiler rooms already full, and water was coming in on D Deck, the decks beginning to list, beginning to slant. “If the boat sinks,” Joanna had said, unseeing behind her sleep mask, reaching blindly for his hand, “promise you’ll come and get me.”

“It’s real,” she’d said. “You don’t understand. It’s a real place.” A real place, with staircases and writing rooms and gymnasiums. And terror. And a way back, if it wasn’t blocked, if he could get to her in time.

“Start CPR,” Richard said, and Vielle let go of Joanna’s hand and moved forward as if to comfort him. “Vielle, don’t let them unhook anything!” he said, and, to the others, “Start CPR. Keep shocking her,” and took off running.

“Richard!” Vielle called after him, but he was already through the door, down the hall, up the stairs. Four minutes. He had four minutes, six at the outside, and why the hell couldn’t Mercy General have stairways that went more than two flights, why the hell didn’t it have walkways at every floor?

He sprinted across the third-floor walkway, thinking, What’s the fastest way up to the lab? Joanna would know. Joanna! He shoved open the doors like a runner breasting a tape and raced through Medicine. Not the elevator. There’s no time to wait for an elevator. I have four minutes. Four minutes.

He clattered up the service stairs, rounding the landing. Fourth. It would take at least two minutes for the dithetamine to take effect, even using an IV push. There isn’t time, he thought. But once he was under, time wasn’t a factor. Joanna had explored the entire ship in eight seconds. Joanna — Fifth. Thirty seconds for Tish to find a vein, another thirty for her to start the IV and inject the dithetamine. What if Tish wasn’t there? There was no time to find her, no time to—

He burst through the door to sixth, raced down the hall. Tish had to be there. Mrs. Troudtheim’s session was scheduled for two. She had to be there. “Tish!” he shouted and flung open the door to the lab. “Tish!”

Tish looked up from where she was hanging the bag of saline. “You need to call the ER. They’ve been calling every two minutes,” she said. “And there’s a message for you from Dr. Lander. You turned your pager off again, didn’t — ” She stopped when she saw his face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Start an IV,” he said, striding over to the medicine cupboard. “Saline and dithetamine.”

“But Joanna isn’t here,” Tish said. “I checked her office, and she’s not there.”

“She coded,” he said, grabbing a vial of dithetamine and a syringe.

“Joanna coded?” Tish said blankly, coming over to the cupboard. “What do you mean? Was she in a car accident?”

“She was stabbed,” he said, filling the syringe.

“Stabbed? Is she okay?”

“I told you, she coded,” he said. He walked rapidly back to the examining table. “We’re going to have to use an IV push!”

Tish looked at him blankly. “An IV push? But — how can she go under if she — ” she stopped, horrified. “She didn’t die, did she, and you’re going to record her NDE?”

“She didn’t die, and she’s not going to,” he said. He wrenched off his lab coat and flung it over a chair. “Because I’m going after her.”

“I don’t understand,” Tish said bewilderedly. “What do you mean, you’re going after her?”

“I mean, I’m going to go get her. I’m going to bring her back.” He rolled up his sleeve.

“But you said the NDEs weren’t real,” she said, looking frightened. “You said they were hallucinations. You said they were caused by the temporal lobe.”

“I said a lot of things,” he said, laying his arm flat on the examining table with the hand palm-up. “Start an IV.”

“But—”

“Start the IV,” he said fiercely, and Tish picked up the length of tubing and wrapped it around his upper arm. He made a fist, and she began probing for a vein.

“Hurry!” he said. “We’ve only got four minutes.” Tish pushed the needle in, clipped it to the IV line, adjusted the feed. She began taping down the needle. “You can do that later,” he snapped. “Start the dithetamine. IV push.”

“Dr. Wright, I don’t think it’s a good idea to do this while you’re so upset,” Tish said. “Why don’t I call Dr. Everett or somebody, and—”

“Because there’s no time,” Richard said. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself.” He grabbed the syringe with his free hand and injected it into the line. “Start the white noise,” he said and reached for the headphones.

“Dr. Wright — ” Tish said uncertainly and then went over to the amplifier.