The Infinite Sea

“I didn’t understand that last play,” I tell him.

“Chaseball isn’t some lame-ass game like chess,” he says patiently. “There are intricacies. Intricacies. To win, you gotta have a plan.”

“And that’s you, I guess. The man with the plan.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Tap.

64

I HADN’T SEEN Vosch in days. That changes the next morning.

“Let’s hear it,” he tells Claire, who’s standing beside Mr. White Coat looking like a middle-schooler dragged into the principal’s office for bullying the scrawny kid.

“She’s lost eight pounds and twenty percent of her muscle mass. She’s on Diovan for the high blood pressure, Phenergan for the nausea, amoxicillin and streptomycin to keep her lymphatic system tamped down, but we’re still struggling with the fever,” Claire reports.

“‘Struggling with the fever’?”

Claire’s eyes cut away. “On the upside, her liver and kidneys are still functioning normally. A bit of fluid in her lungs, but we’re—”

Vosch waves her off and steps up to my bedside. Bright bird eyes glittering.

“Do you want to live?”

I answer without hesitating. “Yes.”

“Why?”

The question takes me off guard for some reason. “I don’t understand.”

“You ca

“I don’t want to save the world,” I tell him. “I’m just hoping I might get the opportunity to kill you.”

His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes glitter and dance. I know you, his eyes say. I know you.

“Hope,” he whispers. “Yes.” Nodding: He’s pleased with me. “Hope, Marika. Cling to your hope.” He turns to Claire and Mr. White Coat. “Pull her off the meds.”

Mr. White Coat’s face turns the color of his smock. Claire starts to say something, then looks away. Vosch turns back to me.

“What is the answer?” he demands. “It isn’t rage. What is it?”

“Indifference.”

“Try again.”

“Detachment.”

“Again.”

“Hope. Despair. Love. Hate. Anger. Sorrow.” I’m shaking; my fever must be spiking. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Better,” he says.

65

IT GETS SO BAD that night, I can barely make it through four i

XMEDS

“Heard a rumor going around they took you off your meds,” Razor says, shaking the quarter in his closed fist. “True?”

“The only thing left in my IV bag is saline to keep my kidneys from shutting down.”

He glances at my vitals on the monitor. Frowning. When Razor frowns, he reminds me of a little boy who’s stubbed his toe and thinks he’s too big to cry.

“So you must be getting better.”

“Guess so.” Tap-tap on the bedrail.

“Okay,” he breathes. “My queen is up. Look out.”

My back stiffens. My vision blurs. I lean to the side and empty my stomach, what little is inside my stomach, onto the white tile. Razor leaps up with a disgusted cry, toppling the board.

“Hey!” he shouts. Not at me. At the black eye above us. “Hey, a little help here!”

No help comes. He looks at the monitor, looks at me, and says, “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m okay.”

“Sure. You’re fine, just fine!” He goes to the sink, wets a clean towel, and lays it across my forehead. “Fine, my ass! Why the hell did they take you off the meds?”

“Why not?” I’m fighting the urge to hurl again.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ll die without them.” He glares at the camera.

“Maybe you should hand me that container over there.”

He dabs at the crud sticking on my chin, refolds the cloth, grabs the container, and places it on my lap.

“Razor.”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t put that back on my face.”

“Huh? Oh. Shit. Yeah. Hang on.” He grabs a clean towel and runs it under the water. His hands are shaking. “You know what it is? I know what it is. Why didn’t I think of it? Why didn’t you think of it? The meds must be interfering with the system.”

“What system?”

“The 12th System. The one they injected into you, Sherlock. The hub and his forty thousand little friends to supercharge the other eleven.” He puts the cool towel on my forehead. “You’re cold. You want me to find another blanket?”

“No, I’m burning up.”

“It’s a war,” he says. He taps his chest. “In here. You gotta declare a truce, Ringer.”

I shake my head. “No peace.”

He nods, squeezing my wrist beneath the thin blanket. Squats on the floor to gather the fallen chess pieces. Curses when he can’t find the quarter. Decides he can’t leave the vomit just lying there. Grabs the dirty towel he used to wipe my chin and swabs the deck on his hands and knees. He’s still cursing when the door opens and Claire comes into the room.

“Good timing!” Razor barks at her. “Hey, can’t you at least give her the anti-puke serum?”

Claire jerks her head toward the door. “Get out.” She points at the box. “And take that with you.”

Razor glowers at her, but he does it. I see again the tightly contained force behind his angelic features. Careful, Razor. That’s not the answer.

Then we’re alone, and Claire studies the monitor for a long, silent moment.

“Were you telling the truth earlier?” she asks. “You want to live so you can kill Commander Vosch? You’re smarter than that.” In the tone of a mother scolding a very young child.

“You’re right,” I answer. “I’ll never get that chance. But I’m going to have the opportunity to kill you.”

She looks startled. “Kill me? Why would you want to kill me?” When I don’t answer, she says, “I don’t think you’re going to live through the night.”

I nod. “And you’re not going to live out the month.”

She laughs. The sound of her laughter causes bile to rise into my throat. Burning. Burning.

“What are you going to do?” she says softly. She yanks the towel from my forehead. “Smother me with this?”

“No. I’m going to overcome the guard by smashing his head in with a heavy object, and then I’m going to take his gun and shoot you in the face.”

She laughs through the whole thing. “Well, good luck with that.”

“It won’t be luck.”

66

CLAIRE TURNS OUT to be wrong about me being dead by morning.

Nearly a month later, by my reckoning of three meals per day, and I’m still here.

I don’t remember much. At some point they disco