don’t want to draw attention to themselves in any way that anyone could construe as negative.” As that did not exactly make it a fabulous destination, she also felt the need to tack on something. “Though I’d still like to see it.”
“Then it’s settled. A walking tour through the city, followed by a glimpse into the world of USR and your father.” Remington spoke with genuine enthusiasm, for which Susan gave him credit. “Sounds like the perfect day.”
Susan squeezed his hand, wondering if he had any idea how much she appreciated his openness to unusual ideas and trying to find the words to tell him without sounding syrupy. A glide-bus pulled up to a nearby stop with a faint hiss of electric brakes. From the corner of her eye, she saw a man racing awkwardly to catch it as the waiting passengers funneled inside.
As the man flashed past, Susan took a closer look. In his midthirties, he had wildly unkempt blond hair that trailed him in tangles and several days’ growth of beard. Oddly familiar, he wore dirty blue jeans with multiple patches and a long trench coat that seemed inappropriate for the summer weather. Perhaps he had started out early, with the morning chill still in the air. Then, as he brushed past her and onto the bus, Susan felt herself repulsed, wanting to move as far away from him as possible. That clinched his identity in her mind: Payton Flowers, the schizophrenic she had injected with nanorobots, the man for whom Goldman and Peters had practically put out a bounty when he had not shown up for his last appointment.
Without time for explanation, Susan grabbed Remington’s arm and half dragged him toward the bus door. Payton was disappearing inside; and, as there was no one behind him, Susan worried the doors would close before she could catch him. “Come on!”
Though surely surprised, Remington ran with Susan. They reached the door in two bounding steps, and Susan managed to stomp a foot onto the platform, activating the mechanical sensor, just as the doors started closing. The doors froze in place, then eased fully open. Susan staggered in, pulling Remington behind her. He waved raggedly at the driver. Someday, Susan supposed, the glide-buses would become fully automated, obviating the need for direct human guidance. In that moment, she understood why people might feel threatened by positronic robots like Nate.
Payton Flowers took a seat near the front. The one opposite him was already occupied, so Susan kept walking down the aisle until she finally found a fully open seat, three rows farther on. She deliberately avoided the back of the bus. Since all public transport had become essentially free, covered by taxes, certain types of people had a habit of climbing aboard and spending the day staring out the windows. So long as they remained relatively quiet, and self-confined to the back of the bus, most of the drivers tolerated them and left them to their own devices. Susan wondered if Payton might have spent the last few days or weeks among them, which could explain why he had disappeared so completely.
Susan gestured for Remington to take the window seat. She wanted to keep herself free to slip up to Payton Flowers and try to talk to him en route. If impossible, at least she would be able to keep her eye on him so they could debark at the same stop.
Remington swung into the seat, and Susan sat down beside him. The bus glided smoothly back into traffic. The moment it moved, their seat belts clicked into place around them, automatically adjusting to fit snugly over their waists and chests. “You women really are fickle, aren’t you? What happened to our leisurely, sightseeing stroll in the fresh air?”
Susan took her eyes from her patient to fix them on Remington. She could not help grinning at the comment. “I’m so sorry. I’m not usually . . . insane.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Remington said with not-wholly-mock seriousness. “What happened?”
“One of our study patients went AWOL. Goldman and Peters have been going mad trying to find him. I saw him getting on the bus, and I didn’t want to lose him.” Susan tapped the laboratory number into her Vox and sent off a quick text: “Found P.F. 15 bus. Advise.”
Remington stretched to peek around Susan. “Is it the shabby one in the coat?”
Susan nodded. “His name’s Payton.” For discretionary reasons, she did not divulge his last name.
Remington continued to peer past her. “How crazy is he?”
Susan winced. Psychiatrists were generally not enamored of the “c” word. “You know I can’t say. Confidentiality.”
“Yeah.” Remington surely understood, but he did not seem happy with the reply. “But I like to know a little bit about a guy when I’m stuck on a bus with him and he’s wearing a trench coat in July.”
Susan dismissed Remington’s concerns. “Just because he’s a psych patient doesn’t make him dangerous.”
Remington sat back, though clearly still uneasy. “Susan, one of your patients, age four, tried to murder one of my patients. She did murder his sister. You want to come up with something more comforting than ‘just because he’s a psych patient doesn’t make him dangerous’?”
Susan had little to offer. While not the most dangerous of psychiatric diagnoses — antisocial personalities such as Sharicka had that sewn up — schizophrenia did make its victims unpredictable and, sometimes, dangerous. She could not forget Payton’s answers to her questions about how and why he had come to the procedure room:
Remington grunted. “No way a paranoid schizophrenic would lash out at people following him, right?”
Susan tried not to reveal that Remington had inadvertently discovered the correct diagnosis. “Well . . .”
“And you wouldn’t actually try to talk to him, that is, confront him, would you?”
As that had been Susan’s plan, she could hardly deny it. A buzz from her Vox rescued her from a reply. It was the lab: “StA wth. Wll gt prmssn frm fmly fr cops.” “Doesn’t look like I’ll have to. Goldman and Peters are contacting the family. They should be able to get permission for intervention by law enforcement.”
Remington glanced around Susan again. “Good.” He craned farther. “Where’s he going?”
Susan turned her attention to Payton Flowers. The man had risen from his seat, heading toward the front of the bus.
The resident physicians watched him approach the bus driver, talk for a moment, then flip the edge of his coat. Even from a dozen seats back, Susan could see the driver of the bus grow visibly pale. He punched the intercom button. “Passengers, please remain calm.”
No words in the English language could have had a more opposite effect. Though no one left his seat, all of the passengers visibly stiffened, including a woman who had appeared so deeply asleep she sprawled partway into the aisle, held in place by her seat belt.
“If we all stay in our seats and don’t panic, we’ll be fine.”
Susan’s heart rate tripled. She found herself leaning on Remington, who put a steadying arm around her.
The driver continued, his voice tremulous and edged with fear. Clearly, he was trying to control it, but it would not wholly obey him. “This man has a bomb and has threatened to set it off if anyone leaves their seat.”
All around her, Susan could hear the faint click of Vox messages being sent. Likely, some of them had locked into Emergency mode. Others were probably sending love notes to friends, children, parents, and spouses. Surely, the police would pinpoint them before Payton could do anything stupid.
Yet, Susan realized, she barely knew him. She had done little more than punch a needle into his back, hardly the starting point for a friendship. She considered texting her father but discarded it. He already knew how much she loved him. She would do better focusing on how to fix this situation, dredging her brain for some way to handle a raging, unmedicated schizophrenic that only a psychiatrist would know.
