the doors. He was caught and arm-pulled around—by the member who had been looking at him. He clenched his hand to a fist and hit the member in the face and he fell away. Members screamed. 'It's him!' they cried. 'There he is!'
'Help him!'
'Stop him!'
He ran to a door and fist-hit one of the members there. His arm was grabbed by the other, saying in his ear, 'Brother, brother!' His other arm was caught by other members; he was clutched around the chest from behind. 'We're looking for Li RM,' the man on the speaker said. 'He may act aggressively when we find him but we mustn't be afraid. He's depending on us for our help and our understand-rag.'
'Let go of me!' he cried, trying to pull himself free of the arms tightly holding him. 'Help him!' members cried. 'Get him to the treatment room!'
'Help him!'
'Leave me alone!' he cried. 'I don't want to be helped! Leave me alone, you brother-fighting haters!' He was dragged up escalator steps by members panting and flinching, one of them with tears in his eyes. 'Easy, easy,' they said, 'we're helping you. You'll be all right, we're helping you.' He kicked, and his legs were caught and held. 'I don't want to be helped!' he cried. 'I want to be left alone! I'm healthy! I'm healthy! I'm not sick!' He was dragged past members who stood with hands over ears, with hands pressed to mouths below staring eyes. 'You're sick,' he said to the member whose face he had hit. Blood was leaking from his nostrils, and his nose and cheek were swollen; Chip's arm was locked under his. 'You're dulled and you're drugged,' Chip said to him. 'You're dead. You're a dead man. You're dead!'
'Shh, we love you, we're helping you,' the member said. 'Christ and Wei, let GO of me!' He was dragged up more steps.
'He's been found,' the man on the speaker said. 'Li RM has been found, members. He's being brought to the medicenter. Let me say that again: Li RM has been found, and is being brought to the medicenter. The emergency is over, brothers and sisters, and you can go on now with what you were doing. Thank you; thank you for your help and cooperation. Thank you on behalf of the Family, thank you on behalf of Li RM.' He was dragged along the medicenter hallway. Music started in mid-melody.
'You're all dead,' he said. 'The whole Family's dead. Uni's alive, only Uni. But there are islands where people are living! Look at the map! Look at the map in the Pre-U Museum!'
He was dragged into the treatment room. Bob was there, pale and sweating, with a bleeding cut over his eyebrow; he was jabbing at the keys of his telecomp, held for him by a girl in a blue smock.
'Bob,' he said, 'Bob, do me a favor, will you? Look at the map in the Pre-U Museum. Look at the map from 1951.' He was dragged to a blue-lighted unit. He grabbed the edge of the opening, but his thumb was pried up and his hand forced in; his sleeve torn back and his arm shoved in all the way to the shoulder.
His cheek was soothed—by Bob, trembling. 'You'll be all right, Li,' he said. 'Trust Uni.' Three lines of blood ran from the cut into his eyebrow hairs.
His bracelet was caught by the scanner, his arm touched by the infusion disc. He clamped his eyes shut. I will not be made dead! he thought. I will not be made dead! I'll remember the islands, I'll remember Lilac! I will not be made dead! I will not be made dead! He opened his eyes, and Bob smiled at him. A strip of skin-colored tape was over his eyebrow. 'They said three o'clock and they meant three o'clock,' he said. 'What do you mean?' he asked. He was lying in a bed and Bob was sitting beside it. 'That's when the doctors said you'd wake up,' Bob said.
'Three o'clock. And that's what it is. Not 2:59, not 3:01, but three o'clock. These mems are so clever it scares me.'
'Where am I?' he asked. 'In Medicenter Main.'
And then he remembered—remembered the things he had thought and said, and worst of all, the things he had done. 'Oh, Christ,' he said. 'Oh, Marx. Oh, Christ and Wei.'
'Take it easy, Li,' Bob said, touching his hand. 'Bob,' he said, 'oh, Christ and Wei, Bob, I—I pushed you down the—'
'Escalator,' Bob said. 'You certainly did, brother. That was the most surprised moment in my life. I'm fine though.' He tapped the tape above his eyebrow. 'All closed up and good as new, or will be in a day or two.'
'I hit a member! With my hand!'
'He's fine too,' Bob said. 'Two of those are from him.' He nodded across the bed, at red roses in a vase on a table. 'And two from Mary KK, and two from the members in your section.'
He looked at the roses, sent to him by the members he had hit and deceived and betrayed, and tears came into his eyes and he began to tremble.
'Hey, easy there, come on,' Bob said.
But Christ and Wei, he was thinking only of himself! 'Bob, listen,' he said, turning to him, getting up on an elbow, back-handing at his eyes.
'Take it easy,' Bob said.
'Bob, there are others,' he said, 'others who're just as sick as I was! We've got to find them and help them!'
'We know.'
'There's a member called 'Lilac,' Anna SG38P2823, and another one—'
'We know, we know,' Bob said. 'They've already been helped. They've all been helped.'
'They have?'
Bob nodded. 'You were questioned while you were out,' he said. 'It's Monday. Monday afternoon. They've already been found and helped—Anna SG; and the one you called 'Snow-flake/ Anna PY; and Yin GU, 'Sparrow.''
'And King,' he said. 'Jesus HL; he's right here in this building; he's—'
'No,' Bob said, shaking his head. 'No, we were too late. That one—that one is dead.'
'He's dead?'
Bob nodded. 'He hung himself,' he said.
Chip stared at him.
'From his shower, with a strip of blanket,' Bob said.
'Oh, Christ and Wei,' Chip said, and lay back on the pillow. Sickness, sickness, sickness; and he had been part of it.
'The others are all fine though,' Bob said, patting his hand. 'And you'll be fine too. You're going to a rehabilitation center, brother. You're going to have yourself a week's vacation. Maybe even more.'
'I feel so ashamed, Bob,' he said, 'so fighting ashamed of myself...'
'Come on,' Bob said, 'you wouldn't feel ashamed if you'd slipped and broken an ankle, would you? It's the same thing.
I'm the one who should feel ashamed, if anyone should.'
'I lied to you!'
'I let myself be lied to,' Bob said. 'Look, nobody's really responsible for anything. You'll see that soon.' He reached clown, brought up a take-along kit, and opened it on his lap. 'This is yours,' he said. 'Tell me if I missed anything.
Mouthpiece, clippers, snapshots, nameber books, picture of a horse, your—'
'That's sick,' he said. 'I don't want it. Chute it.'
'The picture?'
'Yes.'
Bob drew it from the kit and looked at it. 'It's nicely done,' he said. 'It's not accurate, but it's—nice in a way.'
'It's sick,' he said. 'It was done by a sick member. Chute it.'
'Whatever you say,' Bob said. He put the kit on the bed and got up and crossed the room; opened the chute and dropped the picture down.
'There are islands full of sick members,' Chip said. 'All over the world.'
'I know,' Bob said. 'You told us.'
'Why can't we help them?'
