her hand in my pocket, stroking. Amelia had an absurd grin, watching us.
Nobody said anything. We just looked at each other. Then everything faded out and I woke up in the hospital with an oxygen mask over my face and the smell of vomit deep inside my nose. My jaw hurt, as if someone had punched me.
My arm felt like it belonged to someone else, but I managed to drag my hand up and pull the mask down. There was someone in the room, out of focus, and I asked for a Kleenex and she handed it to me. I tried to blow my nose but it triggered retching, and she held me up and put a metal bowl under my chin while I coughed and drooled most attractively. Then she handed me a glass of water and said to rinse, and I realized it was Amelia, not a nurse. I said something romantic like 'oh, shit,' and started to black out again, and she eased me back to the pillow and worked the mask over my face.
I heard her calling for a nurse and then I passed out.
It's strange how much detail you recall from some parts of an experience like this, and how little of others. They told me later that I slept a solid fifteen hours after the little puking ceremony. It felt more like fifteen seconds. I woke up as if from a slap, with Dr. Jefferson drawing a hypo gun away from my arm.
I wasn't wearing the oxygen mask anymore. 'Don't try to sit up,' Jefferson said. 'Get your bearings.'
'Okay.' I was just able to focus on him. 'First bearing, I'm not dead, right? I didn't take enough pills.'
'Amelia found you and saved you.'
'I'll have to thank her.'
'By that, you mean you're going to try again?'
'How many people don't?'
'Plenty.' He held out a glass of water with a plastic straw. 'People attempt suicide for various reasons.'
I drank a cold sip. 'You don't think I was actually serious about it.'
'I do. You're pretty competent at everything you do. You'd be dead if Amelia hadn't come home.'
'I'll thank her,' I repeated.
'She's sleeping now. She stayed with you for as long as she could keep her eyes open.'
'Then you came.'
'She called me. She didn't want you to wake up alone.' He weighed the hypodermic gun in his hand. 'I decided to help you along with a mild stimulant.'
I nodded and sat up a little. 'It feels pretty good, actually. Did it counteract the drug? The poison.'
'No, you've already been treated for that. Do you want to talk about it?'
'No.' I reached for the water and he helped me. 'Not with you.'
'With Amelia?'
'Not now.' I drank and was able to replace the glass by myself. 'I guess first I want to jack with my platoon. They'd understand.'
There was a long silence. 'You're not going to be able to do that.'
I didn't understand. 'Of course I can. It's automatic.'
'You're out, Julian. You can't be a mechanic anymore.'
'Hold it. Do you think any of my platoon would be surprised by this? Do you think they're that dumb?'
'That's not the point. It's just that they can't be made to live through it! I'm trained for it, and I can't say I look forward to jacking with you. Do you want to kill your friends?'
'Kill them.'
'Yes! Exactly. Don't you think it's possible you might push one of them into doing the same? Candi, for instance. She's close to clinical depression most of the time, anyhow.'
I could see the sense in that, actually. 'But after I'm cured?'
'No. You'll never be a mechanic again. You'll be reassigned to some – '
'A shoe? I'll be a shoe?'
'They wouldn't want you in the infantry. They'll take advantage of your education, and put you in a technical post somewhere.'
'Portobello?'
'Probably not. You'd jack socially with members of your platoon, your ex-platoon.' He shook his head slowly. 'Can't you see? That wouldn't be good for you or for them.'
'Oh, I see; I see. From your point of view, anyhow.'
'I am the expert,' he said carefully. 'I don't want you to be hurt and I don't want to be court-martialed for negligence-which is what would happen if I let you go back to your platoon and some of them couldn't handle sharing your memories.'
'We've shared the feelings of people while they died, sometimes in great pain.'
'But they didn't come back from the dead. Come back and discuss how desirable it might be.'
'I may be cured of that.' Even as I said it, I knew how false it sounded.
'One day, I'm sure you will be.' That didn't sound too convincing, either.
JULIAN ENDURED ONE MORE day of bed rest and then was transferred to an 'observation unit,' which was like a hotel room, except that it only locked from the outside, and was always locked. Dr. Jefferson came in every other day for a week, and a kindly young civilian therapist, Mona Pierce, talked to him daily. After a week (by then, Julian was convinced he was going to go insane) Jefferson jacked with him, and the next day, he was released.
The apartment was too neat. Julian went from room to room trying to figure out what was wrong, and then it hit him-Amelia must have hired someone to come in and clean. Neither of them had any instinct or talent in that direction. She must have found out when he was going to be released and squandered a few bucks on it. The bed was made with military precision-a dead giveaway-and on it was a note with today's date inside a heart.
He made a pot of coffee (spilling both water and grounds but scrupulously cleaning them up) and sat down to the console. There was a lot of mail stacked up for him, most of it awkward. A letter from the army giving him one month's leave at reduced pay, followed by a posting right on campus, not a mile from where he lived. The title was 'senior research assistant'; it was TOY, so he could live at home, 'hours to be arranged.'
If he was reading between the lines correctly, the army was pretty well through with him, but on principle wouldn't just discharge him. It would be a bad example, being able to get out of the army just by killing yourself.
Mona Pierce had been a good listener who asked the right questions. She didn't condemn Julian for what he did-was angry at the military for not seeing it and discharging him before the inevitable happened-and didn't really disapprove of suicide in an absolute way, giving Julian tacit permission to do it again. But not over the boy. A lot of factors caused the boy's death, but Julian had been present against his will, and his part in it had been reflexive and appropriate.
If the personal mail had been awkward to write, it was doubly awkward to answer. He wound up with two basic replies: One was a simple 'Thanks for your concern; I'm okay now' brush-off, and the other was a more detailed explanation, for those who deserved it and wouldn't be too bothered by it. He was still working on that when Amelia came in, carrying a suitcase.
She hadn't been able to see him during the week he was incarcerated in the observation unit. He'd called as soon as he was released, but she wasn't at home. The office said she was out of town.
They embraced and said the obvious things. He poured her a cup of coffee without asking. 'I've never seen you look so tired. Still going back and forth to Washington?'
She nodded and took the cup. 'And Geneva and Tokyo. I had to talk with some people at CERN and Kyoto.' She looked at her watch. 'Midnight flight to Washington.'
'Jesus. What is it that's worth killing yourself over?' She looked at him for a moment and they both laughed, an embarrassed giggle.
She pushed the coffee away. 'Let's go set the alarm for ten-thirty and get some rest. You feel up to going to Washington?'
'Meet the mysterious Peter?'
'And do some math. I'm going to need all the help I can get, convincing Macro.'
'Of what? What's so damned ...'
She slipped out of her dress and stood up. 'First bed. Then sleep. Then explanations.'
