I didn’t really want to say it, and instead said, “Thanks for checking up on me. I’ll call. Bye.” I hung up and made a break for the great outdoors and Petite.
The sky went yellow and the sun went black when I stepped outside. I flung my equipment bag into Petite’s passenger seat, dropped into the driver seat, and fumbled for my sunglasses, wondering if the traffic lights were going freak out the way the rest of the lights were. That would be a real pain in the ass. I tried to remember if the order was red-yellow-green or red-green-yellow as I drove down the street.
It was red-yellow-green, but watching the yellow burst into incandescent blue was so interesting I ran the light and nearly T-boned a Camero. I didn’t blame the guy for leaning on his horn. After that I bit my tongue and paid significant attention to what I was doing.
By the time I reached the hospital I’d figured it out. The color inversion wasn’t a constant: it just happened when light changed, and then faded back to normal. I’d be okay for the day as long as I was cautious, though I’d have to hope I wouldn’t need to identify any runaway vehicles, because my first glance at anything seemed to come up with entirely the wrong colors.
Colin’s pale hair looked black and silky as death, for example. It faded back into blond as I sat down by his bed, grinning crookedly at him. He opened one eye and lifted an eyebrow. “Couldn’t get enough of me, huh?”
“Guess not.” My voice fell into that irritatingly quiet hospital voice that people use. “How you doing?”
“Better, with an Amazon visiting me. They killed off their sick and weak, you know. For the good of the tribe.”
My eyebrows went up too. “I didn’t know. I don’t think they mentioned that in the comic books.”
“Different kind of Amazon. You could be one of that kind.” he said, looking me over critically. “Except, no offense, you’ve got nothing on Lynda Carter.”
I laughed out loud, shaking the hospital voice off. “You’re not old enough to know who Lynda Carter is.”
“Dude,” he said, sincerely, “I’m not
I laughed again. “And ‘not dead’ is all it takes?”
“Damn straight,” Colin said with a nod, then sank back into the covers, looking weary.
“Hey,” I said, quiet again. “I can only stay for a minute, okay? But I wanted to come by and say hi. Say a couple words of Amazon healing over you, that sort of thing, huh?”
Colin smiled without opening his eyes again. “Every little bit helps. Thanks, Joanne.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. The snake didn’t need telling; it just coiled its way down from my shoulders to wrap itself around Colin’s.
My vision smashed into inversion, the walls and bed, Colin’s white skin and blond hair, all going black with hard shimmering blue edges. The lights overhead seemed to pop out, emitting blackness, and for a moment I could see the spirit-snake, his pale tans and browns all gone to blue and greens like they had in the Lower World. I jerked my hand off Colin’s shoulder and put it to my head. He opened his eyes, frowning. “Joanne?”
“It’s…I’ve got something weird going on with my vision this morning. It’s okay. It just went all freaky.” The effect was fading now, although the edges of things seemed a little dimmer, still hanging on to their reversed colors.
“You’ve probably got a brain tumor,” Colin said cheerfully. I gaped at him, then laughed silently, shoulders shaking.
“Thank you. Thanks, Colin, that makes me feel a lot better.”
My vision popped black again, and I fumbled my way out of the hospital, hoping I’d make it to work on time.
I clocked in no more than two minutes late. The precinct building lights snapped to inverse colors every time I opened a door, and I tripped over backwardly shadowed stairs and my own feet three times trying to get to the front door. Getting outside into the heat and morning sunlight was almost a relief. At least it was consistent, even if every breath I dragged in tasted of overheated street tar and dust.
At lunch I radioed Bruce at the front desk and asked him to punch me out so I’d have more time to go visit Gary. He told me that was illegal and did it anyway.
I felt a little silly pulling into the hospital parking lot in the patrol car, as if there ought to be a dire emergency that justified the black and white. A couple of visitors gave me curious looks as I strode through the parking lot, suddenly in a hurry to see the old man.
He was in PT when I got there. A critical nurse examined me from head to toe before asking, “Are you his daughter?”
Out of the various questions I’d expected upon showing up in uniform, that wasn’t one of them. I tried counting on my fingers how old Gary’d have been when he fathered me if I were his daughter and came up with a reasonable number as an answer. “Yes. I’m also on lunch break, so do you think I could maybe see him, please?”
“Well.” The nurse tapped lacquered nails against the desk, examining me again. “I suppose. But if the therapist says no, you’ll have to go immediately, miss.”
For the first time in my life I had to swallow the urge to correct her with “Officer.” It took a couple of seconds, and then I put on a cheery smile and said, “Sure, of course.”
Her expression said I wasn’t fooling anyone. “Second floor.”
“Thank you.” I got out of there at a brisk pace, uncertain how long my bout of transparent politeness was going to last.
The PT room had half a dozen patients in it. None of them looked particularly patient, least of all Gary, who bore the expression of a constipated rhino as he trod a treadmill. A cute blond woman sat in a chair beside the treadmill, saying, “Two minutes,” in a voice that wasn’t so much encouraging as it was uncompromising. She gave me a gimlet stare and I pointed to a chair near hers, eyes wide in a question. She pursed her lips, eyed her watch, and nodded once, sharply. I scurried past Gary to the chair, giving him a broad wink that I was pretty sure the PT couldn’t see. He cracked a slow grin that brightened him up all over, and picked up his pace a bit.
He looked better. Much better, like the vitality I was used to seeing in him had been replenished wholesale and the only reason he was there was because they wouldn’t let him go home yet. A little bubble of joy lit up inside me. I hadn’t been able to properly fix his heart, but maybe the energy I’d lent him had done some good. Even with my vision flipping inside-out, he looked better. I sat there grinning stupidly until the therapist said, “Cool down,” and slowed the treadmill. After another minute, she glanced from her watch to me to Gary. “Five minutes. Drink water.” Then she got up and left, leaving me grinning after her.
“Does she ever use sentences of more than two words?” I got up to get Gary a cup of water while he plunked down in the chair next to the one I abandoned.
“Pretty much no,” he said. I came back with the water and he enveloped me in a bear hug. I hung on and tried not to spill water, either from the cup or from my eyes. I was getting to be a real soft touch in my old age.
“You look better,” I mumbled against his shoulder. He shoved me back into my chair, sort of like I was a big dog, and ruffled my hair, undoing the complete lack of styling I’d spent so much time at this morning.
“Feelin’ better,” he announced. “’Cept the food’s terrible, and nobody’ll sneak me in a Big Mac.” He eyed me hopefully. I grinned through embarrassingly bright eyes.
“Like hell. Here, have some water instead.”
Gary snorted but took the cup and drank greedily. “So what’m I missin’, Jo? Didja bring me back a bear? This place is worse than a crypt for gettin’ news in.”
We both looked around, and after a couple of seconds, he said, “Mebbe not that bad. So, a bear?” He looked as enthusiastic as a kid at Christmas, gray eyes bright and eyebrows bushing eagerly. I thought of the tortoise, tucked somewhere safe behind my eyes, and laughed.
“No, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on the bear’s part.” I realized, once more to my embarrassment, that I had no idea how to transfer the more subtle tortoise to Gary. Colin’s snake had just crawled off me, but this was entirely different. “Think your PT would object to a couple minutes’ meditation?”
“No,” she said from behind me. I jolted and twisted around, trying to arrange my face into a “sure, I knew you were there” expression. “I’d approve,” she said. “Meditation’s healing. Releases stress. Go ahead.” It was like
