“I was on my way to see my dad, but now I don’t know where he is,” Gabi said before Katz could interject.
Nurse Mehta gave Katz a pointed look. “Well, that’s easy enough. I’m sure Officer Katz was about to tell you that he always makes a visit to the Returned wards on Mondays after his final council meeting.”
Officer Katz reddened to the tips of her ears and thrust her shoulders back. “Brother Lowell is going about his duties and should not be interrupted. She can perfectly well wait until he is finished.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Nurse Mehta said dismissively. “She can come up with me.” Before either woman could give those words further consideration, Gabi was around the desk and on her way to the elevator.
“Wait!” Katz called. “She isn’t cleared to go up!”
“I’ll look after her, Rhonda,” Nurse Mehta said as she punched a button to call the elevator, then pushed Gabi inside as the doors opened. The young nurse giggled as she pressed the Door Close button. “Katz is a trip, isn’t she?” she said once they were alone. Gabi searched the young woman’s face to see if it was safe to agree with her and noticed a faint smudge of red powder between Nurse Mehta’s eyebrows.
“You have something there,” Gabi said instead, pointing at the spot on her forehead.
“Oh. Thanks.” Nurse Mehta licked the tip of her finger and rubbed at the red patch. “I was running a little late. Not used to working the night shift yet.”
“What is it from?”
“Kumkum. It’s an old Hindu tradition—a mark you make after doing a prayer ritual called a puja.”
“Hindu?”
“My grandparents used to be Hindu, before they converted during the early days of the Gathering In. We used to do puja as a family back when it was still “don’t ask, don’t tell” about practicing at home. Now it’s just me.” Nurse Mehta frowned at the red stain on her finger. “I guess I shouldn’t have told you that, should I?”
Gabi didn’t know much about the old religions, just the basics taught in school so that everyone understood what an all-embracing melting pot the Unitas Fellowship was.
“Is that the one where you worship elephants and snakes?” Gabi asked, trying to remember the specifics from her corrected textbook. There was a silence, during which Gabi was sure she had said something very wrong.
“Elephants and snakes?” Nurse Mehta echoed. “Not exactly. Hindus believe that all things are aspects of God, that the world is this huge net woven through with gems, and every gem in it, including elephants and snakes, are part of God. It’s all God. Does that make sense?”
“Sure,” Gabi said, though she was pretty sure no one in the fellowship would agree that the Tribes were God.
“Maybe better not to repeat any of that,” Nurse Mehta added, her flippant tone sounding forced. “It’s ancient history, right? Not worth mentioning. We’re all fellows now.” Gabi nodded. She knew all about keeping secrets. Nurse Mehta frowned at the rows of floor numbers in front of her. “So here’s the thing. I’m not sure I can actually take you to see your dad.”
“Why?”
“Well, I don’t know what floor he’s on for one thing. He usually ends his rounds on the Returned wards, checking in with their progress and praying with them after he talks to the docs, but I don’t know if he would be there yet.”
Gabi scrambled for a response. She hadn’t devised a plan beyond step one: find her father, and step two: confront him with Noel’s story. Nurse Mehta punched a button for the twelfth floor, and they started to rise. “I’ve got to clock in, so you can come with me, and we’ll page him from there. He doesn’t usually come to Twelfth on his Monday visits, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind the detour. How does that sound?”
Gabi knew that once they got off the elevator, there was an extremely good chance Officer Katz would be lying in wait to corral her back to the lobby. She jabbed the button for the ninth floor. “Can we make a stop first? Aren’t there Returned on Ninth? Maybe he’s there.”
“Um, new patients, yeah,” Nurse Mehta said with a furrowed brow. “But he wouldn’t go there. They’re too out of it to be very interactive.” The doors rolled open onto the somnolent atmosphere of Ninth. “I really don’t think—”
But Gabi was already out in the hallway, peering around the corner toward the nurses’ station. In another instant, she was back inside, jamming the Door Close button. From her vantage point she’d had a clear view to the doors of D Wing, just as they’d slid shut behind the backs of her father and Messenger Nystrom. Gabi was sobbing by the time the elevator doors closed.
“What is it?” Nurse Mehta asked. Gabi had no words. The doors slid open on Twelfth, and Nurse Mehta put an arm around Gabi’s shoulders, urging her into the hall. “Come on. Let’s get you to the nurses’ lounge. We have way better snack rations than the waiting room, and we can chat while I get changed, okay?” Nurse Mehta diverted the concerned looks of the departing day-shift nurses with a shake of her head as she herded Gabi to the lounge and gave her a glass of water from the filter.
“Now,” she said as she shoved her coat inside her locker. “Why don’t you tell me what that was all about?”
The words raged behind Gabi’s lips, but she knew that now more than ever, the truth was hers to bear.
“I saw my father.”
“On Ninth? Are you sure? That’s odd. I guess they still need the Word like everybody else, even when they’re off in dreamland. Why didn’t you go talk to him?” Nurse Mehta shimmied out of her bulky sweater and leggings, her nurse’s uniform slung over the open door of her locker. Gabi had never seen a live,
