wrinkles. 'Your roommate is number '1.''
Roommate.
'Who's that?' Borland managed to hide his discomfort with the question. 'I have to share at 200 bucks a night?'
'We're not the Best Western, Mr.,' She looked down at his nametag. ' Borland. Everybody gets a roommate at the Shomberg Clinic.' The nurse looked into his eyes. 'Who knows, you might accidentally make a friend.'
Borland grumbled, scowling around the room.
'It's a little late, but you can probably still get some lunch. There's an orientation meeting at four o'clock,' the nurse said, pulling a pamphlet from where it was shoved under the pillow on bed number 2. 'Bring that card. They'll answer your questions there.'
She turned and in a flurry of action guided her wide hips out the door.
Borland set his bags by the foot of the bed and dropped onto the mattress with a loud THUD.
He looked through the window at a group of tall pines that grew over a walking path. They were rusty brown and green and somehow felt clean to watch.
CHAPTER 6
Lunch?
Borland knew it was late enough in the day for any meal to qualify as supper, but he was hungry from all the waiting so he followed the river of patients that flowed to and from the dining room. They were milling about bored, coming and going, up and down the stairs. It was plain that if you weren't eating, you were walking around until the next meal.
It was an endless line of white hair and loose clothing, pulling magnetically, drawing Borland down the steps; they linked him to the daisy chain of aging.
He felt very old in such company.
Nothing new, he'd felt old for years, a fact pounded home by his hernias but for some reason the resolute, unrelenting shuffle of the hernia-borne, the operation and healing day patients; the core group of smiling gramps, hot wrinkles shot with red, chipped at his ability to confidently deny the overall affect of aging upon him.
He was feeling ancient and it was their fault.
This added to the fact that the gray beards automatically started to count him among their number, involve him in their mumbling irrelevance, made him reluctant to go to the dining room at all- besides, no drinking, no point.
And he'd never been big on company. The Variant Effect just made the apprehension worse. So Borland tended to eat at home or alone, choosing isolated places to sit or stand if he did have to be around people, especially when he was called upon to fraternize or like now, join the crew for dinner.
And especially if he was sober.
He needed a drink.
Then he imagined Brass setting the whole thing up. He'd know what the Shomberg Clinic was like, one of the strings he pulled would have told him how out of place Borland would be.
Brass was laughing…
Borland made his way into the room between 15 tables and 50 strangers and found himself exposed…too exposed. But then he'd walked too far, was up against a table full of patients snacking on cookies and drinking coffee, just a wall beyond them; nowhere to even sit and shield his eyes.
But a hand reached up on his left and patted his arm, drew him down to a seat between two total strangers. There was a group of five chairs around the table, and he sat closest to a man who looked about 35, was broad shouldered in his pajamas under a tousle of dark locks. That left an empty chair on Borland's right, and then a rough-looking woman with rusty, over-conditioned hair. She had a denim vest over a stained pullover and green slacks. Her earlobes sagged from the weight of cheap brass jewelry.
Borland kept his eyes low after he sat, and then bucked up enough to nod quickly to the other guests, confirming their existence without drawing too much attention to his own. Then he started nervously arranging his utensils.
It was a mixed group in the dining room. New patients were being served lunch, and others in the repair process were cadging an extra bite or snacking, while healing day patients tried to make up for missed meals.
Borland didn't like it.
His discomfort must have thrown his instincts off too, because he got a gut feeling just then that something was wrong but he disregarded it. Too much was happening. It could have been brought on by the hockey dad, or been coming from the woman. Maybe it was the weird little Chinese guy across from him listening to loud symphony music on his ear-buds, and slurping his water, but Borland got the feeling that something was wrong.
He could also blame the fact that he was drying out-sober, worried about spooks and zombies.
Why zombies?
Without the numbing effects of alcohol, he was flying sighted; his professional instincts frayed by awareness.
He still needed a drink.
And without one, his company was starting to draw him in and make him real with panic.
He tried to calm down by listening to the conversation from the man on his right. Deep-chested and kind- faced, a hockey dad who had introduced himself, but Borland had missed the name. Luckily he was content with Borland's input of a strained half-smile and nod because the fellow recapped the table talk. He waxed poetic about his kids on skates, and early mornings on the ice.
Sounded like hell to Borland but…
The hockey dad's companion, the rough-trade woman was convinced; but it was a selfish interest. Somehow she took the hockey dad's nostalgic dream and twisted it to talk about her Shomberg Clinic roommate.
'She had a bad day.' Rough-trade nodded. 'She wants to go home but the doctors won't let her-so she wants to go even more.'
'She had a reaction to the painkillers, you said?' asked Hockey Dad, giving Borland a concerned half- nod.
'Yeah, and now she'll only use an ice pack,' Rough-trade replied, 'for the pain.'
A waiter sped by the table and dropped a small plate in front of each of them as he passed. Borland started shoveling the meager portion of rigatoni and Caesar salad into his face-then paused when he caught the startled looks of his tablemates.
He was hungry.
Borland kept his skinned right hand hidden from the other diners. It was easy to miss at a distance but obvious up close so he hid it when forced into company. The scarring overrode whatever social manners social media and isolation had left, so he held his fork in his left hand, and bunched his napkin up over his scarred palm with the rest of the material draped over his knuckles.
He didn't want to go into it, and he didn't always want the responsibility that came with being a Variant Squad Captain.
'No wonder she's having trouble,' Hockey Dad continued. 'Not using painkillers is crazy.'
'She's tough. Used to be a cop,' said Rough-trade proudly. ' Shush -here she comes.'
And Borland reflexively shared their hunched, guilty postures as they turned to watch a tall, well-muscled woman with caramel blonde hair approach.
Borland remembered seeing her on his way back from the accounting office. Pretty woman, she'd caught his eye through the big bay window in the patient lounge. He'd stepped out onto the balcony to watch as she relaxed by the 'contemplation' pond.
Her golden skin had caught his eye.
