The unyielding future, p.9
The Unyielding Future, page 9
“You got morphine, Versed, and Benadryl.” The nurse answered. A triple cocktail. Major league sedation, which explained why I felt like I had been poured into the bed. I don’t remember asking for something so potent, but after Leah and her armed escort had left I probably didn’t offer any resistance to chemically induced sleep.
“Two milligrams of morphine,” I said, and tried not to grit my teeth.
“There are no badges for heroes, tough guy. This is going to be rough.” I finally recognized the nurse. She was the unit supervisor, Sandy Fuller.
“Hi, Sandy. What are you doing delivering patient care? You’re one of the important people.” I grimaced as she lowered my arm and the veins began to re-expand.
“I’ll tell you a secret if you won’t let it go to your head.” She smiled and I nodded. “They’re lining up outside to help you.” She winked. It was without a doubt the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a very long time. “Sorry about Andrea.”
I spent an eternity in a treatment room that morning, with dressing changes and wound debridement (where the dead tissue is cut or scrubbed off). In the end I needed eight more milligrams of morphine to take the edge off. I guess I’m not so tough after all. I slept away the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Leah had visited but didn’t wake me. She left me a note that simply said, Love you.
I finally opened my eyes around two thirty. I was disoriented and for several minutes thought that I was having a dream about work. I recognized our ICU, realized that I couldn’t really move, and that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. I looked around and found a clear plastic bag filled with fluid hanging above my bed. Morphine Sulfate was stamped across it. I followed an intravenous line down from the bag to my arm. “Wheee,” I whispered.
I found Leah’s note, and it took me roughly an hour to read and understand the words. I dropped it to the floor and tried to process what had been happening. Memories and random thoughts flowed through my thick mind, and I tried to arrange them into something that approximated a logical sequence, but my mind refused to stay on task. Like Mia, I wondered where Nitrox, our beloved dog, was this very moment. My brain was swimming in a pool of morphine about ten feet above my body, and from that height I could see both Nitrox and Maggie. The toddler was astride our dog like a jockey, and they were running home through a pine forest. Good girl, I thought. Nitrox must have followed the evil man back to his lair, killed him as Mia had instructed, and rescued Maggie. Suddenly, everything was right with the world. Leah and the kids wouldn’t have to leave, and I would go home. I closed my eyes and it was suddenly evening.
I was more alert, and my narcotic-fueled hallucinations were now just a disorganized dream. I was sore and stiff and began to slowly stretch my arms and neck. As I turned to the left I found Adis smiling back at me.
“How are you?” My mind was clear enough to remember that when he asked this question he expected an answer.
“I hurt and my mind is still in a fog,” I said through my oxygen mask, in a voice too raspy to be my own. “I saw what you did.” My throat felt raw, and a tickle deep in my pharynx warned me of an impending cough.
“I know, and I think that you should keep that between us.” He looked pink and healthy. No unsightly burns or scars. Even his wrinkled face had somehow smoothed out.
“Too late.” I whispered. I tried to suppress the cough that I knew would lead to an episode of laryngospasm.
“Just leave it for now. No one else needs to know.” His voice was soothing like a cool compress on my burned skin.
“Why aren’t you burned?” I whispered. It didn’t seem to matter that the strength of my voice was so poor that I could barely hear my own words.
“Why am I not burned?” he repeated in a soft voice. That was all he said for several long seconds, and then he leaned into my bed and stared at me. He studied my face long enough for me to feel uncomfortable. “At this point it’s not important for you to know why I am not burned,” he finally said. “Knowing won’t help you. But there are things that are important for you to know.” He waited for me to signal that I understood. I nodded. “I am a small cog in a vast machine that maintains balance.”
“Balance?” I whispered, and my sluggish brain conjured up an image of Adis standing on a large exercise ball. I think I may have chuckled.
“Balance,” he repeated. “Without balance there can be no free will. Without free will there can be no balance. We would be left with chaos.”
“So, by extension, you work to maintain free will and prevent chaos.” It took me almost a minute to work that out. “That’s very noble.” I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, but in retrospect it probably sounded that way. “Who’s free will? Ours?”
“Everyone’s.” His face floated in front of me, which I know was only possible because I had been pumped full of more mind-altering drugs than were used at the last Grateful Dead concert.
“Well, thank you.” I was slipping into narcotic-induced frivolity and I tried to fight it. “So you run into burning buses and kill terrorists so we can choose between cable or network TV? What a lousy job.” His smiling face drifted in and out of focus. “Wait a minute. That’s not right.” The obvious contradiction energized my mind for a moment. “You interfered with those guys, those terrorists. You took away their free will.” In fact he had taken away more than just their free will.
“All for the greater good.”
“And helping Maggie Dale, that’s not for the greater good?” I thought that I had just scored a point.
“Until I know more, as I have already told you, it would be unwise for me to become involved.”
“Unwise,” I whispered dramatically, or as dramatically as a burned man high on narcotics wearing a breathing mask can be. “But it wasn’t unwise to run into that bus. You made that decision pretty quick.” I should have asked him how he knew to be there at that moment, but words were getting lost in my head. “Why aren’t you burned?” It dawned on me that he still hadn’t answered the original question.
“I have a duty, a purpose for being, and for the most part I have been given the tools to do it.”
“That’s why you don’t burn. You’re made of asbestos. The asbestos man.” I was really starting to slur my words as I began to sink back into the bed and oblivion. I fought to focus my thoughts. “How do you know . . .” I kept losing myself. “How do you know—” I really wanted an answer to this question, only I couldn’t get the words out “—who tells you when you can do . . .” That was as much of my thought that I could piece together.
“No one tells me,” he said simply.
I understood his words, but their implications were a little beyond my reach, so I asked the only question my slow brain could generate. “Are you God?”
He laughed loudly. Heartily. It was the same laugh I use when one of my children does or says something in complete innocence. He went on for a while, and I began to feel foolish and made a mental note to remind myself how this feels the next time the roles are reversed.
“Oh, goodness no.” He could barely get the words out. “This is a discussion we need to have when you are feeling better.” He smiled and shifted his position. “We do have an important matter to discuss.”
I nearly cut him off by telling him that Leah had taken care of everything, but for the moment couldn’t get my thoughts out fast enough.
He reached over the bed rail and took my bandaged hand. It should have hurt like hell, but all I felt was a tingling sensation (if I had been working I would have called it a paresthesia) that raced up my arm and into my brain. My eyes snapped open. In a millisecond I was awake and alert. “You need to listen to me now. This is important.”
“I’m listening.” My voice was unnaturally strong for my current condition. I was more than listening; it was as if a recorder had been turned on in my brain.
“I have to stay here in Austin.” He spoke in short sentences that were easily digested. His face looked as if it were made of granite. “I can’t go to New Mexico. Not even for a short time. Leah and your children must stay here.” He let go of my hand and I suddenly felt unplugged, but I understood not only what he had said, but what he had left unsaid.
“All right.” I felt somewhat hypnotized. Hypnotized, but afraid. His face began to soften back into Adis-the-grandfather, and a wave of exhaustion washed over me
“These recent events, the high school, the kidnapping, the bus . . .” He paused as he struggled to find the right words. “They are just the beginning. Somehow you and your family have become a focal point for something that remains undefined.” This was the first time that I had ever seen Adis look truly worried. “If your family leaves, the situation will become more complicated. More unpredictable.” He stood, and I was flagging so badly that I couldn’t tell if he actually spoke those words aloud or inserted them directly into my brain.
“Okay,” I said, in a voice that would surely warrant a field sobriety test had I been driving.
“Sleep now. I will see you again soon.” He walked to the door and opened it. I saw an Imperial Guard that stood at least twelve feet tall guarding my room. In his mechanical voice he wished Adis a good night, and the door closed. “But I really don’t like Star Wars,” I said to myself.
Chapter Ten
🝏 🝏
LEAH WAS AT MY BEDSIDE EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING. She had spent almost an entire day and night making arrangements with her family, the children’s schools, and the FBI. She was not exactly open to suddenly cancelling them on the request of a drugged-up husband and a mystery man that I had already described as delusional. In the midst of our “discussion,” which had been interrupted by one of the nurses pointedly asking if everything was all right, Leah had called Special Agent Anderson so that I could explain to him why she and the kids should remain in harm’s way simply because Adis insisted. He was no more impressed with my reasoning than Leah.
“You have to realize that your thinking is impaired. You’re just going to have to let go and let me take care of things.” She had finally put her phone away after having a hushed conversation with the FBI agent. “We really don’t have a choice.” She was all action and resolve now. She would not be dissuaded, no matter what I said. If I had Adis’s cell phone number, and if Adis actually had had a cell phone, I would have called him and let him explain it to the immovable object that I had married more than two decades earlier. As it turned out, I didn’t need a cell phone.
The door opened and I caught a glimpse of a police officer of normal dimensions, wearing only an APD uniform, guarding my room. He closed the door after Adis himself walked in. I am going to break with convention now and actually describe what I think Leah saw.
Adis was probably a little over six feet and around two hundred pounds. He had broad shoulders, a thick chest, and thicker arms. I was struck by the fact that Adis must actively work out and I wondered where. He wore a red-and-black short-sleeved flannel shirt that was much too warm for Austin in May. He had on a pair of tan pants and a pair of brown hiking boots that looked like they just came out of the box. Leah stood and gawked.
“You must be Leah.” He closed the distance literally in the blink of an eye and swept up her hand to shake it.
“How do you do?” she answered mechanically. I can’t ever remember her looking so dumbfounded or star struck.
“I do very well,” he answered in typical Adis fashion. “We should sit, as I have very little time to convince you that I am not a fruitcake.” His smile was the most charming I had ever seen it.
“I don’t think you’re really a fruitcake,” she said slowly, which was a refreshing break from her usual torrent.
“Of course you do, or at least you should.” He held her hand and she looked hypnotized, a state that had become thoroughly familiar to me.
“I’m just not sure we should stay in Austin. The FBI . . .”
He interrupted her. “The FBI cannot protect you or your children. As I was explaining to your husband, we have a bit of a serious situation here.” I watched Leah as Adis worked his way around her natural suspicions. Her eyes were a fraction wider, her expression slightly vacant, and she allowed this total stranger to hold her hand. “And, for reasons that aren’t yet clear, you and your family seem to be at the center of it.”
She stared at Adis for a very long moment and then slowly pulled her hand back. “He has shared with me some of your unusual beliefs.” Her gaze was beginning to refocus and her natural suspicion had crept back into her voice.
“Like how I believe that I am thousands of years old, and that my job is to bring balance to the world?” He smiled but Leah wasn’t so easily seduced.
“You do know that you sound delusional. So why should I follow the advice of a delusional man, no matter how charming?” She folded her arms across her chest and gave him an I’m-not-so-easily-fooled look. So much for the Adis-effect.
“Excellent question.” He leaned away from Leah and gave her space. “What would it take to convince you? Magic tricks? Do you want me to prove myself by making the diamond earring you lost at the Krietz’s Christmas party last year reappear? Or would you like me to read your mind and tell you what Mia told you she did to Nitrox a week ago? Would that be enough to convince you?”
Leah had lost a single diamond earring at the Krietz’s. We had been dancing rather vigorously, after a few to many glasses of holiday punch, on their boat dock when the earring flew off into the darkness of Lake Austin. I had no idea what Mia had confided to Leah about our missing dog, but I was convinced.
She eyed him suspiciously, and for a moment it looked like Adis’s gambit had backfired. “Tell me where Nitrox is.”
“With Maggie Dale.” He answered almost as if he had expected the question. I had expected her to ask for the earring (okay I had hoped she would ask for the earring).
“Nice try. Where?” Her arms tightened across her chest. I remember thinking that maybe it was just men who were susceptible to the Adis-effect.
I sat up, suddenly very interested in his answer, as well as how Leah seemed to be working Adis. “I have no specifics, only generalities, nothing that would convince you that you need to do what I say.”
“How do you know that they are still alive?”
“Because if they weren’t I could tell you exactly where they are.”
“Is the person who took Maggie and Nitrox going to try and take one of our children?” Her voice was strong. I couldn’t detect even the slightest quiver.
“As things stand, yes,” he said instantly.
“Will they succeed?” she fired back.
“That depends on what you do.” They stared at each other, and I suddenly felt like the odd man out.
“Can you stop them?” Her voice broke very subtly.
“Only if the conditions are right,” Adis answered. Leah had begun to lean forward almost plaintively.
“And if they aren’t, you would let some bastard take one of our children?” Her voice rose half an octave.
“It wouldn’t be my choice.” Adis matched Leah’s lean and the two were very nearly touching. “I promise you that I will do everything within my power to protect you and your family.”
I didn’t doubt his sincerity, but it was clear he had left a good deal unsaid “Everything within your power?” Leah questioned.
“As I told your husband, I am not God. I am not omnipotent. There are limits to what I can do. In time the situation will become clear.” His tone was reassuring, but Leah was having none of it.
“What is clear is that a crazy person is threatening our baby. You can see that, can’t you?” Leah had pulled back and raised her voice.
“Yes, I can see that, but I can also see that your family is a small part of a much larger process.”
Leah stared back at Adis. I could see the internal struggle on her face. She was scared and fought hard to keep her head above the emotional waters that threatened to drown her. “Why can’t you help the police find the Dales’ child?” Leah asked after a long ten seconds.
“I have told them all they are capable of hearing. Unfortunately, most of them see me as a doddering old man that, after my recent exploits, is lucky to be alive.”
“Not all of them,” I finally added to the conversation.
“That is true. Some suspect that I am more than I seem.” He smiled at the inside joke. “They see me as complicit, which colors any information I give them.”
“Why can’t you find her yourself? You tracked down those crackpots that attacked the high school.” Leah asked.
Adis took a long breath, crossed his arms, and sat back up in his chair. “That was an entirely different situation.” For a second Adis had let his façade drop, and both Leah and I could see that we had touched a nerve.
“What are you not telling us?” I asked.
“This is not the time to go into…” Adis started and Leah cut him off.
“This is the exact time,” she said sharply. “If you want us to do what you say and ignore the advice of everyone around us you need to be straight with us.”
It took Adis a half a minute to respond. He silently stared at the floor, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry with Leah’s sudden directness or if he was having difficulty finding the right words. “There are no rules that govern human behavior aside from those you impose upon yourselves. This is a fundamental principle. My existence, however, is very different. I have clear lines of responsibility and I cannot work outside them.”
Leah and I exchanged a look. Even in my drug-addled mind I could tell that Adis had given us only half an answer.
“All right so your existence has rules that force you to color inside the lines. Are you saying that Maggie Dale and our family are outside those lines?” Leah’s mind was clear and she was in no mood for half answers.
