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Chapter 13
"Almost done, Toby."
Trip adjusted the small piece of wire that served him as pliers, wrench and screwdriver, then gave it a twist that fastened the last bolt in place.
"Now all we need is the battery." He glanced up and smiled at their roommate, who was sitting across from him at the table. "You got it?"
"Yes." Hands that were shaking with excitement brought out a crumpled-up handkerchief, and laid it on the table almost reverently. "I got one just like you said."
He opened the bundle. Inside, there was a XXL Duracell Superpower battery, a shining silver cylinder the size of Trip's little finger. Toby regarded it as if it were the crown jewels.
"Are you sure it's the right one?"
"Absolutely," Trip said, took the battery and slipped it into the designated compartment. For a second or two, nothing happened. Then, tiny lamps lit up and a humming filled the room, so soft it could be heard only if one listened very closely.
Toby stared at the thing on the table, and suddenly his eyes filled with tears.
Trip frowned. "Toby? You okay?"
"Yeah," Toby said in a slightly shaky voice, and turned away to wipe his eyes. "Yeah. It's just that... I can't believe this is happening. The... the rays... they've been giving me headaches, and nausea, and all sorts of things... I've lain awake so many times, thinking about the things the radiation was doing to my brain... and... to think that I won't have to worry about all that anymore..."
Trip almost cringed at the expression of pure and simple gratitude on the man's face. He cleared his throat and nodded at the object on the table between them.
"Well, I hope it'll work."
And I also hope you'll never realize that this thing can no more absorb or deflect dangerous radiation than it could when it was still a TV remote.
He had scrounged the thing from the common room a few days ago, after he had decided to built the first, honest-to-God ray neutralizer the world had ever seen. He had used whatever materials he and Malcolm had come across – pieces of wire he had found in the yard, small screws Malcolm had "borrowed" from the broken radio in the nurses' lounge, a cartridge out of a pen that sort of looked like an antenna. All of this, and a few hours of tinkering and tweaking, and what had once been an old TV remote control looked like a strange, futuristic device designed to catch and neutralize the dangerous radiation Toby was so afraid of.
"It will work," Toby said, and from the look on his face, he had never believed anything more in his life. "With these what-do-you-call-'ems absorbing the rays..."
"You mean the photoconductive elements," Trip supplied. "Yeah, they should work okay. They'll swallow the rays and phase-convert them into harmless Theta radiation, then eject them again through the distributor. With this thing hidden in your bed, the radiation won't be able to touch you."
Toby nodded, obviously impressed, and again, Trip felt a little guilty as he regarded the "ray neutralizer" on the table. He knew that this was a life-changing event for their roommate, and yet he couldn't help feeling that he was playing a rather mean practical joke on Toby. Malcolm had only shrugged when Trip had voiced his doubts, pointing out that if they wanted to help, this was the only way to do it.
"It's not as if he's going to find out," he had said. Trip had not been so sure, but now it turned out that Malcolm had been right. Toby didn't doubt that the "ray neutralizer" was real, and never even asked where they had gotten the necessary parts or why Trip would know how to build such a device. As down-to-earth as Toby was in most things, he wasn't even remotely in touch with reality where his radiation theory was concerned, and would believe anything if it was wrapped up in big enough words.
"Trip?"
Trip raised his head and found that Toby was looking at him, his neutralizer clutched firmly to his chest.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you." Toby's voice became slightly unsteady as he continued. "You don't know what this means to me."
Trip couldn't quite bring himself to meet the man's eyes. "That's okay," he said, getting up from his chair so he wouldn't have to look at Toby's face. "You're welcome."
He went over to his bed and found that Malcolm was looking at him from across the room. The Englishman's eyes were serious, almost somber, and when Toby wasn't looking, he gave Trip a small, quiet nod.
This is no joke, Malcolm's eyes said, and Trip realized that Malcolm wanted to let him know that he appreciated what Trip was doing. He nodded back and sat down on his bed. It wasn't a joke, and it helped that Malcolm understood that.
"Well, I'm going to turn in," Toby said, obviously unaware of the silent exchange that had taken place between his two roommates. He held up the neutralizer. "With this under my pillow, I'm sure I'll finally catch a good night's sleep."
Trip forced himself to smile. "That's great."
Toby nodded and began to pull his shirt over his head. "Thanks again, guys. You're the best."
"Don't mention it," Malcolm said quietly, and Trip saw that he, too, couldn't quite find it within himself to look Toby in the eyes.
Later, Trip lay in his bed with his hands folded behind his head, listening to the soft, even breathing coming from Toby's bed. There was no matching sound from Malcolm's side of the room, only the occasional rustling of blankets that suggested that Malcolm was still awake. In the dark, all Trip could see were the outlines of a figure lying on its side, face turned away from the room, but he was fairly sure that if he touched Malcolm's shoulder now, his hands would encounter the tense muscles of a man who could no longer bring himself to relax. Briefly, Trip considered doing just that – going over there and sitting down on the edge of Malcolm's bed, coaxing the other man into sharing whatever was bothering him. He didn't, though. In the two days since Malcolm had come back from seclusion – in the early morning hours, accompanied by Nurse Owens who had been working the night shift – he had not once mentioned the incident that had brought it all on, or how he had spent his time in isolation. When Trip had asked him about it, Malcolm had only shrugged. "There's nothing to talk about," had been his curt reply to any of Trip's questions. He had kept his eyes averted, though, and Trip could count on one hand the times Malcolm had smiled since he had come back. Something had definitely happened during those eight hours, and Trip didn't have to be Sigmund Freud to know that whatever it was, it had unsettled his friend.
With a small sigh, he turned his head and looked out of the window. The sky outside was dark, large clouds hiding the stars from view. It had been raining for almost two weeks in a row now, and the daily trip to the greenhouses had become a struggle through puddles and pools of muddy rain water. Once, the truck had gotten stuck, its wheels roaring and splashing water everywhere without moving the vehicle even an inch. They had climbed down and stood up to their calves in the mud, pushing the truck from behind while Moreno had done his best to put the gas pedal through the floor. Finally, the truck had rolled out of the puddle with a loud slurping sound, and the nurses had decided to drive back to main building so everyone could warm themselves up in the common room.
So far, the unsuspected morning off had been the only positive side effect of the lousy weather. For the most part, the constant rain made people edgy and irritable, not to mention the fact that almost everybody on Ward 4 had caught a cold. All the same, it was back to the greenhouses every day, and Trip found himself beginning to despise the sight of the huge glass constructions that were slowly but surely immersing in an ocean of mud. It didn't help that Lendon found it greatly amusing to "accidently" trip people up whenever there was a puddle in sight. Hardly a day passed without one of them finding themselves face-down in a pool of dirty water.
As if someone up there had read his thoughts, rain began to drum on the window, and Trip turned away, pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders. His hands still carried a faint scent of the peaches he had harvested today, and for some reason he found the smell relaxing. He allowed his thoughts to drift, the lingering aroma of the fruits filling his head. Shortly before he fell asleep, the image of a large, sunny kitchen appeared in his mind. A diminutive woman with graying hair set a bowl of ripe and fragrant peaches on the table, laughing as several small, grubby hands made an immediate grab for the fruits. "Give one to Lizzy, Trip," she said. "Don't you be holdin' out on your sister." A small girl with blond pigtails stuck out her tongue at him, then took a large bite from the peach he had given her. Fruit juice dribbled all over her chin.
"Yeah," she said. "Don't you be holdin' out on me, Trip."
Her tongue darted out of her mouth to lick off the juice, and everything about her seemed painfully familiar to him, from her blond hair down to her old white sneakers. He tried to hold on to the image, long enough so he would remember what it was and where it came from, but it faded away as quickly as it had come, and when he awoke on the following morning, it was gone as if it had never been there in the first place.
Rain was still pouring down, pounding on the breakproof windows and chilling the air as they made their way down the hallway. Trip shivered and wished he had had time to get dressed before Owens had called them. The thin pajamas weren't exactly keeping out the cold.
He glanced at the other, equally pajama-clad men who were walking down the hallway alongside him, yawning and scratching their backs, each of them carrying a bundle of clothes, wash kit and towel. Their eyes were still puffy from sleeping, and there was hardly anyone who looked as if he wouldn't have benefited from another forty or fifty winks. The only exception was Toby, who seemed well-rested and all but bounced down the hall.
Owens, none too awake himself, grinned at the small man. "What's with the good mood, Toby? You win the lottery or something?"
Toby answered with a wide smile of his own. "Even better," he said and winked at Trip, who couldn't help but smile back at him. Toby seemed like a different person this morning, cheerful and confident. Trip found it hard to believe that an old TV remote and a few assembled wires could have wrought such a change in a person's behavior, but he couldn't deny that he had the living proof right in front of his eyes.
Owens raised his eyebrows at them, but to Trip's relief he didn't ask any questions. Although he was sure that the nurse would not take the neutralizer away from Toby, it was better if none of the staff knew. Trip didn't like to think of what would happen if Lendon found out.
Owens opened the door to the shower room and waved them inside. "Breakfast's in 15 minutes, people, okay? I don't want us to be late!"
His announcement was met by sleepy nods and murmured affirmations, although no one actually picked up their pace as they trudged past the nurse into the large, tiled room. The bathrooms adjoining the dormitories had no shower facilities, and so they came here every morning to perform their daily ablutions. There was little privacy in using a communal shower, but Trip had to admit that some of their fellow patients did need supervision. Anthony, for instance, frequently tried to eat the soap, and could only be stopped by a nurse assuring him that it was just a little while until breakfast.
Trip went over to the bench on the far side of the room where he left his clothes and wash kit, then stripped down and stepped under one of the shower heads, all of which were arranged several feet apart alongside the walls of the room. He turned on the faucet and closed his eyes when the warm water came down on him. In the background, he could hear the quiet voices of the other men and the splashing as the faucets were opened one by one.
"Hurry up, guys!" Owens called out from the other side of the room. "Ten minutes!"
Trip sighed. Just once, he thought, he would like to shower with no one counting down the time. Squinting through the water that was running over his face, he looked around for a bar of soap and saw that Malcolm, a few showers away, had just finished with his.
"Malcolm!" he called out, and the Englishman raised his head. "Could you..."
He broke off. On Malcolm's bare stomach, there was an angry red spot about the size of a peanut, which Malcolm quickly covered with his hand when he noticed Trip's look. Trip hesitated, then went over to the shower next to Malcolm's – who, as he now realized, had chosen a spot well away from the rest of the men.
"Malcolm," he said quietly.
Malcolm continued washing as if he hadn't heard, turning his back to Trip.
"Is that a burn?" Trip asked.
"It's nothing," Malcolm said, turned off the faucet and left to get his clothes. Trip finished his own shower in a hurry, then followed Malcolm to the bench.
"It's not nothin'. Someone did this to you."
Malcolm ignored him, picked up his shirt and began to pull it over his head. In the bright light of the ceiling lamps, Trip saw that there was a slight swelling on the Englishman's left cheek which he hadn't noticed the day before. Or maybe it had only now started to bruise.
He reached out to touch it, but Malcolm pulled his head away. "Don't."
"They hit you, didn't they."
Malcolm looked away.
"Who did it, Malcolm?"
"I'm fine, Trip," Malcolm said, eyes still averted. "Let it go, will you?"
"No, I won't." Trip ignored the exasperated look his answer earned him. "What did they do to you?"
"'They' did nothing." Malcolm sighed. "Lendon wanted me know who's in charge, slapped me twice and put out his cigarette on my stomach. That's all that happened, really."
Trip searched the other man's face until he was sure that Malcolm was telling the truth. The thought of Lendon beating Malcolm and torturing him with a burning cigarette was enough to make him furious, but there was still the possibility that some of the things Lendon had done had left no outward traces.
"I'm all right, Trip," Malcolm said quietly. "Really. Just don't..."
He trailed off when Owens came walking towards them.
"Come on, guys, you can chat during breakfast," the nurse called. "Get dressed, now, we're running late."
"You should go see the doctor," Trip said when Owens was out of hearing range again. "That burn's gotta be treated."
Malcolm shook his head. "I told you, I'm fine."
"Malcolm..."
Trip broke off when the door on the other end of the room opened. He turned around and saw Lendon, coffee cup in hand, strolling into the room, his nurse uniform crumpled as if it had been pulled out from under a bed. The sight of the nurse's indifferent face brought a surge of anger. Trip glanced at Malcolm. The smaller man seemed intent on tying the drawstrings on his pants, but Trip didn't miss the twitch in the corner of his mouth, or the way Malcolm avoided looking at the nurse. Clearly, he wasn't as "fine" as he had claimed to be.
Owens sighed when he caught sight of his colleague. "Paul," he said. "You're late. Shift started 30 minutes ago."
Lendon took a sip from his coffee. "Yeah, I know. My alarm clock didn't go off on time."
"Well, maybe if you set it on time, it'd go off on time. This is the third time this week you've been late."
"Loosen up, will ya? It's not as if I missed anything." Lendon gave Owens a bored look. "Don't see why we gotta start at six, anyway. They can get out of bed by themselves all right."
Owens seemed to consider saying something, then sighed and turned away. "Whatever."
"You know," Lendon continued, his eyes passing lazily over the showers and sinks, "this place is a mess. Time someone cleaned it up."
Owens answered without turning around. "You're welcome to take care of it yourself."
Lendon ignored the obvious resentment in Owen's tone. "Actually, I think that's what I'm gonna do." He dumped the rest of his coffee on the floor, missing Frank's foot by an inch. "Let's see..." He looked from one patient to another, pretending to consider. Trip knew what was coming and at the same time crossed his fingers that this time, Lendon would single out someone else. He wasn't sure if he would be able to keep his mouth shut, after seeing the red blister on Malcolm's stomach.
"Trippy boy!" Lendon said and grinned as if he had only just now spotted him among the others. "And Lord Malcolm. Perfect. Finish dressing, guys, we got a lot of work ahead of us."
He raised his eyebrows at Trip in what was obviously supposed to be a playful manner. Owens gave his colleague a look of barely hidden disgust.
"Paul, I don't think that's such a good idea."
Lendon took on an innocent expression. "You told me yourself that this place needs cleanin'."
"I think you should take someone else. Frank and Chayton, for example."
Lendon shook his head and grinned. "Naw, I don't think so. These two will do just fine. I'm sure Trippy boy here don't mind if things get a little dirty, right?"
Owens looked as if he wanted to punch Lendon; a feeling Trip could sympathize with. "You're pathetic, Paul. You really are."
The smile vanished from Lendon's face in an instant. "And you're forgettin' who you're talking to. I only need to say one word, and you're outta here. So better watch out."
Trip exchanged a glance with Malcolm. It didn't seem to be an empty threat on Lendon's side, judging by his sneer and the look of helpless anger on Owen's face. Trip wondered who it was Lendon intended to have a word with. He didn't seem like a person to have influential connections.
Owens, on the other hand, seemed to know very well who Lendon was talking about. He said nothing more and waved at the rest of the men to get going. "Make sure they get breakfast before you take them down to the greenhouses. Don't take too long."
Lendon smiled. "Oh, we won't, don't worry."
Trip watched as the others filed out of the room, Chayton giving him a brief look before he followed Owens.
Be careful, Chayton's eyes seemed to say. You don't want to do anything stupid.
Tell me something I don't know. Trip steeled himself. From the expression on Lendon's face, he was looking forward to this, and Trip knew that it would not be easy not to rise to the nurse's baits. Lendon knew too well how to get him going.
"Well, well," the nurse said, clapping his hands like an idiot. "Don't just stand there, guys. Buckets are in the cabinet."
Malcolm ignored the nurse's malignant tone and wordlessly went over to the cupboard Lendon had pointed out. Trip followed him. Discretion was definitely the better part of valor in this case, and if they continued to ignore Lendon's taunts, there was little the nurse could do about it.
Malcolm opened the cupboard and took out two plastic buckets and two cleaning cloths, along with a bottle of cleanser. Trip noticed that there were no mops.
"Guess you'll have to get down on your hands and knees," Lendon said as if he had read Trip's mind. "At least that way you won't miss any spots."
Trip refused to look at the grin on Lendon's face and took the bucket Malcolm handed him. They went over to the sink and filled the buckets with hot water, then added a small amount of cleanser which bubbled and filled the room with an acid smell. Trip glanced at the bottle and wondered if this stuff was even supposed to be used without protection gear. Not that it mattered; Lendon wouldn't let them wear gloves even if they had any.
"You start over there, Reed," Lendon said, pointing to the door end of the room. "Trippy can do this side, and then you can meet in the middle. Hurry up, you heard Mick. We don't have all day."
Malcolm glanced past the nurse and gave Trip a look much like the one Chayton had given him earlier. Just don't do anything stupid.
Okay, okay. Trip turned and went over to the corner that was the farthest away from Lendon, where he set down his bucket. Best to get over with this as quickly as possible. As he immersed the cloth in the water, a cloud of acid wafted into his face, and his eyes began to burn. Head averted, he wrung out the cloth and then knelt down, slapping the wet fabric onto the tiles. Lendon had been right about one thing; the room was dirty, and the puddle of water that formed around the cloth immediately turned gray. Trip did his best to transfer most of the dirt into the bucket, but had to mop the same spot three times before it was even remotely clean. Sighing, he moved on to the next square meter of tiles, resigning to the fact that they would be in here most of the day if their scrubbing was to have any effect. Obviously, this place hadn't seen a mop in a very long time.
For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, no one spoke, the two of them scrubbing in silence while Lendon leaned against one of the sinks and played some sort of game on a small computer, uttering the occasional swear when one of his opponents managed to score a hit. Trip's hands and eyes were burning from the cleanser, and there was an irritating itch in the back of his throat that grew worse with every breath he took. He considered going over to the sinks to get a drink of water, but dismissed the idea after a look at Lendon. The nurse would pounce on any "provocation" on his part, and Trip wasn't going to play into his hands. He did his best to keep his face turned away from the bucket – there was nothing he could do about his hands – and, after another ten minutes, got up and carried it over to the sinks to change the water.
Keeping an eye on Lendon, Trip poured the dirty water into the sink, then rinsed the bucket and filled it again, taking as long as possible. The nurse never looked up, and Trip lifted the bucket out of the sink without adding any cleanser and returned to where he had left off. Without the acid substance, the feeling of the warm water on his hands was almost pleasant, and he resumed scrubbing, secretly triumphant that he had gotten past Lendon's "watchful" eyes. Hopefully, Malcolm would have the same idea and act on it before the cleanser started to eat away his skin.
"Didn't you forget somethin', Trippy boy?"
Damn.
Trip looked up and saw that Lendon had abandoned his computer game. The nurse grinned and held up the bottle of cleanser as he walked towards him.
"I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concept of cleaning agents, but it's quite simple really. Don't worry, I'll show you." He held the bottle in front of Trip's face and read the label, drawing out the words with mocking slowness. "'Sa-afe for tiles, chro-ome and fibergla-ass. Cle-eeans off soap scum a-and milde-ew.' You with me, Trippy boy?"
"It also says 'use eye protection'," Trip replied, tempted to drag out the words like Lendon had done. From the other side of the room, Malcolm shook his head at him in warning, but Trip wasn't so sure whether saying nothing would have been the smarter option in this case.
Lendon's lips twitched. "Well, what do you say. The country boy can read. I bet Momma's real proud of you, ain't she? Or would that be your sister? Well, in your case I guess they're one and the same."
Trip didn't remember if he even had a family, but it changed nothing about the anger flaring up in him at Lendon's words. For a moment, he considered jumping up and punching the man right into his grinning face, even though he knew that this was exactly what Lendon wanted him to do. Taking a deep breath, Trip said nothing and reached for his cleaning cloth instead. A second later, Lendon had snatched it out of his hand.
"I haven't finished yet," he said. "Look right here, Trippy. You open the bottle – " he unscrewed the lid – "then put some of the nice yellow stuff into the water. It's not that hard, really."
Lendon upended the bottle and shook it. Yellow liquid spurted out, part of it hitting the cloth he was holding, part of it landing in the bucket. It was a lot more than Trip had used the first time, and the onslaught of acid almost took his breath away. He coughed and blinked furiously to get rid of the burning in his eyes. Somewhere above his head, Lendon laughed. He dropped the cloth on the floor in front of Trip and pushed it towards him with the tip of his dirty sneaker.
"Get back to work, Trippy."
He waited until Trip had picked up the cloth, then nodded in mock praise.
"That's a good boy."
He started to walk away, then, suddenly, Trip felt a hand on his ass and heard Lendon's voice close to his ear.
"Any more fucking around, and you'll go to seclusion, Tucker. And believe me, you don't want that."
Trip sharply pulled away and began get to his feet, all caution forgotten. "You-"
He was interrupted by the sound of a bucket hitting the floor. Lendon and he both turned their heads at the same time. Malcolm's bucket was rolling over the tiles, its dirty contents spreading over the area he had cleaned so far.
"Reed!" Lendon began to walk towards Malcolm, almost slipping on the wet floor. "You goddamn idiot!"
"I'm sorry," Malcolm said quickly as he tried to keep the growing puddle at bay with his cloth. "My hand slipped..."
"Oh shut up!" Lendon grabbed Malcolm's wet cloth and slapped it across the Englishman's face. "Now go and get some more of these to clean it up. Move!"
As Malcolm got up, Lendon gave him a kick in the leg that sent him stumbling. Trip took a deep breath when Malcolm suddenly turned his head and threw him a hard, almost angry look. Trip closed his mouth again. Malcolm's bucket was lying in a far corner of the room, and there was really no way it could have gotten there... unless someone had given it a swift hard kick.
God, Malcolm.
Trip watched as Malcolm began to soak up the water with a bunch of cloths he had gotten from the cupboard, Lendon standing next to him and telling him how many different kinds of idiot he was. As he resumed his own work, Trip silently repeated Lendon's abuse in his mind, directing it at himself. If he had simply ignored the man, Malcolm would have felt no need to intervene and would have been spared an additional bruise, not to mention at least an hour of extra work.
Trip slapped his cloth onto the floor. There was no need to do that, Mal.
However, Malcolm had apparently felt that it was necessary, staging his little "accident" just in time before the situation between him and Lendon would have gotten out of hand. Trip raised his head and found that Malcolm was looking at him, his eyes holding a strange combination of exasperation and... relief?
It's not as if Lendon was going to kill me.
The worst thing that could have happened was that he would have spent a few hours in seclusion – which wasn't a pleasant prospect, but didn't quite justify the sudden and desperate intervention. There was no denying the expression in Malcolm's eyes, though, leaving Trip with the uneasy feeling that there was something the other man was not telling him.
"... you know, Reed, lookin' at you, it's like you fell outta the Stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down. Tell me, do you have any brain at all in that ugly head of yours?"
Trip sighed and went back to work.
TBC...
Please leave a review and tell me what you think (profanity regarding Lendon is always welcome ;) )!