End of Innocence
Chapter 19
Cabin, Cimarron, later same day
Shaw had picked out some thick steaks at the store, so for dinner they'd grilled the steaks and served them with baked potatoes and all the fixin's, according to Chase. The three ate well that night and then retired to the living room for dessert and coffee, until Chase got up and announced he was overdue at home. This was his night off at work, but he wanted to get home to his wife.
"Don't forget, John," he said, "when you're back on your feet, we want you to come over for dinner. The wife wants to show you off to some of her lady-friends around here. She's taking it serious. Thinks you should settle down and, I'm tellin' you, she's not gonna take no for an answer." Chase laughed and smacked Reese on the back, then glanced at Shaw with a guilty look.
Shaw just stared at him with her cool, dark eyes – no expression he could read.
Reese didn't respond about dinner, but the two shook hands and then Reese handed him an envelope.
"What's this?"
"For all your help since I got here," Reese said in his whisper-voice. Chase frowned for a moment and looked inside. Reese had stuffed it with cash.
At first, Chase started to hand it back, but Reese told him he should use it to surprise his wife with something special. That seemed to make it easier to accept and Chase left with a smile on his face.
They heard his car start up out front and a while later it crunched forward in the snow out there.
Reese seemed quiet after he'd left. Shaw noticed but didn't want to say.
Something seemed off about the whole thing with the envelope. She wondered about it but kept her thoughts to herself. In near silence they cleared the dishes, washed, dried and put everything away.
Reese started another pot of coffee brewing, while Shaw emptied the bags she'd brought from the pharmacy: dressing supplies he'd need after she left, and the three bottles of medications she'd written for him.
"Hoping we can get these started tomorrow morning," she said, holding the two antibiotics up for him to see.
"This other one is a pain med. No narcotics in this one. It's for when you need to stay alert," she told him. He looked at the label and nodded. Then she showed him the brown bottle of pain pills she'd brought from New York.
"This one's for serious pain. Try to get away with just one if you can. You can always add in that other one, too, for more pain control. But things should be getting better each day, so I don't expect you'll need the big gun for much longer. You should hang onto them – just in case," she said with a smirk.
Trouble always seemed to find him. She was sure this wasn't the last time he'd be needing pain meds.
They took a few sips of their coffee, and then Shaw sat back while Reese showed how he'd set up a sterile field. She had him take his temp, too, and then record it on her notebook paper for later. No fever tonight. And no spike earlier that day. They'd check it late that same night, and then first thing in the morning, and if all stayed this well, he'd finally be rid of the IV tubing and bag. It'd served its purpose, but now felt like it was just in the way.
If they'd been in another setting with access to better equipment, she'd have had a simpler way to keep the IV site available, without having the bag and its tubing constantly attached. There was such a thing as a short piece of tubing made for just that purpose. One end attached to the catheter and the other one ended in a single port, where an IV could run in, or where injections could be given.
All the rest of the time, Reese could've been free of the tangle of tubing and the IV bag. No such luxuries in the field like this, so they'd made do with what they had. Improvising had always been part of their way of life. Like a motto: always prepare, but when preparation fails, you need to be able to improvise. True in the military, and true, too, in the field of medicine. Sometimes things hit the fan, and you need to be able to think on your feet.
Next, he showed her the way he'd draw up that first antibiotic in a syringe. She watched him push the fluid into his IV line with good technique. He'd clearly had some kind of experience somewhere along the way, she thought, watching him handle the equipment. Maybe he'd tell her about it, someday.
Then he readied himself for the dressing change. Positioning was the first problem. Lying down didn't give him enough of a view to see the wound well. They jury-rigged a method, using a mirror, but he'd need to sit up to make it work.
Reese took down the dressing and he was able to remove the packing all the way to the last foot or so without much pain. But that last foot was tough on him: it'd stuck down tight to the raw lining of the wound.
Shaw warned him not to run out of patience and just yank the end free. She showed him how to soak it in sterile saline, to make it easier to separate from the wound. All it cost was the extra time and some patience. Hard to know, though, if Reese'd have it in him – if he were here on his own.
Reese, being left-handed, had to do everything the opposite way she'd shown him the night before. And, with the mirror, he had to do it all in reverse the whole time. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how hopeless this could feel. Reese was more the man of planning and action. He wasn't the type to care much for fussing over the fine points.
He managed to get through the first part of removing the packing, and then through the re-packing – with a new pair of gloves and balancing the jar with one hand, while pulling the strip out of the jar in manageable lengths with the other. He needed to pause a few times to think through the process, but Shaw was impressed at how well he did. And maybe because his attention was so focused on the process, he hadn't seemed to notice the pain as much tonight.
The last step was covering the wound with a dressing: two layers, just like they'd done it the previous evening. Then taping it to hold it in place. When they were done, Shaw helped him clear the table of debris, and then brought him to the kitchen to show him how to sterilize a few of the instruments for the next day.
They bumped fists at the end. Shaw told him he probably hadn't killed anyone, including himself, this first time – high praise, coming from her. If all went well the next day and he was taking his meds orally, she'd be there for one more day and then head back to New York.
Reese glanced up at her. He'd been thinking about it.
"Look, Shaw, you don't need to drive all the way back to Denver. I'll get you on a plane in Montrose, and you can fly into Denver. It'll be faster," he said.
"This close to the holiday, we'll see how that goes," she said.
"Hey, Finch might even send his jet to get you," he said. A look came over him, but she didn't know what it meant.
"Have you spoken with him, Reese?" She watched his eyes drop to the floor. No answer.
"You know, it's funny. He knew right away, the way you'd left your suit out on your bed, that you were leaving. I didn't pick up on it. Took him to figure it out." She watched him with her cool, dark eyes.
He kept his eyes down, and then got up and dragged the "IV pole" along with him to the woodstove. He spent a while poking at the burnt logs inside, stirring up the coals left behind, before he added more wood to the fire.
When he came back, he seated himself across from her.
"How long do you think this'll take?" he asked, pointing at his side.
"You mean before you can stop the packing?"
He nodded. "Maybe another two weeks. It's filling in. These kinds of infections need to heal from the inside out," she said. "If you seal them over, the bugs just go wild inside, and we'd just have to start all over. I know this isn't how you wanted to spend your time, Reese."
He nodded again, and she thought he'd stay silent. But he said out loud, "Didn't think it was gonna be like this."
She let it hang in the air like that for a minute. Then, "what do you mean, Reese?"
"I – thought it'd be different out here. More like it used to be."
"But isn't this what you wanted?"
"Doesn't feel like it, Shaw. Don't know," and he leaned back against the tall back of the couch and closed his eyes. Shaw watched him for a while. She got up and went to the cabinet where the whiskey bottle sat. Poured a splash into one of the glasses and went back to her chair.
Warehouse, New Jersey, same night
Root took a last look around.
Their workspace was ready now – space for her team to assemble and do their programming tasks. Desks, computers, and all the wiring done - to access the hardware coming in. A little re-route of seven very special servers to this warehouse, and a little work from her own squad of geeks – then off to their final destination: a Samaritan server farm nearby.
Root and the Machine were collaborating on a safety plan. There might come a time when another AI machine would threaten. If not Samaritan, then another conscious entity. What better time than now to test their programming?
If her team were to hide themselves in plain sight and avoid detection, then she'd know their plan would work. Blind the AI to their identities, make them seem like just another dot on a screen. It could buy them some time.
Finch had held fast to his rules: no autonomous action. Any act needed a human to assent. That way, the Machine still had guidance from a human for most of its strategies. Harold had never wanted her to act independently. Samaritan was altogether a different creature. Few limitations on what it could do to advance its objectives.
So, it felt to Root like the Machine was fighting with one arm tied behind her back. Simulations had proved it. Millions of scenarios, and the Machine had always lost to Samaritan. It'd seemed like Samaritan was the better machine. Yet, Finch was unmoved.
She had to do something to even the odds.
A little clandestine midnight raid. Steal the servers. Re-code the software inside. Then deliver the servers to one of the vast network of server farms – where their seven would easily disappear among the thousands of other busy, blinking black boxes. Who would know? And when it came to identifying the members of Harold's team? Hard-coded into each of the servers, his team would look like - air. Samaritan would see right through them, and never give them a second thought.
A few more days, and she'd be on her way to assemble her team. Whispers in her ear told her where to be. One after another, until the team had come together. Then she'd bring them here to do their work.
Root turned around at the door. She stared at the empty floor where soon the seven servers would sit.
A little shiver of excitement went through her. Ever since that day in Texas, when her best friend, Hanna Frey, had failed the simulation game, Oregon Trail, Root had known this would be her calling.
How easy it'd been for her to win.
If only she'd looked up sooner, stopped Hanna from getting into that car. Both their lives should have been different.
They'd never found Hanna.
Some would say Root had never been found, either.