Elizabeth Hand - 12 Monkeys

“Help,” Halperin repeated. His fingers drummed slowly at the table edge. After a moment he shook his head, gathering his notes and the photo. “Well. I’m sure we’ll do all we can to help this guy. Dr. Railly—”

He stood and motioned her to the door. “There’s a little more paperwork for you to finish, and then someone will help you make arrangements to get back home.”

“Thank you,” Kathryn said in a small voice, her burst of excitement played out. “Thank you very much.”

And she followed him out the door.

Voices drown the roar of a jet, the lingering echo of a gunshot. Near the boy’s feet two blond heads lean together, their bright hair tangling, the woman cradling the wounded man where he sprawls on the concourse. Despite his terror the boy wants to dart forward, to join them, but someone holds him back, there is a hand on his shoulder, a voice commanding him.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

He flinched as a second voice chimed in. “I think we gave him too much.”

“WAKE UP PRISONER!”

He woke, blinking as he tried to focus on the blurry faces hovering over him.

“Come on, Cole, cooperate!”

“Spit it out! You went to the home of a famous virologist…”

With great effort Cole shook his head. “You — don’t exist!” he finally said, the words like stones falling from his mouth. You’re only in — my mind…”

Above him the blur continued into a single face: the microbiologist, his sunglasses a heavy bar above his thin mouth. “Speak up, Cole,” he ordered. “What did you do next?”

Cole closed his eyes, forced those other faces from his mind. Instead he tried to bring up the image of a moonlit sky, the shadow of a crocus leaf upon his outstretched palm, Kathryn Railly’s pale eyes and determined frown as she gently pulled gauze across his leg.

“Cole!”

The images grew clearer. He could hear dead leaves rustling, the faint sigh of wind in the trees. He smiled, feeling the wind on his shorn scalp, then cried aloud as cold fingers pressed down upon his shoulder, probed at his neck until they found a vein. There was the sudden stab of a needle, then darkness.

In Kathryn’s apartment, her friends Marilou and Wayne sat huddled together on the couch, riveted by the TV. A film clip showed a fragile looking Kathryn leaving the police station, her face dead white, her hair hidden by a scarf.

“Exhausted, but apparently unharmed by her thirty-hour ordeal, Dr. Railly returned to Baltimore this morning without making a public statement.”

Behind them the bedroom door opened. Wayne fumbled hastily with the remote, turning down the volume as Kathryn crossed the room in her bathrobe, her cat cradles in her arms. Wayne looked up at her, crestfallen.

“Sorry. Did we wake you?”

Kathryn shook her head. “No. I’m too hyped up to sleep.”

Marilou moved over to make room for her on the couch. “Did you take the sedative?”

“God no. I hate those things. They mess my head up.” She took the remote from Wayne’s hand and turned the volume back up.

“ Along with the kidnapping of the Baltimore woman, James Cole is now also wanted in connection with the brutal slaying of Rodney Wiggins, an ex-convict from …”

With a sigh, Kathryn crossed the room to the window. She pushed aside the drape, looked down to see a beaten-up old Ford parked on the other side of the street. Inside sat a man wearing sunglasses, his face tilted up toward her window: Detective Dalva, Baltimore PD.

“These damn cops,” Kathryn said to no one in particular. “I told them and told them do they really expect him to come here?” She turned and started for the little kitchen. Marilou followed her, helping her get tea things out.

“ And in Fresno, California …”

Kathryn glanced sadly back at the TV. “He’s dead, isn’t he — that little boy?”

Wayne rolled his eyes. “He’s fine. It was just a prank he and his friends pulled.”

Kathryn’s shocked gaze remained fixed on the TV, where a sheepish young boy was being led out of a barn by police.

“… and authorities have so far been noncommittal about whether they will try to file charges against the families of the children involved in the hoax .”

“Kathryn! What is it?” Marilou’s worried face peered over her friend’s shoulder. “Are you—”

Kathryn shook her head. Her hands felt numb; her entire body felt as though it had been drenched in icy spray. She shook her head, still staring in growing fear at the television. She fought to keep her voice steady as she replied.

“A mistake… I think there’s been… a very, very, bad mistake.”

Trees, a sky bluer than any he has ever seen. A softness upon his face that Cole at first thinks is snow, but instead is Kathryn Railly’s hair, her mouth grazing his. He groans with pleasure, smiles as he hears someone singing in a low voice—

The voice grows louder, becomes several voices, many voices, singing raggedly now.

His hand gropes at his face, finds nothing there. The off-key singing continues, louder and more robust. When he opened his eyes, there was no sky, no trees, no Kathryn. Only a ring of earnest scientists crowded around Cole’s bed, belting out a barely listenable tune.

“Huh?” Cole shook his head.

Seeing that he was awake, the scientists broke off singing and burst into applause.

“Well done, James!”

“Nice going! Good for you!”

“Congratulations!”

Cole sat up, confused. The kind-eyed zoologist leaned over him, running a hand across his brow. “During your ‘interview,’ while you were under the influence, you told us you liked music!” she explained happily.

Cole drew away from her and looked around. He was in a small windowless room, his narrow iron cot the only furniture. The stained white walls were adorned with cheap cardboard reproductions of nineteenth-century landscape paintings, trees and hillsides tinted in cheerless shades of green and brown. When he tried to lift his hands, he found that they were very loosely attached with white ribbons to his bed.

The zoologist moved closer, reacting to his disbelief with a disarming smile. “This isn’t the prison, James,” she said soothingly. “This is a hospital.”

“But just until you recover your equilibrium,” interrupted the microbiologist, grinning beneath his black glasses. “You’re still a little — disoriented.”

“Stress!” agreed the astrophysicist. He pushed a shock of silvery hair from his forehead. “Time travel!”

The microbiologist nodded sagely. “You stood up very well, considering.”

“Superior work!” cried the zoologist. “Superior!” She sat on the edge of Cole’s bed, heedless of his dismay and unease. “You connected the Army of the Twelve Monkeys to a world-famous virologist and his son—”

“Others will take over now,” the microbiologist said officiously. “We’ll be back on the surface in a couple of months.”

The others broke in excitedly.

“We’ll retake the planet.”

“We’re very close!”

“Because of you! ”

The microbiologist stepped forward, unrolling a document. “This is it, James — what you’ve been waiting for.”

Cole eyed it warily. “A full pardon!” cried the zoologist.

“You’ll be out of here in no time,” the microbiologist added, clapping a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “Women will want to get to know you—”

Shouting, Cole pulled himself free. “ I don’t want your women! I want to be well!”