Elizabeth Hand: 12 Monkeys

Fletcher tipped his head. “These scientists, Mr. Cole. Are they doctors like ourselves?”

Murmurs as the other psychiatrists glanced at one another.

“No!” Cole exclaimed, confused. “I mean, yes… Please — one call!”

He looked desperately at Dr. Railly, his pleading eyes locking with hers. Without speaking, she nodded. A moment later Dr. Goodin handed a telephone to Cole. Cole punched the numbers in and held it to his ear as the doctors watched.

Brring. Brring.

Cole swallowed, his mouth dry, as a woman’s voice shrilled. Hello?”

“Uh, yes—” He turned so that he wouldn’t see the others staring at him. “This is, uh, James Cole. I need to leave a voice mail message for, uh—”

“Whaaaat? Voice mail? Is this a joke? James who?”

He stammered, “C-Cole. James Cole—”

“Never heard of you!”

Click!

He stared in dismay at the receiver in his hand. Sympathetically, Railly reached for it and hung it up as the others looked on.

“It wasn’t who you expected?” she asked gently.

“It was some lady. She didn’t know anything.”

“Perhaps it was a wrong number…?”

“No.” Cole shook his head numbly. “That’s the reason they chose me. I remember things.”

Dr. Railly stared at him and suddenly frowned. “James, where did you grow up? Was it around here? Around Baltimore?”

“What? Cole replied distractedly. At the table, Railly’s colleagues watched her with new interest. Fletcher’s eyes narrowed and the pencil quivered in his fingers: was she showing some special interest in this patient?

Kathryn Railly shook her head slowly. Her frown faded; she was still looking at Cole, but it was as though she was seeing someone else there, someone not wearing brown polyester pants and worn white sneakers and a plastic ID bracelet. “I have the… strangest feeling I’ve met you before… a long time ago, perhaps. Were you ever—”

Tap . Dr. Railly!” Fletcher called. His pencil danced dangerously along the table edge. “Dr. —”

“Wait!” Cole broke in excitedly. “This is only 1990!” His eyes brightened as he went on, “I’m supposed to be leaving messages in 1996. It’s not the right number yet — that’s the problem. Damn! How can I contact them?”

Fletcher stared pointedly at Dr. Railly, one eyebrow raised. Railly flushed. Recovering her composure, she crossed the room to a small cabinet, unlocked it, and removed a bottle. “Here,” she said, turning briskly to Cole and pouring several pills into her palm. Her tone was cool. “James, I want you to take these.”

He stared at her, torn between disbelief and rage.

“Please,” she said. Behind her other doctors stood, gathering their things. “We let you make the phone call. But now, James—”

In her outstretched hand three red-and-white capsules glinted. Directly behind her he could hear Billings waiting impatiently.

“James,” she repeated, her voice no longer gentle. “Now, I want you to trust me.”

He is at the airport again. Outside the sky is leaden, threatening. Flies batter helplessly at the observation window where he stands with his parents, staring out at a plane touching down on the runway. He thinks that he has never seen anything so beautiful, the arrowed wings and sleek white body settling smoothly onto the tarmac.

“ Flight 784 now boarding at Gate …”

His mouth is open to ask his father if that is the plane they are going to take, when suddenly behind them there is a shout. He turns to see a ponytailed man in gaudy checked pants running past. The man is glancing over his shoulder. He doesn’t see the boy; when his duffel bag slams painfully into Cole’s stomach, the man glances down and yells, “ Watch it! ”

Cole starts. He knows that voice — but before he can say anything he hears a woman screaming, “Noooooo!”

The ponytailed man is gone. Another man sprints around the corner — a blond man in a Hawaiian shirt, his eyes wide as he runs toward the gate. As he passes Cole he turns, so that the boy sees his face is melting: his mouth is twisted, his mustache dangling from his upper lip. Cole gasps, but then a shot thunders through the concourse and he is blinded by dazzling white light.

“Wh—?”

He sucked his breath in and blinked awake. A few feet away a flashlight hovered in the air like ball lightning, then moved slowly on. Disoriented, Cole felt for the bedclothes: sheets, smooth and clean though rumpled, not the filthy padding strewn on the floor of his underground cell. But all around him he could hear snores and soft breathing, the occasional moan — had he been taken to another part of the prison compound? Just then he heard a low voice — a woman’s voice. He turned, careful not to make any noise, peering into the darkness until he made out two figures. A female nurse and another orderly, both wearing white uniforms, walked from bed to bed, pausing with the flashlight as they checked each occupant.

Not the prison, then; at least, not that prison. Cole watched as the flashlight bobbed slowly down one row of beds and up another, until finally the two figures left, silently closing the door behind them.

All was dark and still, save for the murmur of restless sleepers. Cole fixed his gaze on a barred window at the far end of the room. Moonlight slanted in pale rods to the floor, made an abstract pattern of stripes and squares. For a long moment Cole stared at it, then quickly glanced around at the sleeping patients. Without a sound he slipped from his bed. Walking stealthily between the others, he made his way to the window and peered out.

Overhead the moon hung, its silvery glow filtering through the leaves of a solitary oak. Beneath the tree a couple stood embracing. Moonlight glinted off the woman’s dark hair and the curve of the man’s arm. Cole stared, entranced, his fingertips grazing the metal grille.

“It won’t work. You can’t open it.”

Cole whirled to see someone sitting up in the bed nearest the window. It was Jeffrey Goines.

“You think you can remove the grille and but you can’t,” Jeffrey went on in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s welded.”

Cole turned back to the grille and gave it a perfunctory tug. In the moonlight, Jeffrey’s teeth shone in a grin.

“See? I toldja.” He waved loftily at the darkened room around them. “And all the doors are locked, too. They’re protecting the people on the outside from us. But the people outside are as crazy as us…”

Jeffrey’s voice droned on as Cole stared at the windowsill. A small spider crept across the peeling paint, pausing now and then as though it knew it was being watched. Cole stared at it, fascinated, his hand groping automatically for a specimen bottle at his waist.

“Shit.” Jeffrey suddenly fell silent. There was a click from the room behind them. Alarmed, Cole grabbed the spider and scrambled across the floor and back into bed, throwing the covers over himself just as the door opened and an orderly peeked inside. The blade of a flashlight probed the darkness, resting for a moment upon Cole’s face, his eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar as he breathed softly. In his hand he could feel the spider struggling to free itself. After a moment the flashlight clicked off. The door closed. All was silent, until Cole heard Jeffrey’s hoarse whisper.

“You know what ‘crazy’ is?” Jeffrey went on, as though nothing had happened. “‘Crazy’ is ‘majority rules.’”

Cole sat up in bed, barely listening as he peered into his closed fist at the spider. Jeffrey took a deep breath and intoned, “Take germs, for example.”

“Germs?” Cole shot him a look, the spider scrabbling furiously at his palm.