Connie Willis - Passage

Nina’s head disappeared and then popped out again. “Where’s the fiberoptic gastroenterology scope?”

“Examining Room Two,” Vielle said, “lefthand side of the cabinet above the sink,” and Nina disappeared again.

Vielle turned back to Joanna. “When I first started in the ER,” she said, “I thought if I just worked long and hard enough, I could fix everything, I could save everybody’s life.” She smiled wryly. “You can’t. You’re only human.”

“You still have to try,” Joanna said.

“Even if it means risking your own health? And don’t tell me about wanting to die like Sullivan or Gilbert, whichever one it was, because, trust me, dying isn’t something you want to do. I work with death every day in there. It’s something to avoid at all costs.”

“Then why are you still working in there?”

Nina leaned out again. “It’s locked.”

“The key’s in the station desk. Top drawer, right side.”

“And Stan wants to know if he’s supposed to work a double shift tonight.”

Vielle sighed. “Tell him to ask Mr. Avila in Ops. He’ll know what’s happening.”

He’ll know what’s happening. “Ask Mr. Briarley,” the bearded gentleman had told the steward. “He’ll know what’s happening.” He was right. The Mr. Briarley on board had remembered Ricky Inman and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

He’d remember what he had said in class. I should have asked him there in the writing room, Joanna thought. He would have been able to tell me, and then, with a shock of comprehension, That’s why he was there. Not because he was dead. Because he knew the answer.

“Well, then ask her where Mr. Avila is,” Vielle was saying.

I have to get Richard to send me under again, Joanna thought, so I can ask Mr. Briarley what he said.

“All right,” Vielle was saying resignedly. “I’ll be right there.” She turned to Joanna. “What say we both quit right now and walk out that door?” She pointed to the door that led to the parking lot. “We get in my car and go someplace where it never snows and there aren’t any Ninas.”

“Or rogue-ravers.”

“Or sick people.”

“Or Mrs. Davenports.”

Vielle smiled. “And the cafeteria’s open twenty-four hours a day.”

“You’ve just described Mr. Mandrake’s Other Side.” Joanna grinned.

“Except for the Mrs. Davenport part,” Vielle said. “Can you imagine how awful that would be? You die and go through the tunnel, and there, waiting for you in the light, is Mrs. Davenport. Can you imagine anything worse than that?”

Yes, Joanna thought.

“I’d settle for just no snow,” Vielle said. “How about this? We go to Hollywood and get jobs as film consultants. I tell them why people can’t survive in twenty-eight-degree water, and you tell them what John Belushi’s last words were. We’ve got the credentials. All those Dish Nights.”

Nina leaned her head out the door again. “Dr. Carroll said to tell you we’ve got incoming. A three-car crash on I-70.”

“Coming,” Vielle said and started toward the door. She put her hand on it. “Think about it, okay?”

“About Hollywood?”

“About quitting. I really am worried about you, you know.”

“Ditto,” Joanna said.

“Or, if you won’t quit, about taking a couple of weeks off to catch up on your sleep and get any excess dithetamine out of your system. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“I promise,” Joanna said, but as soon as Vielle had gone into the ER, she tore up the stairs, across the walkway, and up to the lab to talk Richard into sending her under right away.

Richard wasn’t there. Which was just as well, Joanna thought, catching sight of herself in the dressing-room-door mirror. Tish had left it open after her makeup session, and Joanna’s reflection looked wild-eyed and disheveled, like someone escaping from Pompeii.

If Richard saw me like this, he’d never send me under again, she thought. And he had to. She had to ask Mr. Briarley what the connection was.

The affidavit and the sealed tape she’d had Tish sign were both on Richard’s desk where she’d left them. She picked them up. She could tear up the affidavit and unseal the tape, and Richard would never have to know about it. If Tish said anything, she could say she just wanted the fact that she’d recorded her NDE immediately after her session documented.

But then she was as bad as Vielle. Worse, she thought, because this is a scientific experiment, and Richard can’t possibly come up with a theory without all the data. You have to tell him. But she didn’t have to look like a nutcase while she was doing it. She combed her hair and put on some lipstick so she wouldn’t look so pale, and then stood there trying to think of a way to explain it to Richard, but the image of Vielle and a kid brandishing a gun kept intruding. If he’d waved it a little more to the right, if it had ricocheted a little differently—

Richard came in, and walked straight to the console. “I think we may finally have something. Your readouts aren’t identical, but they show at least one of the same neurotransmitters as Mrs. Troudtheim’s, and I need to check the cortisol numbers, but I think they’re the same, too. Have you written up your NDE yet? If you have, I need a copy. I’m meeting with Dr. Jamison at two-thirty, and—” he stopped. “My God, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”

“No,” she said. “Vielle got shot.”

“Shot?” he said. “Good God, is she okay?”

She nodded. “It was only a flesh wound.”

“My God! When did this happen?”

“Three days ago,” Joanna said, and burst into tears.

He was across the lab in two steps, his arms around her. “What happened?”

She told him through her tears. “She didn’t tell me because she knew what I’d say.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “She’s got to transfer out of there. It’s getting ridiculously dangerous.”

“I know, but she won’t,” she said, wiping at her tears with her hand. “She says they’re too shorthanded.”

He reached in his lab coat pocket and pulled out a package of Kleenex, which made her laugh. “I’m sorry to cry all over you,” she said.

“Anytime,” he said. “You doing okay now?”

She nodded and blew her nose. “I just keep thinking about what might have happened—”

“I know. Look, let me call Dr. Jamison and cancel our meeting, and you and I go get something to eat.”

It sounded wonderful, but if she went out with him, she was liable to blurt out what had happened with Mr. Briarley just like she’d blurted out the news about Vielle, and, worse, try to explain her conviction that Mr. Briarley could tell her the reason she was seeing the Titanic, and he’d decide she was too distraught or unstable to go under again.

And she had to go under again, had to ask Mr. Briarley, “What did you say in class that day? What does the Titanic have to do with NDEs?”

“No, I’m okay now, really,” she said. “I don’t want to take you away from what you’re doing, especially if you’re on to something, and I need to go transcribe my account.” She picked up the sealed tape and quickly stuck it in her cardigan pocket. “You said you needed it by two-thirty?”

“Actually, all I need is the very end,” he said. “You said you came back through the same passage, but it was in a different place?”

“No.” She explained about following Mr. Briarley, opening the door to the passage, realizing it was the same one. “The passage is always in the same location. Everything is. It’s a real place. I mean,” she said at his look, “it feels like a real place.”