Connie Willis - Passage

“I don’t have time to discuss this with you right now,” Joanna said and started to walk rapidly away.

He darted in front of her. “That’s exactly the issue. You don’t have time to discuss your findings with me. All of your time is taken up with Dr. Wright’s project, which can’t possibly lead to anything useful.”

That’s what you think, Joanna thought.

“Because the physical aspects are completely insignificant,” Mr. Mandrake was saying. “It is the supernatural aspects that matter. The NDE is a spiritual experience through which the Angel of Light is trying to tell us about the world that awaits us after death. It is a message—”

Joanna laughed, a spurt of delight that escaped in spite of her.

“I see nothing funny—” Mr. Mandrake said, drawing himself up.

“I’m sorry,” Joanna said, trying to suppress it. “It’s just that you’re right. It is a message.”

He stared at her, speechless. “Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realized—” he said after a moment.

“I should have listened to you in the first place, Mr. Mandrake,” she said giddily. “It was all right there in your book. Telegrams, rockets, lights—did you know that white is the international color for a distress signal?”

“Distress—?” he said, frowning uncertainly.

“It just never occurred to me that you, of all people… But you were right.” She grasped his sleeves. “The NDE is a message. It’s an SOS. It’s a call for help.”

She squeezed his arms. “And you’re wrong about Richard’s research not leading anywhere. It’s going to save Maisie. It’s going to work miracles!” she said, and left him standing there, gaping after her, not even attempting to follow.

But she didn’t take any chances. Instead of the service elevator, she ducked down the nearest stairway to second and out into the chilly parking lot, so she wouldn’t run into anyone else. It was snowing again, and she hugged her arms to her chest as she ran across the parking lot to the side door of Main.

And her luck was against her. Maisie’s nurse Barbara was scraping ice off her back window. “Joanna!” she called, “Maisie wants to see you!” and started over to her, scraper in hand.

“I know. I’ll be up this afternoon,” she called back, and hurried on.

And who will I run into in here? she wondered, pushing open the side door and starting down the stairs. Kit? Mrs. Davenport? Everyone I’ve ever known? But there was no one in the stairwell, and no yellow tape stretched across the landing. She took the last few stairs and the hall leading down to the ER at a run.

She pushed the side door open and stood there for a moment, looking for Richard. She couldn’t see him, or Dr. Jamison, but there was Vielle, standing with one of the interns outside one of the trauma rooms with a young man, no, a boy. He wasn’t as tall as Vielle, and the maroon jacket he was wearing was two sizes too big for him. An Avalanche jacket. Joanna could see the swooping blue-and-white logo on the back of it.

He didn’t look like an emergency. He stood there talking to Vielle and the intern with no sign of injury Joanna could see, at least from the back, and whatever his problem was, even if somebody’d shot him with a nail gun, it could wait a minute because she had to find out where Richard was. She plunged across the ER, calling, “Vielle!”

None of them looked up. A resident, still with his stethoscope on, turned and looked irritably at her over the chart he was reading, but the intern and Vielle continued to watch the boy, who was still talking earnestly to them. Joanna wondered what about. Vielle was frowning, and the intern’s face was stiff with disapproval. Good, Joanna thought, sidling past a supply cart. They won’t care if I interrupt them.

“Vielle, have you seen Dr. Wright?” she said, nearly up to them now, but they still didn’t look up.

“I have to get out of here,” the boy was saying with quiet intensity. “They’re going to close the lid.”

“No, they aren’t,” Vielle said soothingly. “I think you should—”

Joanna ran up behind the boy. “You say that because you’re the embalmer,” he said angrily. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Vielle, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m looking for—”

The boy whirled to face her, his arm coming up to strike her as he turned, and she knew, watching his panicked, desperate face, that he had moved suddenly. But it didn’t seem sudden.

It happened slowly, slowly, the intern rearing backward, his mouth opening in alarm, the boy’s maroon sleeve coming around and up, the satin catching the light from the fluorescents overhead, Vielle’s arm, still in its white bandage, reaching forward to grab at his sleeve. They all moved slowly, stickily, as if they were mired in molasses.

The Great Molasses Flood, Joanna thought. But time dilation was caused by the surge of adrenaline that accompanied trauma. And this wasn’t a trauma situation.

But time dilation was what it had to be, because she had plenty of time to see it all: the intern’s face, nearly as frantic as the teenager’s, turning to call the security guard, who was already lumbering to his feet. Vielle’s hand, not reaching for his maroon sleeve, reaching for his hand.

To hear it all: Vielle’s voice, coated with syrup, too, shouting, “Joanna! Don’t—!” The chart the resident was holding clattering to the floor. An alarm going off.

She had time to wonder if the time dilation might be some kind of side effect of the dithetamine. Time to think, I have to tell Richard. But if it wasn’t a trauma situation, why was the guard, still lumbering to his feet, reaching for his gun?

Time to think, The boy must have a knife. He was holding a knife on them when I came in. That’s why they didn’t look up when I called, that’s why they didn’t see me till it was too late. That’s what Vielle grabbed for.

Time to think, I told her the ER was an accident waiting to happen.

Time, finally, for the fact to penetrate: He has a knife, though she still didn’t feel any fear. That’s the endorphins, she thought, cushioning the mind against pain, against panic, so she could think clearly.

He has a knife, she thought calmly, and looked down at her blouse, down at his striking hand, but even though time was moving even more slowly than the security guard, she was too late. She couldn’t see the knife.

Because it had already gone in.

There was blood everywhere, which didn’t make any sense because where the knife had gone in, there was hardly any, just a little ooze of dark red. “We’ve got an emergency here!” the intern shouted, reaching out to keep Joanna from falling, but she had already fallen. She was lying on the tile floor, and Vielle was kneeling next to her, and there was blood all over her cardigan, all over the hand Vielle was holding.

Vielle grabbed for the knife, Joanna thought. He must have stabbed her hand. “Are you hurt?” she asked Vielle.

“No,” Vielle said, but Joanna thought she must be, because there was a kind of sob in her throat.

“We’ve got a stab wound here,” the intern said to the resident. Good, they’ll take care of it, Joanna thought, but the resident didn’t even glance at Vielle. He looked at the little line of oozing blood in Joanna’s chest and then turned and started putting on a pair of latex gloves. “Get her on the table,” he said, pulling the glove down over his palm, “and get me a cross match. What’s her BP?”