F. Wilson - The Select

Tim dragged his gaze away from himself and forced his eyelids open another millimeter to take in his surroundings.

He wasn't alone. There was another bed next to him, half a dozen feet away. And a white-swathed body under the sheet. And beyond that, another. And another. All mummy wrapped, with tubes running in and out of them. And beyond them all, a picture window, looking out into a hallway.

Tim realized he'd seen this place before. But he'd seen it from another perspective, from the hallway on the far side of that window.

I'm in Ward C!

He wanted to scream but his larynx was as dead as the rest of him.

Tim battled the panic, bludgeoned it down. Panic wouldn't help here. He tried to think. He had to think.

The dream, the nightmare of being bound and gagged, and then listening to Dr. Alston while strapped into that chair in the basement of the Science Center, that all had happened. And now he was a prisoner in Alston's private preserve.

At least they hadn't killed him.

But maybe this was worse.

Tim shifted his eyes down to his body. He saw white gauzy fabric all around the periphery of his vision—his head was wrapped like the rest of his body. Another faceless Ward C patient. And something else: snaking up past his right eye...a white tube. It seemed to go into his nose. A feeding tube, snaking through a nostril, down the back of his throat, and into his stomach.

Further down his body he saw the gentle tidal rise and fall of his chest. Quinn had told him the properties of the anesthetic Dr. Emerson was developing, and how it was being used on the patients in Ward C. Obviously he'd been dosed with it as well.

What had she said? She'd called it 9574 and it supposedly paralyzed all the voluntary muscles while it let the diaphragm go on moving—like in sleep. But it didn't have complete control of him. He'd managed to open his eyes, hadn't he? He could move his eyeballs, couldn't he?

He drew his gaze away from the ward about him and looked at himself again.

He had to get control of his body. He could move his eyeballs and eyelids. But he needed his hands. He searched out his right hand where it lay flopped out before him on the mattress, palm up. If he could move it...

Maybe start small. Just a finger. One lousy finger. He picked his little finger, the pinkie. He imagined himself inside it, crawling through the tissues, wrapping himself around the flexor digiti minimi tendon and pulling... pulling for all he was worth...

And then it moved. It moved!

He tried it again. Yes, the tip was in motion, flexing and extending, back and forth. The arc was no more than maybe a centimeter, but he could move it, dammit, he could move it. And he could actually feel something down there. A faint tingle. He was regaining control. He was going to get out of here. And then he was going to bring the walls down.

"Good morning, Number Eight. About time you woke up."

A nurse, dark skin, brown eyes, her nose and face behind a surgical mask, her hair tucked into a surgical cap, was looking down at him. Tim's eyes fixed on her blue eye shadow, so glossy, almost luminous. The eyes smiled down at him.

"Time to turn you, Number Eight. But first—" She held up a syringe filled with clear fluid. "Time for your two-o'clock dose."

She poked the needle into the rubber tip of the Y-adapter on the intravenous line and emptied the syringe into the flow.

She patted his shoulder—he felt nothing. "I'll be back in a sec to turn you."

Tim watched her go, then returned his attention to his tingling fingers. He watched his pinkie finger move again, but this time the arc seemed smaller. He had to keep working at it. He tried again, struggling, pushing harder, but this time it wouldn't budge. And the tingling, the parasthetic, pins-and-needles sensation in his hand had faded.

...Time for your two-o'clock dose...

The nurse's syringe. It had been loaded with 9574. The fresh dose had turned him into dead meat again. They had him on a round-the-clock schedule.

Movement...at the window into the hall. Someone standing there, looking in. His eyes focused so slowly.

Quinn! Jesus, it was Quinn, looking right at him. Didn't she recognize him? But no, how could she? He was swathed head to toe in gauze. He tried to shout, begged his hands to move, but his voice remained silent, his limbs remained inert.

Fear, frustration, terror, and rage swam around him. Helpless...he was utterly helpless.

And then Quinn turned and walked on.

Tim's vision blurred. He knew a tear was running down his cheek, but he couldn't feel it.

*

Matt Crawford turned from the floor-to-ceiling view of the harbor and crossed his living room. He'd been putting it off all day. By nine o'clock he could hold out no longer. He picked up the phone and called Quinn.

What a nightmare wild man Brown had started by running off to Las Vegas. Both his parents were ready for rubber rooms. Matt had spoken to Tim's mother just yesterday and all she'd done was cry; she'd heard from Tim's father in Vegas but his search for Tim was getting nowhere. Apparently Tim hadn't used his credit card again after renting the car at the airport.

And Quinn...Quinn had sounded like someone on a ledge. When she'd called him last Friday, there'd been something in her voice when she spoke Tim's name, something that said she was worrying about someone who was a lot more than just a friend.

No question about it, Quinn had been hurting . And that could only mean...

Quinn and Tim...he hadn't let it sink in at the time, but maybe it was possible. She did sound broken-hearted that he'd left...left her .

And Tim. What the hell was he thinking about with this Las Vegas stunt? Matt knew the guy, knew how he liked to keep you off balance, be unpredictable, but this went way beyond anything he'd done since Matt had known him.

And that was what had been bothering Matt since Friday. This wasn't like Tim. This was something else. This smelled bad.

Matt listened to the phone ringing. Quinn picked up on the third. When he said hello she all but jumped through the phone, the words frantically spilling out.

"Matt! Is it about Tim? Have you heard from him? Did they find him?"

He'd intended to ask her point blank if she and Tim had something going on. Now he didn't have to. He wasn't sure how he felt about this. Quinn had never been his, so why did he feel as if something special had been stolen away from right under his nose?

"No, Quinn. Nothing yet. I just called to talk to you and see how you're doing."

"I'm okay."

"Are you?"

She didn't answer, at least not with words. Matt heard soft sobbing on the other end.

"You miss him that much." It wasn't a question.

Her voice was a gasp. "Yes."

"He'll be back soon."

"I'm afraid, Matt." She was getting her voice back now. "I've got this horrible feeling I'm never going to see him again."

She sounded so lost. This wasn't like the Quinn he knew. Was this what love did to you?

"You'll see him. He's got to come back soon."

"You really think so?" She sounded like a ship-wrecked sailor groping for a piece of floating debris.

"I guarantee it. When are you getting in Friday?"

Christmas break was a few days away. Maybe he'd drive out to Windham County and try to cheer her up.

"For Christmas? I won't be leaving until next Friday."

"The twenty-third? Our break starts the sixteenth. Why so late?"

"Well, I'm working on this project. I can get overtime if I stay, and I thought if Tim comes back I ought to be here."

Matt resisted the impulse to say that's crazy, that if Tim's old man finds him in Vegas, he'll bring him straight back to New Hampshire.