F. Wilson - The Select

"There's a guy in a big hurry," Elliot said.

Verran nodded. "Yeah. A rat deserting the ship. He wants to be out of state when it goes down."

"When what goes down?" Elliot said.

Verran jerked his thumb at Quinn. "Her and the Brown kid. They're going to have an accident in that car you just brought in."

"Shit," Elliot said. His gaze darted nervously about the room. He was visibly upset. "I didn't sign on for anything like this."

"None of us did," Verran said. He rubbed his upper abdomen, as if in pain.

"We've no other choice," Dr. Alston said. "We've been given instructions and I'm afraid we're stuck with them."

"Right," Kurt said. "So let's stop standing around like a bunch of biddies and let's figure out how, when, and where we're gonna do this. We haven't got much darkness left."

Quinn listened in horror as they discussed the mechanics of situating the two of them in the front seat of Griffin, running it off the road into a tree, and making sure the gas tank blew up. She looked for a way out but there were four men between her and the exit. No way she could get past them. But a chance might present itself later if they thought she was still out cold. Maybe she could get free and get to a phone, or find somebody who could get a message to the sheriff's office...

A lump formed in her throat as she remembered Dr. Emerson, and how she'd thought he'd called the sheriff for her...

"All right," Verran said. He sounded tired and unhappy. "We can't put this off any longer. Let's get it over with. Elliot, get up to Five and wheel Brown down here. I'll call up and have Doris transfer him to a gurney for you."

With Elliot gone, there were only three men left in the room. Come on, Quinn thought, mentally urging the rest of them to leave. Don't any of you have someplace to go?

But Verran and Dr. Alston sat in glum silence while Kurt whistled, clipping his fingernails.

*

"Ellie?"

Tim closed his eyes as he saw Doris stick her blond head through the door and scan the ward. He heard her step inside and walk over to the prep room.

"Ellie, where are you?"

He heard Doris's footsteps turn in his direction, stop abruptly, then—

"Oh, my God! Ellie! Ellie, what's wrong?"

He opened his eyes then and saw Doris beside the bed, bending over the unconscious nurse. The white fabric of her uniform was stretched across the expanse of her back. The strap of her bra was a whiter band across her ribs. Holding the syringe like a dagger, Tim snaked his arm through the bars of his bed's safety rail and poised the needle over Doris's back. He hesitated. This was a gamble. He didn't know if the 9574 would be absorbed from the pleural cavity. But that wouldn't matter if he hit a rib and bent the needle.

He clenched his teeth and remembered Doris's words to him earlier . And who knows? Maybe your girlfriend will be up here by then, and she'll be getting her own dose of it.

Here's your own personal dose, bitch, he thought, and plunged the needle into the right side of her back, just above the bra strap. He felt the point graze a rib, then pop through into the lung cavity. Immediately he rammed the plunger home.

Doris jerked and reared up, clutching at her back, reaching around her side and over her shoulder, trying frantically to get to whatever was causing the sudden stabbing pain. When she turned and saw Tim up on his elbow, looking at her, Doris's eyes bulged.

"You!"

She began to gasp for air. And then she saw the tray of syringes next to the bed. She coughed.

"Oh, no! Oh, NO!"

Tim grabbed for her as she lurched away from the bed but his fingers only managed to brush her sleeve, then she was tottering out of reach toward the door, wheezing loudly, her hands still clawing at her back, trying to reach the syringe that was still buried to the hub between her ribs. She staggered against the door and almost fell, but leaned on the frame and pulled it open. She squeezed through the narrow opening and stumbled out to the nurses station.

"Damn!" Tim croaked as she disappeared from view. If she got to a phone...

He fumbled at his side rail, found the release, and lowered the rail. Slowly he pushed himself up to a sitting position. Everything remained stable—the practice runs had helped. He let his legs drop over the side of the bed. The room spun for half a minute and he grabbed fistfuls of sheet to keep from falling off. When his equilibrium returned he slowly slid his legs down to the floor. His knees wobbled but held as they accepted the unaccustomed burden of his weight. The tile floor was cold but Tim wouldn't have cared if it had been ice—it felt wonderful to be on his feet again. All around him, his fellow Ward C residents were moving under their sheets.

Still holding onto the bed for support, he took a tentative step toward the door. He wished his legs were shorter, stumpier, so they'd hold him better, but his present models were doing the job. He took a second step—

—and searing agony shot through his penis and pelvis.

Grunting with the pain, Tim doubled over and would have fallen if the bed hadn't been there to lean on. Gasping, bleary-eyed, his breath hissing between his clenched teeth, he looked down to see what—

The catheter. He'd forgotten the urinary catheter.

He groaned and backed up one, two shaky steps. He didn't have time for this. Doris could be out there right now calling the security goon squad. But he wouldn't get far dragging his urine collection bag along like a purse. He had to disconnect it.

As he turned, searching for the bag, he spotted Ellie's bandage scissors protruding from the side pocket of her uniform. He stretched over and fumbled in the pocket. He came out with the scissors and a credit card. No, not a credit card, a security pass key, just like Quinn's. That might come in handy.

But now the scissors. Slowly, carefully, he got the handles situated in his fumbling fingers and managed to cut through the brick-colored tube protruding from the tip of his penis.

A tiny stream of clear water shot from the severed end. Tim knew these catheters were multi-bored. A thin tube ran within the wall of the larger tube, ending in a small sack at the bladder end. After the catheter was inserted into the bladder, water was injected along the tube, inflating the balloon, and locking the catheter in the bladder. By cutting the catheter, Tim had deflated the balloon. But did he have the courage to remove it?

He had no choice. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the distal end and pulled.

It wasn't quite like dragging barbed wire through his urethra, but it came close. He shuddered twice as he was forced onto his tip-toes, and then it was out. He tossed it aside without looking at it, then sagged against the bed, but only long enough for a few ragged gasps. Then he straightened his knees and grabbed the remaining syringes from Ellie's tray; with those in one hand and the security key in the other, he wove his way across the ward like a drunk on rollerblades.

Tim pushed on the door and found Doris on the floor behind the nurses station counter, the syringe still protruding from her back, the phone still on its cradle.

Had the 9574 hit her nervous system before she'd had a chance to call? Tim hoped so.

From outside in the night, he heard the thrum of a helicopter again, this time rising and fading. Whoever had flown in before was flying out again.

No time to lose. He shuffled to the elevator and shoved Ellie's card into the slot. When the car arrived, he stepped in, inserted the card into the interior slot, and pressed the basement button. If they were holding Quinn in the Science Center, she'd be in the basement.

As the doors closed, Tim thought he heard the hum of the cables in the neighboring shaft. He wondered who else was riding the elevators at this hour.