“It’s a-a-a cave,” says the Cold Man.
“How far did hough.” Rita’s still coughing up rock dust. “Did we fall? Jesus faagh.”
“Oh,” he says, and pokes his head into the shaft of light. “I forg-g-got you c-can’t–”
She waves him off and tries to stand. Nothing gives yet. She spits.
“No flashlight,” she murmurs.
“I-I can sssee,” he says. “C-can you see m-m-me?” He steps back. She can, though she can’t see anything around him.
“Yes,” she says.
“Y-you shouldn’t,” he smiles. “Bu-b-but that’s g-g-g-good.”
He holds out one gloved hand, and for the second time, she takes it.
“Hey, guys!” Rita knocks on the silver door with her silver hand. “It’s me. Mary? Sandra?” She shivers a little; she’ll get used to that. Surely. “I think I figured out that tape. You’re not gonna believe–”
The blast pillows from under the door so slow that at first, she doesn’t realize she’s already grounded. The concussion rolls out like boulders. She leans back, streams it around, lets the ley take the heat.
Did it kill them? Did they set it? Does it matter? Rita grits into the bomb, eyes streaming, getting colder. Shrapnel falls sharp into orbits around her fists.
“Let’s count atheists,” Rita murmurs eventually. “One.”
“T-two,” says the Cold Man, “but it-t’s n-n-not mmmuch of a f-f-fox foxhole.”
It doesn’t have to be. Rita imagined war as tracers and shelling, or tanks painted desert tan, but Chile is quiet. They can’t afford tanks here. Bombs are passé.
“You’re not–” Rita starts, then waits as somebody’s Uzi knockoff chatters nearby. “Not cold. I mean, I can tell you have body heat.”
“It’s ab-b-b-out electromagnet-t-t-tism,” he says. “And-and per-p-perceptions.” He snaps his fingers and produces a four of diamonds. “W-w-watch this,” he grins, and then they fall through the floor.
Rob can just see the acupuncture needles from the corners of his eyes, when he blinks out tears. The sewing is less sophisticated. It’s thick black upholstery thread, big X-shaped stitches, and they’re starting to bleed.
He’s screaming through his nose, but his limbs and jaw are locked up by Salem’s expertise. He can feel the paper corner Darlene slipped under his tongue. She’s writing something on his forehead, now: four characters. Salem bites the thread and ties it off.
“Goodbye,” Darlene says a little sadly, and wipes away the first letter.
Rob’s alone. The needles are gone. Everything’s white.
That first night they close out the Gaslamp bars, then can’t find their hotel. They sleep in the van. It’s awful. They like it; they go nocturnal (makeup would kill them if they came back bronzed).
They find the hotel. It’s being picketed. They cancel.
“I don’t have health insurance either,” says South. False dawn rosies the beach. “How different are we, us and the maids and handymen?”
“You’ll get Guild insurance,” Rebecca says, “once they pick up the pilot.”
“If.”
“When.” Six a.m. and she’s rubbing sunblock into her hands, which are thin and strong, raw knuckles and short nails.
Bonnie cranks back on the band throttle and the highway torrents out, snapping up old side roads and railroad tracks. Her vision ommatidizes: she flickers through a vast composite of Tennessee soft shoulders and medians. She races south.
It’s not until she’s collected in Mobile, trying to read fuel prices, that she notices her blind spot.
“Dropped a packet, huh?” says the quantum mechanic.
Bonnie, grumpy about it, just hands over her checksum. This shop smells like compressed air and beryllium, not the burnt oil of the old days, but for some reason he still wipes his hands on a rag.
Cathy remembers being able to assign emotions to the changes she sees in eyebrows, mouths and nostrils–she just can’t remember the trick of it.
There must be a trick.
“Try it,” soothes Dr. Baum. She puts the pencil gently into Cathy’s hand. “Draw me a happy face. Good! Now a face that’s angry. That’s broken. That’s brilliant.”
Cathy looks at the paper, but all she sees is dots and lines.
On her way out she notices her chart, halfway out of its slot in the wall. She laughs, involuntarily, to see a diagnosis and half of her name:
ASPERGER’S?
CAT