The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [58]
Laurel couldn’t work out what was going on from where she sat on the platform, but she felt too weary to walk over and find out. Most likely Henry was marshaling his troops. Until he made a move, they could do nothing but wait.
Floyd loomed over her. “How are you feeling?”
“Rough,” Laurel said. Her throat was clogged again with all the emotions boiling up from inside. Bastien.
“Here, take this.” He offered a decrepit-looking water pack and, from his top pocket, a piece of metal foil with two dimples on its surface.
“What is it?” Laurel was already pushing the tablets, oval with a shiny silver coating, onto the palm of her hand.
“Vitamins and a dose of caffeine. Not too strong—you’ve eaten only rice—but it will perk you up.”
“And the hangover?” She offered a weak smile and swallowed the pills with a sip of the tepid water.
“When the effect wears off, you’ll need to sleep around the clock.” He squatted by her side and, wedging his back against the slightly curved wall, sat down.
Laurel glanced at Raul, dozing next to Russo’s stretcher, and Lukas, slumped in a corner, his eyes vacant.
Floyd followed her glance. “Of course, the issue may be academic. When the effect wears off, we may all be dead.”
“There’s a third alternative,” Laurel offered.
“Yes?”
“Something in between. We may be on our way to sleep around the clock, in a tank.”
Floyd didn’t answer. He must have relaxed, because his arm pressed against hers. She arrested an unconscious reflex to give him more room by moving aside. Instead, she leaned her head on his shoulder. He tensed, but only for a moment. After a long sigh, Floyd shifted to free his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. The polymer material of Laurel’s stiff jacket creaked, but his hug felt good.
“I won’t let it get that far,” Floyd muttered.
“You came prepared?”
He shrugged. “I grabbed some syrettes we use to put down patients too far gone.”
“Like dogs at the pound?”
“Mmmm, how long?”
The sudden change of topic caught Laurel unaware. “How long what?”
“Until we get out of here.”
“I don’t know.”
Floyd turned his head toward Russo and nodded. “He’s wasting away. He won’t last much longer. Hours, maybe.”
Laurel opened her eyes a fraction to look through her eyelashes at Russo’s prone shape. “Shep—the man who planned the breakout—knows his condition. He’s organized our extraction with Henry’s help.”
“And the blood?”
“And the blood.” A while ago Floyd had given her a list of the materials he needed to revive Russo—a long list she’d keyed into her Metapad and flashed to Shepherd.
“Floyd?”
“Yes.”
“You said you have more than one syrette?”
“I did.”
“Then save one for me.”
On the opposite end of the tunnel, something flashed, followed by tiny flames that soon grew into a roaring fire. Around it, dark figures hovered like tormented souls in a Goya etching.
“Why him? Is he a big gun? An experiment gone wrong? A mobster?” Floyd had a nice voice.
Shepherd’s instructions had been clear: Don’t volunteer any information about Russo to the doctor or the controller. But that was before. Now secrecy was moot; they were in the same boat. “Russo is a lawyer, like Raul—” She was going to add, and Bastien, but swallowed instead. “And me.”
“And what else?” he insisted.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t spend eight years slowly dying in a tank for being a lawyer unless you’re a rapist–lawyer, or murderer-lawyer, or—”
“I see what you mean. No, Russo is just a lawyer, an activist. A blue-assed fly who rattled someone in power.”
“What was he convicted of?”
“He was never tried.”
“You must be joking.” But his voice quivered.
She moved closer, until her head touched his cheek. The sensation of warmth on her scalp was almost too delicious to bear. “I wouldn’t describe this circumstance as a joke, but I always knew you quacks had a weird sense of humor.”
“Quack? How dare you?” But he tightened his arm, as if dreading she would pull away. “I only use leeches