Up Against It - M. J. Locke [97]
Jane maneuvered in fits and starts across the blasted clockworks wavescape to the input icons. The feral—pure energy now—blasted her barriers. She tried not to flinch from the blows—it can’t really hurt me; I’m not a digital being—dove into the tumult, found the panel by feel, and input the code.
“Requiescat in pace,” she muttered, and pressed the button.
18
People crammed into the emergency room. They waited in lines, or were strapped to the walls with compresses, bandages, and ice packs, or were moved around on gurneys. The triage medics took one look at Ian, loaded him onto a stretcher, and whisked him away. Amaya, Kam, and Geoff clung to the waiting area ropeworks, silent, while the old man spoke to the doctors and dealt with the paperwork.
In a few moments, Moriarty came over. “These fine folks want to check you over, once things settle down a bit. It’ll be a few moments. In the meantime, why don’t you call your families and check in?” He tossed a link to Geoff. “Communications are still FUBAR, but I have priority access.”
“Thanks,” Geoff said. He clicked the comm link, and punched in his dad’s code. The call went through. It was audio only, and the line had a lot of noise.
His dad’s voice quavered. “Hello?”
“Dad, it’s me.” Geoff’s own voice wobbled a bit, too. “Are you OK? Is Mom there?”
“She’s here. We’re both all right.” Then, before Geoff had even a second to register relief, his father started in. “Where the hell have you been? Why aren’t you calling on your own line?”
“Dad, I’m sorry … the lines are down. But I’m all right.”
“‘All right.’ All right? We’ve been worried sick about you! I’ve been trying to reach you all night! What have you been off doing? Joyriding on that damn bike of yours? All you had to do was call! After what happened to your brother, don’t you think you could show a little consideration? Your mother has been beside herself! I saw the originating number and thought they were calling me to tell me you were dead!”
By this time, his father was screaming at him. Geoff could only hang there and take it. Worse, when they found out Geoff had been fighting machines out in the Hollow, and heard what had happened to Ian, Dad and Mom would have to be scraped off the bulkheads.
Amaya and Kam were looking at him; they couldn’t hear his dad but they could see his expression. He closed his eyes, tuning out his dad’s hateful words. It never mattered what he did; he got shit for it.
“I’m at the hospital,” Geoff said finally, when his dad paused to take a breath. He resisted the impulse to yell, because a machine just pulled my friend’s arm off, you asshole! “They just want to check me over. I’ll be home in about an hour. OK … gotta go … bye.”
He hung up before his dad could reply.
A medic waved him over to be examined. He went with her, even though he knew he was fine. She smiled at him as they floated together down the hospital corridor. “You’re that biker that saved the ice!”
He felt his face heat up. “Yeah.”
He could tell by how she looked at him sidelong that she liked him, and that if he showed interest, he might end up with her digits. But he couldn’t bring himself to. That empty space Carl’s death had planted in his chest seemed to be expanding, like a noiseless explosion in him. It was consuming him from the inside out. He had no room or heart for anything else.
19
The shutdown interface winked out. Jane looked across meatspace at Tania. The projection of the construct still hovered in the room’s middle. It was fraying, segment by segment, into haze. In seconds only burning blotches remained in Jane’s vision. The team members were cheering.
Jane carefully threaded her way through the forest of lead wires to Marty. He looked haggard. He held up a finger as she started to speak, and made some gestures in-wave.
“There.” With a sigh, he turned to her. “Everyone notified.”
“Good. Now go check on Ceci, and get some rest.”
“Thanks, Chief.” He left.
Tania was conferring with a tiny knot of her team leaders. Tania looked haggard and