Harmony (60 page)

“No!” Nurses. That answered the where. Ah, but the why! I fell back, gasping against a new wave of anguish. “Oh god… Mali…”

“He’s okay, Gwinn.” Cris spoke slowly, as if I might have trouble understanding him. “Gwinn, listen to me: Mali is okay.”

“Mali… ?”

“Is okay.”

“What?” Eyes wide this time. “He’s what?”

“Just shaken up a little, Omea said. It’s you everyone’s worried about.”

Shaken up?
“What about Sam?”

He shrugged. “Sam’s fine. He wasn’t anywhere near the trap when it blew.”

“No! I mean
after
!”

“There wasn’t any after.”

I took a very deep breath. “Cris, don’t lie to me.”

He spread his hands. “I’m not. Why would I?”

“Cris, I saw…” I couldn’t bring myself to describe what I’d seen. Remembering was horrible enough.

“I heard what you saw. Everyone did, especially that suspiciously handy Chat reporter who tailed you to the hospital. Damn, and I missed all of it! Mali must have been damn convincing if it blew your circuits that bad, hunh?” Cris grinned. “Does a hell of a death scene, yes indeedy! Had Sean coming and going, too.”

Was it possible? “And Sam, what about Sam, was he… ?”

“I told you, he was right there. Omea says he took care of everything.” Crispin’s eyelids dipped in resignation. “As usual.”

“What does Sam say?”

“Haven’t seen him to ask. We don’t, you know, talk much.”

I lay back, dizzy with peering into the yawning gulf between what I so vividly and achingly remembered and what Cris was telling me. I prayed for a clearer head. Only then would I know if I was going mad. Or if I had already.

“What about Peter?” I asked carefully.

“Oh, he took off. In all the fuss about you, he got away. Security’s looking for him. They think he’ll make a run for the Outside. I say, let ‘im. That’s where he’ll end up anyway.”

Oh god
. I closed my eyes. No doubt now. I’d fallen through the Looking Glass. “Cris, do me a favor. Tell me everything that happened after the trap blew. And please…” I pulled against the wrist restraints. “Take off this nonsense.”

He sat on the bed by my elbow, leaned over, and kissed my nose. “Got to let the doctor decide that. You nearly took out an intern first time you woke up, screeching and flailing like someone were trying to murder you.”

“I—I don’t remember that.”

“Exactly.”

“Cris, I’m not crazy!”

“Sorry. No can do.” He kissed my nose again.

I turned my head aside on the pillow. I didn’t want his grinning, lovely face anywhere near me. I wanted Sam. I’d never wanted him so desperately. Not in bed, just there, whole and well and alive in front of me. “What time is it?”

“Late. Four
A
.
M
.”

“Tell me what happened.”

He sat back. “Jeez, you missed everything important! Micah canceled on Willow Street, he’s thinking of canceling on Marin even though the new bids just came back within the ballpark—”

“Cris, please… !”

He laughed and got comfortable on the bed. “Thought maybe you needed a little normality. Hey, girl, take it easy. I’m here…” He leaned to touch away my sudden tears of frustration. I jerked away from him. “Okay, okay, just relax. Here’s the story: the trap blew, you and Sean raced back, convinced Mali was hurt, Sam confronted Sean with the wire, you got hysterical, Sean took off for Town Hall.” His mouth twisted. “Ironic that Sean should turn out to be the hero of the evening.”

Hero? I shoved this further confusion aside for the moment. “Who says I got hysterical?”

“Omea. Look, there’s no shame in it. I’d have been nutso, too, if I thought… well, anyway, the crew bundled you off to the hospital. The Eye got Mali back on his feet, took their curtain call, and went home really pissed. Probably plotting revenge right now.”

“Took their curtain call? You saw this?” Sam had said even the healing trance took time.

“Nah, I was over left in the greenroom, glued to Video Town Hall. Even missed the trap blowing. The audience thought it was part of the show. Liz wasn’t sure herself—after all, we’d only run it once. Nobody’d have known anything about it ‘cept Sean got up and announced it to the world when he went after Cam Brigham.”

“But after, did you see them after? Did you see Sam or Mali?”

“Hey, what is this, an interrogation?”

“Cris, please! I’m having serious reality problems here. I need to know if you saw them.”

“Yeah, I saw them! Everyone saw them! You can see them, if it’ll make you feel any better!” He jumped up, pushed aside the curtains at the bottom of the bed. He yanked a portable vid into position. “Here! They were on the news tonight, after what Sean said at Town Meeting.” He cranked up the bed and sat next to me with the remote. He called up HarmoNet, scanned the directory, and ran the clip.

The Press had caught the Eye filing out of the stage door. It was pouring rain and very windy. Lamp flare and fog clouded the image. The troupe was still in their curtain-call blacks, hooded and veiled, flirting archly with the vidcams. There was movement around them, raindrops or a lot of birds—in the dark I couldn’t tell. I counted heads. Ten. The full complement. Two of them with a third between them, maybe supporting him (her?) a little.

Cris pointed. “Mali.”

“Maybe.” And Sam? I squinted until my eyes hurt. Damn those black robes for concealing even their differing statures!

“Their usual mystical number, right? Now listen to this.”

A figure detached itself from the group and approached the reporters with arms raised in welcome. “Friends! Help spread the word! The Eye invites the citizens of Harmony to a special performance in Town Hall Plaza, nine o’clock tomorrow night! Come celebrate with us!” The reporters surged around as the black-clad figure whirled, laughing, and melted back into the troupe.

“Omea,” I noted.

“Yeah. Howie’s gonna be insane about giving up a preview, but they’ve got something big in mind. So. All better now?”

I eased back into my pillow. Physical agonies were beginning to crowd out the psychological ones. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Gwinn, let go of it. You imagined it worse than it was. You got the scandalfax all worked up. Everything’s fine, and the Eye’s gonna do something great at Town Hall tomorrow and we’re all going to be there! Okay?”

“Okay.” But if Sam was fine, why wasn’t he here?

Cris yawned. “So now you can get some real rest, which is what the doc says you need.”

“Who is that?”

“Dr. Jaeck. Cora insisted. Only the best for you, kiddo.” He patted my shoulder, kissed my cheek, rather sweet and tentative. “See you tomorrow, okay?”

“Tell me about Sean,” I asked weakly.

“In the morning.”

I jerked upright, or tried to. My head ached excruciatingly. “The vote! What happened with the vote?”

“I was wondering when you’d ask.” Cris smiled. “We won. Tell you about that in the morning, too.”

“We won…”

“Yeah. In spades.”

We won
. The nurse bustled in to shoo him out, then took my temperature and fed me pills. I drifted off without complaint.

When I woke next, the clock in the bedstand tried to convince me I’d slept fourteen hours. At least the headache was gone. I lay still, drawing fantasy maps within the minute cracks webbing the white ceiling. Since I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t want to think about anything at all.

The room outside the white curtains felt large. To my right, a split between the drapes revealed a pale green wall and a mock-antique print of flowers, the kind that sold big to tourists.
Wildflowers
, they were always called. The Eye, I mused bitterly, is the only thing wild in Harmony.

Beyond was a small square window. I heard no one else in the room, no breathing, no stirrings in another bed, no quiet beeps of medical monitors. Outside the window, nothing but the iron gray of the dome and a small bird sheltering on the windowsill, fluffing damp feathers. Still raining. Good. I didn’t want to look at blue sky right then, though I couldn’t remember why.

A different nurse appeared eventually. He undid the restraints, helped me to the bathroom past the rows of empty beds. He provided soap and towels and let me clean up a little, then fed me a meal, all without a word other than his gently phrased instructions.

I thought, He’s treating me like we treated Jane after her crack-up.

He watched carefully while I ate and when I was done, he buckled up the restraints, looser this time but one hand still could not touch the other.

“How long?” I demanded, rattling my chains.

“Oh, not long. Be glad you’re inside. The weather’s terrible out.” He smiled encouragingly and left.

I checked the clock. Six-thirty. Nearly a day had passed and no word from Sam. What could I have done or said in my madness that would keep him away, if he was well enough to come to me? Despair replaced the phantom grief I hadn’t yet been able to shake despite all of Crispin’s reassurances.

The evening nurse came in and found me weeping.

“There, there, straighten yourself up. You have visitors.” She wiped my eyes and cranked up the bed. Through my little window I saw dusk-colored mist. I waited with my heart in my throat, but my “visitors” were Micah. I tried not to look desolate, because in truth I was overjoyed to see him.

He was bundled in a thick sweater beaded with rain, and it struck me again that he was looking old. He sat on the foot of the bed, repressing shivers and studying me with grave concern. Beyond the weary relief in his eyes was something darker and more complex.

“Why bother with a dome if the weather’s going to act like this?” he grumbled, then paused and looked down. “Dr. Jaeck tells me I’ve been working you too hard.”

I smiled. “Not you. Speaking of which, it’s nearly eight. Aren’t you going to Town Hall?”

“Wanted to check on you first.”

“What’s it all about?”

“The Eye says to celebrate the end of curfew, but I think it’s mostly to clear the air and give us some space from last night. The media are having a field day. Howie needs the time to stomp out the resulting brushfires. The shop needs to put the stage back in working order, and the cast needs a rest. Not to mention the design staff. It’s a good idea. First preview tomorrow.”

“Have you seen them, Micah? How are they?”

He looked down at the bed cover, brushed away crumbs left from my dinner. “They’ve been in seclusion at Cora’s, but Omea assures us everyone’s fine. Preparing for the big event.” He dipped into the stretched-out pocket of his damp cardigan. “I have something for you.”

He held out an oversized square envelope.

“Sorry. I can’t.” I indicated my wrist restraints.

“What utter nonsense,” he growled and unfastened them immediately.

“They think I’m crazy. Even Cris.”

“Are you?”

“I… don’t know.”

He grunted and placed the envelope on my palm. “This may color your thinking about certain matters that have been weighing on your mind.”

It was crisp creamy parchment, hand-pressed, with my name in fine, bold calligraphy on the face and the town seal embossed on the flap. I shook life back into my wrists and opened it. The fancy document inside appeared to be my citizenship.

“Micah, is this for real?”

“Yes, and hard won at some cost to a friend of yours.”

“How did… ?”

“Wait. Let him tell it.” He turned. “Sean?”

Sean stepped around the curtain at the foot of the bed. He returned my astonished stare with a weary, bitter grin. “She was sure she’d never see you ‘n me in the same room ever again.”

“How come you are?” I blurted. I grabbed at this excuse for joy, seeing these two who meant so much to me, side by side again, even if distanced still by the awkwardness of a reconciliation that comes after too much has already been said.

Sean waved a dismissive hand. “Aah, I apologized.”

“You did a bit more than that,” Micah replied.

“Yeah, first I yelled at him, then I apologized.”

“I wish it had been that easy.”

“I wanted to rip your friggin’ head off! Jesus!” Sean shook his head, then laughed. “And you thought I was gonna for a minute there, didn’t ya?”

It appeared an uneasy peace but a willing one. With some regret I realized I’d never get the real blow-by-blow of their confrontation, not from either of them. Kept between them, it would cement their rebonding. Made public, it would embarrass them both.

Micah nudged him. “Town Meeting.”

“Yeah.” Sean dragged a chair from behind the drapes, then just leaned on it heavily. “Well, you were there for the start of it. That wire put it all together for me and I took off. Brigham was there spouting off the same crap he’d been filling our ears with, crap he had me partway believing, about the apprentice conspiracy with the Open Sky to take over Harmony, when all the time it was him conspiring for power and using us to do it.”

“Us… the CDL?”

His eyes flared defensively. “Yeah, the CDL. Us. Me. When I got there, one of our guys had just jumped up to beg Cam to run for mayor, like we’d planned, like
he’d
planned—he wanted it to look like a response to overwhelming public demand for a new leader who’d be tougher on immigration and such.”

“Who’d throw all the apprentices out.”

“That wasn’t in the plan at first.”

I shuddered. “What’d you do?”

“Grabbed the floor mike and told everyone Cam was killing people. Then Cora Lee had all this information handy, enough to get Cam under house arrest and his passport revoked.”

“Oh, Sean, bravo!”

“I watched it on the shop monitor,” said Micah. “After the show came down. He was brilliant. Turned the vote right around. Even in the shop, where they’d been just about ready to throw me to the wolves along with everyone else.”

Sean eyed him ruefully. “Yeah. Some performance. But most of the Door were so pissed at Cam, they rose up in support. No matter how bad we want changes in Harmony, that ain’t the way we’re going to make them.”

Micah was looking proud, but he hadn’t been chased and terrorized and bashed around—unless I’d imagined that, too. I felt something further needed to be said. “What’s the difference, Sean, murder or expulsion? They’re the same thing in the long run.”