checklist: sound, lighting, display. They’d done a dry run that afternoon. A few problems had emerged, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with, and Suresh had assured him that everything would come off without a hitch.
They made their way up the ramp; Suresh, limping, did his best to keep up. HR personnel lined both sides of the idling semi; the staff had already been seated in the lower boxes. The noise of the crowd seemed to flow toward Guilder like a wave, immersing him in its energy. The plows had swept the field of snow, leaving behind a muddy landscape; in the center, the platform and armature awaited. A nifty device: it was Suresh who’d come up with the idea. The insurgency had nearly blown him up; who wouldn’t be a little mad? As a physician he also seemed to know better than anyone interesting ways to kill people. Suspending her high in the air would give everyone a chance to see her insides unraveling; she’d feel more that way, too, and feel it longer.
While Guilder reviewed his notes, Suresh fitted him with his microphone, running the cable down his back to the transmitter, which he clipped to Guilder’s improvised belt of neckties. “Flick this here,” Suresh said, drawing his attention to the toggle switch, “and you’re on.”
Suresh backed away. He drew down his earphones, adjusted his microphone, and began the countdown:
“Sound booth.”
(Check.)
“Lights.”
(Check.)
“Fire teams.”
(Check.)
And so on. Guilder, listening vaguely, shook out his robed arms like a boxer preparing to step into the ring. He had always wondered about this gesture, which seemed like empty showmanship. Now he understood the sense of it.
“Good to go when you are,” Suresh said.
So: the moment at last. What a shock the crowd was in for. Guilder slid his glasses onto his face and took a last, long breath.
“All right, everyone,” he said. “Let’s look alive. It’s game time.”
He stepped forward, into the light.
64
“Dani, wake up.”
The voice was familiar. The voice belonged to someone she knew. It drifted toward her from high above, saying this curious, half-remembered name.
“Dani, you have to open your eyes. I need you to try.”
Sara sensed her mind emerging, her body taking shape around her. She felt suddenly cold. Her throat was tight and dry, sweet-tasting. She was supposed to open her eyes—that’s what the voice was telling her—but her lids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds apiece.
“I’m going to give you something.”
Was the voice Lila’s? Sara felt a prick in her arm. Nothing. Then:
Oh!
She bolted upright, violently curling forward at the waist, her heart thudding against her rib cage. Air rushed to her lungs, expelled by a dry cough that screeched across the parched lining of her throat.
Lila pressed a cup to her lips, bracing the back of Sara’s head with her palm. “Drink.”
Sara tasted water, cold water. The images around her began to coalesce. Her heart was still racing like a bird’s. Bits of pain, real and remembered, jabbed at her extremities. Her head felt like it was only vaguely related to the rest of her.
“You’re all right,” said Lila. “Don’t worry. I’m a doctor.”
Lila was a doctor?
“We need to be quick. I know it won’t be easy, but can you stand?”
Sara didn’t think she could, but Lila made her try. She swung her legs to the side of the gurney, Lila helping her by the elbow. Below the hem of Sara’s gown, white bandages encircled her upper thighs. More bandages dressed her lower arms. All of this had happened without her being aware of it.
“What did they do to me?”
“It’s the marrow they take. They start with the hips. That’s the pain you feel.”
Sara eased her feet to the floor. Only then did it occur to her that Lila’s presence was an aberration—that she was freeing her.
“Why do you have a gun, Lila?”
Gone was the frail, uncertain woman Sara had come to know. Her face radiated urgency. “Come.”
Sara saw the first body when they stepped into the hall: a man in a lab coat lying face-down on the floor, his arms and legs splayed in the random arrangement of swift death. The top of his skull had been blasted off, its contents splashed over the wall. Two more lay nearby, one shot in the chest, the other through the throat—though the second man wasn’t dead. He was sitting upright against the wall, his hands encircling his neck, his chest moving in shallow jerks. It was Dr. Verlyn. Through the hole in his neck, his rapid breathing made