"c292" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

2:18 A.M., Saturday, February 26, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

Everywhere she looked, Desiree saw only idiots. The police idiots kept twenty-four hour watch outside, shooing everybody back in who tried to leave, terrorist or hostage. They seemed to be waiting for everyone inside to simply die, so they could sanitize the site and start over. She guessed that they were afraid of the "unknown epidemic" inside, and had no place else to house the victims. Granted, an epidemic was the last thing they needed; but if they'd let her out, she could explain that there was no epidemic. Inside, the terrorist idiots, under the leadership of the third-stringers, decided the police must be going to invade imminently. To make shooting hostages easier, or so they said, they had rounded all the hostages up onto one floor—literally, floor: they had to sit, motionless for hours, on the tile. Food was beginning to run low, so the already lousy MRE rations they'd purchased by selling the pharmacy were rationed, one kit per day per four hostages. Desiree had freer roam of the building, being the alleged engineer. The acting commander was a redneck twit who looked like he'd otherwise be panhandling "disabled vet, will work for food" on a highway exit. There wasn't half a brain among the current "ruling council." They'd demanded an accounting from her not only of how much fuel they had (a week, she'd guessed, since Matty had said their supplier had been refusing to deliver full orders), but also of things she knew nothing about: how much food they had, how many blankets, and in one lapse of brainpower, a pimply-faced kid had asked her how many rounds of ammunition they had left. She tried to comfort the hostages as best she could, providing them with descriptions of the beautiful weather outside, and white lies about how the Strong would be surrendering soon. She had, in fact, been suggesting to the Strong that maybe they wanted to negotiate for a plane to take them somewhere far away. Like Libya. To their credit, they almost listened. Either from lack of medical observation, or perhaps simply from his weakened immune system, Jeremy seemed to be sliding downhill. His breathing was more labored than before. The doctors were only allowed to check on their patients for a few minutes at a time before their goon escort nudged them on with the butt of a rifle. Half the terrorists were sick, mostly the leadership. The doctors and nurses were kept hostage in the now three ICU units set up for the weak, itchy, uncoordinated, swollen-jointed, cramping and cranky terrorists. It had escaped their notice that nobody had died and mostly they just felt as if their body were continuously being pricked with pins and needles as when an arm falls asleep; but they all acted as if death was imminent for them all. Perhaps it was. Desiree realized it was past two in the morning, and she hadn't slept since yesterday. Being useless toward the recovery of the Strong's leadership, unlike the doctors, Desiree was allowed no escort when she moved about the building. Suddenly realizing she was dead tired, she slipped off to find an empty hospital bed, and collapsed. She knew it wasn't fair to the other hostages that she get a comfortable bed; they'd been here two months now. But none of it was really fair. It would be okay, she justified, if she could help free them. And for that she needed sleep. The next day she woke around noon to dreary skies that threatened rain. She'd missed her daily ration; she dared not request one, and she went hungry. She could help free everyone, somehow, if she only had food. It seemed a vicious cycle: Food or sleep, pick one. There was little to do. At least while a hostage a month before, she had no choice. She could brood, and worry, but there had been nothing to do. Now it seemed worse. She had freedom unparalleled for any other hostage. Yet she couldn't shoot anyone, nor bargain with anyone, nor do anything. She could watch Jeremy's health ebb and flow in increments so small she couldn't tell if he really had gotten better a bit, or worse a hair. She killed a few hours in the medical library, researching ciguatera. Stefan Axton had been right that it was ideal: The lack of coordination, muscle weakness and pain could last for months. But by and large, she felt herself going stir crazy. What were the police doing? Perhaps—surely—they were negotiating with the Strong. But they simply sat outside and kept everyone in. To a casual observer it would appear they were eager to free the hostages; and perhaps they even told this story to the media. But how odd it felt, knowing they mostly cared only to keep the hostages in! Were they waiting for us to die, she wondered? At least they hadn't gassed them. But they had to make a move sometime. The next day [Sunday] blurred into the current one. Her internal clock, used to a month of sleeping during the evening, rebelled, and she found herself sleeping when she felt tired, which was often. She tried not to miss the mid-day meal distribution, but that was the only anchor in her daily routine. She couldn't decide if it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She noticed the other hostages mostly slept at night, but not all. Many were up at all sorts of odd hours. She imagined they (for she hardly tracked one hostage from day to night) must have slept, unnoticed, during the day. At night while they were seemingly the only ones awake, and not acknowledging each other, they must have felt like she did, disconnected, spectral. She wondered why she hadn't noticed this before. But of course it was because before she'd been one of the daytimers; and to a daytimer, a nighttimer would only look like a sleeper. You didn't think ahead, aha, they must be sitting there awake, watching me, while I'm asleep. And somehow time crept by. The weather was the only marker, and mostly it was sunny. She began to hate the sun. If it was sunny, she should be out in it. She should be pushing Jeremy in the stroller. She should be holding hands with Morgan. Nights were little better. She should be cuddling on the couch with Morgan and Jeremy, or on the deck in the warm summer evenings. Of course, she was lucky; she could see the weather. The Strong had the lighting down to the minimum needed to see, just sparse emergency lights. The only change in brightness for most of the hostages came from the reflected light from remote windows. Most of those were behind doors closed to staunch the flow of the tear gas shot through windows that never came. Suddenly a sort of gasp filtered into where Desiree was hiding in "her" hospital room, getting ready to sleep. She tried to pull herself back to consciousness. It was dark. The only light was from reflections of city lights; the waning moon had yet to rise. It was so peaceful and still; she could almost forget where she was. It was quiet. Too quiet. "What happened to the lights?" she heard a muffled voice ask in the hall. "Why does crap always happen at midnight?" another disgusted voice asked. She snapped alert. The generator! Oh shit, she thought. The police. They're moving in. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, expecting imminent tear gas. No, that wouldn't do. She grabbed the pillowcase off the pillow to use instead, held it to her nose. Of course they'd strike at night. The perfect time. Confuse your enemies, wasn't that a main principle of war? She ran down the stairwell, unconsciously feeling for the turns of the handrail, knowing from so many trips exactly how far each landing was. The battery powered emergency lights had long ago faded out. She burst into the mechanical room. It was silent, except for a slight hissing, the sigh of a boiler sinking down to rest after a hard day's labor. Nobody was here. The room was dark. No human was in here, she could tell; it lacked that presence a room has when someone is in it. There were no police. They must have left. That was it. Done their job and gone. Or maybe the fuel line was clogged. She knew they had fuel left. Something was wrong. Oh my God. It didn't matter. Jeremy! She rushed over to the hulking generator, led by the dim square of light from Morgan's laptop. She put her hands out to find the huge machine in the blackness. What was she thinking? She didn't know how to start it up even if she could see. She ran, stumbling, back up the stairwell. Jeremy! she called out under her breath. Jeremy! Up five flights of stairs to level three. Jeremy! Torches crisscrossed the floor when she burst from the stairwell. She plowed into the nearest body that had a flashlight, bowled it over, grabbed the flashlight, and sprinted toward the nursery. Jeremy! The hiss and suck of the ventilator was silenced. She searched frantically for a manual override, something she could pump, anything. Nothing. "Doctor!" she cried out, sobbing. "I need a doctor!" She lifted Jeremy from the incubator, his body not nearly as warm to the touch as she would have liked. "Goddamnit, I need a doctor!" She held him close to her cheek. Nothing. Not even a warm whisper of a breath. Desiree grabbed the breathing bag the doctors had left next to the ventilator. She tried connecting it to the tube down Jeremy's mouth, squeezing it like she'd seen the doctors do. Squeeze... Squeeze... She pulled it off, put her cheek to his mouth. Nothing. "I need a doctor!" She fumbled the ambu bag back on. Squeeze... Check. Nothing. "Godfuckingdamnit! No!" She jerked out the tube and threw the bag and tube across the room. Frantic, she tried mouth to mouth, but his face was so small, it was so dark, her hands wouldn't stop shaking. The flashlight, standing on end on a counter, made concentric halos on the ceiling, but cast no light on her. "Breathe, damn it! Breathe!" She tried blowing into his minuscule mouth and nose, but, oh God, she'd never taken CPR, she didn't know how to do it! "Doctor!" She screamed. "Jeremy! Don't die! You can't die! Do you hear me? This is your mother! You can't die," she choked out, her voice fading to a low wail. She sank down against a counter, crying, holding Jeremy's lifeless little body tight to her face.

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Chapter 29.2

2:18 A.M., Saturday, February 26, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

Everywhere she looked, Desiree saw only idiots. The police idiots kept twenty-four hour watch outside, shooing everybody back in who tried to leave, terrorist or hostage. They seemed to be waiting for everyone inside to simply die, so they could sanitize the site and start over. She guessed that they were afraid of the "unknown epidemic" inside, and had no place else to house the victims. Granted, an epidemic was the last thing they needed; but if they'd let her out, she could explain that there was no epidemic. Inside, the terrorist idiots, under the leadership of the third-stringers, decided the police must be going to invade imminently. To make shooting hostages easier, or so they said, they had rounded all the hostages up onto one floor—literally, floor: they had to sit, motionless for hours, on the tile. Food was beginning to run low, so the already lousy MRE rations they'd purchased by selling the pharmacy were rationed, one kit per day per four hostages. Desiree had freer roam of the building, being the alleged engineer. The acting commander was a redneck twit who looked like he'd otherwise be panhandling "disabled vet, will work for food" on a highway exit. There wasn't half a brain among the current "ruling council." They'd demanded an accounting from her not only of how much fuel they had (a week, she'd guessed, since Matty had said their supplier had been refusing to deliver full orders), but also of things she knew nothing about: how much food they had, how many blankets, and in one lapse of brainpower, a pimply-faced kid had asked her how many rounds of ammunition they had left. She tried to comfort the hostages as best she could, providing them with descriptions of the beautiful weather outside, and white lies about how the Strong would be surrendering soon. She had, in fact, been suggesting to the Strong that maybe they wanted to negotiate for a plane to take them somewhere far away. Like Libya. To their credit, they almost listened. Either from lack of medical observation, or perhaps simply from his weakened immune system, Jeremy seemed to be sliding downhill. His breathing was more labored than before. The doctors were only allowed to check on their patients for a few minutes at a time before their goon escort nudged them on with the butt of a rifle. Half the terrorists were sick, mostly the leadership. The doctors and nurses were kept hostage in the now three ICU units set up for the weak, itchy, uncoordinated, swollen-jointed, cramping and cranky terrorists. It had escaped their notice that nobody had died and mostly they just felt as if their body were continuously being pricked with pins and needles as when an arm falls asleep; but they all acted as if death was imminent for them all. Perhaps it was. Desiree realized it was past two in the morning, and she hadn't slept since yesterday. Being useless toward the recovery of the Strong's leadership, unlike the doctors, Desiree was allowed no escort when she moved about the building. Suddenly realizing she was dead tired, she slipped off to find an empty hospital bed, and collapsed. She knew it wasn't fair to the other hostages that she get a comfortable bed; they'd been here two months now. But none of it was really fair. It would be okay, she justified, if she could help free them. And for that she needed sleep. The next day she woke around noon to dreary skies that threatened rain. She'd missed her daily ration; she dared not request one, and she went hungry. She could help free everyone, somehow, if she only had food. It seemed a vicious cycle: Food or sleep, pick one. There was little to do. At least while a hostage a month before, she had no choice. She could brood, and worry, but there had been nothing to do. Now it seemed worse. She had freedom unparalleled for any other hostage. Yet she couldn't shoot anyone, nor bargain with anyone, nor do anything. She could watch Jeremy's health ebb and flow in increments so small she couldn't tell if he really had gotten better a bit, or worse a hair. She killed a few hours in the medical library, researching ciguatera. Stefan Axton had been right that it was ideal: The lack of coordination, muscle weakness and pain could last for months. But by and large, she felt herself going stir crazy. What were the police doing? Perhaps—surely—they were negotiating with the Strong. But they simply sat outside and kept everyone in. To a casual observer it would appear they were eager to free the hostages; and perhaps they even told this story to the media. But how odd it felt, knowing they mostly cared only to keep the hostages in! Were they waiting for us to die, she wondered? At least they hadn't gassed them. But they had to make a move sometime. The next day [Sunday] blurred into the current one. Her internal clock, used to a month of sleeping during the evening, rebelled, and she found herself sleeping when she felt tired, which was often. She tried not to miss the mid-day meal distribution, but that was the only anchor in her daily routine. She couldn't decide if it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She noticed the other hostages mostly slept at night, but not all. Many were up at all sorts of odd hours. She imagined they (for she hardly tracked one hostage from day to night) must have slept, unnoticed, during the day. At night while they were seemingly the only ones awake, and not acknowledging each other, they must have felt like she did, disconnected, spectral. She wondered why she hadn't noticed this before. But of course it was because before she'd been one of the daytimers; and to a daytimer, a nighttimer would only look like a sleeper. You didn't think ahead, aha, they must be sitting there awake, watching me, while I'm asleep. And somehow time crept by. The weather was the only marker, and mostly it was sunny. She began to hate the sun. If it was sunny, she should be out in it. She should be pushing Jeremy in the stroller. She should be holding hands with Morgan. Nights were little better. She should be cuddling on the couch with Morgan and Jeremy, or on the deck in the warm summer evenings. Of course, she was lucky; she could see the weather. The Strong had the lighting down to the minimum needed to see, just sparse emergency lights. The only change in brightness for most of the hostages came from the reflected light from remote windows. Most of those were behind doors closed to staunch the flow of the tear gas shot through windows that never came. Suddenly a sort of gasp filtered into where Desiree was hiding in "her" hospital room, getting ready to sleep. She tried to pull herself back to consciousness. It was dark. The only light was from reflections of city lights; the waning moon had yet to rise. It was so peaceful and still; she could almost forget where she was. It was quiet. Too quiet. "What happened to the lights?" she heard a muffled voice ask in the hall. "Why does crap always happen at midnight?" another disgusted voice asked. She snapped alert. The generator! Oh shit, she thought. The police. They're moving in. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, expecting imminent tear gas. No, that wouldn't do. She grabbed the pillowcase off the pillow to use instead, held it to her nose. Of course they'd strike at night. The perfect time. Confuse your enemies, wasn't that a main principle of war? She ran down the stairwell, unconsciously feeling for the turns of the handrail, knowing from so many trips exactly how far each landing was. The battery powered emergency lights had long ago faded out. She burst into the mechanical room. It was silent, except for a slight hissing, the sigh of a boiler sinking down to rest after a hard day's labor. Nobody was here. The room was dark. No human was in here, she could tell; it lacked that presence a room has when someone is in it. There were no police. They must have left. That was it. Done their job and gone. Or maybe the fuel line was clogged. She knew they had fuel left. Something was wrong. Oh my God. It didn't matter. Jeremy! She rushed over to the hulking generator, led by the dim square of light from Morgan's laptop. She put her hands out to find the huge machine in the blackness. What was she thinking? She didn't know how to start it up even if she could see. She ran, stumbling, back up the stairwell. Jeremy! she called out under her breath. Jeremy! Up five flights of stairs to level three. Jeremy! Torches crisscrossed the floor when she burst from the stairwell. She plowed into the nearest body that had a flashlight, bowled it over, grabbed the flashlight, and sprinted toward the nursery. Jeremy! The hiss and suck of the ventilator was silenced. She searched frantically for a manual override, something she could pump, anything. Nothing. "Doctor!" she cried out, sobbing. "I need a doctor!" She lifted Jeremy from the incubator, his body not nearly as warm to the touch as she would have liked. "Goddamnit, I need a doctor!" She held him close to her cheek. Nothing. Not even a warm whisper of a breath. Desiree grabbed the breathing bag the doctors had left next to the ventilator. She tried connecting it to the tube down Jeremy's mouth, squeezing it like she'd seen the doctors do. Squeeze... Squeeze... She pulled it off, put her cheek to his mouth. Nothing. "I need a doctor!" She fumbled the ambu bag back on. Squeeze... Check. Nothing. "Godfuckingdamnit! No!" She jerked out the tube and threw the bag and tube across the room. Frantic, she tried mouth to mouth, but his face was so small, it was so dark, her hands wouldn't stop shaking. The flashlight, standing on end on a counter, made concentric halos on the ceiling, but cast no light on her. "Breathe, damn it! Breathe!" She tried blowing into his minuscule mouth and nose, but, oh God, she'd never taken CPR, she didn't know how to do it! "Doctor!" She screamed. "Jeremy! Don't die! You can't die! Do you hear me? This is your mother! You can't die," she choked out, her voice fading to a low wail. She sank down against a counter, crying, holding Jeremy's lifeless little body tight to her face.


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