Chapter Seventeen
I don’t know how long we ran. There was no sense of time in that place but it was long enough for our legs to grow weary yet the man who called himself my great-grandfather and Tungasila did not slow or falter. He ran with lithe, easy strides that promised he could go forever but we were mortal and tired.
Rachel stopped first and I slowed to stay with her taking in the surroundings. We were in a small meadow with stunted yellow trees that resembled aspens, yellow grass that looked withered but wasn’t and the far-off mountains. It was the first time I’d seen anything growing in this place. Still no sign of water, insects or animals.
Tungasila came back and urged us on. “I can’t run anymore,” Rachel gasped, her chest heaving. My eyes were drawn there and I felt an uncomfortable fullness below. He saw it and smiled.
“Danger is a powerful aphrodisiac, Lakan. That is why many babies are born before and after wars.”
“What’s coming, Grandfather?” I asked using the polite and ñj term in his language.
“Soul snatchers. Creatures that masquerade as coyotes or small dogs. They will kill you for trespassing and steal your souls, binding you here forever to be tormented by them as slaves to their lusts.”
“Why are they after us?” she gasped as she bent over, searched for a pebble to suck on. It was an old trick to fool your mouth into thinking you were not thirsty and to ease the stitch in your side. “They never bothered me before.”
“The more you enter and longer you stay,” he explained, “the greater your signature on the landscape, the stronger your scent where they can track you.”
“What should we do?” I asked “Is it safe to exit? Where will we come out? In the city? The Tower or the subway?”
“Wherever you want. Just focus where you will step through,” he said. His head lifted hurriedly. “Quickly, Boy Who Thinks Much. They are coming for you!”
I opened the door and we stepped out onto the subway platform, nearly in the exact spot from which we’d left. I glanced up at the big clock on the walls and the schedule board with its LED display. Four hours had passed. No wonder Rachel was exhausted and my legs tired.
“They must be frantic over our absence,” she noted worriedly. She pulled out her cell phone and I was surprised to see that it was an old Tracfone with no SIM card and untraceable. The thing was almost archaic, stone-age. I knew that no one could track her by it as it was unregistered.
She dialed and spoke into it, using a language I assumed was one native to her tribe but I understood it without knowing how or why I knew it. She was telling her uncle we were safe, in the subway and would be back inside the casino shortly. She asked if anyone had reported me missing and did not seem surprised at his answer. I could hear his strident tones through the cell phone and started walking back towards the steps leading up to street level.
When I reached the fourth step from the top, I was able to tell that it was early evening though the skies were lit up by the 24-hour cycle of a nonstop gambling Mecca. People were bustling back and forth; the streets as busy then as they had been during the day. Night-time brought out the women who worked in the massage parlors – women who dressed for sex and had the looks that plastic surgery had created. There weren’t lines heading into their establishments but they were humming along with no lack of customers. The pawn shops were busy, too and for the first time, I saw drunks stumbling down the street. Some were panhandling and others lay on street corners of back alleys.
I couldn’t help myself; I went over to one and pulled him into a sitting position out of the street. He was dead to the world, drool and vomit staining his once white dress shirt with a string tie and scuffed boots. I checked his pockets and found his wallet. His name was Jamie Bolton and he was from Alpine Texas, a member of the PBA or had been up until two years ago.
Rachel stood over me. “I remember him. He was bucked off, broke his back and couldn’t ride anymore. Started drinking. Alcohol is our curse,” she sighed.
I touched his shoulder and felt that same tingle flow through my hands and into him. He stirred, muttered something and opened his eyes. Clear, deep brown and solemn, he studied my face and called me Shaman. I swallowed and told him not to sleep here on the ground but to go back to his hotel room where it was safe.
He informed me that he had no residence only a trailer he pulled with his old truck. I gave him part of our winnings from the casino. He climbed to his feet, tucked the cash inside his shirt, thanked me before he walked soberly down the street and out of sight. Only then did I walk back into the casino where we were met by the Manager, Security, Redline, and George. All of them surrounded and escorted us back to the Penthouse.
Redline was furious and he started several times to berate us, finally sputtering to a stop as he plowed his fingers through his hair.
“Do you realize that even now the NSA could be descending on us to retake you, Lakan? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in captivity as a guinea pig? There are AMBER alerts going out all over the US. How long do you think you’d last out there? We have customers who come from all over the country to play here.” He paused. “The Park Service found two skeletons near where your great-grandfather used to live and one of them still had his cell phone - he was a missing Corrections Officer up hunting with his best friend also missing for two years.
“Unfortunately, the last photos taken from his camera was an image of a 12-year-old boy who called himself Lake. The FBI is investigating his disappearance and is now looking for you, too.”
“Shit,” I said and started looking for a way out, an escape route. He grabbed my shoulders.
“You wouldn’t get ten miles, Lakan. You are on Reservation land, that gives us some warning before they can legally come after you. However, we both know that legalities mean nothing to the NSA and Black Ops.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about the implant?” I demanded.
George looked at Rachel. She stared back defiantly. “We felt it was in the best interests of your mental health not to tell you.”
“There is one way you can remove it,” I said with a dry mouth and sweaty palms. I looked at the floor and at my feet. I couldn’t believe I was going to say what I had in mind. “You need to stop my heart. Once I’m dead, you can take it out and then resuscitate me.”
“Are you nuts?” Rachel burst out. “No way!”
“It’s the only way. You have cardiologists here and a full-fledged operating room. Then, the risks are minimal. If you were willing to implant a small shield around both sides of my heart, then this should be child’s play,” I argued. “I’m not crazy about the idea either but it’s the only viable way I can see to remove the tracer without doing open heart surgery. Besides, you might trigger the device doing it your way and kill me anyway.”
George slowly nodded his head. “We were aware of the possibility but were hoping your enhanced cells would prevent death from occurring. After all, it saved you when you were three.”
“I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it,” I said grimly knowing that it was exactly what I was doing. “When can you do this?”
“I already had everything set up for noon tomorrow. The doctor…wants to play tonight and frankly, we need him to be sufficiently in debt so that he has no reservations.”
“You’re bribing my doctor?” I gaped and he had the decency to flush.
“Well, we don’t have a consulting cardiologist or cardiac surgeon in our back pocket and although we do have ties to some Native American MDs, we thought we needed one we could…manipulate into keeping silent.”
“He agreed to do this?” I continued.
“We told him only that we had a patient who needed a pacemaker implanted.”
I was aghast in horror. “When were you planning to tell him the rest, when my chest was open?” He didn’t answer. “I insist you bring him in here and let me talk to him.”
George nodded and took out his cell phone, spoke into it and we waited. Twenty minutes later, Hotel Security escorted in a tall, lean man with gray hair, deep blue eyes, and casual attire. He had long, slender hands with well-cared for fingernails.
“I’m Dr. Rivers, you’re the patient?” He held out his hand to me and I shook it.
“Lake Strong,” I said and he seemed surprised at my age. “I’m nearly fifteen,” I added. “And it’s not a pacemaker in me.” I handed him my x-rays and he read them swiftly, his face stilling as he realized the implications of what he was seeing.
“What the hell!”
“My life is in your hands, Dr. Rivers. If you don’t take this thing out of me, I’ll not have a life, I’ll be spending it in a cell under government confinement just because I was an experiment.”
“What do you expect me to do with this?” He asked soberly.
“You have to stop my heart, remove the implant and then restart my heart,” I said calmly. “Any other intervention will send a lethal shock into my heart and fry it.” I went on to explain exactly how he needed to remove the bomb and he listened intently.
“Fourteen, you say? You know what your IQ is?”
“198,” I answered. That was one of the things I remember from the Hamilton estate. She had boasted to everyone that her grandson – me – had the IQ of a superior Einstein, that I took after her side of the family. Of course, I wasn’t sure if those were real memories or something fabricated by her programming of the last two years spent under her ‘care.’
“What kind of schooling have you had?” He continued and I couldn’t answer him. I could and did tell him what I knew of my past medical history. Somehow, George and his group had access to that, back to the car accident when I was three. He said, “your brain scans at that age were…catastrophic. How is it you recovered from what was clearly a fatal brain injury?”
“I’ll let George explain that one,” I said. “Now, I’m hungry and I have a hankering for a thick steak and mashed potatoes with gravy.” I nodded to Rachel and she picked up my hand, heading out the door and back to the elevator with Dr. Rivers in my wake.
“Wait a minute, Lake,” he said. “There’s a few things I need from you before I touch a scalpel to your chest.”
I stopped. “Doesn’t George have all that in my records?”
“No. And I wouldn’t be much of a surgeon if I took his word for it.” He turned to Redline and Little Bear. “I need a phlebotomist and a surgical tech in this OR of yours and I want to examine it before I do anything. You have a lab, too?”
George nodded. “I can show you the facility.” He entered the elevator and held the door open for us. I hesitated and Rachel pushed me inside. We rode in silence down to the seventh floor and it was a full-fledged hospital run by the Indian Health Service, staffed by Native Americans and serviced both natives and customers. Much as a cruise ship’s infirmary would operate.
I spent the afternoon being undressed, blood was drawn, vitals taken, EKGs and x-rays retaken, weighed, probed and gone over until not one inch of me remained untouched. Last, he ordered an MRI of my brain but not my chest, afraid that the metal inside would be affected by the magnetic machine.
During the few minutes between tests, a pretty young nurse brought me a light lunch of cheese sandwich, tomato soup, and coffee. I fell on it like a rabid wolf and when I begged for seconds, she brought me a repeat.
I sat on the edge of the bed hooked up to the machine that took my vitals and listened to the pre-op nurse explain the procedure. She warned me not to eat or drink anything after midnight and no alcohol. I rolled my eyes at that. I was nearly 15 and had no way to procure booze.
“Yes, well, boys your age are very creative at acquiring alcohol,” she said and I had to snort.
“You’re not much older than I am,” I retorted.
“I’m 22.”
“An old lady,” I teased. Her name tag said Penny Bright Star; she had copper skin and brown eyes, pretty dark brown hair cut short and curled over her ears. She was an RN.
“You’re here for pre-op? What kind of surgery?” She looked at my orders and her eyes widened. “Cardio – you have a bad heart?”
I knew what she was thinking – I didn’t look anything like the typical heart patient, I was too healthy. Not thin, gray with sunken and hooded eyes. Fatigued and depressed.
“Will you be one of the nurses on tomorrow?” I asked with a lump in my throat. Hers might be the last friendly face I saw before I died.
She saw my fear and gave me a hug. “I’ll be here before and after to take care of you, Blake,” she promised. “You won’t be alone.” She smiled and told me she’d be back later.
I was ready to leave but Dr. Rivers suggested I spend the night resting. I suspected he wanted to make sure I didn’t bolt.