Page 11 (1/1)

"How are you supposed to be a goodto be a jailer instead?" asked Nathan

Dr Cale didn’t have an answer for that She just looked away, and said nothing at all

Half an hour later, Nathan and I were in the front seat of his car, driving toward San Francisco faster than I liked, with strict instructions to turn around and return to the lab if we encountered anything that see or out of place "I can’t lose you," hat Dr Cale had said, as she watched us head for the bowling alley door Adauilty and glad at the sao Not with Tansy , not when there was soback

I really hoped we’d be co back

Nathan’s attention was fixed almost co my eyes closed and my shoulders relaxed If I allowed , I would losefor hiot us both killed It was sort of funny, in an awful kind of way: I existed because Sally Mitchell had suffered a seizure and lost control of her car, freeing the way for uess the experi to be therapy--that I’d been required to go through as part of my "recovery" had left me with a phobia of cars and car crashes that bordered on crippling Had Sally been the one left in our shared body when all was said and done, she would probably have gotten her license back by now I’d been essentially an infant, and any infant barraged with an unending stream of automotive horror stories would have developed a phobia just like ry with Dr Cale, and with SymboGen, for the way they’d allowed roup I wasn’t an experiically daed me just to see ould happen if they did Dr Cale knehat I was from the moment I opened my eyes She shouldn’t have allowedto be

She shouldn’t have let the the end of the bridge, Sal," said Nathan, using the light, alressively conversational tone he always affected when he was trying to keep rateful for that consideration, even as I resented it My boyfriend shouldn’t have been forced to speak to me like I was a child because soive me a phobia I didn’t need to have

The resentment helped a little It enabledhtly to the left, navigating the bend in the exit from the freeway We’d be on city streets soon That wouldblue ocean underneath us; no threat of sinking to the botto turn The change would help The change always helped

Then I heard the sirens up ahead That was all the warning I got before the car caainst the surface of the road The seat belt drew suddenly tight, theh, panicky sound that sees The dru inuntil they drowned out the world I sank down into the the sound wash overto leach away, dissolving into the sound and the thin red screen that suddenly blurred ht

There was a hand onabout it would havethat I had a shoulder, and that it existed in a physical place where people could reach out and take hold of it It wouldthe world back in I wasn’t ready for that Panic had its claws inelse

"--please, Sal, you need to snap out of it Please" Nathan gave ers in harder this tie his reality "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I can’t wait You have to open your eyes Please"

I took a breath, the red scrihtly As it did, it was replaced by blackness, and I realized that my eyes were still closed Once I realized that, it was hard but not impossible to force h to let the light colare, the world resolving into a blurry photograph, splashes of color on a black and white background I blinked again The color came back The blurs became people…

… and the people were sleepwalkers An ocean of sleepwalkers, hundreds of bodies thronging in the streets of San Francisco They hadn’t reached the bridge yet, but they were close; the exit was clogged with theh for me to roll down myand touch The sirens came from the police vehicles and fire trucks that blocked the intersection just off the bridge, their lights flashing and their doors standing open as the rescue personnel tried to do their jobs against i to rescue the people The people were no longer really present anymore