Cathedral of Dreams (9 page)

Keith shoved, but the door didn't move. He put his shoulder into it and there was a crunch and a squeak. The door opened a crack, barely large enough to squeeze through.

“Hey, what's that?” he heard one of the men yell. Then there were footsteps coming toward them.

The boy with the bullet hole in his forehead scurried through the opening. While doing so, he reached out and tugged on Keith's shirt.

Keith rolled across the door, through the gap, and let it close behind him. The area they stepped into was dimly lit, and Keith felt water hitting him from above. Ground water sloshed over his shoes as he followed the boy toward a group of crates.

Then the boy rushed beyond the crates into an area where machines had been parked.

Keith followed.

Before long, they ran down an alley and around a corner. Suddenly, Keith halted. The boy, as though he knew Keith's every move, slowed to a near stop without even looking around.

People wandered the streets in the rain. The sky stood over towering buildings. A slight glow pushed through clouds, but the rain was heavy. And there was noise. People yelled, cars splashed by, and other noises came from horns or buzzers. Keith had only seen cars and streets in movies. He knew only the horror of the outside world, which had obviously been toned down from what was really here.

He didn't know what to expect and froze in place. Nellie said that they'd take advantage of him. What did she mean by that?

The boy motioned for Keith to follow. When Keith wouldn't budge, the boy came back and took his hand.

Tears streamed down Keith's face, but no one would notice with all the rain. He felt his hair plastered across his head and water drip down his cheeks and the front of his face. As rain ran down his neck it entered his already soaked shirt. “I can't,” he said. “This is horrible. I'm afraid.”

The boy tugged for Keith to follow him, but Keith stood still until he saw a man rushing toward him. “Hey, buddy. Hold on a second.”

Keith's hesitation ended as the man got closer.

Keith followed the boy down the street and among the crowd of people. He made eye contact with no one. His head stayed angled down as he rushed along, watching only the boy as they scrambled through the streets, making turns and going through alleys. Finally, they came to a rusted and slightly bent door. The boy stopped and pointed. “Go inside. I'll be back.”

“No!” Keith yelled as the boy rushed away, but it was too late. The small figure disappeared into the crowd.

Keith waited and stared at the door. Should he knock? Yes, he decided, so he knocked. The rain pelted his back as he waited. He knocked again. Still nothing. The boy had said to go inside. Perhaps it was the boy's apartment. It would be all right to enter, then. The boy had said so.

Keith reached up and grabbed the handle and pulled on the door. It opened easily, despite its appearance. He stepped inside.

The walls had been painted a greenish-blue color. The furniture looked as though it had been dragged in from a variety of places. None of it matched the look of the rest of the room. The baseboard was orange; the lighting fixtures hung down from the ceiling or stuck out from the wall. The sofa was square, the chair rounded.

Alone, Keith realized how tired he was and sat in the stuffed chair, the cushion holding him in its soft embrace. He relaxed and let his eyes close. He wondered when the boy would return, if he would return. The strangeness of the room didn't stop him from leaning his head back to rest. He raised his arm to look at the time on his wrist terminal.

“You won't need that any longer,” a voice said from behind him.

Keith craned his neck to see who was talking. An old man approached from an open doorway that Keith had not noticed when he arrived.

“You can be followed, you know?” The man approached the side of the chair and reached to take Keith's hand. He slid a pair of scissors from his pocket and in one swift, smooth motion cut the terminal loose. He pulled it away, and held it before his face, studying the device briefly. Then he let it drop to the ground and crushed it under his boot.

“What are you doing?” Keith asked in a careful tone. He didn't want to upset the stranger.

“Come with me, young man.” The old man bent down enough to grasp Keith's forearm. “Let's get this done.”

“Who are you? Where are we going?” Keith protested with questions only. He stepped ahead of the man, knowing that he was going through the open door into another room.

The man's grip was firm, but not rough. He had a few days growth of beard on his cheeks and chin and hair growing from his ears. His bushy eyebrows twitched every now and then. His clothes were all white, even his boots. “I'm the doctor,” he said. The man pulled a towel from a hook beside the door and placed it onto Keith's shoulder. “You can dry off a little with this,” he said.

“I don't need a doctor,” Keith said. He rubbed the towel over his arms and head, then laid it across his shoulders, letting it hang over his chest.

“Nobody needs a doctor, but they all want one when there's something wrong.”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” Keith said.

The man stopped Keith in front of what looked like a dental chair. He removed the towel and set it on the floor. “Nothing that you know of,” he said. “Now, sit down.”

Keith obeyed.

“So, who are you?” the doctor said.

“Keith.”

“Keith who?”

“You mean my residence number?”

“Never mind. So, what do you do?” the doctor said as he moved a tray of instruments into place. He sat on a stool and slid it so close to Keith that his leg touched Keith's hip.

“You can't touch me unless I ask,” Keith said.

The doctor laughed. “Things are different out here, Keith. Very different.” He pulled a bucket next to the chair. “You may need this. So, what did you say you did?”

Keith was afraid of the man, yet didn't have the power to resist him. He thought of the boy with the bullet hole in his forehead, and how he was delivered here. There must be a reason. “I work in the Offices of Goods and Services,” Keith said.

The doctor reached out and rubbed his thumb over Keith's arm right where the chip was located. “Goods and Services,” he said absently. He swung the chair's armrest around and placed Keith's arm on the cold plastic. In one smooth movement the doctor slipped a strap across Keith's wrist and one around his elbow.

“Wait. I can't get loose.”

The doctor smiled again. “That's the idea. But you can lean over your arm if you need to vomit.”

“Vomit? No. You can't do this.”

The doctor picked up an instrument from the stand. It looked sharp—a blade, though not quite a scalpel. He also grabbed a device that looked like tiny pliers. He stopped and stared into Keith's eyes. “This will hurt, but then you'll feel a surge of energy like you've never felt before. If you close your eyes—and sometimes if you don't—you'll imagine all sorts of things, images will appear, feelings will rise and fall. You'll get the sensation that you're spinning or falling. Some people vomit.” He pointed to the bucket. “Which is what that's for. But ultimately, when it's all over, you'll be fine. More than fine.”

And with the last word he bent down and said, “Hold still.”

Keith closed his eyes just as he saw the blade touch his skin. The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt before, but he couldn't keep his eyes closed. He had the strongest sensation that he needed to watch. He began to moan at first. He clenched his teeth.

The doctor had already slid the blade across Keith's arm, and now reached in with the pliers and tugged an oblong component from the arm. The pink device was still connected through vein-like appendages. The doctor replaced the blade in the stand, picked up a pair of small scissors, and snipped each of the appendages to free the chip.

With each cut, Keith felt a rush of unbelievable energy crash through his nervous system. Images of people burst before his eyes. He recognized his parents, siblings he realized he had not seen for years, and other people he didn't know. Images of hospitals came too. And then the pain. His arm could not move, either of them. His head ached like never before. He felt nauseous, but didn't vomit. Instead, when the bile rose into his throat, he swallowed, then screamed. As his mouth opened and the sound came out, it hurt his ears. He felt embarrassed. He felt angry. He hated the doctor for removing the chip. He hated the boy, too, until the image of the boy appeared before him and then he screamed from fear, the horrible image of the seeping hole, the blood, the utter impossibility of the boy's existence.

Keith began to scream, “No!” over and over again. Then he stopped. Something heavy crushed against his chest. His headache intensified, as though his skull had been split open. His tightly closed eyes burned. He let them crack open just enough to see what happened next.

The doctor tied off a few stitches, and snipped the thread. “That wasn't as bad as some I've seen.” He patted Keith's hand and removed the straps.

Keith just sat there breathing heavily. He closed his eyes again then opened them. The room was lighted by a strip of bulbs that stretched across one of the walls. An overhead lamp had been turned off, but still held its position above the chair. His face felt flushed, beads of sweat cooled at the edges of his hairline, and his heart beat uncontrollably.

“You'll want to rest. You can lie down on the couch in the other room if you like.” The doctor rose from the stool.

“The images?” Keith said with a scratchy, dry voice.

“Memories, most likely,” the doctor said. “You can ask questions about that later. For now, you rest, let your emotions level out and readjust.”

Keith climbed from the chair and found an unstable stance. He reached to take hold of the back of the chair until his legs regained balance. The stitched area of his arm itched, but he didn't touch it.

“Need help?” the doctor said.

Keith shook his head. “I can do it.”

With a shrug, the doctor reached down and picked up the towel, walked it over to a hamper, and dropped it inside. “You've got to get some dry clothes. I'll have someone drop them off while you sleep.”

“I'm not going to sleep.” Keith straightened and walked through the door and into the waiting area where he sat in the cushioned chair. He plopped down and put his head back. Chilled, he wrapped his arms around his chest.

It sounded as though the doctor was cleaning the instruments from the tray. He rustled around in the other room for a few minutes before Keith heard a door open and close. Then there was only silence.

He stared at the ceiling, which was speckled with dark spots over white paint that had faded to yellow. The corners of the room appeared dirty and the walls, he realized, were not originally blue-green, but had turned that color from age. The longer he sat, the more the chair felt grimy and the more uncomfortable he became. That was until he began to pay attention to his senses, which slowly drew him to a variety of things he had not noticed. Already, what he looked at had adjusted and changed. Next came what he heard. It was not so silent in the room after all. A buzzing came from one of the walls. He could hear the people talking and yelling from outside. Occasionally a horn would blast. The rain increased and decreased in intensity. At times he thought he heard people talking beyond the walls, but inside the building. He was sure of it.

Keith licked his lips, and even that motion brought something new to his senses. He could taste the room. It tasted like it smelled, which was musty and damp. A certain sharpness to the flavor alerted him to what he could only describe as disinfectant.

While his senses played, he thought back to the images he'd seen. First, his parents and siblings. Why had he not remembered them while living in Newcity? He knew why. Anger rose inside him and his muscles tensed. He pounded a fist against the chair arm. They had no right to do that, to take the memories away.

His headache returned and he closed his eyes. His body began to twitch, and he couldn't stop it. He let out a long moan, wishing that the doctor would come back into the room to see what was the matter. He had questions.

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck to try to ease the pain that had spread from his head down along his neck and into his shoulders. If he rubbed too hard, the arm hurt where the doctor had removed the chip. It felt as though the stitches would burst apart. He imagined blood and the vein-like strings moving around as though they were alive. He rolled his head back and forth in pain. He gripped the chair arms. The sensation of the dirty cloth, once plush, rubbed against his palms. The smell of disinfectant rose to nauseating levels and bile pushed into his throat again. This time when he swallowed his stomach collapsed into a chasm of hunger. He had not eaten lunch and the lack of food let his stomach build acid. But he would not allow himself to vomit.