Crosstalk (10 page)

Yes,
C.B. said.
A huge persecution complex.

Shut up.
“No,” she said to the resident.

“No more dizziness?” the resident asked, and took her through the litany of questions again. “Double vision? Headache?”

Making ridiculous accusations?
C.B. said.

Go away.

The resident and the nurse were looking at her curiously.
Oh, God,
she thought.
Did I say that out loud?

No,
C.B. said.

Then they must have asked her a question. Which she hadn't heard because C.B. was talking to her. “Sorry, what?” she asked the resident.

“I said, have you experienced any unusual sensations? Tingling? Numbness?”

“No.” Numbness would mean they were worried about pressure on a nerve. Could the edema they'd talked about be pressing on something and causing the problem? Or could it be pushing two pathways together? Adjoining electronic circuits often crossed over each other, causing interference with the signal, so that you got a different channel or radio station than the one you were tuned into. Maybe the brain's circuits operated the same way, and C.B.'s voice was some kind of resulting crosstalk.

“What about blurred vision?” the resident was asking.

“No.”

He scrolled through her chart, checked her bandage, and then said, “All right, try to get some sleep. And no more moonlight strolls. If you need the bathroom, use your call button.” He started out of the room.

The nurse, who up till now had stood there silently, asked, “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Yes,” Briddey said. “A blanket. I'm freezing.”

Uh-oh,
C.B. said.
I don't think you should have said that.

He was right. The nurse and the resident exchanged worried looks, and the resident came back over to the bed. “Have you been having chills?” he asked sharply.

“No. It was just cold in the stairway, and I—”

They didn't buy it. The resident insisted on listening to her lungs, and it was obvious from his questions that he thought she'd contracted pneumonia. Briddey had to convince him that she didn't need her lungs X-rayed, wasn't having difficulty breathing, had no intention of even getting out of bed again, let alone wandering off barefoot, and there was
no
reason to report any of this to Dr. Verrick.

Finally, after listening to her lungs one more time, the resident departed, and the nurse said, “I'll tell your nurse to bring you a blanket,” and left, too.

Briddey expected C.B. to immediately start up again, but he didn't. The nurse didn't bring the blanket either. After ten minutes Briddey decided they'd forgotten, and in spite of the uproar it would cause if they caught her out of bed, she was about to go fetch her robe from the closet when she heard the nurse coming. Thank heavens. Much longer, and she
would
have contracted pneumonia.

Only it wasn't the nurse. It was C.B. She recognized the shaggy outline of his hair in the light from the corridor. “What are you doing here?” she said. “Go away.”

“I can't,” he whispered, shutting the door. “There's an orderly out there mopping the corridor. He nearly caught me as it was. You wouldn't want him to tell Trent he saw a strange man coming out of your room in the middle of the night, would you?”

She sat up. “Why—?”

“Shh,” C.B. said, putting a finger to his lips. “He's right outside.” He tiptoed over to the door and listened for a minute. “Okay, he's moved down toward the nurses' station.” He pulled the door shut and came over to the foot of the bed.

Briddey switched on the light. He looked even scruffier and more thrown together than he had at Commspan, his dark hair a tangled mess. His T-shirt and sweat pants were badly wrinkled, as if he'd snatched them from that pile on the sofa in his lab, and the hood of his jacket was half caught inside the neck. “Why are you here?” she whispered.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “Sorry it took me so long. When I got here, they'd already brought you back to your room and there were a bunch of people around, so I waited till they'd left, and then I had trouble sneaking past the nurses' station.
Are
you okay?”

“I'm fine,” she whispered, frowning. He was talking to her. Out loud. Her heart lifted. It had been a dream after all.

Afraid not,
C.B. said.
And no, I'm not a ventriloquist.
He pointed at her water jug.
If you want proof, I can drink a glass of water and talk at the same time. No, wait, ventriloquists can do that, so it wouldn't prove anything, would it?

“No,” she said, but it did because he was just standing there, looking worriedly at her and not saying a word, and she could hear him perfectly.

Here,
he said, and sat down on the bed beside her.

She shrank away from him. “What do you think you're—?”

Shh. The orderly, remember?
He turned his head away and pulled his hair up away from his neck.
No shaved patch, no stitches, no scar
.

“Show me the other side.”

It can't be on the other side. The area of the brain the EED—

“Show me.”

Fine,
he said, and turned his head, lifting his hair on the other side. There wasn't a shaved patch there either.

He stood up.
Now do you believe me? I didn't have a rush-job EED, I didn't bug your room, and I didn't drop a two-way radio into your brain while Dr. Whatzisname wasn't looking. I was just sitting in my lab, minding my own business, when you started talking to me.

“I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Trent.”

Well, you should have been more specific. All I heard—

“And stop doing that. It's creepy. Talk out loud.”

“Fine,” he said in a low voice after glancing toward the corridor. “All I heard was you asking, ‘Are you there?' and I was, so I answered you.”

“But you weren't
supposed
to be there. And what are you doing here now? I thought you said you hated hospitals.”

“I do,” he said, “and you're Exhibit A of why. They lose track of patients, they try to freeze them to death.” He looked around. “Jesus, this room's even colder than my lab.”

“The nurse who was just in here is bringing me a blanket.”

“Wanna bet? She was the hot little brunette, right?” Briddey didn't dignify that with an answer. “She went off duty fifteen minutes ago. And the rest of the staff have spent the last twenty minutes having a confab at the nurses' station, trying to decide whether to call Dr. Whatzisname—”

“Dr.
Verrick.
”

“—about your little escapade.”

“What did they decide?”

“I don't know. They were still at it when I came in here, but it seemed to be split fifty-fifty between waiting till morning and not telling him at all.”

Please let it be the latter,
she thought. But if they were all at the nurses' station, she'd never get her blanket. And she must have accidentally voiced that thought because C.B. immediately took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Here,” he said. “Better?”

“Yes.” She reached to pull it around her.

“Jesus, what's that?” he said, staring at her hand. “It's all bruised.” He grabbed it up. “I thought you told me you were okay.”

“I
am
okay,” she said, snatching her hand back. “It's nothing.”

“That happened when you pulled out your IV, didn't it?”

“No,” she said. “The nurse had trouble getting it started. She had to make several tries.”

“Lying doesn't work when you're telepathic,” he said. “I can read your mind, remember? Look, Briddey, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, and certainly not so badly that you'd do something like this. I mean, I know suddenly finding yourself able to talk mind-to-mind with somebody's kind of a surprise—”

“A
surprise
?” she said, her voice rising. “A
sur—
”

“Shh. They'll hear you.”

“I
want
them to hear me. I want them to call Dr. Verrick and tell him something went wrong so he can—”

“What? Drill another hole in your head?”

“No,
fix
this. Uncross our circuits and get rid of the crosstalk—”

“This isn't crosstalk,” C.B. said. “It doesn't work like that. Although…,” he said. He frowned.

“So you're admitting it
could
be crosstalk,” she said. “And if it is, Dr. Verrick can uncross the circuits or unsplice the synapse and hook it to the right one or something.” She reached for the call button.

“No, don't do that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because, as you told me yourself, people don't believe telepathy exists, and even if it did, the EED doesn't
make
people telepathic. So let's say you tell him you're hearing my voice in your head. Either he's going to transfer you to the psych ward or he's going to say, ‘But for a connection like that to happen, there's got to be emotional bondage—' ”

“Bonding!”

“Whatever. He's going to say, ‘If you're hearing Mr. Schwartz, then that must mean you two are—' ”

“He will not,” she said. “I'll explain what happened—”

“Which is what? You called to your boyfriend and somebody else answered? Forget Verrick. How's that explanation going to fly with Trent?”

C.B. was right. If she told Trent she'd connected to someone else—and C.B., of all people—

“Thank you very much,” C.B. said.

You weren't supposed to hear that.

“I know. Which is why telepathy's a terrible idea.”

“I just meant—”

“I know exactly what you meant. I can read your mind, remember? It's okay. I am well aware of what a comedown I am from the rising young executive and his Porsche. Still, it could have been worse. Think of all the sleazeballs and perverts and people who think they've been abducted by aliens out there. You could've ended up being connected to one of them. Or to a knife-wielding serial killer like the one you lied to the nurse about. Or a religious nut who believes the world's going to end next Tuesday.”

The world's already ended,
she thought.

“Not even close,” he muttered.

“What's
that
supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. You were saying?”

“You were right. I can't tell Trent,” she said. “Not until I've figured out what's causing this and how to remedy it. And you can't tell him either. Or anybody else at Commspan.”

“I won't. I don't particularly want anybody finding out about this either. Half of Commspan already thinks I'm psycho. I don't want to give them any more ammunition.” He looked down at her. “You haven't told anybody else about this, have you? Your nurse? Or the people who brought you back to your room?”

“No—”

“Good. Don't. And I think I'd better go before somebody sees me.” He started toward the door and then came back over to the bed. “My jacket,” he reminded her, taking it from around her shoulders. “You don't want Trent asking you where you got it.”

“You're right,” she said, even though she'd just begun to warm up. “Thank you for—” But he was already gone.

C.B.?
she called silently, but he didn't answer.

At least I don't have to worry about him telling Trent
, she thought, hugging her arms to herself. He wanted to keep this a secret as much as she did. There'd been genuine relief in his voice when she'd said she hadn't told anyone.

Why?
she wondered. In spite of what he'd said, she couldn't imagine him caring whether people thought he was crazy. And he hardly seemed the type to have a girlfriend…

Footsteps were coming down the corridor. She hastily turned off the light, lay down, closed her eyes, made her breathing shallow and even so they'd think she was asleep, and waited for the nurse or the aide or whoever it was to turn on the light.

They didn't. They came into the room and straight over to the bed. “Turn back your covers,” C.B. whispered, and reached to uncover her himself.

“What do you think you're
doing
?” she whispered furiously, grabbing for the covers and pulling them protectively up to her neck. “I don't know what you're thinking, but—”

“I'm
thinking
I brought you a blanket,” he said. “And I'm
thinking
I heated it up in the microwave, so it needs to be next to your body.”

“Oh,” she said. She pulled the tail of her hospital gown down to cover her legs and then pushed back the covers, and he spread the blanket over her.

It was wonderfully warm. She stopped shivering the second it touched her. “
Thank
you,” she said.

“You're welcome,” he said, pulling the rest of the covers over her. “In spite of the fact that you thought I was trying to attack you.”

“I didn't—”

“Yes, you did. I can read your mind, remember?”

“How can I forget?” she said bitterly. “Do you think there's a chance this…?”

She stopped. He was looking toward the door, his head angled to one side as if he'd heard something. “Is someone coming?” she whispered.

“No, but I'd better go before they do. Listen, we'll talk about this in the morning and figure out what to do,” he whispered, and after another quick look in both directions, slid out the door.
In the meantime, you get some sleep,
he said.
And no more running around.

I won't
, she thought drowsily, snuggling into the warmth of the blanket.
I plan to stay under here forever.
And
It really was nice of him to get it for me. He's not so bad.