Loss Of Reason by Miles A. Maxwell (reading list TXT) 📖

“We have to get out of here now,” Franklin said, gritting his teeth as the icy water bit like needles into his calves.

The dark-haired woman he’d seen in the window sat sideways, legs across several seats just out of the water’s reach. She appeared to be in pain. Her dark mid-length coat was pulled around her. One of her long, smooth legs was interrupted by what looked like thin tubes of rolled newspaper strapped to her leg’s sides, and an obnoxious-looking knee that bulged under the skin.

“How’d you get up to the window?” Franklin asked her.

“I pulled myself up on the bars. Had to.”

“Are you able to walk?”

“Not much. My leg feels like it’s broken.”

He sloshed over, examined her knee. “Dislocated, looks like. There’s a man up top who’ll know better. I think we can get you out okay.”

As she stared up at him, blood matted along the right side of her face, Franklin thought, She doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore. He frowned at her vague familiarity. Probably looks a lot better without that blood in her hair.

He looked around. “Anybody else hurt?”

“Mr. van Patter,” she nodded toward the elderly gentleman, “was unconscious when I woke up.”

“I’m alright,” van Patter said lightly. “Just a little bump on the noggin. I’ll be fine.”

“Well I’m not fine!” said the man in the soggy toupee. The screamer. “Tyner Kone,” he announced. “U.S. Department of Commerce! I want answers! How bad is it up there?”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” a voice echoed from above.

Franklin looked up to see his brother’s upside-down head wiggle through the now-missing window. Everon winked at the dark-haired young woman. “I wonder if he knows his hairpiece is on crooked?”

She barked out a high laugh.

Franklin understood his brother’s strategy. Keep them from going further into shock. The water was rising. Everon looked at him as if to say, Let’s get to what we came for!

“Your attempt at humor is not appropriate, nor appreciated,” Kone fumed. He straightened his toupee and pointed. “This water is probably loaded with radiation. How do you propose to get us out of here?” Kone pointed to Everon. “How far is it?”

Everon looked at Franklin. “Chuck and I used the winch to break out that metal grate. We can take everybody straight up.” He wiggled backward and disappeared.

“Alright then. Pull me up!” Kone said. “Let’s go!”

Franklin considered the opening — against the bureaucrat’s round shape. Despite Everon’s ability to wiggle through the small tunnel they’d made, it would be too tight for some of them. For sure Kone wouldn’t fit. He wouldn’t even make it through the window.

“Yeah, let’s go, man! Water’s coming up fast!” StreetNews! Cap’s rising voice was sounding more like Kone’s.

“If we try to pull you up through that hole, all we’ll succeed in doing is getting you stuck halfway and wind up cutting the rope.”

Franklin looked at the dark-haired woman. There was no way to get someone with a bad leg through either. He studied the train car doors and knew what he had to do.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Victoria.”

“All right, Victoria. We have to move you. I need to get everybody to the other side of the car.”

“Okay,” she said, despite what he suspected was considerable pain.

As much as possible they had to avoid the water. Not because it was cold, but because the bomb had exploded only a few miles away, somewhere downtown near the water. He hadn’t brought Chuck’s radiation meter with him. It all depends, he realized, on which way the East River is flowing.

Franklin heard the word again. “Bomba? Bomba?”

A man with sandy-brown hair, his arm around a slim blonde woman in a fur-lined coat bunched around her neck, both in their mid-thirties, had remained silent the whole time. Now they whispered frantically to each other. It seemed they didn’t understand what was going on.

“New York bombili,” Franklin said — the same thing he’d told the others. The couple looked at each other. “Bomba?” the woman asked, staring at him wide-eyed.

“Bomba! Da! Ya skazal vam!”  — Bomb! Yeah! I told you! The man looked back to Franklin, who nodded grimly.

“What are they speaking?” Mr. van Patter asked.

“Russian.”

“What did he say? What did he say?” Kone asked. But Franklin didn’t answer.

The guy in the StreetNews! cap said, “Let me give you a hand. Name’s Clarence.”

Franklin and Clarence carefully slid their arms beneath Victoria’s legs. The Russian guy lifted her feet. The dark-haired young woman grimaced as they carried her to a seat on the opposite side. Drew breath sharply as they set her down. It was going to be tough getting her up. Maybe I can help her feel better, Franklin thought. If she’s consciously willing to let me do it.

Ultimately it would have to be her decision.

“If I can reduce your pain before we go up, would you go along with it?”

“What, a pill or something?”

Half her pain’s internal, Franklin was certain. Induced by fear — of what might be wrong with her knee, wondering if it will heal. A second part caused by wondering whether she’ll even get out of here.

“No . . . something mental.”

“Uh — I don’t know. I guess so.”

But Franklin’s mind was already tuned in to everything about her — a lightning comparison of her vocal accent and vocal tone — her body posture, even what he could see in the limited light of the dilation of her pupils. The swelling of her full lips, down to the nearly invisible tension in the pores of the smooth skin across her cheeks. All of it poured into him, affected him, and was processed.

Like a well-practiced musician, responding in ways he was barely aware of, Franklin gave himself an inner nod, and in a low insistent voice, whispered in her ear, “Victoria . . . DEEP INSIDE YOU CAN FALL ASLEEP, REST, ARRIVE AT A DEEPER . . . PLACE TO RELAX, UNWIND, CHILL OUT, VOUS DORMEZ, CALMING . . .”

She frowned at him. But underneath, she felt her breathing slow . . .

“What are you telling her?” Kone said, voice rising again.

Franklin ignored him. “. . . DOWN DEEPER TO LOOSEN UP, LIGHTEN UP, USTED DUERME . . . SETTLE DOWN . . . SPAT’ . . . FEEL AND SENSE AND EXPERIENCE . . . UNDERGO TO CHANGE AND BE ALLOWING . . . YOU YOURSELF TO JUST LET GO AS . . . YOU . . . CANCEL . . . PAIN.”

She felt a flow of energy through her calves, down into her feet.

Since she had given, at least, her conscious agreement, Franklin was using an ultra-abbreviated form of what he’d used to convince Chuck Farndike to set up their Red Cross clearance. But where he’d helped Chuck amplify his uncomfortableness, he did the opposite with “. . . VICTORIA . . . RELAXING . . . DEEPER NOW . . .” Dropping his pitch and volume, his tone deeper still . . .

The third time he said it he looked suddenly away, gently squeezed her shoulder.

What’s all that about? she frowned. Then oddly realized she didn’t feel so frightened . . . And the throbbing in her knee was diminishing too . . .

Canceling her pain, he knew, carries a danger of its own: The pain is there for a reason, a warning: Be careful! Something’s damaged!

But now he could do what he had to. The water was pouring in at an alarming rate. Franklin pulled the rock hammer from his harness and stepped to one side of the big window in the other door. He waved a hand and spoke to the Russian couple, who immediately stepped back.

“What’s going on?” Kone asked.

“You might want to back up,” he told the others.

They all moved back. Except Kone. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, voice bordering on hysteria.

“Ignore him,” van Patter said.

Cowed for some reason by the older gentleman, Kone obediently stepped over, up on the seats where Victoria and van Patter sat and the others stood.

Franklin hauled the hammer back and smacked the glass. A shuddering split appeared in the window’s lower left corner. He swung back to take another swing, but a high rippling sound snaked its way diagonally upward across the window and . . . SNAP! Shattered glass exploded into the car. Pieces of tile and gray cement dust poured in, chips of concrete, red bricks laid down a century ago — splashed into the still rising water.

A dirt pile rose fast in the water in the center aisle.

Within seconds, dirt had risen above the water. Then a foot above and still the pile grew. As they scooped it back to make room for more, struggling to keep up, Franklin began to wonder if he’d miscalculated.

How much can there be?

Clarence, the Russians and the transit engineer pushed bricks and dirt into the water away from the rising mound. More light poked through. Van Patter moved several smaller bricks then wobbled back to a seat, ready to fall over. Victoria used her sleeve to wipe away the small trail of blood that dribbled down his face.

Kone stood on the opposite side seat