The God Codex

17. Room206

BOOK OF BILLY: 2049

Chapter 17: Room 206

I stand beside her bed for what feels like hours, though I tell myself I couldn't have. Even now, my body belies me. For some time now, I've been experiencing backaches after a prolonged period on my feet. I tell myself it's just an underlying condition from my injury, but I know better. It's the nanites in my body, and my back is killing me.

At any rate, I digress. Another thing I'm prone to these days, I permit my mind to wander to places they have never been and never shall never go.

Only when I hear the meal cart rustle behind me, I pull a chair up to sit.

"Dr Amour, you're still here," the wonderful nurse on meal duty tonight, Malika, says as she pulls a tray off the trolley and enters the room.

Alisha has not regained consciousness yet for her to eat so I turn to the lovely woman and say, "I don't think she'll be eating anything this evening, Miss Abdullah."

Malika smiles at me. Her face is still so young, yet I know her not to be. Young, I mean. She can easily pass for late-thirties, but in reality, she's closer to my age.

"Oh no, Dr Amour. This is for you!" She places the tray on a small table in the corner and wheels it over to my chair. "Josie told me where you were" — she passes me some cutlery — "since you weren't in the mess hall for dinner."

I feel drained and I slouch, looking over at Alisha. Her chest rises and falls softly. She looks to be the same. Almost. A few greys. A few new lines around her eyes and mouth, but essentially the same. She could still wake up and have me completely wrapped around her finger if she wanted. There. I finally said it. The thing that undid us. She had never wanted to be the woman with a mindless man wrapped around her finger like a puppet. She had wanted me, of my volition, to be with her, and I'd failed. Miserably.

"She still looks the same," I manage, again feeling like an age has passed. I can't actually believe I've kept Malika occupied and I gesture for her to go about her business. I'm fine. "Please, forgive me. Just an old man with an old heart. Don't let me keep you."

Malika fetches herself the last meal tray from the trolley, pulls over another chair, and joins me.

"What time is it?" I ask, for I truly don't know how long I've been in this room. Waiting.

"My shift ends with the dinner rush, and you were my last delivery," she says, removing the cover from her tray as she kicks off her shoes. Then she digs in, famished it appears.

I give her a look. How am I to deduce the time it is based on her answer? I don't know the hospital wing's running order and time. This is not my department.

"It's almost eight. Eat."

I don't have the stomach for food, but I equally don't have the heart to deny her this pleasure. Malika has been a longtime friend of mine, the very few I have left. Almost fifteen years since this base was operational, and I moved my research in. She has been here almost all that time and likely knows this facility better than I do.

I dig into the food, my mouth tasting metallic, but soon, the taste doesn't matter as hunger takes over. This is my first meal for the day.

"She's the one, isn't she?" Malika asks as I struggle to open my dessert. A custard pudding.

I say nothing for a while. Instead, I stare at the burns on Alisha's skin, at the blackening of it, darker than her natural tan. "She's dying. Acute radiation syndrome. Matter of days, and I don't know what to say to her when she comes to."