CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Crises
Mondays are never great, but the next one sucked. I dragged myself into work at the usual time. The other designers were busy and hard at work. The God Machine hummed with activity. Orders were piling up in my queue, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to create another dragon when it might end up imprisoned out at the Farm. Or worse, a pile of bones bleached white by the sun. The images kept playing through my mind. Dragons packed like sardines in tiny cages. Misshapen skeletons
So I sat and tinkered with designs without ever finishing anything.
My phone rang right as I was packing up to go home. Mom again. I’d ducked her last two calls and felt bad about it, so I hit the green button.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered.
“Connor is in the hospital.”
“What?” A heavy foreboding settled in my gut and leeched all the warmth from my body. “Why?”
“He collapsed. I had to call an ambulance.”
I scrambled to find my keys, pressing the phone against my ear so I wouldn’t drop it. “What hospital?”
I let the Tesla drive me there, because I didn’t trust my hands to drive. Or my foot, to keep it below a hundred miles per hour. I parked in the visitor garage and hustled inside.
The harsh utilitarian style of the university hospital makes me long for the children’s hospital in Tempe where we spent so many days when Connor was younger. Pediatric hospitals are warm, friendly places with all kinds of kid-friendly nooks and crannies throughout. Visiting Connor there was almost an adventure to discover new things—animal statues in the halls, or the soft tweets of electronic birds beneath the artificial trees.
The university hospital is a colder and less welcoming place from the entrance, with its massive and permanent sign about washing hands because It’s Flu Season.
I’ve always hated the way the hospital smells. From the moment you walk in the door, you’re assaulted with countless harsh odors. The antiseptic cleaners, and the hand-soap in the scrub-in room. The dusty-dry smell of the sterile cotton gowns. There’s a sound in the hospital, too, a muted white noise from the machines. The air feels thicker somehow, as if gathering in the wide overhead spaces to press down on those who wait uncomfortably for any sort of news.
Normally, Connor’s hospital room bustled with activity. He reigned from the hospital bed like a prince, always jovial, laughing and joking with the staff. The nurses and medical techs all loved him. Even when they had to put in an I.V., you’d have to watch closely to see the discomfort flicker across his face before the smile returned. He took it a hell of a lot better than I would, I’ll say that much.
This time, an uncommon quiet reigned. My eyes drifted past my mom, who was half-asleep in her usual seat by his bed, to where my brother lay with his eyes half-closed. His chest rose and fell in slow breaths. The only sound came from the soft, persistent beep of his monitors.
“What’s wrong with him?” I demanded.
My mom sprang to her feet. “Noah.”
She tried to hug me, but I fended her off. “Why isn’t he talking?”
“He’s resting, but the doctors think he’ll be fine. They were worried he had a myocardial infarction. That’s a—”
“Heart attack, I know,” I said irritably. It had been a long drive, and I felt like she weren’t giving me information fast enough. “Did he?”
“The troponin test came back normal.”
That was something. “Where’s the doctor?”
“He went home for the night.”
“He went home?”
“Shush. You’re going to wake Connor.”
But he was already awake. His eyes were moving. They flitted from us to his bed to the vital monitors on the walls. Confusion wrinkled his brow.
Mom made her voice calm, but it sounded forced. “It’s all right, honey. You’re in the hospital.”
He leaned back a little and groaned. I knew that groan. It twisted my heart a little more than usual. Maybe because we’d argued the last time I saw him. Maybe because while I was chasing that dream of getting him a diagnosis, I really hadn’t been around. Now all I wanted was to distract him. To take his mind off it for a moment.
I put an overconcerned look on my face. “Hey, buddy. Listen, if anything happens . . . do you mind if I take your gaming system?”
“Noah!” Mom smacked my arm.
A little smile played at the corner of Connor’s lips. “You couldn’t handle it.”
“I mean, clearly I’d have to upgrade some of the janky equipment. But I think I could make it work.”
He coughed. “Janky? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Listen.” I put a hand on his arm, still mock-serious. “I’m going to play under your username, in your honor. People will be astonished at the skills.”
“You wouldn’t last thirty seconds.”
Mom sighed. “You boys. I’m going to see if I can find the doctor on duty.”
She walked out slowly, sort of hunched over. She seemed so old all of a sudden, so frail. Connor’s never-ending medical crises must be taking more of a toll on her than I realized. He caught me looking at her and must have seen the look on my face. He could always read it like a book.
I couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but I said, “Hey, man. Sorry about last time I came over.”
He waved me off. “It’s cool.”
“I’m just not ready to give up on what I set out to do.” I bit my lip. “No matter what I have to stomach.”
“Did something happen?”
I laughed, but without humor. “You don’t want to know.”
“Come on. I’m going to be stuck here for hours. It’s basically your job to entertain me.”
“Well, I designed this prototype that Greaves hated, so he sent it to the farm. That’s what we call the desert facility, where they send the returns and failed prototypes.”
“Okay, I’m with you.”
“Where is it?”
“Out near Gila.”
“Whoa, that’s remote.”
“Not by accident,” I said. “So Summer and I get out there, and suddenly—”
“Summer?” he interrupted.
“Oh, yeah. She’s new. I met her while out geocaching.”
“That’s the nerdy thing you do with compasses and stuff.”
I blinked. “It’s not nerdy. It’s like desert survival with GPS.”
“My mistake,” he said, with a hint of sarcasm.
“Anyway, so we get out there, and—” I paused and looked around, to make sure no one else was within earshot. Mom could be sneaky when she wanted to, but she hadn’t come back yet. She’d probably found a private place to drink one of those bottles in her purse.
“And what?” Connor demanded, impatient as ever.
“The place was massive. They must have hundreds of dragons living in captivity out there. It was . . . a lot bigger than I thought.”
“That’s what she said.”
I laughed. “Yeah. But it gets worse.”
He shook his head. “I mean, I knew you probably sucked at designing dragons, but—”
“Whatever, dude. But it gets worse. There were piles of bones out there, too. Dragon bones.”
The smile fell from his face. “Shit.”
“I know. It’s bad news.”
“What are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Not sure I can do anything. I wasn’t even supposed to be there.”
“So they’re just leaving the dragons out there to die?” He shook his head. “That’s messed up.”
I had a dark suspicion they were putting the dragons down, not simply leaving them in the desert, but I didn’t say as much. “It is, but I can’t really afford to rock the boat. If I come under more scrutiny, they might figure out my secondary agenda.”
He sighed. “Still with that?”
“Yeah, still with that. I’m making progress, too.” I clenched my fist. “I was so close.”
“Dude, you’ve got bigger problems now. What that company is doing to dragons . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “Somebody’s got to stop them.”
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t give a shit about dragons. The words were on the tip of my tongue. But I saw the color coming back to his cheeks and didn’t have the heart to do it to him. I mean, Connor loved dragons. “But I have no power there.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said.
“Hey!”
“Seriously, man. All you gotta do is find someone who does. Someone who cares more about dragons than profits.”
Something about the way he phrased it made a name pop into my head. A crazy-ass idea of a name, of a crazy-ass inventor.
Simon Redwood.