Tombquest: Book of the Dead

Borrowed Time

They were not letting Ren in to see Alex, and she was not cool with that. She looked around the waiting room, which was full of people in varying degrees of misery. Ren diagnosed a few. There was a middle-aged woman with a hacking cough; an old man with a head wound, still bleeding; a little kid with an ice pack on his knee: probably sprained.

Lucky, she thought. At least they know what's wrong with them. At least they're in a place that can fix it. Meanwhile, she could do nothing but sit next to her dad and wait for news. She snuck a sideways look at him. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows for a workday that was long over. She tried to read his expression, but the angle was weird.

"How bad is it, do you think?" she asked. "When will they let us in to see him?"

"I don't know, Ren-Ren," he said. She didn't know if he was answering the first question, the second question, or both.

There was a TV mounted on the wall in the corner of the room, playing a news channel without the sound. She watched it for a while. Something bad had happened in India. She saw smoke and flames and a train on its side. She looked away once she saw the first body.

"Will they call our name?" she asked. "Even though we aren't patients?"

Ren knew it was a dumb question as soon as she said it. She hated sounding dumb, especially around her dad. But this time, the guy famous at the museum for having all the answers hadn't even heard the question.

"Uh-huh," he said without bothering to look over. He was staring intently at his phone. A scientific diagram filled the little screen. That was the other thing about him: always busy.

Having all the answers took time.

"You're working?" Ren said loudly.

Now he looked over. "There's not much else to do, Ren-Ren. We just have to wait until he's healthy enough for visitors."

The way he said it made her feel better, like it was just a matter of time. She was still a little mad: It wasn't just the dumb things she said that he missed. But she took a deep breath and tried to let it go. This trip was not about her. "What is that, anyway?" she said, nodding toward the diagram on his phone. "The Death Star?"

"Plumbing system," said her dad. "There's some kind of problem with the new exhibition. Things are a little too ... fresh. Think there might be too much moisture in the room."

"But the rooms are climate-controlled," she said. She listened carefully to him, even if he didn't always return the favor. "How do you think it's getting in?"

Her dad looked up from the phone and into the distance, as if picturing something. "That's a good question," he said, and Ren felt her cheeks flush. "Those rooms are right over the drainage subbasement, though. So the plumbing could have something to do with it."

He went back to staring at his phone, and Ren went back to worrying about Alex.

"Did you mean it?" she asked her dad after a while. "What you said?" She was thinking of "until he's healthy enough," but they weren't on the same page.

"Yeah," he said. "I think it's the plumbing."

~~

Two floors up, Alex was lying on a very clean bed. He had electrodes taped to his chest, a sensor clamped to one finger, and an IV tube running into his left arm. The rest of him was tucked tightly under crisp white sheets. The adjustable bed had been raised so that his upper body was slightly higher than his feet. His eyes were closed and he wasn't moving.

That was the story of his body.

His mind was more active. It flickered and buzzed like a lightbulb about to go out for good. He wasn't quite conscious, but he occasionally rose close enough to the surface to hear something. Sometimes it was a scrap of conversation between nurses. More often, it was just the beep and hum of machines.

Under the noise of the machines — in between the beeps, at the low ebb of the hums — was another, quieter sound. It was a steady stream of soft words, mostly too muted to make out, but he recognized the rhythms. He knew on some level that it was his mom. She was reading to him, like she had when he was little. He wanted to listen, but the more he tried to climb to the surface, the more he slipped away.

He felt himself going under.

And then, for a while at least, he felt nothing.

~~

When he came around again, Alex could see the hospital room very clearly. The doctors were gone, and his mom was, too. An empty chair was pulled up at an angle, one arm nearly touching his bed. And there he was, tucked under the sheets with his eyes closed. The sheets had been folded back and he had a surprising number of tubes and wires attached to him.

That's when he realized that he wasn't supposed to be looking down at his own body like this. His head swam with the realization. Except he was looking at his head, so ... He couldn't process it. He felt like he was all eyes and no brain, and just like that, he was out in the hallway.

His mom was there, too, just outside the door. He tried to say, "Mom, I'm here," but nothing came out. She was waving her arms, shouting. A moment later, a small squad of doctors and nurses came charging down the hall and ran right past him.

They all rushed into the room, and his mom went in after them. Panic broke over him like a wave. He knew what this was now. He was dying. His body — his stupid body — was finally giving up.

No wonder it all seemed so peaceful.

The fight was over.

He had lost.

But he wasn't ready for this.

He had to try. Something. Anything.

He remembered the old Egyptian legends, the ones his mom had read to him. He suddenly realized that that's what she'd been reading to him from his bedside.

Because in those stories, the soul could travel.

He had no legs or arms. All he had was what he saw. He tried to push forward with that, like he was leaning in for a better look.

Nothing happened. Panic mixed with despair. He called out silently to his mom again. And then, slowly at first and then all at once, his vision turned and raced back through the open door. He felt the rush: equal parts exhilaration, fear, and hope. The machines were all going crazy, screaming out their beeps. He saw his body, and the circle of people around it. He tried to push past, but they were blocking him. The fear surged. He pushed again. He screamed out along with the machines.

His world went dark once more.

~~

Maggie Bauer was standing as stiff as a board just inside the door. She wasn't really supposed to be there, but the hospital staff had more pressing concerns. Her hand was at her neck, wrapped around her scarab amulet. The room was a hive of activity, with hospital staff coming and going like frenzied bees.

"Clear!" shouted the lead doctor. The light above her dimmed briefly, and then her son took a long overdue breath — a gasp, really. Technically speaking, he'd been dead for just under two minutes.

The lead doctor tried to brush past her on his way out of the room, but she stepped in front of him and looked him in the eyes. She needed an honest answer, now. He just shook his head.

Her son was living on borrowed time, and it wouldn't last.