Chapter 4

“Two coffees, please,” Dwayne said with a wink. The black-haired, black-nailed teenager popped her gum, rolled her unnaturally vibrant aqua-blue eyes beneath black-dusted eyelids, and stepped away to fill his order. Dwayne turned to scan the Healing Station’s coffee shop. No, Dr. Deuce. He reached for his iComm, “Message, Deuce, I’m here, big guy. Coffee’s getting cold. Falling in love with gothic barista.”

Ms. Gothic placed the two heat-preserving cups on the counter and popped her gum. “That’ll be twenty credits, ... sir.”

She had been taught the proper protocol of polite interaction, well at least she uttered the words. Dwayne leaned on one elbow across the counter. “It’s on Doctor Austin Abraham’s credit.”

She popped her gum and lifted the scanner.

He blinked as the light flashed over his eyeball.

“You fly, you buy,” she said with an ornery grin that revealed a missing cuspid.

“Hey!” Dwayne frowned and lifted the two steaming cups.

“Dee!” Abraham patted his shoulder.

“Dr. Deuce!” Dwayne walked with Deuce to a table and chairs against the wall.

“How ya been?” Deuce took one of the cups and gingerly sipped its black liquid.

“Good, good. You?”

“Yeah, I’ve been okay.”

“Hey, listen, I heard about your mom. I’m sorry man.” Dwayne glanced at the barista. Eye contact with Deuce was too awkward.

“Yeah, it wasn’t sudden though, she was ready to go. Really looked amazingly peaceful when she passed, so...” Abraham shrugged and watched the feet of a male nurse walked past their table. The mint green scrubs indicated cardiology. An awkward silence lingered between them. They sipped and watched people move around.

“So, what’s it you need my kinda help with?” Dwayne cut the silence, curling his fingers in the air for quote marks.

Deuce pushed Dwayne’s hands down and glanced around without moving his head. “Oh, nothing really, I just missed seeing ya, buddy. Hey, you want some gum?”

Deuce reached into his shirt pocket under his lab coat and pulled out a package of wintergreen chewing gum, handing a strip to Dwayne.

Dwayne looked at the gum and glanced up at Deuce. Deuce’s left eyebrow rose. He’d seen that look before. The hair on Dwayne’s neck rose slightly as he reached for the proffered gum. “Thanks, but I think I’ll save it for later.”

Deuce shrugged. “Suit yourself. Listen, it was great to see ya, but I’ve gotta get back to the ward. Got a reeeally interesting case.” His eyes bulged slightly as he stood up. “You take care and”—he tapped behind his ear—”there, that should reimburse you for the coffees.”

Deuce pressed his lips together in a straight-line smile, but humor was not prevalent in his eyes.

Dwayne watched the doctor walk away. He patted his pocket with the chewing gum. What was Deuce up to?

Dwayne locked his garage-apartment door, sat in front of his personal external communication device, a flat black tablet, and pulled the gum wrapper from his shirt pocket. He gently removed the wrappings. “What have we here?”

He inserted the film from Deuce’s gum wrapper into the input slot. Squinting to focus on the data glowing before him, he tapped his virtual keyboard. “Hmm.”

Activating another program, he set it to run. Meanwhile, he rummaged through his films and pressed one into an additional input slot. Tap tap tap. He ran the program. His computer hummed as he stared at the virtual screen, clicked the keyboard, hit enter, and waited for the program to complete. The results glowed on his virtual screen.

“Oh, wow! Deuce, what have you gotten into now?”

Molly lifted her head and winced. These chairs! She rolled her head around from left shoulder to back, right shoulder to front, and straightened her back. Vertebrae after vertebrae cracked running up her spine, like the chasing lights of a theatre marquee.

“Michael...” Kita muttered.

Molly slid over to her sister’s bedside. “Kita. It’s Mol—”

Kita gasped as she tried to sit up straight in bed. The restraints tugged at her wrists and held her in the horizontal position. Molly reached out with her twin beacon to soothe her sister.

“Oh, Molly!” Kita whined. Tears spilled down her temples, into her hair.