23
Outside Prague, Czech Republic
November 29
In his backpack were the instruments needed for a sustainable incursion into a foreign land, all carefully wrapped and positioned in layers of tough bullet-proof cloth; never easily accessible, most of it rarely touched. It weighed as much as a second person on his back, and despite the metal rails built to alleviate the strain on his spine, the Healer had built a formidable set of muscles along his shoulders and torso because of it.
Before the sun rose that morning, he was perched in the darkness of the tent, carefully sorting and shifting the things he needed to set out.
The outer layer of the pack was the easiest to reach, but it contained mostly armour plating and bandages, never anything breakable or important. He removed the topmost covering on his gloves and used the latex layer to grab a pair of lifting tabs on the pack, slowly and patiently shifted the entire platform over onto a clean space on the tent floor.
In the next layer was a red plastic device meant for blood analysis. He removed it from its holding brace and connected it to a small battery wire that peeked through the middle of his pack. He left it on the ground, its battery indicator slowly animating upwards.
Another device, this one grey and half-metal, connected to a socket along his left biceps, and his suit contracted slightly along his arm like a mechanical tourniquet. A faint beep close to his ear announced the end of the test, and his suit relieved the pressure gradually, the feeling coming back to his clenched hand. He replaced the device in the pack, exactly as before, and dismissed the results readout on a small screen below; he did not pause to read. The radio lay silent on the ground beside him; that was all he needed to know.
The blood analysis device finished charging, and a faint blue light pulsed to life on its head. The Healer slipped his hand back into its outer glove, unlatched a piece of armour on his left forearm. He folded it back and peeled open a portal in the suit, rimmed with bright yellow, clean white rubber beneath.
Sliding his glove off again, he carefully placed his index finger and thumb on two depressions along the yellow rim, twisted counter-clockwise twice, and then pushed down. It clicked open, and he pinched his fingers together to remove it, placing it next to the blood analysis device in his pack. A disinfectant spray doused it immediately on contact.
The grey device connected seamlessly with the new socket he’d uncovered, and he rotated it clockwise, a quarter-turn, until he heard it latch. He pushed the blue button at the head, and a quiet beep played in his ears; he felt a tug and hiss as the device sucked the air out of the connection, creating a miniature vacuum. A small LCD readout showed the airlock was confirmed, and a second beep preceded a thirty-second spray of strong disinfectant. His skin stayed carefully isolated from this routine, covered by two further layers of protection.
After a moment of calibration, the device connected itself to his static IV and pumped five millilitres of blood into a small vial, closed the connection and began processing. He unlatched it, replaced all the covers in a careful repetition of his earlier routine, and glanced at the device’s small screen. No warnings.
He checked his second pack, the smaller one that carried his food and tools, saw the edge of a wafer package, beckoning him. He looked away immediately, back at the task at hand. The sun was rising.
* * *
It was an hour before he made it back to the main road north into Prague, his pace methodical, yet faster than usual.
The neighbourhood he was tracking was made up of low-rise buildings, blankets hung from open windows. In the early morning light, he heard the sounds of children waking their parents, almost-quiet clanging dishes, yawns travelling far in the thin cold air. An old man in a housecoat stood on his front step, smoking a cigarette, his eyes locked on the Healer, his hands frozen.
The Healer checked the street sign again: Michalská. This was the right place, but not yet at the right house. He turned his head away from the old man, looked down the street. A thin coating of snow lay on the ground, and more was falling. He kept moving, checking back a few steps later. The old man’s eyes narrowed, frozen, his head turned but his body unmoved. You are not welcome here.
Number 21 was a two-storey apartment complex with a small chimney off to the right, puffing out smoke in a lazy drizzle. The front door had a large oval window in it, though the glass was badly cracked, the shiny metal handle dented and warped inward. There were no lights inside the foyer.
A shift in light to his left caught his eye, and he twitched his head slightly to see. Three men, just out of bed it seemed, watching him from a distance. The street was suddenly silent. Children were quiet.
He turned his head straight again, as if to show he would ignore them all. He listened carefully for the sound of feet in snow. There was silence for a minute. No sounds, no movement, no hint of intention. The Healer carefully walked up the steps to the front door, wrapped his fingers round the handle, and opened it.
Still, silence.
He stepped inside, his foot gravelled and rough, grinding into the dirty wood floor, a piercing noise. The door slowly eased to a close behind him, but he did not turn his head to look out. They were watching him with gaping mouths.
The door at the end of the hall was shut tight, but in the dark he could clearly see the hint of shadows right under the door. The peep hole flickered light. Nervous movements. He stopped to the left of the door, his back to the wall, and listened.
Outside, faces at the base of the steps, watching him through the shattered glass. No sounds.
He reached a hand out, saw the faces outside tense, and knocked on the door three times. The faces at the door creeped ever closer, desperate to see what would happen. After a short period of silence, he reached over, knocked again, three times.
He heard a quiet shuffle from inside, fading as it went, a floorboard creaking. Escape! He quickly unsheathed his machete, wedged its blade against the doorknob and slammed down the handle until the brass orb hit the ground with a bang.
There was a yelp from inside as the blade pounded into the locking mechanism. The door swung open. He pushed it, but a chain at the top stopped him. He glanced back at the front door, the faces right against the glass now, their expressions tense, angry, vengeful. He kicked the door open and quickly stormed in.
He was straight into the living room, a single rug covering the abused oak floor. To the right, a grimy kitchen, the refrigerator door slightly ajar, feeble light lighting the cupboards; no one there. He turned and saw, in the corner, a woman and a child huddled in the corner, behind a chair. The woman didn’t make eye contact, but the boy watched the Healer with wide open eyes. Not afraid, just… in awe.
The Healer carefully walked over, knelt down in front of the woman, but did not speak. The boy’s mouth was crusted over with scabs, his skin yellowing, and he was thinner than he ought to be, even malnourished. The Healer reached out a careful hand, pushed the boy’s long hair off his forehead, saw the pox there. The woman could tell, pulled the boy closer, tighter, started whimpering.
Behind him, a creak, the floor giving the rescue party away, and the Healer got to his feet quickly, put his hand out to them as a warning. There were five of them, all large men, all groggy, but intensely awake. He stared them down, one by one, and then shook his head.
They started to spread out, trying to encircle him. Their stances were brave, but inexperienced; spurred on by a sense of nobility, protecting their own. The one further to his left put his arms out, his fists ready, and made quick eye contact with the others.
The Healer lowered his hand, kept his palms out, passive. The men all shifted themselves, nervous. The Healer — hands out and visible — slowly bowed to them… but as he held the bow he heard the swish from the left, and caught a man’s leg before it hit his face.
With a quick twist, the man was flipped off his feet. He landed on his back, and the Healer threw his leg away, stood straight, and blocked a wild punch from another attacker. He grabbed the wrist, hit the elbow to disable him, and then slammed his knee into the man’s right side, knocking him down and away. He turned to the last three assailants, each backing up, looking oddly exposed with the numbers in their favour.
The Healer again reached out a hand, shook his head ‘no’, but the boy was crying now, and it added fire to their cause. The two downed men were groaning and rolling back to their feet. He darted a look to them, and shook his head again.
The man in the middle was whispering something to himself, and the other two reacted, became calm. The Healer didn’t understand the language, but grasped the meaning by the pauses made at the last second…
One… two… three!
They charged him at once, a primal scream filling the room, but he was too fast. He slammed the middle man’s head into the attacker on the right, and then pounded the left-most face with a sharp plated elbow, sending them all sprawling, but none to the floor. He kicked the middle man in the small of the back with so much force the poor wretch lost his footing and landed on his back, his head crashing into the wood.
The one with the bloodied face was stumbling forward, not able to fight in his state of shock, but valiantly wanting more. The Healer hit him in the stomach as hard as he could, winded him so badly he collapsed onto the ground, probably glad he had an excuse to stop.
The last man was dazed and unhurt, but the Healer passed up an easy kick to the head. Instead, he grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and pinned him against the wall, the muscles in his arm twitching madly under the strain.
The Healer shook his head again, and the man’s eyes said he finally understood. He sputtered something in gasps, and at the last, the Healer recognized a fragment of German. He barely understood, but there was enough to follow…
He let the man go, let him drop to the ground, slumping into a pile. The Healer knelt down before him, hand on his machete, warning.
“This boy sick,” he said, only able to piece together slivers of German to make his case. “I must look… look for blood of Lewis.”
The man stared up, his eyes narrow, scared, his lip trembling.
“Boy?” he asked, speaking quietly but slowly. “Lewis is not here.”
The Healer looked at the boy, huddled in his mother’s arms, tears in his eyes, and pointed.
“Lewis is not?” he asked.
The mother made eye contact, shivering, face wet, and urgently looked at the man at the Healer’s feet, shook her head, didn’t speak, but shook her head.
“Lewis is not here,” the Healer understood from the tired man. “Not here… large.”
The word was wrong, but the context made sense. Lewis had not been there for some time. The men behind him started getting their strength back, creaked back to their feet.
“Where did Lewis go?” he asked, his voice deep with rage.
The man and woman traded looks, and she quickly glanced at the Healer nervously, then back down, then seemed to think. She spoke quickly in Czech to the man, her voice wavering, fearful, desperate. The man looked solemn, took a shaky breath himself.
“We not know,” he answered cautiously. “Not here large.”
The Healer nodded, checked out the window at the distant skyline beyond the snow. A massive city, with no leads.
The woman was talking again, and it sounded like an argument. The Healer looked down at her and she quieted immediately, her eyes continuing the conflict silently. The Healer glanced at the man, who was looking away, trying to avoid saying something. He looked back up.
“Lewis —” … something new, difficult to understand … “— with. I know where.”
The Healer repeated the word he had missed, but the man seemed at a loss. The Healer repeated it again, his voice sounding angrier than he intended, and the man’s face fixed in fear.
“Lewis with wife. But not.”
“Wife,” he repeated.
“Not.”
The Healer nodded.
“Where is his wife?” he asked. The man looked sheepish now, glanced to his comrades anxiously.
“Home of fire work,” the man said.
“Fire?”
“Big fire. With… people?”
Pause. He heard the breathing of the other men, but they were not moving.
Then, he understood.
“Home of big fire… old home of… games?”
The man looked at him blankly.
“Home of big fire, is also for games?” the Healer repeated, urgent.
The man nodded slowly.
“Games not large,” he said solemnly. “Not large. Fire now. Big fire.”
The Healer nodded, stepped back.
“Yes,” was all he could think to say.
The man touched his hand before he could leave, and he looked down again. The eyes were red, pained, wrestling with a guilt he would never defeat. After a pause, a raspy breath, he spoke:
“Wife… Marta. Lewis Kwong.”
Kwong. He bowed to the man, who retreated at the motion, straightened and said a simple: “Thank you.”
The man didn’t answer. None of them spoke a word until he was gone from sight.