Chapter Seven

(Angel)

Angel cradled Carin's body in the restaurant's meat locker. Wire-frame shelves stacked with sausages, hams, chickens and turkeys squeezed the rubber-matted walkway into a narrow, dead-end alley. The lonely yellow light bulb flickered and buzzed, but the condenser fans still spun, still hummed. She looked at the thermometer on the door: minus seventeen degrees Fahrenheit.

She wore her suit but had retracted the helmet. Her teeth chattered, but the tears didn't freeze against her nipped cheeks. The sobbing had slowed to a rhythm now, cracking wails breaking with high whimpers that echoed off the stainless steel walls. That crying was her own, though it felt as if it belonged to someone else, as if she weren't really sitting hunched in this metal den holding the mutilated corpse of her wife.

But there was still a chance. The elf had promised that much. Angel hugged Carin tighter and, blinking through the burning in her eyes, dared to look at the damage, to maybe see the alien magic at work.

The skin of her burned, bald head didn't seem quite so melted or red now, and the ears looked like they were reforming. The eyeballs were still gone, but in those jellied sockets nestled the fresh buds of tiny white grapes. With childlike hope, Angel kissed her gently on her seared lips. She tasted only death. Carin was just an icy weight in her arms.

She'd lost friends in Iraq. She'd gone through the panicked screams and the pleading and the empty, woolly-headed shock that followed. She doubted it effected everyone the same way, but on those occasions she sometimes remembered things. Things that mattered.

The cold made her think back to last December, when she and Carin had been repairing their wounded marriage. Angel hadn't been a good wife. There'd been tears and black eyes and at one time the police knocking at the front door--and Carin never did find out about Lina. But together they'd gone through counseling, and therapy helped Angel keep her PTSD under control.

Things were looking good, so they decided to take a hunting trip to Teetertown Ravine. That had been an odd choice because Carin didn't like hunting. Not because she thought it was morally wrong--she knew where the meat in the grocery store came from--she just hated to see blood and suffering. She was gentle like that. But she wanted to try something new and reconnect with the woman she loved, and if nothing else, Angel hoped to turn her on to the world of archery.

But a hard nor'easter rolled in, its winds and sleet harsh enough to make driving back too risky an adventure. They spent most of the weekend cuddled in their tent, bundled in blankets and winter coats so thick they'd make an Eskimo sweat. By the end, they both stank, and the beer and cigarettes had run out. But Angel wouldn't trade those three days for a million dollars.

Five months later, Carin was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

And now she was dead. Because of the fucking FBI.

Because Angel had failed.

She pressed her forehead to Carin's freezing scalp, her breath fogging against her face, and vowed for the dozenth time that if this worked, she'd make up for all the shit she put her through. She'd cherish her every day, never lie, never cheat, never lose her temper. She'd break the world in half to protect her.

Please wake up. Please . . .

"It's not working," the elf said.

Angel startled at the unexpected voice in her ears. When she parsed the words, it was like a heavy stone dropped in her belly.

"Bullshit! It is working! The burns are healing! She's getting better!"

"Her brain is already deteriorating," the elf explained calmly, as if discussing a corrupted hard drive. "The hydrananites are attempting to map her organic neural network, but even in this reduced temperature, they will not complete the task before information death."

Angel looked at Carin's lifeless features. Frost was beginning to gloss her skin.

"So . . . she's . . . she's not . . . ?"

"I'm sorry."

It may have said more, but Angel wasn't listening.

My wife's dead. She's not coming back. She's dead. She's not coming back . . .

Shuddering, she rested her head on Carin's shoulder, cuddled into her coldness and looked around the frozen tomb that was now her world. Along a bottom shelf, a full, plump turkey presented its rear with its two jutting drumsticks, and in a flash of muddled insight it reminded her of how her parents' corgi's backside looked when he was sitting on the floor. What a stupid thing to think about. She wished that dog was with her now.

She wished anyone was with her.

The idea slapped her so hard she shook. She took a deep breath.

"If . . . if we had more of those hydrobites--?"

"Hydrananites," the elf corrected.

"Whatever. If we had more of them, like twice as many, could we save her?"

"Possibly."

Angel nodded. "I need to call that stoner guy. The other pilot."

"Broadcasting is dangerous. Hostiles may track you to this location."

"Just do it!"

"Frequency open." The elf paused as if in a sigh. "You may speak."

Angel took a moment to steady her thoughts. Raw from crying, her throat ached when she swallowed.

"Hey, you from the hospital, the guy I, uh, shot." Her voice cracked and came out reedy to her ears. "Are you there? It's me, Angel Zacarias. Is . . . is any pilot out there? Anyone with a suit? Please respond."

She waited, repeated the message, and waited some more. Carin's brain was rotting. Carin's window was closing. Angel touched the pouch along the side of her suit which housed the hospital guard's pistol. If this didn't work, she wasn't leaving this freezer.

"I was wondering where you went," replied the familiar scraggly voice.

Angel sighed with relief.

The stoner went on, "Man, weren't those feds a bunch of psychos? That was like Nine-Eleven shit they pulled. What the fuck? There were a few SWAT guys left after you flew off. They tried to run away like little bitches, but I took my particle beam gun and went Lee Harvey Oswald on their asses. I mean, they deserved it, right? Fucking murderers. Anyway, I got bored so I'm back at Dunkin' Donuts. Name's Mack, by the way. Hey, you want to hang--?"

"Shut up!" Angel snapped. She took a deep breath and said, "Do you . . . do you have those hydro-bot things?"

The stoner--Mack--laughed. "Yeah, of course. Super healing. Who wouldn't choose that?"

"Please, I need you here. My wife . . . she's dead."

Mack's humor vanished. He sounded normal, like a different person. "Shit, I'm sorry. I . . ."

"I'm trying to resuscitate her."

"Oh." Now he understood. "Where are you?"

She gave Mack quick instructions and begged him to hurry. She'd only flown about a mile from the NYU Cancer Center before she found the small Italian joint she was currently at, but his suit was too damaged to fly. So it was an excruciating several minutes before she heard his footsteps sprint through the smashed glass doors.

"In here!" she cried. She drew her pistol, just in case.

Mack threw open the metal door and barged him. He was hunched and breathing hard. She looked him over.

He obviously had taken the 'elf makeover' option. Angel had a tallish, lanky build, but his stretched and spindly form made her feel squat and stocky by comparison. His face ran with a classic 'elvish' look--sharp chin and ears, high cheekbones--that clashed with his shaggy homeless man hair. His silver suit was gone; instead he wore a cheap polyester jacket two sizes too small with similarly poorly fitting sweatpants. Stuffed newspapers peeked from beneath his clothes.

There was no time for proper introductions. "Touch her!" Angel urged.

The freezer was no bigger than a crowded walk-in closet, but he managed to squeezed in beside Carin. His breath fogged the air between them. He took her arm in both hands and rubbed up and down her wrist and forearm as if to warm her.

"The additional hydrananites will suffice," the elf computer said. "I will try to preserve as much of her organic neural network as possible."

"My elf says it's going to work," Mack said.

"Mine did too."

After enough time passed that it started to become awkward, she added, "Thank you for coming."

"No problem. I . . . I'd be an asshole if I didn't."

In the sickly freezer light his eyes seemed an unnatural bottle green that she would have assumed were contacts before today. Those eyes examined Carin carefully, as if deciphering something hidden in her burns.

"She looks so delicate," he said sadly, "like a fragile baby bird."

"That's chemo for you," Angel said more bitterly than she intended.

"She's pretty, though."

"Yeah, she is."

"Tell me about her."

Angel hesitated, unsure of what to share with a stranger. She clutched Carin close as if she were a giant teddy bear and said, "She teaches third graders out in Warren--that's where we live. It's a little town in Somerset County. She's really good with kids. She's even writing a children's book, or 'young adult' like she'd say. It's a steampunk. She's even illustrating it herself, has lots of cool drawings of cat people and airships and giant robots with gears and smokestacks and shit." She smiled at Carin, who was already almost healed. "It's too bad she didn't come across the pod instead of me. She would have had a lot of fun making her own mecha. And she probably wouldn't have fucked things up like I did."

Mack shrugged. "It could have gone worse. It could have gone better. What do you do for a living?"

"Auto mechanic. I also refurbish old cars and motorcycles on the side." She saw his smirk and chuckled, saying, "Fuck you! There's good money in it. I'm not a stereotype."

"You have Danny Zuko hair."

"Yeah, okay, whatever. What about you?"

"Let's see . .. " He held up a silver bracelet as though it were a watch. "About four hours ago, I was sleeping in a dumpster."

Angel laughed. "Then I'd say Elf Day's done you good."

"Lucky me, but I think I'm the exception." His elfin features tightened. "It's not just here, you know. I was listening to the radio--mostly ham operators--and there's reports of mecha fights in Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh . . . everywhere. The elves must have dropped thousands and thousands of those pods all over the world. Things aren't going back to normal."

"Fuck normal," Angel said. "We're about to raise my wife from the dead."

They sat there for several more minutes. Her suit kept her warm, but if the cold bothered Mack, he didn't show it. Then her elf told her to take Carin out of the freezer, and so they carried her to the restaurant's surprisingly spacious kitchen and laid her on a stainless work table that could easily double as an autopsy slab. The months of chemo had left Carin emaciated, and with her scorched t-shirt and pajama bottoms, she looked like the victim from a third world warzone.

At least now the burns had vanished, though under the fluorescent lights Carin's smooth pallor cast an icy glow that didn't belong on anyone living. But Mack was right: she was pretty, but with her round-heart face, pointed chin and wide, expressive eyes (closed now, but no longer empty sockets), Angel would describe her as a baby 'owl' over a 'bird.'

"Do we have everything covered?" Angel asked.

For Mack's benefit, her elf was on suit-speaker. Surprisingly, the computer didn't sound tinny, but rather lifelike as she were speaking from an unseen body.

"She will likely experience symptoms of hypothermia upon awakening. The hydrananites will counteract this, but she should be kept warm."

Without a word, Mack rummaged through cabinets until he found some tablecloths. He held them up and grinned. Good enough, but they'd really need to find Carin new clothes. She didn't blame him--men were men, after all--but she'd caught Mack peeking at what was beneath the ragged holes before glancing uncomfortably away.

It was Mack's computer's turn to talk. The voice was slightly huskier than Angel's elf.

"She will require amble sustenance to recover from the regeneration."

"Well, good thing she likes Italian," Angel said smugly.

Mack paused, then laughed. "Oh, I get it!"

"There was moderate brain damage," Angel's elf added, evaporating the good humor. "The damage has been repaired, but your wife may be psychologically different than before."

"We'll work through it," Angel said quickly. "Are we ready?"

They each took one of Carin's cold hands and waited. To an outsider, Angel knew this would look more like a silly pagan voodoo ritual rather than the applied principles of Space Elf Bullshit Science, but maybe they were one and the same. Maybe all those stories about Thor and Zeus and Jesus were just the magic tricks of alien trolls. That question was above Angel's pay-grade. All she cared was whether this worked.

And it was. As if by magic Carin's flesh grew warmer, pinker.Tears broke loose in Angel's eyes when she saw Carin's chest begin to rise and fall. Maybe a minute passed, and then the faint bumps of her eyes twitched beneath her thin lids. Angel leaned forward and kissed the bald top of her head, feeling the warmth on her lips. She stroked Carin's cheek.

"Baby, it's me, are you awake?"

Carin's eyes slowly opened.

They weren't her eyes. Her eyes had always been the gentle gray of sunny rain clouds. Now, the pupils were a lavender specked with green that no human before had ever possessed.

These were new, regrown eyes, Angel reminded herself. And eye color didn't matter.

But Carin's alien eyes stared at Angel fearfully and without recognition. Angel hope faltered.

"It's . . . it's me," Angel said.

Carin opened her mouth and made a babbling sound, not quite words. Her eyes widened, and she sat up slightly and looked around the kitchen in naked bewilderment. She began to shiver; her teeth chattered.

"Does she have amnesia?" Mack asked, pulling a table cloth over her.

His own elf answered him. "The damage to the temporal and medial temporal lobes were minimal; therefore at least long-term memory should be relatively intact. However, extensive repairs were required in the fusiform and Broca areas of the brain."

Angel glared at Mack as though he were his elf.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Her own elf said, "It means her ability to recognize faces and process language is impaired."

"Shit," Mack said.

"For now," her elf reassured. "It'll take time for her to relearn."

Tears brimmed along the bottom of Carin's purple eyes. She tried speaking again but managed only monkey whimpers. Angel stroked her head and stalled for comprehension. What was Carin seeing when she saw her face? What did she hear? How could she reassure her?"

"Listen to my voice," Angel tried desperately. "It's me. It's Angie."

Carin waved her arms under the tablecloth and tried to roll off the table. She began screaming, thrashing.

"She may be traumatized," Mack's elf said unhelpfully.

Angel pulled away. She couldn't handle this. She wasn't a doctor. She didn't know what to do. But she couldn't break down now. Sniffling back an incoming sobs, she tried to think. She can't recognize faces, but what about . . . ?

With a mental command, she folded back her suit, the armored panels flapping away like impossible black and violet butterfly wings until they collapsed into a shiny obsidian bracelet on her wrist.

Carin didn't like seeing that at all. She fell onto the floor and tried to stand up. She tripped on the tablecloth, fell again and tried crawling away. Mack grabbed her by the shoulders. She struggled. Her panicked, terrified screams were like jabs into Angel's guts.

Wiping her eyes, Angel knelt beside Carin, and she rolled her on her back and gripped her by the chin, forcing her to look at her. She held her other hand before Carin's eyes and used her thumb to wiggle her ring.

"Recognize that, baby?" Angel said, her voice cracking. "Just look at the ring and listen to my voice."

It wasn't flashy, just a simple wedding band dotted with a line of diamonds. But it was distinctive enough. Trembling like a frightened baby animal, Carin fixed on the silver, and then slowly held up her own slender hand which carried its twin. She met Angel's eyes, and smiled weakly. She uttered a noise. Angel could guess what it was supposed to be.

"Yeah. That's right, baby. It's me. I've got everything under control."

And she kissed Carin. And for the first time in months, Carin didn't taste like death.

---