Ghost Code Read online

  “Here,” he says with his arms spread to his sides. “Everywhere. Nowhere. Somewhere in-between. Honestly, I don’t even know if this is real. But here you are and here I am, and I don’t care if it’s all some weird fantasy.”

  “Am I dead?” The question has been sitting in the back of my head since I opened my eyes. “I think I’m supposed to be dead.”

  “No, my heart, not dead. Not quite alive, but not dead.” He smiles at me, but there’s a sadness behind his eyes that was never there when he was alive.

  “What is it, Papa?”

  “You made a brave choice, baby girl. A very brave choice.” He runs a thick hand over his mouth. “I know why you did it. Partially for your mother, to save her from all those bills. But also for yourself. You were always so determined and sure of what you wanted out of life, and damn the poor soul who stood in your way. There was too much world out there to grab to be held back from anything. I can’t imagine you sitting by in a hospital bed, waiting for all that life to fade away.”

  “It was selfish.” I grab his hand and rub my fingers over the calluses still on his palm. “I know I could have held on for another couple of months. I could have given that time to Mama. But I just couldn’t.” I couldn’t let the cancer have the last word.

  “That’s my girl.” He touches his thumb to my cheek and wipes away a tear. “And I’m so proud of who you’ve become. I wish I could keep you here with me forever, but you have to go back now.”

  I blink away a few remaining tears. “No, Papa. This is it for me. The doctors will pump my body up with all their trial drugs, and then after thirty days they’ll turn off the machines. There’s no going back.”

  “Oh, sweet girl, there is so much you don’t understand yet, and I wish I had the time to explain it, but we’re out of time. I can already feel myself being pulled back.”

  I reach behind him and grab him around the waist the way I hadn’t done in too long when he was taken too early from this life. I can’t lose him again. Not now that I’m here and ready for the end…or whatever comes after the end. “Take me with you.”

  “I promise that I will be right here when it’s your time.” He squeezes me tight against him before pulling away, moving my arms from around his waist. “But you still have work to do. You have a chance to do important work.”

  He takes a step backward and takes half my heart away with him.

  “Please don’t leave me again.”

  Papa smiles again, and this time there’s no sadness hidden inside. He radiates pure joy. “I’ll never really leave you, my heart.” He takes another step back. “Now go do amazing work.”

  I reach out to him, but he takes another step back, right into the doorway.

  “I love you, baby girl.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  He takes one last step back, and his face fades into a fuzzy blur. I’m frozen to my spot, fear and heartbreak rooting me to the stark white floor. I never got to say goodbye when he died. A car accident. They told us he died instantly. How many times had I wished I’d had this? All the things I wanted to tell him. To make sure he knew how much I loved him. That even at eight, I knew just how hard he worked to make sure Mama and I had everything we needed. To tell him that I would miss him every day. His shadowy form fades and the dark hole of a door begins sliding shut.

  The action breaks the spell nailing me to the ground. I can’t miss this chance to tell him. I sprint to the door, but my motions are still sluggish and delayed. The doorway gets smaller and smaller, but I’m barely making a dent in the distance between us.

  I grit my teeth against the overly powerful gravity fighting to keep me from following my father. I need to get to that door. I have no idea what’s there, but I know I need to get through. I strain my muscles to work harder and my legs to move faster toward the door. It’s halfway shut now, but there’s no way in hell I’m getting locked up in here by myself for the next month to drive myself crazy over all the things I didn’t say. Every step is a struggle, but I make my body obey my orders. Take that, weird comatose body.

  Only three steps away and the door is nearly closed. Another step and another inch closer, but the door closes even more. My right knee lifts, but I might as well be dragging elephants behind me. One more step and I’ll be there. The doorway is more of a small gap, but I can squeeze through. After years of cancer and useless treatments eating away at my body, I’m sickly thin. I stick my left foot into the opening and throw my shoulder in. I’m getting through or I’ll die trying. It’s not like I have anything to lose. I guess I’m dead either way.

  With one last grunt, I push the rest of my bag of bones through the door, and it snaps closed behind me. The bright white light is instantly wiped out by an all-consuming darkness.

  “Daddy?” Not even my own voice answers me back. Like my words were eaten by the darkness before they left my mouth. I hold my hand up an inch in front of my face, but I can’t see anything. Nothing to do now but walk.

  I take one step, and the ground dissolves underneath me. I fall face first into the darkness and wait for it to end.

  C:>THREE.exe

  This must be death.

  The white light with my dad must have just been part of the journey, a little detour, or a drug-induced hallucination. But this is definitely death. My eyes won’t open, and my body is paralyzed. I focus all my energy on moving the pinky finger of my right hand. Such a simple movement, but even though my eyes are closed, I know my pinky finger lies completely still on the soft surface under me. At least death is comfortable.

  There’s movement around me. I can feel it in the stirring of the air across my face. There’s noise too, quiet murmurings. Maybe it’s the soft wing beats of angels. If Mama’s prayers have anything to do with it, I’m definitely in heaven.

  “Viviana?”

  Even the angels get my name wrong.

  “Mija?”

  That’s no angel. What is my mother doing in heaven?

  Something warm fills my hand. “Viv, wake up now, sweetheart.”

  Forget the damn pinky; I need to open my eyes. Why are my lids so heavy?

  “Come on, love. Come back to me.”

  “Just give her a minute.”

  So Dr. Brooks is in heaven, too. I have got to figure out what is going on here. I force my right eyelid to lift a fraction of an inch. The room is light, but not as bright as when I woke up last time. There’s almost a pale, yellow glow to the room.

  “She’s opening her eyes.” My mother’s voice is shaky, like she’s on the verge of tears, and she squeezes my hand even harder.

  I fight against the fatigue and open my eyes up all the way. Not heaven. My stark room in the VALR building. Why am I out of the coma? Did I flunk out of the program somehow? Dr. Brooks never even mentioned that as a possibility, but what if they got me under and then discovered they couldn’t give me the trial drugs for some reason? They would have to pull me out and kick me out of the program. Well, they’ll just have to put me right back in, because there’s no way I’m going to lie here for the next six months and waste away while my mother struggles to pay a never-ending mountain of medical bills.

  “Oh, sweet girl.” My mother is there, pushing stringy, purple hair out of my eyes and kissing my forehead.

  I try to swallow and choke instead on something shoved down my throat. I turn my head to cough and choke even more.

  “No, mija, don’t move. You have a tube in to help you breathe.” She pats my hand and gives me a watery smile. “They’ll take it out in a minute.”

  I shake my head despite the pain. They can’t take it out. I need to stay in the program.

  “Yes, sweetie. They’ll take it out, and we can go home.”

  I stare back at her. How can I make her understand that’s the last thing I want to do?

  The tears break over the brims of my mother’s eyes, and choking sobs escape from her, shaking her body. But she’s smiling and gripping my hand like she’s worried
I’m about to jump out of the bed and run away from her.

  “It worked, Viv. Everything I prayed for, the Lord provided.”

  I narrow my eyes and try to ask my questions without words.

  “The drugs they tested on you worked, mija. The cancer is gone. Completely gone. Your cell count is up, and your body took the time off to rest. You’re cured.”

  I stare at her and try to process what she says, but it doesn’t make any sense. They weren’t going to give me treatments. They couldn’t even tell me if the drugs they would test on me were used to treat cancer. It didn’t matter. They just wanted to observe my body’s reaction. Figure out if the drugs would be safe to use on someone else. Someone with an actual chance at living. Not me. I was too far gone. The cancer destroyed too much of my body. Every specialist my mother dragged me to said the same thing.

  “Okay, let’s get this tube out of here.” The nurse from before is back. She smiles down at me, and I’d swear she looks exactly the same as when she put in the IV medicine. Same puppy dog scrubs, same neon pink stethoscope around her neck. Identical, down to the little swoop of hair that slips down over her left eye. “We need to get our little miracle back up and running.”

  “That’s right. You hear that, mija? A miracle.”

  I hear them, but it’s like when my abuela would go on a rant in Spanish. I knew all the words she said, but they came out so fast and streamed together that I never understood what she was saying. I can’t make my brain wrap around the words cured and miracle. Maybe I’m still in the coma and this is just another piece of my subconscious creating a fictional reality to live in.

  “Okay, deep breath in, and then I’m going to pull it out on the exhale.” The nurse stares straight into my eyes until I nod back at her. “I’ll warn you right now. This is going to hurt like a you-know-what, but there’ll be a bowl of ice cream in it for you.”

  I nod again because this is all just a dream and I really love ice cream.

  “Okay, big breath in…now blow it out.”

  I exhale like it’s my job, and pain rips through my throat while the nurse pulls out a long clear tube. The second it’s out, I suck in another breath and exhale with a burning cough. Son of a bitch, she was not kidding. Someone should tell my subconscious to ease up on the pain factor.

  “Here, sweet girl.” My mom holds up a pink pitcher-sized cup with a bendy straw, and I suck down the ice cold water.

  “Tiny sips.” The nurse shoots me a look, and I put the brakes on my gulps to take a tiny sip. It stings and soothes at the same time.

  “Thank you.” My voice comes out in a hoarse whisper that bounces up my throat like a spiky pinball.

  Dr. Brooks steps into my line of sight. He must have been hiding in the corner doing who knows what on his ever-present tablet.

  “Welcome back, Viviana.”

  “Viv.” The reply hurts, but it’s worth it.

  “Do you understand what’s happened?”

  I shake my head. I’m not a moron. I understand what my mother said, but none of it makes sense.

  “To be honest, we don’t completely understand it ourselves.” Dr. Brooks cracks a rare smile for me and pulls a rolling stool over so he can sit next to my bed. “You were in the coma for three weeks and four days. While in the coma, we tested a variety of new drugs on your body. None of the drugs we tested were intended to treat cancer. We were not expecting a cure. The testing was merely to observe any potential negative biological reactions to the drugs.”

  This is nothing new to me. They made it clear during all the psychological examinations that I couldn’t expect to wake up from the coma. They were not trying to cure me. My participation was intended to help move other drugs further in their trials to hopefully cure future patients.

  “We were running standard tests yesterday in preparation for removing you from the coma. You only had a few days left. But right away, the tests showed some unusual results. We expected a certain amount of deterioration, both as a result of your continued struggle with cancer and the normal consequences of a coma. But your body wasn’t breaking down. It was getting stronger. Fighting back. And winning.”

  I shake my head. “How?”

  “We don’t know yet. Like I said, we don’t completely understand any of this. It’s never happened before, and it’s not an outcome we were prepared for. But the reality is that you responded to the trial meds and your cancer is gone. We’ve done blood analysis, bone marrow scans, and a full MRI. Viviana Quiroga, you are cancer-free.”

  Tears spring to my eyes completely outside of my control. For so many years, I’ve waited to hear those words. My cancer never stayed in remission long enough for any doctor to dare say I was cancer-free. We all always knew those brief stints of remission were nothing more than a lull in the dangerous game my body kept playing with itself.

  “Dr. Brooks, when can I take my daughter home?”

  Home. I’m actually going home? Another tear leaks from the corner of my eye. I glance out the window. It’s another beautiful, blue-sky day. Another day with kids racing around the park, searching for dinosaur clouds. Another day just like so many others, except on this day, I get to live and go home.

  Dr. Brooks checks a few things on his tablet before responding. “We’d like to run just a few more tests and keep her overnight to make sure she can keep some real food down. But I can’t see any reason why she can’t leave tomorrow morning.” He taps another few buttons on the tablet. “Of course, we’d like to continue to see you for check-ups to make sure the trial meds haven’t had any negative long-term impacts and monitor for cancer relapse. Additionally, Dr. Spencer down in psychiatry has asked that you set up weekly appointments. Adjusting back to your life may be difficult after expecting…” He glances down at his tablet and lets out a little cough to clear his throat. “Well, a different outcome. She wants to make sure you don’t become overwhelmed.”

  “Yes, I’ll make sure Viv comes in whenever you need her. Anything to make sure my daughter stays with me for a long, long time.”

  Actually, that sounds like medieval torture, but I say nothing and squeeze my mother’s hand. This is real, not some coma drug-induced hallucination. I get to go home tomorrow. I’m not going to die. Or at least not right now. I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath that draws cold, painful air down my still-raw throat. I don’t even mind. For once, the pain means I’m alive.

  C:>FOUR.exe

  I’m not sure what I expected, but it’s unsettling that everything looks the same. The same small, blue frame house with dingy white shutters. Even the cracks in the driveway are exactly the same. I guess I thought it should be different. I am.

  “Okay, let me just get the door unlocked and get you inside.” Mama jumps out of the car before I can say a word. She has been a bundle of constant chatter since the second we stepped outside the hospital doors. I’ve gotten a rundown on everything that’s happened over the past month. She chatted endlessly about the new servers they installed at school. Like most of the technology added to her classroom, the students love it, and she has one less task to perform. She jokes that one of these days they won’t even need teachers anymore. I know she’s kidding, but part of me worries she’s right. They’ve already cut her salary in half due to the “reduced workload.” How much longer before they decide they don’t need her at all? I need to check with Dr. Brooks and make sure the hospital is still paying off all my medical bills.

  “Okay.” Mama opens my door and grabs grandma’s quilt. “I bet you’re ready to be home.”

  There’s nothing for my hands to do. I don’t have a bag. Abuela’s quilt was the only thing I brought with me to VALR. There wasn’t a need for a change of clothes or a toothbrush when I was supposed to die. I tap my fingers against my legs as if I’m holding my yellowed keyboard in my lap. My fingers dance out my login to the deep web chat room, already itching to sink back into that hidden place full of code, and anonymous screen names, and no one knowing I was suppo
sed to be a dead girl.

  But first, I have to keep moving. Start living. I step out of the car and brace my hand against the door for a minute. Dr. Brooks says I’ll be weak for a while since I spent so much time in bed. Mama offers me her free hand, but I shake it off. I need to work on building up my strength so I can get back to normal. Or at least my new normal.

  Inside, the house is more of the same, though there have been a few additions. At least six new crucifixes hang over the fireplace where a little shrine is set up on the mantle. A shrine to me. My picture from before the purple hair sits in a gilded frame with candles lit all around it. Little mementos from my life mix between the rosaries and candles. It reminds me of those memorials that get set up on the sidewalks when someone dies in a tragic accident. It’s exactly what I imagined Mama would set up. It matches the one she displayed after Dad died. It sat on the mantle for years until the candles were nothing more than little pools of wax.

  “Are you hungry?” Mama leads me over to the couch with the worn cushions from years of the same butts snuggled into the same spots. “I made tamales last night.”

  It’s been years since she made tamales. With all the doctors and hospitals and worrying about me, she never had the whole day needed to make them. My mouth waters at the memory of the slow-cooked pork, seasoned to perfection and wrapped inside the soft corn dough. It’s been just as long since I actually had the appetite to eat them. “Maybe just one to test my stomach.”

  My mother smiles at me and reaches up on tiptoes to kiss the top of my head before heading into the kitchen. I stare around the room like it’s the first time I’ve been in here. Almost everything is the same, but it feels different. Off somehow, as if the colors have been reduced from 64-bit to 256. Or I’m looking at it in standard def instead of HD. I don’t know if the room is different, or just me.