Clara Newhall's Guide to Saving an Unperson

Morality

The clinic was silent as the grave, as the expression aptly puts it. 

The front room and hallway were deserted, the little frog still whirring away on the reception desk. 

The examination room was sterile, every surface an empty sort of white. The door to the X-ray room led off to the side. In the darkness its machinery looked like a shipwreck.

The inpatient ward still smelled of fever and sick. Blue light from the DVD player shined down onto the beds.

The sound of a steady clinking came from the foldout table in the back room. Bradley nervously tapped the bottom of his glass on the plastic. Janice stopped the noise by pouring him another glass, which he set upon immediately.

There was no mistaking Kruschev's final words: in 22 hours and seven minutes, the three of them would be killed. Truth be told, the trio had no affairs to get in order. They didn't bother leaving; the Russians would catch them, and they were too tired to even try. The only thing they could do was exhaust Newhall's stash of whiskey and hopefully be passed out drunk when their hour came.

Bradley finished his drink, redder then the two doctors had ever seen him. At first, he had wanted to contact the police, the UN, anyone, but more likely than not they'd just arrest them for life, maybe interrogate them on their clients' whereabouts. The girls had told Bradley to get out, since he was just the janitor and they'd probably forgotten about him, but he had refused to leave them.

Janice had apparently fallen in love with him for this sacrifice, but it was more likely the whiskey talking. She would kiss him, or laugh, or cry, or all three, and then fall into a deep silence for several minutes, only moving to pour up or drink.

Newhall, for her part, was holding her whiskey like a pro, but her coordination was falling apart; her glass spilled everywhere. With a sigh, she set it down.

"I did this."

Janice shook her hair put of her face and mumbled, "No, ya didn't..." she hesitated.

"Jan, I know you called them. You don't have to say it."

Janice was silent for several seconds, staring hard at nothing. "...I thought you did."

"What? I didn't call them!"

The two turned to Bradley, who shrugged, getting redder. "I... I thought I was helping. Ov- obvus- obviously not, which is why I couldn't leave you..." he trailed off, waiting for their anger.

They weren't angry, though. "Nevvermind, doesn't matter who did it," slurred Janice. She turned to Newhall. "You were right, you know."

"No, I was wrong."

"No, you were right."

"How was I right?"

"Akim was happy here. He would have been better off as a person, not an unperson. You were right. My mistake..."

Newhall shook her head, stopped, and shook it harder. "Did you hear him? He doesn't want to be free, it was all a waste of time, and, and now we're dead! All dead, and it's my fault, my fault, not anyone else's, because I'm the one who messed with things and thought I could help! Now it's over. I killed us, and doomed him. That's my legacy, you're welcome-" Her breath hitched. Janice and Bradley watched silently as she got up and turned around, whiskey in hand.

She wandered out into the hall and back, humming softly to keep her emotions down. The song had been stuck in her head for quite some time now; it was the same song she had hummed to Akim on his first day. Oddly enough, this memory didn't hurt. Apparently the whiskey was doing its job. Her lips parted and the humming turned to singing.

"Remember the day... I set you free... I told you you could always count on me... from that day on, I made a vow, I'll be there went you want me, some way, somehow...." she sang absentmindedly. She was surprised when Janice picked up the chorus.

"'Cause, baby, there ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you," The doctors reached a crescendo together, grinning. It was stupid, random, pointless, and it annoyed Bradley, but it set something alight in Clara. She stopped singing as Janice repeated the chorus without moving on to the next verse.

Clara grabbed her phone, all the money from the lockbox, and Akim's file as Bradley watched and Janice sang. Her mind was very resistant to plan-making at the moment, but she thought of a few favors she could call in, a place to rent a small jet, and the weapons stashed under all this whiskey.

"Ain't no river wide en- Clara?"

"Yep?"

"...What are you doing?"

Clara turned back around, a grin splitting her face. "Well, we're gonna die anyway."

Janice suddenly understood. She turned to Bradley. "Whaddaya think?" she raised her glass. "One last hurrah?"

He raised his too. "One last hurrah."

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AN: Yeah, so, apparently I really misjudged the alcohol content of whiskey. I don't have many experiences with alcohol, but I'm pretty sure that if you drink whiskey at any pace for two hours, you would not be able to speak, much less sing. But I never said they drank the whole time, and I don't have a good substitute for it, so inaccuracy!