The Makers
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But they did not have any time.
However, under the current circumstances the healing was much more prosaic: Robert just slightly focused, and the cheeks of the boy, who was lying behind the glass, in the sealed ward, almost immediately flushed.
If there was something weird, it was only Robert's own feelings in the matter, as if he had picked up a page in a score and scared the notes off it like a bird's flock.
Then the two of them covered Mexico and Texas with a huge dome. Everything that happened afterwards did not even require any excessive effort from them.
***
Soon after the fuss in the Thomason Hospital had ceased, all cases were miraculously recovered with no fatalities, Robert and Lukasz were released to the hotel with a firm recommendation from the FBI - don't leave the hotel.
Lara and Mr. Gilels took them to the very door of the hotel room, but stayed out - both he and she.
At parting, Robert, desperately embarrassing, nevertheless asked Lara for her phone number.
***
The next morning was cloudy and cold. From the very day dawn, both El Paso and Ciudad Juarez were busy cleaning the snow that had suddenly fallen on them.
The people were hurrying on their ways, not even suspecting that the hospitals were gradually becoming empty.
Lukasz, in a chequered terry bathrobe, was standing at the window, watching people scurrying below, and Robert with a mouthful of toothpaste was humming in front of a mirror in the bathroom when the knock came on the door.
There was Mr. Gilels behind the door.
"Good morning, Mr. Lansky," he smiled and held the hand out to Lukasz.
"Hello," agreed Lukasz.
"May I come in?"
He'd readily passed by stepping aside Lukasz, looked around in a officious manner, and, not embarrassing at all, walk to the bar:
"Would you like some drink? Well... I think, though, you could do it on your own, if you want. With your permission?" and soon in his hands was a glass of whiskey.
"As a matter of fact, I've got an offer for you," he said, sitting down in a large armchair and looking up at Lukasz. "You see, gentlemen... Do you hear me, Mr. Vandarli?"
"Definitely," Robert gave the nod to the bathroom mirror.
"I'm afraid that your stay here would be associated with some eh... inconveniences. You and I... we are reasonable people and naturally totally get it all. I can't speak for all humanity, but it seems to me, that as a whole they are still... ungrateful and incapable of tolerating any Makers in their own house... or something."
He took a sip and turned the glass, admiring the glare running along it. "But humanity as a whole is humanity as a whole, it have never really been good at thinking. I"m glad to inform you that the government of the United States not only asks you to feel here at home, but also is ready to provide transport and security at your disposal in case of unforeseen circumstances. Anyway, you have a week."
"Then let's start with the Grand Canyon and then I'd like to visit the parents," said Robert, who appeared in the doorway.
***
The road between the hills was rusty, deserted and monotonous.
Hoover Dam had remained far behind, and now on both sides of the road for several hours had been going Arizona.
"It seemed to me earlier that there was no choice at all," Gilels speculated benignly.
One of his hands lay on the steering wheel, the elbow of the second one was sticking out of the open window. "Physics, philosophy ... and even common sense itself - they all unanimously say that anything doesn't come out of nowhere, that everything has a cause. But now I understand that it's not that simple. Reality is always outside your head. And the one who deals with this reality is inside. And often it turns out that you get exactly what you are striving for so much. You longing to despair and irresponsibility - well, there you have it. If you want the opposite - bada-bing, we're good. And without any approximations, assumptions and surrogates. In fact, both the length and the scenery of your life may not be the same as that you imagined. Eh... as a reality. The one that there is outside. But it's always only something to deal with. What you can deal with. This is definitely not who deals. And, by the way, the question immediately arises about this "who". So who? Who chooses those or other circumstances? How do we know if this "who" are we or does someone else do it?"
"The key word here is the word "we"," said Lukasz, who was sitting next to him and looking in the opposite direction at the passing landscape. "We are the same material, only painted in other colors. We are the same clay. Formed, burnt, but the same. With the same necessity to be in need. And our choice depends not so much on the number of days we have been here and on our scars, but on our intention. Well, you must agree: in order to make the right choice, you need no less than to calculate all the consequences of your actions to the very point when the days of the universe will be numbered. And this sounds not unrealistic, it sounds anecdotal. So any choice is just a firm commitment to do in one way or another not because it will be better, but because it's just so."
Robert listened to them only half paying attention because there was actually a fascinating exercise - to pick up the drawn butterflies from Lara's white dress and let them out of the window of the Cadillac. The wind was tearing the butterflies from his fingers and carrying them away somewhere far back.
"What do you calculate all this stuff for? On such a large scale?" he was surprised. "Take the amount of data accessible to you and focus on them. It's simple. O my God, I've really missed people. Or maybe I've just grown up."
"You just have an acute need to be a link in the evolution," Lukasz grinned.
"But I don't at all feel the need to be a link in the evolution," said Robert, while letting out another butterfly to the air stream. "In general, I believe that someone's local progress differs little from someone's local regress. This is about expectations."
"Then why this longing for the weight?" Lukasz grinned again. "Look, there's your Canyon."
Far on the horizon Arizona turned out to be serrated.
***
The four of them were standing on the very edge of a chasm, staring at the large abyss below. The setting sun turned the cliffs and crags into scarlet and ocher colors.
The transparent viewing platform with tourists was now far behind them. Gilels took off his jacket and stayed in a white shirt, and Lara was now in a white dress without any butterflies, - already there, on the edge of the cliff, Lukasz picked up and let out the last one.
Robert pulled off his sneakers, socks and shirt, squared his broad shoulders, and two enormous wings unfolded from nowhere behind his back.