A concerned face appeared above him, blocking out the cracked, water-damaged plaster ceiling. For an instant he thought he was dreaming. Then he remembered that Anna Chutesov had come back from the dead.
The Russian agent gazed down on him as she had in days long forgotten, a vision of beauty from another time.
"How's Chiun?" Remo croaked weakly. He braced himself for the worst.
When the reply he dreaded came, he felt the world drop out from beneath him.
"He's gone," Anna replied simply.
The words were like a dagger in his heart. Blood pounded through his veins, ringing in his ears. Remo closed his eyes, too exhausted for tears. His worst fear of the past few months had come to pass.
On the trip to Africa during which he had inadvertently taunted the gods into leveling a lifetime curse of Master's disease, Remo had been visited by the spirit of Chiun's son.
The little Korean boy with the sad eyes had prophesied a future of hardship for Remo. Ever since that time, Remo had harbored the secret fear that the Master of Sinanju himself would be part of the suffering he was destined to endure.
Lying in that squalid room, he had never felt so alone.
The loss of his home was nothing to him now. Everything else in life was dross. The one thing that mattered to him more than anything else in the world was gone.
"I have to see him," Remo said.
There was strength now in his hollow voice. Already he was wondering in which of his fourteen steamer trunks the Master of Sinanju kept his funeral robes.
Anna was sitting on a stool next to the mattress. She seemed unmoved by his loss.
"In a little while," she said as she squeezed out a damp facecloth into a cracked antique chamber pot on the floor. "You have been unconscious for hours. You need rest."
When she leaned over to wipe his brow, Remo grabbed her wrist, holding tight.
"I need to see him now," he insisted.
"You cannot," she said. "He and the FBI woman went out for food. They won't be back for a while yet."
A weight lifted from Remo's chest.
"He's alive?" he asked, scarcely daring to speak the words aloud.
Her response sent his soul soaring. "Of course," Anna said. When she realized what he had assumed, a spark of weary mirth came to her eyes. "I know he is like a father to you, Remo, but let us be realistic. If he ever did die, where would he go? Heaven does not want him and hell would not take him. May I have my arm back now?"
His heart singing with joy, Remo released her wrist. When he closed his tired eyes this time, they burned with invisible tears.
"Don't be too sure Chiun won't be the big man on campus of the afterlife," he muttered, trying to hide his great relief from Anna. "Most of the Masters of Sinanju I've met have been even bigger pains in the ass than he is."
There was a sudden trip in her voice. "There are other Masters of Sinanju?" she asked. "It was my understanding that the two of you were the only living practitioners of your martial art." The words sounded almost too casual.
Curious, Remo opened his red eyes.
Her face was etched in stone. Sitting on her stool, holding her soggy facecloth, she seemed utterly indifferent to his interest. There was no visible reason to think she was making anything more than idle conversation.
"Long story," He sighed. "We're the only two alive. Well, the only two alive if you don't count the psycho-coma one who wants to kill us. Which I didn't for a long time until two days ago." His head sank back tiredly into the grimy mattress. "Ever wish you could take a vacation from living such an interesting life?"
"My life has not met your definition of interesting for many years," Anna replied. "My last active field mission was the one we shared. If not for the recklessness and avarice of the fool Feyodov, I would have happily lived out the rest of my life in anonymity."
"Yeah, renegade Russian generals with stolen doomsday devices do have a tendency to piss out the candles on the birthday cake." Remo struggled to his elbows. "How was Chiun when he left?"
"As usual he was concerned about you," Anna replied. "But physically he seemed fine."
"Really?" Remo said. His face clouded. He felt as if he'd been through the wringer. And Chiun was over one hundred years old. "I'm never gonna live this down," he sighed.
Anna understood his meaning.
"If you are worried that you should be more resilient, you need not be," she said. "You forced yourself to fight the neural disruption while Chiun did not. In fact, I doubt he could have at his age. He succumbed quickly and his body shut down, thus sparing him the effects of prolonged exposure."
"Okay, I actually got the end of that," Remo said. "But what was that neural diddle-daddle you parked out front?"
"Your special training has rewritten your entire nervous system to a heightened degree," Anna explained. "You see, feel and hear better than the average human. For lack of a better explanation, your senses are tuned to the harmonics of your surroundings, absorbing the vibrations of your whole environment."
"If this is going somewhere that's gonna make my head hurt more, I'm lying down," Remo exhaled. He pulled his elbows away, dropping flat on his back.
"It might," Anna said somberly. Her face was grave. "The weapon gathers protons from its surroundings during its charging phase. When it is fired, the protons are expelled in a particle beam, the energy from which disrupts the environment within a limited radius. Normal people within this field feel it as no more than a dissipating electrical charge. Apparently you and Chiun are affected more greatly. And since it is being used continuously now, the air around it would be polluted to someone with your skills."
"Makes storming the Bastille kind of hairy for us."
"I would say next to impossible," Anna suggested. "After you collapsed it was all we could do to get the two of you to my car. Fortunately, Feyodov has limited forces in this town. We were able to get you to safety in this boardinghouse. However, they are doubtless looking for us. It is just a matter of time before we are found."
"Not a problem," Remo said. He pushed up to a sitting position. His strength was flooding back. "We're outta here."
Anna seemed surprised. "You are not leaving?"
"You bet, baby," Remo said, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress. "It's time to call in the marines. Or the Air Force. That portable-beam whatsit must be near the city hall somewhere. I'll get on the horn to Smitty and have him send a couple of bombers to boil their bong water."
"The phones do not work," Anna argued. "Your communications network is failing." She jabbed a thumb to the corner where an old black-and-white Magnavox TV sat on an overturned wicker basket. "I saw on the television that the remaining satellites have been overwhelmed by the demand. It could take you hours to get through, if ever. The damage they will cause between now and then is incalculable."
Remo sighed deeply. "Swell," he groused. "Wait a minute. The phone's out but the TV's working?"
"Just a few channels," Anna explained. "I was watching the network that was running the stupid comedian fund-raiser."
"Home Ticket Booth is still on?" Remo frowned.
Anna shook her head. "That does not matter," she dismissed. "What matters is that they have been covering the events taking place in space."
"What do you mean?" Remo interrupted. "Covering as in 'covering the news' covering?"
"Yes," Anna said impatiently. "Is that not what they do?"
"No, actually," Remo answered. "They pretty much just do movies. One good one on Saturday night, and then six days and twenty-two hours of Earnest Licks a Lamppost broken up by a half hour Making of Earnest Licks a Lamppost documentary midweek."