We skidded through the foyer filled with arches leading into other corridors. Our footsteps echoed through the grand space. Arun pressed his palm to the scanner at the glass barrier allowing access into the interior, then tugged me through when the door swung open.
We took the stone steps two at a time. The long hallways were empty this afternoon. Most people had already left for the Qingming Festival tomorrow, making long trips to their ancestors’ gravesites for the annual tomb sweeping. The air was muggy in the stifling building, and coupled with the eerie quiet, the place felt abandoned. We stopped in front of Dr. Nataraj’s office. The wooden door was shut. Arun pounded on it.
“Her office door is never shut, much less locked,” Arun said. “And it sounds like the screen is on inside.”
Our eyes met, and the hairs on my arms rose.
“Mom?” Arun shouted this time and threw his shoulder against the door. It thudded loudly, reverberating down the empty hallway. “Help me,” he pleaded.
We counted to three and launched our bodies against the door. Arun was stocky and I was lean, but we both had some muscle. The door looked old, original to the building, and creaked in protest.
“Again!” I said.
We rammed ourselves against it once more, and this time, there was a loud snapping sound. We fell into the room.
Arun jumped up as I straightened.
“Mom!” He ran and crouched down beside Dr. Nataraj, who was sprawled on the floor near her desk. A purple scarf was unfurled beside her, like an afterthought. He was stroking her cheeks, smoothing the tangle of hair from her eyes. But just one look at the pallor of her face, and I knew. Her warm brown skin was tinged an ashen gray, the set of her limbs that of a corpse, not someone who was unconscious.
“No!” Arun wailed as he pulled her inert form to him, so that he was cradling her in his lap. “No, Mom!” He rocked her, grabbing her hand, rubbing her fingers, as if holding her could somehow bring her back.
His grief brought a knot to my throat. I kneeled beside him, clasping his shoulder. I went through the motions of searching for a pulse, and Arun raised a fist, as if to punch me, or hit my hand away. I shook my head, confirming what we both already knew. Sorrow and rage washed over me, and suddenly I was thirteen again, alone, helpless, holding my slack mother in my own arms. I didn’t want comfort then either. I wanted to beat the world to a pulp.
Not Dr. Nataraj, too. Not our auntie.
“But how?” he roared, my gentle friend who never raised his voice. “Why?” He grabbed a cushion from a nearby chair and placed it under her head. Arun then lunged to his feet and cast his eyes wildly around the room.
Dr. Nataraj’s neat desk was in disarray, with the top drawer pulled out. Two empty plastic tubes were discarded on the desk and another had fallen to the floor. Arun stumbled to the desk and picked one up. “Epinephrine. These were her injections in case she suffered an allergic reaction.” He shook the empty syringe. “She’s allergic to peanuts—but was vigilant.”
“We should call an ambulance,” I said.
On the wall behind us, the screen was on, but I wasn’t paying attention to the murmur of voices on whatever program it was tuned in to.
“No,” Arun replied. He picked up one of the empty syringes, tapping it against his palm. He lifted the syringe and held it to the fluorescent light above us, shifting it this way and that, then repeated this with the other two. Arun brought his fist down hard on the desk, his pupils constricted to sharp points. “All three syringes’ liquids are tinged brown. Epinephrine is clear.”
What he said took a moment to sink in.
“Shit,” I said.
“It means they’ve expired,” Arun said, “but the dates on them are current. She was so careful. There’s no way she would have let one syringe expire, much less all three. Her life depended on it.”
I leaned down to pick up Dr. Nataraj’s MacFold, which was smashed against the concrete floor. “And there’s her Palm.” It lay a short distance from Dr. Nataraj’s body. The screen on the com device was smashed too—not as if it had been dropped, but like someone had stomped on it. Then I noticed Dr. Nataraj clutched something in her hand. Her arm was curled against her chest, as if protecting it.
The screen control.
I jerked my head toward the wall screen, and the voice finally registered over the rush of panic and confusion. Dr. Nataraj sat in a red leather chair, her hands clasped within the folds of her deep green-and-gold sari. She looked as regal as a queen. “We must do something to change the destructive course we’ve set upon. We must work together to decrease the pollutions we’re pumping into the air we breathe, into the water we drink, into the very soil in which we grow our food. I urge the Taiwanese government to push through the necessary legislation to right the wrong we’ve inflicted upon ourselves. Upon our Mother Earth.” She gazed directly into the camera, dark brown eyes gentle yet forthright. “We are poisoning ourselves. Our planet. Our home,” Dr. Nataraj said emphatically.
The young hostess of the Go, Go, Let’s Chat talk show nodded, then leaned in, crossing her perfect, long legs. “And what do you say to the yous of Taiwan, who manage to lead healthy and long lives in regulated spaces and in their suits? Who contend that no problem exists?”
Dr. Nataraj’s smile was pointed. “That is a poor and temporary solution. I say to all the yous of Taiwan, to all the haves of this world, who believe that you can live in a literal bubble and survive: you cannot. We are all creatures of this earth, of this shared ecosystem.” She raised her hands, which were still clasped, her fingers intertwined. “We are integrated. We’re one. You cannot survive if the ecosystem is dying around you. You cannot hide from the effects of global warming. It’s bad now. I urge that we don’t continue to make it worse locally. It is not too late to change our ways, to alter our course.”
“And how has progress been on introducing legislation to help our environment, Dr. Nataraj?”
Dr. Nataraj’s kind face hardened, her mouth pulling into a tight line. “Harder than I expected. I’ve been trying to encourage the introduction of legislation in the legislative yuan for almost a year, with absolutely no progress. In fact, I have proof that someone has actively worked against implementing these laws.”
The hostess widened her eyes in shock. “Who would do that?”
“I don’t know.” Dr. Nataraj looked straight into the camera. “But when I find out, I’ll have no qualms about exposing them. This is no longer about business, politics, or profit; it’s no longer a matter of health; it is a matter of our very survival.”
The image froze on-screen, with Dr. Nataraj’s expression imploring yet intense, her elegant hands held before her, as if literally pleading with the audience.