Free The Syndrome by John Case

rods on the balcony and the ferns thrashed. They looked a little peaked, and it occurred to her that she should give them some water and, maybe some plant food. Or bring them inside—it was almost time. But she didn’t feel like doing that. She didn’t feel like doing
chores.
She felt like—
    Suddenly, the alarm went off on her wrist, reminding her to take her meds, and “call home.” Crossing the room to the table that held her portable computer, she picked up the carrying case in which she kept her medication. Unzipping one of the side compartments, she found the little orange bottles she was looking for, but the one in which the lithium had been was empty. She’d forgotten to refill the prescription in … wherever the fuck she’d been when she was taking Placebo 1.
    Somewhere hot. Sunny. Palm trees. California!
    But why was she in California? To see someone. Find someone. But who? Why? She couldn’t remember. Which was the whole trouble with Placebo 1. It really messed with your memory. Seating herself at the table, she opened the computer, and slid the
On
button forward. When the machine had gone through its routine, she sent the browser to the requisite URL, and waited for the page to load. Soon, the familiar words appeared:
    Unknown Host

Description: Could not resolve the host
    Removing the overlay from the carrying case, she began to affix it to the monitor—and hesitated. For a long while, she sat there in front of the computer, staring at the nearly empty screen. And then, impulsively and, somehow, defiantly, she switched the computer off, and stood up. Crossing the room to the hall closet, she grabbed her inline skates, and left the apartment with the vague idea of refilling her prescription. But when the time came, she glided past the pharmacy on M Street, and kept on going.
    She didn’t know it, but a part of her was coming to a decision, answering a question that Nico herself hadn’t had the courage to ask, using a part of her mind that she would have sworn wasn’t there. In her soul or subconscious, an argument was raging, and that argument was generating all the energy she needed to move faster than traffic, sweeping past Georgetown’s chichi restaurants and slick bars, stores selling books and Japanese prints, artisanal toys and love potions.
    She loved blading, the glide and grace of it, the way faces, trees and buildings slid by in a kind of montage, half glimpsed and never quite remembered. Somehow, this smooth ride took all the edges of the city away.
    Approaching the Four Seasons Hotel, she swung south and descended into Rock Creek Park. There, she swept past the Kennedy Center, turned around, and went back the other way, moving like a speed skater with her right arm swinging in a rhythmic cadence. By the time she reached the old mill, just above Porter Street, the argument within her had come to an end, and the relief that it brought was palpable.
Enough
, she thought.
It’s over.
    Reversing direction, she turned for home, elated by the prospect of a warm bath.
I’ll use the rosemary bath gel
, she thought, imagining the spice and tang of it.
    *    *    *
    Her headache was gone.
    While the bath filled, she telephoned Adrienne at home, knowing her sister would still be at work, and left a message on the machine.
    “Hey ‘A’,” she said. “It’s Nikki. I hope you haven’t forgotten about dinner tonight—it’s rainbow
importante
…”
    The two of them dined together every other Tuesday, alternating venues—unless, as sometimes happened, one of them was really busy (as Adrienne had been of late) or under the weather (as Nico sometimes was).
    Rainbow
was a family code word, invented by Adrienne herself when she was a really little kid, maybe four or five, and persisting in conversation between the two of them to this day. Used as an adjective, the word added urgency or veracity or weight to anything it modified. (You like that guy—
rainbow
like? Yeah. I am
really
going