Julia said, “It’s airtight. Maybe he knew he was infected and wanted to seal himself off. I mean, he locked the door from the inside.”
I said, “He did? How do you know that?”
Julia said, “Um… I just assumed… uh…” She peered through the glass. “And, uh, you can see the lock reflected in that chrome fitting… see that one there?” I didn’t bother to look. But Mae did, and I heard her say, “Oh yes, Julia, you’re right. Good observation. I missed that myself.” It sounded very phony, but Julia didn’t seem to react. So everybody was playacting, now. Everything was staged. And I didn’t understand why. But as I watched Mae with Julia, I noticed that she was being extremely careful with my wife. Almost as if she was afraid of her, or at least afraid of offending her.
That was odd.
And a little alarming.
I said to Ricky, “Is there a way to unlock the door?”
“I think so. Vince probably has a skeleton key. But nobody’s unlocking that door now, Jack. Not as long as that swarm is in there.”
“So we can’t call anywhere?” I said. “We’re stuck here? Incommunicado?”
“Until tomorrow, yes. Helicopter will be back tomorrow morning, on its regular run.” Ricky peered in through the glass at the destruction. “Jeez. Charley really did a job on those switching panels.”
I said, “Why do you think he would do that?”
Ricky shook his head. “Charley was a little crazy, you know. I mean he was colorful. But all that farting and humming… he was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, Jack.”
“I never thought so.”
“Just my opinion,” he said.
I stood beside Ricky and looked through the glass. The swarm was buzzing around Charley’s head, and I was starting to see the milky coating form on his body. The usual pattern. I said, “What about pumping liquid nitrogen in there? Freezing the swarm?”
“We could probably do that,” Ricky said, “but I’m afraid we’d damage the equipment.”
“Can you turn the air handlers up enough to suck the particles out?”
“Handlers are going full-bore now.”
“And you wouldn’t want to use a fire extinguisher…”
He shook his head. “Extinguishers are Halon. Won’t affect the particles.”
“So we’re effectively kept out of that room.”
“Far as I can tell, yes.”
“Cell phones?”
He shook his head. “Antennas route through that room. Every form of communication we have-cells, Internet, high-speed data trunks-everything goes through that room.” Julia said, “Charley knew that room was airtight. I bet he went there to protect the rest of us. It was a selfless act. A courageous act.”
She was developing her theory about Charley, fleshing it out, adding details. It was a little distracting, considering the main problem was still unanswered-how to unlock the door, and disable the swarm. I said, “Is there another window in that closet?”
“No.”
“This window in the door is the only one?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then,” I said, “let’s black out the window, and turn the lights out in there. And wait a few hours, until the swarm loses power.”
“Jeez, I don’t know,” Ricky said doubtfully.
“What do you mean, Ricky?” Julia said. “I think it’s a great idea. It’s certainly worth a try. Let’s do it right now.”
“Okay, fine,” Ricky said, immediately deferring to her. “But you’re going to have to wait six hours.”
I said, “I thought it was three hours.”
“It is, but I want extra hours before I open that door. If that swarm gets loose in here, we’ve all had it.”
In the end, that was what we decided to do. We got black cloth and taped it over the window, and put black cardboard over that. We turned out the lights and taped the light switch in the off position. At the end of that time, exhaustion hit me again. I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. I said, “I have to go to bed.”
“We should all get some sleep,” Julia said. “We can revisit this in the morning.” We all headed off toward the residence module. Mae sidled up alongside me. “How are you feeling?” she said.
“Okay. My back’s starting to hurt a little.”
She nodded. “You better let me take a look at it.”
“Why?”
“Just let me take a look, before you go to bed.”
“Oh, Jack, darling,” Julia cried. “You poor baby.”
“What is it?”
I was sitting on the kitchen table with my shirt off. Julia and Mae were behind me, clucking.
“What is it?” I said again.
“There’s some blistering,” Mae said.
“Blistering?” Julia said. “His whole back is covered-”
“I think we have dressings,” Mae said, interrupting her, reaching for the first-aid kit beneath the sink.
“Yes, I hope so.” Julia smiled at me. “Jack, I can’t tell you how sorry I am, that you had to go through this.”
“This may sting a little,” Mae said.
I knew that Mae wanted to talk to me alone, but there was no opportunity. Julia was not going to leave us alone for a minute. She had always been jealous of Mae, even years ago when I first hired Mae in my company, and now she was competing with her for my attention. I wasn’t flattered.
The dressings were cool at first, as Mae applied them, but within moments they stung bitterly. I winced.
“I don’t know what painkillers we have,” Mae said. “You’ve got a good area of second-degree burns.”
Julia rummaged frantically through the first-aid kit, tossing contents out right and left. Tubes and canisters clattered to the floor. “There’s morphine,” she said at last, holding up a bottle. She smiled at me brightly. “That should do it!”
“I don’t want morphine,” I said. What I really wanted to say was that I wanted her to go to bed. Julia was annoying me. Her frantic edge was getting on my nerves. And I wanted to talk to Mae alone.
“There’s nothing else,” Julia said, “except aspirin.”
“Aspirin is fine.”
“I’m worried it won’t be-”
“Aspirin is fine.”
“You don’t have to bite my head off.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t feel well.”
“Well, I’m only trying to help.” Julia stepped back. “I mean, if you two want to be alone, you should just say so.”
“No,” I said, “we do not want to be alone.”
“Well, I’m only trying to help.” She turned back to the medicine kit. “Maybe there is something else…” Containers of tape and plastic bottles of antibiotics fell to the floor. “Julia,” I said. “Please stop.”
“What am I doing? What am I doing that is so awful?”
“Just stop.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“I know that.”
Behind me, Mae said, “Okay. All finished now. That should hold you until tomorrow.” She yawned. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”
I thanked her, and watched her leave the room. When I turned back, Julia was holding a glass of water and two aspirins for me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I never liked that woman,” she said.
“Let’s get some sleep,” I said.
“There’s only single beds here.”
“I know.”
She moved closer. “I’d like to be with you, Jack.”
“I’m really tired. I’ll see you in the morning, Julia.”
I went back to my room and looked at the bed. I didn’t bother taking off my clothes.
I don’t remember my head touching the pillow.
DAY 7
4:42 A.M.
I slept restlessly, with constant and terrible dreams. I dreamed that I was back in Monterey, marrying Julia again, and I was standing in front of the minister when she came up alongside me in her bridal gown, and when she lifted the veil I was shocked by how beautiful and young and slender she was. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, trying to conceal my uneasiness. Because now I saw she was more than slender, her face was thin, almost emaciated. Almost a skull. Then I turned to the minister in front of us, but it was Mae, and she was pouring colored liquids back and forth in test tubes. When I looked back at Julia she was very angry, and said she never liked that woman. Somehow it was my fault. I was to blame. I woke up briefly, sweating. The pillow was soaked. I turned it over, and went back to sleep. I saw myself sleeping on the bed, and I looked up and saw that the door to my room was open. Light came in from the hallway outside. A shadow fell across my bed. Ricky came into the room and looked down at me. His face was backlit and dark, I couldn’t see his expression, but he said, “I always loved you, Jack.” He leaned over to whisper something in my ear, and I realized as his head came down that he was going to kiss me instead. He was going to kiss me on the lips, passionately. His mouth was open. His tongue licked his lips. I was very upset, I didn’t know what to do, but at that moment Julia came in and said, “What’s going on?” and Ricky hastily pulled away, and made some kind of evasive comment. Julia was very angry and said, “Not now, you fool,” and Ricky made another evasive comment. And then Julia said, “This is completely unnecessary, it will take care of itself.” And Ricky said, “There are constriction coefficients for deterministic algorithms if you do interval global optimization.” And she said, “It won’t hurt you if you don’t fight it.” She turned on the light in the room and walked out. Then I was suddenly back in my Monterey wedding, Julia was standing beside me in white, and I turned to look back at the audience, and I saw my three kids sitting in the first row, smiling and happy. And as I watched a black line appeared around their mouths, and swept down their bodies, until they were cloaked in black. They continued to smile, but I was horrified. I ran to them, but I couldn’t rub the black cloak off. And Nicole said calmly, “Don’t forget the sprinklers, Dad.”
I woke up, tangled up in the sheets, drenched in sweat. The door to my room was open. A rectangle of light fell across my bed from the hallway outside. I looked over at the workstation monitor. It said “4:55 A.M.” I closed my eyes and lay there for a while, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was wet and uncomfortable. I decided to take a shower. Shortly before five in the morning, I got out of bed.
The hallway was silent. I walked down the corridor to the bathrooms. The doors to all the bedrooms were open, which seemed strange. I could see everybody sleeping as I walked past. And the lights were on in all the bedrooms. I saw Ricky asleep, and I saw Bobby, and I saw Julia, and Vince. Mae’s bed was empty. And of course Charley’s bed was empty. I stopped in the kitchen to get a ginger ale from the refrigerator. I was very thirsty, my throat painful and parched. And my stomach felt a little queasy. I looked at the champagne bottle. I suddenly had a funny feeling about it, as if it might have been tampered with. I took it out and looked closely at the cap, at the metal foil that covered the cork. It looked entirely normal. No tampering, no needle marks, no nothing.
Just a bottle of champagne.
I put it back and closed the refrigerator door.
I began to wonder if I had been unfair to Julia. Maybe she really did believe she’d made a mistake and wanted to put things right. Maybe she just wanted to show her gratitude. Maybe I was being too tough on her. Too unforgiving.
Because when you thought about it, what had she done that was suspicious or wrong? She’d been glad to see me, even if she was over the top. She’d accepted responsibility for the experiment, and she’d apologized for it. She’d immediately agreed to make the call to the Army. She’d agreed with my plan to kill the swarm in the comm room. She’d done everything she could do to show she supported me, and was on my side.