Race Across The Sky Part 26

"Be back in a bit," he kissed Janelle.

"What's a bit?" she called after him, frustrated.

Running through the damp air, Shane felt as if his heart had been injected with thick sap. Something was wrong with Thailand. The mouse had undergone some failure of its renal glands. His chance to save Lily, and to bring Caleb home, was gone.

Inside the coffee shop the music was horrifyingly up-tempo; its optimism grated on Shane's nerves. He wished he had suggested a bar. He sat in a hard chair. Beside him a woman produced a shrill vibrato laugh after every sentence she finished. Finally, after half an hour, a bell over the door twinkled, and Prajuk hesitated in the threshold. Worry seemed to contaminate his face. Shane watched him inhale one last mad pull from the Parliament an inch from his face. He lifted a hand, and Prajuk came over, reeking of smoke.

"What killed him?"

Prajuk narrowed his eyes, confused. Then he nodded slowly. "This thing, it works. I told you that it would."

Shane dropped his head. The flutter of a billion stars. When he looked back up, Prajuk was still staring at him. "The mouse is fine, Shane. We, on the other hand, are not."

"What happened?"

"Our Mister Healy."

"Healy?"

"He called Anthony Leone."

"He did what?" he shouted.

The two women at the next table turned to them. Shane took a hard breath through his nose.

"He left a voice mail for Anthony. Which Anthony forwarded to me. In this thing he says that he has been working for Prajuk Acharn and Shane Oberest in a lab away from the office. On a biologic which we told him is a Helixia project. He has asked to speak with the head of this project."

Shane let his head fall against his forearms. "f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k."

"And then he told him that he is concerned because we are planning to give this drug to a baby."

"What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. I just received this thing, this voice mail, on my e-mail. Clearly Anthony expects an answer however." Prajuk glanced around, as if the cafe were full of biotechnology spies, which, for all Shane knew, it probably was.

"I told you," Shane said softly, "if anyone at Helixia found out anything, you're out. You were never part of it. There are no records. I'm taking full ownership of it all. I'm sorry it came to this." He pushed his hands through his black hair as he thought out loud. "I can probably tell Anthony that I used your name to get Healy to work for me, but that you never had any part in it, and Healy's exaggerating or lying or something. I'll think about it."

The scientist stared at him.

"Look," Shane reminded him, "we talked to Brad Whitmore. We're not breaking a law."

"Laws and reputations are separate things."

Shane's amber eyes lit up. "Or, tell Anthony that you turned Healy down for an internship. He's making this all up."

"How would he know your name?"

Shane's head began to hurt. Outside a soft rain had arrived. The drizzle it left on the windows was, he saw, almost unbearably beautiful.

Shane reached across the table and patted his arm. "Stop smoking."

"I like smoking."

"Everyone likes smoking. But everyone quits."

"You never even started, not even once?"

"I never did."

"Because you are a runner."

Shane saw Fred and Caleb, far ahead of him on a winding morning road, in synch in the dampness of the ocean air. No, he thought. That was something he was not.

8.

On the eve of the Yosemite Slam, they attended a pre-race briefing out in the park.

Whatever Mack had expected in terms of numbers, Caleb thought, this had to be bigger than he had ever hoped for. Whether it was the Internet, or Mack's efforts at press, there were at least six hundred runners here. This was the kind of number Western States drew. Mack had really done this. It was, Caleb thought, something of a miracle.

The Happy Trails Running Club a.s.sembled at the front of a clearing by the Big Oak Flat entrance to Yosemite. Walking among the crowd, Kevin and Alice commented that some new force was present, tangible. They all felt it. Caleb was not sure if it was positive or threatening. Perhaps it was coming from the presence of the camera crews, the trucks, the rumors of this event's difficulty. Perhaps from some other source.

All day, the lines had grown for medical check-ins. All the entrants were weighed, their pulses taken, and given waivers to sign forgoing their rights to sue for any reason. Caleb came in at 173 pounds, up three from the Hardrock. He was given number 24.

As the sun slipped behind Glacier Point, a broad man in his fifties wearing a tan cowboy hat turned on a beige megaphone. Beside him stood Mack, his face hosting a long-toothed grin.

Kevin tapped Caleb's shoulder. "Barry Strong."

Mack and Barry were nodding, looking out at the a.s.sembled entrants, at the camera marked ABC SPORTS, behind which stood a young man wearing headphones. The sun was falling rapidly, bathing the field in violet shadow.

Mack pointed to a young woman talking on a phone and gave a questioning shrug. She returned a thumbs-up. Barry adjusted his hat and began to address the crowd.

"Welcome to the Yosemite Slam!" he shouted into his megaphone.

Cheers went up and lasted a good two minutes. The producer flashed another thumbs-up at Mack. It seemed things were going well.

"I want you to take a good last look at yourselves. Okay? Because whoever you are tonight, you'll be somebody else from now on."

More whooping and clapping. Barry handed the megaphone to Mack, who waved it manically. His voice sounded tinny and distorted through its plastic.

"As you can see, ABC is taping this event. You will see some cameras on the course, at positions we can get a cameraman to. Don't let them distract you."

He looked around. An awkward stoppage of communication ensued. Eventually Barry took the megaphone back. He paced as he spoke.

"Okay, folks. Rule One. No b.i.t.c.hing. I understand that a few newbies may be in attendance. So let me explain: you volunteered. We don't want to hear it."

Still more cheering echoed across the field.

"Rule Two. Do not underestimate this terrain. These are old mining trails. We did our best to mark them. But animals may have run off with them. If you think you've left the course, turn around. Going off trail here can be fatal for about twelve dozen reasons."

Caleb turned around. Was June here? He thought he might have seen her standing by John, obscured by his height.

"Yosemite has mountain lions. Grizzlies. Both have killed hikers in this park this year. They will attack a brightly dressed human running through their territory. We planned the course away from them, but we're not perfect listeners, and neither are they."

Barry shuffled the papers in his hand, and the megaphone gave a shocking shriek of feedback.

"Okay, injury. We can get minimal supplies to the aid stations on mules. But rescue Jeeps and ATVs will not be able to reach you on about two-thirds of this course. Helivacs are not an option. You get hurt, you find your way to the closest aid station. We can get you out of the park from any of them, though it may be on an animal.

"Rule Three. Do not push. This is not the event to test your limits on. Walk. Rest. If you're thinking about dropping, drop. If it is determined at an aid station that it is in your best interest, you will be pulled."

Barry Strong waited, narrowing his eyes, and looked at Mack with an expression of polite invitation to add a thought. Mack took the megaphone again but could not seem to think of anything to say.

"We have dinner in the camping area by the Ranger Station," Barry concluded. "Please come by."

The crowd rippled with excitement as they turned and dispersed. Caleb caught whispers of rumors, about the course, about the weather, about the news crews. The Happy Trails Running Club did not attend the pasta buffet. To the amazement of the other runners, they collected at the lodge bar, drinking beer and laughing until ten in the evening.

In the room he shared with Kevin, Hank, and Juan, Caleb carefully checked his drop bags, which had been packed with lightweight clothing for night and bad weather, shoes in increasing sizes, energy gels, water. As darkness fell, he would slip close to sleep, but halt there, touching vivid, mad visions. Finally he slept. At four, Kevin nudged him awake. He put benzoin on his feet, pausing to touch the oddly smooth skin where his toenails had been. He rubbed Vaseline on his body and partook of twenty minutes of lying meditation.

In the lobby he saw Lily and June, speaking with a middle-aged woman. Mack had arranged for Lily to stay with the lodge's owners. She was sitting up in a Pack 'n Play behind the front desk when Caleb last saw her. He thought June looked nervous; certainly leaving Lily here for two or three days would do that. He hoped it would not distract her on the course.

He opened the door and emerged into a chilly mist. Caleb wore red shorts, white and green striped Montrails, a yellow tank top. The seventeen members of the Happy Trails Running Club and their coach stood together in front of the lodge. Mack greeted them with great solemnity. This time, rather than shout his Whitman with joy, he spoke softly, slowly, with a rich resonance in his voice and an honesty in his eyes.

"'O secret of the earth and sky. O winding creeks and rivers! Of you O woods and fields! Of you strong mountains of my land! O clouds! O rain and snows! O day and night, pa.s.sage to you! I in perfect health begin, hoping to cease not till death. Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.'"

He nodded solemnly to each of them in turn.

Then he turned and they began to jog up a snaking service road to the opening of Big Oak Flat Road. A yellow banner strung between branches of black oak signified the start. The swelling crowd mingled there uneasily. Each had numbers written on their foreheads and shirts with black marker. A white ABC Sports van with a satellite on its roof was parked in the campgrounds lot. A reporter for the Outdoor Network stood by her own van, speaking into a camera. Light fog filtered through the trees, simultaneously enticing and foreboding.

The buzz of anxious runners swarmed over the field like mosquitoes, irritating Caleb considerably. Why can't they listen to the energy all around them, he wondered?

"I've been working all winter for this," a wiry woman said to Caleb, laughing, "and now I don't want to do it."

Caleb did not respond. Around him he heard the names of leading ultrarunners. The other name he heard everywhere was Steve Brzenski, whose death from a broken back had ended this event years ago.

Caleb inhaled hard, and jumped up and down. It did not matter whether it rained. It did not matter which elite runners were here. It did not matter whether someone had died. Caleb was not running against rain or Scott Jurek or the park. He was running into himself. He stood still, arms dangling at his sides. Later, Kevin Yu would say that the absence of his usual focus was obvious. But that morning, everyone had been concerned with his own race.

Barry Strong began speaking through his bullhorn, but it was hard to care about anything he said. In the sky a pink wave appeared like the wake of oncoming jets, revealing the distant peak of El Capitan rubbing against the belly of the sky.

He did not hear the gunshot. He just felt the crowd surge tentatively into the forest. Caleb shouldered past other runners, wove in and out until he was out front on the hard-packed dirt of Big Oak Flat Road. He should not be running this fast, he understood, but he had to get himself some s.p.a.ce.

As Caleb disappeared into the park, Scott Jurek gestured at him, shaking his head. Someone else said that they would pa.s.s him heaving over a rock by Crane Creek.

Caleb, of course, never heard them.

At ten o'clock that morning, Shane dismantled his lab.

His golf shirt stuck to his back like a desperate lover as he bent over the open cardboard boxes, which lay everywhere, tops flapping like hungry birds.

He had told himself he had no time for melancholy. He double-checked each box to make certain the right equipment was returned to the right company. Microscopes and Bunsen burners, beakers, corks, the stuff he had ignored in middle school, now forever symbols of his life's greatest risk.

He dumped the large bottles of media into the double sinks. The petri dishes full of multiplying black miracle spores he tossed into the garbage can. He did discover an emotional attachment to the chairs he had a.s.sembled in December and decided to leave them for whoever was renting the lab next.

But the gloves and droppers, the big computers, the cables, went into cardboard boxes, which he a.s.sembled one by one with packing tape and an X-ACTO knife. He stacked the boxes outside in the hall by all the other closed doors, like a freshman expelled from college. UPS was supposed to be picking it all up in an hour.

Except for the cooler. Fifty milligrams of Prajuk's humanized drug in small gla.s.s vials rested contentedly in a styrofoam nest inside, chilling at a perfect 51.7 degrees.

"It's seventy degrees outside," Prajuk had explained, his voice high and slow. "The solution must be kept cold. You cannot be stuck in traffic."

Shane agreed, feeling extremely off-balance. "I'll blast the AC."

He rode the freight elevator down, carrying the cooler in his arms. It was more difficult than he had antic.i.p.ated. Heavy, awkward, slippery, it was difficult to maintain a proper grip. He was breathing hard and felt unwell. The six months of worry and stress, that someone at Helixia would find out about the lab, of ignoring Janelle and Nicholas, of underperformance at work, over if what they were doing here would work, and Caleb not returning his calls, had all been far too much. It had launched an attack upon his systems. His sinuses throbbed, and he felt the stirrings of fever.

He desperately wanted to wipe the sweat dripping down his forehead as he stepped out into the bright day. Trying to get a better handle on the styrofoam, he blinked into the parking lot sun ricocheting off a dozen windshields.

Who was that, he squinted, leaning on his car?

"Hey," Shane said as he approached.

A thin man with short blond hair was watching him, affecting friendliness. "You're Shane Oberest?"

Shane's fingers squeezed the cooler.

"Can you get off my car?"

The thin man pushed himself off the Civic and walked right up to him, violating norms, Shane thought, of personal s.p.a.ce.

"What are you doing up there, guy?"

In this sun he couldn't quite see the man's expression, but his voice was tinged with acid.

"Excuse me," Shane said, pushing past him.

The man grabbed his shoulder, and Shane whirled around, his fingers slipping down the cooler. Sunlight careened off the myriad of car mirrors, creating the effect of being inside of a moving marble.

"Do you know who I am?" the man asked.

"I have no idea."