The Omega Point Part 12

"Nurse!"

Nurse Fleigler came up from behind her small, electronically dense station.

"Doctor?"

Behind her was a bank of screens. Cameras covered each room from two directions. A computer continuously a.n.a.lyzed sounds, and immediately warned her if there were any screams, breaking gla.s.s, thuds, any sound suggesting violence. It also warned her when a room became too quiet.

"You're up early, Doctor."

"What kind of a night?"

"We had a security check. Some lightning flashes. Aside from that, it's been quiet."

David noticed movement in Mack Graham's room.

"What's four doing?"

It was perfectly obvious that the man was engaged in s.e.xual self-stimulation.

"This is the third time tonight. He claims that he's entertaining me."

"He's been in there all night?"

"Absolutely."

"Have any confinement patients been recorded outside of their rooms tonight?"

She shook her head. "What's the matter, Doctor?"

Could those have all been staff members? But no, he'd seen Caroline-or had he?

"How's Caroline?"

"I've got a good sleep signal. Normal breathing pattern. REM sleep."

"But she was agitated earlier, after Claire left her?"

Fleigler nodded, her plain, broad face registering sadness and, perhaps, a degree of accusation.

"The poor woman-she did not like that locked door."

"I want to see her tape, if you don't mind. Just roll it back to, say, three, and play it for me."

The screen flickered, then flashed, and he saw what at first appeared to be a static image, but the status readouts confirmed stage four sleep, heart rate fifty-seven, breathing regular.

There was a flicker on the screen. "What was that?"

"What?"

"Roll it back."

She did so. The flicker repeated.

"Run it slow."

He watched Caroline sleep. Were the flickers caused by the flashes from the art room, or were they edits that concealed Caroline's comings and goings?

"So everything's been quiet? Definitely?"

"Quiet, Doctor." She looked up at him, her brows raised in a suggestion of question.

On his way back to his suite, he came face-to-face with the fact that mystery was piling on mystery, and he was drowning.

Using the fingerprint reader on his door, he entered his suite. He returned to the window where he had seen Caroline disappearing under the trees. Ripped clouds sped past the low moon, and, to the north, lightning now flickered. The east was red with dawn.

He tried the Internet, but it was useless. Finally, he called security.

"How many of those flashes did you record?" he asked.

"Two sets of two each."

It was still over an hour to breakfast, and he was profoundly exhausted. He threw off his jeans and T-shirt and returned to bed. It was so very strange to draw these gorgeous silk sheets up around himself in the context of the world as it was. There was jeopardy all around him, but the bed was here, the sheets were soft, and the mattress even somewhat tolerable. He closed his eyes and began to drift ... and found himself having to will his mind away from the image of the woman running in the night, and thoughts of Caroline Light.

He redirected his longing toward Katie Starnes. Her dark Gaelic eyes and cream-white skin were well worth a few moments of presleep contemplation. He shouldn't have been such a d.a.m.n fool when she'd offered herself. He needed to fix that.

He wondered what Katie actually knew about this place. She hadn't been in the cla.s.s.

It was as this thought was forming in his mind that he slipped through the invisible door into sleep. His breathing became more steady, his shoulders relaxed, his lips parted slightly. After a moment, his body turned onto its right side, entering its preferred sleep position.

The dreams were immediate and once again he was facing the kiln, watching it flare with that amazing light. Then the broad clearing once again spread out before him. There was thick gra.s.s. A distance away was a tall oak, its leaves spring-fresh. Beside it was a thickly blossomed apple tree. In fact, the scene looked very much like the clinic's grounds, but in far, far better days. Caroline Light was there, standing near the trees. She gestured to him, smiled and gestured again.

He thought that this sight of this woman in this place was the most beautiful and compelling thing he had ever seen.

Then there was a crash, followed by a long, retreating rumble, and he was again in bed. More crashing thunder and, coming with it, more flashes, but ordinary lightning this time.

He opened his eyes. Seven ten by the clock. More than an hour had pa.s.sed in a sleep that seemed to last only a few seconds. Outside, thunder roared and bellowed, and lightning flashed.

The first thing on his agenda this morning was yet another staff meeting, more bad news about supplies and infrastructure, he supposed.

He thought that he needed to understand more about that powder. He needed to gain the confidence of the makers.

He should d.a.m.n well remember it from the cla.s.s but he didn't ... or did he?

Gold? Was it connected with gold?

Rain struck the tall window behind him, crashing torrents of it, and the great house groaned from the pressure of the wind, and the eaves mourned.

Exhausted, confused, and deeply, deeply afraid, David prepared to meet his day.

8.

EXTRAORDINARY MINDS.

Nurse Beverly Cross and Dr. Marian Hunt came in at the same time, taking seats in the huge office. As David greeted them, he came around from behind his desk. The office enforced the formality of another age.

Nurse Cross gave him a weak smile. She looked exhausted, her eyes hollow.

"You lit us up," she said.

"Sorry about that. I thought I saw a patient in the grounds."

"We have trouble after a light-up. The patients need support."

Bill Osterman, the chief engineer, arrived.

"We have a supply problem," he said as he came in. "Critical low oil and there's nothing in our pipeline."

"Okay, Bill, is there any other supplier we can try?"

"We need to start thinking in terms of a shutdown, to be frank."

"How long do we have left?"

"On full use, four days."

n.o.body mentioned the flashes or the activity in the rec area, and he felt that the omission must be intentional.

"All right," he said, "the first thing to do is reduce air-conditioning use. Drop it back to the sleeping areas at night only. The rest of the time, it's off. How much more time does that give us?"

"Another forty-eight hours, maybe. So say a week."

It seemed a great gulf of time, a week, but that, he knew, was just an illusion. What would he do when the generator shut down for good? How would they run the well? And how did you manage a building full of crazy people at night without the use of lights, let alone monitoring equipment?

"I want max possible power down, then. No air at all except in confined s.p.a.ces where we can't do without. No lights except emergency lighting and as needed for patient control."

Bill nodded. David didn't ask him how much longer this regime would give them. He'd do that later, in private.

Ray Weller arrived announcing that he would be reducing portions and simplifying meals until he could get more reliable deliveries.

"Supply fell out of bed," he said, "everybody just stopped coming and communications are so bad, I can't even tell you why."

On food, they had five days.

With the nurses, handlers, counselors, and other personnel, there were now twenty-one people in the office.

"All right," David said, "obviously we're in serious trouble. Can we send any patients home?" He turned to Glen MacNamara. "I a.s.sume we shouldn't even try."

"From what we can tell, it's a probable death sentence. I asked that new intake. She said she was lucky to be alive. She's worried about her chauffeur, not to mention her father back in Virginia. Terribly worried."

He remembered Charles Light as young and vibrant, bursting with sheer joy because of the value of what he was teaching. What charisma, and what a man to have for a father. She must be beside herself.

David decided to try to deal with the unspoken issue in the most straightforward manner that he could.

"Let me be frank. I observed people in the art room last night doing something with the kiln that was producing extraordinary flashes of light. I couldn't tell who it was, they were wearing welder's masks. But I think more than one person in this room knows what I'm talking about, and I'd like an explanation."

Marian Hunt said, "What I find interesting was that you were down there at all."

"This place is my responsibility, Marian. And I think that the new intake, Caroline, was out of her quarters at some point last night."

"She was confined," Marian said, "on your orders."

"And your tone says that she shouldn't have been."

"She showed no signs of violence."

"She was distraught. She needed to be controlled. Supported." Also protected, but he certainly did not intend to add that.

He could see the color rising in Marian's face. She was looking at it entirely from a professional point of view, from which standpoint he'd obviously made a misjudgment.

"I was with her for a time. Claire and I spelled each other. Doctor, to be frank with you, it's not appropriate to bring procedures you learned at a public facility into this environment."

"Doctor, if you don't mind, I'd like to continue this outside of staff."

She nodded. He continued playing his role.

"Mr. Osterman, I need you to deal with that kiln. I want it moved out of the art room." Actually, he was terribly excited by what had been done. Even if he was still only peripherally in the picture, progress was being made and that was the first hopeful thing he had known since he'd realized the true import of what was happening.

Claire, who had been shaking her head, now burst out, "That's a therapeutic tool! I want an explanation!"

"It's being used in an unauthorized manner by unknown parties in the dead of the night, which is a d.a.m.n good explanation, in my opinion."

She gave him what he interpreted as a condescending look. Katie Starnes crossed her legs and smoothed down her white skirt. The silence in the room deepened.

"Leave the kiln," he finally said. He was no actor, and the whole process involved made him uncomfortable. But he had no choice, obviously, not until more was known.

It was time to shift subjects, and he turned his attention to Katie.

"Is there any word from Maryland Medical Supply?"

"They're expecting to ship day after tomorrow. But even if the shipment gets through, we can expect ma.s.sive shortfalls and no-ships on most drugs."

"So, basically, we're in a tailspin. We're going to have to cut to the bone. As far as our therapeutic service is concerned, it looks like we're headed back to about the mid-fifties, before there were even any tranquilizers." He looked to Glen. "Given that we're leaving the kiln as is, I want the recreation area patrolled regularly at night, but if you find anything unusual, don't intervene. Call me."