Deep Storm

Where was it coming from? Who was doing this?

He took a tray from the stack, shuffled ahead, bumped into the person ahead of him, mumbled an apology, lurched backward.

It took all the concentration he could muster to move forward with the line. He reached for a can of soda, then another and another, thinking they might wash the dryness from his mouth. He took a plate of watercress salad, looked at it uncertainly, put it back. He stopped at the carving station, where a chef wielding a heavy steel knife cut a thick slab of prime rib for him, forking it onto a plate and drizzling a brownish line of gravy over it.

Holding his tray with both hands, he made for the nearest empty seat and sat down heavily, the soda cans rattling against each other. He had forgotten to pick up a knife and fork, but it really didn't matter: the painful oppression in his head was spreading, causing his jaws to ache and his neck to feel stiff, and any trace of hunger he might have felt was now completely gone. Two women were sitting at the table, talking animatedly. They paused to glance at him. He remembered they were programmers in the research department but could not recall their names.

"Hello, Chucky," one of them said.

"Tuesday," Chucky replied. He tugged at one of the cans of soda, tugged again, and it opened, spraying a small jet of brown liquid over his hands. He raised it to his lips and took a long, greedy sip. It hurt just to fit his mouth to the can opening, and he did it imperfectly; soda dribbled down his chin as he swallowed. Even the swallowing hurt.

Damn it.

He put down the can, blinking, and listened to the ringing in his head. He'd been wrong, it was not a ringing: it was a voice. No, several voices, whispering to him.

Suddenly, he felt afraid: afraid of the numbness in his fingers; afraid of the chills that racked his body; and, most of all, afraid of the whispering inside his head. His mouth went dry again and he took another sip, heart pounding. He could feel the warm liquid going down, but it had no taste.

The voices grew louder. And as they did, Chucky's fear went away, replaced by a rising anger. It wasn't fair. Why were they doing this to him? He hadn't done anything. Beam signals into somebody else's head; there were plenty of assholes on the Facility ripe for it.

The women at the table were looking at him, frowning with concern. "Are you okay, Chucky?" the other programmer asked.

"Fuck you," Chucky said. They didn't give a shit about him. They just sat there staring, letting the signals fill his head with voices, fill his head until it exploded…

He rose abruptly, knocking over his tray and spilling soda and meat juices over the table. He swayed dangerously, righted himself. The cafeteria was spi

He would put a stop to that.

He lurched as quickly as he could down the hall. There would be no wrong turns this time: he knew exactly where he needed to go, and it wasn't far away. People he passed pressed themselves against the walls to avoid him, but they were now little more than fuzzy, monochromatic shapes and he paid them no heed.

As he half shuffled, half staggered down the corridor, the chills grew worse and the voices grew louder. He wouldn't listen; no, he would not do the terrible things they urged on him. He would stop them; he knew just what to do.

There it was, just ahead now: a large, shielded hatchway, with a burgundy-and-yellow radiation sign above it and two marines standing guard. Catching sight of him, they both started yelling, but Chucky could hear nothing over the chorus of voices. One of the marines dropped to his knees, still mouthing frantically, pointing something at him.

Chucky took another step forward. Then there was a brilliant flash of light and a roar so loud it overwhelmed even the babel of voices; pain blossomed in Chucky's chest; he felt himself driven backward with incredible violence; and then, slowly, the pain and the voices ebbed away into endless blackness and-at long last-he found peace.

34

The larger of the two operating bays in the Medical Suite had all the equipment and instrumentation necessary for major surgical procedures, from standard appendectomies to complex laparoscopic work. This evening, however, it had been appropriated for an entirely different function: that of temporary morgue.

The corpse of Charles Vasselhoff lay on the operating table, faintly bluish under the bright lights. The skullcap had been removed; the brain weighed, then returned. Now the metal walls of the bay rang with the sound of a Stryker saw as Crane attacked the breastbone, making the Y incision down the chest and across the abdomen. A female intern stood at his elbow, beside the tray of autopsy instruments. Just beyond was Michele Bishop. Her face was covered by a medical mask, but her brow was furrowed.

Near the door, and well back from the body, stood Commander Korolis. "When will the final report be ready, Dr. Crane?" he asked.

Crane ignored him. He turned off the vibrating saw, handed it to the waiting intern, then turned toward the microphone of a digital tape recorder and resumed dictation. "Penetrating gunshot wound to the right side of the chest. Injury to the skin and soft tissue. No perforation. There is no indication of close-range firing, such as powder residue or charring of the wound." He glanced at Bishop, who wordlessly handed him a pair of rib cutters. He snipped the remaining ribs, then carefully lifted off the chest plate.

Using forceps, he studied the devastation revealed by the overhead light. "Wound path is front to back, slightly downward. The wound itself consists of a ten-sixteenth-inch circular hole, with circumferential abrasion and a slight marginal radial laceration. There are injuries to the anterior right second rib, lower lobe of right lung, right subclavian vein, and lower gastrointestinal tract." He picked up an enterotome, inserted its bulb-shaped blade into the lumen, and gave it a gentle downward tug, pushing the viscera to one side. "Deformed large-caliber bullet embedded in tissue to the right side of the T2 vertebral body." Gingerly, he fished out the bullet with the forceps, then turned back to the recorder.

"Pathological diagnosis," he continued. "The entrance gunshot wound to the upper chest entered the right pleural cavity and lacerated the right subclavian vein. Cause of death: trauma and extensive bleeding into the right pleural space. Ma

Korolis raised his eyebrows. "Homicide, Dr. Crane?"

"What would you call it?" Crane snapped. "Self-defense?" He dropped the bullet into a metal basin, where it clattered back and forth.

"The man was brandishing a deadly weapon in an aggressive and threatening ma

Crane laughed bitterly. "I see. Those armed soldiers were in jeopardy."

"Vasselhoff was intent on trespassing into a highly restricted and sensitive area."

Crane handed the forceps to the intern. "What, he was going to carve up your precious reactor with a kitchen knife?"