Deep Storm

33

Charles Vasselhoff shuffled slowly and uncertainly toward Bottom, the mess hall located on deck 3. It wasn't so much that he was hungry-his mouth felt dry, as if moths had nested in it, and there was an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach-it was simply that he had no place else to go. His large frame shook with chills, yet he felt so hot he'd had to unzip the top half of his orange jumpsuit. But what bothered him most was his head. The pain had begun like a normal headache, and he'd assumed it was just stress or maybe overwork. But then it had grown worse: a strange, irritating feeling of fullness, as if his brain had grown too big for his skull. His vision blurred, and his fingers grew tingly and numb at the tips. So he'd stopped work in the Electromechanical Machine Shop, where he'd been repairing impact damage to the alpha Doodlebug, and went to his quarters.

But that had been no better. He'd tossed and thrashed, soaking the pillow with a cold sweat and entangling his limbs in the sheets. Patroni, one of his bunkmates, had been there, big smelly feet up on the communal table, watching a cooking show on the Facility's internal cable network. The incessant drone of the cooking pro became more and more annoying. The strange sensation in his head increased, causing his ears to ring. And then there was the way Patroni looked at him-sidelong, sneaky glances, the way you'd look at somebody who was talking to himself just a little too loudly. Vasselhoff had been aware of people staring at him for the last couple of days-it started, he thought, around the same time the headaches began-but never his own bunkmates. And so with a whispered curse, he swung his legs out of the bunk, pushed himself to his feet, and stepped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him without a word.

And now he found his feet taking him in the direction of Bottom. At least, he thought it was the direction of Bottom, but somehow he found himself in front of a Radiography Lab instead. He blinked, swayed slightly on his feet, turned around. Somewhere he'd taken a false step: he'd try again. Putting one foot deliberately in front of the other, he started back down the narrow corridor.

A man in a white lat coat passed by, digital clipboard in hand. "Yo, Chucky," he said without stopping.

Chucky took another two steps, then halted. Slowly, even stiffly, he turned in the direction of the technician, who was already halfway down the hall. The words had taken a second to register: the strange, crowded feeling in his head was causing his eyes to water slightly and the ringing in his ears to increase, and he was withdrawing into himself, preoccupied with the pain in his head and the chills that racked his body.

"Hey," he said tentatively, his voice sounding thick and strange. He licked his lips again but was unable to bring any moisture to them. Turning back, he made his slow, plodding way to the cafeteria, stopping at each intersection and blinking at the direction signs, forcing himself through the fog of confusion to make the necessary turns.

Bottom was crowded before the impending shift change. Some people were clustered before an easel sporting the evening's menu choices. Others had formed a line for the serving stations. Chucky joined this line, wondering-remotely-why his legs felt so wooden and heavy. The buzz of conversation in the small cafeteria seemed to make the ringing in his ears worse. It was so loud, so distinct, he was certain the others must hear it, too. Yet nobody seemed to find anything strange or out of place. It was as if invisible beams of noise were being directed into his head alone.

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 spinning and the voices in his head were louder still. But that was suddenly all right: he knew now where the beams were coming from. They were radioactive, they had to be; he'd been a fool not to have realized it before. He lurched toward the carving station, grabbed one of the heavy knives lying there, still speckled with bits of meat and shiny gobbets of fat. The chef said something and reached forward, but Chucky slashed with the knife and the man shrank back. There was a scattering of screams, but they were barely audible beneath the voices in his head and Chucky paid no attention. He staggered out of the cafeteria and into the hallway, brandishing the knife. It was the radiation, he knew that now: getting into his head, making him strange, making him sick.

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.