Drug of Choice

17. THE SCIENTIFIC COMING

HE HEARD A SOUND like the roar of a huge forestfire, and he smelled smoke. The sound was very loud, deafening, but somehow familiar at the same time.

He opened his eyes, and looked to the direction of the sound. He was lying on a couch, fully dressed, in some kind of office. There was a window to his right. He got up slowly and walked over to look out.

Traffic.

A freeway, thick with automobiles. Yellow-gray sky and faint, diffuse sunlight.

“Los Angeles,” he said, and shook his head. He didn’t remember what had happened. There was something about boarding an airplane, and later, being met at the airport by a limousine—

“My God, you look awful,” Harvey Blood said.

Clark turned. Blood was standing just inside the door.

“You’re…you’re an absolute mess,” Blood said, gesturing to Clark’s clothes. “You can’t go like that.”

He came up and pushed Clark into a chair.

“No, that would ruin everything,” he said. “Just a minute.”

He went to the door, and came back with two girls. One began to comb Clark’s hair while the other shaved him with an electric razor. A boy came in with a suit on a hanger, a fresh shirt, and a tie; he hung it on the back of the door and walked out. Blood stood in the center of the room and watched the girls working on Clark.

“Hurry it up, girls,” he said. “We’re behind schedule already.”

Clark said, “Behind schedule for what?”

“The audition,” Blood said.

“What audition?”

“For Project GG,” he said. “The Angela Sweet mockup.”

Clark said nothing. He didn’t understand what Blood was talking about.

Blood seemed to realize this. “It’s all strange at first,” he said. “And of course you’re tired from your journey. But that will pass.”

Clark said, “Where are we?”

“Advance. We landed in LA last night. Do you remember that?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, it went very smoothly. Let’s go, girls.”

The girls finished and stepped back. Clark stood; they helped him out of his clothing, and handed him the clean clothes. He dressed slowly.

“Clark, come on, come on,” Blood said.

Roger Clark knotted his tie as slowly as he could.

“Look,” Blood said. “This kind of funny business won’t go. You’d better understand that. You’re in trouble and you need me.”

“I do?”

“You’re damned right you do. Now hurry it up.”

Walking down the steps to the waiting limousine, Clark said, “Why do I need you?”

“Because you’re in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Harvey Blood glanced at his watch and entered the limousine. Clark followed him; two men were already there, sitting on the little fold-down seats. They had charts and briefcases opened, papers out.

The limousine started off.

Clark said, “What kind of trouble?”

“Later,” Blood said. He turned to the two men.

“We’ve got it down to twenty, Harvey,” one said. “They’re a pretty good group.” He laughed. “Some of them can even sing.”

“The hell with that,” Blood said. He looked at the other.

“Psychological testing is completed,” the man said. “On all twenty finalists. The correlation with somatotyping of body form is quite precise. You’ve got a split into two basic groups, really. What we call the projection-affective group, with high raw scores on scales twelve, delta, and nine. Then there’s the ego-flexor group, which scored high on scales five, beta, and two. It’s hard to say which would be the better choice.”

“I see,” Blood nodded.

The first man said, “We’ve got standardized costumes waiting, and the pattern is set. All it requires is your final decision.”

“How about the costume for GG?”

“We have a preliminary model. All the girls will wear it. The plastics people have just finished wiring them.”

“Fine. And the sound?”

“We’ll go there afterward. The mixing studios are doing fine work, I think you’ll agree. And the boys are coming together nicely.”

Blood nodded and sat back. The second man handed him a sheaf of graphs, with points plotted on peculiar circular axes. It was a kind of graph Clark had never seen before.

There were also several pages of photographs, but they were also peculiar. One page was the faces of twenty girls, but the other pages were isolated photos of legs, elbows, shoulders, feet. Each page was stamped: “PROJECT GLOW.”

“What’s that?” Clark said.

“Shut up,” Harvey Blood said. “I’m thinking.”

An auditorium, empty, the rows of wooden seats stretching back into darkness. In front of them, a bare and lighted stage.

Harvey Blood slumped down in the front row and looked up at the stage. The two men sat on either side of him; Clark sat next to one of them.

Nobody said anything, but after a moment, a man in a dark suit came onto the stage, carrying a microphone on a heavy base. He set the microphone down in the middle of the stage, right in front of Blood.

“Are you ready now, sir?” he asked.

“Ready,” Blood said. He took out a pair of glasses, wiped them on his tie, and put them on. He folded his hands across his chest and looked up expectantly.

“There are three runs,” one of the men said, leaning over to Clark. “Dr. Blood can eliminate at any time. Do you understand?”

“No,” Clark said.

“You’ll get the hang of it, after a while,” the man said.

The stage lights went down. A voice said, “Number one,” and a girl walked out. She was tall and slender, with dark hair and a gentle face. She wore black slacks and a frilly white blouse.

“You see,” one of the men whispered to Clark, “on the first run, the girls wear whatever they want. The next two runs are standardized. But this run is important to personality projection and affect penetrance.”

“Oh.”

The girl walked slowly across the stage, oblivious to the men in the front row. She reached the opposite side, turned, and walked back. Clark looked over to see what Blood was doing. He was frowning.

Blood said, “Why slacks?”

“Ego interference,” one man said. “Subconscious withdrawal complex. She relies on conveyed fragility.”

Blood continued to frown. “Cut her.”

The aide picked up a small hand walkie-talkie. “Cut one,” he said.

There was a pause, and then a voice said, “Number two,” and a second girl walked across the stage. This one was short, with large breasts and hips, and a pert face. She wore a miniskirt and sweater.

“Projection-affective,” one of the men whispered. “Written all over her.”

“Oh,” Clark said.

This girl Blood seemed to like. He smiled slightly, and said nothing. The girl walked off the stage and a third one came on, a dark-haired girl in a leather skirt, vest, boots.

“Strangely enough, this one is ego-flexor, though she doesn’t look it.”

Clark leaned over to see Blood’s reaction, but his face was enigmatic.

The fourth girl wore a jumper; she had large breasts and blond hair.

“Look at the way she walks,” Blood said. “Terrible. Cut her.”

And so it went, through all twenty girls. Clark tried to make sense of what was happening, but he could not. Every once in a while, one of the men would lean over to explain things, but the explanations never helped. About all he understood was that they were selecting a girl.

For something.

At the end of the first run, Blood said, “How many?”

“Thirteen left”

“All right. Let’s get on with it.”

The new sequence began, this time starting with number two, since number one was eliminated. Number two wore a brief black bikini. She had not taken two steps onto the stage before Blood hissed: “She has a scar!”

“Yes,” one of the men said, “appendix…”

“You knew that? And you kept her? That’s absurd.”

“We thought perhaps it would increase identification, help in the human element, a girl with a—”

“A scar?” Blood shuddered. “Never. Glow Girl can’t have a scar. Cut her.”

Over the walkie-talkie: “Cut number two.”

The next girl came out, in an identical bikini. Clark watched her, but he was rapidly losing interest. In his mind, the girls began to merge; he lost the ability to differentiate them. He found himself listening to Blood’s comments.

On number five: “Bad hips. Awkward in the hips. Cut her.”

Number seven: “Terrible breasts. And she doesn’t move right. Cut her.”

Number eleven: “Ugh! Cut her.”

Number fourteen: “Too shy. She comes over shy. Cut her.”

Number nineteen: “That’s brazen. It’s flaunting: cut her.”

Number twenty: “She acts tired. Cut her.”

At the end of the run, he said again, “How many?”

“Six.”

Blood sighed. “Still six? Hell. All right.”

He sat back and waited for the third run. Five minutes passed before the first of the girls came onstage. She wore a strange dress, made of plastic squares, loose. But the plastic, Clark saw, was glowing. The dress moved gently with the girl, glowing bright pink.

Blood smiled. “Very nice. Where are the batteries?”

“In the collar. Mercury-cadmium.”

“Very nice.”

Another girl came on, before the first had left, and then another, until all six were lined up on the stage. Each wore the same glowing dress of plastic.

Blood looked from one to the next. He was frowning hard. He said, “Let’s hear the one on the far right.”

“Far right,” one of the men shouted.

The girl on the far right, a redhead, seemed surprised at first, and then pleased. She walked up to the microphone, skirt moving gently, and said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl. Nice to meet you.”

“Hmmm,” Blood said. “Try the third from the left.”

“Third from the left!”

Another girl walked up to the microphone and said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl. Nice to meet you.”

This was repeated until finally the last girl said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl, and I wish I knew what the hell I’m doing here.”

There was nervous laughter from all the girls.

Blood smiled.

Then, without taking his eyes off the line of girls, he said, “Clark, what’s your decision?”

“My what?”

“Decision. Which one do you pick?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what you’re picking them for.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Blood said. “Choose.”

“But why me? I don’t—”

“Listen,” Blood said, “do you think we brought you down here for the ride? Choose!”

Clark hesitated. He looked at the girls. Finally he said, “Second from the left.”

“Second from the left,” Blood repeated, nodding.

“Second from the left,” the man said into the walkie-talkie.

Blood stood. “That’s that,” he said, and walked out of the auditorium. The others followed, Clark last of all. He was stunned. He looked back to the stage; the girls were clustered together, talking. The one he had chosen was a dark-haired girl with large eyes.

Up ahead, by the door, Blood shouted, “Come on, Clark, we haven’t got all day.”

Clark hurried up the aisle, away from the stage.

Surrounded by electronic equipment, dials and switches, they sat in the soundproofed room and looked through the glass at the group in the inner room. Five young men with long hair, guitars, drums, an organ.

Blood stared at them, and placed earphones over his head. “Let’s hear them.”

At a signal, the group started to play. One of the other men leaned over to Clark.

“This is the group, the backup,” he said. “The Scientific Coming. We’ve finally got them polished into some kind of shape, but it was a battle, I can tell you. This first cut is a standard.”

He handed Clark a set of earphones. Electronic sound blasted him. As he listened, somebody handed him a sheet of words:

SHOCK TREATMENT

My little analeptic

She meets me at the door.

Gives me a kiss,

And I’m rolling on the floor.

In shock treatment,

Shock treatment,

Shock Treatment,

Rolling on the floor… or… or…

Blow my mind,

In a catatonic fit,

Losing my cool,

But loving it.

In shock treatment,

Stock treatment,

Block treatment,

But loving it… it… it…

Gotta admit,

It’s really a show.

Wears me out,

And leaves me kinda low.

From shock treatment,

Rock treatment,

Mock treatment,

Leaves me really low… low… ow…

The song was finished. Clark took off the earphones. “Nothing special,” he was told. “They’re just warming up. This next is a very sensitive ballad, very now, very today.” Clark put the headphones back on.

SICKIE, SICKIE

Sickie, sickie, where you goin?

All day long, and night time glowin.

There you go,

Poppin’ pills.

Seeking out,

Those extra thrills.

Don’t you know,

It’s really here.

Can’t you see,

It’s only fear.

Sickie, sickie, where you goin?

All day long, and night time glowin.

Out of sight

Mind a fog.

Big machine

A little cog.

Don’t you know,

It can’t be done.

You must see,

That you’re the one.

Pick you up,

Or put you down.

Start you high,

Or crash you down.

We don’t care

It’s what you do

But you know

We’re really true.

“Doesn’t that grab you?” someone asked Clark. “Here, check this out.”

He was handed an album cover: SIX INCH INCISION. Glow Girl and the Scientific Coming. The cover photo showed the group of hairy young men in the other room, but there was a blank space—for Glow Girl, he presumed. He turned the album over to look at the song titles.

“These are just tentative, of course,” he was told. “We may still call the album Acid Fast. The song titles are tentative as well. Molecular Love, for instance, may be changed to Cryin’ Ions Over You.”

Harvey Blood looked over at Clark, obviously relishing his confusion.

“You see the general principle,” he said. “Science. Everyone is afraid of science. Terrified of it. And yet fascinated by it at the same time. We’re bringing science down to the masses, making it agreeable, understandable. We’re educating people.”

“Oh,” Clark said.

“Now, all that remains,” Blood said, “is to make our new creation palatable to the public. In fact, enthusiastically received. There are slightly more than seventy rock groups which are, in any sense of the word, big-time. Of those, perhaps ten are really important. We intend to beat them all. The Beatles, the Stones, the Airplane, the Cream, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix, the Chambers Brothers—we are going to put them all out of business.”

“I see.”

“You doubt me. You shouldn’t. After all, look what we did with a product as untalented and basically boring as Sharon Wilder, the former Alice Blankfurt?”

Harvey Blood laughed.

“Isn’t science wonderful?” he said.

18. GLOW GIRL

“YOU SEE,” HARVEY BLOOD said, as they drove back in the limousine, “the true purpose of Advance is the harnessing of science to turn a comfortable commercial profit. The drug of choice is just one example. Our use of it to operate a resort hotel may seem strange at first, but think about it. It’s wholly logical. In the same way, the Glow Girl will utilize advances—”

“What about Sharon Wilder? What scientific advance does she represent?”

Blood chuckled. “Applied psychology. We had it all worked out in advance—what she should look like, how she should act, what kinds of things she should talk about, what kind of photographs she should pose for, what kind of movies she should appear in. It was a careful balance, designed to fulfill the nationwide expectations for a modern sex symbol. I think you will grant,” he said, “that we’ve succeeded handsomely.”

“And the Glow Girl?”

“Ah. Now that is an interesting matter. Those inane songs you listened to are actually quite carefully prepared. The rhythm is timed as multiples of brain-wave frequency and function. If played loudly it can have quite a hypnotic effect. This, combined with the image of the Glow Girl, the scientific-sexual overtones of the group—”

“Scientific-sexual?”

“Of course. But Advance is not stopping there. We are already engaged in the manufacture of a new line of perfumes for women, and cologne for men. We are planning the introduction of a new game which will, we predict replace professional football as the most interesting game in America. We have a new contraceptive device which needs to be taken only once a year—a great boon for teenagers trying to hide nasty facts from their parents. Very shortly, we will begin marketing three-dimensional television. And finally, we have reason to believe that we are on the track of a mild viral illness which increases sexual potency.”

“I don’t believe you,” Clark said, but he really did.

“In time,” Harvey Blood said, “you will come around to our way of thinking. I don’t need to tell you that we are not a unique corporation in this country. We are merely a little smarter, a little faster than the others. But other firms are springing up, all across America. This is the way of the future—research and development, and commercial application on an imaginative basis.”

Clark said, “What about me? Why did you involve me in all this?”

“We needed you.”

“For what? To pick the Glow Girl?”

“Oh no. That was just a minor thing. We’ve had major plans for you, right from the start.”

“You mean for the island?”

“Well, no. Other things.”

“Like what?”

“We expect,” Blood said, “to utilize your knowledge of drugs and testing.” He held up his hand. “And please, no tiresome stories of how you will resist us, and refuse us, and fight us. We can make you do it, and if you are wise you will go along willingly. After all, we can make you a rich man.”

The limousine pulled up in front of the Advance building. As they got out, Blood looked at his watch and said, “Behind schedule again. You’re late for your appointment.”

“My appointment?”

“Yes. With the Glow Girl.”

“And what am I supposed to do with her?”

“Examine her, of course,” Blood said. “You’re a doctor; we want a full report on the physical fitness of our girl. After all,” he said, “we’re going to be putting a lot of time, effort and money into her. A hell of a lot.”

There was a room, a desk, an examining couch and a nurse. The girl, wearing a simple skirt and blouse now, sat in a chair facing the desk. She looked back over her shoulder as he came in.

The nurse was matronly and forbidding. He said, “You can leave now. I’ll call you when I need you.”

“A nurse should be in attendance—”

“Get out,” Clark said quietly, “or I’ll kick you out.”

“But Dr. Clark—”

“I’ll worry about Blood, if that’s the problem. Besides,” he said, “the room is bugged.”

The nurse glared at him, but left. Clark walked around behind the desk and sat down. Immediately, he began going through the drawers. The girl watched him silently.

“My name,” he said, “is Roger Clark. I’m a doctor.”

The girl nodded and said nothing. She watched him as he shuffled papers, and poked among the flowers in the vase on the desk. He had no idea what he was looking for: in movies, it was small and black, with wires.

“I’m sorry,” he said, continuing his search, slamming the drawers, “but I don’t know your name.”

“Susan Ryle. With a Y. And I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

He lifted the dictaphone and peered underneath, then checked the telephone.

“Yes,” she said. “For choosing me. I saw you do it, down there in the front row.”

“Ummm,” Clark said. “I can’t find it.”

“Find what?”

“The microphone. I know there’s one here someplace.”

“But why would there be a microphone—”

“Because this is a very personal sort of corporation,” Clark said. “They take a personal interest in their employees.”

“I like that,” Susan Ryle said. She smiled. She had a lot of even white teeth. Close up, her eyes were dark and enormous.

“Do you? It gets a little wearing.”

“The only thing is,” she said, sitting back and crossing her legs, “I don’t really know what I was hired for.”

“You were hired to be the Glow Girl.”

“Yes, but what’s that?”

“The Glow Girl is a rock and roll singer. You have a group called the Scientific Coming.”

“A rock and roll singer! But I can’t sing a note—”

“They’ll take care of that,” Clark said. “They take care of everything. And you’ll make a lot of money. A well-paid employee is a contented employee.”

“Yes,” Susan Ryle said, but she was frowning. Still thinking about her singing ability. It occurred to Clark that she might not be over-intelligent.

“I suppose they’ll give me voice lessons,” she said.

“I suppose.”

“In a way, it’s exciting.”

“I suppose.”

“Don’t you agree it’s exciting?”

“Frankly,” he said, “no. I think it’s frightening, I think it’s terrifying, but I do not think it is exciting.”

“Oh,” she said. “But aren’t you an employee?”

“I’m well looked-after,” Clark said.

She was silent. He could tell he had confused her, and she had been confused enough at the outset. It wasn’t really fair, taking out his frustration on her.

“Listen,” he said. “As a doctor, I have a piece of advice.”

“Yes?”

“Get out. Get out of the whole thing, right now. Forget the dough, the fame, the bright lights and the limousine pulling up for opening night—”

“What?” She was staring at him.

He threw up his hands. “Just forget the whole damned thing. You’re a nice girl. You’ll make some lucky guys a fine wife. Go out, get married, get divorced, get married again, have some kids, get divorced—do the California thing, and be happy.”

“You’re very peculiar,” she said, looking at him and tugging down at her short skirt.

“I was born under an unlucky star,” Clark said.

“Gee,” she said. “That’s too bad.”

Clark sighed. She was innocent and wide-eyed and lovely. And he would never in a million years make her understand.

He went to the door. “Nurse!”

The examination was brief. The girl was in excellent shape physically. Excellent shape.

He reported to Blood.

“That’s very reassuring to hear,” Blood said.

“She’s a little dumb, of course—”

“Very reassuring,” Blood nodded.

“And you’ll have a lot of work to do, whipping her into some kind of shape as a singer—”

“We are prepared,” he said mildly, “to work.”

“I’m not,” Clark said.

Blood seemed surprised. “I thought we’d been all over this. I thought you had come to understand.”

“What I understand,” Clark said, “is that a month ago I was a happy doctor working in a happy hospital. I had never heard of blue urine, or comas, or Eden Island. I had never heard of this damned corporation, or Sharon Wilder, or the Glow-Glow Girl.”

“That’s quite clever. We may use that.”

“I had never heard of calling the police in the Miami airport, or being abducted, or held a prisoner in the middle of goddamned Santa Monica. And I want out.”

Blood shrugged. “You can’t get out, I’m afraid.”

“I can try.”

“Oh yes, of course you can try. And you may even succeed, for a few hours. But not for long. We’d have you back in no time. You see, Roger, you’re with us now. Outside of here, beyond these walls, you’re nothing. Nothing at all. There is nowhere that you could turn to, nowhere that you could go. Your old friends would shun you. They aren’t your friends, any more. Your old world would reject you—it isn’t your world, any more. You’re with us now.”

“The hell I am.”

Blood regarded him steadily for several moments. “I can see that you’re serious. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“But I am. I hate to use you in this way. I really do. I think it’s a waste of a fine mind. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the opportunity you present. I must admit it was George who thought of it first, but the fact remains, you’re a fine opportunity for us, Roger. You are ideal.”

He picked up a telephone on a small table behind his desk. “Get me section seven,” he said.

While he was waiting, telephone cradled in his shoulder, he said, “They’ll all be delighted. They’re a little like vultures, actually. Hovering about waiting for their chance. And now they have it.”

He spoke into the phone. “George? Set up the series right away. Yes…yes, I’m afraid so.”

He hung up.

“You see, Roger, we can use a man of your talents in many ways. We can use you to help us, to work with us, to prepare our projects and ventures. Or we can use you in other ways. After all, look at your qualifications. You are a trained physician. You have a working knowledge of anatomy, pharmacology, biochemistry. You are experienced in biological matters, and you are a trained observer. All invaluable traits.”

“Invaluable traits for what?”

“For an experimental subject, of course.”

Behind him, the door opened. Two guards came in, and caught him by the arms.

Harvey Blood stood. “I think you’ll find it interesting, Roger.”

The guards took him out of the room.

19. K PUPPY

“GOOD, GOOD,” GEORGE WASHINGTON said. “Good, good, good.”

He bent over Clark, securing the leather straps which held him to the wooden chair. They were in a laboratory and the chair was on some kind of metal track, which ran forward to a door in the far wall.

“We can observe you,” Washington said, “by remote control. I want you to know we’ve taken every safeguard.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“I feel,” Washington said, tightening one of the arm straps, “that you should know a little about this series. There are no drugs involved. None at all. Instead, we are working on the K principle.”

“It being?”

“Roger, you’re so hostile. Try to look at it as an interesting experience. The K principle was first elaborated in Montreal. Researchers there experimented with puppies, raised from birth in zero sensory environments. They were kept in total darkness, constant temperature, constant sound for six weeks after birth. And then they were brought out into the real world.”

“And they went mad.”

“No. No indeed. But they acted quite peculiarly. They could see, for example; their eyes reacted to light and so forth. But they couldn’t organize visual information. They walked right into walls—that kind of thing. They couldn’t understand what sensory stimuli meant.”

“That’s nice.”

“Meantime,” George continued, “some people in Ann Arbor were experimenting with sensory deprivation in human beings. Put a person in a room with cardboard tubes on his arms and legs—so he can’t feel—and a blindfold over his eyes—so he can’t see—and earplugs—so he can’t hear. And leave him there for a while. The subjects acted pretty strangely after a few hours.

“But the experiments were inconclusive. There was some suggestion of increased pliability, of agreeability, after exposure. Our small experiments here have tended to confirm that. But the factor of education is major, and nobody knows how to deal with that. Also, there is a question about the duration of effect. With drugs, we know that suggestibility is strictly limited. The drug wears off, and you go back to normal. But with the K principle—”

“I see,” Clark said. “No wonder you’re interested.”

“As a scientific development, it has possibilities,” Washington said. “But now we have you. Ideal subject—you’re educated, informed, aware. And you know exactly what we’re going to do to you.”

“You’re going to make me a K puppy.”

“Ha ha,” Washington said, and signaled to one of the technicians. The far door was opened; beyond, he could see a small room, yellowish, with strange walls.

His chair moved forward on the track.

“Enjoy yourself,” Washington said.

The chair moved through the door, and into the room, The door was closed behind him. It shut with a soft, leathery sound.

A very strange sound.

And suddenly, he knew. He looked down: his chair was still on tracks, but suspended in the middle of the room, equidistant from all walls, ceiling and floor. And every wall was the same, with strange baffles and projections.

A sound-killing room.

“Hello,” he said. His voice was odd, muffled and unfamiliar to him.

“I’m in a soundproofed room,” he said. He shouted it, but it came out as little more than a whisper. A soft, dull whisper.

He sat and waited. Nothing happened. He continued to sit in the chair for what seemed like a very long time; how long, he could not be sure. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps half an hour.

Then white smoke began to hiss softly into the room. It was a funny kind of smoke, opaque and totally odorless. He thought it would make him cough, but it did not.

Soon he was surrounded by white smoke, so dense that he could not see the walls. It was as if he were floating in the center of a cloud.

He remained that way for a long time. And then the sound began. It was a bizarre sound, like radio static, and maddening.

White sound.

That was what they called it: a mixture of frequencies of sound, just as white light was a mixture of wavelengths of light. It was a steady, monotonous, unvarying crackling.

White sound.

He spoke. He could hear nothing but the static, his words were lost in it, disappearing into the blanket of sound.

Very neat, he thought. White light, white sound, floating in a foggy cloud. No up, no down, no stimuli. Nothing to look at, nothing to listen to, nothing to smell or feel.

But there was something to feel—he ran his fingers over the wooden arms of the chair. He tensed his arms against the straps until it hurt. He forced himself to pay attention to the sensations in his hands.

He continued to do this for a long time. But then, when next he noticed, his hands and legs were free; someone had taken away the straps.

He must have slept.

But he didn’t remember.

He thought of getting out of the chair, of moving around, but he was afraid to move in the white fog and the white sound which came to him evenly in all directions. He was lost. He told himself that he was in a little room, that outside was a laboratory, and people checking on him, that there was a door outside to the laboratory, and that door was right ahead of him.

Ahead?

No, behind.

Behind where? What if they had turned him around, when they removed the straps. What if they had changed his orientation?

He sighed. Perhaps they had, perhaps not. In any case, it was too much trouble. Too much trouble to bother with. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. There was no point in keeping them open: there was nothing to look at.

He tried to relax.

The first electric shock traveled up his spine, snapping him awake and instantly alert. He blinked his eyes. The fog was still there, and the sound.

What were they doing?

There were more shocks, and still more. He sat limply in the chair, not understanding. Sensory deprivation meant absence of sensation. By shocking him, they were providing stimuli.

Why?

He closed his eyes. He was feeling very tired now. He ran his fingers through his hair, and touched—

Wires.

Wires?

Someone had put wires on his head, he thought sleepily. That was strange of them.

Shocks again. He was sleepy in a way he had never been before; after each shock came, he dozed off immediately afterward. His bones ached and his eyes hurt with fatigue.

Another shock.

Why?

And then he realized that they were keeping him awake, purposely keeping him awake, and the electrodes on his head were connected to an encephalograph.

So they would know when he was dreaming.

Vaguely, he remembered the studies. In sleeping, a normal person dreamed with great regularity ten minutes out of every hour. If you missed a night of sleep, you dreamed twice as much the next night.

If you were awakened each time you started to dream—as indicated by changes in brain wave activity—then the sleep did you no good. You could be awakened during non-dreaming periods without harm. But if you were prevented from dreaming….

Another shock.

He responded sluggishly. Psychosis, that was what it produced. Sleep deprivation psychosis. The absence of dreaming drove a man—

Shock.

Mad. Drove him mad.

He had never been so tired. No one in the history of the world had been so tired. There was no greater blessing than sleep, it was better than cold mountain water, better than caviar, better than Hogarth’s mother.

Hogarth’s mother?

Rocking herself to sleep.

There was another shock.

He saw it all very clearly now, despite the white fog and the white sound and the shocks. He saw that the elephant king had overcome the giants in the land of Peruvian Green, and the queen of the homeostasis had integrated all the mega-functions on the top of her crystal blackboard. Meanwhile the gun was pointed at the cap of the archduke who flew over the castle tops wearing his pink beret while he selected a suitable tree upon which to perch and lay his nest of eggs. That was to be expected since there was Dante’s voyage across the seven seas in glorious meritocracy and seaside playpens of laughing infants who played in the seaside digging sandcastles and innovating in the ocean before they were finally allowed to sleep, and then they were happy and gurgling, and soft voices of their dear departed mother would whisper into their ear, all sorts of marvelous reassurances about the future of the Holy Grail and IBM lost ten points in heavy low rubberneck.

Forester, a rubber of whist, eh? And then we fixed on the fort, all guns blazing for her majesty.

Eh?

20. EIGHTEENTH NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

“YOU’LL BE PLEASED TO know,” George Washington said, smiling kindly, “that everything was a complete success. An unqualified success.”

Clark felt a surging thrill, a moment of great pleasure. “That’s wonderful.”

“We’re still concerned about how long the effects will last—”

Oh dear, Clark thought, suddenly worried.

“—but we can hope, at least, that they are permanent.”

Permanent? How delightful that was, how thrilling. They were truly on the verge of a breakthrough in science. He felt an almost palpable sense of discovery. It was very exciting, working here in Advance. It was the most exciting thing a young man could do.

“I’m very eager to begin work,” Clark said, rubbing his hands together.

Washington gave him a funny look.

“Is something wrong, George?”

“No,” George said. “It’s just…well, sometimes I can’t believe it myself, is all. You’re a new man, Roger.”

“I know it. I feel like a new man.”

“Yes, I’m sure you must,” Washington said. “Well then: down to business, eh? I’ll show you around your lab, and then you can get right to work. Oh, by the way, Harvey wants to see you.”

“Harvey wants to see me?” It was an honor, the president of such a fine company wanting to see him,

“Yes,” George said. “Come along.”

Roger met with Harvey and George in the big office. They were both very happy, and Roger felt happy as well. He was extremely eager to begin his work; he could hardly contain his excitement. It was such a wonderful company, so dynamic and interesting.

After that, George took him to the lab, which was ideally equipped, everything a man could ask for. And a smashingly beautiful technician who seemed very interested in him. They showed him where everything was stored, including the two vials of powder, one white, the other pink.

“Now then,” George said, his voice ringing with enthusiasm, “these are the drugs you’ll be working with. The drug of choice here—” he raised the white vial “—and the reversal drug here.” He held out the pink vial. “You’ve had some experience with these before, so you know how vital and important this work is.”

There was no question of it in Roger’s mind. It was not only important, it was fascinating. It presented a huge intellectual challenge, a great stimulus.

“What we need to know,” George said, “is maximum dosages for these drugs. We’ve been using it cautiously, because we don’t know upper limits. But we suspect that we are not getting the maximum benefits from the drug administration. That’s where you come in. We want you to set those limits of dosage. You’ll work with animals at first, and later, when you’ve done the groundwork, with people.”

It was thrilling, Roger thought. In his mind, he could see the endless experiments he would perform, and his steady progress toward an eventual solution to this fascinating project.

“Just one word of caution,” George said. “These drugs are both very potent, and very valuable. Manufacture is still expensive, and there is only one person who does it.”

“Only one?”

“Yes. Harvey. He’s the only one that knows the formula, and he won’t tell anyone else.”

That seemed strange to Roger at first, but as he thought about it, he could understand the reasons. Harvey was being careful; he ought to be careful. Those drugs could be dangerous in the wrong hands. They could be…well, exploited.

“You see, Roger, this firm is making all its money at the present time from this drug, and its use on the island. Funds from that are financing all the research in this large building, and all our projects, like Sharon Wilder and the Glow Girl.”

Roger nodded. Two excellent projects. Nice young girls given a chance in a lifetime to make good. Very worthy and charitable projects.

“So Harvey is playing it close. And he limits the amount of drug he is making available. So don’t drop it or lose it or anything.”

“Oh no,” Roger said. “I wouldn’t do anything like that.” George gave him a funny look again, then smiled, and left.

The lab technician said, “We’re going to have a fine time here,” and Roger could only agree. Immediately, he began work.

The next two weeks were the happiest he had ever known. He had a worthy project, and he devoted himself to it during every waking hour. He lived in a pleasant room on the top floor of the building, so it was very convenient. He was close to his work and had no need to leave for anything. Whatever he requested was brought to him instantly. It was a very agreeable place to work.

He saw Sharon Wilder once, and she seemed happy to see him. She asked how things were going and he said they were going wonderfully.

During the second week, he saw Susan Ryle, the Glow Girl. She looked surprisingly different. They had done things to her, cut her hair and changed the way she made up her eyes. She was like a different person. She remarked to Roger that he looked different, too. He was very flattered.

Toward the end of the second week, he began having dreams. At first, they occurred only occasionally, strange and annoying dreams. They disturbed his sleep.

He thought of mentioning them to George, but never did. He was afraid that George would take him off the project if he knew. After all, they couldn’t have an unstable man working on an important project.

And he was feeling a little unstable.

Later, the dreams began to come every night. They were always the same. He was flying an airplane over tropical islands, shining in blue water. He was happy, flying the airplane. And then the airplane would go into a dense fog, and it would start to worry him.

He would wake up in a cold sweat.

Perhaps, he thought, I am working too hard. He took more of an interest in his lab technician, who was interested in him as well. She began to spend nights in his room, and he dreamed less when she was there.

But with time, the dreams progressed. He would fly into the fog, and then somehow he would know that there was an end to the fog, a frightening end. Something outside the comforting, frightening white fog.

He no longer invited the technician to stay with him. He was afraid that he would talk in his sleep, and she would report him to George, and that would mean he would be taken off the project. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Because he lived for that project; it meant everything to him.

Everything.

Sometime during the sixth week, his dreams broke through the fog. He saw what lay beyond, and it was some kind of hideous chair.

Immediately, he woke up. He was shivering and sweating, and angry. He did not understand precisely why, but he was very, very angry.

He got out of bed in a silent rage, and dressed. He had no real idea what he was doing, or where he was going. Once dressed, he looked around the room and saw a large paperweight on his desk. It was heavy plastic, with a piece of rock imbedded inside.

He carried it downstairs with him. As he moved quietly through the halls, his anger was very great; he could hardly wait until he met that damned guard.

As he reached the ground floor, he saw the guard. It was Sam, the night duty man; Roger had met him before in the evenings.

“Hello, Dr. Clark,” Sam said. “Another late night with the experiments?”

“Yes,” Roger said. “Looks like it.”

He let the guard walk past him. Then he turned, and swung with the paperweight. He felt a flash of horror as the heavy plastic struck skull and scalp; the guard fell and bled profusely.

His anger began to die.

The chair, he thought, and it slowly came back to him. Not all of it, but some.

Enough.

Quickly, he took the keychain from Sam’s belt and used it to shut down the alarm. Then he unlocked the front door and went down the steps into the night. Two cars were parked in the lot—a black limousine and a brown sedan, which he guessed was Sam’s car. He tried the keys until he found the one which unlocked the door; he got in and started the engine, and drove down the drive.

It was not until he was on the road that he realized he had no idea where he was going.

It was difficult to think clearly. Images were flashing through his mind, conflicting images.

“They did something to me,” he said aloud. “They did something to my head.”

That was it.

They had done something. And now where?

Dimly, he remembered bits of conversation. “…you’re nothing outside…” “nowhere to go…” “Friends aren’t friends, any more…” Was it true? He wondered.

And then, not knowing what else to do, he drove back to his old apartment.

It was foolish of him. He should have known it would be watched. When he pulled up across the street from the entrance, he saw the man sitting in the car, and the other man lounging against a lamppost on the streetcorner.

By now, they would know he had escaped. They would be after him. Where could he go?

The police.

But somehow he wasn’t ready to go to the police, not yet. He wanted to talk it over with somebody else, to try out the story, see how it sounded.

Sharon?

No. She’d turn him in.

Harry, the intern?

No. He would be all confused, bewildered, unhelpful.

Dr. Shine?

Perhaps. That was a good possibility. Or Dr. Andrews, the Chief of Medicine at the hospital. But somehow…

Janice Connor.

Of course! He snapped his fingers. Janice would hear him out.

He drove away from his apartment, toward the Strip, and parked at an all-night drive in. The kids were there, laughing and necking in convertibles under the lights. He found a payphone near the restrooms, dropped in his money and dialed.

A sleepy girl answered. “Hello?”

“Janice Connor, please.”

“This is she.”

“Janice, this is Roger Clark.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then: “Who?”

“Roger Clark. You remember me, I’m the doctor—”

“Yes, yes. I remember. Where have you been?”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Clark said. “They had me locked up in this place, and—”

“Where are you now, Roger?” she said.

“I’m at a drive-in on the Strip. Super-burger, it’s called.”

Another pause. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want to talk to you. I thought if I came over to your place, we could—”

“No, no. It’s better if we meet somewhere else. I’ll come down. Super-burger?”

“Yes.”

“Give me fifteen minutes,” she said. When he hung up, he felt an immense sense of relief.

21. IT’S YOU, ROGER

HE HAD A HAMBURGER and settled down to wait, but as he waited, he began to have odd feelings. He didn’t like to be suspicious, but …

Feeling almost guilty, he drove his car out of the drive-in lot and across the street, parking it a block away, on the hill leading down to the center of town. Then he walked back and stood on the corner across the street from the drive-in.

The night was cool but not cold, and the laughter of the kids was gay and reassuring. When Janice drove up in her Italian sportscar, he felt himself relaxing once more. She was alone; everything was fine. She got out of the car and stood uncertainly, looking around her.

He started to cross the street.

At that moment, he heard the sirens. He froze, moved back to the curb.

Three police cars converged on the Super-burger Drive-in. They pulled up, lights flashing, sirens going. Six cops jumped out, guns drawn.

The kids screamed. The scene was chaotic. There were cries of “Bust! Bust!”

And in the middle of it all, Janice stood frowning and worried-looking. One of the cops came up to her to talk. She answered his questions, shaking her head.

Bitch, he thought, and moved back down the bill. He got into the car and drove off. The night air was making him more clear-headed, and he was remembering more of what had happened to him. He remembered the chair, and the room, and the sounds and fog and shocks. He remembered it dimly, as if it had been a dream.

But it made sense—even as a dream.

Janice, on the other hand. She made no sense at all. Why had she called the cops? And they were cops, no question of it. They weren’t fakes. They were real, live, honest-to-God cops.

And they had come very quickly.

Ergo…

He was a wanted man. Wanted for what?

He drove half a mile to a gas station, got out and made another call, this time to Dr. Andrews. A woman answered. He asked for Dr. Andrews. “Dr. Andrews speaking.”

“Dr. Andrews, this is Roger Clark.”

“Roger?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Roger, where are you?”

Dr. Andrews’ voice was sympathetic and concerned. But wrong: he never called anyone by his first name. Except patients. Clark shuddered.

“Roger, are you there? Where are you?”

“I’m…downtown.”

“But where?”

“In a gas station.”

“Now look, Roger. I want you to stay where you are. Stay right where you are, and don’t get excited. Everything will be fine. Tell me the address of the gas station.”

“Why?” Clark said.

“Now, Roger,” Andrews said, chuckling. “This is no time to be difficult. We only want to help you. Tell me where you—”

Clark hung up.

So Andrews was part of it, too. What had happened? It must have been awful, whatever it was, if the whole town was after him this way.

Certainly he couldn’t go to the police. Not now. Not until he knew more. Then who?

He knocked on the door of the pink stucco mansion. A maid answered hesitantly, opening the door just a fraction. I “Yes?”

“I want to see Dr. Shine.”

“The doctor is not available.”

“He is for me. Tell him it’s Roger Clark. And tell him to hurry—if he’s not out here in a minute, I’ll leave. You understand?”

“Yes.”

The door was slammed hurriedly in his face. Clark stepped back, onto the grass, until he could look up to the second floor. He saw a light go on, probably the bedroom.

He waited on the grass, standing in the darkness beneath a large tree. After a moment, the door opened, and yellow light spilled out on the lawn. A figure emerged.

“Anybody here?”

He recognized Shine’s voice.

“It’s me. Roger Clark.”

“Oh?” The voice was disbelieving. He moved forward onto the lawn as Shine advanced. Clark could not see anything but the silhouette, framed in yellow light.

“Yes. It’s me, all right.”

“Where are you? Let me get a look at you.”

Clark stepped out from beneath the tree. “I want to talk to you—”

“My God. It is Roger Clark.”

And Shine fired. There was a spurt of flame from his waist; Clark threw himself to the ground and rolled. Another shot and still another. He rolled across the wet grass, down toward his car.

“Give up, Clark. It’s over. You’ve had it.”

Another shot rang out. But by now he had moved away from Shine. He got up and ran for his car, jumping behind the wheel. A shot shattered the rear window. He started the car, and drove off.

In the rear window he saw Shine standing in the street, and then starting to run inside.

Where, he thought, do I go now?

He knocked on the door for five minutes before there was an answer. The door opened; he saw the sleepy face of Jerry Barnes.

“Christ! Roger!”

Clark pushed him aside and entered the apartment. He closed the door behind him and locked it.

Jerry stepped back.

“Now wait a minute, Roger. Just take it easy.”

“I’m taking it easy.”

“Just relax. I know you’ve been through a lot, and—”

Jerry was moving toward the phone.

“Don’t, Jerry. Don’t touch it.”

Immediately, he moved back, holding up his hands. “Okay, okay, Rog, take it easy, right?”

Clark sat down. He was suddenly very tired. “Jerry,” he said, “what happened?”

“Nothing happened, Rog. Everything’s fine. Everything is just—”

“Everything is not fine. The whole damned town is after me. The cops are chasing me. I just got shot at. A nice girl turned me in. Everything is not fine at all.”

“Rog, they’re worried, that’s all. They’re concerned about you.”

Clark said, “You got any more martinis?”

“Sure. Always. But—”

“Make two,” Clark said. “Big ones.”

Jerry hesitated, then went into the kitchen. It was clear he was humoring Clark, and that he was afraid of him for some reason.

“Jerry,” he said, “do you know the whole story behind all this?”

“Yeah, sure, Rog,” Jerry said. “Everybody knows.”

“Everybody?”

“Yeah, we thought it was very, uh, disturbing.”

“You bet it’s disturbing,” Clark said. He got up and went into the kitchen, where he heard Jerry pouring the drinks.

“It’s disturbing as—”

Abruptly, he was struck on the back of the head.

He fell, in a moment of pain and dizziness, but sat up immediately. Jerry was standing over him with a soda bottle in his hand.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Clark said. Jerry looked confused. “I was trying…”

“To knock me out? Thanks.” He rubbed his head, which throbbed painfully.

“It always works in pictures,” Jerry said, putting the bottle down.

“Thanks a lot.”

“Well, it’s for your own good,” Jerry said. “You ought to realize you’re a sick man. You need time to recover, to get back on an even keel.”

“And you were just trying to help,” Clark said.

“I don’t know,” Jerry said. He looked embarrassed. “Here. Take this. Drink it and get the hell out of here.” He gave Clark the martini. “It’s all I can do for you, Rog.”

Clark looked at the martini and continued to rub his head. He was getting nowhere with Jerry. He was getting nowhere with anybody. It was all—

“I’m a sick man?”

“Look, Rog, it’s an illness. Just like any other kind of illness. You’ll get well, but it takes time. We all have faith in you.”

“Jerry,” he said slowly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It was quite a shock to all of us,” Jerry said.

“What was?”

“The whole business.”

“What business?”

Jerry turned, picked up a newspaper clipping from on top of the refrigerator, and handed it to Clark.

He read it quickly. The headline said DOCTOR COMMITTED. The story was brief and vague, describing how Dr. Roger Clark, a resident at the Los Angeles Memorial Hospital, had attacked a medical secretary, Miss Janice Connor. She had called the police and Clark had been retained in custody by the police; later, when she declined to press charges, he was released into the care of Dr. Harvey Blood for institutional treatment.

“Oh,” Clark said.

“I got to admit,” Jerry said, “you don’t seem too crazy to me, just a little confused.”

“You’ve been clearer yourself,” Clark said. He tapped the article with his finger. “This is a frame, Jerry.”

“A frame?”

“Yeah. This guy Blood arranged for me to be shipped off to a Caribbean island, where they give the guests all these drugs, and then—”

“Now, Rog…”

“It’s the truth, I swear it.”

“I’m willing to believe you, Rog, but I’m not the one you have to convince.”

At that moment, he heard sirens in the distance, but coming closer.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Jerry said innocently.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Clark said. He went to the bedroom and looked in. Linda was there, cowering in the bed, still holding the telephone.

“Thanks for everything,” Clark said.

He ran.

He drove off just as the first of the police cars pulled up in front of Jerry’s apartment building. It was now four in the morning; the first dawn was lightening the sky over the mountains to the east.

Time was very important now. In daylight, they would have him, and daylight was only a few hours away. He felt his old anger returning, the blind rage which made him sweat and shiver.

He was all alone—he knew that now. Nobody could help him. He had to find a solution by himself, and he had to find it quickly.

To begin with, he needed materials. But where would he find them?

Only one place came to mind: the hospital.

He slipped in through the service entrance, and made his way along the underground tunnels to the elevators. No one saw him; he was alone with his echoing footsteps and the hissing pipes overhead.

At the elevator, he pressed the fourth floor button, and held it. The doors closed, and the elevator ascended smoothly, without stopping at any intermediate floors.

At the fourth floor, the doors opened. He went out. Directly ahead was a sign: TO OPERATING ROOMS.

This was where he wanted to be.

22. BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.

DOWN THE HALLWAY WAS the utility closet. He ducked in and found a pair of coveralls and the blue shirt that maintenance men wore; there was also a transistor radio hanging on a peg. The night men often carried a transistor around with them for company. He put on the coveralls and shirt, hung the transistor from the strap around his shoulder, and turned it on.

It was a Beatles song; he paid little attention as he pushed the large utility cart forward. On the cart were several trays of supplies, and a large cloth sack at one end, open at the top, for garbage disposal.

He pushed the cart into the operating area, through the swinging doors, his transistor going full blast. There was a night nurse at the registration desk, next to the large blackboard where the day’s operations were scheduled and crossed off when completed; there were two recovery room nurses walking around, and a maintenance man waxing the floors in OR 2.

Nobody paid any attention to him, though the night nurse glanced up when she heard the music. He pushed his cart through to the supply room, and busied himself cleaning out the wastebaskets. A technician was there, hunting among the shelves of supplies that ran from floor to ceiling.

She turned to him. “We’re out of Kellys,” she said.

“What?”

“We’re out of Kellys. Order more from central supply, will you?”

“All right,” he said.

The technician left; he was alone in the room. Swiftly, he pushed the cart down to the anesthesia supplies. There were several cans of ether on the lowest shelf. Alongside was a sign: “Authorized Personnel Only.”

He scooped up six of the cans and set them onto the shelf of the cart. Then, looking further, he saw a timer used to record the anesthetic induction times; it was a mechanical, spring-wound affair, but quite accurate.

Lastly, he found an oxygen cylinder. It was a small one, just a few cubic feet, but quite heavy. He could carry it under one arm, but it weighed twenty pounds.

He looked around, found the stickers, and pasted one across the cylinder: EMPTY RETURN TO GAS LABORATORY FOR REFILLING.

A few minutes later, he was back in the utility closet, shucking off his overalls.

“Gee, I had a dreadful flight,” went the song on the radio.

He flicked it off, gathered up the equipment, wrapped the coveralls around it, and walked out to the elevator.

Once outside the hospital, he had a moment of elation. He had done it; he had pulled it off. He drove away into the early morning, and as he drove his elation disappeared.

The most difficult part was still ahead.

It took him twenty minutes, driving on back roads and through residential districts, to reach the Santa Monica Freeway. From there, it was twelve minutes to the Los Calos exit. The sun was beginning to appear above the mountains as he turned off the freeway, and onto the small road that led north, to Advance, Inc.

It was quite light when he reached the black sign by the road; he drove a quarter mile beyond, then pulled the car off the road and into the woods. He walked back to the road and tried to hide the tire tracks, but it was difficult, and he abandoned the attempt after a few minutes.

He returned to the car, got out his material, and crept through the woods toward Advance. It was fifteen minutes before he came to the rise in the hill, and was able to look down over the glass building and the parking lot. There were two police cars in the lot, next to the limousine. The cops were standing around, talking to a short man whom he recognized as Harvey Blood.

They seemed to be having an argument; Blood was waving his hands and speaking earnestly, while the cops stood around frowning.

He looked from the parking lot toward the building itself, his eyes going along the ground floor windows to those of his own lab. He usually left one window open, though he was not supposed to. He hated stuffy labs in the morning.

He saw the window: he was in luck. It was open.

Back at the parking lot, Blood seemed to be winning his argument. The cops shrugged and climbed into their cars, and drove off. One, however, remained behind, standing at the entrance to the building.

As the police cars left, Harvey Blood went into the building. The cop remained outside. He took his gun from his holster, checked it, and put it back, leaving the flap loose.

In the early morning light, he practiced a quick draw, then nodded to himself, apparently satisfied, and sat down on the steps.

Clark waited.

A light went on in Harvey Blood’s office.

Clark moved down the hillside.

He had planned to move stealthily; he envisioned himself sliding like a silent shadow down the hill. Instead, he stumbled and fell, rolling over and over, the heavy oxygen cylinder clanging on the rocks.

At the foot of the hill, winded, ribs aching, he paused. The sound had seemed unbearably loud: the cop at the front of the building must have heard.

He scrambled forward to his open window, pushed it wide, and looked into the lab. The lights were out and the lab was empty. He pushed his equipment through the window, easing it gently to the floor. Then he climbed up and through, dropping down and waiting.

Two minutes passed, and then the cop appeared. He was walking along the rear of the building, gun out, eyes up to the hillside.

Clark could see the track he had left coming down the hill. The long grass was trampled in an unmistakable path. He held his breath and waited.

The cop didn’t notice. He moved on.

Clark continued to wait, huddled down on the floor, his face pressed up against the cool oxygen bottle. Another three minutes passed, and the cop returned, walking back around to the front.

When he was finally gone, Clark stood. He walked around the benches of the lab, searching for something that would do the trick. He needed something that would work slowly…

The hot plate.

He paused. Perfect!

It was a simple hot plate, a single burner of the kind used by little old ladies in retirement apartments. In the lab, it was employed to heat reagents and bottles of liquid. It had a single coil which glowed red-hot in a matter of minutes.

Perfect.

He spent the next few moments cutting the wires to the coil, and hooking them into the anesthesia timer. He wasn’t sure about the connections, but there was no time to make them more secure. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was already six-fifteen.

No time.

He collected all his gear and looked around him. He needed an airtight room, now, a perfectly airtight room. His own lab would never do.

But he knew someplace that would.

Fortunately, he had kept the keychain from Sam, the night guard, so he had keys to open any room in the building. It was the work of a few moments to slip down the hallway and into George K. Washington’s lab.

He hesitated as he entered. Directly ahead was the chair, the tracks, and the door leading to the soundproofed room. He felt a kind of deep revulsion, and for an instant he thought he could not make himself enter the room. Then he heard footsteps outside, and Harvey Blood’s voice saying “…be back, I know he will…”

Clark smiled grimly.

He opened the door to the soundproofed room, and set the hot plate on the ground, resting it on the baffles. He plugged it into a socket, and twisted the timer to fifteen minutes. It began ticking softly.

Then, he set the oxygen cylinder on the floor nearby, and opened the valve a half turn. He heard a hissing and felt me coolness of the gas.

Finally, he took the small cylinders of ether, pulled the corks, and sprinkled the liquid around the room. The burning, acrid odor of ether stung his nostrils and made his eyes water; after two cans, he was not sure he could go on, it was making him dizzy, but he forced himself.

He managed to empty six cylinders, and threw in a seventh for good measure.

Then, coughing, he went back, and slammed the door shut. It closed heavily.

He checked his watch: fourteen minutes left.

It was not, he thought, the best explosive in the world, but it would do. Ether and air was reasonably powerful; ether and oxygen, pure oxygen, would be extremely potent. The enclosed space of the room would do the rest.

When that room exploded, it would really go. Smiling, he went back to his lab.

As he took the pink vial off the shelf and mixed two grams in water, a part of him was horrified. The deliberate cruelty of it shocked him. But another part of him was pleased and excited by what he was about to do.

In a way, he thought, it was fitting. He mixed the solution, and filled a syringe. Then he slipped on a labcoat, dropped the syringe in his pocket, and went to pay a final visit on Harvey Blood.

There were eleven minutes left.

“Hello, Roger,” Harvey Blood said calmly, looking up from his desk. “I see you’re back.”

“Yes,” Clark said. “I’m back.”

“You led the police a merry chase, Roger.”

“Yes. I did.”

“But I knew you’d come back,” Blood said. “I knew it all along. You see, Roger, we arranged everything so that you would have to come back.”

“Yes,” Clark said. “That’s true.”

“The effects of our treatment wore off,” Blood said. “We knew it was happening. We watched you change for the last few weeks. We knew that eventually you would do this, and we were prepared for it.”

“Prepared?”

“Yes. In fact, we’ve been counting on you to make your escape, and to act in a bizarre fashion. Which, naturally, you did. We needed that for legal reasons.”

“What reasons?”

Blood sighed. “Poor Roger. You never will understand, will you? We needed this final evidence in order to certify you insane.”

Harvey Blood sat back in his chair and looked steadily at Clark… “The corporation is overextended,” he said. “Now do you understand?”

Clark sat down. “No.”

“We had very good initial success, with some viruses which we sold to the government. Then we developed the drug, and put it to use in the resort. Another success. We grew bolder—began branching out, working on a wide variety of projects. We accepted contracts from a number of companies. Contracts, Roger, which we have been unable to fill.”

Clark frowned.

“In fact,” Blood said, “we began to find ourselves in great financial trouble. So much trouble, that our good projects—the ones that were panning out, the ones that promised success, the ones like Glow Girl—couldn’t be properly funded. Glow Girl was initially planned for a million. Yesterday, we found that we had only eighty thousand available for it. It’s embarrassing, Roger. Very embarrassing. Half our projects aren’t working out, and the others we can’t finance.” Clark glanced at his watch. “How much time?” Harvey Blood asked mildly. Clark said nothing.

“Oh, there’s no point in trying to hide it. We know what’s happening. For example,” he said, “I just got a call from the police. They notified me that the LA Memorial Hospital had just been robbed. A peculiar robbery—some ether and some oxygen. Now who would take ether and oxygen, Roger?”

Clark felt everything sliding away from him, his plans, his preparations, all of it disappearing into some awful master plan.

“I’ve been a fool,” he said. There were ten minutes left.

23. FOOLS WALK OUT

“NOT A FOOL, ROGER,” Harvey Blood said. “Just nearsighted. You mustn’t let it depress you. It could have happened to anybody. Speaking for the corporation, I must say we are all very pleased at the way you’ve worked out. You’ve been a great help to us, a great help. And now, when you destroy this building, you will have performed an invaluable service. We can’t thank you enough.”

There was still time, Clark thought, to go back and pull the plug. Still time to call it off…

“The fact is,” Blood continued, “that we’ve removed all our notes and data from the building. We did it four days ago, because we knew you’d make your move soon. Assuming you are an efficient deviser of homemade bombs—and ether and oxygen should be efficient enough—we can expect this entire building to be demolished. Think what that will mean: no building, no labs, nothing. Obviously we cannot complete our contractual obligations. Obviously, the insurance clauses which cover such contracts will be invoked. And obviously, the insurance on this building itself—five million dollars, and a little more—will go far toward financing our viable projects. So you see, it will all work out nicely.”

Clark found his voice at last. “And me?”

“Well, I admit you pose a problem. You’re quite mad. You’ve attacked a girl, you escaped from my care and flew around the Caribbean, and now you escaped again, threatening friends and acquaintances. And to climax it all, you destroy a corporation. Quite mad. I have no doubt that the courts will find you homicidal and destructive in the extreme, and will want to institutionalize you in a state hospital.”

“I see. But I’ll—”

“Talk? You will indeed. And that is why you pose a problem.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Well, not immediately, Roger. Not immediately.”

Clark stood up. “You have it all worked out,” he said. “You’ve always had it worked out, from the very beginning.”

“We like to think so,” Blood said.

Silently, Clark removed the syringe from his pocket and set it on the desk. The pink liquid was clearly visible.

“Have you thought about this?” he asked.

Harvey Blood did not move. His face was expressionless as he stared at the syringe.

“Roger, you’re being foolish.”

“I think I’m finally being smart.”

“Roger, there’s no need—”

“I disagree.” Clark picked up the syringe and held it to the light, squeezing the plunger slightly so that the air bubbles were pushed out. A fine stream of liquid shot into the air. “Roger, that’s a large dose—”

Blood was reaching into the desk drawer. In a swift movement, Clark came around the desk, shoved the drawer shut with his knee. Blood screamed.

Clark jabbed the needle into Blood’s arm, right through his clothing. He felt it enter the skin and muscle; he squeezed out the contents.

Blood did not move. His mouth fell open in horror, and he clutched his arm.

Clark pushed him away from the desk, opened the drawer, and removed the gun. Alongside it in the drawer was a small tuning fork.

He held it up to Blood and smiled.

“Listen Roger,” Harvey Blood said, speaking very rapidly, “listen, we can work something out.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Listen, Roger, you’re being ridiculous. If you think by all this that you can stop the corporation—”

“I can stop you.”

“—you’re wrong. I’m not alone. Advance is not alone. All over the country, corporations are springing up. What we don’t do, somebody else will carry out. It’s impossible to stop us. It’s the wave of the future. It’s coming, like it or not.” Clark held the tuning fork loosely in his hand. “Don’t you see?” Harvey Blood said. “Don’t you understand? You’re fighting for a principle that doesn’t exist. Already you are manipulated, pushed, pulled, tugged by your world. Do you think a car is beautiful? If you do, it is only because somebody paid millions in advertising to make you think so. Do you find a woman attractive? If you do, it is only because someone planned the fashion, the clothing, the walk, the talk—”

“No,” Clark said. “You’re wrong.”

“Are you against drugs? If you are, you’re in the minority. The largest-selling prescription drugs in this country are tranquilizers and sedatives. Everybody takes them. Everybody wants them. Everybody loves—”

“No,” Clark said. “You’re wrong.”

“Do you want to live in a certain neighborhood? Do you find certain food tasty? Do you prefer certain climates, clothes, cars, paintings, movies, books, films, toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, singers? Don’t you see your preferences are all conditioned? Don’t you see you are manipulated every minute of your life? You’re manipulated by Proctor and Gamble, by Ford, by MGM, by Random House, by Brooks, by Bergdorf, by Revlon, by Upjohn—”

“No,” Clark said. “You’re wrong.”

“I’m right,” Harvey Blood said, sweat pouring down his face. His eyes were fixed on the tuning fork. “I swear to God I’m right.”

“You’re wrong,” Clark said, and struck the tuning fork against the desk.

It hummed softly.

Harvey Blood did not move. He continued to stare at Clark, and his lips worked, but he did not speak. Clark watched with a kind of curiosity: he had never given the reversal drug in such a large dose before.

Harvey Blood screamed.

“They’re after me!” he cried. “They’re all after me!”

He sobbed, tears running down his cheeks. And then he began to pound his head against the desk.

Clark looked at his watch.

Four minutes.

He walked out of the room, hearing Harvey Blood’s cries, and the sound of his head thumping against polished mahogany.

The rest went quite smoothly. He hit the policeman at the front door across the back of the skull, then carried him, feet scraping, across the asphalt parking lot, dropping him onto the wet grass some distance from the building.

Three minutes.

He climbed into the limousine and started the engine. As he was about to pull out of the parking lot, a small sportscar came up and stopped by the entrance. A girl got out; he recognized Susan Ryle.

He called to her. She came over, frowning. “What’s going on?”

“There’s about to be an explosion,” he said, pointing to the building. “Right in there.”

“An explosion? What are you talking about?”

“Get into the car,” he said. She hesitated. “Get in!”

She climbed into the back seat. He checked his watch: a little more than two minutes.

He drove down to the road, turned left, and went two hundred yards. He pulled off and waited. From here, they could still see the building.

She said, “You’re really serious.” Her voice was awed and frightened.

“I really am, Susan.”

“My name isn’t Susan now. It’s Angela Sweet.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s Susan once again.”

The seconds ticked by. Finally Susan said, “How do you know there’s going to be—”

She stopped. She understood. “You’re a madman,” she said.

“Apparently.” He grinned.

“You’re going to blow up that building?”

“Apparently.”

One minute left. He sighed.

“But you can’t do that. Everything is there—my costumes, the music, everything.” He shrugged. “The breaks.”

“How can you do this to me?” she wailed, and began to cry.

At that moment, the headquarters of Advance, Inc. exploded. Clark thought it was rather a nice explosion, one that built up slowly from a muffled roar to a giant hot fireball as chemical stores caught and blew. The building seemed to fly apart; the sky was filled with gas and burning sparks.

Susan watched, mouth open, and then sobbed loudly. “I hate you,” she said. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

“That’s all right,”

“I hope when they catch you they lock you up and throw away the key.”

“They may do that,” he said, starting the car and driving down the road.

“You’re completely insane,” she said. “Hopelessly insane.”

“That will be decided,” he said. He turned onto the freeway, and headed toward the police station. As he drove, he wondered if she were right. He wondered if he were really insane.

He decided that probably, he wasn’t.

But it was hard to be sure.