Fyodor took the syringes. “Can we be sure this will completely tranquilize them?”
“Without doubt,” Benton said with a laugh. “They will be completely zonked out for way longer than what we need to get them over to the OR. For your information, the diagnosis is going to be subdural hematomas. The official cause is going to be head trauma suffered during their unauthorized break-in. Norman Phillips, a neurosurgeon who is friendly to the program, will be surgeon. I’ll be doing the anesthesia to make sure they don’t wake up.”
“Is the surgeon already in the hospital?”
“He’s on his way,” Benton said.
Fyodor turned to his enforcement team and handed the leader the syringes. Speaking in Russian, he told them to get it over with quickly and haul the tranquilized students up to the patient viewing room A. From there they would be helping to transport them one at a time over to the OR when the OR was ready.
47.
Thursday, April 9, 1:11 A.M.
It took Lynn and Michael longer than they had expected to get into the recreation room. The entrance door had been different from all the others. It was as heavy as the door into Cluster 4-B, but instead of operating with a generic touch pad, it had another thumbprint security system like the one on the external door. Similar to their experience with the exterior door, it took several tries. Once again, Lynn had to warm the fake fingerprint by using her breath.
A small green light finally flashed above the touch pad, indicating success, and the door started to slide open. As with the cluster room, the first thing they were aware of was noise issuing forth. It was mechanical again, but not nearly as loud as in the cluster room. As the door opened farther, giving them a view of the interior, both students sucked in a breath and stepped back in shocked surprise.
The room was much larger than the cluster room in all respects, with a ceiling about fifty feet high. The level of illumination from a mixture of LED and ultraviolet recessed ceiling fixtures was intense. Also built into the ceiling was a maze of tracks supporting a number of large grappling hooks, each with long, curved tines. The grappling hooks resembled the claw cranes found in old-fashioned gaming arcades that, for a quarter, allowed players to try to pick up a prize. But here in the Shapiro the claws weren’t picking up prizes but rather ambulating people and dropping others off.
Massed on the floor were hundreds of naked patients, in either a vegetative state or a coma, each wearing his or her helmet and, incredibly enough, walking aimlessly about in a jerky, slightly hesitant, stiff manner, often bumping into each other as well as the walls. Their hands and arms hung limp at their sides.
“My good God!” Lynn cried. “I’m not prepared for this. This is worse than the cluster room. The helmets are not just for sensors.”
“You are so right,” Michael said, completely transfixed at the spectacle. “The helmets have to be stimulating the motor centers in coordinated ways to cause them to walk.”
Lynn shuddered. “They are like zombies, only not dead.”
Just inside the open doorway was a metal wire cage, six feet on a side, to keep the patients from approaching the door to the hallway. Some bumped into the cage just as others were bumping into the walls. The students could see that most of the people had their eyes closed, although a few had them open. Those who had them open had a distant, non-focused look, suggesting that whatever their eyes were seeing was not being registered in their brains. Their mouths were generally closed, although a few were open and drooling. Their expressions were totally blank. The patients made no sounds, even when they collided with one another. The noise in the room came from the grapplers as they brought patients in and deposited them into the crowd and snapped up others and took them off to the side.
Lynn stepped forward into the cage, propelled by her morbid curiosity. It was a sight like none she had ever seen or imagined in her wildest dreams. Michael joined her. Neither of them spoke. Suddenly a torrent of scented disinfectant liquid rained down from an elaborate high-pressure sprinkler system far up on the ceiling. Although it was short-lived, it was enough to drive both Lynn and Michael back into the hallway for a moment to keep from getting soaked. The patients ignored the sudden gush and kept up their endless, mindless wandering.
Stepping back into the cage area again, the students continued their marveling at the drama playing out in front of them. Informed by their neurology training, they knew how complex an activity such as walking was from a physiological perspective. It wasn’t enough to stimulate a specific muscle. There had to be a host of muscles stimulated to varying degrees as well as simultaneous, partial inhibition of the opposing muscles for a human to stand upright much less walk, and it all had to be coordinated through the part of the brain called the cerebellum. It was complicated enough to challenge a supercomputer.
“This is how they manage to keep these people alive,” Michael said, unable to take his eyes off the shuffling assemblage of brain-damaged patients. “This is why they don’t have trouble with pneumonias or the cardiovascular systems. People have to be mobilized or they degenerate. And the UV light provides vitamin D and antisepsis.”
“Oh, no!” Lynn cried suddenly with great anguish.
Michael’s eyes shot in her direction. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Carl,” Lynn cried, pointing off to the left.
Michael tried to follow her line of sight. It was difficult in the sea of people, jerkily staggering about in chaotic, unpredictable directions, reminding him of the Brownian movement of molecules. To make matters worse, it was hard to fixate on any given face, as they all looked remarkably the same with their blankness.
“Where, exactly?” Michael asked. He went up on his tiptoes, his eyes jumping from face to face, searching for a familiar one.
“I lost him,” Lynn said. She, too, was straining to see better.
“Are you sure you saw him?” Michael asked. “Or might it have been your imagination?”
“I saw him!” Lynn snapped angrily.
“Okay, keep it cool, girl.”
“I’m going out there,” Lynn announced with determination. The cage had a door made of the same wire mesh as the rest of the structure. It was secured with a normal throw bolt. Lynn gave it a twist. The door opened a crack.
Michael grabbed the door to keep it from opening more than a few inches. Several of the patients bumped into it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, trying to be calm yet sound forceful.
“I don’t care what you think,” Lynn said. “I’m going out there and find him.”
“And do what?” Michael demanded. “Seeing him in here is going to be worse than seeing him in one of those damn cylinders, which would have been bad enough. Don’t do this to yourself! Be smart!”
Lynn pushed on the door. Michael kept ahold of it. It was a bit of a tug-of-war. Another patient bumped into it and then veered off like the others but not before hitting up against Michael’s fingers. By reflex of having been unexpectedly touched by one of the ghoulish ambulating inmates, Michael let go of the door. Before he could reach out and grab it again, Lynn had it open enough to squeeze out onto the main floor of the room.
“Shit, Lynn!” Michael yelled after her. “Get your ass back here! You’re acting crazy, girl! Fucking A,” he fumed under his breath. He pulled the door back into its jamb as another patient careened into it. It clicked shut. Michael went back up on his tiptoes. He had already lost sight of Lynn in the jerkily roiling mob. For a brief moment he debated what to do, wondering if he should just wait her out or go after her. It wasn’t as if he thought she could get hurt except emotionally. What he really wanted to do was get the hell out of the Shapiro.