Dumbly, Luke jerked at Toy’s arm even as the roof dented inward at him, its murderous weight no more than a foot from his head. He figured the pressure might sever Dr. Toy’s legs; Luke pictured it the way a hot dog gets sliced off the link at a factory—a quick snip between two sharp blades and six inches of pink, processed meat drops into the hopper. If so, Luke could drag Toy out and maybe, with any luck, cauterize the stumps before he died of blood loss.
But the pressure was knowing. Toy’s legs were merely crushed, leaving an inch or so of clearance to the floor. The foam popped spastically as the ceiling trundled over Toy’s thighs, blood spraying in pressurized fans, then over his hips, which shattered and flattened with a percussive jolt that shook his entire frame—the sight reminded Luke of a butterflied chicken, its spine snapped with one deft downward thrust of a chef’s palm.
Toy’s face was greasy with shock. The gamy stink of adrenaline poured off him. The ceiling pushed drifts of paper forward; the balled-up wads accumulated at the sides of Toy’s body like dust bunnies around a bedpost. The metal rolled over Toy’s chest, but only enough to crack his ribs, which snapped with the sound of Black Cat firecrackers.
It’s savoring it, Luke’s mind yammered. Whatever it is, this thing or things, it’s taking its time now.
Dr. Toy’s eyelids sucked around their edges like the papery mouths of suckerfish. Blood burped from his ears in fits and starts, like sludgy water from a tap that hadn’t been used in some time. Toy vented a volley of gluey, piglike squeals. How was he still alive?
The roof bellied down menacingly, striking Luke and knocking him aside. He stood and staggered to the hatch.
I’m sorry so sorry Hugo…
He spun the wheel and glanced back just as the ceiling flowed over Toy’s head in an awesome wave.
Toy’s skull bulged in its overtaxed wrapping of skin.
Nonononono…
Toy began to laugh. The sound was muffled by the frantic pop-pop of the space-age material, but Luke heard it perfectly. Horrifically, insanely, it was the laughter of a child. An infant’s laugh—his son Zachary’s laugh: that high, wheezing, out-of-control titter he used to make as a toddler when Luke pressed his lips to Zach’s belly and blew a raspberry. A zzzrrrbbt! he’d called them, that being the sound it made.
Zzzzzzrrrbbt! ZZZZZZRRRRRBT!
Toy’s skull split with an ear-rending crack. The skin tore apart in a perfect horizontal seam—a tight smile splitting his scalp. Tremendous pressure forced Toy’s mashed and twitching brain through the split.
Luke threw the hatch open as the metal ballooned toward him. He shoved it shut just as the ceiling flowed against it with a hissing crinkle.
The porthole glass webbed. Luke backed away and tripped over LB, who skidded backward on her rump. Luke watched the porthole with bulging eyes. He expected the glass to break and that flexible material to flow through—he pictured it stretching like taffy to project in a blunt spike, splitting his head in half as it came.
But it didn’t. The glass held.
The Trieste shivered. The walls seemed to expand like a pair of lungs inhaling a slow, contented breath. The station settled and there came, suddenly, a persistent silence—a creeping, secretive silence that carried down every tunnel.
PART 5
THE HONEYPOT
1.
LUKE FOUND ALICE in the main lab. He’d backtracked from the horror of Dr. Toy’s quarters in a daze, his entire body trembling, to find her standing in front of Westlake’s hatch. The walls creaked dimly, issuing those spastic crackling noises, but the station wasn’t shuddering on the verge of collapse as it had seemed to be in Toy’s quarters. No, the Trieste felt quite solid at the moment.
It’s as strong as it needs to be, was Luke’s preposterous, overheated thought. It exists—it, and everything in it—at the benevolence of something far greater and more terrible than itself.
Luke’s mind was still reeling; his hands were clamped on his skull as if to prevent his brain from ripping in half: he pictured his frontal and parietal lobes tearing apart from each other like the stitches popping along an overtaxed inseam. He couldn’t stop thinking about how calculated Dr. Toy’s death had been. There was a methodical brutality about it—there was no way it had been a mere accident.
The Trieste had killed Hugo Toy. It had done so in the most horrible, gloating fashion. And it had made Luke watch.
Al’s face was slack. Her lips curled in a ghostly smile as if she’d heard somebody’s voice and appreciated what that person was telling her.
“Oh yes, Monty,” she said, “I’d really like to try for what’s behind door number three.”
Her fingers played over the keypad. She punched five digits, pressed enter, and got the red Fail light. Her features twisted in anger.
“No, I am sure. Totally one hundred percent. I want door number three.” Her voice rose to a girlish squeal. “I’m feeling lucky, Monty! No Zonks!”
It dawned on Luke: Alice was dreaming—no, she was trapped in a dream-pool. In this particular dream, she was a contestant on that old Monty Hall game show, Let’s Make a Deal. Luke’s mother used to watch reruns of it while shoveling lukewarm porridge into her mouth, laughing spitefully when a hapless contestant risked his new color TV or tropical vacation for a shot at what lay behind door number three, only to get zonked with a wheelbarrow full of creamed corn, a llama, or a pair of clown shoes.
Greedy guts! she’d shout at the screen, flecks of porridge flinging from her lips. Greedy guts got greedy so that’s what greedies get!
Al tried a different code, pressed enter, and got the Fail light again. Her body vibrated with rage.
“Door number three, Monty,” she seethed through gritted teeth. “Show me what’s behind the goddamn motherfucking door, for fuck’s sake.”
The drone from behind the hatch rose to an eager buzz. The porthole was smeared with that viscid substance—honey, Luke, he thought; it’s honey—and behind it, in the feeble light of Westlake’s lab, Luke swore he saw things zipping about.
Luke set a hand on Alice’s shoulder. “Al?”
She brushed his hand away. She laughed—a flighty, quizzical titter.
“Hey, Al, come on. Hey.”
Luke squeezed Al’s shoulder, still highly adrenalized after what had happened with Dr. Toy. Al’s eyelids flickered. Her eyes were filmy, as if they’d been soaped. Her lips spat out a loop of idiot babble.
“Door three—door three—three—three…”
“Goddamn it, Al!”
Luke shook her roughly. Al staggered back, her spine rattling on the wall.
“The what—?” she squawked.
But her eyes were clearer; her expression was that of a woman roused from a bad dream. The buzz died down. Those zipping shapes zipped no more. Al regarded Luke reproachfully—the same look Abby had given Luke the night their son went missing.
“Where the hell were you?”
“Me?” Luke said. “I was right where you left me, in Westlake’s room. I’ve been looking for you.”