At midnight she filled her thermos and put two sandwiches and some fruit into a plastic bag. She loaded her camera and pulled on her Minneapolis Twins jacket, feeling pleased with herself. Forty minutes later she passed the police blockade at the access road and drove up the winding incline and out onto the ridge. The glow from the Roundhouse, out of sight in its excavation ditch, seemed brighter tonight. She wondered if it was still charging its batteries and made a mental note to start logging the luminosity.
It was cold, down in the teens. She parked just outside the security gate, opened her glove compartment, and took out a notebook. She sat thinking for several minutes before she knew what she wanted to say. When she’d finished, she laid the notebook open on the passenger seat, picked up a flashlight, and got out.
One of the guards, a middle-aged man whom she knew only as Henry, appeared in the door of the security station. “Good evening, Dr. Cannon,” he said. “Forget something?”
“No, Henry.” Her breath misted in the yellow light of the newly installed high-pressure sodium lamps. “I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d come out and see if I could get some work done.”
He looked at his watch, not without a sense of disapproval. “Okay,” he said. “Nobody else here. From the staff.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
He disappeared back inside. April walked through the gate and went directly into the Roundhouse, shutting the door against the cold.
At night the dome was a patchwork of light and dark, a scattering of illuminated alcoves. The lights shifted and moved as she did, following her, illuminating the ground in front, fading behind. As she approached the grid, it also lit up, spotlighted for her as if the place knew what she intended.
She hesitated. It was just as well Max wasn’t here, because then it would be impossible to back away. And until now she had believed she would back away. But the fear had almost dissipated. Something was out there, waiting for her. The illuminated grid looked both safe and inviting. Time to move out.
She switched on the flashlight and approached the icons. The triggers.
Touch the icon and you get twenty-three seconds to walk over and take your place on the grid.
She looked at the arrow, the rings, and the G clef.
The arrow.
It gleamed in the half-light. She touched the wall, just her fingertips. And pressed.
The light came on.
She took a deep breath, crossed the floor, and stepped onto the grid. The trench that had once been a channel extended out into the shadows. Across the dome, the wall was lost in the dark and the lights faded out and the night went on forever. She hitched the camera strap higher on her shoulder, taking comfort from the mundaneness of the act. She zipped her jacket almost to her neck and fought down a sudden urge to jump off the grid.
It was still dark when the telephone brought Max out of a deep sleep. He rolled over, fumbled for the instrument, picked it up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Collingwood? This is Henry Short. Out at the security gate.”
He immediately came awake. “Yes, Henry? What is it?”
“We can’t find Dr. Cannon,” he said.
He relaxed. “She’s sleeping next door.”
“No, sir. She came out here at about twelve-thirty. Went inside the Roundhouse. But she’s not in there now.”
Max looked at his watch. A quarter after three.
“We’ve checked the other buildings. She’s not anywhere. We can’t figure it out.”
“Is her car still there?”
“Yes, sir. She hasn’t come back through the gate.”
Max was genuinely puzzled. To him the conversation earlier that evening, with its implications and pointed omissions, had been purely hypothetical. “Henry, did you check the rear apartments in the Roundhouse?”
“We looked everywhere.”
“Okay. Call the police. I’m on my way.”
He hung up and rang her motel number. No one answered. He stared at the phone and finally recognized the possibility that she might have used the grid. Thoroughly alarmed, he dressed hastily, climbed into his car and started for Johnson’s Ridge. He should have told Henry to look in the channel. Maybe she’d fallen in there. It would have been easy enough for the security people to miss her.
He picked up his cellular phone, dialed the gate, and got a new voice. George Freewater. “How are we doing?” he asked.
“Still no news. The police are on their way.” Long pause. “Max, if she’s outside, she won’t last very long. It’s cold.”
“I know. Did you look in the channel?”
He heard a brief conversation on the other end, and then George came back. “Yes, we looked in the channel. Listen, Mr. Collingwood, we found something else. There’s a message addressed to you. It was on the front seat of her car.”
“Me?” Max’s stomach lurched. “What’s it say?”
“You want me to read it?”
“Yes, George. Please.”
“Okay. It says—Wait a minute; the light’s not so good here. It says, ‘Dear Max, I’m following the arrow. Since you’re reading this, something may have gone wrong. Sorry. I enjoyed working with you.’ ” George grunted. “What’s she talking about?”
Max’s headlights lost themselves in the dark. “I’m not sure,” he said. But he knew.
The Man in the White Suit is alive and well. Those who remember the classic British film starring Alec Guinness as a man who invented a cloth that resisted wrinkling and dirt may understand what’s happening these days to the clothing industry. Capitalization has been shrinking for clothing manufacturers since the first rumors surfaced of the possibility of developing a cloth very much like the one in the film. Numerous experts are on record that it is only a matter of time before the Roundhouse technology, which created superresistant materials on Johnson’s Ridge, becomes generally available. What will happen when that occurs is uncertain. But for now, tens of thousands of jobs have disappeared, and an entire industry is in chaos. This newspaper is a reluctant advocate of government intervention. But in this case, the time has come.
(Lead editorial, Wall Street Journal)
When Max walked into the Roundhouse, he was angry with April Cannon. She had put him in a terrible position. He berated himself for not guessing what might happen and heading it off.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
The dome was oppressive.
Henry Short was inside with two police officers. One was looking down into the pit. He was young, barely twenty-one. Sandy-haired, long, angular jaw, prominent nose.
The partner, who was bald and irritable, broke off his conversation with George Freewater as Max entered. “Sir, you’re Mr. Collingwood?”
“Yes,” said Max.
“I’m Deputy Remirov,” he said, producing a notebook that Max recognized as belonging to April. “What does this mean?”
I’m following the arrow.
“What’s the arrow?” the younger one asked.
Max hesitated briefly. “I don’t know,” he said.
Remirov looked unhappy. “You have no idea what she was trying to tell you?”
“No,” said Max. “Not a clue.”
The policeman didn’t believe a word of it. “Why would she write you a note you can’t understand?” he asked angrily.
Max squirmed. He wasn’t good at lying. And he didn’t like being evasive with police officers. He’d had little contact with them during his life, and they made him nervous. “I just don’t know,” he said.
Exasperated, Remirov turned back to George. “You’re sure she didn’t go out through the gate without being seen?”
“We’ve got a camera on the gate,” George said.