The images on the screen were rotating through the various cameras. Each image only stayed on screen for a second or two. I waited for the image of the shed to come back up. I had a nagging feeling about it. Something bothered me.
"Dad, this is humiliating."
"Nic, you're not the mother-"
"Oh yeah, and she was here for maybe five seconds."
"She was at the house? Mom was there?"
"But then, big surprise, she had to go. She had a plane to catch."
"Uh-huh. Nicole, you need to listen to Ellen-"
"Dad, I told you she's being-"
"Because she's in charge until I get back. So if she says to do something, you do it."
"Dad. I feel this is unreasonable." Her members-of-the-jury voice.
"Well, honey, that's how it is."
"But my problem-"
"Nicole. That's how it is. Until I get back."
"When are you coming home?"
"Probably tomorrow."
"Okay."
"So. We understand each other?"
"Yes, Dad. I'll probably have a nervous breakdown here…"
"Then I promise I'll visit you in the mental hospital, as soon as I get back."
"Very funny."
"Let me speak to Eric."
I had a short conversation with Eric, who told me several times that it was not fair. I told him to put Nicole's books back. He said he didn't knock them down, it was an accident. I said to put them back anyway. Then I talked to Ellen briefly. I encouraged her as best I could. Sometime during this conversation, the security camera showing the outside of the shed came up again. And I again saw the swinging door, and the outside of the shed. In this elevation the shed was slightly above grade; there were four wooden steps leading from the door down to ground level. But it all looked the way it should. I did not know what had bothered me. Then I realized.
David's body wasn't there. It wasn't in the frame. Earlier in the day, I had seen his body slide out the door and disappear from view, so it should be lying outside. Given the slight grade, it might have rolled a few yards from the door, but not more than that. No body.
But perhaps I was mistaken. Or perhaps there were coyotes. In any case the camera image had now changed. I'd have to sit through another cycle to see it again. I decided not to wait. If David's body was gone, there was nothing I could do about it now. It was about seven o'clock when we sat down to eat dinner in the little kitchen of the residential module. Bobby brought out plates of ravioli with tomato sauce, and mixed vegetables. I had been a stay-at-home dad long enough to recognize the brands of frozen food he was using. "I really think that Contadina is better ravioli."
Bobby shrugged. "I go to the fridge, I find what's there."
I was surprisingly hungry. I ate everything on my plate.
"Couldn't have been that bad," Bobby said.
Mae was silent as she ate, as usual. Beside her, Vince ate noisily. Ricky was at the far end of the table, away from me, looking down at his food and not meeting my eyes. It was all right with me. Nobody wanted to talk about Rosie and David, but the empty stools around the table were pretty obvious. Bobby said to me, "So, you're going to go out tonight?"
"Yes," I said. "When is it dark?"
"Sunset should be around seven-twenty," Bobby said. He flicked on a monitor on the wall. "I'll get you the exact time."
I said, "So we can go out three hours after that. Sometime after ten."
Bobby said, "And you think you can track the swarm?"
"We should. Charley sprayed one swarm pretty thoroughly."
"As a result of which, I glow in the dark," Charley said, laughing. He came into the room and sat down.
Everyone greeted him enthusiastically. If nothing else, it felt better to have another body at the table. I asked him how he felt.
"Okay. A little weak. And I have a fucking headache from hell."
"I know. Me too."
"And me," Mae said.
"It's worse than the headache Ricky gives me," Charley said, looking down the table. "Lasts longer, too."
Ricky said nothing. Just continued eating.
"Do you suppose these things get into your brain?" Charley said. "I mean, they're nanoparticles. They can get inhaled, cross the blood-brain barrier… and go into the brain?"
Bobby pushed a plate of pasta in front of Charley. He immediately ground pepper all over it.
"Don't you want to taste it?"
"No offense. But I'm sure it needs it." He started to eat.
"I mean," he continued, "that's what everybody's worried about nanotechnology polluting the environment, right? Nanoparticles are small enough to get places nobody's ever had to worry about before. They can get into the synapses between neurons. They can get into the cytoplasm of cardiac cells. They can get into cell nuclei. They're small enough to go anywhere inside the body. So maybe we're infected, Jack."
"You don't seem that worried about it," Ricky said.
"Hey, what can I do about it now? Hope I give it to you, is about all. Hey, this spaghetti's not bad."
"Ravioli," Bobby said.
"Whatever. Just needs a little pepper." He ground some more over the top. "Sundown is seven-twenty-seven," Bobby said, reading the time off the monitor. He went back to eating. "And it does not need pepper."
"Fucking does."
"I already put in pepper."
"Needs more."
I said, "Guys? Are we missing anybody?"
"I don't think so, why?"
I pointed to the monitor. "Who's that standing out in the desert?"
DAY 6
7:12 P.M.
"Oh shit," Bobby said. He jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. Everyone else did, too. I followed the others.
Ricky was holding his radio as he went: "Vince, lock us down. Vince?"
"We're locked down," Vince said. "Pressure is five plus."
"Why didn't the alarm go off?"
"Can't say. Maybe they've learned to get past that, too."
I followed everybody into the utility room, where there were large wall-mounted liquid crystal displays showing the outside video cameras. Views of the desert from all angles. The sun was already below the horizon, but the sky was a bright orange, fading into purple and then dark blue. Silhouetted against this sky was a young man with short hair. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and looked like a surfer. I couldn't see his face clearly in the failing light, but even so, watching the way he moved, I thought there was something familiar about him.
"We got any floodlights out there?" Charley said. He was walking around, holding his bowl of pasta, still eating.
"Lights coming up," Bobby said, and a moment later the young man stood in glaring light. Now I could see him clearlyAnd then it hit me. It looked like the same kid who had been in Julia's car last night after dinner, when she drove away, just before her accident. The same blond surfer kid who, now that I saw him again, looked like"Jesus, Ricky," Bobby said. "He looks like you."
"You're right," Mae said. "It's Ricky. Even the T-shirt."
Ricky was getting a soft drink out of the dispensing machine. He turned toward the display screen. "What're you guys talking about?"
"He looks like you," Mae said. "He even has your T-shirt with I Am Root on the front." Ricky looked at his own T-shirt, then back at the screen. He was silent for a moment. "I'll be damned."
I said, "You've never been out of the building, Ricky. How come it's you?"
"Fucking beats me," Ricky said. He shrugged casually. Too casually?
Mae said, "I can't make out the face very well. I mean the features." Charley moved closer to the largest of the screens and squinted at the image. "The reason you can't see features," he said, "is because there aren't any."