All three had forgotten their guns, which lay on the floor of the lab.
Very carefully, keeping his eyes on the three men, Logan crept slowly around the front of the Machine. He gathered up the guns, then retreated back to the bank of controls. Only then did he slowly dial the setting back, first to 5, then to 2, and finally to 0.
The hum of the Machine, the terrible animal trembling, slowly subsided. But the strange, guttural noises of the man in the waxed jacket did not go away.
After several moments, Logan stood up. Carefully, he unscrewed the faceplate, then undid the fastenings of the suit and climbed awkwardly out of it. And then — one gun in his hand, the other two snugged into his waistband — he reached over to snap on the lights, then stepped forward.
He looked at the three incapacitated figures for a moment. Then, turning away, he ducked beneath the tarp and walked a few yards down the rubble-strewn corridor until he found what he was looking for: a recessed wall panel containing an extinguisher and a fire ax. Shoving the third firearm into his waistband as well, he reached out for the ax; hefted it once, twice. Then he ducked back under the tarp.
Two of the men remained where they had been when he left them. The one with the glasses had stopped his ghastly top-like spinning and collapsed to the floor. The leader — the one in tweeds — was still shuffling robotically, bumping into things, turning away again, staggering off in another direction. All three had blood running from their noses and ears — and now, most horribly, leaking from their eyes as well.
Logan regarded them for just a moment. And then he turned toward the Machine. Bending down, he snapped off the switches that disengaged the electric current. He rose again, fingers tightening on the ax. There was a moment of stasis. And then — with a grunt of effort — he swung the ax down onto the Machine. There was a shriek of something like pain as the blade buried itself in the metal. He freed the blade, raised it, and swung the ax down again, taking out the front panels and the control mechanisms. Another several swings destroyed the strange, futuristic devices that sprouted from the lateral cowlings, the field generator and the rotatable pickup coil. He hacked at the device again and again, as if all the uncertainty and fear and pain of the past two weeks was now compressed into this single convulsive act, burying the quickly dulling blade into the metal flanks of the terrible device as large and small pieces — metal, glass, Bakelite — went flying in all directions. Finally, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, he lowered the ax and looked toward his attackers.
The man in the waxed jacket was now stretched out on the floor, immobile save for occasional involuntary spasms, a pool of blood spreading away from his head. The man with the glasses was crouching in a corner, his own face a mask of blood. He was batting his hands in front of his face, as if to ward off some unseen attackers, and he was making strange gurgling noises — as if trying to scream from a throat whose voice box had closed in on itself. And the ringleader — the hawk-faced man — was now seated awkwardly on the floor, as if he’d dropped there, slowly and methodically tearing the hair from his head in ragged patches. As Logan watched, the man stared at one of the clumps, bloody scalp still affixed to the roots — turned it over curiously — and then stuffed it into his mouth.
Now, moving gingerly forward, Logan stepped beneath the spot where the elevator had come to rest. Its contents unloaded, it had already spiraled silently back into the ceiling, waiting in the abandoned third-floor closet for such time as it would be needed again.
From above, he heard — or thought he heard — the sound of quiet weeping.
Logan stared up at the decorative circle that marked the elevator’s base. Then he cleared his throat. “Dr. Benedict?” he called out. “You can come down now.”
EPILOGUE
The tall casement windows of the director’s office were flooded with sunlight. Beyond the leaded glass, the impossibly green lawn sloped slowly down toward the rocky coast and the Atlantic — remarkably calm today, as if penitent for the angry histrionics it had so recently displayed. People in Windbreakers and light jackets walked in groups of ones and twos along the manicured paths — now rather disheveled — and a painter had set up her easel down near the shoreline. Here and there, groundskeepers and maintenance workers were picking up twigs and other debris and, in general, repairing the damage done by Hurricane Barbara. Despite the brilliant sunshine and the tranquility of the scene, there was something in the very sharpness of the azure sky, the way the people bent instinctively forward into the occasional puffs of wind, that spoke of winter.
Jeremy Logan walked across the office carpet, favoring his right leg slightly, and took a seat in one of the chairs across from Olafson’s desk.
The director, who’d been on the phone, hung up and nodded. “How’s the leg?”
“Improving, thank you.”
For a moment, the two sat in silence. So much had been said over the last few days — so much done — that now it seemed speech was almost superfluous.
“You’re all packed?” Olafson said.
“Everything’s in the Lotus.”
“Then I guess there’s nothing left but to say thank you.” Olafson hesitated. “That sounded a little facile. I didn’t mean it to be. Jeremy, it’s not too much to say that you’ve saved Lux from itself — and in so doing, I think you may have saved the world from a very serious situation, as well.”
“Saved the world,” Logan repeated, tasting the words as he spoke. “I like the sound of that. Then perhaps you wouldn’t object if I doubled my fee?”
Olafson smiled. “That would be most objectionable.”
Another silence settled over the room while Olafson’s face took on a serious cast. “It seems almost unbelievable, you know. When I first returned after the hurricane, saw you staggering out of the West Wing, Laura Benedict huddled under your arm — it was like something out of a nightmare.”
“How is she doing?” Logan asked.
“She’s responding to stimuli. The doctors liken it to an extreme nervous shock. They predict a full recovery, although it may take six to eight months. Her short-term memory, however, is irretrievably gone.”
“So she did get a significant dose of ultrasound,” Logan said. “That’s a shame.”
“It was unavoidable. In any case, our debriefing is long over, and there’s no need to revisit it. You did what you had to do.”
“I suppose. Still, perhaps the memory loss will prove a blessing in the end.” Logan had been glancing out the windows, not looking at anything in particular. Now he looked back at the director. “What about the other three, from Ironhand?”
Olafson’s face became clouded, and he glanced down at a sheet of paper on his desk. “Not good. One is ‘floridly psychotic — presenting with extreme homicidal paranoia, delusions, ungovernable mania.’ Another is in a state that the evaluators in the psych ward at Newport Hospital, frankly, have never seen before. There is no analogue for it in the DSM-5. One of the doctors characterized it” — he quoted again from the sheet — “ ‘as if the action potential of the serotonin receptors are always in transmission mode.’ Basically, the man’s brain is being flooded by sensory signals — grotesquely enhanced, distorted, and unavoidable — that are simply too overwhelming and violent to be processed. They have no idea how to treat him except to keep him, for the time being, in a medically induced coma.”
“Long-term prognosis?”