"They want me to convince you to try. They think I can get into your head somehow, with this drug they've given me, and there's something to that, isn't there? I mean I can feel it working on me, and I can feel you there. There's this pain in my shoulder, just where you were shot."
"I feel it," Sarah whispered.
"Well, I don't care what they want. I'm not going to convince you to do anything, Sarah. This is your decision. You have to figure it out on your own."
Jess held her out at arm's length, studied her face. Then she pulled her in close as if to hug her and put her lips to Sarah's ear. "Don't make a sound," she said softly. "I know you're scared. I don't think they're going to just let us walk away. But there is another way out. It's not going to be pretty, and people are going to get hurt. Do you understand what I'm saying? Remember what I said before. You have to trust yourself."
Sarah gave a little nod. Fear ripped through her belly and prickled her neck. But at the same time she felt a terrible eagerness to begin, to let it out, to see where it would all lead.
"Whatever happens, it's not your fault. It's time to let it loose, don't hold back."
You are committing a mortal sin.
They deserve it. Each and every single one of them.
"I think you better get away from me now," Sarah said.
***
Jean Shelley waited just outside the door to the prepping room. The others were watching from inside the control booth. The huge, empty space yawned behind her like something coming to gobble her up, but she kept her gaze focused on the door, waiting for it to open. Willing it to open. Please. Her breathing came in shallow little gasps; it was difficult to get air now with the fluid pressing in on her lungs.
As she waited she tried to remember to calm her thoughts, slow her heartbeat, retreat to a meditative state. But she had gone too far now down another path, and her mind would no longer cooperate. She found herself thinking back to the night so many years ago and the strange woman who had arrived at the hospital. Annie Voorsanger had changed her life forever, and she probably didn't even know it. How little Shelley had understood then, and how far she had come.
When the door opened, she knew instantly that it was over. Warmth spread through her body. The girl was beautiful, framed in the light from behind, her face in shadow. Angelic. Here was her savior; here was her life, ready to be returned to her.
They had dosed her with the dimerizer, dialed her up to full power. It was now or never. Dr. Jean Shelley stretched out her arms and closed her eyes. A great peace washed over her as she felt the room temperature begin to drop and her skin prickle.
She envisioned each and every diseased cell withering under the attack. They were in full retreat now as the girl worked her psychic fingers in among the folds of tissue. Playing them like a concert pianist would caress the ivory keys. Shelley smiled a little as her mind brought her back to those days when she could sit at the piano for hours as a child, her father, still alive then and retired from the company, pausing every once in a while to listen from the kitchen as he washed his hands before supper; go on now, Jean, play the Beethoven. God, how she missed that. The light through the sitting room window was red at sunset and lit the room up like fire....
"Stop," a hoarse voice said. "What in God's name are you doing?"
Shelley opened her eyes. She frowned. A bloody apparition had appeared at the main door to the observation room.
Evan Wasserman shuffled in on broken, bloody feet. His eyes were nearly swollen shut. Gore streaked his face and caked his hair. One arm hung at an odd angle. The other held a gun. It looked like half his hand had melted into the grip.
He peered at her through puffy lids, a puzzled expression on his face. "Jean, I--I don't understand. We agreed to end this ourselves. Why are there men downstairs?"
"Evan," she said, pleading. "Don't."
"It was supposed to be done quietly," he muttered, almost to himself. "Nobody would have to know. This place would be safe, the children . . ." He looked up at her. "The children!" he screamed, bloody saliva spraying from his mouth. "Look what you've done, bringing her up here. The building is falling apart. My grandfather--"
" You don't know a goddamned thing," she hissed at him, baring her teeth. "You sick, disgusting man. I have everything under control. Get out of here!"
Wasserman shook his head. His features clenched, tears wetting the blood at the corner of his eyes. He raised the gun. "I won't let it happen again," he said. "I--"
Shelley sensed movement more than she saw it, and suddenly Jeffrey was barreling into Wasserman from the shadows, hitting him low and in the side like a linebacker into a running back. The blow carried Wasserman up and into the air as the gun barked and something whined off into the darkness, and then they both hit the floor, slid, and rolled over into the wall.
Shelley turned back to the girl. Something was wrong. The room temperature had plummeted, and yet she felt uncomfortably warm. She felt as if someone had doused her with kerosene and was about to light a match.
The girl had come several steps into the room now. Her eyes were glassy in the faint light, reflecting something red that grew brighter by the second.
The air seemed to shimmer. Shelley looked around her at the black walls, the waveproof walls that were now glowing orange red, that were rippling like water running down rock, and at the same time she could hardly see through the cloud of steam from her breath. Ice crystals formed in midair and dropped like tiny diamonds at her feet, only to hiss and boil away into mist.
It was all wrong, she shouldn't be this strong, even with the drugs they had given her. . ..
Shelley's skin was burning, melting off her bones.
She shrieked, but the sound was lost in the unforming of her lips and the slow slide of flesh from her jaw.
To study the self is to forget the self and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.
In her moment of despair, she clung to this elusive goal, even as her brain boiled inside its bone shell. She still had not found the ten thousand things. Or perhaps she had; perhaps losing yourself meant finding infinity, everything and nothing at once, and the ten thousand things were a metaphor for that boundless stretch of space where time meant nothing, life did not exist, and the world had dissolved into a great, black emptiness.
Her last thoughts were meant for a Christian God, whom she had denounced years ago, and her prayers were reduced to childhood rhymes. Everything was wrong, the world was coming to an end.
Jesus, save me.
Then there was only pain.
--37--
Jess Chambers, crouched just inside the open door, looked up in time to see the final release of Dr. Jean Shelley.
She had seen Evan Wasserman come in, hardly believing her eyes; she thought she had watched him die. Then, even more unbelievingly, Jeffrey had done his heroic part. Even now they were still struggling with each other, but Jeffrey had gotten his arms under the doctor's armpits and locked his hands behind Wasserman's head.
The floor had become slick as she gained her feet again and held herself upright against the door frame. It was difficult to see now through the odd mix of heat and cold, as the two met like miniature weather fronts and turned the moisture in the air to steam and then instantly to ice.
Shelley stood a few feet beyond Sarah's tiny form. Her arms were still outstretched, as if in prayer, but her flesh hung off them like uncooked bread dough. Her shoes had dissolved into the floor, and she stood like a rooted human tree as the walls gave off waves of glittering heat. Jess could feel it burning her skin like the sun.