Green Eyes

Chapter 7

‘You should come on a run with me sometime,’ said Richmond; he lay back, arms behind his head, and pondered the passing clouds. ‘Cruisin’ through some half-ass town, pullin’ up to the fountain in the park or whatever they got for a public eyesore. ‘Bout forty or fifty of you. The cops ain’t to be found, man. You know, they got sudden problems out on the highway, and you are in control of the situation. That’s when the ladies will do some flockin’ around. The ladies dig on a Harley, man! They wanna run their fingers ‘long your gas tank, you understand?’

‘Uh huh,’ said Donnell, too exhausted to do more than listen to Richmond. He had managed to walk almost a hundred yards, and as a result his legs trembled, his chest hammered, and sweat was trickling into his eyes; but the accomplishment gave him a feeling of serenity.

‘Dig it, man. After we blow outta here, we’ll head on down to the Gulf, place I know, do some money trips, and then get the fuck outta Dodge City! Put our shit nationwide!’ He held out his hand to be slapped five.

Donnell propped himself up on an elbow and accommodated him, amused by Richmond’s adoption of him as a sidekick. His function, it seemed, was to agree, to share Richmond’s enthusiasm for drugs, violence, and sleazy sex - those things he considered the joys of life - and to confirm Richmond’s wisdom in all areas except that of intellectual wisdom, dominion over which he accorded to Donnell. He did not particularly like Richmond, and he still had a nervous reaction to him, but the vivid stories shored up his confidence in his own memories.

‘There’s a feelin’, man,’ said Richmond, solemn as a priest, ‘and don’t nothin’ else feel like it. That goddamn four-stroke’s howlin’ like a jet, and your ol’ lady’s got her tits squashed against your leathers, playin’ with your throttle. Whoo! Sex and death and sound effects!’

Audrey and Jocundra were sitting on a bench about thirty feet from where they were lying, and Donnell concentrated on Jocundra. He lowered his head, looked up at her through his brows, and brought her aura into focus: an insubstantial shawl of blue light, frail as the thinnest of mists, glimmering with pinpricks of ruby and gold and emerald-green.

‘Takes a commitment, though,’ said Richmond soberly. ‘If you gonna ride with the ‘hounds, you gotta kill a cop.’

‘You killed a cop?’ Donnell was surprised to learn that Richmond was capable of mortal violence; he had sensed an underlying innocence, a playfulness, and had assumed most of the bloody tales to be lies or exaggeration.

‘Naw, I was just runnin’ probate, but the day’s gonna come, man.’ Richmond plucked a handful of grass and tossed it up into the breeze, watched it drift. ‘My ol’ lady says I ain’t got what it takes to be a one-percenter, but what the hell’s she know? She works in a goddamn massage parlor, punchin’ oV farts’ hornbuttons for fifty bucks a pop. That don’t make her no damn expert on my potential!’

Donnell let the aura fade and studied Jocundra. He constantly was finding new features to examine - a nuance of expression, the glide of a muscle - and it was beginning to frustrate him to the point of physical discomfort. Through an unbuttoned fold of her blouse he saw the curve of her breast molded into a swell of beige silk, and he imagined it was as near to him as it appeared, warm and perfumed, a soft weight nudging his cheek. He suspected she was aware of his frustrated desire, and he did not think she was put off by the fact he wanted her.

Wheels crunched on the flagstones, footsteps, and Magnusson rolled up, his therapist beside him. ‘Go have a talk with your friends, Laura,’ he said. She started to object, then tossed her head in exasperation and stalked off.

‘Fine ass,’ said Richmond. ‘But no tits. Ain’t none of ‘em got tits like ol’ Audrey.’

‘Gentlemen!’ Magnusson’s lips pursed spasmodically as if he were trying to kiss his nose. ‘I’ve given up attempting to enlist your support, but I’ve made a decision of which you should be aware.’ He glared at them, squeezing the arms of his chair: a feeble old king judging his unworthy subjects. ‘May the third, gentlemen. I want you to mark that date.’

‘Why’s that, Doc?’ asked Richmond. ‘You havin’ a party?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Mr Harrison! I’m determined you’ll listen to me this time.’

Donnell avoided the old man’s eyes. His nervous reaction was becoming more pronounced, and as often happened around Magnusson, his vision was playing tricks, shifting involuntarily.

‘As I told you last week, it’s obvious to me that the life span of the bacteria within the host should be on the order of a day or thereabouts. No more. Well, I believe I’ve deduced the reason for our longevity, though to be sure I’d have to take a look inside an infested brain.’

Richmond’s back humped with silent laughter.

‘Your brain would do nicely, Mr Richmond. Dissection may well prove its optimal employment.’ Magnusson cackled. ‘Initially, they wouldn’t give me brain data. Said all the patients had recovered, and there was no such data. But I succeeded in convincing Brauer to assist me. Surely, I said, there must have been early failures, animal experiments. If I could see those files, I told him, no telling what insights they might elicit.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Donnell saw Magnusson embedded in a veil of red light, an aural color so deep that the old man’s head showed as featureless and distorted as the darkness at the heart of a flawed ruby.

‘There’s too much data to relate it all,’ said Magnusson, ‘so let me take a tuck in my argument. Each of us has experienced perceptual abnormalities, abilities the uninformed would categorize as “psychic.” It’s clear that some feature of our brain allied with these abilities is retarding the bacterial process. Three of the case studies Brauer loaned me revealed extensive infestation of the dopamine and no repenephrine systems. I didn’t dare ask him about them, but I believe they were like us, and that the seat of the retarding factor, and therefore of “psychic” potential…’

‘Doc, you borin’ the shit outta me!’ Richmond stood, only a little awkwardly, and Donnell envied his ease of mobility.

‘You won’t have to put up with me much longer, Mr Richmond.’ A loose cough racked Magnusson’s chest. ‘I’m being discharged on May the fourth. Ezawa himself will be on hand to oversee my… my liberation.’ He sucked at his teeth, ‘Mr Harrison. I want you to promise me that on May the third you’ll look closely at your bedroom walls. A simple duty, but your assumption of it will both guarantee my peace of mind and substantially prove my point.’

Donnell nodded, wishing Magnusson away.

‘Your nod’s your bond, I suppose. Very well. Look closely, Mr Harrison. As closely as only you can look.’ He wheeled off, calling for his therapist.

‘Senile old bastard,’ said Richmond.

‘Every time he’s around,’ said Donnell, ‘it’s like something’s crawling up my spine. But he doesn’t sound senile to me.’

‘So what. I get weird vibes off you, and you ain’t senile,’ said Richmond with his usual eccentric logic. ‘Just ‘cause you get weird vibes off a dude don’t mean they gotta be one way or another…’ He lost the flow of his argument. “Course maybe I’m just used to weirdness,’ he continued moodily. ‘Where I grew up there was a cemetery right across the street, and all kinds of weird shit was goin’ on. Funerals and shit. Especially on Thursdays. How come you think Thursdays is such a big day for funerals, man?’

‘Probably a slow business day.’ Donnell picked up his cane.

‘I’m gonna head on back with the cooze. Who knows!’ Richmond waggled his tongue in a parody of lust. ‘Tonight might be the night me and ol’ Audrey get down and do the low yo-yo!’

As Richmond sauntered off, his limp barely evident, Donnell levered himself up with his cane. His first step sent pains shooting from his feet into his knees.

‘Hi.’ Jocundra came up beside him. ‘Should I bring the chair?’

‘I can deal with it.’ He linked arms with her, and they walked toward the house at a ceremonial pace. His skin was irritated to a glow each time her hip brushed him.

‘Was Dr Magnusson bothering you again?’

‘Yeah. He says he’s being discharged May the fourth.’

‘That’s right.’

Donnell stepped on a pebble, teetered, but she steadied him. ‘Where’s he going to end up?’ he asked. ‘He can’t take care of himself.’

‘A home for the elderly, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out from Laura if you like.’

Her smile was sweet, open, and he smiled back. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He started to tell her of his promise to Magnusson, but thought better of it, and told her instead about Richmond having to kill a cop.

Toward the end of April, Jocundra dreamed that Donnell came into her room one night while she was asleep. Within the logic of the dream, a very vivid dream, she was not surprised to see him because she knew - just as in reality - that he often waked before her and would sometimes become lonely and ask her to fix breakfast. This time, however, he did not wake her, merely sat beside the bed. The moon was down, and he was visible by the flickers in his eyes: jagged bursts of green lightning sharply incised upon the darkness, yet so tiny and short lived they seemed far away, as if she were watching a storm at the extreme edge of her horizon. After a minute he reached out and rested his fingers briefly on the inside of her elbow, jerking them back when a static charge crackled between them. He sat motionless for a few seconds, and she thought he was holding his breath, expecting her to wake; at last he stretched out his hand again and brushed his fingertips across the nipple of her left breast, teasing it erect beneath her nightgown, sending shivery electricities down into the flesh as if he were conducting the charges within his eyes. Then he cupped her breast, a treasuring touch, and the weight of his hand set a pulse throbbing between her legs.

She had another dream immediately afterward, something about clowns and chasing around a subdivision, but she most remembered the one about Donnell. It disturbed her because she was not certain it had been a dream, and because it brought to mind a talk she had had with Laura Petit several days before. Donnell had requested a morning alone to begin a new project - a story, he said -and so Jocundra had picked out a magazine and gone onto the grounds. Laura had accosted her in the parking lot, saying she needed a friendly ear, and they had walked down to the stone bench near the gatehouse.

‘I’m losin’ touch with Hilmer,’ said Laura. ‘He wants to be alone all the time.’ Strands of hair escaped from her barrette, there were shadows around her eyes, and her lipstick was smeary.

Jocundra was inclined to sympathy, but she couldn’t help being somewhat pleased to learn that Laura was not impervious to human affliction. ‘He’s just involved with his work,’ she advised. ‘At this stage you have to expect it.’ ‘

‘He’s not workin’,’ said Laura bitterly. ‘He wanders! All day long. I can’t keep track of him. Edman says to let him have the run of the house, but I just don’t feel right about it, especially with the cameras breakin’ down so much.’ She gave Jocundra a dewy, piteous look and said, ‘I should be with him! He’s only got a week, and I know there’s somethin’ he’s hidin’.’

Appalled by the depth of Laura’s self-interest, her lack of concern for Magnusson, Jocundra opened her magazine and made no reply.

Suddenly animated, Laura pulled out a file from her pocket and began doing her nails. ‘Well,’ she said prissily, ‘I may not have totally succeeded with Hilmer, but I’ve done my job properly… not like that Audrey Beamon.’

Jocundra was irritated. Audrey, though dull, was at least no aggravation. ‘What’s your problem with Audrey?’ she asked coldly.

‘It’s not my problem.’ Registering Jocundra’s displeasure, Laura assumed a haughty pose, head high, gazing toward the house: a proud belle watching the plantation burn. ‘If you don’t want to hear it, that’s fine! But I just think you should know who you’re associatin’ with.’

‘I know Audrey quite well.’

‘Really!’ Laura hmmphed in disbelief. ‘Well, then I’m sure you know she’s been doin’ it with Jack Richmond.’

‘Doing it?’ Jocundra laughed. ‘Do you mean sex?’

‘Yes,’ said Laura primly. ‘Can you imagine?’

‘No. One of the orderlies is telling you stories to get you excited.’

‘It wasn’t any orderly!’ squawked Laura. ‘It was Edman!’

Jocundra looked up from her magazine, startled.

‘You can march right up there and ask him if you don’t believe me!’ Laura stood, hands on hips, frowning. ‘You remember when the cameras went out a whole day last week? Well, they didn’t go out… not for the whole day. Edman wanted to see what might happen if people didn’t know they were bein’ observed, and he got an eyeful of Audrey and Richmond!’

After Laura flounced off, Jocundra whimsically considered the prospect of green-eyed babies and thought about Laura’s capacity for lying - no doubt, vast; but she decided it was perfectly in keeping with Edman’s methods to have done what Laura said. She tried to imagine Audrey and Richmond making love. It was not as difficult to imagine as she had expected; in fact, given Audrey’s undergraduate reputation at Tulane - the sorority girl run amok - she probably would find Richmond fascinating. Further, Jocundra recognized that her own fascination with Donnell had allowed her to relax the role of therapist and become his friend; and if you could become the friend of a man such as Donnell, if you could put aside the facts of his life and see the person he really was -something which had been no chore to do because he was both fascinating and talented - well, then it might even be less of a chore to become his lover.

The dream, however, shone a new light on all this. Jocundra realized the boundaries of her friendship for Donnell were fraying, and she was glad of the realization. Now that it was out in the open she could deal with it, and dealing with it was important. There certainly was no future in letting it develop. The more she thought about the dream, the more convinced she was that Donnell had actually entered her room, that she had convinced herself she was asleep, observing him from the cover of sleep, from a dreamlike perspective. Self-deception was a particular talent of hers, and had already led her to a terrible marriage. Charlie had not wanted to be married, but she had persuaded him. He had been her first lover, and after the rite of passage was unsatisfactorily concluded, feeling sullied, ruined, the ghost of her Catholic girlhood rearing up like a dead queen out of a sarcophagus, she had seduced herself into believing she could love him. From a painfully ordinary and unattractive present she had manufactured the vision of a blissful future, and had coached herself to think of Charlie foremost, to please him, thinking these submissions would consolidate her vision, yet knowing all the while that he was not only her first lover, but also her first serious mistake. And now, it seemed, this same self-deception was operating along a contrary principle: disguising the growth of strong emotion as symptoms of friendship and responsibility.

To deal with it Jocundra let the routines of Shadows carry her away from Donnell. She attended staff meetings religiously and took every opportunity to join the other therapists for conversation and coffee; but when forced to be alone with Donnell she found these measures were not sufficient to counter the development of an attachment. She began to lie awake nights, brooding over his death, counting the days left him, wishing they would pass quickly, wishing they would pass slowly, experiencing guilt at her part in the proceedings. But despite her worries, she was satisfied that she could eventually cultivate a distance between herself and Donnell by maintaining an awareness of the problem, by adherence to the routines, and she continued to be thus satisfied until May the third arrived and all routines were shattered.

Four doctors were holding conference in the main hall, but Richmond’s raucous voice and discordant piano stylings flushed them from the sofa, set them to buttoning their lab coats and clipping their pens in a stiff-necked bustle toward the door. ‘Turkeys!’ snarled Richmond. He hammered out the chords, screaming the words after them, elbowing Donnell, urging him to join in the chorus.

The door slammed; Richmond quit pounding and noodled the keys, a musical texture more appropriate to the peaceful morning air. Sunlight laid a diagram of golden light and shadow over the carpet, the lowest ranks of the paintings were masked in reflected glare, and ceramic figurines glistened on end tables beside the French doors. Jocundra and Audrey were sitting on a sofa, talking, at ease, and their voices were a gentle, refined constant like the chatter of pet birds. The old house seemed to be full of its original atmosphere, its gilt and marble and lacquer breathing a graciousness which not even Richmond’s song could disrupt. And yet Donnell detected an ominous disturbance in the air, fading now, as if a gong had been struck and the rippling note had sunk below the audible threshold. He felt it dooming through his flesh, insisting that the peace and quiet was an illusion, that today was May the third, Magnusson’s May the third, and thereafter nothing would be the same. He was being foolish, he told himself, foolish and suggestible. He did not understand half of what Magnusson spouted, and the other half was unbelievable, but when he tried to finalize his disbelief, to forget about Magnusson, he could not. The old man’s arguments -though they sounded insane - were neither disassociative nor rambling, not senile.

‘Hey!’ Richmond nudged him and handed him a piece of paper. ‘Check it out.’

Donnell was glad for the distraction. He read the lines, then used the piano bench as a table on which to scrawl changes. ‘Try this.’ He passed the paper back to Richmond, who frowned and fingered the chords:

Richmond clucked his tongue. ‘Lemme see how it works together.’ He sang the song under his breath, filling with the chords.

The song was Richmond’s sole creation, and Donnell approved of it; it was, like Richmond, erratic and repetitive and formless. The choruses - there were dozens, detailing the persona of a cosmic outlaw who wore a three-horned helmet - were sung over a major chord progression; Richmond talked the verses in a minor blues key, telling disconnected stories about cheap crooks and whores and perverts he had known.

The slow vibration in the air ended, sheared off, as if a circuitbreaker had engaged, and Donnell suddenly believed it h.ad been in the air, a tangible evidence of Magnusson’s proof, and was not a product of suggestion or sensory feedback from his own body.

‘This here’s the best goddamn one yet!’ Richmond poised his hands above the keyboard. ‘Dig it!’

‘I think Magnusson’s done something,’ said Donnell.

Richmond snorted. ‘You hearin’ voices or something, man? Shit! Listen up.’

‘Now that…’ said Richmond proudly. ‘That’s got it. What’d you say about the last one?’ ‘The archetypal power of good graffiti.’ ‘Yeah.’ Richmond plinked the keys. ‘Archetypal!’ The main doors swung open and Laura Petit wandered in, stopped, and trailed her fingers across the gilt filigree of a table. The same slow, rippling vibration filled the room, more forcibly than before, as if it hadn’t died but had merely grown too weak to pass through walls and now could enter. Audrey waved, and Laura walked toward the sofa, hesitant, looking nervously behind her. She asked something of Jocundra, who shook her head: No. ‘Please!’ shrilled Laura. Audrey stood, beckoned to Jocundra, and they all went into the hallway, closing the door after them. The vibration was cut off.

‘Squeeze, you might have a point about the Doc’ Richmond shut the piano lid and swiveled around to face the door. ‘There was some strange bullshit walked in with that little lady!’

‘What is it?’ Audrey shut the door to the main hall.

Laura was very pale; her Adam’s apple worked. ‘Hilmer,’ she said, her voice tight and small; she looked up to the glass eye of the camera mounted above the door and was transfixed.

Jocundra sprinted ahead, knowing it must be bad.

Magnusson’s door stood ajar; it was dark inside. Sunlight through the louvered shutters striped a heraldic pattern of gold diagonals across the legs of the shadowy figure on the bed. She leaned in. ‘Dr Magnusson?’ Her words stirred a little something within the darkness, a shiver, a vibration, and then she saw a flicker of fiery green near the headboard, another, and another yet, as if he were sneaking a peek between his slitted eyelids. ‘Are you all right, Doctor?’ she asked, relieved, thinking Laura had overreacted and nothing was seriously wrong. She turned on the ceiling light.

It was as if she had been watching someone’s vacation slides, the projectionist clicking from scene to scene, narrating, ‘Here’s grandpa asleep in his room… kinda pretty the way the light’s falling through the shutters there,’ click, the screen goes black, and the next slide is the obscene one which the neighbor’s teenage kid slipped in as a prank. Click. Magnusson’s room was an obscenity. So much blood was puddled in the depression made by his head and shoulders, streaked over the headboard and floor, that at first she could not bring her eye to bear on the body, tracking instead the chaotic sprays of red. A mild heated odor rose from the glistening surfaces. She clutched the doorknob for support, tucking her chin onto her chest, dizzy and nauseated.

‘Oh, Jesus!’ said Audrey behind her. ‘I’ll get Edman.’

Laura snuffled.

Jocundra swallowed, gathering herself. Magnusson lay on his side, his right arm upflung across his face and wedged against the headboard, concealing all except his forehead and the corner of his right eye. She switched off the lights, and the green flickers were again visible. God, she thought, what if somehow he’s alive. She switched the lights back on. It was becoming easier to bear, but not much. She stepped around the bloody streaks and stopped a foot from the bed. His chest was unmoying. She knelt beside him and was craning her neck, trying to locate the wound, when his arm came unwedged and dangled against her knee. The shock caused her to overbalance. She tipped forward and planted her hand on the bed to stabilize. Blood mired between her fingers, and her face bobbed to within inches of a neat slice in his throat. Its lips were crusted with a froth of pink bubbles.

One of them popped, and a clear fluid seeped from the wound.

Laura screamed - an abandoned, throat-tearing scream - and Jocundra threw herself back and sat down hard on the carpet, face to face with Magnusson. Folds of waxy skin sagged from his cheeks, and the bacteria were in flux within his eyes. Spidery blobs of luminescence spanned the sockets, their edges eroding, gradually revealing sections of his liverish whites and glazed blue irises. Jocundra was spellbound. Then she felt something soaking her slacks and realized that the horrid paste sticking them to her thighs was a spill of Magnusson’s blood. She scrambled up and started for the door. And stopped. Laura had fallen to her knees, sobbing, and behind her stood Richmond and Donnell.

‘There’s been an accident,’ Jocundra said, obeying the stupid reflex of lies. She pushed them away and tried to shut the door, but Richmond knocked her hand aside and jammed the door open with his foot.

‘No shit!’ he said, peering into the room. ‘Ol’ Doc musta tripped or somethin’, huh?’

Jocundra decided she couldn’t worry about Richmond; she took Donnell’s arm and propelled him along the hall. ‘I think he killed himself. It’s going to be a madhouse in a minute. You wait in the room and I’ll find out what I can.’

‘But why would he kill himself?’ he asked, as she forced him through the door. ‘He was getting out.’

‘I don’t know.’ She helped him lower into the wheelchair. ‘Let me go now. I’ve got to make my report.’ A flash of memory showed her the old man’s eyes, his throat, something still alive after all that blood, and she shuddered.

Donnell blinked, looking at the wall above his writing desk. ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he said distractedly. He wheeled over to the desk and picked up a pen. “What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ He opened a notebook. ‘I’ll figure it out.’ She knew he was holding something back, but she was in no mood to pry and no shape to field his questions. She reassured him that she would return quickly and went into the hall. Agitated voices lifted from Magnusson’s room; Laura was still sitting outside the door, collapsed against the ornate molding like a beggar girl beneath a temple arch. Jocundra leaned against the wall. From the moment she had seen Magnusson, she had been operating on automatic, afraid for either herself or for Donnell, and now, relieved of pressure, she began to tremble. She put her hand up to cover her eyes and saw the brown bloodstains webbing the palm; she wiped it on her hip. She did not want to think anymore, about Magnusson, about herself or Donnell, and so, to occupy her mind and because no one else would be likely to bother, concerned only with their experiment gone awry, she hurried down the hall to find if anything could be done for Laura.

DON’T TELL JOCUNDRA was written on the wall in crudely printed letters about the size of a fist; the letters were not of a color but were indented into the wallpaper, and it had taken only a slight shift in focus to bring them clear. Beneath the first line was a second message: THE INSTANT YOU ARE ALONE, LOOK UNDER YOUR MATTRESS

Donnell didn’t hesitate. He felt around under the mattress, touched something hard and thin, and pulled out a red account ledger from which an envelope protruded; the words read this now! were printed on the envelope, and inside were five typewritten pages and a simple plan of the first floor and basement. There were only a few lines on the first page.

I am dying early for your benefit, Mr Harrison, and I hope you will therefore give my rationality the benefit of the doubt and act at once upon my instructions. If you have learned of my death shortly after its event, then these instructions apply; if more than twenty minutes have elapsed, you must use your own judgement. Leave your room immediately. Do not worry about the cameras: they are currently malfunctioning. Follow the diagram and enter the room marked X. All personnel will be doubtless involved in frantic inessentials, but if you happen to be observed, I am certain you can supply an adequate excuse. The ledger and the letter will clarify all else.

Donnell cracked the bedroom door. An orderly rushed past and into Magnusson’s room; Jocundra was hunkered next to Laura outside the room, but she had her back to him and was blocking Laura’s view. No one else was in the hall. He eased out the door and wheeled toward the foyer, expecting her to call out at any second; he passed the foyer, continued along the hall and turned the corner. The door leading to the basement was the first on his left. He stood, wobbly on his cane, and shoved the wheelchair back into the front hall so they could not tell where he had gone. The stairs were steep, and each step jolted loose pains in his hips and spine. A dimly lit corridor led off the stair; he entered the second door and twisted the latch. Gray-painted walls, two folding chairs facing a large mirror, and a speaker and switches mounted beside the mirror. Breathing hard, he sat and fumbled out the remainder of Magnusson’s letter.

In the event it is Dr Edman who reads this: sir, you are a great ass! If, however, it has reached your hands, Mr Harrison, you have my congratulations and my thanks.

The ledger contains my notes on the bacterial process which enlivens us and an appendix which attempts a description of certain psychophysical abilities you will soon enjoy, if you do not already. Whereas the medical notes might be digested best at a time affording you a degree of leisure, I suggest you look over the appendix after concluding this letter.

I am not sure what has compelled me to give my posthumous counsel, but I have been so compelled. Perhaps it is because we are microbiologically akin, or because I believe that we should have a voice in determining the course of these mayfly existences. Perhaps an arc of destiny is involved. But most assuredly it is because I. have seen (mark the verb!) in you a future of greater purpose than my past has proved. There is a thing you must do, Mr Harrison. I cannot tell you what it is, but I wish you its accomplishment.

I have chosen this precise time to die because I knew Dr Ezawa would be in residence and would - being a good research man - wish to perform the autopsy at once. The laboratory next to this room is the only place suitable for such work. If you will turn on the wall switches beside the mirror, in due course you will see and hear all the proceedings…’

Donnell hit the switches. A light bloomed within the mirror, and a wide room dominated by two long counters became visible; a lamp burned on the nearest counter, illuminating beakers, microscopes and a variety of glass tubing. No one was in sight. He turned back to the letter.

… though it is likely your view will be impaired as the doctors crowd around, shoving each other aside in their desire for intimacy with my liver and lights. I doubt you will be disturbed; the basement will be off-limits to all but those involved in my dissection, and the room you occupy has no video camera. It was, I suspect, designed as an observation post from which to observe the initial recovery phase of creatures like ourselves, but apparently they chose to sequester that portion of the project at Tulane. In any case, it will take some hours at least to restore the video, and if you exercise caution you should be able to return upstairs unnoticed.

Enough of preamble. Hereafter I will depend a list of those things I have learned which may be pertinent to your immediate situation.

1) If you concentrate your gaze upon the cameras, you will sooner or later begin to see bright white flashes in the air around them: cometary incidences of light which will gradually manifest as networks or cages of light constantly shifting in structure. I am convinced these are a visual translation of the actions of electromagnetic fields. When they appear, extend your hand toward them and you will feel a gentle tugging in the various directions of their flow. The ledger will further explore this phenomenon, but for now it will suffice you to know that you can disrupt the system by waggling your fingers contrary to the flow, disrupting their patterns…

The laboratory door swung open, a black arm reached in and switched on the overhead fluorescents; two orderlies entered wheeling Magnusson’s corpse on a dolly. Then a group of lab-coated doctors squeezed through the door, led by Dr Brauer and an elderly Japanese man whose diminished voice came over the wall speaker. ‘… matter who gave him the scalpel, but I want to know where it has vanished to.’ He stalked to the dolly and pinched a pallid fold of flesh from Magnusson’s ribs. ‘The extent of desanguination is remarkable! There can’t be more than two or three pints left in his body. The bacteria must have maintained the heart action far longer than would be normal.’

‘No wonder Petit’s so freaked,’ ventured a youngish doctor. ‘He must have gone off like a lawn sprinkler.’

Ezawa cast a cold eye his way, and he quailed.

Seeing his creator filled Donnell with grim anger, righteous anger, anger based upon the lies he’d been told and funded by the sort of natural anger one feels when one meets the wealthy or the powerful, and senses they are mortals who have escaped our fate. Ezawa had an elegant thatch of silky white hair and eyebrows to match; his eyes were heavy-lidded and his lips full, pursed in an expression of disapproval. Moles sprinkled his yellow cheek. He had a look of well-fed eminence, of corporate Shintoism, of tailor-made pomposity and meticulous habits and delicate sensibilities; but with a burst of insight Donnell knew him for a pampered soul, a sexual gour-mandizer of eccentric appetites, a man whose fulfilled ambitions had seeded an indulgent nature. The complexity of the impression confused Donnell and lessened his anger.

‘Actually,’ said Ezawa, ‘it’s quite an opportunity being able to get inside the brain before termination of the cycle.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ said the youngish doctor, obviously seeking to re-establish himself, ‘that there’s any chance he’s still alive?’

‘Anyone connected with this project should realize that the clinical boundary for death may never be established.’ Ezawa smiled. ‘But I doubt he will have any discomfort.’

The two orderlies lifted Magnusson onto the counter and began cutting away his pyjamas and robe; one held his shoulders down while the other pulled the soaked cloth from beneath him laying bare his emaciated chest. Troubled by the sight, Donnell went back to the letter.

… I must admit I had misgivings as to my sanity on first learning this was the case. I am, be it illusion or not, a scientist, and thus the parameters of my natural expectation were exceeded. But each time I have done as I described, the result has been the same. I cannot rationalize this as being the result of miraculous coincidence.

2) You possess, as do we all, a commanding presence. I realize you are prone to deep anxieties, insecurities, but nevertheless you can exert a profound influence on our nurse maids. Argue forcefully and you will achieve much. This may sound simplistic, but in this way did I convince Brauer to bring me files, various materials, and, eventually, to allow me access to the laboratory where I secured my means of exit from this world.

3) Trust your intuitions, especially as regards your judgements of people. I have discovered I can discern much of a person’s general character and intent by simply looking at his or her face. It may be there is a language written in the wrinkles and muscular movements and so forth. But I have no clear idea of the process. The knowledge simply comes unbidden to my brain. It is my contention that when we stumble across someone we cannot read - our fellow patients, for example - it causes us nervousness, trepidation. I have only been able to read the other patients on one occasion: during Edman’s social. And then it was as if a light shone upon all of us, perhaps engendered by our group presence. This particular ability is extremely erratic, but I would trust it when it occurs.

There is more, much more, all sounding equally mad. The ledger contains all the proof of which I have been capable.

I am not overborne by the prospect of my imminent death. This body is vile and stinks in my nostrils, and the condition of death seems far more mutable to me than it did when I began these investigations. That is what most astounds me about the project personnel: they have raised the dead and see nothing miraculous about it, treating it as merely an example of technological prestidigitation. Ah, well, perhaps they are correct and I am totally deluded.

Use this information as you see fit, Mr Harrison. I will not instruct you further, though I will tell you that had I the strength I would have long ago left Shadows. I believe that outside these walls I might have been capable of vital action, but within them I could not see in what direction I might act.

Goodbye. Good luck.

Donnell folded the letter. The exhilaration of his race down the hall had worn off, and his muscles were cramping from the exertion. His mind was fogged with gloomy, half-formed thoughts. The doctors blocked his view of the body, ringing the counter, leaning forward, peering downward and inward like gamblers around a dice table, and over the wall speaker came the tinny reproduction of a splintering whine as Ezawa broke into Magnusson’s skull.