Gwendy’s Final Task

31

DAY 3 ON MANY Flags.

Gwendy is at the desk in the small living room of her suite, going over stacks of appropriation requests. She’s thinking that a single look at this untidy pile of paperwork would cause anyone with the idea that the life of a United States Senator is glamorous to think again.

What she’s really doing, of course, is listening for the chime of her laptop, signaling a message from Charlotte. It’s chimed with several incoming messages already, including one from the Vice President wishing her well, but nothing from Charlotte. It’s probably too early, but that doesn’t keep her from hoping.

The other thing she’s doing is resisting the call of the button box. It’s in the steel CLASSIFIED box, and the steel CLASSIFIED box is in the safe, and the safe is in the closet, but that call still comes through loud and clear. She doesn’t want to push the buttons so much as she wants to pull the lever that dispenses the chocolates. She’s actually having a pretty good day, memory circuits all firing as they are supposed to, but she misses the weird and wonderful clarity she felt when she was doing the mental acuity test yesterday. A chocolate animal (or two!), and she could fly through this boring paperwork. This is a practical lesson in why drug addicts are addicts.

The knock at her door is a relief. She would welcome a distraction … as long as it isn’t Winston, that is. She has no urge to see him today. In fact she would be happy not to see him at all until she’s completed her task, although she knows that’s probably unlikely. For one thing, they all eat together. There’s no room service on the MF station.

It’s not Gareth. It’s Reggie, the physicist. His last name temporarily eludes her, but she doesn’t stress about it, just relaxes and uses Dr. Ambrose’s chain-of-association trick. Best concert she ever saw? AC/DC, at TD Garden in Boston. Best song? “Back in Black.” And whoomp, there it is.

“Reggie Black, as I live and breathe,” she says. “What can I do for you?”

He’s fiftyish, with fluffs of white hair that float on either side of his bald pate. And he’s grinning. “Adesh just showed me something wild. Do you want to see?” He glances past her at the littered desk and his grin fades. “I guess you’re busy.”

“I can take a break. All you have to do is tempt me.”

“Consider yourself tempted. This is crazy cool.”

He takes her to the lab Adesh has set up in Spoke 5, where there’s lots of space. Based on the signage, Gwendy deduces it was last used by a French team. On the lab’s door there’s a sign that reads ADESH “BUG MAN” PATEL. KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING.

Reggie knocks. “Okay to come in?”

“Come, come,” Adesh says, and opens the door before Reggie can. He sees Gwendy and smiles. “Ah, the esteemed Senator! Welcome to Entomology Wonderland!”

They step in. Gwendy sees a row of plexiglass cases with beetles and bugs in some of them, spiders in others. Including Olivia the tarantula. Ugh, Gwendy thinks. The far end of the room has been sealed off with floor-to-ceiling plexi, creating a larger cage with smaller cages inside it.

“Show her the trick with Boris,” Reggie Black says. And to Gwendy, “It’s an authentic mind-blower.”

Adesh wags his finger at Reggie in a schoolteacherly way. “It is no trick, Reginald. It is training and adaptation.” To Gwendy: “Besides, I find the flies much more interesting. Ordinary houseflies—Musca domestica—but their zero-g behavior is fascinating and illuminating.”

“Sure, but the scorpion is cool,” Reggie says. “Boris is money.”

Adesh looks perplexed.

“The best,” Gwendy translates. “He means the best. Or maybe the flashiest.”

“Oh, it’s flashy, all right,” Reggie says. “The Bugster’s probably got it on video, but it’s better live. Assuming you have enough Musca domesticas, old buddy.”

“Plenty of flies,” Adesh agrees. “I am saving the cockroaches.”

Ugh, Gwendy thinks again.

Adesh takes a remote control from its magnetized disc and points it into the big cage. The door of one of the small cages—the smallest, not much bigger than a woman’s makeup case—slides up and several Musca domesticas fly out. But not for long. They stop flying and just hang in the air, as if on strings.

“My God!” Gwendy says. “Are they sick?”

“No, they are in what you might call energy-saving mode,” Adesh says. “They used their wings at first, but quickly learned they do not need to. Nor do they need to rest by landing. If houseflies can be said to enjoy anything, they enjoy zero-g.”

“Boris, Boris, Boris!” Reggie chants.

Adesh sighs, but Gwendy thinks just for show. He’s enjoying this, too. She doesn’t think it matters if it’s men of science or men chopping wood, they all like showing off. Of course, so do women.

Adesh presses another button on his remote control and Boris the scorpion crawls out, claws clicking, his loaded stinger arched over his back. “Pandinus imperator,” Adesh says. “Emperor scorpion. Its sting is rarely fatal to humans, but for its prey—”

“There he goes!” Reggie cries. “Upsa-daisy, Boris! My man!”

Claws still clicking, Boris floats upward and hangs in midair like the flies on the far side of the cage they share.

Adesh raises his voices and calls, “Boris! Maar!”

Boris gives his tail a single hard flex, propelling himself across the room like a bullet. Two of the flies escape, but Boris catches the third one in his claws, mashes it, and pops it into his alien maw. Gwendy is repulsed and fascinated in equal measure. The scorpion’s forward motion propels it toward the wall, but before it hits, Boris does a forward roll and uses his armored tail to push himself back the other way. He finishes up in almost exactly the same place he started and just hangs there.

“Amazing,” Gwendy says. “How do you get him back in his cage?”

“I put him in myself,” Adesh says. “I don a glove to do it. I have no urge to be stung, even if it’s no worse than the sting of a bee. Boris is trainable, as you see, but he is far from tame. No no no.”

“And maar? What does that mean?”

Adesh goes to the door of the big containment facility, then turns back and gives her a gentle smile in which one gold tooth twinkles. “Kill,” he says.