The Omega Point

8. EXTRAORDINARY MINDS

Nurse Beverly Cross and Dr. Marian Hunt came in at the same time, taking seats in the huge office. As David greeted them, he came around from behind his desk. The office enforced the formality of another age.

Nurse Cross gave him a weak smile. She looked exhausted, her eyes hollow.

“You lit us up,” she said.

“Sorry about that. I thought I saw a patient in the grounds.”

“We have trouble after a light-up. The patients need support.”

Bill Osterman, the chief engineer, arrived.

“We have a supply problem,” he said as he came in. “Critical low oil and there’s nothing in our pipeline.”

“Okay, Bill, is there any other supplier we can try?”

“We need to start thinking in terms of a shutdown, to be frank.”

“How long do we have left?”

“On full use, four days.”

Nobody mentioned the flashes or the activity in the rec area, and he felt that the omission must be intentional.

“All right,” he said, “the first thing to do is reduce air-conditioning use. Drop it back to the sleeping areas at night only. The rest of the time, it’s off. How much more time does that give us?”

“Another forty-eight hours, maybe. So say a week.”

It seemed a great gulf of time, a week, but that, he knew, was just an illusion. What would he do when the generator shut down for good? How would they run the well? And how did you manage a building full of crazy people at night without the use of lights, let alone monitoring equipment?

“I want max possible power down, then. No air at all except in confined spaces where we can’t do without. No lights except emergency lighting and as needed for patient control.”

Bill nodded. David didn’t ask him how much longer this regime would give them. He’d do that later, in private.

Ray Weller arrived announcing that he would be reducing portions and simplifying meals until he could get more reliable deliveries.

“Supply fell out of bed,” he said, “everybody just stopped coming and communications are so bad, I can’t even tell you why.”

On food, they had five days.

With the nurses, handlers, counselors, and other personnel, there were now twenty-one people in the office.

“All right,” David said, “obviously we’re in serious trouble. Can we send any patients home?” He turned to Glen MacNamara. “I assume we shouldn’t even try.”

“From what we can tell, it’s a probable death sentence. I asked that new intake. She said she was lucky to be alive. She’s worried about her chauffeur, not to mention her father back in Virginia. Terribly worried.”

He remembered Charles Light as young and vibrant, bursting with sheer joy because of the value of what he was teaching. What charisma, and what a man to have for a father. She must be beside herself.

David decided to try to deal with the unspoken issue in the most straightforward manner that he could.

“Let me be frank. I observed people in the art room last night doing something with the kiln that was producing extraordinary flashes of light. I couldn’t tell who it was, they were wearing welder’s masks. But I think more than one person in this room knows what I’m talking about, and I’d like an explanation.”

Marian Hunt said, “What I find interesting was that you were down there at all.”

“This place is my responsibility, Marian. And I think that the new intake, Caroline, was out of her quarters at some point last night.”

“She was confined,” Marian said, “on your orders.”

“And your tone says that she shouldn’t have been.”

“She showed no signs of violence.”

“She was distraught. She needed to be controlled. Supported.” Also protected, but he certainly did not intend to add that.

He could see the color rising in Marian’s face. She was looking at it entirely from a professional point of view, from which standpoint he’d obviously made a misjudgment.

“I was with her for a time. Claire and I spelled each other. Doctor, to be frank with you, it’s not appropriate to bring procedures you learned at a public facility into this environment.”

“Doctor, if you don’t mind, I’d like to continue this outside of staff.”

She nodded. He continued playing his role.

“Mr. Osterman, I need you to deal with that kiln. I want it moved out of the art room.” Actually, he was terribly excited by what had been done. Even if he was still only peripherally in the picture, progress was being made and that was the first hopeful thing he had known since he’d realized the true import of what was happening.

Claire, who had been shaking her head, now burst out, “That’s a therapeutic tool! I want an explanation!”

“It’s being used in an unauthorized manner by unknown parties in the dead of the night, which is a damn good explanation, in my opinion.”

She gave him what he interpreted as a condescending look. Katie Starnes crossed her legs and smoothed down her white skirt. The silence in the room deepened.

“Leave the kiln,” he finally said. He was no actor, and the whole process involved made him uncomfortable. But he had no choice, obviously, not until more was known.

It was time to shift subjects, and he turned his attention to Katie.

“Is there any word from Maryland Medical Supply?”

“They’re expecting to ship day after tomorrow. But even if the shipment gets through, we can expect massive shortfalls and no-ships on most drugs.”

“So, basically, we’re in a tailspin. We’re going to have to cut to the bone. As far as our therapeutic service is concerned, it looks like we’re headed back to about the mid-fifties, before there were even any tranquilizers.” He looked to Glen. “Given that we’re leaving the kiln as is, I want the recreation area patrolled regularly at night, but if you find anything unusual, don’t intervene. Call me.”

Glen’s eyes told him that he understood. The workers at the kiln would be carefully guarded.

“And nurses, if you have patients missing from any confined setting at any time, I am to be informed personally and at once. Is that clear?”

Nobody spoke. Finally, Claire said, “Well, I think we have our marching orders.”

As far as they were concerned, he’d gone too far. Never challenge a nurse’s professionalism, not if you expect peace in your hospital. He tried a little diplomacy.

“Obviously, circumstances are presently working against us, so I want us all to stay as focused as we can on our mission, which is to keep this institution running, which means working together as best we can. But, if I am going to manage this place, I am asking you, please, to cooperate with me. We have a terribly hard time ahead, and we also have this security issue, given what happened to Mrs. Denman.”

“Here,” Katie asked, genuine surprise in her voice, “a security issue in the clinic?”

“With the town,” he explained hastily.

“Well,” Katie said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m doing my best.”

“We all are, and we’re certainly willing to carry out your policies,” Marian Hunt added.

“And the kiln is just a kiln,” Osterman muttered.

The meeting concluded on what he could only see as a sour note. But why wouldn’t they be sour? There was nothing positive here, it was all supply problems, security problems, and, because of the subterfuge he’d had to engage in, a lack of faith in their new boss. But any opponent in this room would have to see him as being nothing more than what he appeared to be—an inexperienced and overbearing supervisor.

Marian lingered at the door. Their eyes met and he nodded, and she returned.

She said, “David, we need to talk about some additional matters.”

“Don’t resign, Marian. Remember that I didn’t pick me, Mrs. Denman did.”

She sat down before the dark fireplace.

“If it’s all the same to you, David, I won’t dignify that with a response.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. You say that too much. It makes you look weak.” She smiled a little. “Do you know that T-shirt? I think Mack wears it from time to time. “ ‘Graham Mining, Where the Weak are Killed and Eaten.’ Do you know that?”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“He’s in the art room now,” Katie said. “He’s got it on.”

Marian waved her hand. “The point is, if you appear weak, Acton will devour you.”

“Is that what happened to Dr. Ullman?”

“As far as we know, the fire was set by townies.”

“And yet one day later you put Mack under confinement and gave him an armed guard.”

“I did that because he’s potentially violent.”

“Not because he killed Dr. Ullman and you know it perfectly well?”

“I do not know it. It could’ve been the police themselves, or even the firemen. We are hated here.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Understand it. Live it. It is the central reality of all our lives. This is the palace, still splendid in the middle of a ruined and starving world.”

What was her point? And speaking of Mack, he was due here for a session in a few minutes.

She continued, “I want to agree with you to an extent, David. Oh, not about the conspiracy business. You saw lightning, or some sort of static effect. Who knows these days what nature might toss at us? And patients go downstairs at all hours.” She held up a hand. “I know it’s against the rules, but you don’t tell people like this to follow your rules. You ask them.”

“But they—”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not even interested in what they were doing. They do all sorts of odd things. Most of them are geniuses, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. Or have you?”

“Don’t patronize me, Marian.”

“Trust them, David! What they are doing here, even who they really are, most of them—well, we’re not sure, none of us. But we serve their needs. We feed them and protect them and give them shelter and psychiatric support. They’re far, far beyond most mortals, including you and me. Did you know that most of them can learn a new language in a couple of hours? And ask them to recite something for you sometime. Anything worth reciting. They’ll know it, almost certainly. Give them something to read, then ask them to repeat it a couple of days later. It’ll come back verbatim. Engage them on the most complex topics, you’ll be amazed.”

“Like what—Aztec culture?”

“Most of these people are as interested as anybody in ancient Mesoamerica. The difference is, they understand things like the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, and their philosophy, and Mayan mathematics.”

His mind went to Acton’s list sitting right now locked in one of the drawers of his desk. He did not want to feel as if he was drowning, but that was exactly how he felt. He knew that Marian was not an insider, Aubrey Denman had told him. So he would not open up to her, no matter how familiar with the situation she seemed.

Mack Graham was on his way, and there wasn’t time to continue this. All he could do was to tell the truth of his feelings.

“Marian, I’m moved, I have to admit, by your loyalty to the patients.”

“David, in this place nothing is as it seems.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you may never fully understand them or what they’re doing. But trust it, David. We all do, we just trust it.” She came to her feet. “I have patients, too,” she said. “Linda Fairbrother had a very difficult night. A painful interruption, as I understand it. She has a compulsive need to play every note in precise sequence.” Her voice rose a little. “But some insensitive fool touched her hand—touched it—and disturbed the flow of her music and that has injured her.”

“I’m sorry,” David said.

“Yes,” she responded, “you are.” And she left.

David fought the pain that her sarcasm brought. He should not have interrupted the patient. It had been insensitive, even unprofessional. You empathized, you did not control… unless, of course, you were a kid who was just plain out of his depth.

To regain his composure, what he needed was information. If he just understood the basic realities of this place better, he could be more useful. Or, frankly, begin to be useful at all. He looked to Katie, who remained as still as a wary bird.

“Katie, you’ve been here for, um—”

“Four years.”

“As a psychiatric nurse who has been working with Dr. Hunt for that time, what do you make of this conversation?”

“Are you putting me on the spot, here?”

“I’m asking for your professional opinion.”

“As a nurse, my opinion of her is that she’s a conscientious and effective doctor.”

“And me? How am I doing?”

“David, to be completely frank, you’re taking longer figuring things out than I would have thought.”

“I can’t figure anything out!”

“You can figure out what you need to figure out, which is how to support these patients. Just concentrate on their needs, David! Who knows what they’re doing? We can’t understand, we don’t have the minds for it. What we can do is provide a hug or a pill when needed, and a sounding board. Let them go where they want to go, be there to catch them when they trip. That’s all we can do.”

His buzzer rang, and at the Acton Clinic, you did not keep patients waiting.