Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;
Of polish'd ivory this, that of transparent horn:
True visions thro' transparent horn arise;
Thro' polish'd ivory pass deluding lies.
Of polish'd ivory this, that of transparent horn:
True visions thro' transparent horn arise;
Thro' polish'd ivory pass deluding lies.
-Aeneid book VI
Prologue
Nina Turpin’s job was not easy. She had received thirteen messages for Dr. Crane in the last two hours. The various speakers on the other end of the line had grown more hostile and accusatory with every call. They did not understand the strict rules governing Mr. Wardlow’s institute and they had steadfastly ignored her attempts to explain the situation to them. Polite professional aloofness had been drilled into Nina over years of working as secretarial staff in offices all around the world. She was as efficient, insistent and unflappable as any office assistant working for what was essentially a medical facility must be. But the anger that had thrummed underneath the voice of the last caller, another doctor though certainly not one of theirs, had shaken her.
She sat and stared at the small manageable phone board located in the center of her circular desk enclosure and considered her options. There could be no interruptions during special sessions, that was the everyday rule and it went double today. Mr. Wardlow had called in all his personal staff today, the top echelon of scientists and doctors and lab techs. Nina did not know the details but she understood the importance of this day. She would have had to been blind and deaf not to see that today was the critical moment in one of Mr. Wardlow’s more difficult projects. If Dr. Crane had turned his phone off and put himself beyond the reach of his own secretary then it was not her place to bring tidings he plainly did not want.
The phone, as if in rebuttal to this line of thought, began to buzz at that moment lighting up the board. Nina got up and walked away from the desk. She pushed open a glass door, which was frosted so that light passed through giving the sense of transparency if not the actual fact of it. The door shushed shut behind her, the powered hinges allowing almost no sound. The halls in front of her were abandoned. Today all the action was centered in lab C17b. Nina had been left to guard the front office alone. She was, though her employment forms did not say as much, only a mere receptionist and not entirely welcome in the inner sanctum.
Without acknowledging what she was doing, Nina wound her way through the tiled corridors. Her footsteps echoed so loudly that she was found she was more than half expecting for someone to emerge from one of the offices, tell her to hush up, and send her packing back to her desk and the main portal she was meant to be guarding. Of course, no such thing happened. The only people in today were the ones specially tapped by Mr. Wardlow which meant all the private offices and examination rooms were empty. The entirely white and well lit interior only emphasized the quality of desertion. Nina realized that except for her steps and the occasional faint sound from the air vents there was silence. Almost every room in this section had a phone and they were hooked up to an intercom system, not one was letting out the discrete hum that signaled an incoming call. The labs did not have their own phones. No phones or beepers or communication devices of any kind were permitted in those sections for the work that went on within was far too delicate to allow for such distractions.
There was no guard outside C17b or even a lock. Such things were not supposed to be necessary with Nina keeping vigilant watch out front. The door was, however, sealed to prevent the exchange of air between laboratory and corridor. Nina had to push very hard to get it to open, an awkward undertaking in heels on a slippery floor. She entered into the room where employees were supposed to wash and change into sterile clothing before entering lab C17b or the attached observation room C17a. There she froze, not as a result of internal debate but of pure paralysis. She stood in the middle of the room with her hand loosely curled and pressed between her breasts seemingly having taken the position of its own accord.
There was no buzzer, no way to alert the people in the lab to presence unless she wanted to try pounding on the door. All at once, the absence of such a device struck Nina as utterly ridiculous. There were always exceptions to every rule, even Mr. Wardlow’s. He was very young really, Nina remembered in a sudden rush. He was younger than she was even. And he had a young man’s foolish arrogance.
Nina took another step and pushed open the door marked C17b.
The smell that confronted her when she passed through was powerful enough to stop her in her tracks yet again. It was no necessarily a bad smell, but it was overwhelming. She almost felt as if she recognized it. The light and the noise and activity were also overwhelming after the ominous silence of the halls. People clothed head to foot in white were rushing from one side of the room to the other checking monitors and moving equipment. Several of them were talking at once in tones of urgency. Some of them were stained with a pale yellow substance that would not have been noticeable had their clothing not been so Spartan. The source of the discoloration was a cylindrical tank half filled with slime. The tubes hooked into the machine hissed and pumped fluid with a sound almost as if the thing was panting. There was something horribly organic about the sound and the arrangement.
“—the tank is sustaining it for the moment but the oxygen levels in its blood are still dangerously low—”
“—132 beats per minute Doctor, that’s well within the expected range.”
“How long can we keep pumping the thing’s lungs for it?”
“Give him time Doctor; it hasn’t even been twenty minutes yet. We can maintain—”
One of the rushing people halted and stared at Nina as if she were an apparition from another world. This was not so far from how Nina felt herself. She did not speak but waited for the person in the lab coat to do so, it took some time.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” said the lab tech. Nina could see the speaker’ badge though she was unable to tell identity and gender underneath the white cap and mask. She flinched at the accusation, which had been loud enough to hear even over the din, though she thought she heard more surprise than reproach in the lab tech’s voice.
“I have a message,” said Nina. Her voice came out high and doubtful when she had been trying for firm.
“Any message can wait,” said another white coat and this one did sound angry. Nina could tell from the badge, which was larger and white with yellow and blue bands, that this one was important, a scientist or a doctor or some combination of the two. “You can’t interrupt Wardlow and the doctors now. Leave this instant and I won’t summon security.”
The scientist or doctor gestured towards a row of brightly colored buttons imbedded in the wall. The lab was not connected to the main office’s communication system but precautions had apparently been taken in case of certain emergencies. Nina’s stomach tightened but she didn’t retreat. Somehow she was sure this doctor-scientist would hesitate before becoming the cause of an even bigger scene. Mr. Wardlow’s wrath might spread and the person in the sparkling white coat had more to lose than Nina did.
“Dr, Crane,” she called and this time achieved a more forceful octave. It was enough to get the two men huddled over the awful panting hissing machine to look up.
“What is it?” Mr. Wardlow addressed her first. He wore no cap or mask but she would have recognized him in either. His voice was sharp though not shouting. He looked at her, his chestnut has not quite long enough to hang in his eyes. He had a young round face which might have been attractive except for its lack of expression and the disturbing directness of his unblinking blue eyed gaze. Looking at him made such thoughts impossible. “If it’s another bomb threat get security on it and then contact the authorities. They know what to do all ready, you can tell me the details later.”
“Dr. Crane,” Nina persevered. “Your wife’s doctor called. He said she’s gone into premature labor and been taken into emergency care.”
“That fine,” said Dr. Crane. She recognized him too. He was shorter than Mr. Wardlow but with a heavier frame. His brown hair, lighter and drabber than his employer’s, was also uncovered. He had a thick oval face, too full and too undefined to be called handsome, which he never lifted from a clear tank standing at waist height in front him. This smaller tank had no fluid in it. Nina could see the shadow of something moving inside it. She swallowed hard and continued because she could think of nothing else to do now that she was here.
“They told me she’d been unconscious for some time and they need your permission to perform surgery. They said you need to call right away then—”
“Fine, fine,” Dr. Crane preempted her. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You’d better clear out Ms. Turpin,” said Mr. Wardlow. He too was turning back to the moving thing in the small tank, his project. “Finish out the afternoon then clear out your desk. I can’t use anyone who won’t follow procedure. Eric, show her out.”
The first lab tech who had spoken to her unfroze and came towards her in two giant strides. He seized her arm and steered her back to the door. Nina made no attempt to resist him or to speak again. Eric, if she knew him at all she could not attach the name to a face, escorted her through the wash room and dumped her back in the empty halls to make her own way to the front office. She did so, feeling as though she was slowly coming out of a vivid and surreal dream.
The phone at the desk was buzzing again. Nina ignored it and instead deleted the messages that had been left on her board. She had done her duty and sacrificed enough for it. Whatever happened now, it was all out of her hands. Remembering the movement of the thing in the little box, Nina thought she could be glad about that. Really, she decided as she settled back down into her chair for the last time, the biggest surprise about today had been that Mr. Wardlow had actually known her name.
