David tried again. “Caroline, we can’t afford to lose you.”
The boy said, “I want a bowl of soup.”
“You can have a bowl of soup.”
“Caroline, get back. Let me do this.”
“Get out of here, David. Son, come here.”
“Fuck, no.” The boy’s hand moved and the rifle clicked.
Caroline took a step toward him.
David could smell the stark odor of cordite still coming from the rifle.
“Caroline,
“Come here,” she said, opening her arms.
The boy pushed the rifle into her face. David was behind her. He could not save her now.
“Son, no. No, please,” he said, but his fear reduced it to a dry, barely audible murmur.
Caroline lifted her hand, palm out, as if trying to protect herself from the barrel of the weapon. The two of them remained like that, frozen. David could not see Caroline’s face, but the boy’s slowly changed, the hardness leaving his eyes and tears appearing at their edges.
“Ma’am, is this the end of the world?”
“It’s a big change. Son, tell me, is there a black spot on you anywhere? Under your arm, maybe? On your leg?”
He hesitated. David took a step to one side, trying to get a clear run at the kid. Behind him, Mack was also in motion.
The boy said, “I got nothing like that.”
Caroline said, “Give me the gun.”
“No’m.”
“Did the ships come over your house?”
“Yeah, they didn’t stop, we got left here.”
“Son, you have a chance to escape with us. Don’t lose it now.”
“I shot ’em all!” His voice broke. “I’m sorry.” This was followed by a cataract of sobs and the boy ran into Caroline’s arms. David had never seen anything quite like it.
Her arm around him, Caroline returned to the building. A security guard quickly scooped up his abandoned weapon.
Two staffers came out with sheets to cover the dead, of which there were four. The wounded, many more, had been taken to the infirmary.
Most of the remaining staff and patients were assembled in the recreation room. Caroline had gone back to her easel and set it up, Susan having supplied her with paint and a fresh canvas. Mack watched her, and Noonan watched him.
David got up on a chair. “Patients, you need to get upstairs with the others and stay away from windows. Our security team will get the situation under control, but we need to help them by staying out of harm’s way.”
As he watched, the others trooped upstairs, all except Mack and Noonan, and, of course, Caroline. He looked around for Sam, but didn’t see him. Katie was still here, so he asked her to escort Mack to his room.
“Aren’t we past that?” Mack immediately asked.
“I told you, I want you in the sight of staff, and I can’t deal with you right now.”
“I’m not being locked in any goddamn room! No way!”
“Just go upstairs with the others.”
“What about her?” He gestured toward Caroline. “She can’t stay down here.”
“She needs to do her work.”
“Let’s take her somewhere safer.”
“Mack, you go with the others, or I will lock you down at gunpoint.”
“With what gun?”
He was about to produce it when Caroline whirled away from her painting.
“Stop it! Mack, stop being a fool. Go upstairs where it’s safe.”
“What is that thing, anyway? It’s no damn painting.” He advanced toward her, one aggressive step, then another. David took out the little pistol, which felt mysterious and awful in his hand.
“It’s a way out,” Caroline said. “It’s a
“How does it work?”
“If it works.”
“So you’re not sure?”
“I’m sure I’m creating a portal. If nobody destroys it this time, maybe we can go through.”
“To where?”
“Away from here.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that.”
She shook her head—and Mack came yet closer to her. “Tell me how the goddamn thing
David fired. Across the room, a painting of Amanda Acton, Herbert’s wife, dropped to the floor with a resounding crash.
“The next one,” he said to Mack, “belongs to you.”
Mack still seemed ready to throttle Caroline, and David began tightening his finger on the trigger.
Mack’s eyes were steady and unafraid. He was calculating odds, David could see that.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll go upstairs. Just don’t goddamn well lock me down.”
“Do it now.”
At last he left, moving with exaggerated casualness, as if unconcerned about a thing.
When they were alone, David kissed Caroline’s hair. There was such a strange combination of newness and old, assured love in the way he felt now about her, as if she was a settled lover who had mysteriously appeared in a fresh and sensual new body. It was all he could do not to embrace her, but she was working and he did not dare disturb a single line. He wanted to explore with her the wonder of adult love, in the innocence of childhood memory.
“How long will it take?” he asked.
“Too long.”
“Then what happens?”
“Don’t interrupt me!”
He stepped away from her. His stomach felt as if it would turn inside out. He laid an encouraging hand on his painter’s slim shoulder.
She worked on, the steady whisper of her brush the only sound in the great room.
DAVID FORD’S JOURNAL: SEVEN
The substance they injected changed me profoundly. They were right to force me and I’m glad they did. In a sense, I suppose, it was my scientific education that made me so resistant—but it is this same education that has also enabled me to understand what we are trying to do.
For me, our hope is lodged in that woman hunched over the easel, in her concentrated face and long hands, and the ocean of love that hides behind her harsh exterior.
She is creating a true hyperdimensional object—the first one, I think, that has been created in a long time. The icons of the Russians are a degenerated memory of such paintings, in the sense that it is believed that they contain the actual, living consciousness of the saints they depict.
This is more than an icon, though, far more powerful. It is a bridge between art and science, fashioned out of the artist’s love and creativity, and the scientist’s patient attention to the laws of nature.
It is true alchemy, the transformation of base metal into gold—that is to say, the transformation of paint and
