The Web

Place settings before each of them. Fruit and biscuits and vitamin pills. Glasses of bright orange and green and red liquid. Gatorade. Empty bottles were grouped in the center of the table, along with plates full of rinds and pits and cores.

The two men who'd brought us stood with their hands folded.

Moreland said, 'Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you, Eddie.'

Rolling the grapefruit away, he motioned. The men took their places at the table.

Some of the others began to murmur. Deformed hands trembled.

Moreland said, 'It's all right. They're good.'

Runny eyes settled upon us, once again. The blind man waved his hands and clapped.

'Alex,' said Moreland. 'Robin.'

'Bill,' I answered numbly.

'I'm sorry to put you through such a rigamarole, son- and I didn't know you'd be coming, dear. Are you all right?'

Robin nodded absently, but her eyes were elsewhere.

The tiny woman had engaged her visually. She had on a child's pink party dress with white lace trim. A white metal bracelet circled a withered forearm. A child's curious eyes.

Robin smiled at her and hugged herself.

The woman licked the place where her lips should have been and kept staring.

The others noticed her concentration and trembled some more. The generator kept up its song. I took in details: framed travel posters on the walls- Antigua, Rome, London, Madrid, the Vatican. The temples at Angkor Wat. Jerusalem, Cairo.

More cartons of food lined up neatly across from the refrigerators. Portable cabinets and closets, a couple of dollies.

So many refrigerators because they had to be small enough to fit down the hatch. I pictured Moreland wheeling them through the tunnel. Now I knew where he'd gone that night with his black bag. Where he'd gone so many nights, all these years, barely sleeping, working to the point of exhaustion. The fall in the lab…

A sink in the corner was hooked up to a tank of purified water. Gallon bottles stood nearby.

No stove or oven- because of poor ventilation?

No, the air was cool and fresh, and the rain sound was faint but clear, so there had to be some kind of shaft leading up to the forest.

No fire because the smoke would be a giveaway.

No microwave, either- probably because Moreland had doubts about the safety. Worries about people who'd already been damaged.

His lie about being part of the nuclear coverup a partial truth?

Lots of partial truths; right from the beginning he'd swaddled the truth in falsehood.

Events that had happened but in other places, other times.

Einstein would approve… it's all relative… time's deceit.

Everything a symbol or metaphor.

The other quotes… all for the sake of justice?

Testing me.

I looked at the scarred faces huddled around him.

White, wormlike.

Joseph Cristobal, tying vines to the eastern walls, hadn't hallucinated thirty years ago.

Three decades of hiding punctuated by only one mishap?

One of them going stir-crazy, emerging aboveground and heading toward the stone walls?

Cristobal sees, is gripped by fright.

Moreland diagnoses hallucinations.

Lying to Cristobal… for justice's sake.

Soon after, Cristobal gives one last scream and dies.

Just like the catwoman… what had she seen?

'Please,' said Moreland. 'Sit down. They're gentle. They're the gentlest people I know.'

***

We squeezed out our soaked clothes and took our places around the table as Moreland announced our names. Some of them seemed to be paying attention. Others remained impassive.

He cut fruit for them and reminded them to drink.

They obeyed.

No one spoke.

After a while, he said, 'Finished? Good. Now please wipe your faces- very good. Now please clear your plates and go into the game room to have some fun.'

One by one they stood and filed out, slipping behind the refrigerators and disappearing around a rock wall.

Moreland rubbed his eyes. 'I knew you'd manage to find me.'

'With Emma's help,' I said.

'Yes, she's a dear…'

'Time's deceit. Including the deceit you used to bring me over. You've been leading up to this since the first day I got here, haven't you?'

He blinked repeatedly.

'Why now?' I said.

'Because things have come to a head.'

'Pam's up there looking for you, scared to death.'

'I know- I'll tell her… soon. I'm sick, probably dying. Nervous system deterioration. Neck and head pain, things go blank… out of focus. I forget more and more, lose equilibrium… remember my tumble in the lab?'

'Maybe that was just lack of sleep.'

He shook his head. 'No, no, even when I want to sleep it rarely comes. My concentration… wanders. It may be Alzheimer's or something very similar. I refuse to put myself through the indignities of diagnosis. Will you help me before there's nothing left of me?'

'Help you how?'

'Documentation- this must be recorded for perpetuity. And taking care of them- we must figure out something so they'll be cared for after I'm gone.'

He stretched his arms out. 'You've got the training, son. And the character- commitment to justice.'

'Mr. Disraeli's justice? Truth in action?'

'Exactly… there is no truth without action.'

'The great thinkers,' I said.

His eyes dulled and he threw back his head and stared at the cavern's ceiling. 'Once upon a time I thought I might develop into a significant thinker- shameless youthful arrogance. I loved music, science, literature, yearned to be a Renaissance man.' He laughed. 'Medieval man would be more like it. Always mediocre, occasionally evil.'

He ruminated some more, snapped back to the present, licking his lips and staring at us.

Robin hadn't stopped glancing around the room. Her eyes were huge.

'Truth is relative, Alex. A truth that hurts innocents and causes injustice is no truth at all, and an evasive action that's rooted in compassion and leads to mercy can be justified- can you see that?'

'Did the second nuclear tests take place near Aruk? Because I know you lied about Bikini. If so, how was the government able to conceal them?'

'No,' he said. 'That's not it at all.'

Standing, he walked around the table. Stared at the boxes against the wall.

'Nothing you do is accidental,' I said. 'You told me about the nuclear blast and Samuel H. for a reason. You held on to Samuel's file for a reason. 'Guilt's a great motivator.' What are you atoning for, Bill?'