chemical toilet, although the sink was at least plumbed in. Instead of a door, a dark wool curtain had been tacked onto the frame.
Kendrick tugged at a light cord and a halogen bulb lit up, sending shimmering sparkles skittering off the filaments that now coated his face. His gaze tracked them down the curve of his neck, seeing how they disappeared beneath his shirt collar.
'What's happening to me?' he whispered to no one. There was no sign of McCowan. Was that a bad sign? There was no way of knowing.
'You okay there?' a voice said quietly. Kendrick looked around to see the woman to whom he'd briefly spoken earlier, peering at him around the edge of the curtain.
'I never caught your name,' he replied.
'Audrey,' she said. 'I wasn't spying, I just heard you talking to yourself.' Through the now open door behind her he could see pots hanging on hooks in what was obviously a kitchen.
'Buddy mentioned you before,' she continued, 'so I got the impression you were on our side. But I can see the way you look at us, like you think all of us here are crazy. You were in Ward Seventeen, right?'
Kendrick nodded, and stepped out of the bathroom to stand closer to her. Audrey's words were friendly enough but, whatever their shared experiences, he reminded himself that he didn't really know these people. So he chose his own words carefully. 'I was, yes, but according to Buddy it hasn't been exactly the same for me as for the rest of you.'
'But you saw it – the visions? Buddy said you did.'
'I saw some of what the rest of you saw, but I was receiving special medical treatments that stopped me getting all of it. To be honest, I don't know if I'm ready to believe that any of what I'm told you've all seen is real.'
Audrey looked appalled. 'The Omega is real. I've seen it, felt it.'
'The Omega Point theory is only a theory. And, like any theory, it depends on certain preconditions – it only works if a certain set of circumstances is presumed to come about. You know what I mean?'
'Believe me, I'm entirely acquainted with the details.'
'Are you, though? None of you know for sure that any of what you've witnessed is objectively real. All you've seen are pictures in your head. So, having that degree of faith, it's more like believing in a religion than anything else.'
Audrey shook her head, smiling the knowing smile of a true believer. Kendrick felt a burst of irrational anger. She was eyeing Kendrick as if he were some errant child refusing to see the error of his ways.
The problem was that something was happening, something enormous, unprecedented. Somewhere up there a wormhole was forming, an impossible spatial anomaly that was giving every physicist on the planet sleepless night after sleepless night. Maybe it just wasn't something he wanted to face up to, to deal with. Who could blame him?
Kendrick wondered what Audrey's reaction would be if she knew he'd rather see the station destroyed than risk it falling into the hands of Draeger – or anyone else.
'Well, I've got some news for you,' Audrey told him. 'It may just seem a theory to you, but there are people out there who believe we're monsters – things are only going to get worse for us. One of these days they'll either intern us all or just kill us, and that'll be the end of it. But this way some of us get to take control. This way we choose our own destiny.'
TO THE ARCHIMEDES
Kendrick woke deep in the night and found that he had stopped breathing again. He lurched upright, panic blighting his thoughts. This is what it's like to be dead, he thought: no heartbeat, no breath of life. A terrible silence filled the cavity of his chest, like a void.
He had been asleep for several hours on a cot in one corner of the house. Crickets chirruped outside a window nearby. It was hard to believe, listening to the sounds of nature, that he'd see nothing but desolation if he raised his head to look outside.
No heartbeat, no breath of life. Am I even alive?
Slowly, deliberately, he once again sucked air into his lungs. It heaved his chest out and he felt a nitrate-like rush, expanding like a bubble through his brain. He exhaled again.
In, then out – after several seconds Kendrick didn't have to think about it any more. He could feel his hands shaking, his thoughts clear and adrenalin-tinged.
Kendrick looked down again at the fine threads coating his skin. All of them were gold now, and the filaments appeared to be dissolving into his flesh. Slowly, his appearance was returning to normal.
He brushed one cheek with a fingertip and felt that it was smoother than several hours before. A huge wave of relief swept through him.
So far, Audrey and Buddy were the only ones there who had made any effort to speak with him, although his relations with Audrey were still distinctly on the edgy side. He'd even seen some of them huddled together, watching him from a distance and speaking in low whispers once they were sure that they were out of range of his augmented hearing.
Yet Kendrick could have listened to what they were saying if he'd really wanted to, and he was sure that many others in this place shared the same ability. But a house full of Labrats was a house with no privacy whatsoever and, in accord with the special etiquette that had evolved to suit such circumstances, he avoided listening to their conversation, despite overwhelming temptation.
It was clear by now that he wasn't going to get any more sleep for a while, so he pulled himself out of the cot and started to get dressed.
He felt slow, turgid, his body silent like a mausoleum, yet blood still moved through his arteries by some unfathomable means. He found his way to the kitchen and dribbled some tepid tank-water into his dry mouth. Then he turned to see Buddy watching him from the doorway.
'There were a lot more people around this place earlier,' Kendrick observed. 'Where have they all gone?'
'Remember when we talked to Veliz? They've gone on ahead. I was surprised to find anyone here at all when we arrived, but we're a little ahead of our own schedule.'
'So why didn't we just go with them?'
'We have our own transport, remember? Besides, doing it this way makes more sense than all heading off together. That's why there's flights heading out from several different locations. Safer that way.'
Kendrick stepped past Buddy, heading out through the main entrance and into a cool Californian night. He stared upwards at the sky, and after a moment heard Buddy step up behind him.
'I have my reasons for going up there,' Kendrick said over his shoulder. 'But don't forget that they're not the same as yours. When I went back down into the Maze I learned some things. I don't think it's as clear-cut as you seem to think.'
He turned and stared at Buddy. 'I think you're putting yourselves in great danger.'
Buddy glared back. 'You'd better explain that.' -
'Robert is part of the Bright, yes, but it's a parasitical – not a symbiotic – relationship.'
'Just a minute, listen-'
Kendrick pressed on. 'No, you listen to me. Peter was down there, Buddy. Robert was, too. You could feel it, couldn't you?'
'What?'
'What's so hard to believe? That Robert was the only one to achieve some kind of life after death due to his
