Roo

Chapter 1

The man stood there, motionless as always, voiceless in the silence, naked, vulnerable in the grey light of... nothing. He was a man pretending to be alive, breathing without existence… faceless, unknowing, with eyes like all of space.

For God's sake take Jamie back to his room, Geordanno! The nurse glared malevolently at Geordi, as if expecting him to disagree. He makes me nervous. You know that. Geordi shrugged and lowered his eyes before she could accuse him of something else. Disappointed, she turned and waddled away muttering fiercely to herself.

Old Shelly. None of the patients could stand her. They all hoped she would have a stroke one day while giving out the pills, or maybe stiffen with arthritis and suddenly crack when she opened her mouth to yell at one of them. But as luck would have it, she had outlasted them all so far. Shelly had worked at the Institute forever, and almost as long on Ward 8. Never married, never befriended, she ruled by girth and voice. She would descend upon the patients each morning like a large thundering cloud, her all-white, all-covering uniform freshly starched from ankle to chin, white cap pinned in place with three immense silver clasps that only worked until around noon. They were her only attempt at ornamentation; the rest of her was left to its own devices. Creases wandered from her too-large nose and cracked her face as if in revenge for some long ago insult. Her eyes were fat plums on a partly-eaten pudding; her long black hair was raked up and glued into a ridiculous football-shaped mound under the three rebellious clasps. Everything from her head down to the shiny white shoes that labored under the strain of holding up the short, obese, constantly moving body above, warned of danger, of malevolence held in check by the thinnest of veneers.

Geordi sighed and shook his head at her retreating bulk. Apart from her, he really enjoyed Ward 8 -enjoyed Riverside Hospital, for that matter. Riverside! An overstatement, to say the least. As far as Geordi could see, the name was just that: a name. Like one of those condo developments called Oak Bluffs, or maybe Hazelnut Grove, there was a chance that the name would disguise the absence of anything else appealing about them. There used to be a river nearby, perhaps. Or maybe somebody thought they could see one from a tree on top of the hill where they had plopped the buildings, one, two, three. At any rate, what with everybody from the city fleeing to the suburbs, any river that had once meandered by the hospital had been suborned by contractors, and diverted to better paying neighborhoods. Anything near Riverside was unimaginative, and built with a minimum of green and leaf. The hospital, despite its isolation when it was originally built, was now an oasis in a lower middle class desert of townhouses and low rise apartments. Set on a vast tract of hillside that was once wilderness and far from prying eyes, it was now confined to a ten acre parcel of trees, lawns and rocks. There was a stone fence around part of it that bordered a now-busy street. It had been gathered and set long ago from boulders lying about the grounds as part of a currently unfashionable rehabilitation scheme for patients.

In a different time, the huge stone arch that enclosed a heavy oak gate, the leafy tunnel of maples leading up to the main building, and maybe even the turn-of-the-century limestone structure itself, would have seemed elegant. But a society that treasures two-story walk-ups, and shopping malls looks to different icons, and the gate became the repository of Jon loves Pandeep forever carved in careless random-sized letters wherever a smooth surface presented itself within five feet of the ground.

Even the timeless stone of the fence was defaced or broken in places. It was sometimes crudely patched with different coloured cement, but more often it was left for dogs and lovers to jump and secret themselves among the forest of bushes left untended inside the walls.

Maybe these were among the reasons the government of the day, not to mention the town council, had decided to phase out Riverside. Geordi couldn't imagine how most of the patients would cope outside the protection of the Institute. By the time they got to Riverside, they were beyond coping, as far as he could see.

Jamie was a good example. He had come to Riverside three or four years ago after making his way through several long term care facilities in the city. Each one had promised hope to his distraught parents with shock therapy at one, pills of all sizes and regimes at another. But none had stopped his inexorable journey into the wilderness of his mind; none had touched his awareness even briefly. He was, one doctor had told his parents, a prisoner lost in his own head. So now he was left to wander on his own, abandoned on Ward 8 in Riverside with a nurse who detested him.

Geordi wasn't sure why old Shelly disliked Jamie, but he could guess. All the other patients were afraid of her. When she arrived each morning precisely at 7:30, they would all nod their heads and stop whatever they had been doing in deference to her command -all, that is, except Jamie. For Jamie, Shelly did not exist.

Geordi wasn't even sure if Jamie existed as Jamie inside himself. He seemed totally unaffected by anything -anything external, at any rate. Sometimes, Geordi saw his usually expressionless face change, as if for a moment, the prisoner inside had found something hidden underneath a mental tree.

Shelly saw Jamie differently, however. To her, he was a manipulator, a fake, who needed to be tripped up and yelled or bullied out of his counterfeit hiding place. When he did not respond to one of her incessant commands, she would fly into a rage and demand that Geordi drag him out of her sight. Lately, she had taken to looking at Jamie out of the corner of her eye, as if eye contact with him would pollute her somehow. His absolute inattention was getting to her. She had mentioned to Geordi one time during a rare moment of communication, that she thought Jamie was possessed. Only Evil could insulate him from her that thoroughly. Only evil worse than hers, Geordi had almost said, but couldn't.

*

The sound of bare feet slapping on the stone floor echoed hollowly throughout the cavernous room. Apart from an occasional cough, the men gathering there were silent, their eyes vacant, their faces expressionless. In fact, once they had arrived, they barely moved. Dressed in grey coveralls, with only their hands, feet and heads exposed, they weren't so much men as figures slowly being incorporated into stone.

The room was stone too, but like a cave with irregular, sloping walls, and a ceiling that disappeared into the darkness above their heads. The lighting was indirect and constant, but somehow inadequate and it caught on every rocky outcrop throwing shadows around like spears as the men gathered below. Of course, the huge mirror occupying an entire wall at one end of the cavern ricocheted the light too, making the room almost unbearably mobile and unstable. The men didn't seem to notice it, however; they had seen it a thousand times, and the constant novelty was lost on them.

A short woman dressed in a nursing uniform peered through the one-way mirror at the men and ticked them off one at a time on a list in front of her. We're going to have to run some more tests on them tomorrow, Geo. They've been almost two weeks on this stuff now.

Has it been that long? Geo was a heavy set man with dark bushy eyebrows and short, thinning black hair. He was wearing a rumpled lab coat that seemed several sizes too small for him. I don't like this experiment you know, Shelley.

She rolled her eyes. Damn it, Geo. Are we going to go through all that again?

Geo sighed and looked out at the men. There's nothing out there but legs and arms.

Oh for God's sake, Geo, the drug works, doesn't it? So the experiment's a success.

She handed him the list and went over to a cabinet to get the day's medication ready.

Geo shook his head and studied the patients for a moment. None of them moved, none of them seemed even interested in the idea. Well, I don't know... I suppose if you just want somebody to walk around all day as if he was waiting for a line to form, you've got a world-beater there. But they've got minds as clean as your uniform.

Shelley turned her head from the drug cupboard for a moment, unconsciously brushing a strand of straight long black hair off her cheek. These guys are psychotic, Geo. Remember what the files on them said? Thank God this stuff works. She held up a tiny pill in her hand.

I guess that's a real fear everybody has nowadays, isn't it?

What do you mean?

That someplace, sometime, we're going to run into something science can't fix.

Shelley turned away again and busied herself with the pills. We're on that one again, eh?

And then, he continued as if she hadn't spoken, and then we'd just have to let it happen, wouldn't we? Uncontrolled. Unpredictable...Natural.

Shelley was suddenly uneasy, and glanced nervously around the room. Geo, I wish you'd keep those thoughts to yourself. The patients might hear you, she added unconvincingly and turned back to the cupboard.

Hear me? Geo mumbled to himself. They can't even hear their own minds.

When she had placed all the pills on a numbered tray, Shelley walked over to the mirror and grabbed the list from his hand. Geo, be a dear and go look for Rupert, will you?

Aw come on Shelley, these guys pop in and out of their rooms like bats. He's probably sleeping again.

Then the medication isn't working, is it? He's supposed to be here, remember?

Geo scratched his chin a moment. Actually, I'm a little worried about Rupert. He's been sleeping an awful lot lately. You’re sure he's been getting the amount I prescribed?

She gave him a withering look, but didn't answer. Instead she pointed at the men outside. One of them began to fade, and then flickered back to solidity as if he'd forgotten something. For God's sake, Geo, stop arguing. Let's give these guys their meds and go and get Rupert before something happens.

While her back was turned, Geo flickered slightly, and then followed her with a smile.

*

Geordi took Jamie by the hand and led him out of the common room where the other patients were wandering around like zombies. Jamie wasn't very tall; he wasn't very heavy for that matter. Thick, curly red-brown hair, sparse adolescent red beard, butterscotch horn rimmed Buddy Holly glasses, blue pajamas, brown worn-suede slippers -that was all there was to Jamie. Not quite all, actually, thought Geordi. There was occasional laughter in Jamie's eyes and the occasional light in there. It was almost as if sometimes the prisoner peeped out between a crack in the blinds, was amused, and then thought better of it and trekked off into the forest again.

Was that fair? Could you really tell anything about a person from a glint in their eye, wondered Geordi? Especially someone who had ended up in here: the Riverside dead end for minds… and lives. And Ward 8, the most controlled ward in the Institute, had nothing in it to entice a mind out of its own terra incognita. Bare walls in the huge common room painted stone-grey, like some grotesque imitation of a cavern, ceilings so high up that it was difficult to focus on them, and if one found oneself looking up, nothing interesting there to command more than an instant's attention. The ceiling seemed at once dark, colour-bare, and impossibly far away. Like Space itself. Geordi sometimes found himself searching for stars in the corners where the light never reached. Corridors leading off both ends of the room were tunnels lined with cave-grimy walls and doors opened off each side like grottos. The tunnels branched and forked like in a mine. Patients, if they chose, could get lost for hours, Geordi supposed. But they didn't. Food was too important. Food or medication -both were linked in Pavlovian fashion on Ward 8. It was Shelly's idea, of course. Patients this far gone were animals, she said. No need for decorations, bright colors, music; no need for functional things. Don't upset them with distractions. Give them their medications on schedule, or according to whatever clinical trial Ward 8 was assigned, and let them be. All else was guss.

How can you gussy up a prison enough, wondered Geordi? Once the door is locked, and you're trapped inside, it doesn't much matter that the grounds have trees and grass for someone else to lie on. The inside is all you have -although there were always the bars to look through…

Jamie had one of the few 'private' rooms on the ward. Shelly didn't trust him with the other patients, for some reason, so she locked him away by himself each night in what amounted to a monk's cell. The bed was little more than a platform bolted to the floor with a thin excuse for a mattress on top. No blankets, of course -nothing he could hang himself with. Geordi wondered if Dr. Campbell knew what was going on. He had been the ward psychiatrist until the administrator had shot himself. Now he was both, and rarely got to the ward anymore. Shelly ran it for him by default. The other ward doctors were afraid of her.

Dr. Rupert Campbell was one of the only doctors in the Riverside Institute who seemed to care about anything. Not only was Riverside a dead end for patients, it was also a cul de sac, a haven for foreign psychiatrists who couldn't get licensed in this country -or any other, probably- and for general practitioners who had tried but failed to attract patients in the competitive world outside. Geordi couldn't figure how Dr. Campbell -or Rupert, as he preferred to be called- ended up at Riverside. As far as he could tell, Rupert was skillful, and compassionate. Patients used to line up to see him whenever he arrived on the ward. Shelly ran interference for him on those occasions, pummeling them with withering glances, and actual threats that she mouthed when his back was turned. But he was infinitely patient with them, and even when they couldn't stammer out a complaint before Shelly began tapping her foot, he would sit beside them and wait for her to waddle off in a huff on some pretext or other.

He was a good administrator, too, from all Geordi had heard. It pained him to downsize the wards and discharge patients to Community Care, because all too often it was to the streets that he was sending them. Community Care was intended to meet community and individual needs -intact and functioning minds were assumed. There was no way that the overworked social workers could track down every patient that didn't show up for an evening meal; there was no way they could always find someone who wandered off and forgot to return for the medication that would help them to remember to return. The city had a million excuses and resources were strained out there. But it was easy to spot the women rummaging through garbage cans in deserted alleys and the men lying under cardboard covers in doorways. The pattern of behavior was the same: they were lost in a world that wasn't looking for them.

Geordi knew all this. He also knew why the previous administrator had shot himself...

Chapter 2

The Institute was a labyrinth. Passages branched off at odd angles, going nowhere, accomplishing nothing. Openings, seemingly hewn at random from the rock, boasted thick wooden doors with bolts like a prison. And inside each was a tiny room with a wooden platform serving as a bed. There was nothing more: no decorations, no colour, no evidence when the door was shut that they were anything but lighted, unfurnished caves.

The passageways, the rooms -and everything else, for that matter- were all dimly lit. Only the mirror room had light -or heat- to spare. Geo supposed it was because it was only there that anything significant happened. It was from the mirror room that they dispensed the medications, and in the mirror room where they observed its effects. And whoever had planned things had assumed any side effects, too, would be polite enough to occur in front of the mirror where they could be seen and duly entered in the computer .Or did Whoever care about side effects..? The Scientists -or whatever one was supposed to call them- seemed to view the patients merely as vehicles for medications: necessary as a group to achieve statistical validity, but individually irrelevant. That was obvious from the facilities and the staff. Between drug administrations, the patients were left pretty much on their own, so all they did was lie on their wooden beds, or wander barefoot around the corridors looking for food. Besides eating, there was little else to do. The cook was a patient and because of the medications, he frequently forgot where he was, let alone what he was doing. So they often went hungry.

Shelley sometimes cooked for the two of them in the little kitchen behind the mirror, but she was an indifferent cook. Eating seemed merely a necessity for her, rather than the pleasure it was to Geo. It was as if a tank in her read empty every so often, and when this happened, she would try to fill it with whatever was at hand; whatever was left went into his. Anything would do for her, but she appeared to favor a yellow vegetable-like substance that came with the medications in a separate little round box. Not the food box -that was for the patients. And not the box labeled meat- because it wasn’t… So unless he wanted to live on the yellow gunge, Geo was on his own.

In many ways, Shelley was like one of the patients. She was not on medication, to be sure, but beyond her duties, and various ablutions, her mind stopped dead. She seemed as curious about what went on around her as she was about the yellow guz she ate. It made for sparkling dinner conversation. Apart from the occasional outbursts of wind and gas the vegetable produced, and the mandatory grunts as she picked the hairy fibers from between her teeth, she was blank. He couldn't make her understand that there was more to life.

Why? she would ask. How can you say there's more? Show it to me.

Geo often wondered why he was different. Why was he the only one to ask questions? Shelley didn't, and the patients certainly didn't -although how could he be sure what they might have done before having their minds wiped clean by the drug? In fact, he often wondered whether that was the purpose of the experiment in the first place. They were supposed to have been insane -that's what Shelley had been told (By whom?)- and there were notes on each one documenting the diagnosis, but who made it, and using what criteria? Was insanity merely curiosity? And if so, why wasn't he on medications? Or was that what the yellow stuff was..? Of course if the Institute was all there was to reality...

But that was really what troubled Geo; it was what kept him wandering the corridors; it was what made him stop by the little locked door the supplies came through. If this was all there was, then how could there be an outside?

Shelley, he said one day while she was handing out medications from a door in the mirror, why are we doing this?

Huh?

Doing this. You know, handing out drugs from somewhere to people who don't seem to need them -whatever the medications may do?

You know perfectly well what they do and why we give them. We talk about this almost every day.

Yeah? Well tell me again.

She shook her head. No way, Geo. You're not getting me into this another time!

But you never answer me.

That's because you know the answer as well as me. You're the doctor, remember.

No, I don't remember! I don't remember ever doing anything but this.

But that's what a doctor does, Geo. Surely you see that.

And you do what a nurse does, and so that makes you a nurse?

Why yes, of course.

But that's a circular argument, don't you understand?

Very slowly, she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. No I do not understand. And what I do not understand the most is why it matters to you. Some things just are, and that's that.

Geo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Shelley, just tell me one thing, okay? What were you doing two weeks ago?

Huh?

Two weeks ago. What were you doing?

She looked out at the patients for a moment. The ones who hadn't yet received their drug were milling around looking puzzled. Look Geo, I've got work to do, and so have you. Have you entered the log on Rupert yet? He hasn't showed up here three times now.

Shelley? When she turned her head towards him, he could see a troubled look in her eyes. Apart from an empty tank, Shelley seldom manifested anything. Shelley, tell me about two weeks ago.

I can't, and you know it. And you can't either, so why ask?

But why can't we?

Her face brightened. Oh, that's easy.

Well?

The experiment hadn't started yet.

He threw his arms in the air in exasperation. You mean we started at the same time as the experiment?

Of course. We're part of the experiment aren't we? So why should we exist when it doesn't? She turned away, satisfied, and began to hand out the remaining medications.

And when the experiment's over..?

Later that day, Geo found himself in the corridors again. He'd told Shelley he was going to see about Rupert, but he really wanted to be alone. Shelley's answer had troubled him. Suppose she was right; suppose they both existed within, and not outside of the experiment? Did that mean that everything was contingent, then? He reached out and touched the rough, cold wall. Was he only real as long as he fulfilled an essential part

That troubled him too. He was obviously a doctor -he had the skills and the knowledge to diagnose and help- and yet Shelley didn't think he should actually help Rupert. He was the only one of almost two hundred patients to show any ill effects from the medication and so Shelley was happy. But Geo, the drug's a success. The side effect rate is negligible.

Shelley, how can you say that?

Come on Geo! One in a hundred and eighty-four? That's… ahh... about eighteen into point one... Well, an awfully small percent, I think.

But what about Rupert?

What about him?

He's going in and out of a coma. And I'm not sure I can help him.

But that's not the point, don't you see? This drug is going to help millions of people, and almost nobody's going to get sick from it. Surely that's good, don't you think?

Shelley?

Yes?

Where are those millions?

Huh?

All those people. Where are they?

Geo, you do ask the silliest questions.

Why is that silly?

She shook her head and laughed. He liked it when she laughed. Because they're probably part of another experiment.

He had to squeeze himself against the wall as two barefooted patients passed him in the narrow corridor. They, like all the rest, were tall -huge, even, compared to Geo. And of course they were bald. He'd never figured out why that was. At first he'd wondered if it was the drug, but try as he might, he couldn't remember what they'd looked like at the start. Shelley, of course, knew the answer before he'd even asked her the question: they were all insane weren't they? Well, then obviously they'd pulled their hair out. She loved simple explanations.

The two that passed him never spoke, but something in their eyes told him they noticed him more than they let on. It was almost as if the medication had thrown a blanket over their minds, but a part of their brain was still functioning underneath -and afraid. No, he told himself for the hundredth time, the drug is flawed.

Up ahead he could see the branch of the corridor that went to Rupert's cave. For some reason, there was a large crack in the wall leading right to Rupert's door. He'd only noticed it for the last day or two, but it didn't seem to be growing, or anything. The place wasn't going to come down on their heads, though, because it was the only crack he could remember seeing anywhere in the Institute.

Rupert, as he had been for the last two or three days, was lying on the wooden platform, his bald head in stark contrast to the grey stone walls. Geo had covered him with a blanket from his own room, and fashioned a pillow of sorts out of another one. Rupert looked comfortable, and at times he even seemed to be smiling. Sometimes, though, he would moan, open his eyes, and stare vacantly around the room. His pulse and temperature were normal, even in the coma, and sometimes Geo wondered if he was just asleep. When his eyes were closed, he seemed so peaceful and content -an expression he'd never seen on a patient before. And yet Geo knew if he pinched him or twisted his arm when his eyes were closed, Rupert would show no signs he could feel anything. And he couldn't wake him up no matter what he tried. Consciousness for Rupert seemed to ebb and flow without any external cause. But things were changing. His coma was becoming deeper. His breathing had slowed noticeably, and on occasion lately, his pulse would become irregular. Rupert was going to die soon; Geo could sense it. And yet, his face seemed so content when he was unconscious, Geo couldn't help but think Rupert was enjoying himself somewhere inside…

After a final check of Rupert's vital signs, he sighed and walked to the door. I don't even look like these guys, he thought, surveying Rupert one last time.

He wandered up and down the corridors lost in thought. If I'm an integral part of the experiment, he wondered, and I do something unexpected, will I affect it? The question pursued him relentlessly down the stone passageways, and even when he flickered, as sometimes happened, he didn't find himself blank as usual. Suppose he simply refused to work on the patients anymore. Would that change anything? Probably not, he realized. He did precious little, anyway; Shelley was the one who pressed the pills into them, and they both knew there were no others with side effects. He shuddered a little at the thought. He was redundant now, actually.

He suddenly became aware that he was in the corridor leading to the Door. The flickering was always greater here, of course… Now why of course? And what did flickering mean? Instability?

The Door was by no means ordinary. It wasn't wood like any of the other doors in the Institute, although it was obviously supposed to look like it was. But there was no bolt on it. Instead, right in the center, there was a shiny black box about the size of his fist with a numbered keyboard inside. He'd tried several times to open it, but nothing had happened. Nothing ever happened. Well, once, the flickering had become so severe, his hand had actually disappeared for a few seconds… He’d assumed it was a warning.

This was the door through which the supplies came, and only Shelley knew the combination. They arrived every morning, usually before he had awakened, so by the time he'd dressed, she was preparing her morning's food -yellow, of course. Once he tried to get up earlier to help her carry the boxes, but she refused, saying it was part of her job, not his.

That's strange, you know Shelley.

What? Shelley was always on her guard for anything