Alan Glynn - The Dark Fields aka Limitless

‘Fifteen,’ I said, ‘thanks.’

Mingling freely and somewhat sickeningly in the air with my anxiety was the scent of expensive perfume, and the always charged but never acknowledged intimacy of an elevator ride. As we hummed upwards, I felt my stomach churning over and I had to lean against the side of the elevator car to steady myself. When the door slid open at fifteen, I stared out in disbelief at a magnolia-coloured wall. Brushing past one of the two women, I made my exit – stepping a little unsteadily out on to a crimson and navy carpet.

‘Good evening.’

I turned back, and as the two women were being closed off from view, I mumbled some kind of reply.

Left alone now in this empty corridor, I experienced something close to real terror. I had been here before. It was exactly as I had remembered it – the low, wide corridor… richly coloured, luxurious, deep and long like a tunnel. But this was all I could remember. I walked a few paces and then stopped. I stood facing one of the doors and tried to imagine what the room inside was like – but nothing came to me. I walked on, passing door after door on either side, until near the end of the corridor I came to one that was slightly open.

I stopped, and my heart was thumping as I stood there, peering through the chink into what I could see of the room – the end of a double bed, drapes, a chair, everything bright and cream-coloured.

With my foot, I gently tapped the door open a little wider, and stepped back. Framed in the doorway, I could see more of the same, a generic hotel room – but then suddenly, passing across the frame from left to right I saw a tall, dark-haired woman in a long black dress. She was clutching her head and there was blood pouring down the side of her face. My heart lurched sideways and I stepped back, reeling, and fell against the magnolia wall. I got up, and staggered along the corridor, back towards the elevators.

A moment later, behind me, I heard a noise and I turned around. Coming out of the room I’d just been looking into, there was a man, and then a woman. They pulled the door closed and started walking in my direction. The woman was tall and dark-haired, and was wearing a belted coat. She was in her fifties, as was the man. They were chatting, and completely ignored me as they passed. I stood and watched as they walked the length of the corridor and then disappeared into an elevator.

A couple of minutes ticked by before I could do anything. My heart still felt as if it had been dislodged and was in danger of stopping. My hands were shaking. Leaning against the wall, I stared down at the carpet. Its deep colours seemed to be pulsating, its pattern shifting and alive.

Eventually, I straightened up and made my way to the elevators, but my hand was still trembling as I reached out to press the ‘down’ button.

By the time I got back to the conference room, a lot of people had arrived and the atmosphere was fairly frenetic. I wandered up to the front, where some of the MCL people had gathered in a group and were talking animatedly.

Suddenly, I heard Van Loon approaching me from behind.

‘Eddie, where have you been?’

I turned around. There was a look of genuine surprise on his face.

‘Jesus, Eddie, what happened? You… you look like you’ve seen-’

‘A ghost?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘I’m a little stressed out here, Carl, that’s all. I just need some time.’

‘Look, Eddie, take it easy. If anyone’s earned a break around here, it’s you.’ He clenched his fist and held it out in a gesture of solidarity. ‘Anyway, we’ve done our work. For the moment. Am I right?’

I nodded.

Van Loon was then whisked off by one of his people to talk to somebody on the far side of the podium.

I floated through the next couple of hours in a kind of semiconscious daze. I moved around and mingled and talked to people, but I don’t remember specific conversations. It all felt choreographed, and automatic.

When the actual press conference started, I found myself at the top of the room, standing behind the Abraxas people, who were seated at the table to the right of the podium. At the back of the room – and over a sea of about 300 heads – there was a phalanx of reporters, photographers and camera-men. The event was going out live on several channels, and there was also a webcast and a satellite feed. When Hank Atwood took the podium, there was an immediate barrage of sound from the cameras at the back – clicking, whirring, popping flashbulbs – and this din continued uninterrupted throughout the whole press conference, and even intermittently during the question-and-answer session that followed. I didn’t listen carefully to any of the speeches, some of which I had helped to write, but I did recognize occasional phrases and expressions – even though the relentless repetition of words such as ‘future’, ‘transform’ and ‘opportunity’ only added to the sense of unreality I now felt about everything that was happening around me.

Just as Dan Bloom was finishing at the podium, my cellphone rang. I quickly took it out of my jacket pocket and answered it.

‘Hello, is this… Eddie Spinola?’

I could barely hear.

‘Yes.’

‘This is Dave Morgenthaler in Boston. I got your message from this morning.’

I covered my other ear.

‘Listen… hang on a second.’

I moved to the left, along the side of the room and through a door about half-way down that led into a quiet section off the atrium lounge.

‘Mr Morgenthaler?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When can we meet?’

‘Look, who are you? I’m busy – why should I take the time out to see you?’

As briefly as I could, I pitched him the story – a powerful, untested and potentially lethal drug from the labs of the company he was about to go up against in court. I kept it unspecific and didn’t describe the effects of the drug.

‘You haven’t said anything to convince me,’ he said. ‘How do I know you’re not some nut? How do I know you’re not making this shit up?’

The lights were low in this section of the lounge and the only other people nearby were two old guys engrossed in conversation. They were sitting at a table next to some huge potted palm trees. Behind me, I could hear voices resounding from the conference room.

‘You couldn’t make MDT up, Mr Morgenthaler. This shit is real, believe me.’

There was a pause, quite a long one, and then he said, ‘What?’

‘I said you couldn’t-’

‘No, the name. What name did you say?’

Shit – I shouldn’t have said the name.

‘Well, that’s-’

‘MDT… you said MDT.’ There was an urgency in his voice now. ‘What is this, a smart drug?’

I hesitated before I said anything else. He knew about it, or at least knew something about it. And he clearly wanted to know more.

I said, ‘When can we meet?’

He didn’t pause this time.

‘I can get an early flight tomorrow morning. Let’s meet, say… ten?’

‘OK.’

‘Somewhere outside. Fifty-ninth Street? In front of the Plaza?’

‘OK.’

‘I’m tall and-’

‘I’ve seen your photo on the Internet.’

‘Fine. OK. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.’

I put the phone away and wandered slowly back into the conference room. Atwood and Bloom were together at the podium now, answering questions. I still found it hard to focus on what was going on, because that little incident up on the fifteenth floor – hallucination, vision, whatever – was still fresh in my mind and was blocking everything else out. I didn’t know what had happened between me and Donatella Alvarez that night, but I suspected now that as a manifestation of guilt and uncertainty, this was only the tip of a very large iceberg.