Michael Crichton - Drug of Choice

“Fine. And the sound?”

“We’ll go there afterward. The mixing studios are doing fine work, I think you’ll agree. And the boys are coming together nicely.”

Blood nodded and sat back. The second man handed him a sheaf of graphs, with points plotted on peculiar circular axes. It was a kind of graph Clark had never seen before.

There were also several pages of photographs, but they were also peculiar. One page was the faces of twenty girls, but the other pages were isolated photos of legs, elbows, shoulders, feet. Each page was stamped: “PROJECT GLOW.”

“What’s that?” Clark said.

“Shut up,” Harvey Blood said. “I’m thinking.”

An auditorium, empty, the rows of wooden seats stretching back into darkness. In front of them, a bare and lighted stage.

Harvey Blood slumped down in the front row and looked up at the stage. The two men sat on either side of him; Clark sat next to one of them.

Nobody said anything, but after a moment, a man in a dark suit came onto the stage, carrying a microphone on a heavy base. He set the microphone down in the middle of the stage, right in front of Blood.

“Are you ready now, sir?” he asked.

“Ready,” Blood said. He took out a pair of glasses, wiped them on his tie, and put them on. He folded his hands across his chest and looked up expectantly.

“There are three runs,” one of the men said, leaning over to Clark. “Dr. Blood can eliminate at any time. Do you understand?”

“No,” Clark said.

“You’ll get the hang of it, after a while,” the man said.

The stage lights went down. A voice said, “Number one,” and a girl walked out. She was tall and slender, with dark hair and a gentle face. She wore black slacks and a frilly white blouse.

“You see,” one of the men whispered to Clark, “on the first run, the girls wear whatever they want. The next two runs are standardized. But this run is important to personality projection and affect penetrance.”

“Oh.”

The girl walked slowly across the stage, oblivious to the men in the front row. She reached the opposite side, turned, and walked back. Clark looked over to see what Blood was doing. He was frowning.

Blood said, “Why slacks?”

“Ego interference,” one man said. “Subconscious withdrawal complex. She relies on conveyed fragility.”

Blood continued to frown. “Cut her.”

The aide picked up a small hand walkie-talkie. “Cut one,” he said.

There was a pause, and then a voice said, “Number two,” and a second girl walked across the stage. This one was short, with large breasts and hips, and a pert face. She wore a miniskirt and sweater.

“Projection-affective,” one of the men whispered. “Written all over her.”

“Oh,” Clark said.

This girl Blood seemed to like. He smiled slightly, and said nothing. The girl walked off the stage and a third one came on, a dark-haired girl in a leather skirt, vest, boots.

“Strangely enough, this one is ego-flexor, though she doesn’t look it.”

Clark leaned over to see Blood’s reaction, but his face was enigmatic.

The fourth girl wore a jumper; she had large breasts and blond hair.

“Look at the way she walks,” Blood said. “Terrible. Cut her.”

And so it went, through all twenty girls. Clark tried to make sense of what was happening, but he could not. Every once in a while, one of the men would lean over to explain things, but the explanations never helped. About all he understood was that they were selecting a girl.

For something.

At the end of the first run, Blood said, “How many?”

“Thirteen left”

“All right. Let’s get on with it.”

The new sequence began, this time starting with number two, since number one was eliminated. Number two wore a brief black bikini. She had not taken two steps onto the stage before Blood hissed: “She has a scar!”

“Yes,” one of the men said, “appendix…”

“You knew that? And you kept her? That’s absurd.”

“We thought perhaps it would increase identification, help in the human element, a girl with a—”

“A scar?” Blood shuddered. “Never. Glow Girl can’t have a scar. Cut her.”

Over the walkie-talkie: “Cut number two.”

The next girl came out, in an identical bikini. Clark watched her, but he was rapidly losing interest. In his mind, the girls began to merge; he lost the ability to differentiate them. He found himself listening to Blood’s comments.

On number five: “Bad hips. Awkward in the hips. Cut her.”

Number seven: “Terrible breasts. And she doesn’t move right. Cut her.”

Number eleven: “Ugh! Cut her.”

Number fourteen: “Too shy. She comes over shy. Cut her.”

Number nineteen: “That’s brazen. It’s flaunting: cut her.”

Number twenty: “She acts tired. Cut her.”

At the end of the run, he said again, “How many?”

“Six.”

Blood sighed. “Still six? Hell. All right.”

He sat back and waited for the third run. Five minutes passed before the first of the girls came onstage. She wore a strange dress, made of plastic squares, loose. But the plastic, Clark saw, was glowing. The dress moved gently with the girl, glowing bright pink.

Blood smiled. “Very nice. Where are the batteries?”

“In the collar. Mercury-cadmium.”

“Very nice.”

Another girl came on, before the first had left, and then another, until all six were lined up on the stage. Each wore the same glowing dress of plastic.

Blood looked from one to the next. He was frowning hard. He said, “Let’s hear the one on the far right.”

“Far right,” one of the men shouted.

The girl on the far right, a redhead, seemed surprised at first, and then pleased. She walked up to the microphone, skirt moving gently, and said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl. Nice to meet you.”

“Hmmm,” Blood said. “Try the third from the left.”

“Third from the left!”

Another girl walked up to the microphone and said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl. Nice to meet you.”

This was repeated until finally the last girl said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl, and I wish I knew what the hell I’m doing here.”

There was nervous laughter from all the girls.

Blood smiled.

Then, without taking his eyes off the line of girls, he said, “Clark, what’s your decision?”

“My what?”

“Decision. Which one do you pick?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what you’re picking them for.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Blood said. “Choose.”

“But why me? I don’t—”

“Listen,” Blood said, “do you think we brought you down here for the ride? Choose!”

Clark hesitated. He looked at the girls. Finally he said, “Second from the left.”

“Second from the left,” Blood repeated, nodding.

“Second from the left,” the man said into the walkie-talkie.

Blood stood. “That’s that,” he said, and walked out of the auditorium. The others followed, Clark last of all. He was stunned. He looked back to the stage; the girls were clustered together, talking. The one he had chosen was a dark-haired girl with large eyes.

Up ahead, by the door, Blood shouted, “Come on, Clark, we haven’t got all day.”

Clark hurried up the aisle, away from the stage.

Surrounded by electronic equipment, dials and switches, they sat in the soundproofed room and looked through the glass at the group in the inner room. Five young men with long hair, guitars, drums, an organ.

Blood stared at them, and placed earphones over his head. “Let’s hear them.”

At a signal, the group started to play. One of the other men leaned over to Clark.