Нил Шустерман - Shuttered Sky

It happened four days later, at lunchtime. Hers and Gerritson’s paths had barely crossed over those four days, and when they had Bussard was always within earshot, there was no conversation. Maddy had to admit she was in no hurry to speak with Gerritson again. In a couple of weeks maybe she’d force some perspective and take him on in another game of pool, but for now silence and solitude were her new best friends. If nothing else, there was the satisfaction of Bussard’s dissatisfaction with her. Not with her job, but with her lack of contact and socialization with the rest of her submarine mates. To Bussard’s chagrin, she became a source of tension, rather than its relief. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Then came the day when the guard at Corridor A was not at his post. This was the path prescribed for Maddy when she entered the containment dome. She would wheel the tray from the cafeteria through the lower access way, then down Corridor A, where an armed guard would prevent her passage until their Honored Guest had been spirited from the dome through another corridor by Gerritson and the rest of Zero Team. But today the corridor guard had left his post, and gone into the containment dome, leaving the door ajar. Beyond that door, Maddy could hear shouting in the dome. Leaving her cart, she pushed the door wide to see what was going on. It was Gerritson. Apparently, he had gone mad.

He had taken the other two members of Zero Team by surprise. One was already sprawled on the floor, and the other he hurled over something that looked like an armored wheelchair which sat at the threshold of the open vault. The chair was occupied: their Honored Guest.

The Corridor A guard was next—Gerritson used the guard’s own momentum to slam his head into the edge of the open vault door, and he collapsed in a heap at the threshold.

Up above, one of the sharpshooters took aim.

Maddy ran toward Gerritson, scrolling through all the possible ways she could disable a battle-trained, adrenaline-pumped officer be­fore a bullet could do the job first.

Seeing the gunman above, Gerritson rolled, and the bullet rico­cheted off the vault door. Then in a second Gerritson was moving again. This time he was behind the wheelchair, his legs sprinting as he pushed the wheelchair in an erratic serpentine path toward Corridor A.

A second shot cratered the concrete beside him, but the third shot caught him in the shoulder. Still it did not slow his momentum, or dampen his determination.

“Stop! They’ll kill you!” Maddy yelled, standing in his path—but as he approached, she realized it wasn’t madness or rage in his eyes. It was peace. A calm transcendence funneled into action.

“Out of my way, Maddy! I know what I’m doing!” He knocked her out of his path with the strange wheelchair.

“Stop him!” She couldn’t see Bussard, but recognized his voice. His footsteps clattered down a metal staircase on a catwalk up above.

The Corridor A guard, his head still bleeding, got up, then raised his pistol with the practiced calm he had been trained for, and fired. The bullet whizzed past, inches from Maddy’s ear, and entered the base of Gerritson’s skull, detonating the right side of his head. A spray of blood left a red arc across the mouth of the corridor, and splattered across Maddy’s face.

He was dead before he hit the ground, and the wheelchair careened forward, smashing into the food cart before skidding to a halt.

Maddy reacted with a directed wrath that arrived too late to make a difference. As the corridor guard ran past her, she grabbed his arm and snapped it at the elbow, then jabbed her fist into his epiglottis, so he couldn’t even scream from the pain of the broken arm—only gasp for air as he collapsed to the ground. Now that Maddy’s own adren­aline had shot into the red, she would have gone on decimating the guard for what he had done, had not Bussard’s voice begun to boom in the space around her.

“Stand down, Lieutenant!” He crossed the floor toward her. “I said stand down!”

Maddy forced her arms to her sides. Damage control, she thought. While Bussard did his, she would effect her own. Gerritson was dead. Nothing could be done to change that. Now she had to divorce her mind from the context—belay the emotional imperative, and talk her way out of a court martial. Damage control now. Assess later.

“Yes sir. Protecting the guest, sir. The guard’s aim could have been off and—"

“Enough!” Bussard turned to one of the recovering members of Zero Team.

“McCall! Get Gerritson out of here. Take him to the loading dock for now. We’ll deal with him after this situation is under control.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer turned briskly and ran off.

“Wait!” shouted Bussard. The officer halted, then turned hesi­tantly. “You heard my order, McCall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then carry it out.”

The exchange baffled Maddy, until she realized something. He wasn’t supposed to hear the order. No one in Zero Team was. They had begun their jobs deaf.

“Haas, get the prisoner. Bring him back to his cell.”

“Don’t you mean guest, sir?”

“Just do it!”

She followed McCall, realizing with a swell of horror that she would have to step over Gerritson’s body to get to the wheelchair. The cement floor was slick with blood and brain tissue. A gurgling sounded bubbled in Gerritson’s throat. Maddy felt herself getting sick, and silently scolded herself. She stepped over the body. All at once Gerritson’s hand shot out and coiled itself around her ankle. She turned to find there was life in his eyes, that seemed to be growing stronger, rather than weaker.

“W . . . w . . . wonderful,” bubbled Gerritson’s voice through bloody lips.

“Jesus!” McCall turned to retch on the lunch cart.

Half of Gerritson’s cranium was gone, and still he spoke. “Won­derful, Haas. Wonderful.” But didn’t that gaping fissure above his right eye seem smaller than it had just a moment ago, Maddy thought. Wasn’t his cortex now showing a maze of convolutions where there had been nothing but pulp? And didn’t the blood seem to be soaking back into him, instead of spilling out?

Bussard grabbed her and turned her away from the sight. “Secure the prisoner! Now!”

Following orders was suddenly the easiest, most appealing thing to do. Her military training bypassed her conscious mind, and before she knew what she was doing, she was back in the dome, pushing the heavy wheelchair toward the open door of the vault. On her way, she passed the corridor guard, who was flexing his arm absently, as if she had done little more than tweak his funny bone. But she had broken it—she knew she had. Still there was no sign of the damage.

She crossed through the vault’s threshold, into the cubic cell. Only once she was inside the claustrophobic chamber did she dare to look down at the mysterious guest.

The first thing she noticed was the true nature of his conveyance. It was less a wheelchair and more an Iron Maiden. Heavy steel bars came across his arms and legs. A plate molded to conform to his chest covered his whole upper body, and was welded to the chair. And yes, he did have a mask, but it was hardly iron. The alloy was a polished titanium composite, like the vault door. It covered his entire head, and the holes for eyes, nose and mouth gave him the eerie semblance of a somber jack-o’-lantern. The entire apparatus had a fine seam right down the middle, as if it could be cranked open, but there was no sign of a release or keyhole anywhere. She thought she had never seen anyone quite so helpless.

And then he spoke.

“He was trying to free me,” the voice said, much younger, much gentler than she expected it to sound. “I’m sorry. He meant something to you, didn’t he?”