Savant (15 page)

“Let’s set the wheels in motion anyway,” said Branting. “If we get through this thing, it might be a useful statute to have on the books for next time.”

“I think we’ll hit a major sticking point there, too.”

“How so?”

“I think you’d have trouble defining terms, and there’s no way to cover all eventualities.”

“So, we could cover this situation, retrospectively, and guard against the same thing happening again...” began Nowak.

“But the chance of the same set of circumstances recurring is –”

“Let’s quote Assistant-Companion Metoo, shall we?” asked Branting, “And just call it ‘slim to none’.”

“That’s about the size of it,” said Schmidt.

Chapter Twenty-Three

W
OOH SHOWED
M
ETOO
a deep neck brace. It had solid, tilted rings, top and bottom, with curved, vertical bars holding the two together. The rings seemed hopelessly far apart, but the vertical supports had threaded sections on them, so that the collar could be made deeper or less deep, depending on the length of the subject’s neck.

The rings were covered in grubby, orange neoprene that Metoo thought looked particularly unattractive. She didn’t comment.

“My neck’s nowhere near that long,” she said.

“You’d be surprised,” said Wooh, but she shortened the supports, never-the-less, before wrapping the collar around Metoo’s neck. When it was securely in position to the correct circumference, Wooh began to elongate the vertical supports. Metoo felt as if her neck was being stretched beyond its natural limits.

“Comfortable?” asked Wooh.

“Hardly,” Metoo tried to say, through gritted teeth, but her neck was so extended that her lower jaw had no movement in it, what-so-ever, and she found herself talking like a ventriloquist with her jaw clamped shut.

“It won’t be long,” said Wooh, by way of reassuring Metoo.

Metoo did not care. Her discomfort was minor, particularly compared to the fascination that the video and audio feeds held for her. There was a subtle ebb and flow to the rhythm of the lights and the pitch of the sound. She recognised the cadence of Tobe’s breathing and the timbre of his voice in the low hum, and saw the sparkle in his eyes, when he was following a thought to its logical conclusion, in the pulse of the lights in front of her. She only thought that his mind was not yellow, that it could never be yellow.

Metoo was vaguely aware of a flash of pressure on the back of her neck, not like a prick, more like an insistent thumb-print, or an emphatic poke. The next thing she knew, the collar was released from her neck, as if being torn away in one swift move, and she felt something icy cool and moist: a swab, she supposed.

“All done,” said Wooh.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Now what?”

“Now you rest, and I climb back out through that damned window. I’ll need that, first, though,” she said, gesturing at the headset.

“How do I shut it off?”

“Just flip up the screen and take the ear-bead out, and the rest is automatic.”

“Let me wear it again, sometime?”

Wooh was surprised; it wasn’t the usual response. Most people found the experience difficult. Either it gave them a headache, or vertigo, or made them nauseous or agitated. Metoo was oddly calm.

“Of course,” said Wooh, “if I can.”

Wooh put her instruments away in a neat doctor’s bag, and then collapsed the table and attached it, by a strap, to the side of the bag. She opened the window, lifted her equipment out over the ledge, and dropped it onto the grass on the other side.

Metoo held out her hand, and, after a moment, Wooh took it, and shook it firmly. Metoo was grateful to Wooh for giving her Tobe back for a few minutes, and Wooh was oddly impressed by the calm, strong little woman in front of her.

“Send Saintout back in, would you?” asked Metoo. Wooh nodded and smiled. She sat on the window-ledge, and swung her legs out. She stepped out onto the grass, picked up her bag, and looked around.

Saintout wasn’t there.

“H
E’S GONE,
”
SAID
Wooh, just as a tone sounded in the flat.

Metoo held up one hand to Wooh as she turned to the garden room door, “Don’t move,” she said, as she left the room

“Yes,” said Metoo, signing in to Service.

“All current occupants must remain in the building,” said Service.

“Anomalies?”

“Moderate and monitoring.”

“What’s going on?”

“All current occupants must remain in the building.”

“Where’s Saintout? Does that mean Doctor Wooh has to stay?”

“All current occupants must remain in the building.”

Metoo signed out of Service, listened in the hallway for a moment to make sure that Tobe was still asleep, and, reassured by his slow, steady breathing, she let herself back into the garden room.

Wooh looked up at her from where she was leaning against the wall, adjacent to the window, her feet crossed, casually, in front of her, and her arms by her sides.

“I guess we’re going to get to know each other a little better than either one of us expected,” said Wooh.

“Have they told you what’s going on?”

“Not yet, but I’m guessing that if they haven’t told you now, they’re not likely to tell you at all. Do you know if there’s a status change on Master Tobe?”

“They’re not telling me anything. I ask for anomalies, and they tell me ‘moderate and monitoring’. I don’t even know what that means. I’ve never been past ‘minor and monitoring’ before, and it’s generally ‘minor and momentary’. What are they keeping from me?”

“Anything and nothing.”

Metoo visibly jumped, and put her palm high on her chest, shocked, and Wooh turned to see where she was looking. Saintout was standing on the other side of the window.

Wooh opened the window, while Metoo got her breath back.

“Did I startle you?” asked Saintout, stepping onto the ledge and then into the room in two easy strides. “Didn’t mean to, sorry.

“I got the order to remain in the building, and I was still in transit. It’s a lovely evening, so I was taking the long route around the building. I decided I’d better come back to the last building I was in. I hope three isn’t a crowd,” he said, looking from one anxious face to another.

“Four,” said Metoo.

“I don’t –” Saintout began, before he was cut off by Metoo.

“There are four of us in the flat.”

“Service should have known that you were outside,” said Wooh.

“It would appear that they’ve got better things to keep an eye on than me,” said Saintout. “Without wishing to alarm anyone, things don’t appear to be getting any closer to being resolved.”

Metoo looked from Saintout to Wooh. Her face was pale and her eyes were large, but her skin was cool and her hands were still. She was calm.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

“Doctor Wooh?” asked Saintout, stepping and turning, so that he stood next to Metoo, as though physically taking her side.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” she said.

“But you do have the means to find out,” said Saintout.

“If they haven’t even bothered to put your tracer on,” Wooh said, “I’d be prepared to bet that they’re too busy to bother talking to me.”

“You have the trump card, though, don’t you, Doctor Wooh?” Metoo asked.

“How so?”

“Think about it. Tobe is the primary subject in all this, whatever it is. Presuming everyone in College, and not just us, has been locked down, that puts you in charge of Tobe. He’s stuck in here, and so are you. You out-rank Saintout, and nobody’s telling me anything. Doesn’t that put you in the perfect bargaining position?”

“I’m not sure bargaining with Service is at all wise,” said Saintout.

“Well I’ve got nothing to lose,” said Metoo. “They’ve put this damned thing in my head so they know what I’m thinking; I might as well say it, it won’t be news to them.”

“It really doesn’t work like that,” said Wooh, “although, I do take your point.

“It’s late, Master Tobe’s asleep, and no one is going anywhere, so why don’t we try to relax and get some rest; we might have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

P
ITU
3
WAS
enjoying the attention. He was in a medical gown, in bed, in a private room, in no time at all. His Schedule was even hooked up to the infirmary, so that he wasn’t required to press his button if he didn’t feel like it, providing he wore a tag on his finger.

For the first hour, he was visited at least half-a-dozen times by one Medic or another, and twice by doctors. It seemed to him as if they were just chatting with him. It was the most attention he’d ever had in his life, and he was revelling in it. He had alerted Service to Tobe’s problems, and he’d suffered a minor physical and emotional breakdown as a result. It didn’t matter how the affair played out; he would be a legend in College for a long time to come.

During the second hour, visits to Pitu 3’s room were fewer and further between. During the third hour, nobody came to see him at all. Early in the fourth hour, he was woken up, so that a Medic could remove his tag, leaving him responsible for his own Schedule again.

Worse than all of that, he could hear things going on beyond the door to his single room that he was not a part of.

Of the thirteen obvious candidates for contamination in the College, Tobe and Metoo were in their flat. Pitu 3 was the first taken to the infirmary, but it was not yet known if he had suffered from contamination, and a more immediate concern was his emotional well-being; he was destined for the infirmary before there had been any evidence that Tobe’s work could prove dangerous. Mudd was the first signed into the infirmary, purely as a potential contamination patient, but he was also Service and a Medic, so he helped to open the quarantine ward that would house the rest. The Service Operators that had stood outside of Tobe’s room, while he was extracted, were the next to be escorted to infirmary ward Isis, followed by Estefan and his colleague.

“Just fill these in for me,” said the receptionist, handing the Techs clipboards with multi-page questionnaires on them.

“Why?” asked Estefan. “What did we do?”

“It was probably the toner,” said his colleague, “or maybe the stuff he drew on the floor with. Stands to reason it was something in that room. It can’t be too terrible though, I haven’t got any symptoms.”

“And nobody’s wearing masks, or sticking us in suits or anything. What is it then?” asked Estefan.

“You’ll be quarantined in ward Isis, where you’ll be given more information,” said Mudd, “but first we need you to fill in the forms. Pay particular attention to question 12b if you wouldn’t mind: human contacts. Then we’ll get you processed.”

“Bren’s going to go mad,” said Estefan, “and what about the kids?”

“Lockdown on Estefan’s residence,” Mudd called over his shoulder at the receptionist, who was thrusting a clipboard at the Operator that had delivered Saintout’s tray to Tobe’s flat.

“What do you mean, ‘Lockdown on Estefan’s residence’? I live alone,” said Estefan. “I went over to see a Senior at the School, a friend of mine for a... I guess you probably don’t need to know what for.”

“Get Doctor Narinda in here,” said Mudd. “We need to interface with Service at a superior level, right now.”

T
HE FACULTY BUILDING
where Tobe’s office was situated was the first to be locked down. Patel and her crew would have to manage as best they could. It didn’t matter how long it took, because no one else was going to enter that room. None of the other rooms in the building were open, so, except for some basic sanitation, and access to lockdown rations, which were both ancient and meagre, they could do nothing but work. The best rest that any of them got while they were in the building was the sleep that they snatched, propped up against the wall in the corridor outside the office, which was filling up with cartons of bagged up material that could not be extracted under the terms of the lockdown.