The Terminal Man

Concluding a new novel

SYNOPSIS: The handcuffed man under police guard who was admitted to University Hospital in Los Angeles one day in March was about to undergo an experimental brain operation of a kind never before performed on a human being. Harold Benson, a brilliant computer expert, was suffering from psychomotor epilepsy as a result of brain damage. During recent months, his seizures had led him to violent assaults on an airplane mechanic, a topless dancer and a gas-station attendant.

The doctors in the hospital's Neuropsychiatric Research Unit--the NPS--had decided on a "stage three" operation in which electrodes would be implanted in Benson's brain. Then, when a seizure was about to take place, a highly miniaturized computer implanted elsewhere in his body would produce a calming and restraining electrical impulse. Some risk arose from the fact that the small computer was powered by plutonium--but that was minimized by careful shielding and a warning metal dog tag that Benson would wear at all times. A further safeguard was the fact that the large hospital computer would monitor the implanted one.

Dr. McPherson, chief of the NPS, and his two staff surgeons, Drs. Ellis and Morris, were convinced that a breakthrough in medical science was at hand. Dr. Janet Ross, the young psychiatrist on the case, was not so sure. She had discovered a psychotic trend in Benson, a conviction that computers were about to dominate the human mind, and she felt that the operation would only intensify it.

On the eve of the operation, a girlfriend of Benson's named Angela Black brought him some personal effects and a wig to cover his bandaged head during convalescence. Surgery the next day went entirely according to plan. Later, when Benson was given some test stimulations, the results seemed to show that the computer was doing its job as predicted. Still, Benson was to be kept under a heavy dosage of tranquilizers--and the first slip-up came when that order was ignored.

Dr. Ross, coming to visit him, discovered that Benson had eluded the police guard, put on the wig and a hospital orderly's uniform and escaped. The situation immediately became more dramatic when the large hospital computer began to indicate that Benson's seizures were becoming more frequent--and were, in fact, being induced by the pleasurable shocks that calmed him. The computer prediction was that Benson would have a violent mental "tip-over" at six o'clock the following morning. A desperate search for him began, but it had no success.

Just after six A.M., the emergency hotline telephone whose number was listed on Benson's dog tag began to ring. It was Captain Anders of the Los Angeles police. "We've got a murder here," he said, "and we've got some questions for your people."

VI

Three patrol cars were pulled up in front of the apartment building off Sunset. The flashing red lights had already drawn a crowd, despite the early hour and the morning chill. Janet Ross parked her car down the street and walked back to the lobby. A young patrolman stopped her.

"You a tenant?"

"I'm Dr. Ross. Captain Anders called me."

He nodded toward the elevator. "Third floor, turn left," he said and let her through. The crowd watched curiously as she crossed the lobby and waited for the elevator. The flashing lights from the patrol cars bathed the lobby intermittently with a reddish glow. Then the elevator came and the doors closed.

The interior of the elevator was tacky: plastic paneling made to look like wood, worn green carpeting stained by innumerable pets. She waited impatiently for it to creak up to the third floor. She knew what these buildings were like--full of hookers, full of fags, full of drug users and transients. You could rent an apartment without a long lease, just month to month. It was that kind of place.

She stepped off at the third floor and walked down to another cluster of cops outside an apartment. Another policeman blocked her way; she repeated that she was here to see Captain Anders and he let her through with the admonition not to touch anything.

It was a one-bedroom apartment that seemed to be furnished in pseudo-Spanish style. Twenty men were crowded inside, dusting, photographing, measuring, collecting. It was impossible to visualize how it had looked before the onslaught of police personnel.

Anders came over to her. He was young, in his middle 30s, wearing a conservative dark suit. His hair was long enough to hang over the back of his collar and he wore horn-rimmed glasses. The effect was almost professorial and quite unexpected. It was strange how you built up prejudices. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "Dr. Ross? Captain Anders." He shook hands quickly and firmly. "Thank you for coming. The body is in the bedroom. The coroner's man is in there, too."

He led the way into the bedroom. The deceased was a girl in her 20s, sprawled nude across the bed. Her head was crushed and she had been stabbed repeatedly. The bed was soaked with blood and the room had the sickly-sweet odor of blood.

The rest of the room was in disarray--a chair by the dressing table knocked over, cosmetics and lotions smeared on the rug, a bedside lamp broken. Six men were working in the room, one of them a doctor from the medical examiner's office who was filling out the death report.

"This is Dr. Ross," Anders said. "Tell her about it."

The doctor shrugged toward the body. "Strong blow to the left temporal region, producing cranial depression and immediate unconsciousness. Her blood type and some of her hair are affixed to the lamp base."

Ross glanced over at the lamp, then back to the body. "The stab wounds?"

"They're later, almost certainly post mortem. She was killed by the blow to the head."

Ross looked at the head. It was squashed in on one side, like a deflated football, distorting the features of what had once been a conventionally pretty face.

"You'll notice," the doctor said, moving closer to the girl, "that she's put on half her make-up. As we reconstruct it, she was sitting at the dressing table, over there, making up. The blow came from above and from the side, knocking her over in the chair, spilling the lotions and crap. Then she was lifted up"--the doctor raised his arms and frowned in mock effort, lifting an invisible body--"from the chair and placed on the bed."

"Somebody pretty strong?"

"Oh, yes. A man, for sure."

"How do you know that?"

"Pubic hair in the shower drain. We've found two varieties. One matches hers, the other is male. Male pubic hair, as you know, is coarser and shows certain sex differences from female pubic hair under the microscope."

"No," Ross said. "I didn't know that."

"I can give you a reference on it, if you want," the doctor said. "It's also clear that her killer had intercourse with her before the murder. We've got a blood type on the seminal fluid and it's AO. Her type is AB. The man apparently takes a shower after intercourse, and then comes out and kills her." Ross nodded.

"Following delivery of the blow to the head, she's lifted up and placed on the bed. At this time, she's not bleeding much. No blood to speak of on the dressing table or rug. But now her killer picks up some instrument and stabs her in the stomach several times."

"You find a weapon? What do you think it was?"

"It's not here, but I have a rough idea of it. Nothing very sharp, but something strong--it took a lot of force to penetrate this way with a relatively blunt instrument. But what's really interesting," the doctor went on, "is this phenomenon here." He pointed to the girl's left arm, which was outstretched on the bed and mutilated badly by the puncturelike wounds. "You see, he stabbed her in the stomach, and then in her arm, moving out in a regular way, a succession. Now notice: When he's past the arm, he continues to stab. You can see the tears in the sheet and blanket. They continue out in a straight line." He pointed to the tears.

"Now," the doctor said, "in my book, that's perseveration. Automatic continuation of pointless movement. Like he was some kind of machine that just kept going and going...."

"That's correct," Ross said.

"We assume," the doctor continued, "that it represents some kind of trance state. But we don't know if it was organic or functional, natural or artificially induced. Since the girl let him into the apartment freely, this trancelike state developed only later."

Ross realized that the coroner's man was showing off, and it irritated her. This was the wrong time to be playing Sherlock Holmes.

Anders handed her the metal dog tag. "We were proceeding routinely with the investigation," he said, "when we found this."

Ross turned the plaque over in her hand.

I Have an Implanted Atomic Pacemaker. Direct Physical Injury or Fire may Rupture the Capsule and Release Toxic Materials. In the Event of Injury or Death Call NPS, (213) 483-1483.

"That was when we called you," Anders said. He watched her carefully. "We've leveled with you," he said. "Now it's your turn."

"His name is Harry Benson," she said. "He's thirty-four and he has psychomotor epilepsy."

"What's psychomotor epilepsy?" Anders asked.

At that moment, a plainclothesman came in from the living room. "We got a trace on the prints," he said. "They're listed in the Defense data banks, of all places. This guy had classified clearance for some computer work from 1968 to the present." Anders was making notes.

"And the girl?" Ross asked. "What do you have on her?"

"Name's Doris Blankfurt, stage name Angela Black--she's a dancer. Twenty-six years old, has lived here six weeks," Anders said. "But now, Dr. Ross, I'm going to need some information from you about Benson. Description of him, pictures, if you have them----"

"I can get all that," Ross said. Her earlier impulse to protect Benson from the police had vanished at the sight of the girl's caved-in head. "It's seven-thirty now. Before I go back to the hospital, I'm going to stop at home to clean up and change. We can talk either at my place or at the hospital."

"Your place," said Anders, "in about twenty minutes. What's the address?"

VII

The shower felt good, the hot water stinging needles against her bare skin. Janet Ross relaxed and breathed the steam and closed her eyes. She had always liked showers, even though she knew it was the masculine pattern. Men took showers, women took baths. Another psychiatrist had mentioned that once. She thought it was bullshit. Patterns were made to be broken. She was an individual.

She turned off the shower and climbed out, pulling a towel around her. She wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror and stared at her reflection. "You look like hell," she said and nodded. Her reflection nodded back. The shower had washed away her eye make-up, the only make-up she wore. Her eyes seemed small now and weak with fatigue.

What day was it, anyway? It took her a moment to remember that it was Thursday. She hadn't slept for at least 24 hours and she was having all the sleepless symptoms she'd had as an intern. A dull ache in her body. A kind of slow confusion of the mind. It was a terrible way to feel.

The mirror had steamed over again. She opened the bathroom door to let cool air in. She had started to apply fresh eye make-up when she heard the doorbell. That would be Anders. She had left the front door unlocked. "It's open," she shouted, and then returned to the make-up. She did one eye, then (continued on page 170)Terminal Man(continued from page 156) paused before the second. "If you want coffee, just boil water in the kitchen," she said.

She did her other eye, pulled the towel tighter around her and leaned out toward the hallway. "Find everything you need?" she called.

Harry Benson was standing in the hallway. "Good morning, Dr. Ross," he said. His voice was pleasant. "I hope I haven't come at an inconvenient time."

• • •

It was odd how frightened she felt. He held out his hand and she shook it, hardly conscious of the action. She was preoccupied with her own fear. Why was she afraid? She knew this man well; she had been alone with him many times before and had never been afraid.

The surprise was part of it. And the unprofessional setting: She was acutely aware of the towel, her still-damp bare legs. "Excuse me a minute," she said, "and I'll get some clothes on."

He nodded politely and went into the living room. She closed the bedroom door and sat down on the bed. She was breathing hard, as if she had run a great distance. Anxiety, she thought, but the label didn't really help. She remembered a patient who had finally shouted at her in frustration, "Don't tell me I'm depressed. I feel terrible."

She went to the closet and pulled on a dress, hardly noticing which one it was. Then she went back into the bathroom to check her appearance. Stalling, she thought. This is the wrong time to stall. She took a deep breath and went out to talk with him.

He was standing in the middle of the living room, looking uncomfortable and confused. She saw the room freshly, through his eyes: a modern, sterile, hostile apartment. Modern furniture, black leather and chrome, hard lines; modern paintings on the walls; modern, glistening, machinelike, efficient, a totally hostile environment.

"I never would have thought this of you," he said.

"We're not threatened by the same things," she said. "Do you want some coffee?"

"No, thanks." He wore a jacket and tie; he'd changed from the orderly's uniform. But he wore the black wig over his head bandages and she couldn't get used to that. His eyes were different, too--tired, distant, the eyes of a man near the breaking point of fatigue. She remembered how the rats had collapsed from excessive pleasurable stimulation. Eventually, they lay spread-eagled on the floor of the cage, panting, too weak to crawl forward and press the shock lever one more time.

"Are you alone here?" he said.

"Yes, I am."

There was a small bruise on his left cheek, just below the eye. She looked at his bandages. They just barely showed, a bit of white between the bottom of his wig and the top of his collar.

"You seem tense." His voice sounded genuinely concerned. Probably he'd just had a stimulation. She remembered how he had become sexually interested in her after the test stimulations, just before he was interfaced.

"No ... I'm not tense." She smiled.

"You have a very nice smile," he said.

"Well," she said, "I'm going to have some coffee." She went into the kitchen with a kind of relief. It was somehow easier to breathe in the kitchen, away from him. She put the kettle on the burner, turned on the gas and stayed there a moment. She had to get control of herself. She had to get control of the situation.

The odd thing was that while she had been shocked to see him suddenly in her apartment, she was not really surprised that he had come. Psychomotor epileptics were driven people who feared their own violence. More than half of them attempted suicide in desperation: all of them felt anguish and sought the help of doctors.

She went out to the living room. Benson was standing by the large windows, looking out over the city, which stretched away for miles in every direction.

"Why did you run away, Harry?" As she spoke, she felt her strength and control coming back. She could handle this man. She'd been alone with men more dangerous than he. She remembered her six-month period at Cameron State Hospital, where she had worked with psychopaths and multiple murderers--charming, engaging, chilling men.

"Why? Because." He smiled and sat down in a chair. He wriggled around in it, then stood up and sat down again on the sofa. "All your furniture is so uncomfortable. How can you live in such a place?" He got up and walked to the windows, stared at the expanse of streets and buildings. "They're searching for me out there," he said. "But they'll never find me. The city is too big."

From the kitchen, her kettle began to whistle. She excused herself and went in to make coffee. Her eyes scanned the counter, searching for something heavy. If she hit Benson over the head, Ellis would never forgive her, but----

"You have a picture on your wall," Benson called. "A lot of numbers. Who did that?"

"A man named Johns."

"Why would a man draw numbers? Numbers are for machines."

She stirred the instant coffee, poured in milk, went back out and sat down.

"And look at this. What is this supposed to mean?" He tapped another picture with his knuckles.

"Harry, come and sit down."

He stared at her for a moment, then went over and sat on the couch opposite her. He seemed tense, but a moment later smiled in a relaxed way. For an instant, his pupils dilated. Another stimulation, she thought.

What the hell was she going to do?

"Harry," she said, "what happened?"

"I don't know," he said, still relaxed. "I left the hospital, wearing one of those white suits. I figured it all out. Angela picked me up. And then we went to my house. I was quite tense."

"Why were you tense?"

"Well, you see, I know how this is all going to end."

She wasn't sure what he was referring to. "How is it going to end?"

"And after we left my house, we went to her apartment, and we had some drinks, and we made love, and then I told her how it was going to end. That was when she got scared. She wanted to call the hospital, to tell them where I was...." He stared off into space, momentarily confused. She didn't want to press the point. He had had a seizure and he would not remember killing the girl. His amnesia would be total and genuine.

But she wanted to keep him talking. "Why did you leave the hospital, Harry?"

"It was in the afternoon," he said, turning to look at her. "I was lying in bed and I suddenly realized that everybody was taking care of me, taking care, servicing me, like a machine. I was afraid of that all along."

In some distant, detached and academic corner of her mind, she felt that a suspicion was confirmed. Benson's paranoia about machines was, at bottom, a fear of dependency, of losing self-reliance. He was quite literally telling the truth when he said he was afraid of being taken care of. And people usually hated what they feared. But then, Benson was dependent on her. And how would he now react to that?

He began to get angry. "You people lied to me----" He broke off and smiled again. The pupils were briefly larger: another stimulation. They were very close now. He'd tip over again soon.

"You know something? That's the most wonderful feeling in the world," he said. "That buzz. As soon as things start to get black--buzz!--and I'm happy again. Beautifully warm and happy."

"The stimulations," she said. She resisted the impulse to look at her watch. What did it matter? Anders had said he would be coming in 20 minutes, but anything could delay him. And even if he came, she wondered if he could handle Benson. A psychomotor epileptic out (continued on page 244)Terminal Man(continued from page 170) of control was an awesome thing. Anders would probably end up shooting Benson, or trying to. And she didn't want that.

"But you know what else?" Benson said. "The buzz is only nice occasionally. When it gets too heavy, it's ... suffocating."

"Is it getting heavy now?"

"Yes," he said. And he smiled.

She was stunned at the realization of her own helplessness. Everything she had been taught about controlling patients, everything about directing the flow of thought, about watching the speech patterns, was useless here. Verbal maneuvers would not work, would not help her--any more than they would help control a rabies victim or a person with a brain tumor.

There was only one thing she could do and that was get him to the hospital. How? There might still be some small chance to appeal to his intellectual functions. "Do you understand what's happening, Harry? The stimulations are overloading you, pushing you into seizures."

"The feeling is nice."

"But you said yourself it's not always nice."

"No, not always."

"Well, don't you want to have that fixed? Changed, so that you don't have seizures anymore?" She had to choose her words carefully.

"You think I need to be fixed?" His voice was an imitation of Ellis': the surgeon's pet phrase.

"Harry, we can make you feel better."

"I feel fine, Dr. Ross."

"But, Harry, when you went to Angela's after you left the hospital."

"I don't remember anything about that. Memory tapes are all erased. Nothing but static. You can put it on audio if you want and listen to it yourself." He smiled, opened his mouth and made a hissing sound. "See? Just static."

Her stomach was churning. She was physically sick with tension. And she was also angry at the thought of Ellis and McPherson--all those conferences with them when she had argued that implanting machinery into Benson would exaggerate his pre-existing delusional state. They hadn't paid any attention. She wished they were here now.

"You're trying to make me into a machine," he said. "You all are. I'm fighting you."

"Harry----"

"Let me finish." His face was taut; abruptly, it loosened into a smile. Another stimulation, she thought. They were coming only minutes apart now. Where was Anders? Where was anybody? Should she run out into the hall, screaming? Should she try to call the hospital? The police?

"It feels so good," Benson said, still smiling. "That feeling, it feels so good. Nothing feels as good as that. I could just swim in that feeling forever and ever."

She took a deep breath. "Harry," she said, "I want you to come back to the hospital. We care about you."

"You care about me." He laughed, a nasty hard sound. "You don't care about me. You care about your experimental preparation. You care about your scientific protocol. You care about your follow-up. You don't care about me." He was becoming excited and angry. "It won't look so good in the next journal article if you have to report, so many patients observed for so many years and one died because he went nuts and the cops killed him. That will reflect badly. I know," Benson said. He held out his hands. "I was sick an hour ago. Then when I woke up, I saw blood under my fingernails." He stared at his hands, curling them to look at the nails. Then he touched his bandages. "The operation was supposed to work," he said. "But it isn't working."

And then, quite abruptly, he began to cry. His face was bland, but the tears rolled down his cheeks. "It isn't working," he said. "I don't understand, it isn't working...."

Equally abruptly, he smiled. Another stimulation. This one had come less than a minute after the previous one. She knew that he'd tip over in the next few seconds. "I don't want to hurt anyone," he said, smiling cheerfully.

"Let's go back to the hospital. I'll go with you. I'll stay with you all the time."

"Don't argue with me!" He snapped to his feet, fists clenched, and glared down at her. "I will not listen----" He broke off but did not smile. Instead, he began to sniff the air. "What is that smell?" he said. "I hate that smell. What is it, I hate it, do you hear me, I hate it!"

He moved toward her, sniffing. He reached his hands out toward her.

She got up off the couch, moving away. He followed her clumsily, his hands still outstretched. "I don't want this feeling, I don't want it," he said. He was no longer sniffing. His face was blank, an automaton mask. His arms were still extended toward her. He almost seemed to be sleepwalking as he advanced on her. His movements were slow and she was able to back away from him, maintaining distance.

Then, suddenly, he picked up a heavy glass ashtray and flung it at her. She dodged it; it struck one of the large windows, shattering the glass.

He leaped for her and threw his arms around her, holding her in a clumsy bear hug. He squeezed her with incredible strength. "Harry," she gasped, "Harry." She looked up at his face and saw it was still blank.

She kneed him in the testicles.

He grunted and released her, bending at the waist, coughing. She moved away from him, picked up the phone and dialed the operator. Benson was still bent over, still coughing.

"Operator, give me the police."

"Do you want the Beverly Hills police or the Los Angeles police?"

"I don't care!"

"Well, which do you----"

She dropped the phone. Benson was stalking her again. She heard the tinny voice of the operator saying, "Hello, hello...."

Benson tore the phone away and flung it across the room. He picked up a floor lamp and held it, base outward. He began to swing it in large hissing arcs. She ducked it once and felt the gush of air in the wake of the heavy metal base. If it hit her, it would kill her. The realization pushed her to action.

She ran to the kitchen. Benson dropped the lamp and followed her. She tore open drawers, looking for a knife. She found only a small paring knife. Where the hell were her big knives? Benson was in the kitchen. She threw a pot at him, blindly. It clattered against his knees. He moved forward.

The detached and academic part of her mind was still operating, telling her that she was making a big mistake, that there was something in the kitchen she could use. But what?

Benson's hands closed around her neck. The grip was terrifying. She grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them away. She kicked up with her leg, but he twisted his body away from her, then pressed her back against the counter, pinning her back.

She could not move, she could not breathe. She began to see blue spots before her eyes. Her lungs burned for air. Her fingers scratched along the counter, feeling for something, anything, to strike him with. She touched nothing.

She flung her hands around wildly. She felt the handle of the dishwasher, the handle of the oven. Her vision was greenish. The blue spots were larger. They swam sickeningly before her. She was going to the in die kitchen.

The kitchen, the kitchen, dangers of the kitchen.

Microwaves. It came to her in a flash, just as she was losing consciousness. She no longer had any vision; the world was dull gray, but she could still feel. Her fingers touched the metal of the oven, the glass of the oven door. She opened it; then up ... up to the controls ... she twisted the dial....

Benson screamed.

The pressure around her neck was gone. She slumped to the floor. Benson was screaming, horrible, agonized sounds. Her vision came back to her slowly and she saw him, standing over her, clutching his head in his hands. He twisted and writhed, howling like a wounded animal. Then he rushed from the room.

And she slid smoothly and easily into unconsciousness.

VIII

The bruises were already forming--long, purplish welts on both sides of her neck. Janet Ross touched them gently as she stared into the mirror.

"When did he leave?" Anders said. He stood in the doorway to the bathroom, watching her.

"I don't know. About the time I passed out, I think."

He looked back toward the living room. "Quite a mess out there. Why did he attack you? You're his doctor----"

"That doesn't matter," she said. "When he has a seizure, he's out of control. He'd kill his own child during a seizure. People have been known to do that." She sighed, still touching the bruises. They would get much worse in the next few hours. What could she do about it? Rouge? A high-necked sweater? "He didn't kill me. But he would have," she said.

"What happened?"

"I turned on the oven."

Anders looked puzzled. "Is that a cure for epilepsy?"

"Hardly. But it affected Benson's electronic machinery. I have a microwave oven. Microwave radiation screws up pacemaking machinery. It's a big problem for cardiac pacemakers now. Dangers of the kitchen. There have been a lot of recent articles."

He left the room to make some calls while she changed. She chose a black turtleneck sweater and a gray skirt and stepped back to look at herself in the mirror. Maybe too somber, but the bruises were hidden. She went into the kitchen to make herself a Scotch on the rocks--and as she poured it, she saw the long scratches in the wooden counter that her fingernails had left. She looked at her fingernails. Three of them were broken; she hadn't noticed before.

She took the drink back into the living room. "Yes," Anders was saying into the phone. "Yes, I understand. No ... no idea. Well, we're trying." There was a long pause.

She went to the window and looked out at the city. The sun was up, lighting a dark band of brown air that hung above the buildings. It was really a lethal place to live, she thought. She should move to the beach, where the air was better.

"Well, listen," Anders said angrily, "none of this would have happened if you'd kept that fucking guard at his door in the hospital. I think you better keep that in mind." She heard the phone slam down.

"Shit," he said. "Politics."

She smiled. "Even in the police department?"

"Especially in the police department," he said. "Anything goes wrong and suddenly there's a scramble to see who can get stuck with it."

"They're trying to stick you?"

"They're trying me on for size."

She nodded and wondered what was happening back at the hospital. Probably the same thing. She looked through the shattered window glass.

Anders said, "Listen, what does epilepsy have to do with cardiac pacemakers?"

"Nothing," she said, "except that Benson has a brain pacemaker, very similar to a cardiac pacemaker."

Anders flipped open his notebook. "You better start from the beginning," he said, "and go slowly."

She set down her drink. "Let me make one call first."

Anders nodded and sat back and waited while she called McPherson. Then, as calmly as she could, she explained everything she knew to the policeman.

IX

McPherson hung up the telephone and glanced out his window at the morning sun. It was no longer pale and cold; there was the full warmth of morning. "That was Ross," he said to Morris. "Benson came to her apartment. She lost him." Morris sighed.

"It doesn't seem to be our day," McPherson said. He shook his head, not taking his eyes off the sun. "I don't believe in luck," he said. "Do you?"

"Sure. All surgeons believe in luck."

"I don't believe in luck," McPherson repeated. "Never did. I always believed in planning." He gestured to the charts on his wall, then lapsed into silence and stared at them. They were large things, four feet across, and intricately done in many colors. They were really glorified flow charts with timetables for technical advances. He had always been proud of them. For instance, in 1967, he had examined the state of three areas--diagnostic conceptualization, surgical technology and microelectronics--and concluded that they would all come together to allow an operation for psychomotor epilepsy in July of 1971. They had beaten his estimate by four months, but it was still damned accurate.

McPherson rubbed his eyes, wondering when he would be able to sleep. He looked again at the charts. Everything had been going so well. Electrode implantation ahead of schedule. Computer simulation of behavior almost nine months ahead--but that, too, was having problems. George and Martha programs were behaving erratically. And Form Q?

He shook his head. Form Q might never get off the ground now, although it was his favorite project. It was down on the flow chart for 1979, with human application beginning in 1986. In 1986 he would be 75 years old--if he was still alive--but he didn't worry about that. It was the idea, the simple idea, that intrigued him.

Form Q was the logical outgrowth of all the work at the NPS. It began as a project called Form Quixoticus, because it seemed so impossible. But McPherson felt certain that it would happen, because it was so necessary. For one thing, it was a question of size; for another, a question of expense.

A modern electronic computer--say, a third-generation IBM digital computer--cost several million dollars. It drew an enormous amount of power. It consumed space voraciously. Yet the largest computer still had the same number of circuits as the brain of an ant. To make a computer with the capacity of a human brain would require a huge skyscraper. Its energy demands would be the equivalent of a city of half a million.

Obviously, nobody would ever try to build such a computer using current technology. New methods would have to be found--and there wasn't much doubt in McPherson's mind what the methods would be: living tissues.

The theory was simple enough. A computer, like a human brain, is composed of functioning units--little flip-flop cells of one kind or another. The size of those units had shrunk enormously over the years. It would continue to shrink as microelectronic techniques improved. Their power requirements would also decrease.

But the individual units would never become as small as a nerve cell, a neuron. You could pack a billion nerve cells into one cubic inch. No human miniaturization method would ever achieve that economy of space. Nor would any human method ever produce a unit that operated on so little power as a nerve cell.

Therefore: Make your computers from living nerve cells. It was already possible to grow isolated nerve cells in tissue culture. It was possible to alter them artificially in different ways. In the future, it would be possible to grow them to specification, to make them link up in specified ways.

Once you could do that, you could make a computer that was, say, six cubic feet in volume but contained thousands of billions of nerve cells. Its energy requirements would not be excessive; its heat production and waste products would be manageable. Yet it would be the most intelligent entity on the planet, by far. Form Q.

Preliminary work was already being done in a number of laboratories and Government research units around the country.

But for McPherson, the most exciting prospect was not a superintelligent, organic computer. That was just a side product. What was really interesting was the idea of an organic prosthesis for the human brain.

Because once you developed a new, organic computer--a computer composed of living cells and deriving energy from oxygenated, nutrified blood--then you could transplant it into a human being. And you would have a man with two brains.

What would that be like? McPherson could hardly imagine it. There were endless problems, of course. Problems of interconnection, problems of location, speculative problems about competition between the old brain and the new transplant. But there was plenty of time to solve that before 1986. After all, in 1950 most people still laughed at the idea of going to the moon.

Form Q. It was only a vision now, but with funding, it would happen. And he had been convinced that it would happen, until Benson left the hospital. That changed everything.

Ellis stuck his head in the office door. "Anybody want coffee?"

"Yes," McPherson said. He looked over at Morris.

"No," Morris said. He got up out of his chair. "I think I'll replay some of Benson's interview tapes."

"Good idea," McPherson said, though he did not really think so. He realized that Morris had to keep busy--had to do something, anything, just to remain active.

Morris left, Ellis left and he was alone with his multicolored charts.

X

It was noon when Ross finished with Anders, and she was tired. The Scotch had calmed her, but it had intensified her fatigue. She felt as if she had never been so tired in her life.

Anders, on the other hand, was maddeningly alert. He said, "Where would Benson be likely to go now?"

She shook her head. "It's impossible to know. He's now in a postseizure state--postictal, we call it--and that's not predictable." God, she was tired. Why couldn't he understand? "Benson is very confused. He's nearly psychotic; he's receiving stimulations frequently; he's having seizures frequently. He could do anything."

"These are the impossible ones," Anders sighed and walked to the window. "In another city, we might have a chance of finding him, but not in Los Angeles. Not in five hundred square miles of city. It's bigger than New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia put together. Did you know that?"

"No," she said, hardly listening.

"Too many places to hide," he said. "Too many ways to escape--too many roads, too many airports, too many marinas. If he's smart, he's left already. Gone to Mexico or to Canada."

"He won't do that," she said.

"What will he do?"

"He'll go back to the hospital," she said.

There was a pause. "I thought you couldn't predict his behavior," Anders said.

"It's just a feeling," she said, "that's all."

"We'd better go to the hospital," he said.

XI

It was a broad, low-ceilinged, white-tiled room, lit brightly by overhead fluorescent lights. Six stainless-steel tables were set out in a row, each emptying into a sink at one end of the room. Five of the tables were empty; the body of Angela Black lay on the sixth. Two police pathologists and Morris were bent over the body as the autopsy proceeded.

Morris was tired. His eyes hurt. After a time, he left the autopsy room and went next door to the police lab, where the contents of the girl's purse were spread out on a large table.

Three men were at work, one identifying the objects, one recording them and the third tagging them. Morris watched in silence. Most of the objects seemed commonplace: lipstick, compact, car keys, wallet, Kleenex, chewing gum, ballpoint pen, eye shadow, hair clip. And two packs of matches.

"Two packs of matches," one of the cops intoned. "Both marked Airship Hotel."

Morris sighed. He found the plodding routine was intolerable. Ross called it the surgeon's disease, the urge to take decisive action, the inability to wait patiently. Once in an early NPS conference, where they were considering a stage-three candidate, Morris had argued strongly for taking her for surgery, even though she had several other problems. Ross had laughed: "Poor impulse control," she had said.

Poor impulse control, he thought. The hell with her.

"Airship, huh?" one of the cops said. "Isn't that where all the stewardesses stay?"

Morris hardly listened. He rubbed his eyes and decided to get more coffee. He'd been awake for 36 hours straight and he wasn't going to last much longer. He left the room and went upstairs looking for a coffee machine. There must be coffee someplace in the building. And then he stopped, suddenly shivering.

He knew about the Airship. The Airship was where Benson had first been arrested, for beating up a mechanic. He glanced at his watch, and then went out to the parking lot. If he hurried, he'd beat rush-hour traffic to the airport.

• • •

Morris parked in the lot of the Airship Hotel and walked into the lobby. He went directly to the bar, which was dark and nearly deserted at five P.M. There were two stewardesses in a far corner, talking over drinks, one or two businessmen seated at the bar and the bartender himself staring off vacantly into space.

Morris sat at the bar. When the bartender came over, he pushed Benson's picture across the counter. "You ever seen this man?"

"What'll it be?" the bartender said.

Morris tapped the picture.

"This is a bar. We serve liquor."

Morris was beginning to feel strange. It was the sort of strange feeling he sometimes had when he began an operation and felt like a surgeon in a movie. Something very theatrical. Now he was a private eye. "His name is Benson," Morris said. "I'm his doctor. He's very ill."

"What's he got?"

Morris sighed. "Have you seen him before?"

"Sure, lots of times. Harry, right?"

"That's right. Harry Benson. When was the last time you saw him?"

"An hour ago." The man shrugged "What's he got?"

"Epilepsy. It's important to find him. Do you know where he went?"

"Epilepsy? No shit." The bartender picked up the picture and examined it closely in the light of a glowing Schlitz sign behind the bar. "That's him, all right. But he dyed his hair black."

"Do you know where he went?"

There was a long silence. The bartender looked grim. Morris instantly regretted his tone. "You're no fucking doctor," the bartender said. "Now, beat it."

"I need your help," Morris said. "Time is very important." As he spoke, he opened his wallet, took out his identification cards, credit cards, everything with an M. D. on it. He spread them across the counter. The bartender didn't even glance at them.

"He is also wanted by the police," Morris said.

"I knew it," the bartender said. "I knew it."

"And I can get some policemen down here to help question you. You may be an accessory to murder." Morris thought that sounded good. At least it sounded dramatic.

The bartender picked up one of the cards, peered at it, dropped it. "I don't know. He left with Joe."

"Who's Joe?"

"Mechanic. Works the late shift at United Air Lines."

In the hotel lobby, Morris called the NPS and got through the switchboard to Captain Anders.

"Listen, this is Morris. I'm at the airport. I have a lead on Benson." He gave the details.

There was a moment of silence. Morris heard the scribbling sound of a pencil. "Got it," Anders said. "We'll get some cars out right away. You think he went to the United hangars?"

"Probably." Morris said goodbye impatiently and hung up.

• • •

The large sign read united air lines--Maintenance Personnel Only. There was a guardhouse beneath the sign. Morris pulled up, leaned out of his car.

"I'm Dr. Morris. I'm looking for Joe."

Morris was prepared to give a lengthy explanation. But the guard hardly paid attention. "Joe came on about ten minutes ago. Signed in to hangar seven."

Ahead of him, Morris saw three very large airplane hangars, with parking lots behind. "Which one is seven?"

"Far left," the guard said. "Don't know why he went there, except maybe the guest."

"What guest?"

"He signed in a guest"--the guard consulted his clipboard--"a Mr. Benson."

"What's in seven?"

"A big DC-8 that's in for major overhaul. Nothing doing there--they're waiting for a new engine. It'll be another week. Guess he wanted to show it to him."

Morris drove past the gates, onto the parking lot, and parked close to hangar seven. He got out of the car, then paused. The hangar was an enormous corrugated-steel structure that didn't seem to have any doors, except for the giant doors to admit the airplane, which were closed. How did you get in? Then he saw a normal-sized door to the far left.

When he entered the hangar, it was pitch black inside. And totally silent. He stood by the door for a moment, then heard a low groan. He ran his hands along the walls, feeling for a light switch. He touched a steel box, felt it carefully. There were several large, heavy-duty switches. He threw them.

One by one, the overhead lights came on, very bright and very high. He saw in the center of the hangar a giant plane, glinting with reflections from the overhead bulbs. It was odd how enormous it seemed inside a building. He heard another groan, but he could not determine where it was coming from. There was a ladder near the far wing. He walked toward it, beneath the high sleek tail assembly. The hangar smelled of gasoline and grease, sharp smells. It was warm here.

Another groan. He walked faster, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous hangar space. The groan seemed to be coming from somewhere inside the airplane. He passed the two jet engines of the near wing. They were giant cylinders, thin black turbine blades inside. Funny the engines had never seemed so big before. Probably never noticed.

Still another groan. He reached the ladder and climbed up. Six feet in the air, he came to the wing, a gleaming expanse of flat silver, nubbled with rivets. A sign read Step Here. There were spatters of blood by the sign. He looked across the wing and saw a man lying on his back, covered with blood. Morris moved toward him and saw that the man's face was horribly mangled; his arm was twisted back at an unnatural angle.

He heard a noise far behind him. He spun. And then, suddenly, all the lights in the hangar went out.

Morris froze. He had a sense of total disorientation, of being suspended in air in vast and limitless blackness. He did not move. He held his breath. He waited.

The injured man groaned again. There was no other sound. Morris knelt down, not really knowing why. Somehow he felt safer being close to the metal surface of the wing. He was not conscious of being afraid, just badly confused.

Then, softly, distantly, came a laugh. And he began to be afraid.

"Benson, are you there?"

No reply. But footsteps, moving across the concrete floor. Steady, quietly echoing footsteps.

"Harry, it's Dr. Morris." Morris blinked his eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness. It was no good. He couldn't see anything. The footsteps came closer.

"Harry, I want to help you." His voice cracked as he spoke. His fear was certainly conveyed to Benson. He decided to shut up. His heart was pounding and he was gasping for breath.

The footsteps stopped. Perhaps Benson was giving up. Perhaps he had had a stimulation. Perhaps he was changing his mind.

A new sound: a metallic creak. Quite close. Another creak. He was climbing the ladder.

Morris was drenched with cold sweat. He still could see nothing at all. He was so disoriented he no longer remembered where he was on the wing. Was the ladder in front of him or behind?

Another creak. He tried to fix the sound. It was coming from somewhere in front of him. That meant he was facing the tail, the rear of the wing. Facing the ladder. Another creak.

Benson would be on the wing soon. What could he use for a weapon? Morris patted his pockets. His clothes were soaked and clinging with sweat. He had a momentary thought that this was all ridiculous, that Benson was the patient and he was the doctor. Benson would listen to reason. Benson would do as he was told. Another creak.

A shoe! Quickly, he slipped off his shoe and cursed the fact that it had a rubber sole. But it was better than nothing. He gripped the shoe tightly, held it above his head, ready to swing. He had a mental image of the beaten mechanic, the disfigured, bloody face. And he suddenly realized that he was going to have to hit Benson very hard, as hard as he possibly could. He was going to have to try to kill Benson.

There were no more creaking sounds, but he could hear the breathing. And then, distant at first but growing rapidly louder, he heard sirens. The police were coming. Another creak.

Benson was going back down the ladder. Morris breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he heard a peculiar scratching sound and felt the wing beneath him shake. Benson had not climbed down. He had continued to climb up and he was now standing on the wing.

"Dr. Morris?"

Morris almost answered but didn't. He knew, then, that Benson couldn't see either. He wanted a voice fix. Morris said nothing.

"Dr. Morris? I want you to help me."

The sirens were louder each moment. Morris had a momentary elation at the thought that Benson was going to be caught. This whole nightmare would soon be over.

"Please help me, Dr. Morris."

Perhaps he was sincere, Morris thought. Perhaps he really meant it. If that were so, then, as his doctor, he had a duty to help him. Morris stood. "I'm over here, Harry," he said. "Now, just take it easy and----"

Something hissed in the air. He sensed it coming before it hit. Then he felt agonizing pain in his mouth and jaw and he was knocked backward, rolling across the wing. The pain was awful, worse than anything he had ever felt.

And then he fell, into blackness. It was not far to fall from the wing to the ground. But it seemed to take a long time. It seemed to take forever.

XII

Janet Ross stood outside the treatment room in the emergency ward, watching through the small glass window. There were six people in there taking care of Morris, clustered around him. All she could really see were his feet. He had one shoe on. There was a lot of blood; most of the EW people were spattered with it.

Standing outside with her, Anders said, "I don't have to tell you that I think Dr. Morris should have waited for the police."

"But the police didn't catch him," she said, suddenly angry. Anders didn't understand anything. He didn't understand how you could feel responsible for a patient, how you could want to take care of somebody.

"Morris didn't catch him, either," Anders said.

The treatment-room door opened. Ellis came out, looking haggard, unshaven, defeated. "He's OK," he said. "He won't have much to say for a few weeks, but he's OK. They're taking him to surgery now, to wire up his jaw and get all the teeth out." He turned to Anders. "Did they find the weapon?"

Anders nodded. "Two-foot section of lead pipe."

"He must have got it right in the mouth," Ellis said. "But at least he didn't inhale any of the loose teeth. The lung films are clean." He put his arm around Janet. "They'll fix him up."

"What about the other one?"

"The mechanic?" Ellis shook his head. "I wouldn't place bets. His nose was shattered and the nasal bones were driven up into the substance of the brain. He's leaking CSF through the nostrils. Lot of bleeding and a big problem with encephalitis. He's on the critical list."

Janet walked with Ellis out of the emergency ward toward the cafeteria. Ellis kept his arm around her shoulders. "This has turned into a mess," he said. "But they'll get his jaw back together. He'll be fine."

She shuddered.

• • •

The operation began at seven P.M. Ross watched from the overhead glass viewing booth as Morris was wheeled into the OR and the plastic surgeons draped him. Bendixon and Curtiss were doing the procedure; they were both good plastic surgeons: They would fix him up as well as anybody possibly could.

But it was still a shock to watch as the sterile gauze packs were taken away from Morris' face and the flesh exposed. The upper part of his face was normal, though pale. The lower part was a red mash, like butcher's meat. It was impossible to find the mouth in all the redness.

The surgeons were gowned and gloved, the instrument tables set in position; the scrub nurses stood ready. The whole ritual of preparing for surgery was carried out smoothly and efficiently. It was a wonderful ritual, she thought, so rigid and so perfect that nobody would ever know that they were operating on a colleague. The ritual, the fixed procedure, was anesthetic for the surgeon, just as gas was anesthetic for the patient.

XIII

As Ross approached the NPS, she saw that a cluster of reporters had cornered Ellis outside the building. He was answering their questions in clear bad humor; she heard the words mind control repeated several times.

Feeling slightly guilty, she cut around to the far entrance and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Mind control, she thought. The Sunday supplements were going to have a field day with mind control. And then there would be solemn editorials in the daily papers, and even more solemn editorials in the medical journals, about the hazards of uncontrolled and irresponsible research. She could see it coming.

The truth was that everybody's mind was controlled and everybody was glad for it. The most powerful mind controllers in the world were parents and they did the most damage. It was usually forgotten that nobody was born prejudiced, neurotic or hung up; those traits required a helping hand. Of course, parents didn't intentionally damage their children. They merely inculcated attitudes that they felt would be important and useful. Newborn children were little computers waiting to be programmed. And they would learn whatever they were taught, from bad grammar to bad attitudes. Like computers, they were undiscriminating.

All the important programming was finished by the age of seven. Racial attitudes, sexual attitudes, ethical attitudes, religious attitudes, national attitudes. The gyroscope was set and the children let loose to spin off on their predetermined courses.

What about something as simple as conventions? What about shaking hands when you meet someone? Facing forward in elevators? Passing on the left? Having your wineglass on the right? Hundreds of little conventions that people need in order to stereotype social interaction--take away any of them and you produce unbearable anxiety. People need mind control. They are hopelessly lost without it.

But let a group of people try to solve the greatest problem in the world today--uncontrolled violence--and suddenly there are shouts from all sides: mind control, mind control!

Ross got off at the fourth floor, brushed past several policemen in the hallway and went into her office. Anders was there, just hanging up the telephone and frowning.

"We got our first break," he said, "but I'll be damned if I know what it means. Benson's description and pictures are being circulated downtown and somebody recognized him."

"Who?"

"A clerk in Building and Planning, in City Hall. He said Benson came in ten days ago. Building and Planning stores specifications on all public structures erected within city limits and they administer certain building codes. Benson came in to check specifications on a building. He wanted to review electrical blueprints. Said he was an electrical engineer and produced some identification. Well, apparently he got them."

"What are they for?"

"University Hospital," Anders said. "He has the complete wiring system for the entire hospital. Now, what do you think of that?"

They stared at each other.

Later, walking along the corridor of the NPS, she realized how tired she was. Her neck was hurting badly and she had a headache. She had to get a little sleep or she'd pass out.

An orderly walked past her, carrying a filled ashtray and some empty coffee cups. It seemed strange to her that an orderly should be doing cleaning duties and the sight triggered an elusive question in her mind. But she felt so tired, so unable to think clearly that she gave up. She went into one of the treatment rooms, closed the door, lay down on the examination couch and was instantly asleep.

XIV

In the lounge, Ellis watched himself on the 11-o'clock news. It was partly vanity and partly morbid curiosity that made him do it. Gerhard was also there, and Richards, and the cop, Anders.

On the screen, Ellis was squinting slightly in the fading sunlight as he answered the questions of a group of reporters. Microphones were jammed up toward his face, but he seemed calm. That pleased him. And he found his answers reasonable.

The reporters asked him about the operation and he explained it briefly but clearly. Then one asked, "Why was this operation done?"

"The patient," Ellis answered, "suffers from intermittent attacks of violent behavior. He has organic brain disease--his brain is damaged. We are trying to fix that. We are trying to prevent violence."

No one could argue with that, he thought.

"Is that common, brain damage associated with violence?"

"We don't know how common it is," Ellis said. "We don't even know how common brain damage alone is. But our best estimates are that ten million Americans have obvious damage and five million more have a subtle form of it."

"Fifteen million?" one reporter said. "That's one person in fourteen."

"Something like that," he replied on the screen. "There are three quarters of a million people with cerebral palsy. There are over four million with convulsive disorders, including epilepsy. There are six million with mental retardation. There may be as many as two and a half million with hyperkinetic behavior disorders."

"And all of these people are violent?"

"No, certainly not. But an unusually high proportion of violent people, if you check them, have physical brain damage. Now, that shoots down a lot of theories about poverty and discrimination and social injustice and social disorganization. Those factors contribute to violence, of course. But physical brain damage is also a major factor. And you can't correct physical brain damage with social remedies."

There was a pause in the reporters' questions. Ellis remembered the pause and remembered being elated by it. He was winning; he was running the show.

"When you say violence----"

"I mean," Ellis said, "attacks of unprovoked violence initiated by single individuals. It's the biggest problem in the world today, violence. And it's a huge problem in this country. In 1969, more Americans were killed or attacked in this country than have been killed or wounded in all the years of the Vietnam war. Specifically--"

The reporters were in awe.

"--We had fourteen thousand, five hundred murders, thirty-six thousand, five hundred rapes and three hundred and six thousand, five hundred cases of aggravated assault. All together, a third of a million cases of violence. That doesn't include automobile deaths, and a lot of violence is carried out with cars. We had fifty-six thousand deaths in autos and five million injuries."

"You always were good with figures," Gerhard droned.

"It's working, isn't it?" Ellis said.

"Yeah. Flashy." Gerhard sighed. "But you have a squinty, untrustworthy look."

"That's my normal look."

On the screen, a reporter was saying, "And you think these figures reflect physical brain disease?"

"In large part," Ellis said. "One of the clues that physical brain disease is involved is a history of violence in an individual. There are some famous examples. Charles Whitman, who killed fifteen people in Texas, had a malignant brain tumor and had told his psychiatrist repeatedly, months before, that he was having thoughts about climbing the tower and shooting people. Richard Speck engaged in several episodes of brutal violence before he killed eight nurses. Lee Harvey Oswald repeatedly attacked people, including his wife. There are a third of a million cases every year that are not so famous. We're trying to correct that violent behavior with surgery. I think it's a noble and important goal."

"But isn't that mind control?"

Ellis said, "What do you call compulsory education through high school?"

"Education," the reporter said.

And that ended the interview. Ellis got up angrily. "That makes me look like a fool," he said.

"No, it doesn't," Anders, the cop, said.

Saturday, March 13, 1971: Termination

She was being pounded, beaten senseless by brutal, jarring blows. She rolled away and moaned.

"Come on," Gerhard hissed, shaking her. "Wake up, Jan." She opened her eyes. The room was dark. Someone was leaning over her. "Come on, come on, wake up."

She yawned. The movement sent streaks of pain down through her neck. "What is it?"

"Telephone for you in Telecomp. It's Benson."

That jolted her awake faster than she would have thought possible. Gerhard helped her sit up and she shook her head to clear it. Her neck was a column of pain and the rest of her body was stiff and aching, but she ignored that. She went out into the hallway, blinking in the bright light, and followed Gerhard into Telecomp.

"Hello? Harry?" she said.

Across the room, Anders was listening on an extension.

"I don't feel good," Benson said. "I want it to stop, Dr. Ross."

"What's the matter, Harry?" But she could hear the fatigue in his voice, the slow and slightly childlike quality. What would one of those rats say after 24 hours of stimulation?

"Things aren't working very well. I'm tired. It's the feelings," Benson said. "They're making me tired now. I want them to stop."

"You'll have to let us help you, Harry. You have to trust us."

There was a long pause. Anders looked across the room at Ross. She shrugged. "I wish you'd never operated on me." Benson said.

Anders checked his watch.

"We can fix it for you, Harry."

"I wanted to fix it myself," he said. His voice was very childlike, almost petulant. "I wanted to pull out the wires."

Ross frowned. "Did you try?"

"No. I tried to pull off the bandages, but it hurt too much. I don't like it when it hurts."

He was really being quite childlike. She wondered if the regression was a specific phenomenon or the result of fear and fatigue.

"But I have to do something," Benson said. "I have to stop this feeling. I'm going to fix the computer."

"Harry," she said in a low, soothing, maternal voice. "Harry, please trust us." There was no reply. Breathing on the other end of the line. She looked around the room at the tense, expectant faces.

"The police are looking for me."

"There are no police here," she said. "They've all gone. You can come here. Everything will be all right."

"You lied to me before," he said. His voice was petulant again. There was a very long silence, and then a sad sigh. "I'm sorry," Benson said. "I know how it's going to end. I have to fix the computer myself."

"Harry----"

There was a click, and then the buzz of a disconnection. Ross hung up. Anders immediately dialed the phone company and asked whether they had been able to trace the call. So that was why he had been looking at his watch, she thought.

"Hell," Anders said and slammed the phone clown. "They couldn't get a trace. They couldn't even find the incoming call. Idiots." He sat down across the room from Ross. "He said that he's tried to pull the wires out to fix the computer. Did he mean that? Is it physically possible?"

"Maybe he meant it, maybe he didn't. He's confused now under the influence of all those seizures and stimulations. As for its being physically possible--yes. Monkeys have done it." She rubbed her eyes. "Is there any coffee?"

Gerhard poured her a cup. Then, across the room, Anders said, "How confused do you suppose he is, really?"

"Very." She sipped the coffee. "Is there any sugar left?"

"Confused enough to mix up computers?"

"I don't understand," she said.

"He had wiring plans for the hospital," Anders said. "The main computer, the computer that assisted in his operation, is in the hospital basement."

She set down her coffee cup and stared at him. She frowned, rubbed her eyes again, picked the coffee up, then set it down once more. "I don't know," she said finally.

The telephone rang. Ross answered it. "NPS."

"This is the liaison unit at the phone company again," a male voice said. "We've rechecked that trace for Captain Anders. Is he there?" She nodded to Anders.

"Anders speaking." There was a long pause. Then he said, "And what was the time period you checked? I see. Thank you."

He hung up and immediately began dialing again. "You better tell me about that atomic power pack," he said. "And what happens if it's ruptured." When his call was put through: "Bomb squad. This is Anders." He turned back to Ross.

Ross said, "He's carrying around thirty-seven grams of radioactive plutonium. If it breaks open, you'll expose everyone in the area to serious radiation."

"What particles are emitted?"

"Alpha particles," she said.

Anders spoke into the phone. "This is Anders, homicide," he said. "I want a van to University Hospital right away. We've got a possible radiation hazard. Man and immediate environment may be contaminated with an alpha emitter, P-238." He listened, then looked at Ross. "Any possibility of explosion?"

"No," she said.

"No explosive," Anders said. He listened. "All right. I understand. Get them here as quickly as you can." He hung up.

"The phone company rechecked that trace," Anders said. "It seems that Benson didn't call from the outside."

Ross blinked.

"That's right," Anders said. "He must have called from somewhere inside the hospital."

• • •

Ross looked out the fourth-floor window at the hospital parking lot and watched as Anders gave instructions to at least 20 cops. Half of them went into the main hospital building; the rest remained outside, in little clusters, talking together, smoking quietly. Then a white bomb-squad van rumbled up and three men in gray, metallic-looking suits lumbered out. Anders talked to them briefly, then nodded and stayed with the van, unpacking some very peculiar equipment.

Ross and Gerhard watched the preparations. "Benson won't make it," he said.

"I know," she said. "I keep wondering if there is any way to disarm him or immobilize him. Could we make a portable microwave transmitter?"

"I thought of that," Gerhard said. "But it's unsafe. You can't really predict the effect on Benson's equipment. And you know it'll raise hell with all the cardiac pacemakers in other patients in the hospital."

"There must be something we can do," she said.

He shook his head.

Anders came into the room. "We're all ready," he said.

"I can see."

"We've got two men for every basement access, two for the front door, two for the emergency ward and two for each of the three elevators. I've kept men away from the patient-care floors. We don't want to start trouble in those areas."

Thoughtful of you, she thought, but said nothing.

Anders glanced at his watch. "Twelve-forty," he said. "I think somebody should show me the main hospital computer."

"It's in the basement," she said, nodding toward the main building. "I'll show you." She didn't really care. Her exhaustion had gone beyond fatigue to a kind of numb boredom and depression.

She walked down the corridor with Anders when behind them, from Telecomp, they heard Gerhard shout, "Janet! Janet, are you still here?" She returned to Tele-comp, with Anders following curiously. Inside the computer room, the console lights were flickering unsteadily. "Look at this," Gerhard said, pointing to one print-out console.

Current Program Terminated.

Program Change in 05 04 03 02 01 00

Program Change

"The main computer has gone to a new program," Gerhard said. "We didn't instruct that. I don't know what it can be." They all watched the console.

New Program Reads As

Then there was nothing. No further letters appeared on the screen. Anders said, "What does it mean?"

"I don't know," Gerhard said. "Maybe another time-sharing terminal is overriding us, but that shouldn't be possible. We locked in priority for our terminal for the past twelve hours. Ours should be the only terminal that can initiate program changes."

The console flashed up new letters.

New Program Reads As

Machine Malfunction

All Programming Terminated Terminated Terminated Terminated Terminated Terminated Terminated Terminated Terminated

Gerhard started to punch buttons on the console, then quit. "It isn't accepting any new instructions. Something must be wrong with the main computer in the basement."

Ross looked at Anders. "You better show me that computer," he said.

Then, as they watched, one of the consoles went completely dead. All its lights blinked off; the TV screen shrank to a single fading white dot. A second console went off, then a third. The teleprinter stopped printing.

• • •

It was a peculiarly damp night and quite cold as they hurried across the parking lot toward the main building. Anders was checking his gun, turning it sideways to catch the light from the parking-lot lamps.

"I think you should know one thing," Ross said. "It's no good threatening him with that. He won't respond rationally to it. If he has a seizure, he won't even recognize it."

They entered the hospital through the brightly lit main entrance and walked to the central elevator banks. Anders asked, "Where's the atomic pack located?"

"Beneath the skin of the right shoulder." She showed him on her own shoulder, tracing a rectangle about the size of a cigarette pack.

There were two cops in the elevator when they got in; both seemed tense and fidgety, hands touching their guns. Anders nodded to his own gun and asked Ross, "Have you ever fired one of these?"

"Never," she said.

Then the door opened and they felt the coolness of the basement air. The corridor stretched ahead of them--bare, unpainted concrete walls, overhead pipes, harsh electric lighting. The only sound was the distant hum of electrical equipment. The cops stayed behind and Ross moved forward with Anders. "Does anybody work down here at night?" he whispered.

She nodded. "Maintenance people. Pathologists, if they're still going. The computer's this way."

She led on toward the laundry room. It was locked, but huge carts with bundles of laundry stood in the corridor. Anders eyed them cautiously before they continued toward the central kitchens.

These were deserted, but the lights burned in a vast expanse of white-tiled rooms with stainless-steel steam tables in long rows. Their footsteps echoed on the tiles. Anders walked loosely, holding his gun slightly ahead of his body and pointed a little to one side. After the kitchens, they entered another hallway almost identical to the one they had left. Anders glanced at her questioningly. "Turn right," she said.

They passed a sign on the wall: Employees Report All Accidents To Your Supervisor. It showed a man with a small cut on his finger. Farther down was another sign: Need A Loan? See your Credit Union.

They turned right down another corridor and approached a small section of vending machines--hot coffee, doughnuts, sandwiches, candy bars. She remembered all the late nights when she had been a resident in the hospital and had come down to the vending machines for a snack.

Anders peered into the vending area and whispered, "Have a look at this."

She looked, astonished. Every machine had been smashed. There were candy bars and sandwiches wrapped in plastic strewn across the floor. Coffee was pouring in short, arterial spurts from the coffee vendor onto the floor.

Anders stepped around the puddles of coffee and soda and touched the dents and tears in the metal of the machines. "Looks like an ax," he said. "Where would he get an ax?"

"Fire-extinguisher stations have them."

They continued down the corridor and came to another turn in the tunnels.

"Left," she said. "We're very close."

Ahead of them was the section for hospital records and just beyond that the computer. Suddenly, Anders froze. Ross stopped and listened with him. They heard footsteps and humming--somebody humming a tune.

Anders put his finger to his lips and gestured to her to stay where she was. He moved forward, toward the turn in the tunnel. The humming was louder. He paused at the turn and looked cautiously around the corner. Ross held her breath.

"Hey!" a male voice shouted, and suddenly Anders' arm flicked around the corner like a snake and a man sprawled across the floor, skidding down the tunnel toward Ross. A bucket of water sloshed across the floor. Ross saw that it was an elderly maintenance man. She went over to him.

"What the f----"

"Shh," she said, a finger to her lips. She helped the man back to his feet.

"Don't leave the basement," Anders said to him. "Go to the kitchen and wait until somebody tells you it's OK to go. There's a man clown here we have to find."

The janitor nodded, brushed himself off and walked away. Ross and Anders continued along the corridor and, in a moment, came to the computer section.

This section was the only refinished part of the basement. The concrete floor changed abruptly to pale-blue carpeting and a wall had been knocked out to accommodate large glass windows that looked in on the banks of the main computer. Ross remembered that, at the time of installation, the windows had seemed an unnecessary expense and she'd mentioned it to McPherson.

"Better let the people see what's coming," he had replied. "The computer is just a machine. Bigger and more expensive than most, but still just a machine. We want people to get used to it. We don't want them to fear or worship it. We want them to see it as part of the environment."

Ross could never quite agree with that. The special treatment, the hallway carpeting, the expensive surroundings did not make the computer part of the ordinary environment. Quite the reverse: It made the computer special, unusual, unique. The only other place in the hospital where the floor stopped being concrete or linoleum--and became carpeted--was outside the small nondenominational chapel on the first floor. She had the same sense here: a shrine to the computer. Did the computer care if there were carpets on the floor?

In any case, the employees of the hospital had provided their own reaction to the spectacle inside the glass windows. A handwritten sign had been taped to the glass: Do Not Feed Or Molest The Computer.

Ross and Anders crouched down below the level of the windows. Anders peered over cautiously. "I think I see him." She looked, too. She was aware that her heart was suddenly pounding; her body was tense and expectant.

Inside the room, there were six magnetic-tape units, a broad L-shaped console for the central processor, a printer, a card-punch reader and two disk-drive units. The equipment was shiny, sharp-edged, gleaming. It sat quietly under even, fluorescent lighting. She saw no one--just the equipment, isolated, alone. It reminded her of Stonehenge, the vertical stone columns.

Then she saw him: a man moving between two tape units. White orderly's coat, black hair. "It's him," she said.

"Where's the door?" Anders asked. For no good reason, he was checking his gun again. He snapped the revolver chamber closed with a loud click.

"Down there." She pointed down the corridor to the door, perhaps ten feet away. She looked from Anders to the gun and back to Anders.

"OK. You stay down." Anders pressed her down to the floor as he spoke. Then he crawled forward to the door. He paused there and looked back at her once. She was surprised to see that he was frightened. His face was taut, his body hunched tensely.

Then, with a loud slam, Anders knocked the door open and flung himself onto his belly into the room. She heard him shout, "Benson!" And then almost immediately, there was a gunshot. This was followed by a second gunshot and a third. She could not tell who was firing. She saw Anders' feet sticking out of the door as he lay on the carpeting. Gray smoke billowed out through the open door and rose lazily in the corridor.

There were two more shots and a loud scream of pain. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to the carpet. Anders shouted: "Benson! Give it up, Benson!"

It won't do any good, she thought. Didn't Anders understand?

Still more shots, in rapid succession. Suddenly, the window above her shattered and large slabs of glass fell over her shoulders, into her hair. She shook them off. And then, to her astonishment, she saw that Benson had thrown himself through the glass window and landed on the corridor floor beside her. One white trouser leg was seeping red.

"Harry----"

Her voice cracked strangely. She was terrified. She knew she should not be afraid of this man--that was a disservice to him, a betrayal of her profession and a loss of some important trust--but she was afraid, nonetheless.

Benson looked at her, eyes blank and unseeing. He ran off down the basement corridor.

"Harry, wait----"

"Never mind," Anders said, coming out of the computer room, sprinting after Benson, holding his gun stiffly in his hand. The policeman's posture was absurd; she wanted to laugh. She heard Benson's running footsteps echoing faintly down the tunnel. Then Anders turned a corner, continuing after him. The footsteps blended in staccato echoes.

And then she was alone. She got to her feet, dazed, feeling sick. She knew what was going to happen now. Benson, like a trapped animal, would head for one of the emergency exits. As soon as he appeared outside--where it was safe to shoot--the waiting policemen would gun him down. All the exits were covered. There was no possible escape. She didn't want to be there to see it. Instead, she went into the computer room and looked around.

The main computer was demolished. The magnetic-tape banks were knocked over; the main control panel was riddled with fine round punctures, and sparks sputtered and dripped from the panel toward the floor. She ought to control that, she thought. She looked around for a fire extinguisher and saw Benson's ax lying on the carpet in a corner. And then she saw the gun.

Curious, she picked it up. It was much heavier than she expected; it felt big and greasy and cold in her hand. She knew Anders had his gun; therefore, this must be Benson's. She stared at it oddly, as if it might tell her something about him.

From somewhere in the basement, there were four more gunshots. They echoed through the labyrinthine hospital tunnels. She walked to the broken window and looked out at the tunnels. She saw nothing, heard nothing. It must be finished, she thought.

She went back to look at one of the display consoles, which was now printing Ermina over and over.

Ermina Ermina

Then there were two more gunshots, not so distant as the others, and she realized that somehow Benson was still alive, still going. She stood in a corner of the demolished computer room and waited.

Another gunshot, very close now.

She ducked down behind one of the magnetic-tape banks as she heard approaching footsteps. She heard someone struggling for breath; the footsteps paused; the door to the computer room opened, then closed with a slam. She was still hidden behind the tape bank and could not see what was happening.

A second set of running feet went past the computer room and continued down the corridor, fading into echoes. Everything was quiet. Then she heard heavy breathing and a cough.

She stood.

Harry Benson, wearing torn white orderly's clothes, his left leg very red, was sprawled on the carpet, his body half propped up against the wall. He was sweating; his breath came in ragged gasps; he stared straight ahead, unaware of anyone else in the room.

She still held the gun in her hand and she felt a moment of elation. Somehow it was all going to work out. She was going to get him back alive. The police hadn't killed him, and by the most unbelievable stroke of luck, she had him alone, to herself. It made her wonderfully happy.

"Harry."

He looked over slowly and blinked. He did not seem to recognize her for a moment, and then he smiled. "Hello, Dr. Ross." It was a nice smile.

"Everything is going to be all right, Harry," she said. She wanted to reassure him, so she did not move, did not approach him.

He continued to breathe heavily and said nothing for a moment. He looked around the room at the demolished computer equipment. "I really did it," he said. "Didn't I?"

"You're going to be fine, Harry," she said. She was drawing up a schedule in her mind. He could undergo emergency surgery on his leg that night and in the morning they could disconnect his computer, reprogram the electrodes and everything would be corrected. A disaster would be salvaged. It was the most incredible piece of luck.

"Dr. Ross...." He started to get up, wincing in pain.

"Don't try to move. Stay where you are, Harry."

Benson's eyes flashed briefly and the smile was gone. "Don't call me Harry. My name is Mr. Benson. Call me Mr. Benson."

There was no mistaking the anger in his voice. It surprised her and upset her. Didn't he know that she was the only one who still wanted to help him? The others would be just as happy if he died.

He continued to struggle to his feet. "Don't move, Harry." She showed him the gun then.

He grinned in childish recognition. "That's my gun."

"I have it now," she said.

He still grinned, a fixed expression, partly from pain. He got to his feet and leaned heavily against the wall. There was a dark-red stain on the carpet where his leg had rested. He looked down and saw it.

"I'm hurt," he said. "He shot me in the leg...." He looked from the blood up to her. His smile remained. "You wouldn't use that, would you?"

"Yes," she said, "if I had to."

"You're my doctor. I don't think you would use it," Benson said. He took a step toward her.

"Don't come closer, Harry."

He smiled. He took another step, unsteady, but he maintained his balance. "I don't think you would."

His words frightened her. She was afraid drat she would shoot him and afraid that she would not. "Anders!" she shouted. "Anders!" Her voice echoed through the basement.

Benson took another step. His eyes never left her face. He started to fall and leaned heavily on one of the disk-drive consoles. It tore his white jacket at the armpit. He looked at the tear numbly. "It tore...."

"Stay there, Harry. Stay there." It's like talking to an animal, she thought. Do not feed or molest the animals. She felt like a lion tamer in the circus.

He hung there a moment, supporting himself on the drive console, breathing heavily. "I want the gun," he said. "I need it. Give it to me." With a grunt, he pushed away from the console and continued moving toward her.

"Anders!"

"It's no good." Benson said. "There's no time left, Dr. Ross." His eyes were on her. She saw the pupils expand briefly as he received a stimulation. "That's beautiful," he said and smiled.

The stimulation seemed to halt him; he was turned inward, enjoying the sensation. When he spoke again, his voice was calm and distant. "You see," he said, "they are after me. They have turned their little computers against me. The program is hunt and kill. The original human program. Hunt and kill. Do you understand?"

He was only a few steps away. She held the gun in her hand stiffly, as she had seen Anders hold his. But her hand was shaking badly. "Please don't come closer, Harry," she said. "Please."

He smiled. He took another step. She didn't really know what she was going to do until she found herself squeezing the trigger and the gun discharged. The noise was painfully loud and the gun snapped in her hand, flinging her arm up, almost knocking her off her feet. She was thrown back against the far wall of the computer room.

Benson stood blinking in the smoke. Then he smiled again: "It's not as easy as it looks."

She gripped the gun in her hand. It felt warm now. She raised it, but it was shaking worse than before. She steadied it with the other hand. Benson advanced.

A flood of images overcame her. She saw Benson as she had first met him, a meek man with a terrifying problem. She saw him in a montage of all the interviews, all the tests, all the drug trials. He was a good person; nothing that had happened was his fault. It was her fault, and Ellis' fault, and McPherson's fault, and Morris' fault.

Then she thought of Morris, the face mashed into a red pulp, deformed into butcher's meat.

"Dr. Ross." Benson said, "you're my doctor. You wouldn't do anything to hurt me."

He was very close now. His hands reached out for the gun. Her whole body was shaking as she watched the hands move closer, within inches of the barrel, reaching for it, reaching for it....

She fired at point-blank range.

With remarkable agility, Benson jumped and spun in the air, dodging the bullet. She was pleased. She had managed to drive him back without hurting him. Anders would arrive any minute to help subdue him before they took him to surgery.

Benson's body slammed hard into the printing unit, knocking it over. It began to clatter in a monotonous, mechanical way as the keys printed out some message. Benson rolled onto his back. Blood spurted in heavy thick gushes from his chest. His white uniform became darkly red.

"Harry?" she said. He did not move.

"Harry? Harry?"

She did not really remember what happened after that. Anders returned and took the gun from her hand. He moved her to the side of the room as three men in gray suits arrived, carrying a long plastic capsule on a stretcher. They opened the capsule; the inside was lined with a strange, yellow honeycomb insulation. They lifted Benson's body--she noticed they were careful, trying to keep the blood off their special suits--and placed it inside the capsule. They closed it and locked it with special locks. Two of the men carried it away. The third went around the room with a Geiger counter, which chattered loudly. Somehow the sound reminded her of an angry monkey. She couldn't see the man's face behind the gray helmet he wore; the glass was fogged.

"You better leave this area," the man said.

Anders put his arm around her shoulders. She began to cry.

This is the third and final installment of a condensed version of "The Terminal Man."