In the third week since first blood had been drawn, the computer began to speak
to him. But he couldn't understand a word it said. And the voice made his head
hurt. Like a huge empty auditorium in which taiko drummers played endlessly.
Two days later, a thunderstorm hit the tri-state area with a power and a
ferocity that reminded old-timers of the great storm of 1936. And the dam
stopped producing electricity when a spike of lightning as thick as a city block
hit the transformer station; and the power went out; and the computer went dead.
Or dormant.
It continued to glow, that diseased bluish-green color, but it wasn't alert, it
wasn't breathing as deeply, it wasn't draining him. It went somnolent, torpid,
waiting.
Chris felt like a junkie going into terminal withdrawal. He fell from the
ergonomic chair, and lay on his side for hours. The pain in his head, and the
pain in his hips, and the pain in his hands -- radiating all the way to his
shoulders -- left him paralyzed. Lying there cuculiform, curled like a conch
shell, absent the sound of any living sea.
For hours the storm raged around the house, battering and lashing the windows
with the malevolence of ancient enemies. And by morning, when light crept
through the sooty windows, Chris crawled to the bathroom and ran water into the
tub and managed to drag himself over the porcelain lip and fell face-forward
into the freezing ocean. He thought he'd die!
The pain was excruciating, shadowlines of agony racing down from his eyes and
cheeks into his neck, paralyzing his upper body, disemboweling him, reducing him
to the jelly cold of infinite vacuum. He tried to struggle out of the tub,
lurching back with his shoulders, trying to get purchase with his scrabbling
feet against the tiles of the bathroom. His head and upper body were submerged,
his torso half-in, half-out of the tundra oblivion. He screamed, there in the
water, and bubbles, only bubbles broke the surface. He wrenched himself back,
thrashing, managing to get one arm outside the tub, over the enamel edge. But it
was enough.
He fell to the floor, teeth chattering, eyes white and rolled up in his head
like shrunken scrotums, like brine shrimp left in the desert. He passed out, and
it was sweet relief.
He thought he remembered his mother's smile.
It was night again. He could see the blind eyes of the living room windows from
where he lay on his side on the carpet. The only light in the room was from the
computer. It had tried to crawl to him, to feed, but the power had been off for
too long. Had it been a day, two . . . three days or a week . . .? Chris had no
idea. He felt dehydrated, and hurting in every paper-thin plane of his skin.
It had to have been more than a few days, because he was so weak he couldn't
