"Projector!" He reached in and tugged at the object, bracing his other hand against the driveshaft. "Help me, quick!"
She grasped smooth leather and pulled, her nails making scars, as he slid under the bed and hammered with his fist. "It's hooked on the other way," she said. He pulled, and the briefcase fell heavily to the floor.
Dr. Brooks rolled to his feet, kicking the object into the light, and yanked at its buckles and straps. "My bag is somewhere near the chair. Get the mutape on him, fast!"
She found his black satchel on the floor, plugged into the computer outlet and spread the apparatus over Mr. Barger's bed. She made a trembling fist around the Broca cup, and watched the dormant pink cheeks and eyelids as she lowered the cup toward his skull.
The rubber rim thudded against empty air, pleating like a horse's muzzle as she pushed. The sleeping Barger face remained a picture glowing out of reach inches beneath her straining fist, behind a smell of blood. A hand from under the covers grasped her wrist....
She struggled. Dr. Brooks, at the telephone, contorted his face and heaved the briefcase against the wall. It shattered into coils and smashed tubes and pieces of electronic chassis like a shower of silver Christmas ornaments, and a moan from the bed faded away.
Brooks shouted and hung up the phone. The mutape was chattering violently. He unlocked the door, flung himself to the bed and took the recorder between his hands. The grasp on her wrist relaxed, and she leaned over to decipher the punched tape as it unrolled from the machine. Its dot patterns were unverbalized bloody agony, cleanly formulated in computer language.