"Don't look, Hilda!" warned Miss Knox.
"Calling the emergency rooms," said a piping voice. "Beware of patient William Barger who may attempt to escape. He may be armed...."
The mutape chattered.
"Here, take the cup," said Dr. Brooks. He picked up the bedside chair and placed it on the foot of the bed. Climbing onto the swaying surface like a trained ape, he reached up and loosened the screws which held the light globe in place on the ceiling, and threw it to shatter on the floor. Miss Erwin stepped backward. Then she tiptoed toward the light and steadied the chair, and stared at the patient's face in fascination. Dr. Brooks was tugging at an object resembling a camera, attached by a spring clamp between the bulbs of the ceiling fixture.
"Hilda!" Miss Knox said.
"Oh, look at his face now!"
"Subliminal picture slide," said Dr. Brooks, dropping the object to the floor with a crash. "There goes his sweet sleeping face—an illusion filling in for reality because there was nothing else for us to see."
Mr. Barger's face was blotched red and covered with shiny ooze. His throat was swollen as thick as his cheeks, with lumpy rolls of neck stretched taut like strands of pink beads above the bedsheet. His mouth was hidden beneath caked blood.
The mutape read, "You are running out of time."
Three bells in the corridor as the door slid open. "Calling Dr. Gesner," said a cool nurse's voice. "Emergency. Calling Dr. Feld. Emergency."