Now Marcelina was rolling a steel operating table, bearing a dark-haired Maya woman, through the doorway. The patient looked like all the others down in Baalum, except that she had a strange expression on her face. She appeared to be tense and very afraid, as her eyes kept darting around the room, then to the "jade" mask Alex Goddard was wearing— most likely papier-mache covered with shiny green granules.
When she was in position, he walked to the corner and flipped another switch, whereupon there started the deep droning of a chant, probably from speakers in the walls, that sounded like Kekchi Maya.
He bent over her and said something in the same language, after which Marcelina placed a rubber mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes still frightened, the patient uttered a few words, perhaps a final prayer, then inhaled deeply. As her eyelids fluttered, he turned and opened what appeared to be some kind of stone tableau, covered by its own bas-relief. It was, I finally realized, merely painted fiberglass—that was what the whole room was—and inside were CRT monitors designed to display various vital life functions. As Marcelina helped him, he began attaching sensors to the patient's body.
When the woman's eyes had fully closed, he removed his green mask and tossed it into a box.
It's all fake. The room, everything. Just like Baalum. But now he's got Sarah's mind caught in his thrall. I've got to make her understand nothing here is real.
Marcelina was carefully watching the screens, her apprehension obvious as she fiddled uncertainly with the knobs.
"Oxygen steady." Her voice was small and uneasy. "EKG stable."
He immediately stripped away the sheet that had been covering the patient. Beneath it was an open-sided gown colored in brilliant stripes of red and blue. He pulled it back with absent precision, then turned to Marcelina.
"Shave her and scrub her."
With the woman now under sedation, Marcelina put on her own surgical garb: She pulled a blue plastic cap over her hair, then secured a white OR mask over her face. While she was finishing the preparations, he turned and walked to the far side of the room, where he abruptly seemed to disappear through the wall.