Zig Zag

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  She lunged for the door, thinking that it must be a fire, and almost crashed straight into a horrifying ghost, white as the X-ray of a human body pinned to the wall.

  "All the lights have gone out! The lights! All of them! Even my flashlight!"

  It was true, not even the tiny emergency lights in the hall were on. They were surrounded by impenetrable darkness. She put an arm around Nadja's trembling shoulders, trying to console her, and the two of them ran up the hall, feeling their way together, barefoot.

  A wall kept them from going any farther. They could hear Reinhard Silberg's voice from beside it, his silhouette outlined in the murky glow of a flashlight. Standing on tip-toes to see past him, Elisa could also see Jacqueline Clissot, lit up from underneath, and Blanes, struggling with the person holding the flashlight (a soldier, maybe Stevenson) at the door to the hallway that led to the next barracks. I want to get through! You're not allowed! I have a right! I'm telling you...! I'm the scientific director...!

  She realized Nadja had been shouting something for some time.

  "Ric and Rosalyn aren't in their rooms! Have you seen them?"

  She tried to come up with something longer than no when suddenly it went quiet. The silence was absolute.

  And then, breaking it, the voice of Marini (in the distance, coming from the next barracks), relieved: "Damn, it's about time." The alarm, no longer sounding, was still ringing in Elisa's ears with such intensity that she didn't realize that someone else was coming down the hall beside Stevenson. An enormous hand emerged from the dark, a stony face that confronted Blanes.

  "Calm down, Professor," Carter said without raising his voice. "Everyone, just calm down. The main generator short-circuited, and that set off the alarm. That's why the lights went out."

  "Well, why didn't the backup generator kick in?" Silberg asked.

  "We don't know yet."

  "Is all the equipment OK?"

  Elisa would never forget Carter's reply, the way he averted his gaze, his squared jaw contrasting with the pallor of his cheeks and the way he lowered his voice.

  "The equipment is, yes."

  19

  "SORRY, does anyone want more tea or coffee? If not, I'm going to take the cups out to the kitchen."

  Mrs. Ross's voice piped up unexpectedly, as if she were the kind of person who never spoke up. Elisa noticed that she was the only one eating (a yogurt, spooning it calmly but ceaselessly into her mouth). She was sitting at the table and looked better than might be expected, given not only the circumstances but also the fact that she hadn't had time to get dressed and put on all the jewelry she normally wore. A short time earlier, she'd made tea and coffee, passed out cookies like a practical mother who thinks that breakfast is the essential ingredient necessary to discuss death.

  No one wanted anything else. After smoothing down her hair, she went back to her yogurt.

  They'd congregated in the dining room: a collection of pale faces, bags under their eyes. Marini and Craig weren't there; they were checking on the accelerator. Jacqueline Clissot, too, was off taking care of something she was trained to do but had no idea would be required of her until the tragedy.

  "The way I see it," Carter said, "Miss Reiter must have gotten up in the middle of the night, walked down to the control room, and gone into the generator room for some reason. She touched something she shouldn't have, triggered a short circuit, and ... well, you know the rest. When the doctor is finished with her examination, we'll know more. She doesn't have the right tools to do an autopsy, but she. promised she'd give us a report."

  "And where is Ric Valente?" Blanes asked.

  "That's the second part of the mystery. I don't know yet, Professor. Ask me again, later."

  Silberg was seated at the table in his pajamas, with the bewildered expression shared by all very nearsighted people who don't have their glasses on (he'd left them in his bedroom and still hadn't been allowed to go back for them), tears streaming down his cheeks. He held his hands out imploringly and spoke softly.

  "The generator room? Wasn't it locked?"

  "Yes, it was."

  "So how could Rosalyn get in?"

  "With a copy of the key, most likely."

  "But what would Rosalyn want with a copy of the key?" Elisa couldn't make sense of it, either.

  "Just a minute," Blanes said. "Colin told me that he had to wait for you to turn off the alarm in the generator room, because you're the only one with the key. Right?"

  "That's right."

  "That means it was locked from the outside. Which means that Rosalyn was locked in. How could she do that by herself?"

  "I didn't say she did it by herself," Carter conceded, scratching his graying beard. "Someone locked her in."

  That statement took things to a new level, and gave the situation a whole different spin. Blanes and Silberg glanced at each other. There was an uncomfortable silence, which Carter broke.

  "We can't rule out the possibility of an accident. She could have tripped in the dark, or accidentally touched some wires..."

  "Wasn't there light in the generator room?" Silberg asked. "She was the one who caused the short, right? So there would have been light at least until she touched the wires. Why wouldn't she turn it on?"

  "Maybe she did."

  "Well, did she or didn't she?" Blanes took over. "Was the light switch up or down?"

  "I didn't notice, Professor," Carter replied, and for the first time Elisa thought she sensed irritation in his voice. "Still, if someone locked her in, she could have gotten flustered and not have been able to find the switch."

  "But why lock her in to begin with?" Silberg looked disconcerted. "Even if someone wanted to hurt her... why do that? There are too many things that don't add up..."

  Carter quietly laughed.

  "In great tragedies, things don't add up, that's for sure. But what happened has a simple explanation. In real life," he said—stressing the word real—"things are almost always quite straightforward."

  "Maybe in the real life you know," Blanes objected, "but not me. What about Ric's disappearance? Nadja, tell us again what you found in his bed."

  Nadja nodded. Elisa, sitting beside her at the table, could tell without touching her that she was trembling and held her hand protectively.

  "When I heard the alarm I got up and went out into the hall... I was alone, no one else had gotten up yet and, well, I wanted to wake them. So I looked in and saw that Rosalyn's bed was empty ... And in Ric's bed Was ... well, not exactly a doll, it was more basic than that, just a pillow and a couple of round backpacks, really. His sheet was on the floor," she added.

  "Why would Ric do that?" Blanes asked.

  Carter looked as if he'd just thought of something. "He probably didn't think any of you would make good detectives. He thought you were just physicists."

  "Physics is based on hypothesizing, following clues, and finding proof, Mr. Carter. That's what we're trying to do right now." Blanes gave Carter that sleepy look he had that Elisa knew so well. "Do you think Ric is hiding somewhere in the station?"

  "He'd have to be the Invisible Man. We've searched everything top to bottom. There aren't many places he could be hiding here. On the island, yes, but inside the station? I don't think so."

  The door opened and Marini, Craig, and the Thai soldier, Lee, filed in one by one. Both Lee and Craig were literally soaked, as if someone had sprayed them down with a pressure washer. Stevenson, the soldier who had barred their way that morning, and who was now standing guard in the living room, was also dripping wet.

  "All in order," Marini said, though his face seemed to indicate the opposite. He wiped his hands on a rag. "The computers are all fine, and the screens are still picking up signals from the satellites..."

  "SUSAN is fine, too," Craig confirmed. "No one touched anything."

  Who would have touched anything anyway? Elisa wondered distractedly. "Lee?" Carter asked.

  "Nothing wrong with the backup generator, sir." Lee wi
ped sweat from his face with the back of his hand—or maybe that was rain, too. His uniform was unbuttoned, revealing a scrawny white chest beneath his undershirt. "There's plenty of electricity. But the main generator is kaput, completely burned out. No way to repair it."

  "Why didn't the backup kick in when the main one burned out, then?" asked Blanes. Carter conveyed the question to Lee by shrugging and raising his eyebrows at the soldier.

  "The ignition wires burned out, so all the backup generator could do was trigger the alarm. But I just rewired it."

  "Does it make sense that the backup ignition wires get burned out by a short circuit in the main generator?" Blanes queried.

  An electronic bleep interrupted them. Carter took the walkie-talkie from his belt and they heard static and indistinct words.

  "York says they've made it to the lake and there's no sign of Mr. Valente," he explained, after listening to the communiqué. "But they still haven't searched the rest of the island."

  "And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

  Carter raised a hand to his thick neck and paused, though he didn't seem particularly bothered by the question. It was as though he wanted to create suspense, as though the time had come to show the know-it-alls what was what. He stood beneath the only dining-room light that was on (two of the three had been turned off to prevent another possible short, he said); all eyes were on Carter. His robust figure seemed to be saying, "Trust me." In a way, Elisa was glad there was someone like him there with them. She'd never think of going dancing with Carter, or to a French restaurant or even for a walk in the park with him. But in that situation, she liked having him around. Guys like him were good in tragic circumstances.

  "This is all set out in the contracts you signed. I'm assuming command, and calling off the project until further notice; there will be no more scientific investigation, and we can all start packing our bags. By noon, the weather should have improved a little, and the choppers at our nearest base might be able to come pick us up. By tomorrow night, no one but the search team should be left on New Nelson."

  The announcement was expected, maybe even wished for, but it was met with somber silence.

  "The project is off...," Blanes said. Despite what had happened, Elisa understood why he sounded so distraught.

  "Paragraph five, confidentiality appendix," Carter recited. " 'In any situation entailing unknown risks to personnel, the security team may call off the project indefinitely.' I think the death of one colleague and the disappearance of another qualify as unknown risks, don't you? But we're talking about a break here; this doesn't mean we're terminating the project indefinitely. What I'm worried about right now is finding Valente. So for the time being, get going. Pack your bags."

  ELISA didn't have much to pack. She quickly stuffed everything in her room into her suitcase, but when she went to get her stuff from the bathroom, she found that the lights had burned out, probably after the short. The bulbs and sockets were black, as if they'd been singed. She decided to find Mrs. Ross and see if she could get a flashlight from her.

  Questions raced through her head as she wandered down the hall. Why did he run away? What made him hide? Did he have anything to do with what happened to Rosalyn? She didn't want to think about Valente. Picturing him made her think of her bizarre dream, and that made her feel like she couldn't breathe.

  Never in her life had she ever had a dream as horrifying, disgusting, and at the same time realistic. She'd even gone so far as to examine her body, searching for some sign of the rape experience. But aside from a faint yet persistent pain, there was nothing, just a sensitivity that eventually went away. She tried to convince herself that the alarm, combined with the story Nadja had told her the week before, caused her nightmare. She could think of no other explanation.

  Elisa found Ross in the kitchen, taking inventory.

  "That's odd," the woman replied on hearing her request. "The same thing happened to Nadja last week... But I don't think it has anything to do with the short circuit, because my bathroom light is fine. Must be the sockets. Anyway, as for a flashlight, let me think ... Lately, demand is far outweighing supply!" And she gave that low, open laugh that Elisa had heard the first time the night she arrived on the island. Almost immediately, though, Ross became circumspect, as though she knew any sign of joy was out of place that morning. "I'd lend you mine, but I'm about to go down to the pantry, and if the lights go out again, I don't want to be banging my shins against those refrigerators. Hmm. You could ask Nadja... No, wait... She told me hers broke this morning..."

  "Never mind, it's no big deal," Elisa said.

  "How about this? If you're not in a rush, I'll try to find some more in the pantry. I was planning to go down as soon as I finished taking inventory here anyway. We need to know exactly how much we're leaving behind, because I'm sure we'll be back soon."

  "Can I give you a hand?"

  "Well, since you're offering, that would be great. Thank you, honey. If you could just tell me what's up in that high cupboard, since you're tall enough not to need a chair to stand on..."

  Elisa stood on her tiptoes and began to list the products. Mrs. Ross asked her to stop at one point, to give her time to jot it all down. Elisa filled the silence.

  "Poor Rosalyn, you know? Not just the way she ... Not just the accident, but everything she went through over the past few days."

  It didn't take long for Ross to offer her theory. Mrs. Ross loved devising theories about people and events; she'd always done it as part of her job ("I used to be a consultant," she'd once said, without specifying what kind or for whom). In her opinion, Valente was hiding somewhere on the island and would reappear before they left. And why was he hiding? Ah, that was a whole different story.

  "Mr. Valente is a very odd young man," she pointed out. "In fact, he could probably win the Weird Scientist Award. He might make some women's hearts flutter, but a lot of his attraction resides in his eccentricity. That was all Rosalyn saw in him. He dominated her, and she liked that... Can you reach those bags at the back there? Pull those out for me, would you?" Ross helped her, sticking the papers in her mouth to free her hands. "Didn't you think it was strange that Nadja found the sheet in Ric's room on the floor? If he wanted to make out that he was in bed, why would he leave it on the floor? Seems like someone else went in there before Nadja and found him out, don't you think?"

  Elisa realized that Mrs. Ross was more perceptive than she let on.

  "I'll tell you what I think," Cheryl Ross continued. "Rosalyn was frantic because he'd stopped paying any attention to her, so that night she got up and went to his room to talk to him, but when she pulled back the sheets he wasn't there. So she searched the station and found him in the control room. That must be where he was, because the door was ajar when I got there, and I was the first one to arrive, before the soldiers even. I'm a light sleeper, and that alarm had me out of bed in a flash. Anyway, so ... Maybe they argued, like they did in the kitchen that day last week, remember? Maybe they were shouting and went into the generator room so no one could hear them. Then she got an electric shock and he got spooked, took off, and locked the door behind him. I'm sure he had a copy of the key. Men are sneaky like that, you'll find that out one day. And it doesn't take a five-hundred-volt shock for them to hit the road and leave you stranded, either."

  "But why would Ric leave a pillow in his bed? What do you think he was Op to?" Mrs. Ross winked.

  "That I can't say. But I bet you it was something underhanded." Just then, Stevenson interrupted them. The helicopters would be arriving sooner than expected. Mrs. Ross headed for the pantry's trapdoor. "Thank you for your help, honey. I'll bring you up a flashlight in a little while."

  Elisa went back to her room to survey her luggage. Her brain bubbled over with questions. Why did he want people to think he was still in bed? And where is he now? She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the door open behind her.

  "Elisa."

  It was Nadja. The exp
ression on her face (she could read it easily) made her forget all about Valente and steel herself for another dreadful surprise.

  "LOOK at this edge ... See? And now..."

  Nadja's hands were shaking on the keyboard. They'd been locked in Silberg's lab for the past fifteen minutes. They'd gone into his lab because Jacqueline Clissot was still examining Rosalyn Reiter's body in the other one and they didn't want to disturb her (Elisa, for her part, didn't want to help her, either). Nadja had enlarged the Jerusalem Woman's face several times, zooming in until she found what she was looking for. She refused to explain it to Elisa. She wanted her friend to find whatever it was for herself.

  "I've been thinking about this nonstop since yesterday. I wanted to be sure before I said anything to you, but after they told us we'd be leaving and the images were staying behind, I couldn't wait any longer."

  Carter had made it perfectly clear, despite Silberg and Blanes's protests: all of the images obtained there—the Perennial Snows, the Lake of the Sun, and the Jerusalem Woman, everything except the Unbroken Glass—were considered classified and could not leave the island. Plus, Eagle Group had decided that for security reasons, no one aside from the project's participants would see the images for now. They didn't want to expose anyone to the possible risks of the Impact, and they didn't have a clear picture of all the symptoms yet. Elisa could understand their concern, but she still thought it was terrible that images as unique as those would stay behind, especially since there were no copies. "Hurry up already," she said.

  "Give me a second ... Oh, mierda!" Nadja swore in Spanish. "I lost it again ... What are you laughing at?"

  "Oh, mierda?" Elisa replied.

  "Don't you say that in Spain?" Nadja asked, distracted. Then she suddenly clenched her fists. "Got it! Look."

  Elisa bent over and looked down at the divided screen. On the left side, a pretty clear close-up of the Jerusalem Woman's disgusting features, eaten away to an unimaginable degree, all the way to her brain from what Elisa could make out; her whole face was just a bloody crater. On the right half of the screen, what looked like curved sticks or broken branches that were only vaguely familiar because of the sparkling jewels covering them. She had no idea what her friend was expecting her to see.