Bug Man stood on wobbly legs and went to the bathroom. In the glaring fluorescence he stared at his own face as if staring at a ghost. He was shaking. He felt an urge to sit down and empty his bowels, but who knew what the crazy woman would do?
Oh, that’s right, he told himself. Not crazy. No, she was all cured.
He peed and washed his hands, and having used up all his stalling tactics went back out.
Lystra Reid had not moved a muscle.
He sat down.
And unprompted she said, “Oh, and the actress? Sandra Piper? Bitch cut me off in traffic.”
ARTIFACT
Plath: I need Caligula.
Lear: Name the place.
SIXTEEN
The news was all about the Nobel madness. Twenty-four hours a day. MSNBC, Fox, CNN.
Only the BBC made a connection to the biza
rre case of the New Zealand cops.
Only the Web site Buzzfeed made a connection between the Nobel madness and the inexplicable suicide of Sandra Piper.
Everyone, though, connected it to the bizarre death of the American, Chinese, and Brazilian heads of state.
Fear was spreading. A sharp observer would already be able to spot a wariness in people’s eyes and in their words. There was a feeling in the air.
Fear. Like the scent of smoke. Like the distant rumble of tank engines and clanking tracks. Like sirens in the night.
The theories about the cause were: food poisoning, mass hysteria, and some sort of terrorist attack using a form of nerve agent.
Only Cracked.com actually listed nanotech on its “8 Ways to Explain the Big Brain Meltdown.”
There were several loops of footage that ran more or less continuously online and on TV. One was a cell-phone video of a scene of madness from inside the Golden Hall. A second showed a bloodstained woman in a party dress rushing from the hall amid a panicked crowd, then suddenly launching herself at a passing woman and biting savagely into her neck. Another showed a former American secretary of state waving madly at invisible flying enemies.
Of course there were also clips of the new president looking solemn and vowing to give the Swedish government any assistance they required. Ditto footage of the British prime minister, the French president, and a long list of folks who had no idea what was going on, all vowing to get to the bottom of it.
Rye ergot. That was the first guess. Rye ergot, a disease caused by fungus that grows on some foods and can cause symptoms similar to an LSD overdose.
Tests for rye ergot were all negative.
“Just like Nijinsky,” Keats said. “It’s all connected.” He was watching the BBC coverage. “It’s all the same bloody thing, isn’t it.”
He was talking to no one. Plath was out, and though a part of Keats was with her—sitting on his hands, waiting for a cue—he felt alone. Abandoned. Both here and there. Both large and small. Slumped into his chair and on edge, ready for a race. Not for the first time, he wondered mordantly what he had to fear from madness. Wasn’t this already madness?
Billy was absorbed in a video game. Vincent was there, staring, almost forgotten by Keats.
Keats sat before the television, watching through his two eyes, and seeing the windows in his head, watching from other eyes. “It’s all one. But who?”
The voice when it spoke surprised him. What the voice said was chilling.
“Lear,” Vincent said.
Keats turned to look at him. He was still showing nothing, Vincent. A blank expression, sad eyes. Only his brow seemed to speak of any emotion; if tension can be called an emotion.