The Terminal Man

But she wanted to keep him talking. "Why did you leave the hospital, Harry?"

"It was in the afternoon," he said, turning to look at her. "I was lying in bed in the afternoon, and I suddenly realized that everybody was taking care of me, taking care, servicing me, like a machine. I was afraid of that all along."

In some distant, detached, and academic corner of her mind, she felt that a suspicion was confirmed. Benson's paranoia about machines was, at bottom, a fear of dependency, of losing self-reliance. He was quite literally telling the truth when he said he was afraid of being taken care of. And people usually hated what they feared.

But then Benson was dependent on her. And how would he react to that?

"You people lied to me," he said suddenly.

"Nobody lied to you, Harry."

He began to get angry. "Yes, you did, you- " He broke off and smiled again. The pupils were briefly larger: another stimulation. They were very close now. He'd tip over again soon.

"You know something? That's the most wonderful feeling in the world," he said.

"What feeling?"

"That buzz."

"Is that how it feels?"

"As soon as things start to get black - buzz! - and I'm happy again," Benson said. "Beautifully warm and happy."

"The stimulations," she said.

She resisted the impulse to look at her watch. What did it matter? Anders had said he would be coming in twenty minutes, but anything could delay him. And even if he came, she wondered if he could handle Benson. A psychomotor epileptic out of control was an awesome thing. Anders would probably end up shooting Benson, or trying to. And she didn't want that.

"But you know what else?" Benson said. "The buzz is only nice occasionally. When it gets too heavy, it's... suffocating."

"Is it getting heavy now?"

"Yes," he said. And he smiled.

In that moment when he smiled, she was stunned into the full realization of her own helplessness. Everything she had been taught about controlling patients, everything about directing the flow of thought, about watching the speech patterns, was useless here. Verbal maneuvers would not work, would not help her - any more than they would help control a rabies victim, or a person with a brain tumor. Benson had a physical problem. He was in the grip of a machine that was inexorably, flawlessly pushing him toward a seizure. Talk couldn't turn off the implanted computer.

There was only one thing she could do, and that was get him to the hospital. How? She tried an appeal to his intellectual functions. "Do you understand what's happening, Harry? The stimulations are overloading you, pushing you into seizures."

"The feeling is nice."

"But you said yourself it's not always nice."

"No, not always."

"Well, don't you want to have that corrected?"

He paused a moment. "Corrected?"

"Fixed. Changed so that you don't have seizures any more." She had to choose her words carefully.

"You think I need to be fixed?" His words reminded her of

Ellis: the surgeon's pet phrase.

"Harry, we can make you feel better."

"I feel fine, Dr. Ross."

"But, Harry, when you went to Angela's- "

"I don't remember anything about that."

"You went there after you left the hospital."

"I don't remember anything. Memory tapes are all erased. Nothing but static. You can put it on audio if you want, and listen to it yourself." He opened his mouth, and made a hissing sound. "See? Just static."

"You're not a machine, Harry," she said softly.

"Not yet."

Her stomach churned. She was physically sick with tension. Again that detached part of her mind noted the interesting physical manifestation of an emotional state. She was grateful for the detachment, even for a few instants of it.

But she was also angry at the thought of Ellis and McPherson, and all those conferences when she had argued that implanting machinery into Benson would exaggerate his pre-existing delusional state. They hadn't paid any attention.

She wished they were here now.

"You're trying to make me into a machine," he said. "You all are. I'm fighting you."

"Harry- "

"Let me finish." His face was taut; abruptly, it loosened into a smile.

Another stimulation. They were coming only minutes apart now. Where was Anders? Where was anybody? Should she run out into the hall screaming? Should she try to call the hospital? The police?

"It feels so good," Benson said, still smiling. "That feeling, it feels so good. Nothing feels as good as that. I could just swim in that feeling forever and ever."

"Harry. I want you to try and relax."

"I'm relaxed. But that's not what you really want, is it?"

"What do I want?"

"You want me to be a good machine. You want me to obey my masters, to follow instructions. Isn't that what you want?"

"You're not a machine, Harry."

"And I never will be." His smile faded. "Never. Ever."

She took a deep breath. "Harry," she said, "I want you to come back to the hospital."

"No."

"We can make you feel better."

"No."

"We care about you, Harry."

"You care about me." He laughed, a nasty hard sound. "You don't care about me. You care about your experimental preparation. You care about your scientific protocol. You care about your follow-up. You don't care about me."

He was becoming excited and angry. "It won't look so good in the medical journals if you have to report so many patients observed for so many years, and one died because he went nuts and the cops killed him. That will reflect badly."

"Harry- "

"I know," Benson said. He held out his hands. "I was sick an hour ago. Then, when I woke up, I saw blood under my fingernails. Blood. I know." He stared at his hands, curling them to look at the nails. Then he touched his bandages. "The operation was supposed to work," he said. "But it isn't working."

And then, quite abruptly, he began to cry. His face was bland, but the tears rolled down his cheeks. "It isn't working," he said. "I don't understand, it isn't working... ."

Equally abruptly, he smiled. Another stimulation. This one had come less than a minute after the one previously. She knew that he'd tip over in the next few seconds.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," he said, smiling cheerfully.

She felt sympathy for him, and sadness for what had happened. "I understand," she said. "Let's go back to the hospital."

"No, no..."

"I'll go with you. I'll stay with you all the time. It will be all right."

"Don't argue with me!" He snapped to his feet, fists clenched, and glared down at her. "I will not listen- " He broke off, but did not smile.

Instead, he began to sniff the air.

"What is that smell?" he said. "I hate that smell. What is it? I hate it, do you hear me, I hate it!"

He moved toward her, sniffing. He reached his hands out toward her.

"Harry..."

"I hate this feeling," he said.

She got up off the couch, moving away. He followed her clumsily, his hands still outstretched. "I don't want this feeling, I don't want it," he said. He was no longer sniffing. He was fully in a trance state, coming toward her.

"Harry..."

His face was blank, an automaton mask. His arms were still extended toward her. He almost seemed to be sleep-walking as he advanced on her. His movements were slow and she was able to back away from him, maintaining distance.

Then, suddenly, he picked up a heavy glass ashtray and flung it at her. She dodged; it struck one of the large windows, shattering the glass.

He leaped for her and threw his arms around her, holding her in a clumsy bear hug. He squeezed her with incredible strength. "Harry," she gasped, "Harry." She looked up at his face and saw it was still blank.

She kneed him in the groin.

He grunted and released her, bending at the waist, coughing. She moved away from him and picked up the phone. She dialed the operator. Benson was still bent over, still coughing.

"Operator."

"Operator, give me the police."

"Do you want the Beverly Hills police, or the Los Angeles police?"

"I don't care!"

"Well, which do you- "

She dropped the phone. Benson was stalking her again. She heard the tiny voice of the operator saying, "Hello, hello. .."

Benson tore the phone away and flung it behind him across the room. He picked up a floor lamp and held it base outward. He began to swing it in large hissing arcs. She ducked it once and felt the gush of air in the wake of the heavy metal base. If it hit her, it would kill her. It would kill her. The realization pushed her to action.

She ran to the kitchen. Benson dropped the lamp and followed her. She tore open drawers, looking for a knife. She found only a small paring knife. Where the hell were her big knives?

Benson was in the kitchen. She threw a pot at him blindly. It clattered against his knees. He moved forward.

The detached and academic part of her mind was still operating, telling her that she was making a big mistake, that there was something in the kitchen she could use. But what?

Benson's hands closed around her neck. The grip was terrifying. She grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them away. She kicked up with her leg, but he twisted his body away from her, then pressed her back against the counter, pinning her down.

She could not move, she could not breathe. She began to see blue spots dancing before her eyes. Her lungs burned for air.

Her fingers scratched along the counter, feeling for something, anything, to strike him with. She touched nothing.

The kitchen...

She flung her hands around wildly. She felt the handle of the dishwasher, the handle to the oven, the machines in her kitchen.

Her vision was greenish. The blue spots were larger. They swam sickeningly before her. She was going to die in the kitchen.

The kitchen, the kitchen, dangers of the kitchen. It came to her in a flash, just as she was losing consciousness.

Microwaves.

She no longer had any vision; the world was dull gray, but she could still feel. Her fingers touched the metal of the oven, the glass of the oven door, then up... up to the controls... she twisted the dial...

Benson screamed.

The pressure around her neck was gone. She slumped to the floor. Benson was screaming, horrible agonized sounds. Her vision came back to her slowly and she saw him, standing over her, clutching his head in his hands. Screaming.

He paid no attention to her as she lay on the floor, gasping for breath. He twisted and writhed, holding his head and howling like a wounded animal. Then he rushed from the room, still screaming.

And she slid smoothly and easily into unconsciousness.

9

The bruises were already forming - long, purplish welts on both sides of her neck. She touched them gently as she looked into the mirror.

"When did he leave?" Anders said. He stood in the doorway to the bathroom, watching her.

"I don't know. Around the time I passed out."

He looked back toward the living room. "Quite a mess out there."

"I imagine so."

"Why did he attack you?"

"He had a seizure."

Chapter 14

"But you're his doctor-

"That doesn't matter," she said. "When he has a seizure, he's out of control. Totally. He'd kill his own child during a seizure. People have been known to do that."

Anders frowned uncertainly. She could imagine the trouble he was having with the idea. Unless you had seen a psychomotor seizure, you could not comprehend the unreasonable, brutal violence of an attack. It was completely beyond any normal life experience. Nothing else was like it, analogous to it, similar to it.

"Umm," Anders said finally. "But he didn't kill you."

Not quite, she thought, still touching the bruises. The bruises would get much worse in the next few hours. What could she do about it? Make-up? She didn't have any. A high-necked sweater?

"No," she said, "he didn't kill me. But he would have."

"What happened?"

"I turned on the oven."

Anders looked puzzled. "Is that a cure for epilepsy?"

"Hardly. But it affected Benson's electronic machinery. I have a microwave oven. Microwave radiation screws up pacemaking machinery. It's a big problem for cardiac pacemakers now. Dangers of the kitchen. There have been a lot of recent articles."

"Oh," Anders said.

He left the room to make some calls, while she dressed.

She chose a black turtleneck sweater and a gray skirt, and stepped back to look at herself in the mirror. The bruises were hidden. Then she noticed the colors, black and gray. That wasn't like her. Too somber, too dead and cold. She considered changing, but didn't.

She heard Anders talking on the phone in the living room.

She went out to the kitchen to make herself a drink - no more coffee; she wanted Scotch on the rocks - and as she poured it, she saw the long scratches in the wooden counter that her fingernails had left. She looked at her fingernails. Three of them were broken; she hadn't noticed before.

She made the drink and went out to sit in the living room.

"Yes," Anders was saying into the phone. "Yes, I understand. No... no idea. Well, we're trying." There was a long pause.

She went to the broken window and looked out at the city. The sun was up, lighting a dark band of brown air that hung above the buildings. It was really a lethal place to live, she thought. She should move to the beach where the air was better.

"Well, listen," Anders said angrily, "none of this would have happened if you'd kept that f**king guard at his door in the hospital. I think you better keep that in mind."

She heard the phone slam down, and turned.

"Shit," he said. "Politics."