DAY 6 1:12 P.M.
They had all gathered in the lounge, with the video games and pinball machines. Nobody was playing them now. They were watching me with anxious eyes as I explained what we had to do. The plan was simple enough—the swarm1 itself was dictating2 what we had to do, although I was skipping that uncomfortable truth.
Basically, I told them we had a runaway3 swarm we couldn’t control. And the swarm exhibited self-organizing behavior. “Whenever you have a high SO component4, it means the swarm can reassemble itself after an injury or disruption. Just as it did with me. So this swarm has to be totally, physically5 destroyed. That means subjecting the particles to heat, cold, acid, or high magnetic fields. And from what I’ve seen of its behavior, I’d say our best chance to destroy it is at night when the swarm loses energy and sinks to the ground.”
Ricky whined6, “But we already told you, Jack7, we can’t find it at night—”
“That’s right, you can’t,” I said. “Because you didn’t tag it. Look, it’s a big desert out there. If you want to trace it back to its hiding place, you’ve got to tag it with something so strong you can follow its trail wherever it goes.”
“Tag it with what?”
“That’s my next question,” I said. “What kind of tagging agents have we got around here?” I was greeted with blank looks. “Come on, guys. This is an industrial facility. You must have something that will coat the particles and leave a trail we can follow. I’m talking about a substance that fluoresces intensely, or a pheromone with a characteristic chemical signature, or something radioactive ... No?”
More blank looks. Shaking their heads.
“Well,” Mae said, “of course, we have radioisotopes.”
“All right, fine.” Now we were getting somewhere.
“We use them to check for leaks in the system. The helicopter brings them out once a week.”
“What isotopes8 do you have?”
“Selenium-72 and Rhenium-186. Sometimes Xenon-133 as well. I’m not sure what we’ve got on hand right now.”
“What kind of half-lives are we talking about?” Certain isotopes lost radioactivity very rapidly, in a matter of hours or minutes. If so, they wouldn’t be useful to me. “Half-life averages about a week,” Mae said. “Selenium’s eight days. Rhenium’s four days. Xenon-133 is five days. Five and a quarter.”
“Okay. Any of them should do fine for our purposes,” I said. “We only need the radioactivity to last for one night, after we tag the swarm.”
Mae said, “We usually put the isotopes in FDG. It’s a liquid glucose9 base. You could spray it.”
“That should be fine,” I said. “Where are the isotopes now?”
Mae smiled bleakly10. “In the storage unit,” she said.
“Where is that?”
“Outside. Next to the parked cars.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s go out and get them.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Ricky said, throwing up his hands. “Are you out of your mind? You nearly died out there this morning, Jack. You can’t go back out.”
“There isn’t any choice,” I said.
“Sure there is. Wait until nightfall.”
“No,” I said. “Because that means we can’t spray them until tomorrow. And we can’t trace and destroy them until tomorrow night. That means we wait thirty-six hours with an organism that is evolving fast. We can’t risk it.”
“Risk it? Jack, if you go out now, you’ll never survive. You’re fucking crazy even to consider it.”
Charley Davenport had been staring at the monitor. Now he turned to the group. “No, Jack’s not crazy.” He grinned at me. “And I’m going with him.” Charley began to hum: “Born to Be Wild.”
“I’m going, too,” Mae said. “I know where the isotopes are stored.”
I said, “It’s not really necessary, Mae, you can tell me—”
“No. I’m coming.”
“We’ll need to improvise11 a spray apparatus12 of some kind.” David Brooks13 was rolling up his sleeves carefully. “Presumably, remotely controlled. That’s Rosie’s specialty14.”
“Okay, I’ll come, too,” Rosie Castro said, looking at David. “You’re all going?” Ricky stared from one to another of us, shaking his head. “This is extremely risky15,” he said. “Extremely risky.”
Nobody said anything. We all just stared at him.
Then Ricky said, “Charley, will you shut the fuck up?” He turned to me. “I don’t think I can allow this, Jack ...”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” I said.
“I’m in charge here.”
“Not now,” I said. I felt a burst of annoyance16. I felt like telling him he’d screwed the pooch by allowing a swarm to evolve in the environment. But I didn’t know how many critical decisions Julia had made. In the end, Ricky was obsequious17 to management, trying to please them like a child pleasing a parent. He did it charmingly; that was how he had moved ahead in life. That was also his greatest weakness.
But now Ricky stuck out his chin stubbornly. “You just can’t do it, Jack,” he said. “You guys can’t go out there and survive.”
“Sure we can, Ricky,” Charley Davenport said. He pointed18 to the monitor. “Look for yourself.”
The monitor showed the desert outside. The early afternoon sun was shining on scrubby cactus19. One stunted20 juniper in the distance, dark against the sun. For a moment I didn’t understand what Charley was talking about. Then I saw the sand blowing low on the ground. And I noticed the juniper was bent21 to one side.
“That’s right, folks,” Charley Davenport said. “We got a high wind out there. High wind, no swarms22—remember? They have to hug the ground.” He headed toward the passageway leading to the power station. “Time’s a-wasting. Let’s do it, guys.” Everybody filed out. I was the last to leave. To my astonishment23, Ricky pulled me aside, blocked the door with his body. “I’m sorry, Jack, I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the others. But I just can’t let you do this.”
“Would you rather have somebody else do it?” I said.
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You better face facts, Ricky. This is already a disaster. And if we can’t get it under control right away, then we have to call for help.”
“Help? What do you mean?”
“I mean, call the Pentagon. Call the Army. We have to call somebody to get these swarms under control.”
“Jesus, Jack. We can’t do that.”
“We have no choice.”
“But it would destroy the company. We’d never get funding again.”
“That wouldn’t bother me one bit,” I said. I was feeling angry about what had happened in the desert. A chain of bad decisions, errors and fuckups extending over weeks and months. It seemed as if everyone at Xymos was doing short-term solutions, patch-and-fix, quick and dirty. No one was paying attention to the long-term consequences.
“Look,” I said, “you’ve got a runaway swarm that’s apparently24 lethal25. You can’t screw around with this anymore.”
“But, Julia—”
“Julia isn’t here.”
“But she said—”
“I don’t care what she said, Ricky.”
“But the company—”
“Fuck the company. Ricky.” I grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him once hard. “Don’t you get it? You won’t go outside. You’re afraid of this thing, Ricky. We have to kill it. And if we can’t kill it soon, we have to call for help.”
“No.”
“Yes, Ricky.”
“We’ll see about that,” he snarled26. His body tensed, his eyes flared27. He grabbed my shirt collar. I just stood there, staring at him. I didn’t move. Ricky glared at me for a moment, and then released his grip. He patted me on the shoulder and smoothed out my collar. “Ah hell, Jack,” he said. “What am I doing?” And he gave me his self-deprecating surfer grin. “I’m sorry. I think the pressure must be getting to me. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Fuck the company. We have to do this. We have to destroy those things right away.”
“Yes,” I said, still staring at him. “We do.”
He paused. He took his hand away from my collar. “You think I’m acting28 weird29, don’t you? Mary thinks I’m acting weird, too. She said so, the other day. Am I acting weird?”
“Well ...”
“You can tell me.”
“Maybe on edge ... You getting any sleep?”
“Not much. Couple of hours.”
“Maybe you should take a pill.”
“I did. Doesn’t seem to help. It’s the damn pressure. I’ve been here a week now. This place gets to you.”
“I imagine it must.”
“Yeah. Well, anyway.” He turned away, as if suddenly embarrassed. “Look, I’ll be on the radio,” he said. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’m very grateful to you, Jack. You’ve brought sanity30 and order here. Just ... just be careful out there, okay?”
“I will.”
Ricky stepped aside.
I went out the door past him.
Going down the hallway to the power station, with the air conditioners roaring full blast, Mae fell into step beside me. I said to her, “You really don’t need to go out there, Mae. You could tell me over the radio how to handle the isotopes.”
“It’s not the isotopes I’m concerned with,” she said, her voice low, so it would be buried in the roar. “It’s the rabbit.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her. “The what?”
“The rabbit. I need to examine the rabbit again.”
“Why?”
“You remember that tissue sample I cut from the stomach? Well, I looked at it under the microscope a few minutes ago.”
“And?”
“I’m afraid we have big problems, Jack.”
收听单词发音 |
1
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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isotopes
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| n.同位素；同位素( isotope的名词复数 ) | |
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glucose
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| n.葡萄糖 | |
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bleakly
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| 无望地，阴郁地，苍凉地 | |
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improvise
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| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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specialty
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| n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长 | |
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risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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cactus
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| n.仙人掌 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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swarms
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| 蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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lethal
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| adj.致死的；毁灭性的 | |
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snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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