While Justice Sleeps(105)
As she moved among them, she offered each a bottle of water and a tablet from her rolling cart. To a person, they accepted the pill and quickly swallowed it down, as though this was a set routine. She waited while each person finished their bottles, then she carefully retrieved each bottle with gloved hands, swiftly labeling them before storage. No one spoke—not to the nurse, not to one another.
The room, a pale yellow, had a set of four seating areas, with five chairs at each grouping. The camera angle changed, revealing a small sink and a mirror, which reflected the row of beds. One by one, the men approached the sink. Avery noted the range of ages, from teenager to septuagenarian. A quick brush of teeth confirmed the video time stamp of 7:18 a.m. Off camera, a faint sound of flushing could be heard.
Once the occupants had completed their ablutions, they sorted themselves into the five arranged seating groups. Various games stood in arrested states of play. The teams began their activities, again without words.
“Why is no one talking?” Noah wondered aloud.
“I’ve got the volume up as high as it’ll go,” Jared responded. “You can hear the background noise. They’re just not talking.” He glanced at Avery. “Want me to fast-forward?”
“Not yet.”
They watched the silent room for another eight minutes before a figure entered the frame. He wore a white lab coat and a surgical mask, and he carried a clipboard. “Tigris test gamma one twenty-nine,” he announced.
“That sounds like Ani,” Jared said. “Can’t be sure because of the mask.”
“I think you’re right.”
He moved from table to table, placing an oximeter on a silently proffered finger. With the completion of each blood oxygen test, he recorded the results before moving to the next. His rounds completed, he stared up into the camera and gave a short nod. Then he turned back to the group. “Hygeia appreciates your service. We are nearing the end of this phase of the trial. I will ask that you continue your assignments, and that you remain in your stations. Thank you again for your participation.”
Ani exited the room, and the test subjects continued to play their games, solve their puzzles. Suddenly, a hiss of air disrupted the silence. The susurration was followed by staccato bursts of air. The occupants paused in their games to look around and at one another. When a second round of bursts followed, one of the younger men got up and moved to the side of the room where the beds were located. He stared up at the narrow vents that ran along the ceiling, then moved to the catty-corner wall and stared up again. A third volley of air bursts could be heard, and the young man climbed up to the top bunk and examined the vents, running his finger along the metal base.
One of the older men approached the bed and grabbed at the bottom of his pants leg. He tugged once, hard, but the younger man waved him off. He yanked again and pointed imperiously at the door. With an angry gesture, he instructed him to come down, pointing in the direction of the camera. Reluctantly, the young man clambered down, frowning.
The video continued for another five minutes, but nothing new happened. “Fast-forward,” said Avery.
Jared increased the film speed by 1x and then by 4x, rushing forward by nearly six hours. Like marionettes, the figures changed tables, ate lunch, then dinner. Jared reduced it to normal speed when white-coated figures entered the room, but the actions in the room rarely varied. No one left or broke the routine except to go into what they assumed was the bathroom. Jared sped up the video again as the test subjects slept through the night.
Suddenly, while the morning routine was repeating itself, Ling urged, “Stop. Play right here.” She got up and walked closer to the screen and tapped on the image of the young man who had climbed up to the vent. “Look.”
Seated at a table with an incomplete puzzle, he reached up to his face and thumbed away a nosebleed. As Ling watched, the young man used the sleeve of his scrubs to wipe at his nose again as the drip became a steady stream. One of his companions rose and hurried over to the bathroom, returning with paper towels. While he tried to stem the now-constant flow, a voice cried out, “What is wrong, Harjit?”
The older man who had intervened yesterday had his head in his hands, moaning, “What is this? What is this?” He lifted his head, and crimson streaked down his wizened cheeks as his eyes bled. “I cannot see!”
Soon, the once-silent room erupted into a cacophony of screams and cries. Another young man doubled over, vomiting, clutching his stomach. Another elderly man moved toward his screaming friend, only to collapse near his chair, convulsing, blood vessels bursting across his skin. A middle-aged man, who appeared unaffected, beat at the door, demanding to be released. More occupants joined him, alternately pulling on the handle and banging on the metal door. To no avail.
“My God,” Ling whispered to the room.
Avery turned to her. “Do you know what’s happening?”
“I hope not.” Ling told Jared to speed up the video, skipping through the horrific images at blur. When play resumed, the pale yellow room contained twenty bodies collapsed across beds, furniture, and the floor. Blood streaked the walls and the exit door, where a tangle of limbs spoke of their final desperate minutes.
From a concealed panel, three people outfitted in masks entered the room. They methodically checked each body, and when they found one person alive, they took a blood sample, checked his blood oxygen level, and swabbed his cheek. Then a second attendant injected the prisoner with a needle. Over the intercom, Ani’s voice sounded: “Test Tau one twenty-nine completed. Fourteen dead. Six survivors. All subjects terminated.”