Drug of Choice

And then he remembered the little lady at the desk. There was something that he had signed.

“And your picture, of course. Shaking hands with Harvey Blood, president of the Corporation. Shaking hands with George K. Washington. The contract states, by the way, that you have full knowledge of the experimental drug, and have agreed to supervise activities at the resort for the month.”

He smiled.

“And here,” he said, “is a canceled check, deposited to your account. And another check, here. And a third. Totaling slightly more than seven thousand dollars. So you see, you’re an employee, all right. And a rather well-paid employee at that.”

Clark said nothing. He was thinking over everything, from the beginning, from the Angel, and then Sharon…

“This was all planned,” he said. “You planned a way to get me out here, you engineered it all—”

“Let’s say,” Lefevre said, “that we helped you to make up your mind. Now then. For the duration of your stay here — for the rest of the month, until our regular physician in residence comes back from his vacation — you are going to be a rather busy man. We run into minor problems here and there, you know. Nothing to do with the drug, but peripheral things. A young lady sleeps on the balcony to her room and neglects to wear her bathing suit; that can give you a nasty burn, and it must be attended to so that she is not unhappy when she finally goes home. Or a gentleman gets pneumonia. We have two cases of that now, because of the bad weather. They’ll need penicillin treatment, and whatever else you deem appropriate. After all,” he said, “you’re the doctor.”

Clark sat calmly in his chair. He stared at Lefevre and said, “Sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes. Sorry. I won’t play.”

Lefevre frowned. “That’s a rather serious decision on your part.”

“Sorry.”

“I strongly advise you to reconsider.”

Clark shook his head. “No.”

“You must realize, of course, that we have anticipated such a maneuver. We are prepared for the possibility that you would reject the plan, and begin scheming. Thinking up ways to blow the whistle on our organization, tell the world, let everyone know about the drug of choice. Eh?”

Clark kept his face expressionless, but in fact such thoughts had been running through his mind.

“We have devised a method for dealing with such plans,” Lefevre said.

He pressed a button on his desk, and two waiters came into the room. They stood quietly by the door.

“I think,” Lefevre said, “that a demonstration is best.”

And then, almost before he knew what had happened, the two waiters grabbed him and held him, and Lefevre came forward with a gun in his hand, pressed it to Clark’s arm, and fired. There was a hissing sound, and a slight pain.

“Release him.”

The waiters let Clark sit down; he stopped struggling and rubbed his sore arm.

“And what was that?”

“I’m rather surprised, doctor,” Lefevre said. “I would have thought you’d have guessed. We have just given you a dose of another compound. It is the reverse of the drug we give here. The exact opposite.”

Clark waited, preparing himself for some sensation. Nothing happened. He felt a little queasy, but that was all.

“The posterior thalamic nuclei, on the inferior aspect,” Lefevre said, “can produce most peculiar sensations when stimulated.”

He held up the tuning fork; the metal glinted in the light.

Then he swung it down abruptly, striking the table.

Clark heard a hum.

15. REVERSAL

There was no immediate change. He remained sitting in the office, staring at Lefevre, with the two men at his back. He continued to rub his arm, still sore from the pneumatic hypodermic.

Gradually, he became aware of an unearthly silence in the room, a still and muffled quality. He looked back at one of the men, and was surprised to see he was talking.

He glanced at Lefevre, who was replying to the man.

Clark heard nothing. He saw the lips move, watched as Lefevre gestured and smiled, but he heard nothing.

“It’s a trick,” he said aloud. “You’re only pretending to talk. You’re trying to frighten me.”

At this, Lefevre turned to Clark and said something, shaking his head. Clark tried to read the lips but could not… “You’re trying to frighten me.”

And then, he became aware that he heard nothing at all in the room. Normal sounds — feet on the carpet, the ticking of a clock on the desk, the sounds of breathing, movement, the rain outside — he heard nothing. He could not even hear the beating of his own—

“My heart,” he said, and put his hand to his chest. He felt nothing. Suddenly afraid, he reached for his wrist to feel the pulse.

There was no pulse.

“My heart has stopped.”

They had poisoned him. He felt a coldness creep over him, beginning in his hands and legs and ears, moving toward the center of his body. An icy, gray coldness.

“You’re killing me.”

The room was still silent, the men still standing and watching him. He took a deep breath, but his lungs weren’t working; the air caught in his throat; he was dizzy and gasping.

They were killing him.