Invasion

Sheila raised her green eyes to Pitt's. She appeared particularly severe with her blond hair pulled tightly back from her face in a compact bun. Her cheeks were flushed with irritation.

"Mr. Henderson!" she snapped. "I hope to God you don't have your sights on a specialty requiring coordination, like eye surgery."

"It was an accident," Pitt pleaded.

"Yeah, that's what people said about World War I," Sheila said. "And think of the consequences! You're the ER clerk. What in God's name are you doing forcing your way in here."

Pitt frantically searched his mind for some reasonable explanation beyond simple curiosity. Simultaneously, his eyes swept the room, hoping to see something that might offer a suggestion. Instead what he saw stunned him.

The first thing that caught his eye was that the shape of the head of the bed was distorted as if it had been heated to the melting point and pulled toward the window. The night table looked the same. In fact as his eyes completed their circuit of the room, he noticed that most of the furniture and fixtures had been twisted out of shape as if they had been made of taffy. The windowpanes, meanwhile, appeared to have melted, with the glass forming stalactite-like formations that hung down from the curtains.

"What on earth happened in here?" Pitt asked.

Sheila spoke through clenched teeth: "Answering that question is why these professionals are standing here talking. Now get back to the ER desk!"

"I'm on my way," Pitt said quickly.

After one more quick glance at the strange transformation of the room, he retreated back through the crowd. He couldn't help but wonder what kind of damage he'd done to his career by pissing off the Dragon Lady.

"I'm sorry for the interruption," Sheila said. She was talking with Detective Lieutenant Jesse Kemper and his partner Vince Carbon.

"No problem," Jesse said. "I wasn't making a lot of sense anyway. I mean, this is a pretty strange situation, but I don't mink it's a crime scene. My gut reaction tells me this was not a homicide. Maybe you should get some science experts in here to tell us if a bolt of lightning could have come in through this window."

"But there wasn't a thunderstorm," Sheila complained.

"I know," Jesse said philosophically. He spread his hands like a supplicant. "But you said your engineers ruled out building power. It sure looks like the guy got electrocuted, and if he did, maybe it was lightning."

"I can't buy it," Sheila said. "I'm not a forensic pathologist, but I seem to remember that when lightning strikes an individual, it doesn't make a hole. It grounds, usually coming out the feet, even occasionally blowing the shoes off. There's no evidence of a ground in here. This is more like some powerful laser beam."

"Hey, there you go," Jesse said. "I never thought of that. Don't you have laser beams here in the hospital? Maybe somebody shot one in through the window."

"We've certainly got lasers in the hospital," Sheila admitted. "But nothing that could make the kind of hole we saw in Mr. Arnold's hand. Plus I can't imagine a laser being responsible for these strange distortions that we see with the furniture."

"Well, I'm plumb out of my league here," Jesse said. "If the autopsy suggests we got a corpus delecti and a homicide, we'll get involved. Otherwise I think you have to get the science guys over here."

"We've put in a call to the physics department at the university,'' Sheila said.

"I think that's the best idea," Jesse said. "Meanwhile, here's my card." He stepped over to Sheila and gave her the business card. He also gave one to Richard Halprin, president of the University Medical Center, and Wayne Maritinez, head of hospital security. "Any of you can call me anytime. I'm interested, really. It's been a strange couple of nights. There's been more weird stuff happening than in all the previous thirty years I've been on the force. Is it a full moon or what?"

At the very end of the show, the music reached a crescendo, and with a final clap of cymbals, the dome of the planetarium went dark. Then the general lights came on. Instantly the auditorium erupted in a smattering of applause, a few whistles, and a babble of excited voices. Most of the seats were occupied by elementary school kids on a field trip. Except for teachers and chaperones, Cassy and Beau were the only adults.

"That was really fun," Cassy said. "I'd forgotten what a planetarium show was like. The last time I'd seen one was in Miss Korth's fourth-grade class."

"I liked it too," Beau said with enthusiasm. "It's fascinating seeing what the galaxy looks like from the point of view of Earth."

Cassy blinked and stared at Beau. All morning long he seemed to have a penchant to pop off with a curious non sequitur.

"Come on," Beau said, oblivious to Cassy's mild perplexity. He stood up. "Let's try to get out of here ahead of these screaming kids."