White Space

Sprinting right, she pelts along a side landing toward the next flight of stairs, trailed by Kramer’s bellows, nurses and attendants trapped behind gated iron grilles, and the porter’s shouts. Wheeling around a marble newel post, she catches a glow of streetlamps through high windows and, closer, the wide columns of this building’s massive portico—and she falters. That’s the front of the building. So why is she heading up and not down? Okay, down is bad, and yeah, the front doors might be locked, and there’s the little problem of getting past all those men. But what are you doing, Emma? Why are you running up? This is a blink, a nightmare, and forget the stupid brass knob on the lock, how detailed this is, how real, and all that shit. She’s got to believe she’s still inside that creepy little house, the near twin to Frank McDermott’s home, and House has created this.

I could do nothing. Eventually I’ll wake up or blink back. I always do. Yet even as she thinks this, she has the queasy sense that this would be the wrong move.

Must go up. It isn’t just the steady throb of her headache, the burn of her titanium skull plates impelling her to go, go, move. It’s as if she’s being guided by an internal compass, an invisible hand that prods the nape of her neck to urge her on, force her up, up, up.

God, Emma, you nut, I hope you know what you’re doing. She vaults up another flight. The hard stone is cold on her feet. Dead ahead, she can see that the layout above is identical to that below: four gated wards, two on the right and two on the left. There’s movement as the shouts trail and attendants hustle out of wardrooms, where they’ve been dozing, to see what’s going on.

How many floors are there? From her brief glimpse of the flanking galleries, she thinks not many, maybe only four. As she pivots around another newel post for the next flight of steps, she can hear Kramer and the others now: the clap of boots on marble and men’s shouts.

“Shit,” she breathes. They’re out. No more time. She is committed now. “Emma, you better be right.” Scrambling up this flight, she sees the same layout of wards on either side. Third floor. If it’s like this on the fourth, she’s screwed. As she bounds up the next stone staircase, however, she sees an immediate difference. Despite the gloom, it seems a little brighter up here, and then she spots the arched door at the very top of the steps. As she hits the landing, she pauses to throw looks right and left. No galleries. No wards. End of the line.

Please, please … Leaping for the door, she slots her hand through a curved iron latch and gasps. The iron’s so frigid it burns. Good. It means this must open to the outside. But is it locked? Below, she hears distant bangs, and then Kramer’s voice, louder than before but also … stranger, more of a gargled, strangled choke, as if he’s shouting from a deep, dark well: “Emma! Emma, there’s no way out! Come back!”

Shit. Come on. Mashing the thumb plate, she puts her weight into it, shoving, pushing with all her strength. Please, please, please, don’t be locked … A little cry jumps from her mouth as the wooden door, so warped and weighty it groans on its hinges, squawwws over stone. A gush of wintery air splashes her face, and she thinks, Roof. I’m out! She bullies through a narrow wedge between the door and wall …

2

AND INTO A huge, soaring space that is utterly and completely without light, as dark as a cave.

Oh shit, where am I? In the hush, she hears her heart thud. What is this? Turning a complete circle, she strains to make out details. The darkness is close and cold, but she detects that faint silvery glimmer again: light, spilling down from somewhere high above. Tipping her head, she spots a parade of tall arched windows marching all the way around a …

A dome?