Note: Sorry, folks! It's Science Fiction time! (Let's be honest: we knew the day would come.)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Al trudged down the corridor and fumbled for the key to his quarters. It had been one of those days. He hadn't had five minutes' downtime since Wednesday morning, when he had awakened to take Stevie to his last day of his second session of chemotherapy. It was now three o'clock on Thursday afternoon. Having worked straight through the night trying for the ten thousandth time to catch up to his workload, he just wasn't capable of coherent thought any longer. He closed the door and slumped back against it, sliding to the floor and reaching to untie his boots. He was cold again. Damned short-sleeved duty uniform.

He got his feet free of the constrictive garments and hauled himself back up, stumbling wearily through to the little kitchenette. His stomach snarled, and he groped for the bread. His mouth was too dry to chew, so he pulled out a bottle of bourbon from the well-stocked liquor cupboard and poured himself some a generous helping. With the aid of the fluid he managed to choke down some nourishment. His stomach rebelled for a minute, until it realized that this was what it had been asking for. Al took another drink, then opened the diminutive fridge and routed around for some salami and cheese. These were the makings of a very basic sandwich. He debated digging out the mustard, but by then the hunger pangs were louder than the protestations about esthetics so he forgot it and took his lunch (and breakfast, and supper the night before, and lunch before that, too) into the tiny living room. There, he collapsed gratefully on the couch.

Who would have thought that goddamned paperwork could be so thoroughly exhausting? He had done some hard labor in his time, but this was unprecedented. He could swear his hands were cramping…

It wouldn't be so discouraging, he reflected morosely, if only they were making some progress. Doctor Eleese's life's blood might be running test after inconclusive test, but the committee was starting to get impatient. The worst aspect of this was that he'd had several calls from Congressman Davies, graciously put through by Human Resources despite Al's request that all such calls be filtered. Davies didn't even really want to talk about the Project: he wanted to reminisce about Vietnam. Al didn't understand it. Why would anyone want to reminisce about Vietnam?

There was something different about Les Davies these days. He was always hinting at something, like he was trying to wheedle some kind of admission out of Al. It didn't make sense.

"Let's be honest, Calavicci. Nothing's making much sense right now," Al muttered, draining his glass and swallowing the last of his sandwich. He was damned tired. There was an urge to fall asleep right here, but he knew he'd be more comfortable in the bed. His shoulder was healing, but it wasn't healed. Unusual positions caused discomfort, and he didn't need unnecessary discomfort.

With a grunt of weariness he hoisted himself off of the sofa and made his way blindly to the bedroom. He fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, and with some effort managed to strip down to his underwear. Leaving the uniform in a crumpled heap on the floor, he rolled into bed and dragged the blankets over his body. Within minutes he was warm.

Al had just enough presence of mind to set the alarm for two hours before losing consciousness altogether.

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He had scarcely closed his eyes when there was a pounding on the door. Suppressing a moan of frustration, Al rolled out of bed. It took him a minute to remember whose room he was in, and when it occurred to him that whoever was at the door wasn't expecting to see the Project Administrator wearing only an undershirt and jockey shorts, he hurried to the closet. Two minute's frantic dressing had him in a set of civvies that he kept on hand for the really long nights. He raked a hand over his head, trying to tame the curls, and hurried for the door, glancing quickly at the clock and noting with some resentment that he'd had all of eight and a half minutes' sleep.

He opened the door to see one of the young chemists standing in the corridor. The kid's eyes went wide.

"Captain Calavicci!" he cried. "We were scared you'd left for the day! You have to come down and see something right away!"

Al's heart was in his mouth as he closed the door to his suit and strode off down the hall next to the scientist. What kind of disaster had struck now, and could he deal with it in his current sleepless state?

That was a stupid question. Of course he could. There had been times when he had counted himself lucky to get eight minutes' sleep in a week!

"What happened?" he demanded as they stopped to wait for the elevator.

"We've been working on the new gel coolants," the young man said. "Doctor Thorgard was experimenting with biochemical polymers, you remember?"

"Yes," Al said briskly. He had had to sing a pretty song to get Congress to cough up the dough for those reageants...

"Well, we… I can't describe it, sir: you'll have to see it for yourself!"

Abruptly, Al realized that the boy was frantic with jubilation, not anxiety. His heart began to hammer in his chest. A discovery? Progress?

The door opened, and Al was out of it like a shot. This time, the scientist had to trot to keep up. He burst into the lab, past the lounge alcove with the vending machines and into the main room. At the far bench, where Thorgard customarily worked, a large group of scientists were gathered around one of the superheated polymer baths. Al hastened across the room, and they parted for him.

Thorgard, wearing gloves and Plexiglas goggles, was reaching into the bath to retrieve a beaker of polymer. Al blinked, rubbed his eyes, and did a double take. The blue goo inside the beaker was glowing, emitting light of an almost neon quality. The aging chemist glanced at the Project Administrator, smiled, and proceeded with his work. A large glass compounding slab had been laid out on the counter, and while Al watched, Thorgard carefully poured the contents of the beaker onto it. The polymer was cohesive, and held a fine ribbon shape as it fell and landed. With a steady hand belying his age, Thorgard traced out a series of loops, lines and curlicues. As the last of the phosphorescent sludge landed, the other scientists burst into a spontaneous round of applause.

"What is it?" Al asked, fascinated by the glowing substance.

"I'm not sure," Thorgard admitted. "It glows."

"I can see that," Al told him, drawing closer. "Does it keep glowing?"

"As far as we can tell." Thorgard motioned to one of his assistants, who went to a fume hood and came back with a tray bearing several Petri dishes of the same stuff. "We set those out this morning. As you can see, they're still luminescent."

Al reached out to touch one of the samples. It had the texture of hard plastic, and really did look uncannily like a neon light, especially the thin rods that Thorgard had spread on the slab.

"It can be re-melted and re-molded," the scientist explained. "As far as we can tell, it has no practical application for the accelerators, but—"

"But it's spontaneously generating light!" Al exclaimed enthusiastically.

"I thought you'd appreciate it," Thorgard said. "We were going to run some tests, if you don't think it's a waste of the Project's resources…"

"No, go ahead!" Al said. "Anything you want. This is the first exciting thing that's happened in months! In fact… my first degree was in chemistry. Would you mind…"

"Be my guest," Thorgard said. "Marlie, get Captain Calavicci a coat and some goggles."

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Al spent the rest of the night experimenting on Thorgard's new polymer. It melted at 287 degrees and boiled at 983. It would condense in an even layer on a glass surface. When cooled, it exuded light in darkness and under artificial illumination at hugely varying spectrums. In fact, they couldn't figure out when, if ever, it stopped glowing. It had many of the properties of plastic, and as far as they could tell after giving pieces to the lab mice to chew, it was non-toxic. It emitted the equivalent of 2.39 candles luminescence per square inch of substance: enough to read by. It didn't generate heat, and it could be shattered upon heavy impact. Thorgard ran other tests, like tensile and flexural strength, as well.

In the end there didn't seem to be any practical use for it, but it was very pretty. Around eleven, when Al was beginning to get a little goofy from lack of sleep, he started to think what interesting jewelry it would make. The trouble was, of course, that it was too brittle. It would need a base, a pendant or something, onto which it could stick.

He went into the supply stores to pick up some petroleum jelly for Thorgard, most of the others having gone home or to bed. Overtired and not thinking clearly, he opened the wrong drawer. It was full of junk left over from the early days when everyone was getting to know each other—before his time. Back then, each person's clearance level had been identified by a colored button like the kind political candidates passed out to loyal supporters. They had progressed from green, which was minimal clearance, to blue, to purple, to red, to orange, to yellow, to pink, and finally to black for the top-secret staff employed in the actual sites of investigation. There were still clutches of these buttons lying around here and there like pirate treasure, and this drawer had at least three dozen of them, most of which were black.

Al didn't give it a second thought, closing the drawer and finding the desired container of lubricant. He went back into the room and surveyed the mess of polymer-adorned glassware with some amusement. Fortunately, all they had to do was heat it up and the polymer would melt off. Otherwise it was pretty much irremovable.

Then inspiration struck. Al ran back to the storeroom as if the devil was on his heels, returning with a handful of the buttons. Thorgard watched in puzzlement as Al took a beaker of the molten blue polymer and began to carefully pour it onto the surface of one of the sable disks. It took him three attempts to manage it, but he made a clumsy five-pointed star. Grinning like a child proud of some artistic accomplishment, he returned the beaker to the bath and motioned at his work.

"Starbright," he said.

Thorgard laughed. "Lovely," he agreed. "Too bad we can't make one for everybody."

"Can't we?" Al asked.

Thorgard was by this time in a playful mood too, and with a pair of brilliant minds on the problem it was inevitable that some kind of solution be reached. Two one-ounce glass syringes were quickly converted into the tools for the task, and by marking their paths first with chalk, they managed very nicely. Al was on his seventh when he realized he should have been home six hours ago.

Apologizing to Thorgard, he took his leave and hastened up to his office. He had one of the four private lines on the property there: the others were in his quarters, in Human Resources, and on Sub-Level Omega. The latter phone had never been used. Next to it, engraved in a steel panel on the wall, were the numbers they had to call in the event of a core meltdown.

Al dialed home and waited, expecting the phone to ring several times before either Sharon or Juan woke up to answer it. Instead, it didn't have time to ring even once.

"Where the hell are you?" an angry voice demanded.

"I…" Al was completely derailed. His moment's hesitation gave Sharon the time she needed to launch into her tirade.

"Here I am, thinking you've gone and killed yourself on that bike, lying in the ditch in the desert somewhere with a dislocated shoulder, kidnapped by the Hell's Angels, God knows what, and you have the nerve to call at three in the morning?" she cried.

"Sharon, calm down. I'm—"

"Of all the thoughtless, selfish, arrogant bastards—"

"I'm at the Project, damn it!" Al shouted back, angered more by her ridiculous worries than by her tone. "I work, you know! Things get busy—"

"If you had a normal job I wouldn't have to live like this!" Sharon yelled. "Do you have any idea what it's like sitting by the phone, not knowing if your husband's alive or dead? It's not the first time this has happened, either! Damn you, Calavicci, are you trying to kill me?"

"I forgot it was a night when I was expected home!" Al snapped. "We've had an interesting discovery, and—"

"Oh, really?" Sharon retorted. "What?"

Al couldn't help the delighted smile that spread over his lips as he fingered the button he wore, with its raised star like neon light. "It's this polymer that glows bright blue," he said. "Doctor Thorgard and I have been having a great time. We're making these buttons—"

"Liar!" Sharon shrieked. "You lying bastard, you expect me to believe that? You—you!"

There was a cacophonous slam, and the line went dead. Al hung up, waited thirty seconds, and tried to dial again. Busy signal. She had taken the phone off the hook.

He shrugged. Oh, well, he thought. She'd calm down. In the meantime, he had a pet project on the go downstairs!

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Sharon slammed down the receiver so hard that it ricocheted off the cradle and hit the floor, bouncing on its cord.

"That bastard!" she screamed, throwing the glass she had been sipping whiskey from all night so that it shattered against the wall. He was out with another woman! She had known all along he was cheating on her: no on in his right mind would sleep over at work! He was shacking up with some young, pretty thing, while she was sitting at home, agonizing over him. Well, that was enough! It was enough! She'd had it! She wasn't going to do it anymore!

Tears of rage and indignation streamed down her cheeks. "That bastard, that lying wop bastard, how stupid does he think I am?" she howled, kicking the counter so that the dishes in the overhead cupboards rattle.

She couldn't stand it! There was a tiny voice in the back of her head reminding her what a great guy Al was, sensitive and kind and hard-working, and how good he was with Stevie, how generous with his money. The other voice was angry, unspeakably angry that he would lie to her like this!

And if he wasn't lying? If he really had just lost track of the day, got wrapped up in the excitement of a new discovery? Then that meant his mind was going. He had shown signs of it before, when he awoke in the night thinking he was still in Vietnam—ten years ago, in Vietnam!—and now it could be intruding into his waking life too. If he had just forgotten her, then that meant he was losing his sense of time and place, just like Dad had…

The prospect terrified her. She would much rather believe he was deliberately stringing her out, even if it meant he had rejected her.

"Bastard!" she roared, trying to fuel her rage as a safeguard against the fear that was gnawing at her heart.

Juan came into the room and grabbed her hands before she could smash them against the kitchen window in her wroth. "Sharon, stop!" he cried. He had taken, gradually, to calling her by her first name.

"No!" she cried, fighting him. "I don't want to stop! He's a no-good, lying guinea bastard, and I won't stop! I w—"

Her eyes met his. She couldn't say who made the first move, but all of a sudden she was on her toes and he was bending to kiss her. It was a wild, impassioned kiss. She was taking out her frustrations and feeding off a dormant desire, and he was obviously very experienced. Obviously he wasn't the good little choirboy he made out to Celestina that he was. They parted and Sharon gasped for air. There was a brief moment of remorse for betraying Al in this way, but then Juan leaned in again, and all that was forgotten. The habit of anger shifting into the passions of the bedroom was too ingrained to be fought tonight. It was three in the morning, she was tipsy, she was tired, and she just wanted a man, damn it. She just wanted a man.

The next thing she knew Juan swept her up into his arms and was carrying her to the bedroom while she fumbled with his shirt, kissing all the way.

As if he knew that it wasn't right, Chester began to bark and howl, but Juan closed the door behind them and soon the roar of the fires of desire drowned out the terrier's loyal protestations.