A few minutes later, Reiff was wheeled into the hall outside his room, pushed by Dr. Williams and followed by Dr. Souza, who calmly pulled the door closed behind them.
From the chair, Reiff looked left, then right. In both directions was an empty hallway; they looked exactly alike, other than one being slightly shorter than the other.
Reiff turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. “You’re the tour guide.”
Without a word, Dr. Williams turned to the right, pushing Reiff forward. The man said nothing while they traveled toward the end of the hallway and turned right.
Another long stretch appeared before them, brightly lit and just as empty. The doctors’ steps echoed as they walked. The three continued another fifty feet or so forward, past a set of double doors. Both were painted and perfectly matching the walls except for the chrome door handles and two darkened rectangular windows.
“What’s this?” asked Reiff.
Dr. Williams slowed and nodded to Dr. Souza, who moved past to grasp one of the handles, and waited for Williams’s signal before opening the right side to reveal a dark interior. She stepped inside and flipped multiple switches on, causing the room to explode into bright light.
“This,” said Williams, pushing him through the open doorway, “is where you were saved.”
Reiff scanned the room while his chair rolled forward. It looked like a combination of a research lab and a hospital emergency room. On the far side, below an overhead wall made entirely of glass, was a long console that appeared to be some kind of control system for the room. Several monitors lined the console, some of which were powered on and displaying various data windows. It all reminded Reiff of a NASA control room.
On the right side were two long counters connected in an L shape, crammed with dozens of machines and unfamiliar—but probably medical—devices. Perhaps for diagnostics. And above them, shelves of carefully labeled containers and bottles, as well as several smaller computer monitors, all positioned at eye level.
Reiff looked up to see a long overhead rail system snaking across the ceiling and over their heads, ending near the strangest device he had ever seen. He could only describe it as an electric sarcophagus. A giant, casket-shaped metal container with roughly the shape and dimensions of a human body. Something one might expect a high-tech mummy to be extracted from. It had hundreds of small wires attached to virtually every square inch of its exterior, all neatly bound and organized, running up and around the thing in all directions.
“What the hell is that?”
Dr. Souza stepped next to him with both arms behind her back. “We call it ‘the Machine.’”
Dr. Williams leaned in from behind. “That is what saved your life.”
Reiff marveled at the precision of it all, and how it managed to look both modern and retro at the same time.
“What does it do?”
“It thaws Popsicles,” joked Dr. Souza.
Reiff’s eyes continued to roam over the rest of the room. Next to the Machine and along the wall were several more devices. Larger, square, and painted in a muted beige. Apparently, the standard for hospital systems. All in various dimensions and sporting their own computer displays, and next to them, a device Reiff recognized immediately. A hospital-sized defibrillator.
“Did you have to use that?”
Williams sighed. “Don’t ask.”
After leaving, they turned left and resumed their walk down the remainder of the hallway, passing several more closed doors on the way.
“And these?”
“Nothing important. Just supply rooms or wiring closets.”
They continued on toward a set of elevator doors in the distance. Also painted to match the walls. Finally, they stopped at the end, where Souza leaned forward to push the silver call button.
When the elevator arrived, both doors opened, and the three proceeded inside, where Souza selected the floor directly above them.
It was the floor that housed her lab, and upon entering, Reiff immediately understood their interest in his sketch. Several cages lined the wall through the open door in the adjoining room.
The doctors stood quietly behind Reiff, seemingly waiting for his reaction, which was only to raise his hands and calmly roll the wheelchair forward.
He reached the smallest cage through the door first, before continuing past the next. Then the next. One at a time until he reached the capuchin monkey, which was standing up and grasping the thin metal bars in front of him, and looking up at him. Then to the last one, where he paused curiously in front of the giant cage housing the chimpanzee. Swinging quietly and contently on his low-hanging perch.
From the doorway, Williams spoke. “Is this what you were drawing?”