"Subliminal picture slide," said Dr. Brooks, dropping the object to the floor with a crash. "There goes his sweet sleeping face--an illusion filling in for reality _because there was nothing else for us to see_." Mr. Barger's face was blotched red and covered with shiny ooze. His throat was swollen as thick as his cheeks, with lumpy rolls of neck stretched taut like strands of pink beads above the bedsheet. His mouth was hidden beneath caked blood. The mutape read, "You are running out of time." Three bells in the corridor as the door slid open. "Calling Dr. Gesner," said a cool nurse's voice. "Emergency. Calling Dr. Feld. Emergency." Five internes scurried in, surrounding the figure on the bed. Behind them strode rawboned Dr. Feld in a red hunting jacket. A motorchair rolled after him and stopped in the doorway, and an assistant administrator stood up and piped, "Hold him! He may be armed!" * * * * * With the mutape chattering and Dr. Brooks bent close over the recorder, Miss Knox stood up and prepared her needle with penicillin from the black satchel. "Don't kill him," the administrator whined. Three bells in the corridor. "All personnel," said the nurse's voice. "Day shift, please take notice. Beware of a patient, armed, seeking to escape from the emergency floor. All hospital personnel. Beware of a patient...." Big Carl kicked the motorchair out of the doorway, stepped through and handed Dr. Brooks a blue serge suit on a hanger. After him came a nurse carrying a white uniform and a paper bag. The room was filled with an echo of voices spreading across the Mushroom. "Step back," said Dr. Feld, stumbling over an interne. Two student nurses came to the doorway and stood on either side, one with her hand in the photocell beam to keep the door from closing. The noise grew. "Calling Dr. Gesner," said the cool nurse's voice. A group of internes shuffled inside, faces averted, moving sideways in the crowd around the bed. Two attendants came striding up and stood on either side of the door, next to the student nurses. A class of medical students filed in and moved along the wall, the taller ones standing on tiptoe to see the patient. A bearded professor in tweeds followed, whispering, "Here he comes, here he comes." After a pause, Dr. Gesner waddled through the doorway between his nurses. Three internes came after with white coats flying open, the middle one a Hindu in a blue sash, and then a messenger boy calling, "Telegram for Dr. Gesner!" Three bells rang in the corridor, and the door slid shut. A path cleared before Dr. Gesner as he made his way to the bed. Helped to a sitting position, he opened the telegram which had been passed from interne to interne.