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through the darkness along California 299, the tree-lined highway that ran from the Hat Creek Radio Observatory to Redding, the nearest town of any size.  Brian noticed that everything illuminated by the headlight and the full moon seemed suddenly visceral, the way it always should have been but wasn’t.  He rationally put it down to the impending doom but tried to take in as much as he could, smelling the air and looking up at the sky.  The calm before the storm and with it a freedom from the trivial things that dominated daily life.  None of them mattered anymore, all that mattered in that moment was making it to the hospital as quickly as possible.
    An hour and forty minutes later they arrived outside Shasta Regional Medical Centre.  Marius took out his chain to lock up the bike but Brian grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards the door.  “No time, let’s go!”
    People in the half-empty waiting room looked up as the two grown men fell though the door and jogged across the lobby.
    The stern receptionist looked up at them, thrusting a piece of paper at Brian as he neared the desk.  “Sir – you’ll have to fill this in and wait…” They pretended not to hear her.
    “My mutti – my mother is very sick, very sick indeed, excuse us!” shouted Marius as they ran past.
    As they got to the stairs, Brian scanned the board.  “It’s got to be here somewhere, MRI, MRI, MRI…come on!”
    “You mean ‘Magnetic Resonance Imaging Room’ – third floor, look,” said Marius, “Also look behind us, run.”
    The receptionist was now pointing at them and speaking to two out of shape, yet hefty security guards who turned to look at the two men who had dared to refuse to check in.
    Brian threw open the fire-door and bolted up the stairs, Marius following.  As they reached the third floor of the stairwell they could hear heavy footsteps pounding the steps a floor-and-a-half behind them. 
    “Left or Right?” said Brian
    “Shit it doesn’t say,” said Marius scanning the hall and spying a pretty nurse.  “Excuse me miss,” he said in his best unruffled British accent, “Could you point us in the direction of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Room?”
    The nightshift nurse couldn’t help but smile, “Sure, it’s just down the hall on your right.”
    “Thanks!” said Marius with a slightly awkward wink and then ran with Brian at full pelt down the hall.
    “Hey!” shouted the nurse but they weren’t listening.  She turned to see security burst through the stairwell door and pointed like an angry mother at the two figures disappearing around the corner.  “They went that way.”
    Brian and Marius reached the MRI room; outside a doctor and nurse sat at a desk looking at a computer screen.  Without stopping they ran past and into the chamber, slamming the door behind them, Brian holding tightly onto the handle.  The doctor was already trying to force his way inside, demanding they open up and Brian could see the two security men coming up the hall behind him.
    “Grab that chair!” said Brian pointing to the only object in the immaculate white space, besides the scanner itself, “Stick it under the door handle!”
    “Not until you tell me what the hell we are doing in here.”
    “Just fucking do it Marius and I’ll explain!”
    Marius put the chair under the handle, preventing it from being turned and sat down on it with his back to the medical staff, who were pounding furiously on the door.  He crossed his legs in his peculiar European way and calmly looked up at Brian. “Well?” he said.
    “Well, I don’t know much about MRI scanners, but one thing I do know is that they are built in rooms that are specifically designed as a heavy duty Faraday cage.”
    “Ah, I did not know that – but I see your reasoning – if this swathe is a powerful band of electro-magnetic radiation, you think this will protect us…?’
    “Yes the cage should direct any radiation around the outside of