Casimir was meek and looked like a nerd and a wimp, but he was great in a crisis. The lost continent subsided and Mrs. Santucci leaned forward with a dangerous frown. Out in the hallway the exasperated Bert Nix cried, "But there's no more minutes to wait! To save the Big U we've got to start now!"
Casimir had taken Sarah's room assignment card from the stack of ammunition on her lap, and was peering at it like a scientific specimen. It was an IBM card, golden yellow, with a form printed on it in yellow-orange ink. In the center of the form was a vague illustration of the Monoplex, looking decrepit and ruined because of the many rectangular holes punched through it. Along the top was a row of boxes labeled with tiny blurred yellow-orange abbreviations that were further abbreviated by rectangular holes. Numbers and letters were printed in black ink in the vicinity of each box.
Bert Nix was still carrying on outside. "Then fell the fires of Eternity with loud & shrill Sound of loud Trumpet thundering along from heaven to heaven, A mighty sound articulate Awake ye dead & come To Judgement from the four winds Awake & Come away Folding like scrolls of the Enormous volume of Heaven & Earth With thunderous noises & dreadful shakings rocking to & fro: The heavens are shaken & the Earth removed from its place; the foundations of the eternal Hills discovered; The thrones of Kings are shaken they have lost their robes and crowns ... and that's what poetry is! Not the caterwaulings of the Unwise!"
Finally, Casimir looked relieved. "Yeah, I thought that might be it. You were reading this number here. Right?" He got up and stood beside Sarah and pointed to her temporary room number. "Sure," said Sarah, suddenly feeling dreadful.
"Well," said Casimir, sounding apologetic, "that's not what you want. Your room is not identified by room number, because some rooms repeat. It's identified by door number, which is unique for all doors. This number you were looking at isn't either of those, it's your room ID number, which has to do with data processing. That ID number refers to your actual door number, incorrectly called room number. It is the middle six digits of this character string here. See?" He masked the string of figures between the dirty backward parenthesis of his thumbnails. "In your case we have E12S, giving tower, floor and wing, and then 49, your actual room number."
Sarah did not know whether to scream, apologize or drop dead. She shoved her forms into her knapsack and stood. "Thank you for your trouble, Mrs. Santucci," she said quickly. "Thank you," she said to Casimir, then snapped around and headed for the door, though not fast enough to escape a withering harrrumph from Mrs. Santucci. But as she stepped into the hallway, which in order to hold down utility costs was dimly lit, she saw a dark and ragged figure out of the corner of her eye. She looked behind to see Bert Nix grab the doorframe and swing around until he was leaning into the office.
"Listen, Genevieve," he said, "she doesn't need any of your phlegm! She's President! She's my friend! You're just a doorstop!" As much as Sarah wanted to hear the rest of this, she didn't have the energy.
Casimir was left inside, his last view of Sarah interrupted by the dangling figure of the loony, caught in a crossfire he wanted no part of.
"I'll call the guards," said Mrs. Santucci, who for the first time was showing uneasiness.
"Today?" Bert Nix found this a merry idea. "You think you can get a guard today?"
"You'd better stop coming or we'll keep you from coming back."
His eyes widened in mock, crimson-rimmed awe, "Ooh," he sighed, "that were terrible. I'd have no reason to live." He pulled himself erect, walked in and climbed from the arm of Casimir's chair to the broad slate sill of the window. As Mrs. Santucci watched with more terror than seemed warranted, the derelict swung one window open like a door, letting in a gust of polluted steam.
By the time he was leaning far outside and grinning down the seventy-foot drop to the Parkway and the interchange. she had resolved to try diplomacy-- though she motioned that Casimir should try to grab his legs. Casimir ignored this; it was obvious that the man was just trying to scare her. Casimir was from Chicago and found that these Easterners had no sense of humor.
"Now, Pert," said Mrs. Santucci, "don't give an old lady a hard time."
Bert Nix dropped back to the sill. "Hard time! What do you know about hard times?" He thrust his hand through a hole in his jacket, wiggling his long fingers at her, and wagging his out-of-control tongue for a few seconds. Finally he added, "Hard times make you strong."
"I've got work to do, Pert."
This seemed to remind him of something. He closed the window and cascaded to the floor. "So do I," he said, then turned to Casimir and whispered, "That's the Julian Didius III Memorial Window. That's what I call it, anyway. Like the view?"