The Select

And where was he? He'd said to meet him here. She'd read the note correctly, hadn't she? She wished she'd brought those notes with her, but she'd left them on her bed.

She thought back, trying to picture the note about meeting him in the car. He'd had something else written first and then crossed out. The anatomy lab. That was it. He'd wanted to meet her in the anatomy lab first but had changed his mind.

Maybe he'd changed it back. Quinn saw no use in sitting in Griffin any longer. She turned off the engine, stepped out into the cold air, and trotted up the slope to the center of the campus. She passed through the darker shadows between the caf and the administration building, skirted the pond with its newly formed skin of ice, and made a beeline for the lighted doors of the class building. They were unlocked, as usual. She hurried down the lighted hall.

She found one of the double doors to the An Lab open when she got there. Her spirits lifted. They normally were kept closed. That could only mean Tim was already here.

But the lights were out.

"Tim? Tim, are you in here?"

Silence replied. She flipped on the lights.

"Tim?"

The An Lab was empty except for the rows of sheet-covered cadavers on their tables.

Quinn moved forward, hesitantly. She'd grown accustomed to the place during the day, but at this time of night—morning, rather—it was creepy.

"Tim?"

The lab was empty, no question about it. She made her way toward their table in the far corner of the room. Someone had been here and left the door open. Maybe it was Tim. Maybe he'd left her a message at their table.

But no, Dorothy lay just as they'd left her. No note pinned to her sheet.

Tired, baffled, worried, Quinn sighed and leaned against the table. Where could—?

The lights went out.

Quinn spun in the sudden darkness and saw the entry doors swinging closed. A human-shaped shadow flitted across the rapidly narrowing wedge of light flowing between them from the hall.

It wasn't Tim. Tim liked jokes but he wasn't cruel. This was not Tim.

She wanted to scream but suppressed it. What good would screaming do? There was no help within earshot, and it would only give away her position.

With her heart punching against the base of her throat, she ducked and fumbled her shoes off. The concrete floor was cold through the socks on her gliding feet as she moved to her left, away from Dorothy, using the rear wall of the lab as her guide.

Whoever was in here with her hadn't removed his shoes. She could hear him scuffing along the floor, moving at a diagonal from her, heading directly for Dorothy.

She thought, Oh, God, Dorothy, I wish you were alive. I wish you could sit up and take a poke at this creep, whoever he is.

As the scraping steps continued to move away from the entry doors, Quinn edged back and around, gradually circling closer to the front of the lab, using the sliver of light leaking between the doors as a beacon to guide her. A few more minutes and she'd be able to make a break for those doors.

The lab went silent. The whispered scraping from the intruder's shoes died and Quinn froze, hovering in the darkness, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe for fear of giving herself away.

Shoes in hand, she dropped into a crouch, listening

Where was he? Why had he stopped? Had he found the area around Dorothy deserted and was deciding which way to go next? Or had he taken off his own shoes and was at this instant slipping toward her?

Suddenly a flashlight beam lanced through the darkness, ranging back and forth above the tables, coming her way, moving closer. It was gliding down the aisle on the far side of the table she was crouched behind, approaching, coming even, then passing by. Quinn was about to exhale with relief when the intruder suddenly roared in triumph and swung the light around, shining it directly in her face.

There was no holding back this time. Quinn cried out in terror as she recoiled from the glare and instinctively batted at the light. Her shoes were still in her hand and they connected, sending the flashlight flying. It landed with a crash and a tinkle of broken glass and abruptly the An Lab was dark again. As she rose, a clutching hand brushed her arm; she yanked the sheet off the nearest corpse, tossing it at the intruder, tangling him in it. He stumbled and went to his knees. She slid the half-dissected corpse off its table and pulled it on top of him.

As he cried out in shock and loathing, Quinn turned and ran for the doors, her socks slipping on the floor. She heard scrabbling footsteps behind her and lunged for the light-sliver, felt her palms slam against the doors, sending them swinging open into the light, but she wasn't home free, she knew. The building was empty and she was as vulnerable as ever, so she kept running, careening around the corner—

—and colliding into someone, someone male and heavy, someone with two strong hands that gripped her shoulders and pulled her upright, someone with white hair and round, rimless glasses—

"Dr. Emerson!"

"Quinn!" he said. "What on earth—?"

She was so relieved she wanted to cry. She clung to him.

"In the anatomy lab!" she said, gasping for air. "Someone in there! After me! Had a light!"

He disengaged her arms. "After you? Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Here? On campus? This is intolerable!"

He started down the hall, toward the lab, but Quinn pulled him back. She was afraid for him.

"No, don't. He might still be there. Let's get out of here."

"Very well," said. "You come to my office. We'll call campus security from there and have them check it out." He took her arm and led her toward the front doors. "By the way, what on earth are you doing here at this hour?"

"I was supposed to meet Tim—"

"Oh, yes. Mr. Brown. Your cadaver mate. A little last-minute cramming before the practical?"

Quinn didn't know how much to tell Dr. Emerson. She didn't want him thinking Tim had gone crazy. As they stepped out into the chill air, she slipped back into her shoes and ducked his question by asking one of her own.

"I know why I'm here at this hour," she said. "But why are you? You don't have a practical tomorrow."

"I don't sleep well. Haven't since my wife died. Maybe I don't need as much sleep as I used to."

Quinn had heard he was a widower, but this was the first time he'd mentioned it.

He tapped the frayed notebook protruding from the side pocket of his coat. "I came to retrieve this from Lecture B. Then I was going over to Science for a while."

"More work on 9574?" Quinn said.

He nodded. "I suppose. But I'll gladly postpone that." He pointed toward the Administration building across the pond. "We'll stop in my office, we'll call security, I'll make us some tea, and you'll tell me exactly what happened tonight."

Quinn nodded in the darkness. She'd like that. She felt safe with Dr. Emerson.

But where was Tim?

*

Tim watched Dr. Alston pace back and forth before him.

"You've heard my lectures, Mr. Brown," he said. "You're a bright young man. I trust I don't have to go into too much detail about the grim future of medical care and the delivery of medical services during the span of your productive years."

"I don't care about any of that," Tim said. "I want to know about Quinn."

"Forget her for now. You must listen to me and—"

Tim glared up at him. "How can I listen to you when she might be in trouble? Get real, Alston."

"Oh?" he said with arched eyebrows. "It's 'Alston' now, is it?" He turned to Verran and sighed. "Louis, see if you can learn the status of the Cleary girl."

Verran said, "I'll signal Kurt to call in."

He went to another console and tapped in a code, then they all waited in silence, a sweaty, anxious silence for Tim—until a bell rang. Verran flipped a switch and muttered into the mike on his headset. Then he turned to Dr. Alston.

Tim's heart leaped at his first words.

"She got away," he said. "Kurt almost had her but your buddy, Dr. Emerson, happened by at the wrong moment and so Kurt had to let her go."

"Walter?" Alston said. "He has a talent for saying and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. What's he doing here at this hour?"

"I dunno," Verran said with a shrug. "Maybe—"

The phone by his elbow jangled. He picked up on the second ring.

"Campus Security...Yes, sir. In the anatomy lab you say?...Yes, sir. We'll get right on it."

He grinned at Alston. "Speak of the devil. That was your friend Emerson on the phone, telling me that a 'Miss Cleary' reported being chased through the anatomy lab by an unknown intruder. He says the girl is staying with him—drinking tea, he said—until we've checked the matter out."

"At least we know where she is." He turned to Tim. "Satisfied?"

"How do I know any of it's true?"

Alston smirked. "Look at where you are and look at where I am. I don't have to lie to you, Mr. Brown."

"Okay, okay," Tim said. Quinn trusted Dr. Emerson. If he was looking after her, she was probably all right. "What do you want from me?"

"Your attention. Listen to me with an open mind and then we'll see what you think when I'm finished."

"I already know what I think."

"But you're intelligent enough to be influenced by logic, and logic is what I'm going to give you."

"How about unstrapping me from this chair?"

"All in good time. First, you listen." He began to pace again. "I'm going to tell you everything. But in order for you to fully grasp the import of what I have to say, you'll have to have some background."

"That's usually helpful."

"When Mr. Kleederman set up his Foundation—years before you were conceived, Mr. Brown—he peopled its board not only with a former senator, but with an international array of high government officials and other influential men in industry and labor who shared his cause, his vision. Kleederman Pharmaceuticals was already well established in the U.S. by that time, but even then he saw the writing on the wall: the new drug approval process was going to thicken into a stagnant quamire unless intelligent changes were made. But he knew those changes would never be made, so he embarked upon a course to find a better way to bring new pharmaceuticals to the sick of the world despite the interference of their own governments."

"And perhaps in the process," Tim said, "move Johann Kleederman from the ranks of mere multimillionaire to multibillionaire?"

"I don't believe he is driven by money. I doubt that he and all his heirs can spend even the interest on his fortune. No, he truly has a vision. Disease is a scourge upon mankind. The tools to defeat it merely wait to be discovered. Yet petty bureaucrats entangle new compounds in endless miles of red tape, delaying their use for years. Mr. Kleederman finds that unconscionable, and so do I."

"Everybody seems to have a bitch about the FDA, but what's that got to—"

"The bedrock of the Kleederman vision is Kleederman Pharmaceuticals. From there he branched out into medical care, building nursing homes, buying up failing hospitals within easy reach of major cities and converting them to medical centers which have become paradigms of compassionate, top-quality care. Those medical centers have always operated under the rule of providing that top-quality care to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. That's why they're always located near urban centers—to allow access to the neediest cases from the inner cities. Mr. Kleederman gathered the medical centers, the nursing homes, and the pharamceutical company under the conglomerate umbrella of Kleederman Medical Industries. KMI funds the Kleederman Foundation, which in turn funds the Ingraham College of Medicine."

"Fine," Tim said. Alston hadn't told him a damn thing he didn't already know. "But none of that explains the bugs, or the contraptions in our headboards."

"Tell me, Mr. Brown: Do you have any idea what it currently costs to bring a new drug to market in the United States?"

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Do you know?"

Tim didn't, so he picked a number out of the air. "Fifty million."

"Oh, if only that were so!" Alston said, laughing. "Actually, the figure is closer to a quarter of a billion—231 million dollars, to be exact."

Tim blinked at the staggering figure. "Okay, I'm impressed, but you've got 17 years under patent to get your money back."

"Not true. We have nowhere near 17 years. It takes 12 years, from synthesis to FDA approval, to bring a new drug to market...twelve years before you can recoup dollar one on a new drug. But the patent clock begins running as soon as the compound is registered, so you try to hold off registering a compound as long as you can. But still it frequently takes a full seven years from registration to final approval. That leaves you only ten years with exclusive rights to sell a product you developed from scratch."

"I haven't seen the pharmaceutical companies standing in line to file for bankruptcy."

"With the price regulation the president's talking about, you may. But profits aren't the point. At least not the whole point. I'm speaking of an enormous waste of resources. And a tremendous human cost as beneficial drugs sit unrecognized while their useless brothers go through exhaustive animal trials only to be discarded because they are ineffective in humans; and even when the useful compounds are identified, they sit on the shelf, beyond the reach of the people they could help, while their paperwork drags through the quagmire of the approval process. For every 10,000 investigational compounds, only ten—ten!—make it past rodent and primate studies. That's an enormous loss in and of itself. But then consider that of the ten surviving compounds, only one makes it through human studies and gets to market. A one in ten thousand success rate, Mr. Brown. A ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent failure rate. What's your gambler's opinion of those odds, Mr. Brown?"

"Sort of like dropping a marble off the edge of the Grand Canyon and trying to hit a particular ant on the bottom."

"Precisely. And people wonder why new drugs cost so much. That lone surviving compound has only ten years to make up all the negative costs of the 9,999 compounds that didn't make it, plus show enough profit to convince the stockholders that this research and development merry-go-round is worthwhile. But without R&D, there'd be no new drugs at all."

"Isn't the answer obvious?" Tim said "Lengthen the patent life for new drugs."

Alston's smile was sour. "A few lucky compounds do get an extension, but it's a form of noblesse oblige, rather than a legal right. The pharmaceutical companies have spent decades lobbying for more time...to no avail."

"Then get the FDA to speed the approval process."

"We're already paying for extra staff at the FDA—to keep the line moving, as it were. Any futher suggestions?"

Tim thought a moment, bringing his economics courses into play. "Only one other way I can see: narrow the field."

"Meaning?"

"Find a way of weeding out the useless compounds earlier in the process. That will cut your front-end expenses."

Alston grinned and clapped his hands. "Mr. Kleederman would be proud of you! Exactly his solution! Running an investigational compound through the endless mandatory animal studies only to learn later that it's completely worthless in humans is a sinful waste of time and money."

"So what are you talking about? Trying it on humans first?" He was afraid of the answer.

"Of course not."

"Good. For a moment there—"

"We run it through some rodents and primates to make sure it's not toxic, then we try it on humans."

Tim stared at him, not wanting to believe this.

"The problem, of course," Alston went on, "is the supply of human subjects—sick human subjects. Obviously we can't evaluate a drug's efficacy against disease by giving it to healthy people. That's where The Ingraham graduates come in."

Tim saw a mental image of the "Where Are They Now" board and the pieces began to fall into place.

"All those inner-city clinics, the nursing homes..."

"Precisely. The inner cities especially are loaded with disconnected people of no social significance who do not care for their health and are consequently rife with diseases—some of them might be described as ambulatory pathology textbooks. We needed a way to funnel those patients to the Kleederman medical centers where investigational compounds from Kleederman Pharmaceuticals could be tested on their many and various conditions. Since we could not count on enough run-of-the-mill physicians to come through for us, no matter how much of a bounty we offered them, the Foundation decided to produce a custom-designed model of physician to serve its needs. And the only way they could see to do that was start their own medical school. They bought Laurel Hills hospital, turned it into a top medical center, built a medical school adjacent, and voila, The Ingraham."

"So you admit it, then!" Christ, it was true. No reason for Alston to make this up. "You have been brainwashing us!"

"Brainwashing is such a loaded term, Mr. Brown. Attitude adjustment is much more palatable. You see, with its well-connected board, the Foundation had access to all sorts of government agencies. The Vietnam war was going full swing then, and one such agency developed something called a subliminal learning and indoctrination unit for use on U.S. troops before they went overseas—to give them the proper attitude toward the war effort and their Viet Cong enemies. But the SLI proved impractical for that use. It worked, but it took years to achieve its maximum effect, so the project was defunded. The Foundation saw a use for the SLI units and intercepted them on their way to the scrap heap. They hired the original designers and technicians to perfect them and retool them to the Foundation's needs, and the units have been in use at The Ingraham with great success for almost two decades now."

"That's brainwashing," Tim said. "Pure and simple."

"No. Attitude adjustment. We don't wash your brain, we don't change who you are, we simply mold your attitudes concerning the appropriateness of certain sickly individuals reimbursing society for all the benefits they have reaped but never contributed to; or of allowing other individuals with but a few useless years left to help make this world a better place as they take leave of it. We also incite in you a desire to practice where you are most likely to run across such patients. And when you do find a disconnected individual suffering from one of the more common ailments that afflict mankind, you feel a compulsion to refer that individual to the nearest KMI medical center."

Tim thought of Dorothy, the cadaver he shared with Quinn. Her doctor had been an Ingraham graduate who referred her to the medical center next door. She didn't leave it alive. Had she been a human guinea pig? And he thought again of all those Ingraham graduates working the inner city clinics across the country, all connected to KMI medical centers. This was big.

He swallowed his loathing.

"So all this talk about rationed medical has been a smoke screen."

"Not completely. Rationed care is on the way, I guarantee it. But that was merely a vehicle to introduce the concept of social tiering to your conscious minds while the SLI units were whispering it to your unconscious."

"How? I've never heard of a subliminal method that's a hundred percent effective."

"None is. But The Ingraham system works—not by chance, but by careful selection of its students."

Dr. Alston pulled a chair closer and sat a few feet before Tim, leaning forward, his face and hands more animated than Tim had ever seen them. An air of suppressed excitement crackled around him. He was really into his story now.

"The special entrance exam is the key. Because The Ingraham is the so-called '24-karat medical school,' all the best pre-med students in the country apply here. From those applications we choose the brightest and most outgoing, and we invite them here to spend the day and night before the entrance exam—actually, we insist on it, but we're euphemistic about it. While they're asleep in the dorm the night before the exam, we introduce them to the SLI unit by implanting information in their unconscious minds about a non-existent formula called the Kleederman equation. In the exam the following day, we ask them three questions about the Kleederman equation. Those who answer them correctly reveal themselves as being susceptible to the SLI's influence. In one fell swoop we've identified the susceptible subgroup out of our applicant population. We choose our students exclusively from that." He barked a laugh. "Isn't it brilliant?"

You son of a bitch, Tim thought. You son of a bitch!

"Not so brilliant," Verran said. "What about Cleary?"

Tim stiffened at the mention of Quinn's name. "What about her?"

"We've had some trouble with the SLI unit in your girlfriend's room," Alston said.

"The unit's working fine," Verran said. "The kid's not responding."

Alston seemed uncomfortable. "At this time I am unable to explain Miss Cleary's apparent imperviousness to the influence of the SLI. She answered two of the three Kleederman equations on her test and got them both right. She couldn't have done that unless she was susceptible to the SLI. There's a variable here that I haven't been able to identify. But I will. I assure you, I will."

Tim repressed a smile as he realized he was the variable. He'd marked the correct answers on Quinn's sheet as he'd passed on his way to hand in his test. Quinn hadn't had the faintest idea what the Kleederman equations were.

But the inner smile died in the heat of Tim's mounting anger as it dawned on him how he'd been duped and manipulated—how they'd all been duped and manipulated by the Kleederman Foundation, by The Ingraham's administration.

But how far did this conspiracy go? How deep did it reach? It was big, no doubt about it. Johann Kleederman controlled a multi-national empire, and apparently people like former Senator Whitney jumped when he spoke. So it went high, but how far down The Ingraham's academic tree did it reach? The Ingraham wasn't a complete front. There was a real medical center attached, and genuinely important research like Dr. Emerson's was going on here.

"Is everybody on staff part of this?"

"Heavens, no. The fewer people aware, the less likelihood of a leak. Only key personnel in Administration, the admissions committee, and part of the clinical staff answer to the Foundation. The rest have no idea."

Who was friend, who was foe? Tim wondered. And how could you tell?

Alston was still crowing. "But occasional glitches aside, we've been extraordinarily successful here at The Ingraham. As a result, every city of any consequence has Ingraham graduates delivering healthcare to its neediest citizens."

"How do you people do that to us and live with yourselves?"

"Quid pro quo, Mr. Brown. You get the world's finest education at no cost, and—"

"No cost? What about our souls?"

"Please don't be so dramatic. Your soul, should such a thing exist, remains quite intact. All we get in return are a few referrals."

"Right. Referrals to an early grave."

"Come, come. You make the medical centers sound like death death camps. They are anything but. These are sick people being referred to us. And we treat their illnesses."

"With experimental drugs!"

"That very often work. We cure people every day."

"And the ones you don't?"

"Then we try another."

"How many deaths on your hands, Alston?"

He shook his head with annyance. "Look, Brown, I'm not some megalomaniacal comic book villain. This plan was already in development when I came to The Ingraham. The Foundation's board, composed of some of the keenest minds in industry, labor, and government, arrived at this policy after months and years of debate. There's nothing haphazard or whimsical here. It's all been carefully thought out."

"How'd they get you?"

"They recruited me. They'd heard me speak, read some of my articles critical of FDA policies and protocols; they scouted me, hired me, watched me very closely, and eventually let me in on their grand plan. I joined them—enthusiastically. I believe in what we're doing here. We're bringing amazing new therapies to medicine, to the world. This is the most important thing I will ever do with my life. And I'm proud to do my part."

Am I being recruited? Tim wondered. He decided that it might be in his best interests—and Quinn's, as well—to bite back any critical remarks and feign a growing sympathy with Alston's point of view.

"But I don't see how this can work."

Alston smiled. "Oh, it's already working, Mr. Brown. Kleederman's ability to bring a whole array of new products to market has made it the top pharmaceutical company in the world. Consider all the benefits being reaped by patients on adriazepam and fenostatin and carbenamycin—compounds that would still be lost in the investigational jungle if not for our program. Lives have been saved by those drugs. And thousands upon thousands of people are living better lives because of them."

"I never looked at it that way," Tim said, nodding slowly, thoughtfully, hoping he looked and sounded convincing. "Maybe you're not as crazy as you sound."

"Crazy?" Alston frowned. "I see nothing crazy about trying to remain on the leading edge of technology and therapeutics. Do you want to practice with second-rate tools, Mr. Brown?"

"No. Absolutely not." No lie there.

"Then we must be willing to take risks."

Risks, Tim thought. Right. But with whose lives?

"It's a glorious challenge. Enormously exciting. But if you're not with us, you're against us. So what do you say, Mr. Brown? Do you want to be part of this? Do you want to join Mr. Kleederman in advancing the frontiers of therapeutics and leading medicine into the twenty-first century?"

What will happen to me if I say no? Tim wondered.

He had relaxed while listening to Dr. Alston's spiel, but suddenly he was afraid. He knew too much. If he went to the papers, the FBI, or even the AMA, he could blow the lid off The Ingraham and, at the very least, undo the decades of effort and millions of dollars Kleederman had invested in this intricate, monstrous conspiracy. The scandal could conceivably topple KMI itself.

They had to get rid of him...unless Tim convinced Alston that he'd play along. And now he realized why Alston had taken all this time to explain everything to him—he didn't want to have to get rid of Tim. It was easier, much less complicated to simply enlist him. And Alston's monstrous ego had absolute faith in his ability to make Tim see the light. He was offering Tim a chance. Tim saw no choice but to take it.

And he would play along. He'd be a model Ingraham student until he saw an opening, then he'd get the hell out of here and blow the whistle loud and clear.

"Count me in," Tim said.

Alston was watching him closely. "Why should I believe you?"

Tim met his gaze. "As you said, why should I want to practice with second-rate tools?"

"Don't answer my question with another question. Convince me, Mr. Brown."

"You're the one who's convincing, Dr. Alston. You've made a powerful case. And by the way, can we possibly arrange some KMI stock options for me?"

"Can I take that to mean that you will continue your studies here as if nothing has happened, that you will never reveal what you know about The Ingraham?"

"You can."

Alston stepped over to where Verran was concentrating on his console.

"Well, Louis. What do you say? Can we take Mr. Brown at his word?"

Verran shook his head. "He's lying."

Tim's stomach plummeted at the words. They were spoken not as opinion but as fact.

"I'm not!" Tim said. "How can you say that?"

"The chair's a lie-detector, kid," Verran said. "And it says you're lying through your teeth." He pressed a button and spoke into a microphone. "All right, guys. Time to move him."

His gut squirming now, Tim began struggling in the chair, writhing, straining at the straps around his arms, but they wouldn't budge.

"Damn you!" Alston said. His face was contorted with genuine anger as he leaned close to Tim. "Why couldn't you have gone along? Your shortsightedness forces us into an untenable position. We must now take extreme measures to protect ourselves."

"L-like what?" Tim had never stuttered in his life, but he was starting now.

"You'll see."

Alston pulled a syringe and a small vial of clear fluid from his pocket.

Panic became a rapier-taloned claw, raking at the lining of Tim's gut.

"What's that? What're you going to do?"

Alston said nothing as he filled the syringe and approached him. Tim made a desperate, futile attempt to squirm away from the needle as Alston plunged it into his deltoid without bothering to roll up the overlying shirt sleeve. Tim flinched at the sting of the point, the burn of the fluid emptying into his muscle from the syringe.

Part of his brain was screaming that he was going to die, going to die, going to die, while another part refused to believe it. Then the door opened and two men came in. Tim recognized both. One was the blond security guard he and Quinn had seen in the parking lot before going to Atlantic City and the other had been the phony exterminator in Quinn's room.

The big blond guy stalked forward and stopped in front of Tim.

"His number's up?" he said to Verran.

Verran nodded. He didn't look too happy. "Yeah, Kurt. His number's up and gone."

"Good," Kurt said. "That means no more Mr. Nice guy."

He cocked his right arm and punched Tim in the face.

Amid the sudden blaze of pain, Tim heard Alston say, "Stop that immediately! What's gotten into you?"

"This is the sonofabitch who broke my nose."

"That's no excuse to mistreat him, especially considering what's about to happen to him."

Perhaps it was the injection, perhaps the punch, perhaps Alston's remark, or perhaps it was a combination of all three. Tim passed out.

NINETEEN

Quinn watched anxiously as Dr. Emerson spoke into his phone. She noticed that his tweed jacket was worn at the elbows, his corduroys were rumpled, and he needed a shave. He looked tired.

"Very good. I'll tell her. No, that won't be necessary. Thank you." He hung up and turned to her. "That was Security. They've combed the anatomy lab and the entire class building without finding anyone. Whoever it was must have been scared off."

The news brought Quinn no sense of relief.

"I'd rather they'd caught him," she said. "Now they probably think I'm some sort of hysterical female."

"I'm sure that isn't so. They say they think it was a thief, sneaking through the building, looking to steal whatever wasn't nailed down. You just got in his way, that's all. Security even offered to send over someone to escort you back to the dorm. I told them not to bother." He began to push himself up from his chair. "Come. I'll walk you back myself."

"No, please," Quinn said. "I'll be all right." She glanced out the window at the approaching dawn. "The sun's almost up. I'll be fine."

"Are you quite sure? It's really no trouble—"

"You've done enough already," she said. She drained her teacup as she rose. "Thanks for your help."

"It was nothing, child. Absolutely nothing. Any time you need my help, you just call."

Funny thing about Dr. Emerson calling her "child." She didn't mind.

"I hope that won't be necessary."

"By the way," he said as she reached for the doorknob, "Security wants you to stop by as soon as you can and give them a description of your assailant."

"I don't know what I can tell them. All I saw was a shadow and a flashlight."

"They need to make a report to the local authorities, so tell them what you can. You never know what tiny snippets will lead to an identification."

"Will do."

Quinn waved, stepped out into the hall, and hurried toward the exit.

The pre-dawn air was cold and clear and a rime of frost had crystallized on the grass. Quinn broke into a jog toward the dorm, her breath steaming and streaming around her. She couldn't help anxious glances left and right at the shadows tucked behind the shrubs and foundation plantings. Security had said the intruder was gone, but Security was supposed to keep intruders from getting on campus in the first place.

Despite her lingering anxiety, it felt good to move, to run, to inhale cold air and feel it swirl through her bronchial tree, clearing her lungs and her brain. Last night's fright seemed remote, almost as if it had happened months ago, to someone else. All of the night's strange events had taken on a air of vague unreality.

But what about Tim? What had he been thinking last night? Such erratic behavior—it gave her the willies, especially in someone she'd come to care for so much. And where had he been all this time? Probably back in his bed sound asleep. She smiled. She'd kill him.

She trotted directly to his room and raised her fist to pound on the door, but stopped herself when she realized she'd probably wake Kevin and most of the residents on this end of the floor. She could wait.

Quinn trotted up the stairs to her own room. It would be nice to grab a few winks to make up for some of her lost sleep, but she knew the caffeine in Dr. Emerson's tea wouldn't let her do that. Maybe she could bone up a little more for the anatomy practical. But first...

She searched through her rumpled sheets and blankets for the notes Tim had written her when he'd popped in last night. She wasn't going to let him forget how crazy he'd acted. She'd hold onto them, and perform dramatic readings whenever the situation warranted.

But where were they? She was sure she'd left them right here by the pillow. She tore the bed apart. She looked under the bed. She checked all her pockets.

Gone.

She sat on the edge of the bed, dumbfounded. Where on earth—?

Unless Tim had come back and taken them.

She slapped her thighs. That did it. She reached for the phone. Sorry, Kevin, but you're about to get a wake-up call. Blame it on your crazy roommate.

Ten rings. No answer.

Uneasy now, Quinn ran back downstairs and began knocking on Tim's door, calling his name. She wished now she'd accepted one of his room keys when he'd offered it, but she hadn't felt right taking it when he had a roommate, even someone as easygoing as Kevin.

"Hey, Quinn. What's up?"

She turned and gasped. "Kevin!"

He was coming down the hall dressed in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, his pillow slung over his shoulder.

"You two have a fight?"

"Where's Tim?"

He grinned. "Hey, you spent the night with him, not me."

"What are you talking about? I just got here. I called a minute ago and there's no answer."

His grin vanished. "You kidding?"

"No. Open up, will you? He was acting awfully strange last night."

Kevin already had his key in hand. He unlocked the door and Quinn pushed ahead of him, rushing through the front room to the bed room.

"Oh, God."

Neither bed had been slept in. The room looked just like all the bedrooms looked after the maids were finished. She ran to the closet and slid the door aside. It wasn't empty, but there were a lot of unused hangers on the rod.

"Where is he, Kevin? What did he say to you last night?"

Kevin told her about Tim asking him to bunk down the hall so the two of them could have some time alone together.

With her terrified heart pounding against the wall of her chest, Quinn pushed past Kevin and ran full tilt for the parking lot. She slid to a halt on the frosty grass at the top of the rise. Even from up here, even in the skim-milk light of pre-dawn, she could see that Griffin was gone. She searched the rest of the lot for it, but no gray Olds Cierra anywhere. Tim's invisible car was nowhere to be seen.

"Tim!" she called to the dawn, knowing there would be no reply but compelled to cry out for an answer.

Where are you? What's wrong with you? What have you done?

Her voice rose to a scream that echoed down the hill.

"Tim!"

*

"I warned you there'd be only trouble if you went to that school. You remember that, don't you?"

Quinn groaned within. She'd told herself she'd regret it if she called her mother, but after the way the day had gone, she needed to talk to someone. She felt as if she were losing her mind.

She'd stumbled through the day in a daze, unable to concentrate on her classes. Her mind was on Tim and where he could be, and how he was, and why he hadn't made any of his classes and missed the practical. Between every class, when she wasn't calling Tim's room, praying he'd pick up the phone, she was out on the slope overlooking the student parking lot, searching for a glimpse of Griffin.

The thought of eating repelled her, so she'd used her lunch hour to stop by the Security Office, ostensibly to make her report on the incident in the anatomy lab, but mainly to see if they had any idea of where Tim might be.

Mr. Verran looked exhausted, more hang-dog than ever. He didn't seem the least bit concerned by Tim's disappearance.

His attitude was: "So? He's skipped a few classes and took off on a long weekend. He ain't the first student to do it, and he won't be the last, I promise you."

Quinn knew he was wrong. Tim might have a cavalier attitude about studying, but he didn't miss tests.

Mr. Verran wouldn't hear of reporting Tim as a missing person. There was a 24-hour minimum before anyone would start looking for him. Quinn left the Security Office angry and frustrated at her inability to convey to anyone the fearful urgency exploding inside her.

After staggering through the anatomy practical and realizing she'd barely passed, she'd called Dr. Emerson and asked to be excused from her research duties for the afternoon. He told her, by all means stay out—after last night's ordeal, he wouldn't dream of asking her to come in. He thought she was still strung out from the incident in the lab. She didn't tell him about Tim.

After a half-hearted attempt at dinner, she scanned the parking lot once more, then returned to her room and called Matt at Yale, praying he'd heard from Tim—or better yet, that Tim was right there, lounging by the TV, drinking a beer.

But Matt hadn't heard a word from his old roommate, and was dumbfounded. She made him promise to call her the minute he heard anything. Anything.

The next call had been the toughest: Tim's folks. Mrs. Brown answered, and quickly passed it to her husband. Mr. Brown was hostile at first, and why not? He'd never met Quinn and didn't want to hear what she was telling him. But something in her voice must have carried her feelings along the wire—her fear for Tim and genuine bafflement as to his whereabouts—for he began to soften, to really listen, and ask questions. By the end of the call he was somber and subdued. He took Quinn's number and said he would call her if he heard from his son.

After that she'd sat on her bed in her darkening room. Despite the voices drifting in from the hall—someone laughing, someone shouting—the dorm seemed empty. She felt alone in the universe. She'd had a sudden, irrepressible urge to call her parents, to make sure they were okay, to reassure herself they still existed, and to affirm that she herself was real.

"Yes, Mom," she said. "I know you warned me. But you said something would happen to me. This is a friend of mine."

Her mother's voice softened. "I've gathered from how you've spoken of him that Tim is more than just a friend."

"Well, yes."

"Do you love him?"

"I...I think so." Quinn knew so, but couldn't go into that now with her mother. She missed Tim desperately, and if she began talking about her feelings for him, she'd break down completely. "He's very special."

Her mother's voice suddenly turned plaintive. "Come home, Quinn. Come home now before the same thing happens to you."

The change in tone startled her as much as the words.

"Mom, what are you talking about?"

"Something terrible's happened to your friend, Quinn. Can't you feel it?"

"Don't say that, Mom. You can't know that. You're scaring me."

But what was truly frightening was that Quinn did feel it, a deep, slow, leaden certainty in the base of her neck that something unimaginable had befallen Tim. She couldn't tell her mother that, couldn't let her think that she too might be experiencing "the Sheedy thing." Not after disparaging it for so long.

"I'm already scared, Quinn. I've been living in constant fear since you left for that awful place."

It was almost as if her mother knew about the incident in the An-Lab last night. But how could she? Quinn hadn't mentioned it. And this was why.

"But it's not an awful place, Mom. It's one of the most highly respected medical schools in the world. How can you say that?"

"It's just a feeling I have."

"I've got to go, Mom. I didn't get much sleep last night. I'll call you if Tim shows up."

"Call me anyway, Quinn. Call me every day. Please."

"Mom—"

"Please?"

The naked anxiety warbling her mother's words forced Quinn to relent. "Sure, Mom. Every day. I'll do my best."

She hung up feeling more worried and fearful than before. She checked to see if her door was locked, then she angled the back of a chair under the knob. Without undressing, she crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head. She cried for a while. Eventually, she slept.

*

An insistent pounding on her door yanked Quinn from her sleep. The room was bright. She glanced at her clock: after nine. She'd slept almost twelve hours. Rubbing and slapping her face to rouse herself, she stumbled to the door, moved the chair away, and pulled it open.

She almost screamed, she almost fainted, she almost threw herself into his arms, but then she realized it wasn't really Tim, so she leaned her trembling body against the door jam and gaped at him.

"Quinn Cleary?"

She recognized the voice through the pounding in her ears.

"You must be Mr. Brown."

Tim's father was young, or at least young looking. He had Tim's lean body and dark brown hair and eyes. On a good day he might have passed for Tim's older brother. But this obviously was not a good day. He looked haggard and worn, like he'd been driving all night. And he looked wound too tight, as if he were barely holding himself in check, barely restraining himself from exploding and flying off in all directions. Mr. Verran stood behind him in the hall like a watchful mastiff.

"Yes," Mr. Brown said, extending his hand. "Have you heard anything from..."

"No. Nothing." His palm was moist against hers as she shook his hand. "I keep hoping the phone will ring, but..."

"I know." He released her. "Mr. Verran has graciously agreed to drive me to the sheriff's office to make out a missing-person's report on Tim. Since you were the last one to see him, I was hoping—"

"Of course." She knew she should wash up, change the wrinkled clothes she'd slept in, but that would mean more time before people began looking for Tim, and too much time had been wasted already. "Just let me grab my purse."

*

Quinn sat with her cold hands clamped between her thighs, watching and listening and thinking this couldn't be really happening as Deputy Southworth of the Frederick County Sheriffs' Department sat before them filling out forms. The three of them clustered around his desk, one of four in a large open area. Quinn yearned for an enclosure. This was private. This was about Tim. But the deputy was cool, professional, and appropriately sympathetic as he quizzed Mr. Brown on what his department considered useful and relevant about Tim: Vital statistics, physical characteristics, scars, medical history, Social Security, driver license, and credit card numbers, hobbies, vices, a list of close friends, and on and on. Quinn noticed that Mr. Brown did not mention gambling. Perhaps he didn't know.

Most of all, the deputy needed pictures. Mr. Brown had come prepared with an envelope full of wallet-size graduation photos.

Next the deputy asked Mr. Verran if he could add anything. Quinn sensed a strained atmosphere between the two. The Ingraham security chief shrugged.

"Not much. I checked his record before coming down. He gets good grades and seems to be well liked by everyone who knows him. He does stay out all night rather frequently, though. More than any other student in The Ingraham."

Quinn felt the flush creep into her face and hoped nobody noticed. She knew exactly where Tim went on those overnights, what he did, and with whom. She hoped no one else knew. And she wondered how Mr. Verran managed to keep such close tabs on Tim's comings and goings.

His father apparently wondered the same thing.

"Really?" Mr. Brown seemed genuinely surprised. "That's news to me. How do you know?"

"The gate in and out of the student parking lot. Every kid with a car gets a card to work it. The card is coded with his name. The gate records the date and time and card owner every time it opens."

"Do you know if he goes alone or with somebody?"

"The gate doesn't tell us that."

Which isn't an answer, Quinn thought. She had a feeling Mr. Verran knew she'd been in the car with him most of those times— at least the times since Atlantic City—but was glad he hadn't mentioned it.

Wanting to swing the talk away from overnight jaunts, Quinn said, "Do you think Tim's disappearance could have anything to do with the break-in at the anatomy lab last night?"

"A break-in?" Deputy Southworth said, looking sharply at Mr. Verran. "I hadn't heard about that."

"Nothing was really broken into," Mr. Verran said quickly. "Nothing stolen. More of a trespasser than anything else. I filed the incident report with the Sheriff's secretary yesterday. It would have been completely minor except that Miss Cleary wandered into the building when he was there and he frightened her." His voice lowered to a growl. "I don't take kindly to trespassers frightening students at The Ingraham. He'd better pray I don't catch him on campus."

The deputy turned to her. "Well, we haven't heard from you yet, Miss Cleary. What were you doing out at that hour?"

"I was looking for Tim."

Suddenly she was the center of attention.

Quinn had been dreading this moment since Mr. Brown had asked her to accompany him here. How much should she tell them? Certainly not about their relationship, their intimacy. That was none of their business, had nothing to do with Tim's disappearance. At least, God, she hoped it didn't. She didn't know if she could be sure of anything anymore.

But what about the last time she'd seen Tim, that bizarre scene in the wee hours of yesterday morning when they'd sat there saying one thing while writing other things on the note pad passing back and forth between them because Tim thought the room was bugged? She didn't want to repeat it, any of it. It made him sound deranged. And he wasn't.

But Tim certainly hadn't been himself that night. Had he broken with reality? Was he crouched in the dark somewhere, cold and hungry, hiding from some army of imagined enemies.

The thought of it brought her to the verge of tears.

She had to tell them. It might offer some clue into Tim's state of mind at the time, and that might lead them to where he'd gone.

Deputy Southworth said, "When was the last time you saw your friend Timothy Brown, Miss Cleary?"

Quinn told them all about it—the scribbled notes, waiting in the car, going to the anatomy lab, the intruder, Dr. Emerson. Everything.

The office was tomb silent when she finished.

"Bugged?" Mr. Brown said finally. "He told you he thought the room was bugged?"

"He wrote it," she said, her mouth dry from telling her story. "On the note pad."

"Do you still have those notes?" the deputy asked.

She shook her head. "That's the weird thing. I went back to my room to look for them but couldn't find them. I was sure I'd left them on my bed."

"Bugged?" Mr. Brown said again. He turned to Mr. Verran "Where on earth would he get an idea like that?"

The security chief shrugged. "I couldn't tell you."

The deputy said, "Did your son have any history of mental illness, Mr. Brown? Has he ever been under a psychiatrist's care?"

"No, never." He seemed offended.

"They're under a lot of pressure at The Ingraham," Mr. Verran said. "Every once in a while one of the kids cracks."

"This isn't the first time this has happened," the deputy said.

"It isn't?" Mr. Brown straightened in his chair. He turned to the security chief. "You mean other students have disappeared without a trace?"

Mr. Verran looked acutely uncomfortable. "Two years ago we had a second-year student run off before finals."

"Proctor, wasn't it?" Deputy Southworth said.

"Prosser." Mr. Verran pressed his hand against his lips and stifled a belch. "Anthony Prosser."

"Did he ever turn up?"

"I'd heard that he did," Mr. Verran said. His eyes were watching the scuffed tile floor and Quinn wondered what was so interesting there. "The family doesn't keep in touch with me, so I couldn't swear to it, but I believe I'd heard something to the effect that he'd returned home." He cleared his throat. "So you see—"

"Listen to me, both of you," Mr. Brown said. Quinn saw angry fire flashing in his eyes. "We just had Tim home a few weeks ago at Thanksgiving. He was as sane and relaxed as could be, and happier and more content than I've ever seen him. My wife and I both noticed it and even mentioned it to each other. And one thing that young man has never felt is academic pressure. He's always been able to stand toe-to-toe with any course and take whatever it could dish out. Nothing like that was going to send him wandering off in some sort of fugue state. If he said a room was bugged, you can bet he had damn good reason to think so."

"I'm sure you're right," Deputy Southworth said. He rose and extended his hand across the desk. "Mr. Brown, I'm going to get this missing person report out immediately. We'll put out an APB on his car and run a check on his credit card. I'll file it with the Feds because in a state this size it's a good bet he's already crossed the state line. I have the number of your hotel and I'll be in touch as soon as I hear anything."

"Come on." Mr. Verran rose from his own chair, speaking sorrowfully. "We've done what we can here. I'll drive you both back."

Mr. Brown didn't move. He stood by the desk like a statue. Quinn saw his throat working, his eyes blinking back tears. She fought the urge to throw her arms around him and tell him he had the greatest son in the world and not to worry because everything would be okay, that nothing bad could happen to Tim because she wouldn't let it.

But she allowed herself to touch only his elbow, and to say, "Let's go, Mr. Brown. You never know. Maybe Tim's waiting for us back at the dorm."

He gave her a weak, grateful smile. "Yeah. Maybe he is."

Neither of them believed it.

*

Quinn was sitting, staring out the window at the afternoon sky but seeing nothing, when someone knocked on her door. It was Mr. Brown. With him is Mr. Verran and another man she'd never seen before.

"Quinn?" Mr. Brown said. "Could I trouble you to let this man"—he nodded toward the stranger—"check your room for bugs?"

He said it with the same tone one of the supers might have mentioned checking her bathtub for leaks.

She stifled a gasp. A queasy sensation settled in her stomach. Tim had said something about the room being bugged, and now here was his father, actually looking to prove it. She gave Mr. Brown a closer look. His face seemed to have been turned to slate. In the hall behind him stood Mr. Verran, and he did not look too happy.

"Sure," she said. "I guess so."

"All right, Don," he said to the stranger. "Do it."

The man stepped past Quinn produced a wand of some sort. It was black and had a loop at the end, reminding her of the electric contraption her father used to start the briquettes in their charcoal grill. He began waving it about the room, along the walls, all around the fixtures. There was something ritualistic, almost shamanistic about the procedure.

"What's he doing?"

"Sweeping the room, looking for electronic pulsations, microwave transmissions."

The feeling of unreality swept over Quinn again as she watched. Almost in a trance, she followed him into the bedroom and watched as he scanned every object in the room. She wished she'd thought to pick up the place. But you so quickly get used to a maid, and the maid had the weekends off.

He did a visual search, and even disassembled the telephone.

When he was finished he nodded pleasantly to her and returned to the front room where Tim's father waited. Mr. Verran was still outside the door in the hall, hovering, watching.

"Not a blip," the man called Don said. "The place is clean, just like your son's."

Mr. Brown nodded. He seemed neither pleased nor displeased. He turned to Mr. Verran.

"I had to know. You understand that, don't you? I had to know for sure."

"Of course I understand," Mr. Verran said. "A hundred percent. I'd've done the same thing myself."

As Don slipped past him into the hall, Mr. Brown turned back to Quinn. "Thank you, Quinn."

"Has there been any word? Any word at all?" She felt foolish asking—they'd only completed the report a few hours ago—but it was a compulsion she could not deny.

"No." His eyes were bleak, his mouth a thin, grim line. "Not a word."

"Will you...?"

"I'll let you know if I hear anything." He touched her arm and managed a smile that was heartbreakingly close to Tim's. "Thanks for caring."

As soon as the door closed behind him, she broke down and cried.

*

Quinn had dozed only sporadically through the night, so she was already up and showered when someone knocked on her door Sunday morning. She ran to it, hoping, praying...

It was Mr. Brown. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look quite so grim.

"I think we've found him," he said.

Quinn's knees were suddenly weak. Her heart began pounding in her ears. As the room threatened to tilt, she reached behind her, found a chair and sat down.

"He's...he's all right?"

"We don't know. They found his car at the airport south of Baltimore."

"BWI."

"Right. It's in the long-term lot. They checked with the airlines and learned that he purchased a one-way ticket to Las Vegas Friday morning."

Visions scuttled across Quinn's brain: Tim in his dark glasses, sitting at a blackjack table, drink in hand, lights strobing all around him as he grinned and flashed her his Hawaiian hang-loose signal.

"And a further check of his credit card shows he arrived and rented a car from Avis. Signed for a week's rental."

"Vegas," Quinn said softly, still trying to comprehend.

"Yes. I don't understand any of it, but I'm so relieved to know he's alive. For days now I've had these visions of Tim lying in a ditch somewhere."

Quinn said nothing. She was too numb with relief to speak.

"We learned something else," Mr. Brown said with a sidelong glance in her direction. "A report from the Atlantic City police department."

Quinn closed her eyes. Her name was on that report as well. She supposed she should have known that would come to light eventually.

"Maybe I should have said something before," she said. "But I didn't see that it had anything to do with—"

"Does Tim have a gambling problem?"

She looked at Tim's father and found his eyes intent upon her. The answer was important to him.

"I don't know if I'm fit to judge that, but—"

"Was he getting in with the wrong kind of people?"

"No. Why do you say that?"

"Well, he's been staying out all night a lot, and he got beat up outside a casino."

"We were mugged. If I hadn't wanted to go down on the sand, it never would have happened. And truthfully, Mr. Brown, Tim isn't really interested in gambling. He's never once mentioned going back since then. He's more interested in beating the system with his memory than in gambling itself."

Mr. Brown smiled for the first time. "That memory of his. He was always playing games, doing tricks with it." He extended his hand. "I'm glad I stopped by, Quinn. Even though there's still a lot of questions left to be answered, you've eased my mind some."

"Where are you going?"

"To Las Vegas. I can't sit back and wait. I've got to go looking for him."

Take me with you! Quinn wanted to say. She'd go herself if she had the money.

"You'll call me as soon as you find him?"

He nodded. "Better yet, I'll have him call you himself." He waved and let himself out.

Quinn remained in the chair, staring at her trembling hands. Las Vegas...what on earth...?

At least she knew he was still alive.

Why didn't she feel better?

She sat there for she didn't know how long, her mind almost blank. Finally she stood and shook off the torpor. She couldn't give in to this. She had to keep moving.

A walk. That was what she needed. Fresh air to clear her head and help her think straight. As soon as she stepped outside she headed for the student lot. It had become a habit now, a compulsion: Whenever you're outside, check the lot. Maybe you'll see Griffin easing through the gate.

She checked. No Cierra.

Quinn followed the walk around the pond and found herself nearing the Science Center. She checked the pocket of her coat for her wallet. Her security card was in it. She thought: Why not? She needed a distraction, something to do with her mind besides worry about Tim. Sorting, filing, setting up the data on 9574 for analysis might distract her, make the time go faster. Trying to study now would be nothing but wasted effort.

And maybe Dr. Emerson would be there. It was a good possibility. 9574 had become his life. You never knew when you'd find him in the lab. She hoped he'd come in today. His presence alone had a soothing effect on her. He was a deep-set rock to cling to in all this chaos.

Up on the fifth floor, she passed Ward C with her usual quick glance through the window to make sure all was well within, then continued down the hall.

She stopped. Something had changed in Ward C. She couldn't say what, but there was something...

She walked back and looked again. Immediately she knew what was different. There were eight patients in Ward C today. A new burn victim had arrived since she'd last been up here.

Quinn continued down the hall toward the lab, wondering what catastrophe had befallen that poor soul.

MONITORING

"I wish the hell I knew what they talked about in there," Louis Verran said as he watched Timothy Brown's father leave the dorm on the video monitor.

"Well," Kurt said, stretching languidly after his flight back from Vegas, "you're the one who wanted the bugs pulled from those two rooms."

"And a damn good thing I did, too! You two guys have any idea how I felt when Brown's old man showed up with that industrial espionage consultant? I damn near blew lunch."

"Why? The rooms were clean. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh, really? You two guys haven't exactly been models of efficiency lately. You had to put Brown's SLI back together and replace the headboard, cut the power to his roommate's SLI, clean out all our bugs, and make like maids and neaten everything up. That's a lot of stuff. You could've missed something."

"But we didn't. And don't forget whose idea it was to check out the girl's room."

"Okay, okay. I admit it. That was a good thought."

A damn good thought. Verran rubbed a hand across his queasy stomach. If Elliot hadn't checked Cleary's room, they wouldn't have found the notes. And then when Brown's father had shown up with that sweeper, Verran had quickly ordered the power cut to all the SLI units in the building.

Not that the sweep would have picked up the bugs anyway. The electrets were non-radiating. Plus, the dorm phone taps were all off-premises.

Altogether a bad weekend, though, spent worrying all night about who else the Brown kid might have told. But nobody new had made any noise about it yet, so it was pretty safe to assume that they'd managed to keep the lid on everything.

The only ongoing risk would be Deputy Ted Southworth. Verran knew the Ingraham's security measures rubbed the Sheriff's department the wrong way—they saw Verran's crew as some sort of vigilante force—but Southworth had had a special hard-on for The Ingraham since the Prosser thing two years ago. He'd asked an awful lot of pointed questions when Prosser had disappeared and he'd made it clear he wasn't satisfied with the answers.

He turned to Kurt. "You ditch the rental good in Vegas?"

"Just like you said: Wiped clean as a whistle and sitting smack dab in the middle of the MGM Grand parking lot."

Verran nodded. Hide in plain sight. That was the best way. The Vegas hotel lots were always loaded with rented cars. It would be a long time before that one was picked up. And when it was, no one would suspect a damn thing.

"All right then," he said, leaning back. "I think we've got everything under control again. They all think the kid has a gambling problem and is still alive and making the scene in Vegas. The father's off our backs, looking for him out in Nevada."

Kurt yawned and said, "All we've got left to worry about is the girl. What do we do about her?"

"We don't chase her around the anatomy lab again," Verran said sharply. "That's for sure."

"Hey, Alston wanted me to bring her in."

"Yeah, well, it's just as well you flubbed it."

"I'd've had her if Emerson hadn't wandered by."

The door to the control center opened then, and Doc Alston walked in. He looked pale as he dropped heavily into his usual seat.

"I've just been on the phone with Senator Whitney and two of the board members."

"All at once?"

"A conference call." His hand shook as he rubbed his high forehead. "And they are not happy—with either of us. Not happy at all."

Verran felt his heart begin to hammer. Two board members and the senator on the phone at once. Someone was majorly pissed. And that someone could only be Johann Kleederman himself.

As much as he disliked Alston, Verran could not help feeling a twinge of sympathy for him.

"Did you explain?"

Alston nodded. "I explained my heart out. Believe me, it's not easy explaining away two near disasters in two years."

"Will they be...calling me next?" His mouth went dry at the thought.

"I don't think so. I think I settled everything."

If that was true, he owed Alston. But...

"They always want to blame someone," Verran said, watching Alston closely. "Who's getting the blame?"

"I managed to spread it around. I told them this has to be expected. If they want only the cream of the intellectual crop, it's inevitable that every so often one member of that crop is going to spot an inconsistency and follow it up."

"And they bought it?"

"Of course. It's true, and the logic is inescapable. They were somewhat mollified when I told them that we intercepted Brown before he told his girlfriend much of anything. I hope that is still true, Louis."

"Yeah. Truth is, I don't think we ever had a real worry there. Turns out Cleary doesn't know squat. And it also turns out a good thing Brown's father brought in his electronics man yesterday. Cleary stood right there in that room and heard him say there were no bugs. So even she's convinced her boyfriend's cuckoo."

"Do we replace the bugs?" Elliot said.

"Not yet. She's alone in the room, so she doesn't do any talking anyway. And we've got the off-premises tap on her phone. So I say we leave things as they are for the moment." He looked at Alston. "You agree?"

Alston nodded. "She wasn't responding to the SLI anyway. Might as well leave her room entirely cold until I can think of a way to get her out."

"You got it," Verran said.

"But I want her phone monitored 24 hours a day."

"No problem. I'll have Elliot hook up a voice-activated recorder to her line and we'll check it all the time."

"That will do, I suppose. But I want someone to know where she is every minute of the day," Alston said. "Got that?" He fixed Kurt and Elliot each with a hard stare, then looked at Verran. "Every minute."

"You're the boss," Verran said.

TWENTY

Floating. In darkness. Falling through a limitless black void with no sense of movement or direction, without so much as the sensation of air passing over his skin.

I'm alive.

Tim didn't know the hour, the day, or even the month, where he was or how he got there, but he knew he was alive.

Or was he? In this formless darkness in which he could feel nothing, hear nothing, could he call this being alive?

Cogito, ergo sum.

Okay. According to Descartes, he was alive. But was he was awake or dreaming?

He seemed to be awake. He was becoming aware of faint noises around him, of movement, of an antiseptic odor. He tried to open his eyes but they wouldn't budge. And then he realized that he didn't know if he was lying on his back or his belly. He couldn't feel anything.

Where the hell was he?

And then he remembered...he had passed out after being punched in the face in the early hours of Friday morning. Suddenly he wanted to shout out his rage, his anger. But how could he? He couldn't even open his mouth?

Wait. That must have been a dream. Had to be—the bug in the fixture, the weird device in the headboard, the grilling by Dr. Alston, the man's elaborate Kleederman conspiracy. All a nightmare.

Get these eyes open and the whole thing would be over. He'd see that ugly fixture in the ceiling of the bedroom, the one in his dream he'd thought was bugged. And then he could roll over and see his roomie conked out in the other bed. Good old Kevin.

The eyes. He concentrated on the lids, forcing them to move. Light began to filter through. He kept at it, and the light brightened slowly, like the morning sun burning through fog. But this wasn't sunlight. This was paler. Artificial light. Fluorescent.

Shapes took form. White shapes.

And then he saw himself, or at least his torso, lying in bed on his right side, under a sheet.

That's more like it.

He tried to roll over, but his body wouldn't respond. Why not? If he could just —

Wait. His left arm, lying along his left flank, draped over his hip—it was wrapped in white. Some sort of cloth. Gauze. And his right arm, too, lying supine upon the mattress, was wrapped in gauze to the fingernails. Why?

Maybe he was still dreaming. That had to be it. Because although he could see his gauze-wrapped arms, he couldn't feel them—couldn't feel the gauze, couldn't feel the pressure of their weight on his hip or the mattress, couldn't feel anything. Almost like having no body at all.

Then he saw the transparent tube running into the gauze from an IVAC 560 on a pole beside the bed. An IV.

He was on IVs! That meant he was in a hospital. Jesus, what had happened to him? Had he had an accident?

He spotted another tube, also clear but larger gauge. This one coiled out from under the sheet and ran down over the edge of the bed. The yellow fluid within it flowed downward, out of him and over the edge.

A catheter. He'd been catheterized. He'd seen those rubber tubes with the inflatable balloon at the tip. His insides squirmed at the thought of one of those things being snaked up his penis and into his bladder. Apparently it had already been done. Why couldn't he feel it sitting in there?

Tim dragged his gaze away from himself and forced his eyelids open another millimeter to take in his surroundings.

He wasn't alone. There was another bed next to him, half a dozen feet away. And a white-swathed body under the sheet. And beyond that, another. And another. All mummy wrapped, with tubes running in and out of them. And beyond them all, a picture window, looking out into a hallway.

Tim realized he'd seen this place before. But he'd seen it from another perspective, from the hallway on the far side of that window.

I'm in Ward C!

He wanted to scream but his larynx was as dead as the rest of him.

Tim battled the panic, bludgeoned it down. Panic wouldn't help here. He tried to think. He had to think.

The dream, the nightmare of being bound and gagged, and then listening to Dr. Alston while strapped into that chair in the basement of the Science Center, that all had happened. And now he was a prisoner in Alston's private preserve.

At least they hadn't killed him.

But maybe this was worse.

Tim shifted his eyes down to his body. He saw white gauzy fabric all around the periphery of his vision—his head was wrapped like the rest of his body. Another faceless Ward C patient. And something else: snaking up past his right eye...a white tube. It seemed to go into his nose. A feeding tube, snaking through a nostril, down the back of his throat, and into his stomach.

Further down his body he saw the gentle tidal rise and fall of his chest. Quinn had told him the properties of the anesthetic Dr. Emerson was developing, and how it was being used on the patients in Ward C. Obviously he'd been dosed with it as well.

What had she said? She'd called it 9574 and it supposedly paralyzed all the voluntary muscles while it let the diaphragm go on moving—like in sleep. But it didn't have complete control of him. He'd managed to open his eyes, hadn't he? He could move his eyeballs, couldn't he?

He drew his gaze away from the ward about him and looked at himself again.

He had to get control of his body. He could move his eyeballs and eyelids. But he needed his hands. He searched out his right hand where it lay flopped out before him on the mattress, palm up. If he could move it...

Maybe start small. Just a finger. One lousy finger. He picked his little finger, the pinkie. He imagined himself inside it, crawling through the tissues, wrapping himself around the flexor digiti minimi tendon and pulling... pulling for all he was worth...

And then it moved. It moved!

He tried it again. Yes, the tip was in motion, flexing and extending, back and forth. The arc was no more than maybe a centimeter, but he could move it, dammit, he could move it. And he could actually feel something down there. A faint tingle. He was regaining control. He was going to get out of here. And then he was going to bring the walls down.

"Good morning, Number Eight. About time you woke up."

A nurse, dark skin, brown eyes, her nose and face behind a surgical mask, her hair tucked into a surgical cap, was looking down at him. Tim's eyes fixed on her blue eye shadow, so glossy, almost luminous. The eyes smiled down at him.

"Time to turn you, Number Eight. But first—" She held up a syringe filled with clear fluid. "Time for your two-o'clock dose."

She poked the needle into the rubber tip of the Y-adapter on the intravenous line and emptied the syringe into the flow.

She patted his shoulder—he felt nothing. "I'll be back in a sec to turn you."

Tim watched her go, then returned his attention to his tingling fingers. He watched his pinkie finger move again, but this time the arc seemed smaller. He had to keep working at it. He tried again, struggling, pushing harder, but this time it wouldn't budge. And the tingling, the parasthetic, pins-and-needles sensation in his hand had faded.

...Time for your two-o'clock dose...

The nurse's syringe. It had been loaded with 9574. The fresh dose had turned him into dead meat again. They had him on a round-the-clock schedule.

Movement...at the window into the hall. Someone standing there, looking in. His eyes focused so slowly.

Quinn! Jesus, it was Quinn, looking right at him. Didn't she recognize him? But no, how could she? He was swathed head to toe in gauze. He tried to shout, begged his hands to move, but his voice remained silent, his limbs remained inert.

Fear, frustration, terror, and rage swam around him. Helpless...he was utterly helpless.

And then Quinn turned and walked on.

Tim's vision blurred. He knew a tear was running down his cheek, but he couldn't feel it.

*

Matt Crawford turned from the floor-to-ceiling view of the harbor and crossed his living room. He'd been putting it off all day. By nine o'clock he could hold out no longer. He picked up the phone and called Quinn.

What a nightmare wild man Brown had started by running off to Las Vegas. Both his parents were ready for rubber rooms. Matt had spoken to Tim's mother just yesterday and all she'd done was cry; she'd heard from Tim's father in Vegas but his search for Tim was getting nowhere. Apparently Tim hadn't used his credit card again after renting the car at the airport.

And Quinn...Quinn had sounded like someone on a ledge. When she'd called him last Friday, there'd been something in her voice when she spoke Tim's name, something that said she was worrying about someone who was a lot more than just a friend.

No question about it, Quinn had been hurting. And that could only mean...

Quinn and Tim...he hadn't let it sink in at the time, but maybe it was possible. She did sound broken-hearted that he'd left...left her.

And Tim. What the hell was he thinking about with this Las Vegas stunt? Matt knew the guy, knew how he liked to keep you off balance, be unpredictable, but this went way beyond anything he'd done since Matt had known him.

And that was what had been bothering Matt since Friday. This wasn't like Tim. This was something else. This smelled bad.

Matt listened to the phone ringing. Quinn picked up on the third. When he said hello she all but jumped through the phone, the words frantically spilling out.

"Matt! Is it about Tim? Have you heard from him? Did they find him?"

He'd intended to ask her point blank if she and Tim had something going on. Now he didn't have to. He wasn't sure how he felt about this. Quinn had never been his, so why did he feel as if something special had been stolen away from right under his nose?

"No, Quinn. Nothing yet. I just called to talk to you and see how you're doing."

"I'm okay."

"Are you?"

She didn't answer, at least not with words. Matt heard soft sobbing on the other end.

"You miss him that much." It wasn't a question.

Her voice was a gasp. "Yes."

"He'll be back soon."

"I'm afraid, Matt." She was getting her voice back now. "I've got this horrible feeling I'm never going to see him again."

She sounded so lost. This wasn't like the Quinn he knew. Was this what love did to you?

"You'll see him. He's got to come back soon."

"You really think so?" She sounded like a ship-wrecked sailor groping for a piece of floating debris.

"I guarantee it. When are you getting in Friday?"

Christmas break was a few days away. Maybe he'd drive out to Windham County and try to cheer her up.

"For Christmas? I won't be leaving until next Friday."

"The twenty-third? Our break starts the sixteenth. Why so late?"

"Well, I'm working on this project. I can get overtime if I stay, and I thought if Tim comes back I ought to be here."

Matt resisted the impulse to say that's crazy, that if Tim's old man finds him in Vegas, he'll bring him straight back to New Hampshire.

"You're going to hang around an empty campus?" He hated the thought of her being alone in a deserted dorm. "You think that's a good idea?"

"It's not empty and you sound like my mother."

"Sometimes mothers make a lot of sense."

"I just got off the phone with her. She's got one of her 'feelings' and wants me to come right home."

"Is that so bad?"

"Do you have any idea how quiet a farm gets in the winter?"

"How about I come visit you down there?" he found himself asking without thinking.

"No, Matt. You've got better —"

"What's better than visiting an old friend who sounds like she needs a friend."

"That's nice of you, Matt, but really, I'll be busy in the lab and there's not much to do around this part of Maryland if you aren't working. I appreciate it, and I'll be fine. And I promise to call you as soon as I get back home. Then the three of us can go out together and catch up."

"The three of us?"

"Sure. Tim will be back by then. He's got to be. He wouldn't stay away through Christmas."

"Right," Matt said slowly. "Sure. The three of us. That'll be great."

I hope you're right, Quinn, he thought as he hung up a few minutes later.

The phone rang almost immediately. Matt didn't recognize the voice at first.

"Matthew? This is Lydia Cleary. Quinn's mother."

Why on earth was she calling? She sounded upset.

"Hi, Mrs. Cleary. I was just talking to Quinn."

"Oh. That's why your line was busy. I was speaking to her earlier and she says she's going to stay down there next week."

"She told me."

"Matthew, you've got to get her home. Something terrible is going to happen to her if she stays there. Just like it happened to that friend of hers."

Cold fingers did a walk along Matt's spine.

"What do you mean, 'happened' to Tim? Tim took off for Las Vegas."

"I don't know about any of that. I just know something bad's happened to him and the same will happen to Quinn if she stays down there. You know how stubborn she is. She won't listen to me."

"She won't listen to me, either."

"Maybe if you go down there, Matthew. Maybe she'll listen to you then and you can bring her back. I know it's a lot to ask..."

"It's not a lot," he said, trying to soothe the growing agitation in her voice. "Not a lot at all. I'll leave as soon as they cut me loose on Friday."

"Oh, thank you, Matthew." She sounded ready to cry. "I'll be eternally grateful for this."

He eased himself off the phone, then sat there, wondering, feeling uneasy. Her sense that something had 'happened' to Tim rattled Matt. And she was so convinced the same was going to happen to Quinn. Superstition, of course, but still...

Matt decided then to leave for Maryland Friday afternoon without telling Quinn. He'd catch her by surprise and work on her all weekend. By Sunday he'd have her packed up and ready to go.

In a few days he'd have Quinn home safe and sound. But what about Tim? He wished he could do the same for Tim.

Tim, old buddy, where the hell are you?

*

Tim existed in a timeless space of boredom, rage, and terror. Sometimes he slept, and dwelt in a nightmare in which he had no body. Sometimes he was awake, and dwelt in a nightmare in which he could not feel his body.

The staff took good care of that body. Three times a day, every shift, his limbs were put through their ranges of motion to keep the joints limber and prevent contractures. He was turned back and forth, his position changed every few hours to prevent pressure ulcers in his skin. And whenever they were in the ward, all the nurses spoke to him constantly, like girls talking to their dolls.

And that was what Tim began to feel like. He couldn't feel, couldn't reply, couldn't move on his own. He was a giant Ken doll.

Despite all the care, he was afraid for his body. What had they done to it? Had they scorched his skin? Was he now a burn victim like the others? He felt nothing. If only he could feel something—even pain would be welcome—he might know.

And Tim had begun to fear for his mind. Imprisonment in an inert, mute body was affecting it. Every so often he would feel his mental gears slip a few cogs, would catch his thoughts veering off and have to reel then in from wild, surreal tangents filled with giant, floating syringes and stumbling, mummified shapes. He knew one day—one day too soon—those thoughts could slip their bonds and never come back.

Focus. That was the only thing that kept his mind in line. Focusing on movement, on brief, tiny increments of victory over the drug that crippled his nervous system.

He'd learned to recognize the signs that his previous dose of 9574 was wearing off. Mostly it was a tingling, beginning in his fingertips and toes and spreading across his palms and soles. When the sensation came he focused all his will on his fingers. Sometimes he was positioned so he could see them, but many times he wasn't. He didn't let that stop him. For most of the day, his hands didn't exist. But when the tingling came, it told him where they were, and then he could locate them, focus on them, make them the center of his world, and demand that they obey him.

Tim couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him that the episodes of tingling were lasting longer, starting a little sooner before each new injection. What did that mean? Was he building up a tolerance to the drug? Was his liver learning to break it down faster? He'd read that the liver could "learn." When a new substance was introduced to the bloodstream, the liver's job was to break it down and dispose of it. At first it would metabolize the substance slowly. But as the substance made more passes through the liver, the enzymes within the hepatic cells adjusted and became increasingly efficient. That was why a teetotaler could get tipsy on a single glass of wine while a drinker might down half a bottle with little or no effect: the teetotaler's liver has no experience breaking down ethanol but it's routine for the drinker's.

Tim knew he had a good tolerance for alcohol—always had. Maybe that indicated an especially efficient liver. Maybe his liver was learning new ways to clear the 9574 from his blood, and getting a little better at it every day.

He clung to that thought. It wasn't much of a hope, but at least it was hope. And he needed all the hope he could muster. His hands were tingling now. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, so he couldn't see them. But he knew where they were now. There was another sensation today. A dull pain on the outer aspect of his left thigh. He ignored that. It was his hands that concerned him. He focused on them, concentrating his will...

"Is Number Eight awake?"

That voice. He knew that voice!

"Yes, Doctor."

Alston. Dr. Arthur Alston. Tim wanted to roar the name, wanted to spring up and hurl himself at his throat, but all he could do was lie here and feel the growing tingle in his hands.

"When's he due for his next dose?" Alston's voice said.

"Not for another twenty minutes."

"Give it to him now. I've got a little debriding to do here, and I don't want him twitching."

Suddenly Dr. Alston's face loomed over him. He was wearing a surgical mask and cap.

"Hello, Brown. I'm terribly sorry it had to come to this, but you gave me no choice. This, by the way, is the last time you'll be referred to by your name. From now on, you're the John Doe in bed eight. Don't look for rescue from the Ward C staff. These nurses have been hand picked by the Foundation. They don't know your real name, but they do know you're not one of our usual burn victims, and they know you're here because you're a threat to the Foundation."

Tim would have groaned if he could. The nurses too?

"Is that surprise I see in your eyes, Brown? A male chauvinist reaction? Do you see some reason why professional women such as these nurses can't share the goals pursued by the Foundation? We all have many common goals here in Ward C. Perfecting the semi-synthetic burn grafts is just one. We are all committed individuals, and we all work toward those goals in our own way. But it's a group effort."

Alston sounded so sane, so rational. Tim would have much preferred a mad-doctor persona. It would have been easier to take. This was so damn unsettling. It almost made Tim feel like the deviate. Almost.

Dr. Alston's face was replaced by the mocha-skinned nurse's. Her eyes crinkled warmly as she smiled behind her mask. She did something out of Tim's sight. He guessed it was another dose of 9574. When the tingling in his fingers and toes faded, he knew he was right.

"All right, Marguerite," Alston said. "He should be ready now. Turn him on his side and we'll get to work."

Tim's stomach gave a little heave and the room did a quick spin as hands he could not feel rolled him off his back and onto his right side. The picture window into the hall swam into view but the curtains were drawn.

"Watch out for the N-G tube," Alston said. "Good. Don't worry, Number Eight. That feeding tube is only temporary. We'll put in a deep line for TPN soon. That's total parenteral nutrition—something you would have learned about in your clinical training over the next few years."

Clinical training...

Tim realized he'd never see his clinical training.

"Right there," Alston said to Marguerite. "Perfect. And now the tray, please."

Tim's mind screamed out to know what Alston was doing. He must have sensed Tim's thoughts. He spoke from somewhere behind him.

"Just because you've been reduced to a vegetative state doesn't mean your days of usefulness as a productive human being are through. Quite the contrary. You're earning your keep, Number Eight. And you're making a significant contribution to the well-being of your fellow man."

Tim sensed movement behind him, heard a rustle, the soft clank of a metal tray.

"You see, one of the ongoing problems we've had with fully researching the new grafts has been our inability to test them on fresh burns. Since the grafts must be grown from cultures of the victim's own skin cells, they are, ipso facto, unavailable for treatment of a fresh burn. We could keep a bank of grafts for people at high risks for burns—firefighters, for instance—for immediate use should a burn occur, and I'm sure that such a program will come into being eventually, but at this early stage it's not feasible. So what we've needed for a while is another test subject whose skin grafts can be cultured in advance and then tested on fresh burns of varying severity and surface area."

Another test subject? Tim thought.

"You do realize, don't you, that you're not the first student to learn too much. We've had a few unfortunate incidents in the past when the subliminal intrusion of the SLI unit has triggered unsuspected psychoses in a student, but until now only one other student has learned as much as you. That was Anthony Prosser, two years ago."

Tim remembered the phrase he'd heard a few second-year students use: To pull a Prosser. It meant to go over the wall and never be heard from again.

Everybody probably thinks I've pulled a Prosser.

"Anthony has been known as Number Five for two years now."

Two years!

"During that period he has made an enormous contribution to our graft research. But now..." Tim heard Alston sigh. "Now he's given all he has to give. Now he just lies there, completely mad. But we're not abandoning him. We'll take care of him as long as he lives."

Give? What did Prosser give?

"So, as unfortunate as it was that you had to stumble on our little secrets here at The Ingraham, in a way it proves rather timely. We were just beginning to perfect our acute-stage grafting techniques when Number Five ran out of undamaged skin. You can take over where he left off."

Tim's brain was screaming. They're going to burn me!

"We've been culturing your skin cells since you arrived. Yesterday we added a sedative to your afternoon dose of 9574. While you were unconscious, I inflicted a thirty-six-square-inch third-degree burn on the lateral aspect of your left thigh."

Ward C—what Tim could see of it—blurred and swam before his eyes. They'd already burned him!

"I felt it was kinder to put you out during the procedure. Even though you'd feel nothing, you'd still smell it. The odor of burning human flesh is rather unpleasant, especially unpleasant when it is your own. I spared you that. We're not cruel here, Number Eight. We bear you no ill will, no malice. In fact, we feel sorry for you. You are the victim of a particularly vicious and ironic Catch 22: The very attributes of intellectual curiosity and sharply-honed analytical brilliance that once made you an asset to The Ingraham have now caused you to become a liability. We couldn't let you go, and we couldn't kill you—despite what you must think of us, we're not murderers, Number Eight. So we chose this method of neutralizing your threat to the Foundation and The Ingraham. You still have your life and, in a very important way, you're still contributing to the medical well-being of your fellow man. Which was one of the reasons you came to The Ingraham in the first place, isn't it, Number Eight?"

But you did kill me, Tim thought. You must have. Because this is worse than death. This is Hell.

MONITORING

Louis Verran noticed the red light blinking on the recorder. He nudged Elliot.

"How long's that been lit?"

Elliot glanced up at it and shrugged. "Beats me."

"When was the last time you checked it?"

"This morning when I came in. Wasn't blinking then."

With an effort, Verran kept his voice low and even.

"Well, it's blinking now. And when it's blinking it means the recorder's been activated. And when the recorder's been activated it means Cleary's been on the phone. And in case you forgot, we're monitoring all her phone calls. So do you think you could spare some time from your busy schedule to listen to it?"

"Sure, Chief."

Verran shook his head. The best goddam high-tech voice-activated recorder wasn't worth shit if nobody listened to it.

He watched Elliot slip on the headphones and replay the conversation. He looked bored. Finally he pulled them off.

"Same old crap, Chief. Her mother wants her to come home Friday. Her old boyfriend wants her to come home too, even offered to come down and get her but she blew him off. She's staying."

"She should go. She's bad news, that kid."

"She thinks Brown's coming back and she wants to be here." Elliot grinned. "She's got a loooooong wait, huh?"

"Yeah," Verran said. "But as long as she's waiting, you keep an eye on that recorder. Anytime you see that light blinking, you listen right away. Not later. Right away."

Verran almost felt sorry for Cleary. Her boyfriend was never coming back. There was no way out of the place Alston had put him.

TWENTY-ONE

Tim watched the day-shift nurses—the dark-skinned one called Marguerite and another whose name he hadn't caught yet— string garland and holly around the window on the hallway. They worked on the far side of the window; apparently Christmas decorations weren't allowed in the antiseptic confines of Ward C. They were laughing, smiling, presenting a Norman Rockwellesque portrait of holiday cheer.

Who on earth would believe what they were involved in on this side of the window?

And what would a Rockwell portrait of my right thigh look like? Tim wondered.

All the shifts told him how well the graft was taking, as if he cared. How long since Alston had burned him? How long since he'd placed the graft? If only there was a clock here. Or a calendar. Tim's only measure of time was his injections. He knew today was Friday—he'd heard Marguerite say "TGIF" this morning—but which Friday? Was it one Friday before Christmas, or two?

He was betting on two. That made today the sixteenth of December. Maybe.

He hadn't been placed on his left side since the graft. He'd been on his right side, faced toward the hall window for the past few hours. Never since his arrival had he been rotated to the spot directly in front of it. Each of the other seven patients on Ward C got a regular turn there, but Tim was always kept near the back. Why?

Because of Quinn, he guessed. Even mummy-wrapped as he was, there was still a chance she might recognize him if she got within a couple of feet.

The thought of her was a deep ache in his chest. He liked being positioned so he could see some activity—anything but hours of staring at the ceiling—but he hoped Quinn wouldn't pass by. He longed for the sight of her, but each time she walked on after pausing at the window, a part of him died.

He preferred watching Marguerite and the other nurse decorating the window.

Go on, ladies. Do a good job. Take your time. Take all the time you want.

Because the longer they stayed out there, the longer it would be before his next dose of 9574.

Already his hands were tingling to the wrists. He'd begun concentrating on his left fingers the instant the tingling began. He knew they lay on his left hip. He wished he could see them, to measure his progress.

And he was making progress—no question about that. He could feel his fingers moving, feel the pinky flex, then straighten...flex, then straighten. He just wished he knew how much movement he'd gained. He didn't know how far he could trust his proprioception—he needed to see those fingers move to believe it.

Tim noticed one of the nurses—Marguerite—looking in his direction. He froze his hand in position. Had she seen the movement? He prayed not. If they saw the 9574 wearing off, they'd give him another shot of it. They might even start keeping a special eye out for movement. And if they saw too much they might up his dose.

Tim was sure that would push him over the edge into madness. All that kept him sane were these moments when he could feel something, do something. He spent his day waiting for these moments. He lived for them. If they were taken away...

Marguerite turned and said something to the other nurse and they both laughed. They went on decorating the window. Good. She hadn't seen him. He could go on moving his fingers.

He switched his concentration to his left thumb.

...flex...

...extend...

...flex...

...extend...

*

Snow.

As she hurried toward Science, Quinn brushed at a flake that had caught in her eyelashes. The Baltimore radio stations were all talking about the big snowstorm charging in from the Midwest. Pennsylvania and New Jersey were slated to take the brunt if the storm stayed on its present course, with Maryland collecting a few inches from the periphery.

Normally, she'd be excited. Quinn loved snow, loved to ski. During college, whenever a snow hit New England, she and a couple of friends would hop in a car and head for Great Barrington where her roommate's family had a ski condo.

But she felt no interest, let alone excitement, in the coming storm. It didn't matter. Not much seemed to matter anymore.

One thing the threatened snowfall did accomplish was the cancellation of the Friday afternoon labs. Since this was the last day before Christmas break, the administration had decided to let the students get a head start on the storm.

Everyone who was going home, that is. For Quinn it meant an early start in Dr. Emerson's lab. She'd had lunch, helped a couple of friends load up their cars, and waved them off to their Merry Christmases.

Merry Christmas.

Not bloody likely.

Another reason for not going home until the last minute: Quinn wasn't feeling very Christmasy—anything but Christmasy. And Mom always did Christmas up big, decorating the first floor like she was entering it in a contest. Everything would be so cheery and warm and happy and Quinn knew she'd be a horrible wet blanket. If she was going to mope, better to do it in private.

She shook herself. This had to stop. Everything was going to be fine, everything was going to be all—

Why did you leave me, Tim? Why did you make me care about you and then run off like that? Why?

She bit back a sob.

"I'm okay," she said softly. "Really. I'm okay."

She groaned as she entered Science. The entry vestibule and the lobby were festooned with Christmas ornaments. There wasn't going to be any getting away from The Season To Be Jolly.

Nobody was at the security desk. One of the male guards was holding a ladder while Charlene stood on the top step and taped a strand of golden garland to the wall. They recognized Quinn and waved her through.

Fifth was no better. Santa faces, Merry Christmas greetings, plastic mistletoe, fake holly, and tinsel garland hung all over the place.

Quinn kept her eyes straight ahead, glancing left only briefly when she passed the newly decorated Ward C window, trimmed with tiny Christmas bulbs, blinking chaotically.

She stopped as a thought struck her: Here I am in the dumps about my Christmas...what about theirs? Her gaze roamed the ward, coming to rest on the patient against the far wall. He appeared male, and his body was long and slim.

Like Tim's, Quinn thought with a pang.

He was lying on his right side, facing her. She couldn't make out his eyes between the folds of gauze wrapped around his head, but he seemed to be looking at her.

*

Quinn!

Jesus, it was Quinn. And she was staring directly at him. If only he could reach up and yank the gauze off his face, or screech her name, or just wave and attract her attention. Anything but to lie here like a goddam asparagus and watch her walk away again.

His hand...his left hand...if he could get it to move now...now, when he needed it...to signal her...something definitive...something that wouldn't look like some sort of random muscle twitch...if only he knew sign language...

And then Tim realized that he did know a sign language of sorts.

*

Quinn stared at the bandaged-covered face, trying to read something there. She had a feeling he was staring back at her, trying to tell her something. His body looked slack, utterly relaxed, yet she sensed a bridled intensity about him.

Movement caught her eye. His left hand was twitching where it lay on his left hip. The fingers were curling into a fist. No, not all of them. Just the middle three. The thumb and pinky finger remained extended.

And then, ever so slightly, the hand wagged back and forth.

Quinn felt a smile begin to pull on her lips. Why, it almost looked like—

As she cried out, her knees buckled and she fell against the window with a dull thunk that echoed down the hall.

Tim's Hawaiian hang-loose sign...the patient on the far side of Ward C was looking her way and doing a crude version of the shake-a-shake-a signal Tim had used in the casino.

Suddenly hands were gripping her upper arm, supporting her.

"Are you all right?"

Quinn looked up and saw a nurse holding her arm, steadying her as Quinn straightened and leaned against the window frame.

"I..." Her throat locked, refusing to let another syllable pass.

"You look terrible," the nurse said. "You're white as a ghost."

I've just seen a ghost, she thought.

She was shaking, dripping with perspiration. Bile surged against the back of her throat but she forced it back down.

"What's wrong?" the nurse was saying, looking at her closely. "Are you a diabetic or hypoglycemic?"

I probably look like I'm having an insulin reaction, Quinn thought. I almost wish I were.

She shook her head and started to say something, to ask about that patient at the far end of Ward C, then bit back the words.

It couldn't be Tim. Not in Ward C with the burn patients. Anywhere but Ward C.

If she said anything about it, they'd think she was losing it. Hallucinating. Breaking with reality. Word had already spread around The Ingraham about Tim having a breakdown and running off—pulling a Prosser. The administration would think she was cracking too. They'd send her home. Maybe for good. One breakdown per class was more than they wanted to deal with.

"My period," she said, improvising. "I always get bad cramps the first day."

The nurse's face relaxed. "I get some whoppers myself. Come on over here. I'll give you a couple of Anaprox."

Keeping one hand on the wall to steady herself, Quinn followed her to the nursing station where she sat, blotted the beaded perspiration from her face with a paper towel, and choked down the two blue tablets.

After a few minutes, she felt strong enough to move on. She thanked the nurse and made it down the hall to Dr. Emerson's lab where she told Alice that she didn't feel well enough to work today.

Alice took one look at her and bounded out of her seat.

"I should say you don't! You look awful! You might have the flu. Dr. Emerson won't be in until tonight, so you get right out of here and over to the infirmary right this minute. As a matter of fact, I'll take you there myself."

"That's all right. I'll be okay. Just tell Dr. Emerson I'll be in tomorrow."

Alice shooed her out and Quinn stood outside the lab, looking down the hallway. The elevators were on the far side of Ward C. She was going to have to pass the window to get to them.

She wasn't sure she could handle that.

But she didn't feel strong enough for the stairs right now, so what choice did she have?

None.

Taking a deep, tremulous breath, Quinn straightened her spine and marched back down the hall. The nurses station was empty as she passed it, and she intended to keep walking past Ward C, but when she reached the window she had to stop. No way she could breeze by without one more look.

Both nurses were in there now, standing around the patient who'd signaled her. Marguerite was just removing a syringe from his IV line. Was something wrong?

Quinn pressed closer to the glass. The blinking lights bordering the window made it difficult to see, but she still could make out the patient's left hand, the one that had been stretched into the hang-loose sign—it now hung limp and lifeless. As she watched, the nurses gently rolled him to his left and repositioned him on his back. Everything so normal. Just another day of routine patient care on Ward C.

The nurse who had helped Quinn a few moments ago looked up and smiled at her. Quinn gave her a friendly wave, then forced herself to walk on.

Half dazed, still weak and shaky, feeling as if she were in a dream, Quinn found the elevator control slot and slipped her card into it.

What had just happened here? What was real? What was not? The questions whirled about her in a maelstrom of confusion. Nausea rippled through her stomach and inched up toward her throat. She feared she might get sick right here in the hall.

She had to get out of here, back to the dorm. Back to her room where she could lock the door, crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and think.

Maybe Mom and Matt had been right. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stay down here the extra week.

When she got outside, the snow was falling heavily. Everything was covered with a thin coat of white. At any other time she might have stopped to appreciate the silent beauty of the scene. But now she broke into a careful run for the dorm.

*

Tim stared at the ceiling.

What was wrong with Quinn? She'd been looking right at him as he'd given her the hang-loose signal. She'd even reacted as if she'd seen it, looked like she'd been about to faint, but she'd done nothing.

Nothing!

Maybe she hadn't really seen it, or maybe she didn't believe she'd seen it. It didn't matter which. He'd never get a chance like that again. It was over. Might as well pack in the hope and forget about ever getting out of here.

Still staring helplessly at the ceiling's mottled whiteness, Tim felt himself tumbling into a black hole of despair.

TWENTY-TWO

This isn't a highway, Matt thought. This is a parking lot.

The New Jersey Turnpike wasn't exactly stopped dead, but for an hour now it had been moving too slowly for the speedometer to register. As far ahead as the he could see, the three southbound lanes were a stagnant river of glowing brake lights fading into the falling snow.

Not falling, exactly. Racing horizontally was more like it. And lots of it. The windows on the passenger side of Matt's Cherokee were caked with an inch or better of white. It was piling up on the road and the shoulders.

Matt banged impatiently on the steering wheel and glanced at the dashboard clock. Nine o'clock. He should have been there by now. Instead he was just south of Exit 7A, only halfway through Jersey. And the longer he stayed here, the worse it was going to get. He'd played all his CDs twice, and the radio had nothing but traffic reports about the snarl-ups all over the East Coast and weather reports about how much worse it was going to get during the next few hours.

This little jaunt was turning into an ordeal.

A sign on the right with logos for Roy Rogers, Big Boy's, and Sunoco told him that the "Richard Stockton Service Area" was two miles ahead. Matt glanced at his gas gauge and saw it edging onto "E". At his present pace, those two miles could take an hour, maybe more. Running out of fuel now would be the icing on the cake.

He edged the Cherokee to the right and began riding along the shoulder at around twenty miles per hour. It wasn't legal, but at least he was moving. He just had to hope he didn't run into a cop. A ticket would be the candle on the icing on the cake.

He slammed on his brakes and skidded to a halt as a beat-up, twenty-year-old Cadillac DeVille with New York plates pulled out in front of him and stopped. Matt flashed his high beams and honked, but the Caddy didn't budge. He had two choices: sit here behind the guy, or try to slip past him on the right, but that meant risking the snowy slope that dropped away from the shoulder at a good forty-five-degree angle.

He got out and walked up to the Caddy. The driver window rolled down as he approached and a bearded face glared at him.

"Don't fuck with me, man."

"How about letting me by," Matt said. "I'm trying to get to the service area."

"You wait like the rest of us."