Shock

TWELVE

AS ELEVEN O'CLOCK neared, Joanna had considerably more respect for people doing office work. Although it was true she'd been working particularly hard to get the maximum amount done, data entry was more tiring than she'd imagined. The concentration necessary to keep from making a mistake was intense, and doing it day in and day out for three hundred sixty-five days a year was difficult to imagine.

At exactly five minutes before eleven, Joanna stood up and stretched. She smiled at her neighbor in the immediately adjacent cubicle to the south who'd stood up when she heard Joanna's chair roll back. The woman proved to be rather nosy and had made it a point to look in on Joanna periodically throughout the morning. Her name – Gale Overlook – seemed fitting to Joanna.

Joanna had given a lot of thought to her plan; she knew what she would do first. With the scheduled rendezvous time with Deborah imminent, Joanna grabbed her purse, which contained the brute-force cracking software, her cell phone, and Wingate's blue card. She headed down the aisle between the cubicles. Her destination was the computer network administrator's work space. Her hope was to find him in his cubicle and for one simple reason: if he was in his cubicle he couldn't be in the server room.

Earlier, in the midst of a minor anxiety attack about being caught in the server room, it had dawned on Joanna that probably the only person who ever went in there was Randy Porter. Consequently, if he was in his cubicle, she'd have little to fear.

A wave of relief spread through her as she passed his cubicle. He was at his keyboard. Turning left, she headed over to the main corridor. Deborah was there, at the designated rendezvous. About twenty feet beyond was the door to the hallway leading to the server room with its cardboard NO ADMITTANCE sign.

"I hope your morning was as interesting as mine," Deborah said as Joanna came up and took a sip from the drinking fountain.

"Mine was about as interesting as watching paint dry," Joanna said. She looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was paying any attention to them. "Nothing happened, but then again I didn't want anything to happen."

"We got asked out to dinner at the Barn twice more," Deborah said proudly.

"Who asked you out this time?"

"Spencer Wingate for one. And he asked us out, not just me."

"Did you see him in person?"

"I most certainly did. He came by the lab to apologize for passing out last night and then pleaded for a rematch. I told him I was busy but you were available."

"Very funny]" Joanna said. "How did he look?"

"Not bad, considering," Deborah said. "I don't think he remembered much."

"That's understandable," Joanna said. "I trust the blue card did not come up in your conversation."

"Not a word."

"Who else was hitting on you?"

"The second invitation was from Paul Saunders! Can you imagine going out with him?"

"Only in a fit of self-loathing," Joanna said. "But I don't believe for a minute I was included in that invitation, not from the way he was looking at you yesterday in his office."

Deborah didn't deny it. She glanced briefly up and down the corridor to make certain no one was paying them any attention. "Let's get down to business," she said, speaking more quietly. "Do you have any particular plan for our server room incursion or what?"

"I do," Joanna said. She, too, lowered her voice and went on to tell Deborah her thoughts about Randy Porter.

"Great idea," Deborah said. "To tell the truth I was concerned about how I was going to stand watch for you. Without a back exit from the server room, even if I let you know someone was coming in, there'd be no way for you to get out."

"Precisely," Joanna said. "Now all you have to do is let me know if Randy Porter leaves his cubicle. The moment he does, press TALK on your cell phone which you'll set up dialed to mine. If my phone rings, I'll get out of the server room right away."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Deborah said. "Should we try it now?"

"I think so," Joanna said. "If it doesn't work for whatever reason, we can try again at lunch. If that doesn't work, we'll have another chance in the afternoon. Otherwise we'll have to come back tomorrow."

"Let's think positively,' Deborah said. She punched in Joanna's number on her cell phone's keypad. "I'm not wearing this dress another day in a row!"

"I checked on Randy Porter just before I came to meet you," Joanna said. "He was in his cubicle. I think he was on the Internet, which should keep him occupied."

"Do you have what you need?"

Joanna patted her purse. "I've got the software, David's instructions, and Wingate's blue card. Let's hope the card works or we're back to square one."

"It should work," Deborah said. "I'll head down to admin now, and you just hang out right here. If Randy Porter is still sitting on his duff in his office, I'll call you and let it ring twice. That'll be the green light, and you go do your thing."

The two women grasped hands for a moment. Then Deborah set briskly out walking down the corridor. When she reached the entrance to the administration area, she paused and looked back. Joanna was still at the water fountain leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She waved and Deborah returned the gesture.

Deborah couldn't remember exactly where Randy Porter's cubicle was in the gridlike maze that filled the old hospital ward. After a quick search of the area where she thought it would be and not finding it, she began a more systematic search. Eventually she found it and was happy to see Randy still sitting in front of his monitor. Deborah didn't allow herself much of a look, but her impression was that he was playing a video game.

Deborah reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. With Joanna's number already dialed, she pushed the TALK button.

Holding it up to her ear she listened for two complete rings, then pressed END. She replaced the phone in her bag.

Keeping one eye on Randy Porter's cubicle, she made her way over to the main corridor. There was no perfect spot where she could stand and not cause attention. Consequently, she had to keep moving.

JOANNA SWITCHED HER CELL-PHONE MODE FROM RINGER to vibration the moment she'd gotten Deborah's signal. The noise made her jump even though she'd expected it. Clearly she was on edge.

After a furtive, final glance up and down the corridor to make sure no one was watching, she passed as quickly as possible through the NO ADMITTANCE door into the short hall beyond. As the door closed behind her, she found she was breathing heavily, as if she'd run a hundred yards. Her pulse soared. She was a little dizzy. All at once the reality of being an intruder enveloped her in a paralyzing rush. Belatedly Joanna realized she was not cut out for tasks like breaking into computer server rooms; actually doing it was far more psychologically demanding than planning it.

With her back against the door to the main hall, Joanna took a number of deep breaths. Combining the controlled respiration with a short reassuring soliloquy, she was able to calm herself down enough to proceed. Tentatively she moved forward, slowly it first but then gaining confidence when her dizziness faded. She reached the server room door. After one last look back at the door to the corridor, she reached into her purse and pulled out Wingate's blue access card. Quickly she swiped it through the card swipe. Any residual concern she'd had about whether the card would work was dispelled with the mechanical click. She opened the door. In the next instant she was inside, hurrying over to the server console.

WHAT RANDY PORTER LIKED MOST ABOUT COMPUTERS WAS the games. He could play them all day and yearn for more when he got home at night. It was like an addiction. Sometimes he wouldn't go to bed until three or four in the morning because with the World Wide Web someone was always up and willing to play. Even at 3:00 or 4:00 A.M. he hated to give up and only did so because he knew he'd be a total zombie at work the following day.

What was so good about his job at the Wingate Clinic was that he could indulge himself during office hours. It had been different back when he'd first been hired straight out of the University of Massachusetts. He'd had to put in long hours getting the Wingate local area network online. And then there'd been the demand for the best security available. That had required extra work and even some outside consulting. And finally there'd been the web page: that had taken a number of months to set up and then modify until everybody was happy. But now everything was humming along just fine, which meant there was little for him to do except be available for the occasional software or hardware glitch. Even those problems were usually because the individual involved was so dorky that they didn't realize they were doing something incredibly stupid. Of course, Randy didn't tell the individual that. He was always polite and pretended it was the machine's fault.

Randy's normal day began at his keyboard in his cubicle. With the help of Windows 2000 Active Directory, he checked to make sure all systems were running normally and all terminals were in a locked position. That generally took him about fifteen minutes.

After a coffee break he'd return to his cubicle for his morning gaming. To avoid being caught by Christine Parham, the office manager, he'd frequently move around to various workstations that were not in use. That made him hard to find on occasion, but that never led to any trouble since everybody thought he was off fixing someone's computer.

On May 1Oth at 11:11 in the morning Randy was locked in mortal combat with a slippery, talented opponent with the moniker of SCREAMER. The game, Unreal Tournament, was Randy's current favorite. And at that moment he was locked in a tense standoff in which he or SCREAMER would imminently be killed. Randy's palms were damp from anxiety, but he pressed on, fully believing that his experience and expertise would give him the upper hand.

There was a sudden unexpected beep. Randy reacted by practically leaping out of his ergonomic chair. At the bottom right-hand corner of his screen a small window had popped up. Within the window the words SERVER ROOM BREACHED were blinking insistently. Before Randy could respond to this prompt, he heard a fateful zapping noise that yanked his attention back to the main window. To his chagrin the view was a virtual ceiling. A second later his adversary's face appeared, peering down at him with a gloating smile. It took less time than a Pentium 4 processor for Randy's brain to compute that he'd been killed.

"Crap!" Randy muttered. It was the first time he'd been killed for over a week, and it was a letdown, big time. Irritably he looked back at the blinking window responsible for distracting his attention at such a critical juncture. Someone had opened the server room door. Randy didn't like anyone going into the server room and monkeying around. He considered it his domain. There was no reason for anybody to be in there unless it was IBM servicing the equipment, and if that happened it was his responsibility to be in there with them.

Randy exited from Unreal Tournament and pushed his joystick around behind the monitor so it was less obvious. Then he stood up. He was going to see who the hell was in the server room. Whoever it was, was responsible for getting him killed.

WHEN THE CELL PHONE'S VIBRATION WENT OFF, JOANNA'S heart leaped into her mouth. She'd been struggling with her anxiety from the moment she'd come through the outer server room door. She'd found herself clumsy at the keyboard. It took her longer to carry out simple tasks, which only made her more anxious – and worse still at the keys.

Assuming the call was Deborah, Joanna knew she had only seconds to get out of the server room before Randy Porter appeared. Still all thumbs, she began exiting the system. All she had to do was cancel out the windows she'd brought up onto the screen, but it seemed to take forever since her movement with the mouse was so jerky. Finally the last window disappeared, leaving the screen blank. Quickly Joanna tossed the cracking software back into her purse; she'd had yet to insert the CD into the drive. Her phone had gone off only minutes after she'd sat down at the server-room console, and she had only been in the initial stages of giving herself access.

Frantically she snatched her purse from the desktop and dashed over to the server room door. But the second she opened it she heard the telltale sound of the outer door opening. In total panic, Joanna let go of the door she was holding and took a step backward. She felt desperate and completely trapped. With no other choice, she darted back around the vertically oriented electronic units each about the size of a shallow, four-drawer file cabinet. Scrunching down in a tight ball behind the farthest unit, she tried to make herself as small as possible. It was hardly a hiding place, but she had no other choice.

Joanna's heart was beating so hard she was certain that whoever was coming would be able to hear it. It was literally pulsing in her ears. She could feel perspiration appear within her clutched fists, which were pressed against her cheeks. She tried to prepare herself for being discovered by thinking of what she would say. The problem was, there was absolutely nothing that she could say.

FROM THE MOMENT RANDY HAD LEFT HIS CUBICLE ENROUTE to the server room, he'd been silently venting his anger. He was upset more for having been interrupted and subsequently killed than for someone going into his server room. By the time he arrived on the scene, he was thinking more of getting back to Unreal Tournament and rechallenging SCREAMER than yelling at the person who'd violated his domain.

"What the blazes?" Randy questioned when he came on the open server-room door and the empty room beyond. He looked back at the outer door to the corridor which he'd left ajar, wondering how whoever had been in the server room had gotten out. His eyes then breezed around the inside of the server room for a second time. All was in order. He looked at the server room console. It too was as he'd left it, with the monitor displaying its screen saver. Then he grasped the door and swung it back and forth on its hinges. What had suddenly occurred to him was the possibility that when he'd last been in the room, he'd not closed the door completely, and it had just swung open.

With a shrug, Randy pulled the door closed. He heard the reassuring click and then tried to push it open again. It stayed firmly locked. With a final shrug, he turned around, and with the intent of getting back to his cubicle and SCREAMER, he hurried back out into the hallway.

"IT'S OKAY, IT'S OKAY!" DEBORAH REPEATED IN A SOOTHING voice. She was holding Joanna by the shoulders, trying to calm her down. Joanna was trembling with an occasional sob. They were in the lab, standing next to the window where Deborah had spoken with Spencer earlier that morning. Mare had seen them come in, but she'd apparently noticed Joanna's distress, and respecting their privacy, she'd not come over.

Deborah had called Joanna's cell phone the moment she'd seen Randy's head suddenly pop up above the room partition just prior to his dashing from his cubicle. Deborah had to make the call on the run because Randy was moving quickly. Her worst fears were realized when Randy made a beeline for the main corridor and turned in the direction of the server room. The other problem was that she didn't see Joanna, and her intuition told her that there'd not been enough time for Joanna to have gotten out.

When Randy had gone directly to the server room's outer door and immediately gone in, any minuscule hope Deborah had entertained that he was heading elsewhere than the server room was dashed. Coming up to the door herself, she hadn't known what to do. Unable to make up her mind, she'd done nothing.

Agonizing minutes had passed. Deborah had debated whether she should go in and try to defuse whatever situation had developed. She had even envisioned charging in, grabbing Joanna, and bolting for the car. Then to her utter surprise, Randy Porter had reemerged, alone and seemingly calmer than when he'd gone in.

Deborah had quickly bent over and taken a drink from the water fountain to avoid the impression she was loitering. Randy had passed behind her; and she'd sensed his pace slowed. But he had not stopped. When she'd righted herself, Randy had been a distance away. He'd been heading back down the corridor in the direction he'd come but with his upper torso twisted to keep Deborah in sight. When he'd caught her eye he'd given her the thumbs-up sign. Deborah had blushed as it had dawned on her that a significant portion of her derriere had most likely been exposed when she'd bent over the relatively low water fountain.

"I'm not cut out for this!" Joanna said angrily in response to Deborah's attempts to calm her, although whom she was angry at."as not immediately clear. She pressed her lips together, but they quivered as if she might cry again. "I'm serious!"

Deborah shushed her.

"I'm not cut out for this," Joanna repeated, lowering her voice. I fell apart in there. I was pathetic."

"I beg to differ with you," Deborah said. "Whatever you did, it worked. He didn't see you. Ease up! You're being too hard on yourself."

"You really think so?" Joanna took several uneven breaths.

"Absolutely," Deborah said. "Anyone else, including myself, would have blown it. But you pulled it off somehow, and here we are, ready to give it another college try."

"But I'm not going back in there," Joanna said. "Forget about it."

"Are you really ready to give up after all the effort we've been through?”

"It's your turn," Joanna said. "You go in the server room. I'll stand guard.”

If I could, I would," Deborah said. "The trouble is I don't have the facility you have with computers. And you could tell me what to do until you’re blue in the face, and I guarantee I'd screw it up."

Joanna stared back at Deborah as if she were angry with her.

“I’m sorry I'm not a computer nerd," Deborah said. "But I don't think we should give up. We both want to find out what happened to our eggs, and now I have a new interest."

"I suppose you're going to make me ask what it is," Joanna muttered.

Deborah glanced over at Mare to make sure she wasn't trying to overhear their conversation. Then she lowered her voice and explained to Joanna the human eggs versus swine eggs episode that had occurred that morning. Joanna was immediately intrigued despite her distress.

"That's strange," Joanna exclaimed.

Deborah's expression suggested she hardly considered strange to be a strong enough word. "Incredible is more like it," she said. "Think about it! They spent ninety thousand dollars for a half-dozen eggs from us and then have several hundred for me to screw around with today. I mean, I'm an amateur with this nuclear-transfer stuff. That's more than strange."

"All right, it's incredible," Joanna said.

"So we have even more reason to create ourselves a pathway into their computer files," Deborah said. "I want to find out what kind of research they're doing and how they're getting all these eggs."

Joanna shook her head. "That may be an appropriate motivation, but I'm telling you: I don't think I'll be able to convince myself to go back in there."

"But we're better off than we were before," Deborah said.

"I can't see how," Joanna said.

"As near as I can tell, Mr. Randy Porter leapt up out of his seat simultaneously with your opening the server room door. That tells us he's got it wired to pop up on his monitor. I mean, it stands to reason. The timing couldn't have been a coincidence."

"I suppose that seems like a reasonable assumption," Joanna agreed. "But how does that help us?"

"Simply because it means we have to do more than watch him sit in his cubicle," Deborah said. "We've got to lure him out and keep him occupied."

Joanna nodded as she thought over what Deborah was saying. "Am I to believe you have some plan to do this?"

"Of course," Deborah said with a sly smile. "When he passed me a few minutes ago in the hall while I was bending over the water fountain, he practically got torticollis. Judging from that reaction, I'd be very surprised if I couldn't corner him in the dining room at lunch and have a chat. I trust I'll be able to keep him interested. Then, when you're finished in the server room, you can give my cell phone a call to rescue me."

Joanna nodded again, but she didn't totally agree, not right away.

"Here's how it is going to work," Deborah said, sensing Joanna's lingering doubt. "Go back to administration and make sure Randy Porter is in his cubicle. Then go to yours. I don't care if you work or not, it really doesn't matter. What matters is for you to watch for Randy Porter to leave for lunch. The moment he does, call me. That way maybe I can even intercept him on his way to the dining room, which might be easier than if I get there when he's already sitting. As soon as I make contact and it's working, I'll call you. That's when you duck back into the server room and do what you have to do. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it's far bet-.- to be doing it over the lunch hour. It makes a lot more sense. When you're finished, come directly to the dining room. You can rescue me and have lunch at the same time."

"You make it sound so easy," Joanna said.

"I honestly think it will be," Deborah said. "What do you think?"

"I suppose it sounds like a reasonable plan. But what if you start a conversation, and he breaks it off? You'd let me know?" Of course I'd call you instantly," Deborah said. "And remember! If he's in the dining room you'll have plenty of time to get out. It's not the same as when he's sitting in his cubicle."

Joanna nodded several times in a row.

"Do you feel better now about going back in there?"

"I guess," Joanna said.

"Good!" Deborah said. "Now, let's get the ball rolling. If perchance Mr. Porter is not in his cubicle when you get over there, you'd better call me. We might have to adjust the plan if we can't find him."

"All right!" Joanna said, trying to bolster her courage. She clasped hands with Deborah briefly and then turned to leave.

Deborah watched Joanna go. She knew her roommate had been seriously upset, but she also knew Joanna to be resilient. Deborah was confident that when the chips were down, Joanna could be counted on to pull through.

Deborah went back to her microscope and tried to go back to work. But it was impossible. She felt far too jazzed up for such a painstaking task as enucleating oocytes. She was also on edge in case Joanna called indicating that Randy Porter was not in his cubicle. After five minutes had passed without a call, Deborah pushed back from the lab bench and wandered over to Mare's station. The woman looked up from her microscope's eye pieces when she sensed Deborah's presence.

"I have a question," Deborah said. "Where do these eggs we're working on come from?"

Mare hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "They come from that incubator way down there near the end of the lab."

"And how do they get into the incubator?"

Mare gave Deborah a look that wouldn't have qualified as a dirty look, but it wasn't all that friendly either. "You ask a lot of questions."

"It's the sign of a budding researcher," Deborah said. "As a scientist, when you stop asking questions it's time to retire or find another calling."

"The eggs come up in a dumbwaiter inside the incubator,' Mare said. "But that's all I know. I've never been encouraged to ask, nor have I been inclined."

"Who would know?" Deborah asked.

"I imagine Miss Finnigan would know."

WITH HIS HANDS ON BOTH ARMS OF HIS CHAIR, RANDY slowly raised himself to provide a progressively more expansive view of the administration area. He wanted to see if Christine was in her cubicle without her knowing he was checking. If he stood up all the way she could see him, but by doing it slowly he could stop when he just caught sight of the top of her sizable, curly-haired head. Bingo! She was there, and Randy lowered himself back down.

With the knowledge the office manager was nearby Randy lowered the volume on his computer speakers. Although when he was home he let the sound effects roar at full volume, when he was in the office he was a realist, especially with Christine only a few cubicles away.

Next Randy pulled out his joystick. When he got that in the exact position he preferred, he adjusted his rear end in the seat pan of his chair. To game at the full level of his abilities he needed to be comfortable. When all was set to his liking, he gripped the mouse in preparation for logging onto the Internet. But then he paused. Strangely enough another thought occurred to him.

Randy had not only programmed the server room door so that he would be alerted when it was opened, he'd also programmed it so that the card swipe that opened the door would record the identity of the individual.

With a few rapid clicks of the mouse Randy brought up the appropriate window. What he expected to see was his name last on the list from when he'd gone to check the room after Helen Masterson had gone in. That would have confirmed his suspicion that the door had just opened on its own accord from his having not shut it properly. But to his surprise his name wasn't last. The last name was Dr. Spencer Wingate, the heralded founder of the clinic, and the time was 11:10 that very morning.

Randy stared at the entry with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. How could that be, he wondered. Since he was serious about his computer-gaming prowess, he kept an accurate log of his triumphs and even his rare failings. After minimizing the current window, Randy brought up his Unreal Tournament record. There it was: He'd been killed at 11:11.

Taking a deep breath, Randy rocked back in his chair, staring at the computer screen while his mind recreated his recent dash back to the server room. He estimated that it took him only a minute or two to get from his cubicle to the server room, meaning he'd arrived there about 11:12 or 11:13. If that were the case, where the hell was Dr. Wingate, who'd entered at 11:10? And if that weren't enough of a conundrum, why did the doctor leave the door ajar?

Something very strange going on, Randy thought, especially since Dr. Wingate was supposed to be semiretired even though rumor had it that he was around. Randy scratched his head, wondering what to do, if anything. He was supposed to report any security lapses to Dr. Saunders, but Randy wasn't sure there had been a lapse. As far as he was concerned, Dr. Wingate was the highest honcho in the whole organization, so how could anything that concerned him be a security lapse?

Then Randy had another idea. Maybe he'd say something to weird Kurt Hermann. The security chief had had Randy program his computer so it, too, recorded any and all openings of the card-swipe doors. That meant that Kurt already knew Dr. Wingate had been in the server room. What the security chief didn't know was that the doctor had only been in there for two minutes and had left the door open.

"Oh crap!" Randy said out loud. Worrying about all this was as bad as work. What he really wanted to do was get back on line with SCREAMER, so he tipped forward and grabbed his mouse.

"MISS FINNIGAN!" DEBORAH CALLED OUT. SHE WAS standing in the laboratory supervisor's doorway. She'd knocked on the jamb, but the depth of Megan Finnigan's concentration on her computer had precluded her from responding. But Deborah's voice had penetrated, and the woman looked up with a startled expression. She then hastily cleared her screen.

"I'd prefer it if you knocked," she said.

"I did knock," Deborah responded.

The woman tossed her head to rid her face of her bothersome strands. "I'm sorry. I'm just very busy. What can I do for you?"

"You encouraged me to come to you if I had any questions," Deborah said. "Well, I have a question."

"What is it?"

"I'm curious about where the eggs come from that I've been working on. I asked Maureen, but she said she didn't know. I mean, it's a lot of eggs. I just didn't realize they were available in such numbers."

"Availability of eggs has been one of the major limiting factors in our research from day one," Megan said. "We've devoted a lot of effort to solve the problem, and it has been one of Dr. Saunders and Dr. Donaldson's major contributions to the field. But the work is as of yet unpublished, and until it is, it is considered a trade secret." Megan smiled patronizingly and gave her head another one of her signature tosses that so annoyed Deborah. "After you've worked here for some reasonable period, and if you are still interested, I'm sure we can share with you our successes."

"I'll look forward to that," Deborah said. "One other question: What species are the eggs I've been working on?"

Megan did not answer immediately but rather returned Deborah's stare in a manner that made Deborah feel as if the lab supervisor was gauging Deborah's motives. The pause was long enough for Deborah to feel uncomfortable.

"Why are you asking this?" Megan questioned finally.

"As I said, I'm just curious," Deborah responded. Megan's responses to her simple questions were answers in themselves. Deborah felt she was not going to get a straight answer and at that point wanted to leave. She had the sense that her further questioning would only draw unwanted attention.

"I'm not immediately sure which protocol Maureen is working under," Megan said. "I'd have to look it up, but at the moment I'm too busy."

"I understand," Deborah said. "Thank you for your time."

"Don't mention it," Megan responded. She smiled insincerely.

Deborah was relieved to return to her microscope. Going to the supervisor's office had not been a good or particularly productive impulse. Deborah went back to work but had managed to enucleate only one oocyte when her curiosity, heightened by her short conversation with Megan, got the best of her again. Merely looking at the mass of oocytes in the microscopic field begged the question about their origin, especially if they were human eggs as Deborah suspected.

Leaning back, Deborah gazed over at Mare, who was ignoring her as she'd essentially been doing since the verbal skirmish with Paul Saunders over the eggs' identity. A quick glance around the huge lab convinced Deborah that none of the dozen or so people toiling away were paying her any heed either.

Grabbing her purse as if she intended to go to the ladies' room, Deborah slid off her stool and headed out into the main corridor. Believing she'd only be working at the Wingate for that one day, she decided the eggs' origin was too much of a mystery to ignore. She didn't know if she could sleuth it out, but she thought she'd learn what she could while she had the chance.

Deborah walked down the corridor in the direction of the central tower until she reached the last of the three doors leading from the corridor into the lab. Leaning into the lab, she could see Mare a good distance away, hunched over her scope. To Deborah's immediate right was the walk-in incubator where Mare had been going for the petri dishes full of eggs. Deborah went to its glass door, slid it open, and stepped inside.

The air was warm and moist. A large wall-mounted thermometer and humidistat indicated it was exactly 98.6°F with one hundred percent humidity. Shelves for the petri dishes lined both sides of the narrow room. At the rear was the dumbwaiter, but it was a far cry from its initial incarnation when it had served to bring food up to the wards from the institution's basement kitchen. It was made of stainless steel instead of the usual wood, with a glass door and glass shelves. For a dumbwaiter it was large, about the size of a highboy chest of drawers. It also had its own auxiliary heat and humidifying source to make sure it, too, stayed at the proper temperature and humidity.

Deborah pushed on the dumbwaiter to see if it would move enough to give her a view down the shaft, but it was rock solid. It was obviously a highly engineered piece of equipment. Deborah stepped back and eyed the unit. She guessed the back of the shaft was common with the wall of the main corridor.

Leaving the incubator, she went back out into the main hall and gauged where the dumbwaiter shaft was located. Then she paced off the distance to the stairwell near the fire door to the central tower. Using the old metal stairway, she climbed up to the third floor. When she opened the door she was surprised.

Although she vaguely remembered Dr. Donaldson saying the vast old institution, save for the small portion occupied by the Wingate, was like a museum, she was unprepared for what she was looking at. It was as if sometime in the nineteen-twenties everybody, professional staff and patients alike, had just walked out leaving everything behind. There were old desks, wooden gurneys, and antique-appearing wheel chairs lining the dark hall. Huge cobweb-like strands hung like garlands from Victorian light fixtures. There were even old, framed Currier and Ives prints hanging askew on the walls. The floor was covered with a thick layer of dust and pieces of plaster that had fallen from the shallowly vaulted ceiling.

Superstitiously Deborah covered her mouth and tried to breath shallowly as she paced off the distance from the stairwell. She knew intellectually that any of the tubercular organisms and any of the other miasma that had at one time roamed the halls were long gone, but she still felt vulnerable and uneasy.

Once she had an approximate fix on where the dumbwaiter shaft was, she entered the nearest door. Not unexpectedly, she found herself in a windowless room which had served as a butler's pantry complete with cupboards full of institutional dishes and flatware. There were even some old warming ovens with their doors ajar. In the semidarkness they looked like huge dead animals with their mouths open.

The dumbwaiter shaft's doors were where she expected them to be. They were designed to open vertically like a freight elevator, but when Deborah pulled on the frayed canvas strap, it was obvious there was a fail-safe mechanism to keep them locked until the dumbwaiter itself had arrived.

Brushing her hands free of the dust, Deborah retraced her steps back to the stairwell and climbed to the fourth and top floor. She found the situation the same as on the third floor. Returning to the stairwell, she descended to the first floor.

When Deborah emerged from the stairwell, she knew instantly that the eggs did not come from there. The first floor had been renovated even more dramatically than the second floor to house the Wingate Clinic's clinical operations, and at that time of the morning it was in full swing with a constant flux of doctors, nurses, and patients. Deborah had to step to the side to allow an occupied gurney to go by.

Dodging the crowd, Deborah paced off the distance from the stairwell to where she guessed the dumbwaiter shaft was, behind the corridor wall. Leaving the corridor, she found herself in a patient-treatment area. Where the dumbwaiter shaft's doors should have been located, she was confronted by a shallow linen closet. It was immediately obvious to her that there was no opening for the dumbwaiter on the first floor.

A simple process of elimination left only the basement as the eggs' origin. Deborah headed back to the stairwell. To get down there she had to descend three flights instead of the two that had separated each of the upper floors. This suggested to her that the basement would have a higher ceiling, but it turned out not to be the case. There was a mezzanine floor of sorts between the basement and the first floor, composed of a myriad of piping and ductwork.

The basement had the appearance of a dungeon with infrequent bare-bulb lighting. The walls were exposed brick with arched ceilings, and the floor, granite slabs. The unease Deborah had felt up on the third and forth floors was magnified in the gloomy basement. It, too, contained a multitude of mementos of its mental-institution, TB-sanitarium past, but here they were more decrepit as if abandoned in dank, shadowed recesses. Deborah's immediate feeling was that if there were any of the old infectious agents lingering in the building, this was where they'd live.

Girding herself against the power of her own imagination, Deborah proceeded to pace off the distance from the stairwell as best she could. The floor plan did not have the simple central corridor like all the floors above. It was considerably more mazelike, requiring her to be more creative in judging the distance while proceeding in a zigzag course around massive supporting piers.

As she passed through an archway and skirted a large kitchen with spacious metal countertops, huge ovens, and soapstone sinks, Deborah confronted something she'd not expected: a blank, modern, metallic door with no handle, hinges, or even lock.

Tentatively Deborah reached out in the semidarkness and lightly touched the shiny surface. She guessed it was stainless steel. Curiously, however, it was not cold but rather felt comfortably warm to her touch. She glanced around in the half-light at all the old kitchen equipment, then back to the shiny door. The incongruity was startling. Placing her ear against the door, she could hear the hum of machinery within. She listened for several minutes, hoping to hear voices, but she didn't. Moving back from the door, she caught sight of a card swipe just like the one outside the server-room door. At that moment she wished she had Wingate's card.

After a moment of indecision and a brief argument with herself, Deborah reached out and knocked on the door with her knuckle. It resonated solidly as if thick. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted anyone to answer, and no one did. Gaining in confidence, she pushed against the door, but it was immovable. Using the heel of her fist, she hit around the periphery of the door just to see if she could determine where the latch was. She couldn't.

Shrugging her shoulders in the face of such an impenetrable barrier, Deborah turned and retraced her steps back to the stairwell. It was almost noon, and time to return upstairs to wait for Joanna's call. Deborah had learned little on her foray, but at least she'd tried. She thought that maybe, if all went well, she could come back in the afternoon with Wingate's card. The stainless-steel door and what might be behind it had definitely piqued her curiosity.