Syndrome Page 31

  "You know, life has been good to me," Bartlett declared as though thinking out loud. "I've done and seen things most mortals can only dream of. I'm sixty-seven, but I feel as though I've only just begun to live. And that's what I intend to happen." He turned back to Stone. "Whether I have a son to share this with remains to be seen."

  A son? Stone glanced back at the man Bartlett had called Ken, who was now shutting down the McDonnell Douglas. Maybe he was a surrogate son for Bartlett. He was clearly a lot more than a bodyguard. He’d been the one who nabbed Kristen and returned her to the reservation. So what didhethink of whatever was going on? Or what about Ally's brother, Grant? He'd claimedhewas the son Bartlett longed for and had never had.

  Winston Bartlett already had a surfeit of sons.

  When they walked through the door and into the hallway of the third floor, it was milling with the breakfast crowd, nurses and patients, but no one took any special notice of Winston Bartlett, the man who had made it all possible. Did they even know who he was? Stone wondered.

  "We're going downstairs." Bartlett directed him toward the elevator. "I'm still offering you a choice. You can be part of the biggest medical advance in human history, or you can be just another impediment."

  Stone glanced at his watch. The hour was just shy of nine.

  Where is Ally? What kind of procedure has she undergone? Is she okay?He had to find her.

  As they headed down, he felt like it was a descent into some pit of no return. Winston Bartlett had not elaborated on what awaited down there. It was as though he couldn't bring himself to face whatever it really was.

  What was the worst-case scenario at this point?

  What he had to do was figure that out and then plan a countermove.

  Chapter 32

  Friday, April 10

  7:48p.m.

  There are sounds of doors opening and closing, with whispered words that are like alien hisses. She senses she is in motion, on a bed that is gliding past powerful overhead lights.

  She doesn't know where she is, but that doesn't matter, because wherever it was, she knows it surely is a dream.

  All she remembers is that Karl Van de Vliet had told her he wants her to undergo a second procedure with the telomerase enzyme, which possibly might create sufficient antibodies to reverse. . It's all a jumble now in her mind.

  Or had she just dreamed all that? Now her life seems a flowing river that has no beginning and no end. Her mind is drifting, a cork bobbing helplessly in the current.

  Then her brother, Grant, drifts alongside her. At least she thinks it's Grant. She recognizes his voice.

  "Ally, can you hear me?" he seems to be asking. "Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you still want to go through with this?"

  It's the kind of dream where she can hear things around her, but when she tries to speak, no sounds will come. Instead, she's talking inside her head.

  I'm afraid. I'm just afraid.

  "I can still try to get you out, but you have to help. I waited for you last night but you never came."

  She wants to say,yes, get me out, but she can only speak in the dream.

  Now the lighting changes and she feels like she is falling. No, she realizes, she's just on an elevator.

  "Talk to me, Ally," whispers the voice one last time. "I can try to stop them, but I have to know what you want."

  Then a door opens and she floats through it and out. Then comes the clanking of a door that reminds her of the steel air lock she'd gone through last night looking for Kristen. The smells. She's in the laboratory.

  "We can take her from here," comes a voice, drifting through her reverie.

  She fantasizes it's Karl Van de Vliet. Or maybe he really is there. In her dream state it's hard to know. But he isn't alone.

  "You said you'd make one more attempt to create the antibodies. Is. . "

  It's Winston Bartlett. Or at least it sounds like him.

  "I said I would do all I could, W.B. The first attempt. . you know what happened. I got almost no results, but I gave you an injection of all I managed to garner. Today I spent the day doing simulations. We're working closer to the edge than I thought. That's why I needed her down at the lab tonight. I want to run some more tests and then try to make a decision. Tonight. There's just a hell of a lot more risk than I first thought."

  The voice trails off and Ally finds herself trying to comprehend "risk."

  She hears "beta" again and it floats through her mind, but now its meaning is unclear. It's something she'd heard but can no longer place.

  "Ally," comes a ghostly voice. Surely this is a dream, and she recognizes it as her father, Arthur. Now she can see him. He's wearing a white cap and they're boating in Central Park. He shows up in her dreams a lot and she feels he's the messenger of her unconscious, telling her truths that she sometimes doesn't want to hear.

  "Ally," he says, "he's going to perform the full Beta procedure on you. He didn't tell you, but you know it's true. He thinks he's finally calculated everything right. Can't you see? Is that what you want?"

  She isn't sure what she wants. And right now she isn't entirely clear where she fits on the scale of sleeping/waking. It is so bizarre. The two parts of her mind, the conscious and the unconscious, are talking to each other. Her unconscious is warning her about fears she didn't even know she had. Or at least she hadn't admitted to yet.

  Then she hears Winston Bartlett's voice again.

  "Karl, we can't save Kristen now. I've finally realized that. She's gone too far. It's just a tragedy we'll have to figure out how to live with."

  "The body is a complex chemical laboratory that sometimes gets out of balance. There's always hope. I think-"

  "Know whatIfucking think?" Bartlett cuts him off. "I think I'm in line for the Syndrome if you don't get this right."

  What Ally wants to do, more than anything else, is to make sense of what her options are. The most obvious one- in fact, maybe the only one-is to flow along with that infinite river she feels around her, just to lie where she is, in this sedative-induced reverie, and let her body be taken over by Karl Van de Vliet. Perhaps he has marvelous things in store for her. Except she has no idea what's real and what is imaginary.

  "The simulations are giving me some idea of what went wrong with the Beta before." The voice is Van de Vliet's. "I have one more test to run, but if I handled this the way the simulation now suggests, I think I could actually generate the telomerase antibodies we need and get the Beta to finally work, avoiding the Syndrome. But to prove it would require a full-scale experiment. I'm reluctant to do that without Alexa's permission."

  "Christ, Karl, are you getting cold feet? This is a hell of a time for that."

  "Call it a pang of rationality."

  "But everything is at stake."

  "I don't know what's eventually going to happen with the Syndrome, but it's criminal to jeopardize any more lives." Van de Vliet sighs. "Look, you had the procedure of your own free will, and you knew the risks. Alexa Hampton didn't volunteer for the Beta. She's not a lab rat. At the very least, we ought to get her to sign a release. The liability is. . In any case, I'm not doing anything till I run this last test. Then maybe I'll have some idea exactly how much risk is involved."

  "And then, by God we're going to do it. Tonight. This is it."

  She feels a cold metal object insinuate itself against her chest. Time rushes around her, sending her forward on a journey that seems increasingly inevitable. Where it's taking her, she has no idea, but she senses she no longer has an option of whether she wants to go or not.

  Now her dreamscape has become crowded as Grant drifts in once more. He seems to be wearing a white lab coat like the others. He settles beside her and takes her hand

  "Ally, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be here for you."

  Grant,why are you here?Do you really give adamnabout me?

  She wants to talk to him, but the words aren't working. Why is this happening?

  Don't let th
em give you more medications, she tells herself.Get your mind back and get out of here.

  Chapter 33

  Friday, April 10

  8:45p.m.

  Ellen O'Hara had not left after the day shift ended at sixp.m. Instead, she had told Dr. Van de Vliet that she wanted to reorganize some of the NIH paper files she kept in her office on the first floor. The truth was, she had become convinced that the culmination of something deeply evil was scheduled for later that night.

  The evil had begun when Kristen Starr's mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she'd been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the institute from wherever she'd been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbasement the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman.

  Then this morning, Bartlett and his Japanese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied Alexa Hampton, but he wasn't put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs.

  May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she’d met once when they were on a public-health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for theNew YorkSentinel.

  Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton.

  Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem-cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She’d begun responding in a matter of hours.

  She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbasement?

  Now Ellen O'Hara knew the reason.

  She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they'd performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight.

  The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it.

  She was nervous about confronting Van de Vliet, but she didn't know what she could say that wouldn't sound like an indictment. Still, she was damned well determined to do it.

  If nothing else, it would provide a diversion.

  She put away the files and walked out into the dim hallway, then made her way into the reception area.

  "Everything all right, Grace?" she asked the nurse at the desk.

  "My, you're working late," came the pleasant reply. "Quiet as a mouse around here. I guess it'll be even quieter when the clinical trials are finished. I mean, after the celebrating is over."

  "Right."But they're not over, Ellen thought. And there may

  notbea celebration. "I'm going down to sublevel one. Is Dr. Vee down there now?"

  "I think he's in his office. Everybody else went out for a bite, probably that diner down the road. I think something's scheduled for later on. I don't know. Everybody looks kind of worried."

  "Well, nobody has said anything to me."They don't need to, she thought.I saw the file.

  She swiped her card through the security slot and got onto the elevator.

  When she stepped off, the laboratory was dark and a light was showing under Dr. Van de Vliet's office door.

  Good. She swiped her card in the reader next to the laboratory air lock and went in. Another swipe and she was on the elevator down to the subbasement, where she was not authorized to be.

  She went to the second door and slipped her card through the slot, wondering what she would see.

  The room was dark and smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. She quickly closed the door behind her before turning on the overhead fluorescents.

  Alexa Hampton was secured to the bed with restraints, and she appeared to be sedated, though she did slowly open her eyes as the light flickered and then stabilized. There was a wheelchair in the corner.

  "Ms. Hampton, can you hear me?" she whispered, hoping not to alarm her. "Do you remember me? I was the one who helped you when you were first admitted."

  She watched as Alexa stared at her for a moment and then quietly nodded.

  "I. . I want to get out of here." Her eyelids fluttered and then she closed her eyes again. "But I'm too weak. I can't move."

  "You're strapped down, love. Let me help you."

  She reached for the Velcro straps and then paused. Was this a decision she wanted to make?

  If I do this, it's the end of my career here. Have I lost my mind? What will I do after this?

  But if I don't try to stop them, God knows what. . we could all end up convicted of criminal conspiracy and in prison.

  "That reporter friend of yours is here." She pulled open the straps, then helped Alexa sit up in the bed and swing her legs around. "I'm going to take you to him."

  "It's so horrible," Ally went on. She was settling into the wheelchair as though she expected it. Then she looked up, her eyes dazed. "Where are you taking me? 'Reporter'? Do you mean-"

  "Like I said I'm moving you into your friend's room."

  She rolled her to the door, then stopped and cracked it and peeked out.

  "Don't say a word dear," she whispered as she began pushing Alexa down the hall. There was a pale flickering light under the door at the end. "Debra and David and the others have all gone out to the diner down the road and Dr. Vee is in his office, probably running some last-minute computer simulations. But we need to be quiet."

  The fluorescent lights seemed to swirl overhead.This all feels so familiar, Ally thought.This is where I saw Kristen. Does Ellen know what happened to her?

  "You two have to decide what you want to do."

  "Stone? You're sure he's here?"

  "Yes," she said "and he's in some kind of battle of wills with Mr. Bartlett."

  When they reached the door at the end she tried it and it was locked. She pulled out her magnetic card and zipped it through the slot.

  As they went through, Ally realized the room was lit only by the glow of a laptop computer screen.

  "Stay here," Ellen said turning to leave. "I'm going to try to talk to Dr. Vee."

  As the door closed Stone finally looked up. He was wearing a sweater and jeans and had been typing furiously on a Gerex laptop.

  "Hey, how're you feeling?" He paused to glance down and save what he'd been writing, then clicked off the computer.

  "I have no idea." Something about him didn't seem quite right. It was like he was on happy pills or something. "How about you? The last time I saw you, I was passing out."

  "I don't actually remember all that much of what happened after that. I think I went back to the city. But I feel great now. Like I went through a dark tunnel and came out the other side. I feel very different. I don't know what's next, but right now I'm just happy to be in the middle of the biggest story in the history of medical science."

  What's going on with him?she wondered.He's spacey. He has to be on some kind of drug. What have they done to him?

  He closed the laptop, then reached and clicked on a light by the bed. "Come on. Want to see something incredible? It's a marvel of medical science, never before happened."

  "What-"

  "Come with me. I guarantee you've never seen anything like it."

  He tossed the laptop onto the bed, then swung his feet around and settled them onto the floor. She noticed that the room was a pale blue, with white linoleum. There was a pair of white slippers next to the bed.

  He slipped them on and then opened the door and grabbed her wheelchair.

  The hallway felt colder now, yet it was also stifling, as though someone had drawn the air out of it.

  "There's nothing we can do," Stone said.

  There was a hint of ma
dness in his voice. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that he was still sane, and it wasn't working. He was just barely holding it together.

  Then she realized he was about to go into intensive care, where Kristen had been.

  "So Kristen's still here?"

  "Oh, you'd better believe it," he said. "She is most definitely still here."

  When they got to the door, he revolved back.

  "Ally, you really don't have to see this, you know. Not if you'd rather. . Nothing remotely like this is going to happen to you. They assured me."

  What the hell is he talking about?

  "On the other hand," he went on, "maybe youshouldsee it. Maybe everybody in the world should see it. It's so astonishing."

  He pushed open the door and rolled her in. Then he reached down and lifted her to her feet. Standing wasn't that hard, and somehow he had known that.

  The room seemed to be captured in mist, though surely that was her imagination. Everything must be her imagination.

  Kristen was in the corner of the room, in a wheelchair, but now her body was shriveled. No, shriveled was not the right word. In fact, there might not be a word to describe the change. Her skin was smooth and flawless. She didn't look like this the last time Ally saw her and now she wondered how long ago that actually was. How many hours, or days?

  The bones were the same as always; in her cheeks the underlying structure was sharp and severe and elegant. But there wasn't enough flesh on them. They were reminiscent of what happens at puberty, when the body starts changing in ways that aren't well coordinated.

  That was it. Kristen had become a child-it was in her innocent eyes-except that her body was now the flesh of a child over the bone structure of an adult.

  It scarcely seemed like the same person from the last time. She had crossed some mystical divide. She was holding a large rag doll-where did she get that? Ally wondered-and humming the tune of the ditty that ended with "Now I know my ABC's. Tell me what you think of me."

  "She can't talk," Stone was saying. "I mean, actually communicate. Or at least she doesn't seem to want to. I've already tried. But isn't what's happened incredible? There's never been anything like this in history. The replacement cells are making her body newer and newer, so she's getting younger and younger."