Invasive Procedures Page 2

  “It means that we’re offering you a hot meal and a warm bed to sleep in tonight.”

  “Whose bed?” she said immediately. “I’m not that kind of woman, if that’s what you’re—”

  He laughed heartily, throwing his head back so far that his hood slid off and his bushy mane of white hair was exposed again. “No no no,” he said. “Nothing like that. You’ll get your own bed. Trust me.”

  A warm bed. A soft one. And more food. “Free of charge?” she asked.

  “Free of charge.”

  She stared at him a long moment, waiting for the punch line or catch. When one didn’t come—

  “All right,” she said. “Mind getting off that ladder so I can snake out?”

  Galen obligingly descended. Dolores wriggled out and carefully climbed down after him.

  They drove north along the Pacific Coast Highway. That was the first bad sign. Dolores had assumed they’d be heading back into LA, toward downtown, where a lot of the nonprofits had their offices, not north toward Malibu.

  She was sitting between Hal and some other guy. Hal, she had learned, was the drunk man who had collapsed at the playground. Galen had asked him his name rather nicely when they had pulled over to let him throw up.

  If Dolores thought he smelled bad before, it was nothing compared to the odors he was giving off now. No hot meal is worth this, she thought.

  At least the homeless kid on her left wasn’t drunk. He seemed pretty normal, in fact. Fifteen or sixteen at the most, with black stringy hair tied back in a ponytail and thrashed black combat boots. Most punks his age would be running at the mouth and complaining about something. But not this kid. He just stared out the window and kept to himself.

  “I’m Dolores,” she said. The idea of free food and a warm bed had suddenly put her in a good mood.

  The kid in the ponytail looked at her. “Nick.”

  Dolores smiled. “Nick. Now that’s a name. Can’t say I know many Nicks. Course there’s Jolly Saint Nick. You know him. Man, I love me some Christmas. Presents, stockings, those fancy decorations in all the store windows. Course some people have forgotten why we have it. They forget it’s the Lord’s birthday. It’s a shame, don’t you think?”

  Nick returned his gaze to the window and said nothing.

  So much for polite conversation, thought Dolores.

  Behind her, sitting alone in the very back seat was another boy, Nick’s friend, also homeless by the looks of him, with the face of a junkie if Dolores had ever seen one. Kid probably wasn’t a day over fourteen, although the drugs made him look much older. He had shaggy black hair, wore a tattered trench coat, and sported a tattoo of a snake, which began somewhere under his collar and extended up the side of his neck.

  “Your friend Nick don’t talk much,” said Dolores, turning in her seat to face him.

  “Not much to say, I guess,” said the boy.

  “What about you? What’s your name?”

  “Why? You taking a census?”

  Dolores made a face. “You’re the funny one, huh? The Teller?”

  “The what?”

  “Teller. You know? Penn and Teller. Magicians. One of ’em talks and the other one doesn’t. Maybe it’s Penn who talks. I can’t remember which. Marx Brothers had the same gag. Harpo never said a thing, just played the harp and honked this little horn.”

  “I’m Jonathan,” the boy said.

  “Like Saint John. From the Bible.”

  “No, just Jonathan.”

  “Fair enough. You and your friend Nick come along for the free food too, I take it?”

  Jonathan looked out the window. “Yeah. We could use some free food.”

  You and me both, thought Dolores. You and me both.

  Up in the passenger seat, Galen sat whistling and tapping his fingers on the armrest. The driver was one of the big Healers, possibly the biggest Dolores had ever seen, nearly seven feet tall and thick as a horse. Unlike Galen, he seemed on edge, both hands on the steering wheel, leaning forward slightly as if the van wasn’t going fast enough for him. The Healer named Lichen sat behind Galen near the sliding door. He wasn’t nearly as large as the driver, but he was big enough to make Dolores wonder how many hours a day he spent in a gym.

  “Where’s this place we’re headed?” Jonathan asked.

  Galen turned around in the passenger seat and smiled. “Close, Jonathan. We should be there shortly.”

  “Seems awful far,” said Nick.

  Galen merely smiled again. “I hope everyone likes pot roast,” he said. “It’s been simmering for hours now. And twice-baked potatoes.”

  Well that sounded right tasty to Dolores. She couldn’t remember the last time she had pot roast. Nowadays it was just whatever looked edible, put it in your mouth and chew. Don’t ask what it is. Don’t ask where it came from. It’s got nutrients you need. So eat it.

  Yes, sir. I could go for some juicy pot roast about now.

  Hal was of another opinion. “Pull over,” he said. “Gotta puke.”

  The van immediately pulled over and the door slid open. Hal was out in flash, dry heaving over some sagebrush.

  Dolores wasn’t sure which kind of vomiting sounded worse, wet or dry.

  “Shouldn’t drink so much,” said Galen.

  “You don’t say,” said Hal.

  Dolores shook her head. This was downright unappetizing.

  “You’ll feel better once we get some coffee in you,” Galen said.

  Hal nodded. “Just give me a second.” He was still on his knees on the asphalt as he bent over and retched again. If it weren’t for the soundtrack, you’d think the guy was praying.

  It was pathetic, really. Dolores couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man.

  Hal stayed there for the longest time, not moving.

  The other two Healers didn’t like this one bit. The driver kept looking at his watch and then up the road, like he was expecting someone or had an appointment to keep. Lichen stood outside with Hal, standing over him like a fidgety prison guard.

  “It’s late, sir,” the driver said.

  Galen put a finger to his lips. “Patience, Stone.” He rolled down the passenger window. “Are you all right, Hal?”

  “Fine,” Hal said. Then he slowly got to his feet. Galen got out of the van and helped him back inside. It was kind, the way the old man treated him—paying no attention to the smell and not minding having to touch his filthy clothes. Like the Lord, Dolores thought: reaching out and healing the blind and the lepers.

  They hadn’t driven two miles when they pulled over yet again. This time for a hitchhiker.

  Are we driving or not? Dolores wanted to scream. All this talk of pot roast has worked up a hunger. Let’s get a move on.

  Galen rolled down his window. “Need a ride?”

  “More than you know,” the hitchhiker said, jogging up to the passenger window. “Thank you for stopping.”

  “The pleasure is ours,” Galen said. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Byron.”

  Dolores thought him a scruffy-looking fellow. Byron carried no bags, but he looked like a drifter. Three-day beard. Dirty blue jeans. A baseball cap with the Mack truck logo on the front. A denim jacket.

  Galen, however, didn’t seem to mind the man’s appearance. He looked Byron up and down, as if measuring him for a suit, and said, “Get in. We’ll give you a lift.”

  “Thank you.”

  The door slid open, and Byron climbed in, taking a seat behind Dolores, next to Jonathan. As soon as Lichen had the door closed, Stone had the van in gear and on the road again.

  Galen turned around in the seat. “I’m George Galen,” he said, then, pointing to the driver and the Healer behind him, “These are my companions, Stone and Lichen. My other guests are Hal, Dolores, Nick, and Jonathan there beside you.”

  Byron gave a vague wave and smiled at everyone, not looking particularly comfortable with the crowd or the smell. “Nice to meet you,” he said. Then he addressed G
alen. “My car broke down, and I couldn’t find a phone. Nothing’s open at this hour.”

  “Your car?” Galen asked, as if he was surprised the man owned one.

  “You probably passed it a mile or so back.” he said. “I would’ve used my cell phone, but it ran out of juice. How’s that for luck?”

  “We have a phone back at the shelter,” Galen said. “You’re welcome to use that one.”

  “That’s very kind. Thank you.”

  Dolores caught Stone, the driver, eyeing Byron through the rearview mirror with a look of suspicion, like he suspected him to be trouble.

  After a long silence Byron said, “You’re Healers, right?”

  “That’s right,” said Galen.

  “I’ve seen you around,” said Byron. “You do a lot for the community. That’s very commendable.”

  “We heal what needs mending,” said Galen.

  They passed two all-night gas stations, and Byron asked to be let out both times.

  “Don’t be silly,” Galen said. “It’s warmer at the shelter. You’ll be much more comfortable there.” When they left the Pacific Coast Highway and started driving up into the mountains, Dolores got nervous.

  “Must be a pretty secluded shelter,” Byron said. “I hope whoever I call can find it.”

  Galen said nothing. Nor was he whistling anymore.

  After a half a dozen turns up unlit roads, the van pulled onto a gravel drive.

  Finally, Dolores thought. Finally we’re going to stop. This driveway can’t be long.

  But it was long. They drove for another ten minutes, twisting and turning, the tires grinding the gravel. Dolores was beyond nervous now. She was the only woman in a van of six men, more than a day’s walk from the pier. She shouldn’t have agreed to go. She should have stayed in the cold. This was too far away, too strange.

  She gripped the tennis racket tucked in her bag between her feet.

  She wanted to make a break for it, push Hal and Lichen out of the way, slide open the door, and jump.

  “I want to get out,” Nick said.

  “No kidding,” murmured Byron.

  Galen said nothing.

  Then the gravel road widened and they pulled up to a building. The driver stopped the van and Galen turned around to face them.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  They all looked out the window. Dolores’s heart sank. This was no shelter. And no home either.

  She turned back and saw that Lichen was holding a gun, or something that looked like a gun. “Everybody out,” he said.

  Beside her, Nick began to cry.

  2

  RECRUIT

  Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hartman stepped into the decontamination room, wearing his biocontainment suit and feeling his heart rate quicken. Despite having crossed this threshold hundreds of times before, Frank still occasionally felt the sickening knot of dread in his stomach or the quickening of his pulse as he prepared to enter Biosafety Level 4. It was a natural reaction. Level 4 was possibly the most dangerous man-made environment in all the world and certainly the most dangerous here at the United States Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. It was here that the military housed and studied the world’s deadliest viruses, viruses like Ebola or Marburg, microscopic devils that had the tendency to turn one’s innards into black gooey messes and for which there was no known cure or treatment.

  Frank checked the air valve on his suit and took a few deep breaths of fresh oxygen.

  The breathing calmed him, and the sound of his breaths echoed in his helmet as the doors closed behind him.

  The decon room, no larger than an elevator, was the last wall of defense between Level 4 and happy-go-lucky taxpaying Americans. As the lights went out, Frank became very still. Tight beams of ultraviolet light emitted from the walls and scanned him for contaminants. He thought it a silly exercise to be scanned before entering Level 4 as well as after, but such was the military. Everything had its order and tradition, be it ass-backward or not.

  The ultraviolet light dancing around him suddenly went out, and the bright fluorescent light above him illuminated.

  A computerized female voice said, “Decontamination complete. Please enter your access code.”

  A row of numbers composed of light appeared on the wall.

  Frank extended a gloved finger and entered a complex series of digits.

  His yellow biosuit, which covered every inch of him, was made of a thick, puncture-resistant rubber that weighed heavily on his shoulders and looked about three sizes too big. A utility belt at his hip held several pouches and a holster sporting a shiny injection gun. The helmet had a single pane of Plexiglas across its front with a comlink just below Frank’s mouth. The inside of the suit smelled strongly of baby powder.

  “Welcome, Dr. Hartman,” the computerized voice said. “You are cleared for entry.”

  Frank felt and heard the rush of air as the fans behind him turned on, blowing fiercely. The entry doors opened, and Frank stepped over the threshold and into Level 4. The fans were a precautionary measure, preventing airborne pathogens from escaping Level 4 during entry. Once the doors closed behind him, the fans slowed until all was silent.

  Frank looked down the long empty corridor that stretched before him and felt the twinge of fear again, tickling at his spine. Two more breaths and all was well.

  The floor, like the ceiling and walls, was a blinding spotless white, the one exception being the large red biohazard symbol painted on it at the entrance.

  Frank waddled down the corridor. Moving in the suit, with its size and weight and rubberiness, was always awkward. Frank had made a joke once that researchers here looked like the offspring of an astronaut and a rubber duck.

  He passed through another series of doors, each with its own security access, until he came to a room lined with glass holding cells.

  The cells were four feet deep, four feet wide, and stretched floor to ceiling, like tall glass lockers. Inside each, suspended from the ceiling at eye level, was a cage. Inside each cage sat a small, bleary-eyed monkey. Frank approached the first cell and tapped the glass. At the sight of Frank, the monkey sprang to its feet and shook the cage bars violently.

  “Well, aren’t you a fireball this morning?” Frank said.

  He turned to a computer terminal mounted on the wall and entered a command.

  The monkey looked up as blue gas poured into the cell from an air vent in the ceiling.

  The gas swirled and billowed into multiple tendrils of vapor as it slowly descended toward the cage.

  The monkey, wide-eyed with terror, shook the bars again vigorously, screaming in a panicked frenzy.

  Frank felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t often that he used animals as test subjects, but sometimes the occasion required it. When it did, the cold detachment necessary for such work somehow eluded him. He found himself liking the animals, giving them names, even—the cardinal sin of science.

  “It’s only a sedative,” he said, annoyed for feeling the need to explain himself. “It’s not going to kill you.”

  The monkey continued screaming.

  “I can’t have you biting me. If you’d keep your trap shut when I’m in there, we wouldn’t have to do it this way.”

  The gas billowed into the animal’s face.

  After a moment, the monkey staggered, then slumped lazily to the cage floor, fast asleep.

  Frank entered another command into the computer, and the ventilation fan stopped and spun in the opposite direction, sucking the gas back up into the air shaft. A loud buzzer followed, sounding an all clear, then the holding-cell door hissed open. Frank waddled inside, opened the cage, and clipped a heart monitor on one of the monkey’s fingers. The monitor beeped, and a bead of light, bouncing up and down rhythmically, appeared on the LCD screen.

  Good, he thought. Heart rate’s normal.

  He set the monitor aside and lifted the monkey’s limp right arm. Then, being careful not to pri
ck himself, he uncapped a needle, found a suitable vein, and took a small blood sample. When done, he dropped the used syringe into the biohazard chute at the back of the cell and slid the vial of blood into a pouch at his hip.

  The monkey sighed quietly but didn’t move.

  Almost done, girl.

  Frank removed the injection gun from his holster and turned off the safety. A vial of red serum sloshed inside the injection tube. He placed the tip of the gun against the monkey’s thigh and squeezed the trigger. The serum shot into the monkey’s leg. When the needle retracted, Frank holstered the gun and gathered his things.

  “This could be your last dose, girl. If you keep getting better, I’ll get you a really big banana.”

  He exited the holding cell and went through a series of doors until he reached the main lab and heart of Level 4. It was an expansive room, filled with humming diagnostic machines centered around a twelve-foot-tall electron microscope in the middle of the room.

  Frank put the vial of monkey’s blood into a glass containment box and vacuum-sealed the lid. Then he sat in front of the box and inserted his gloved hands into the gloves attached to the box. It was cumbersome working this way, gloves on top of gloves, but he couldn’t risk contaminating the sample.

  Carefully he uncapped the vial and, using an eyedropper, placed a drop of blood onto a slide. A robotic arm whisked the slide away and slid it into the electron microscope.

  Moments later, the electron micrograph appeared on the monitor.

  It looked clean. There were no virions that Frank could see. The blood appeared completely virus free.

  Frank knew better than to get too excited. The monkey was only a single subject. He couldn’t be certain that it had been the red countervirus he had been administering that was responsible for eradicating the virus.

  Still, after all the success he had had in eradicating the virus in petri dishes using the same red countervirus, Frank felt optimistic.

  There was a beep in his headset, and a woman’s voice sounded. “Dr. Hartman?”

  Frank recognized the singsonginess of the voice at once and resisted the urge to sigh audibly. It was General Temin’s secretary, and her calling meant only one thing.