"Yes?"
"Thought I'd give you a chance to act like a doctor," said Finn.
"I am a doctor." The words were so icy they could have cut.
"Practicing is a usual component in that description." There was the briefest flare of pain in those green eyes, and Finn both exulted and felt guilty that he had scored a hit. The guilt won out, and he offered an olive branch. "I also really need your expertise on the genetic front."
Her interest was piqued, and Finn shook his head over the researcher's mind.
"What's the situation?" van Renssaeler asked, and Finn outlined it as best he could.
He concluded by saying, "She is a joker, but she doesn't look ... well, real jokerish, so you - " He realized he was about to commit a real major social faux pas, and he cut off abruptly.
"So I what?" van Renssaeler asked softly.
They matched stares for what felt like several centuries.
"So you won't be too disgusted by her appearance," Finn finally said.
For an instant van Renssaeler kept her poker face, then the facade crumbled. "I try to hide it," she said softly.
"You don't succeed."
He held the door for her, and tried not to care when she used all available space to avoid contact.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
They stopped at the nurses' station to pick up the woman's chart. Clara scanned it swiftly, with Finn standing by. She saw from the amino results that the fetus was a carrier, a girl. The joker mother was twenty-three weeks along - too early for the baby to have any real chance if they went in after her.
Clara studied the blood test results, and shook her head.
"Looks bad. Her T-cell count is way up. It looks as though the mother's immune system has identified the fetus as an invader, and is trying to destroy her."
"No shit."
She frowned and ignored the sarcasm in Finn's tone. "I see you've already tried Cyclosporin."
Her remark seemed to irritate him. "Yeah. Believe it or not, we have a few competent physicians on our staff."
She pinched her nose with a sigh. "I didn't say otherwise, Dr. Finn."
After scribbling a few notes on the woman's chart, Clara handed it to him. "I'd like to order some special tests. Have two hundred cc's of blood drawn and sent to the address I've written here. If you would," she added, to temper the edge on her tone.
"It's my own lab," she added at his raised eyebrows. "My other lab. They can run some highly specialized tests and find out exactly how the mother's immune system is attacking the fetus. Some experimental, genetically engineered immunosuppressants are currently under development in the leukemia and organ transplant fields. And I have contacts at Sloan-Kettering, where a big research project is underway. I expect I can get this woman access to one of their drug testing programs."
"I don't think so," Finn said. "Maggie has been denied insurance coverage. Her wild card was a 'pre-existing condition.' They can't afford a lot of expensive medical tests and medicines."
"Not a problem. I have a grant to study the wild card. I can justify the tests somehow as part of the lab's research. And the drugs will be experimental, so as a volunteer - if she agrees to try the drugs - she won't be charged."
A flicker of something less than hostile passed behind Finn's eyes. "You've got it."
Finn handed the chart to the nurse on duty, a severely deformed joker whose rubberized flesh was peeling off in long strips. Clara avoided looking at him too closely. He emanated so much heat that even four feet away it warmed her face and hands; and he smelled horrible, too, like burning rubber and bile.
It struck her that despite his jokerdom, at least Finn was pleasing to look at. He looked more like the fantastical creatures her mother read to her about when she was little, with his large brown eyes, prominent cheekbones and forehead, tawny hair and flanks. And he had a not-unpleasant smell - vaguely musky, like a horse, though not in any sense overpowering. Whether it was a nervous habit, or because he was angry with her, his tail kept twitching and flicking around his legs. Occasionally a hoof would lift and scrape a leg; his flanks quivered. The horsey mannerisms were familiar to her from her school days, not at all off-putting.
But even though he was by no means repulsive, being around him made her break into a cold sweat.
And Finn rescued her from thinking too well of him by saying, with a challenging gaze, "Perhaps you should examine the patient, while you're at it."
Cody Havero's words of the day before came back to her. Earn their trust.
Fear clutched at her. She clamped down hard on the feeling and gestured down the hall. "Lead the way, doctor."
The look of mild surprise on his face - he had so clearly expected her to refuse - almost made the coming ordeal worth it.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
The woman's name was Maggie Felix. Finn had been right; she wasn't too bad to look at. Finn introduced Clara, explained that she was a leading immunologist, and then stepped back as Clara moved around him to the head of the bed.
Maggie answered Clara's questions eagerly, with mingled fear and hope in her exotic, insectoid eyes. Her antennae quivered and, as she spoke, her hands stroked the swell of her belly as if to protect the baby from her own immune system. Beside her, her husband gently stroked her hair. His eyes, too, were filled with expectations.
Clara tried to avoid looking too closely at the woman, focusing on the man's gaze instead. The walls seemed to lean inward, and Finn was blocking her way out the door.
"Why is this happening?" Maggie asked. "Why is my body trying to kill my baby?"
It was a question Clara could handle. She put on her best clinical manner.
"It's nothing you could possibly prevent. The wild card has given you a powerful immune system. It has identified the fetus inside you as foreign genetic material - which indeed it is - and the usual mechanisms that keep a mother's body from attacking the fetus aren't strong enough to contend with your charged-up immune system. So." Clara shrugged. "We'll find a way to trick it. Or disable it, temporarily. At least enough so that your body's natural mechanisms for protecting your baby have a fighting chance."
That made the woman cry. Clara stood there, embarrassed. She knew what it was to want a child; she herself planned to visit a sperm bank, if the right man didn't come along in the next couple of years. But this baby was a carrier. Mother and child would die when Clara's virus was released.
But what was wrong with giving them a chance at a little happiness in the meantime? More importantly, this would give her a chance to expand her knowledge of wild card immunology.
Finn left, pleading other responsibilities. Clara promised the couple she'd do what she could and then went back to her office to call the lab and tell her people what tests she wanted them to run. This promised to be an interesting challenge. One she could really sink her teeth into.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
What a difference a puzzle can make, thought Finn as he leaned on the front desk, and watched Clara go pelting past with this intent look on her long face. He also realized that he had used her first name. Change on both fronts.
A conversation going on between Mrs. Chicken-Foot and Puddle Man suddenly intruded.
"I think all these riots are being caused by these Sharks," the receptionist was saying.
"Chickie, that's like blaming the Sharks for bad weather. The Sharks are big. Much bigger than Jokertown. They're rich, powerful. They don't care about riots in Jokertown. That Durand hinted they were up to something big before they spirited her away."
"The government doesn't want people to know they've been manipulated," Chickie said.
"No," Finn heard himself say. "People don't have to be manipulated to hate. They just come by it naturally."
"Then you don't believe in the Sharks?" Puddle Man asked.
"Does it matter?" Finn shot back. "The results are the same. Coming through the doors of the emergency room." He remembered trying to save Bjorn, trying to inform Anne, Zoe, someone that he had died. Learning they were in Jerusalem, and remembered hating them for running.