Give.
Wait.
She had nothing, no reply. She looked to the surgeons, and they turned back to their magazines, the health one first, then, a second later, cigar.
How are you doing?
Surviving. Scratch behind his ears for me.
She took the elevator to recovery, found an empty physical therapy room, took off her cap, changed into scrubs, and stepped onto the treadmill. She set the incline and pace, began her run. She closed her eyes and pictured the trails outside, orange-lit in the night, shadow-crossed, air something between cool and humid—but moving, brushing her face and neck.
When she opened her eyes she was startled by how much time had passed. Next to the LCD recording minutes was her pulse, the rate higher than what she felt. Her legs still thrummed with energy, ready to begin, amplifying her sense of disconnection, the illusion that the body is not the self. That particular defense mechanism.
Even the sheen of sweat was not hers; it was cool and cleansing.
She had once had an arrival who had dragged himself with his elbows for more than a mile. In an advanced stage of alcohol poisoning—years of poisoning combined with one more final lethal dose—he had lost function in his lower body. He had dragged himself to her because he did not want to die alone. He remembered her but could not remember anyone else in his life.
“How?” she asked him. An athlete in his prime could not have done what this derelict had done. He looked at her as she pressed two fingers to his carotid pulse. She eased the pressure, let it be just a touch, the last thing he felt.
She heard the door to the Physical Therapy room open behind her. She remained on the treadmill, waited to hear some nurse’s apology, the “Sorry, Doctor” that always grated on her nerves.
Instead she heard Claiborne’s voice.
“Those things never quite cut it for me.”
She turned to him but stayed on the treadmill, surfing a little as it eased to a stop. “You need to find your inner hamster.”
He had shed his lab clothes, stood straight in his shirt and tie, thin leather belt neat about his waist. “You have a much better imagination than I do.”
“I dunno. Cannonball Man was pretty imaginative.”
“I apologize for that.”
“No,” she said. “I deserved it. It’s your lab.”
He let the door close. “Okay. Here we are on neutral ground.”
He opened his hands to her.
“How did you find me?”
“I asked Mullich.”
“That’s scary. He’s scary.”
“He guessed the surgeons’ lounge first. If that’s any consolation.”
The ground did not feel neutral. The slant of the treadmill matched the tilt in her senses. She asked anyway. “What do you think it is? If you had to stop now, if all information stopped now? What would you say?”
Claiborne crossed his arms, angled his waist to one side. “Virus. Hemorrhagic, fast like dengue HF, but obviously much faster. Not very contagious. Has to get into the stratum basale, start there, burst there. They got it in some weird way that isn’t being repeated. Mullich’s work is actually perfect for us here, centering on locale, degrees of separation among the four. DC taking the bodies is good. They can do much better work than I. They should reduce Thorpe’s control. They’ll get us out of here faster.”
She fingered the rail of the treadmill. “I imagine them to be just like Thorpe. Thorpe squared. Men with protocol are worse than men with guns.”
“Protocol will protect us. Protocol will release us in the morning.”
“Protocol is ego.” She gripped the rail. “Literally. It’s ego put into writing.”
“Ah, right. Dr. Metaphor.”
“You want me to think in metaphor. I can do that. I can drink that poison. I think what’s most viral is the protocol and consensus.
I think we just released it when we opened the morgue door. Now Thorpe is outside as well as inside.”
Her workout scrubs had become clammy. Claiborne looked freshly dressed, relaxed in fine clothes. I run more than he does, she thought. I should be faster. I should look like that.
“Okay,” said Claiborne. “Then what do you think it is? If we had to stop here?”
“I would guess you’re right. But that shock is involved more. Toxic or physical.” To think pragmatically lifted her. She rolled her shoulders. She guessed this was an extension of Claiborne’s apology and liked him for that.
“You know a virus that induces toxic shock?”
She shook her head. “I’m not thinking that way. I’m thinking in terms of traumatic reaction. That the bodies responded as though toxic or physical impact occurred. Because it’s new. Even if no toxin or ballistic occurred, the nerves reacted as though they had or were about to. Isn’t that what TSS is? A physiological overreaction to a minor but unanticipated toxin?”
He considered this, or pretended to, pulled at the back of his neck and looked askance. They were first and last. She knew this.
There would always be too much information in between their specialties. He knew this, too, was calculating that gap, how far to lean her way.
“I’m glad I found you. Like this.” Claiborne rested his hand on the door handle. “Disease Control will find whatever it is before I do. I never find the new stuff. We just lead them to it. They’ll find no reason for containment. We’ll be running the trail tomorrow. Take a shower and a nap.”
He left the room, turning his shoulders in that way doctors do, showing their expert backs.
Instead of a shower, she filled one of the metal whirlpools in the room with cool water, not mixing any heat. She stripped, dropped the scrubs into the hamper, and lowered herself into the water.
The chill didn’t hit her until waist level, then increased around her breasts, forcing a shiver. She saved her head for last, pausing for breath before complete submergence. Underwater, eyes closed, she felt the jolt of the chill melt into relief. Sweat and salt and oil lifted in ribbons from her skin. To her surprise, she wanted to remain there, down there at the bottom of the big bucket. She imagined herself first as a specimen in a jar, then as an experiment growing in an old sci-fi flick.
21.
Mendenhall dressed, her clothes the same but at least freshly aired. In front of the PT room’s sink and mirror, she pulled her hair into a ponytail. She found an elastic finger splint as a clasp, enjoyed the tight sting along her nape. She applied tinted balm to her lips, then wiped the excess over her cheekbones, raising some color there. Her cell buzzed on the counter.
Pao Pao. Mendenhall let the message come in and finish. She stared at herself in the steel mirror, thought she looked okay, still a catch because she was a doctor. This was a desperate ploy for normalcy. A message from Pao Pao could not mean normal.
Mendenhall held the cell to her ear, close but not touching. The nurse’s flat tone was there, but the Samoan accent was in there, too, downward pulls: three arrivals, one very different. Hurry.
The “hurry” meant be the first.
When Mendenhall moved away from the counter, she thought of a blur of herself remaining in front of the mirror—staying, looking okay, ceding all control.
Movement in the ER was occurring in concentric circles, reminding Mendenhall of old swimming movies. The innermost circle contained three gurneys and spun with the direction and momentum of arrival. The outer circle of floor EMTs and nurses counterspun with the tangent of escape, with rubbernecking. The murmur swelled until Mendenhall broke through the circles.