Embryo 1: Embryo

by JA Schneider

  On the other side she stumbled, righted herself, and looked around. Moonlight washed feebly through a high basement window, and she was able to make out darkened shapes. She was in a hallway of sorts. Across from her, feet away, was what appeared to be a glass-fronted bookcase. And to the left, in shadow…

  Jill stifled a cry.

  A tall, dark shape moved toward her. “No…” she whimpered, too frozen to move.

  She saw the leering face as it was full upon her, and she screamed.

  His hand moved so fast that it looked as if he’d drawn a red line.

  David made a single midline incision from below the navel to the pubis. It was a shallow cut, through the skin and subcutaneous tissue only. Beads of blood enlarged and spilled down both sides of the abdomen. The nurse named Carole placed long gauze sponges on either side of the incision and began to exert pressure.

  “Twenty seconds,” said MacIntyre.

  David nodded and tossed his scalpel to the floor. It had gone through unsterilized skin and was therefore contaminated. He took a new scalpel and cut through the fascia layer and then into the peritoneal cavity.

  “Thirty seconds,” said MacIntyre.

  “Almost there,” muttered Levine. His voice rose. “Woody, more Halothane! Carole, change the sponges. Use doubles. Start suction.”

  Bright blood was welling up. It was hard to see. David was vaguely aware of Sam’s voice counting; of the nurse’s busy hands near his and then the gurgling sound of blood being suctioned out. He waited a precious four seconds, until he could see what he was doing, and then with his scalpel tip made a small nick in the uterine wall.

  “Fifty seconds,” said MacIntyre.

  David pushed two fingers down through the hole, exerted slight pressure away from the fetus, then cut an eight inch vertical incision between his fingers. He looked: the opening was good. He didn’t breathe: the child had less than ten seconds left. He reached deep into the cavity and found two tiny feet. He grabbed the child by the ankles, pulled it out, and held it – her, they saw – up like a triumph. His eyes were beaming.

  “Fifty-eight seconds,” said MacIntyre.

  “You can stop now,” said David, and everyone laughed with relief. Woody rolled up a bassinette. David cut the cord, tied it and handed the infant girl to Sam, who laid her down and began checking her vital signs. “She’s pinking up nicely,” said Sam, his eyes beaming too.

  “Thank God.” David turned his attention back to the mother. She was bleeding faster.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Call blood!” he said. “Two units on the double!” He calculated: at this hour the blood bank would not be so busy; they’d get the units here fast. This patient was lucky. If she’d come in during peak surgery morning hours or peak violence evening hours, the situation might have been different.

  While they waited for the blood he had work to do. He bent over the anesthetized woman and, reaching in, peeled the placenta off its attachment to the uterine wall. Moments later he was suturing the uterine wall back together. He glanced up only at the lusty wails coming from the bassinette.

  He returned to his work, relieved and smiling.

  Covering her face, Jill screamed again and went down, pounding her assailant wildly. In a frenzy she rolled over and away; cringed with her back pressed to the wall; groped the floor for a weapon - anything to fight back – and found only her Jackson chart.

  Then, gasping, she realized she was the only one making all the noise.

  She waited, trembling. Nothing happened…except for a queer, itching sensation in her hand. In the dim light she saw tufts of hair protruding from her fist.

  Hair?

  She looked over at the figure lying motionless on the floor.

  Even on his back, his shoulders were hunched. The light from the high window cast a weird illumination on him, making even more frightening the heavy, overhanging brow, the glassy look in the eyes…

  She realized where she was. Laughed bitterly in the gloom…and then started to cry.

  She was in the museum. “I’ve gone crazy,” she breathed. Her shoulder ached from her assault on the door. Like a lunatic, it felt better to hear herself talk to herself. “I’m in the basement of the Madison Museum with its headhunters and ape men and…my attacker is a bleeping dummy.”

  She cried harder, remembering Margaret Haywood saying, “a hundred years ago this was part of the med school. For influenza, diphtheria, infectious diseases…”

  Yards away she saw stairs. I’ll bet they go up, she thought, and giggled miserably. “Gone craaazy,” she breathed again.

  Struggling to her feet, she clutched the Jackson chart. In her overburdened, careening mind it had evolved from weapon to evidence to her one last grasp on her sanity; on the world she had left behind and was still there, if she could only get back to it. Shakily, she stepped over the hominid, seeing as she did a long, gaping tear in the belly. Fragments of smelly, spongy stuff spilled out.

  Revolted, she bolted for the staircase.

  A door opening above stopped her cold.

  Footsteps were coming down, descending briskly, getting closer.

  On rubbery legs she ran back to the tunnel door.

  29

  David was tired.

  He was, in fact, half asleep when the elevator opened and he emerged into the hallway. His patient was out of danger. They had stabilized her, closed her up, and breathed a collective sigh of relief as she began to come out of the anesthesia. She had smiled at David. He had smiled back and squeezed her hand. Now, walking down the hall, he thought of the baby. That new little noisemaker was so marvelously healthy – already squalling up a storm in the nursery – that it made him want to cry and laugh at the same time.

  Fumbling for the keys, he thought of MacIntyre and Greenberg, still down there working, checking that the patient made the full trip back from anesthesia, writing post op orders and dictating the operative summary.

  Maybe someday we can all go fishing, David thought wistfully.

  But now what awaited him was a warm bed and a sweet sleeping girl, who he wanted to wrap his arms around and just – well, conk out.

  Turning the key, he stepped in and headed for the bed.

  Right away he sensed that something was wrong.

  The room was too quiet. Jill, sleeping, was a heavy breather.

  He went to the bed, felt for the reassuring mound of feminine hips….and found instead a cold pillow and sheets strewn as if she had left in a hurry.

  With the sheet still in his hand, he swore under his breath. “Jill?” he called, knowing it was useless.

  She was convinced she’d be thrown out by morning. She was angry about the charts being impounded…

  Oh God, he thought, remembering her laceration…

  He called her on his cell phone. Got just her voice mail. Left a message that sounded only semi-frantic.

  Then he punched another number.

  As the nurse tidied up, two exhausted doctors were finishing the post op routine. Woody was checking the patient’s pulse, blood pressure and respiration, speaking gently and smiling to her as he poked about. Sam MacIntyre’s hands pressed gently on the woman’s abdomen, noting that the uterus was contracting down, but not quite on schedule. He was considering administering a dose of Ergotrate when the intercom clicked overhead and Levine’s voice came on.

  “Hello again,” Levine said. “Sorry to disturb, but this is an emergency.”

  “Another one?” said Woody.

  “Call Mackey,” said MacIntyre. “I hear he just went back to bed.”

  “No.” There was a curious tension in David’s voice. Sensing that something was wrong, the two traded glances and looked up to the ceiling speaker.

  Levine was aware that the patient was now awake. He did not want to alarm her, so he tried to speak cryptically.

  “Do you know the whereabouts of Dr. Raney?”

  Greenberg and MacIntyre’s eyes dropped to each other, and they exchanged
head shakes.

  “No,” said Woody uncertainly. “Dr. Raney must be in another part of the hospital.”

  “The question is where?” said Levine. And that time they heard it – the voice that was usually wry and easygoing was now taut with worry.

  MacIntyre frowned. “Have her paged,” he said. “Have them turn on every – ”

  “Gotta go,” said David abruptly. “Just got another call.”

  Suddenly they weren’t tired anymore. Woody handed the blood pressure cuff to the nurse and hurried out. MacIntyre administered Ergotrate to the patient, who was falling asleep. He hurried after Woody.

  The clock on the wall read 4:40.

  Jill pushed through the old door and ran.

  Cobwebs brushed her face, grotesque shapes seemed to reach out for her. At a corner of the bumpy stone tunnel she stopped, her chest heaving.

  Nothing looked familiar. She fled down one passage, then another, which changed abruptly from cobbles to cement. A good sign. She followed that passage, noting that the lighting was getting better. The bulbs looked newer, brighter.

  At the next turn she jerked to a halt. Looked around in astonishment.

  Without knowing how, she had found her way back to the main tunnel, with its (now) beloved mustard wall and red arrows. Oh, the joy of familiar things!

  She’d covered about sixty feet when she came to a sign with red lettering: Sturdevandt Research Wing. She hesitated. Did she dare pass it and get lost again? This was the way she’d come a few days ago with her fellow interns - and she’d be up there in four hours anyway.

  And it was a way out of the tunnel!

  She opened the door and began to trudge up the cement stairs. She was exhausted and her head throbbed painfully. She had really gone to pieces, hadn’t she? Lost her head and her bearings disastrously; even now was feeling light-headed, out of it. Not so smart after all, she thought. She hugged the Jackson chart – now her security blanket – and patted the wad of printouts in her pockets.

  Maybe not so stupid either.

  She passed a landing and trudged up more steps.

  Fatigue bred depression. My holy war, she thought miserably. David had put his profession on the line for her, had risked everything coming to her defense.

  And she had let him.

  “Selfish,” she muttered to herself…fatigue blowing away logic like the fragile thing that it was.

  The tall window on the third landing revealed stars turning pale in the sky. The demons of night, Jill thought, give way to the demons of day. Her eyes filled again; then she heard footsteps coming down.

  Just a resident she’d seen around. “Hi,” he said tiredly, passing.

  She blinked and turned. “S’cuse?” she said. “Could I use your cell phone?”

  He handed it to her and she thanked him. “You’re in neurology, right?” she murmured. Her hair was a mess, her scrubs grubby.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just finished some snail neurons.”

  She glanced out the window. “Oh, he’s there,” she said in a fog.

  He glanced out too. Saw lights in the last few windows on the top floor of the building. To his surprise she handed the phone back.

  “He must still be in surgery,” she said in the same weary fog. “I’ll call later.”

  The resident shrugged, said get some sleep, and continued down the stairs.

  Jill continued up.

  David’s face was stiff with shock as he stared at the floor in the 400s aisle. Clearly an assault had taken place. Pink-sheeted lab reports were torn, struggled upon. Dusty footprints of two different sizes tore across strewn charts and pastel papers. A library stool lay overturned. A mashed, green-sheeted operative report lay under it.

  The cop next to him said, “Your call to her helped us find her cell phone. Looks like she tried to call you but didn’t get the chance to talk.” Another cop told David not to step into the crime scene, which he already knew. More cops were arriving with cameras, forensic equipment, all of them crowding into the taped-off aisle.

  Sick with panic, David stayed where he was but stooped; saw Jill’s black memo and her blue notebook. A plainclothes guy was using his inverted ballpoint to thumb through the notebook’s pages.

  “Let me go though that,” David said. “I can decipher it.”

  Across the yellow tape they passed forensic gloves, the ballpoint, and the notebook to him.

  Furiously he flipped pages. Came to one that looked sweaty, crumpled slightly, alive with agitated scrawl. “4X mort rate!” in one place. Lower down, quick notations of code and chart numbers and “Tell D!!”

  She tried, he thought miserably. She tried.

  You can’t leap from two twisted chromosomes to a hospital conspiracy, Jill.

  “Find anything?” asked the cop who had called him.

  David stood. “Yes, wait.” He punched numbers on his cell phone, gave terse orders, Jill’s name, and said “Stat!” Then explained the hospital database of every staff member’s cell phone in case of emergency.

  A forensic man looked up and said he’d found blood. Two drops. Another man took photos and the first man got out his swab. David stepped back, fighting horror. He wanted to run, but where? The tunnels out there were a maze. Where was Jill?

  His phone buzzed: MacIntyre saying he’d just gotten the cell phone recording - what was happening?

  David told him, hung up, and his phone buzzed in his hand.

  A neurology resident patched through to him, saying he’d seen Jill Raney on the Sturdevant stairs ten minutes ago. “I remember her name tag ‘cause she looked like she’d been through the war. She wanted to use my phone but saw a light on in a lab and said she’d go there.”

  “Which lab?” David didn’t breathe.

  “Clifford Arnett. Works at all hours. He’s right above us in Neurology.”

  David thanked him and told the cops. “Got men in that part of the hospital?”

  “We can get them there pronto.”

  It made sense, David thought. Jill wanted to use the neurologist’s phone, then thought I’d still be in delivery. She liked Arnett. He’d been nice to her.

  A moment later he was tearing down the hospital tunnel as if the rest of his life depended on it. His watch read 4:40.

  30

  Her footsteps echoed in the empty hall of the research wing. She hurried past locked doors and – she averted her eyes – the office of William Stryker. Arnett’s door was the last on the left. She knocked, waited, and then Clifford Arnett was there, looking tired and rumpled in his white coat.

  “Well! I thought I was the only wee-hours lunatic. What brings you at this hour?”

  She awkwardly held the Jackson chart in one hand and with the other fumbled for her printouts.

  “Before they throw me out,” she said, “I think you should look at these.”

  Arnett smiled and shook his head. “Nobody’s going to throw you out. But come in. Tell me what’s on your mind while I straighten up.”

  He held the door as she entered. Turning, she saw him looking with surprise at her scrubs. They were torn and filthy. She tried to smooth her disheveled hair. He thinks I’ve lost it from the strain, she realized. He’s doing the humane thing, calming an overwrought intern. I’ll try to sound calm and rational.

  “Dr. Arnett” – she began.

  “Wait,” he said. He went to shut the door. She heard the faint click of the lock.

  He looked back to her and smiled. “Speak,” he said.

  She walked over to a lab counter. Put the Jackson chart down and next to it spread four pages of her computer printouts, pressing out the creases. He came to stand by her. Without looking up she said, “I’m entrusting this information to you. Tonight, in the record room, I discovered the true magnitude of recent morbidity in the Obstetrical Department.” She pointed. “The first six months of this year alone are already four times the total of all of last year.”

  “Oh my,” he said, and then: “May I?” He
picked up the printout sheets and held them in his hands; sank heavily on a stool by the counter, studying them one by one.

  Jill felt her heart pound. She had come to the right place.

  As he read she plunged on. “Something horrendous is going on, Dr. Arnett. Something with a definite and deliberate pattern.” She gulped air and dropped onto another stool. “Before I only suspected. Now I have proof. Obstetrical problems here are way above the national norm. I’ve found three identical cases of rare chromosomal disorders, two in the last week alone, and the third, this Jackson chart here, from last month.” She patted the chart on the counter.

  Arnett looked up at it. “Jackson?” He said, frowning. “Jackson?”

  “It was lumped together with other minor disorders.”

  “I remember that name.” His frown deepened. “There are so many…”

  “Right. Plus the delivering resident’s gone. Finished just before I got here. Probably wouldn’t have thought of doing a chromosomal study.”

  Jill leaned forward tiredly. “And the printout speaks for itself, wouldn’t you say? Dr. Arnett, I have…interviewed a few former patients. I found one who is convinced she was unknowingly impregnated here during a routine gyn exam. Normally one would dismiss such an assertion as irrational, except that this girl sounded sharp, and in view of the pattern in the printouts you’re holding – the upsurge of all kinds of OB problems – well, I really think…”

  She stopped, suddenly apprehensive about finishing the sentence.

  Arnett’s eyes lifted tiredly above his spectacles and looked at her. “Yes?” he said.

  She drew breath. “I have reason to believe that Dr. Stryker and his associates have been farming embryos and experimenting on unknowing human subjects. The evidence gathered thus far merits an open investigation. Perhaps the matter should even be brought to the District Attorney.”