Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Are you one of them?”

  I raised an eyebrow and used my slight height advantage to convey my answer without having to resort to an outright lie.

  She seemed to accept that. “They don't know how good they really have it nowadays.”

  I nodded.

  “It's just not analytical. Don't they know that people can make mistakes?”

  “Spoken like a new graduate, Ms. Johnson.”

  Her lids narrowed. “You don't agree?”

  “That people can make mistakes? Sure.”

  She shook me off. “That machines are the only way to examine a patient, that there's no need to ever touch a sick person as long as they can get into a scanner or surg unit by themselves.”

  I let out a deep breath. “Scanners are faster, more accurate, and completely disregard emotion. No time wasted dealing with a person's feelings.”

  She looked relieved. “Exactly.”

  “But they can't empathize, can't connect to the psyche. There's a lot more to pain than nerve endings firing willy-nilly. The same pathology can cause different symptoms, different degrees of pain in different people.”

  Her eyes widened and I could feel my skin start to crawl.

  I forced out a hah and said, “Gotcha.”

  Her demeanor eased, but her guard didn't drop.

  “No, I've been down that road,” I said. “You can't imagine the time it takes to deal with someone's feelings, much less the emotional stress that weighs on you. I'll take a scanner over that any day.” I gave the Medtron 3000 a gentle pat on its cold titanium side. “Thanks to these babies and the folks who came up with those answer trees, modern medicine has really evolved to a whole new level.”

  A relieved Ms. Johnson was back in amiable sidekick mode. “Makes the shift go by pretty quickly, too.”

  I shot her a smile. I'd gotten pretty good at this game. I, too, had sunk to a whole new level. Survival instinct is strong.

  “Ms. Johnson?'

  She turned.

  “Bring in the next patient.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Doctor. I sure as hell didn't feel like one anymore.

  * * * *

  Another shift endured, I stepped out into the cool breeze of a late October evening and squinted up at the sunlight reflecting off the glass facade of the Unity Health Insurance building that dominated the downtown skyline, as I pulled my collar up and gripped it tightly against the wind. It would be a short walk home.

  I'd been living in the city almost five years. The day Nan informed me that she couldn't tolerate having me around the house anymore, I decided to seek out an apartment within walking distance of the clinic. Oppressive crowds thronging in and out of mettube stations were not conducive to the mental well being of anyone, particularly those of my generation, and besides, I enjoyed taking in the . . . well, you couldn't really call it fresh air anymore, but I loved the atmosphere of the grimy city streets, preferred it to the sterility of modern buildings.

  I made my way past Hot Beanz, my morning coffee spot. The aroma slowed my pace, but the thought of coming back out into the streets after warming up again kept me on my path. I turned the corner, approached the front door of my building, faced the camera imbedded above the front door, and said, “Entry.”

  The oversized glass doors swished open and I hurried in out of the chill that my body would soon adjust to as the season progressed. I nodded at the animatronic receptionist in the lobby, which greeted me by name and summoned an elevator to the ground floor. As I entered, a perfectly pitched voice, the kind you hear on the six o'clock news, greeted me. “Going home, Dr. Jenkins?”

  “Yes. Home.”

  “Very good.” The door slid shut and I was escorted to the thirteenth floor, where I exited and made my way down the hall to the door where another entry command would grant me access to my little sanctuary.

  I threw my coat over one of the checkered cloth-covered dining chairs, walked into the living room, and looked out at the modest view of Centennial Park provided by the wall-to-wall windows that gave this place its charm.

  “Play music,” I commanded, just before flopping down into my favorite overstuffed black leather easy chair by the window. I pushed the little black button by my right hand and a footrest popped up to the perfect height. "Petrushka."

  As the music started to play, I closed my eyes and let it take me back to the day this album was recorded, a live performance in which my daughter had played the brief but famously recognizable trumpet solo the piece was known for, in her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It had been one of the proudest days of my life, a life that was once filled with proud moments.

  Medical school, marriage to my college sweetheart, three wonderful children, suburban bliss; all memories that now seemed more like someone else's life than one I had led myself. I should have seen it coming, should have noticed the signs, but I was blinded by the drive to succeed and failed to pay attention to the world evolving around me. The changes had been so gradual that they crept up on me like age, one wrinkle at a time. And then one day Nan asked me to leave. It wasn't really until that day that I realized just how much had changed—everything but me. The kids were all grown and scattered around the country, each a success in their chosen lines of work, but none a part of our daily lives anymore. Nan had managed to stay in sync with the pulse of the city; she had become a community activist and a prolific volunteer: She was doing things that mattered.

  And I was but a shadow of what I'd been, increasingly disgruntled with a medical system that had long ago crumbled, a system that had lost its way from what it was meant to do—take care of people. I'd become so bitter that I was poisoning Nan's life, but never had a clue until the day she shattered my world.

  It wasn't until that day that I realized Nan had been the one constant in my life that kept things real, that shielded me from the endless alterations reshaping the world around us; that she was the one who had been taking care of me all those years, not the reverse I had always taken as granted.

  And on that day, I was lost.

  * * * *

  After the divorce, it took me a few years to get a grip on life again. Not joy—you couldn't really call it that, but I was beginning to discover things that fulfilled me, that gave me pleasure, that gave me a reason to live. I was starting to feel comfortable again until the day Arnie Hirsch got hauled away. Then the questions of what I was doing with my life began to tear at me once more.

  Stumbling in for my Saturday morning pick-me-up at Hot Beanz, an outing I looked forward to every week, a call of, “Jenks!” greeted me as I walked through the door. I hadn't been called that in a long time.

  I looked up and smiled feebly. “Doug. How are you?”

  Doug Barnes and I had gone to med school together and started a family practice soon after graduating. It was a thriving practice for a while, but the bureaucracy eventually caught up with us. Insurance companies only wanted to contract with doctors they could control, and we weren't willing to play the game. We thought we were better than that, but time wore us down. We were eventually forced to liquidate the practice and seek out clinic jobs like the rest of them. I hadn't seen him in years.

  “Better than you, from the looks of it,” he said, waving me over to a table. “You look like hell.”

  I hadn't realized my desolation was that transparent.

  We sat down, facing each other across a small round table. I smiled feebly. “Quite the coincidence bumping into each other here, huh?”

  The edge of Doug's mouth curled up. “Nah, not really. It was Carma.”

  I peered at him over the rim of my glasses.

  He waved his hands, and with a chuckle said, “Carma Johnson, your assistant.”

  “Really. Ms. Johnson?”

  He gave me a nod. “She's one of us."

  “Us?”

  “Let me explain.”

  He went on to tell me that he'd been stuck in a clinic across town since we clos
ed the practice, that he found it every bit as unrewarding as I found my job, and that the only reason he kept going in there every day was because he needed the money. Familiar story, but I still wasn't sure where Carma Johnson fit in.

  Doug glanced around the room, then leaned in toward me. “Look, there's a group of us who get together every week. You know, people who feel the same way as you and me.”

  “And Ms. Johnson's one of them?”

  He gave a single nod. “It's mostly physicians, but some nurses and techs have joined in too. We call it The Old Codgers Club, though it's been attracting a few of the more recent grads like Carma who thought they were getting into medicine for the same antiquated reasons you and I did.”

  “What the hell can you do besides bitch and moan to each other?”

  “We run a clinic out of the back of a strip mall shop in the Libertyville area.”

  My eyes widened. The Feds didn't take to kindly to black market clinics.

  “It's a nice blue collar neighborhood, not much crime, doesn't attract a lot of cops. We steer a few patients there, the ones we know we can trust. It's like the old days; we get to treat patients the way we were trained to instead of the way we're legislated to perform now.”

  “Jesus, Doug. What if you get caught?”

  “Hell, it's worth the risk. Gives me a chance to shake the rust off, feel useful again. You should try it. We could use someone like you.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. You can only do so much pencil pushing before you feel like you're starting to rot away. It was a tempting offer.

  “How do you hide it?”

  “Carefully. Don't talk about it to anyone you don't know, don't mention it at work even to those you trust. The walls have eyes.”

  “Tell me about it. Every time I get someone new in the office, I feel like I've got to spend all day looking over my shoulder. These kids coming out of school . . . they're brainwashing them young these days.”

  Doug laughed. “Carma got to you, didn't she?”

  “Damn straight. I'd have sworn she was a mole for the Feds.”

  “Nah. Just feeling you out. Plays the part well, though, don't you think?

  I had to agree. She'd figured me out without even a hint at what she was up to.

  “So what do you say, Jenks? Our next meeting's tonight. Why don't you come check it out?”

  I rubbed at a stain on the table. I wanted to say yes, but I kept picturing Arnie Hirsch being dragged off in handcuffs.

  “Well, at least think about it.” Doug synced the info onto my PDA phone.

  That's all I did do the rest of that day—think about it. Something he said had struck a chord. The idea of being part of a real clinic again made my blood flow in a way I hadn't felt in a long time.

  I drove by the address Doug had given me. A quiet neighborhood strip mall. The storefront said Fine Tailoring, which I supposed was provided by a relative of someone in the Old Codgers Club. The information he had uploaded to me included a password that would grant access to the clinic in the back of the shop.

  I pulled up in front and sat there with the engine running as I stared blindly at the store. My car was relatively new, but no air conditioning would have been able to keep the sweat from soaking through my shirt. Office hours were from six till nine; I still had a few hours to make my decision.

  I stopped by a Starbucks on the way home and grabbed a burger, cream soda, and chips; a carryout bag. By the time I got back to my apartment, the food was lukewarm, but I preferred the confines of my home to a fast food joint. I wolfed it down, then jumped in the shower.

  Most people sing in the shower: I think. In fact, it's where I do some of my best thinking. But even the hot steam swirling around me couldn't clear the fog inside my brain.

  It would be so easy, I thought. Drive to the strip mall, go to the clinic, and get a chance to be a real doctor again.

  I pictured myself in handcuffs. What am I, nuts?

  Hey, Doug's been doing it for God knows how long. How dangerous can it be?

  Then a terrible thought occurred to me. Maybe he's just setting me up.

  It's Doug, for Christ's sake.

  Hey, I don't know what he's been up to for the last decade.

  So what else are you going to do, rot away at Thirteen for the rest of your life? Show some stones, man.

  I toweled off and glanced at the clock. Decision time.

  At quarter after six, I left my apartment and headed back to Fine Tailoring.My heart pounded faster with each turn and as I pulled into the lot, the wheel slipped from my damp hands. Only the car's proximity braking system saved me from plowing into a line of parked cars. I numbly listened to the electronic voice admonishing me for reckless driving until I had recovered enough to disengage the safety, then corrected course and crept along past the storefronts until I spotted an empty space directly in front of the tailor shop.

  I hesitated, then tapped on the accelerator and turned out of the lot without looking back. A half hour later, I was home.

  A bottle of wine kept me company that evening. I nursed it slowly, staring at the walls until finally deciding to go to bed whether sleep was in my immediate future or not. Dozing on and off, snippets of dreams flitted through my mind: med school, the old practice, nightmares of Carma Johnson walking in to my office with a team of uniformed agents. Doug had convinced me she was one of the good guys, but dreams don't always ride on facts and emotions don't erase that easily.

  I was rattled out of my dreams a little after midnight by the shrill ring tone of an unprogrammed caller and stabbed out for the phone more in an effort to silence it than from any real curiosity about who was on the other end.

  “Jenks? Jenks, that you? Why's your vid off?”

  “I keep it that way when I'm in the buff,” I rasped.

  “Oh. Oh, yeah.” I could see the stress lines around Doug's eyes as he looked down at his phone to check the time. “Jesus, I didn't realize how late it was. Sorry.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Listen, I don't know how much time I've got.”

  I squinted, trying to study his face through my blurry eyes.

  “You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “Carma. She turned us in. The cops raided our place tonight, just before closing. I had stepped out to take a break and when I got back there were half a dozen police cars out front. I've been trying to lay low, but you can only troll the streets for so long. It's just a matter of time . . .” I heard the sirens approaching his spot. “Jesus. Gotta go. Be careful, Jenks.”

  I reached for the remote control on my night stand and flipped on the monitor suspended from the far wall, then searched the Web for local news. “Shit.” There it was, plain as day. A bunch of doctors and nurses being hauled outside in handcuffs through the same door I'd been staring at only a few hours ago from the comfort of my car, the same door I'd almost walked through in a moment of rebellious false confidence.

  “God, how could I have been so stupid? What was I thinking?”

  I was too stunned to make out what they were saying before the picture faded to a live chase scene: Doug's car. I turned it off and tossed the remote back onto the table. I didn't want to watch the inevitable conclusion.

  I flopped back and stared at the ceiling. My first glimmer of hope for a brighter, more productive existence in a very long time had been smeared all over the Net. All I had to look forward to now was District Clinic Thirteen.

  The phone rang. Doug's number again.

  “Doug?”

  “Dr. Jenkins?” A monotone, unharried voice that was clearly not Doug's.

  “Yes?”

  A face came up on the screen, a generic clean-cut young male face adorned with a police cap. “This is Officer Harvey Cornell. Turn your vid on, sir.”

  I pulled a sheet around me and complied. Only my face would show on his phone, but it was still discomfiting to sit there with nothing on talking into a vid phone. “What's this all about, officer? Is D
r. Barnes okay?”

  “He's fine, sir. Your number was the last one he called, just a few minutes ago, and we want to know why.”

  “Why don't you ask him?”

  “We got his version, sir. We want yours.”

  I knew they'd review the transcript of Doug's phone call. Don't’ be stupid, I reminded myself before answering. “He's my old partner. I ran into him yesterday for the first time in years and gave him my number, so I guess it was at the top of his recent calls list. He sounded like he was in some kind of trouble. I guess in his rush to call someone he hit my number first.”

  “What do you know about the clinic, sir?”

  “Uh, he told me about it yesterday, you know, when we were catching up on each other's lives.” I fought against my instinct to wipe the sweat off my brow. The screen was small; maybe he wouldn't notice the gleam. I turned from the light.

  “And you didn't turn him in?”

  “I wanted to give him a chance to right it himself first. Warned him about one of his people, that she's a straight shooter. I guess he didn't take my advice, huh?”

  “You'll need to come down to the station, sir. I'll be there in ten minutes to pick you up.”

  “But . . .” the line went dead.

  Ten minutes.

  Crap.

  I threw on some jeans and a relatively clean shirt, brushed the stale wine breath off my teeth and paced in front of the door until the chime sounded, sending my heart crashing against the inside of my chest wall.

  “Intercom on.” The green light next to the door came on. “Hello?”

  The animatronic receptionist from the lobby greeted me. “Good morning, Dr. Jenkins. There's an Officer Cornell here to see you. Shall I let him in?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Doctor.”

  I damped the sweat off my brow and rubbed the palms of my hands against my pants.

  The chime sounded again. “Yes?”

  “It's me, Doctor. Officer Cornell.”

  “Front door, open,” I commanded.

  The door responded dutifully, and Officer Harvey Cornell entered with a vague scent of musk preceding him. A neatly pressed navy blue uniform accented his athletic physique, right down to the gleaming patent leather boots.