The second call had been to the Smithsonian. At first, Erica had been uncomfortable pretending to be Marian, but she quickly grew into the role and thought her performance was convincing. The favor she had asked was somewhat unusual, but the man she talked with didn’t seem very surprised and agreed to her request. His matter-of-fact tone led Erica to believe he would do it.
The rest of the day had been mundane, consisting primarily of moving equipment and adjusting settings per Kevin’s direction. Research had never been interesting to her, and the stuffy lab hadn’t changed her mind. Eating greasy take-out pizza all day didn’t help the situation. Since the setup was finished and Kevin didn’t need her help any more, she was taking the opportunity to get some food that was not made primarily of saturated fats.
Ted and Janice had been planning to be gone for several days, and they’d let their store of food dwindle, especially the fresh fruits and vegetables Erica craved. The obvious solution was the immense grocery now in front of her. It was one of the new ones that had a pharmacy, a full-service bank, a deli, and anything else they could cram in.
The lot was packed with cars of students just returned for the fall semester loading up on supplies. Erica had to park on the fringe, but it didn’t bother her. She was looking forward to the walk, amazed that on a sunny September day the temperature hadn’t been higher than 75 degrees. Maybe later she’d walk around Ted and Janice’s neighborhood.
When she saw the other students entering and leaving the store, she felt a pang of guilt for neglecting her own studies. But there was nothing she could do. At least this mess would all be over on Monday.
Erica followed two teenage girls into the store. She grabbed one of the shopping baskets piled at the front and dropped her purse into it. At the entrance to the produce section, a woman was holding a tray with bits of food. The teenagers each took a piece and popped them into their mouths. Erica hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so she walked over to the woman.
She held the tray up for Erica. “Would you like to try a sample of NYC brand coffee cake?”
“I’d love to. I’m starving.”
“The pieces on the left have walnuts and the ones on the right don’t. Take one of each. If you like it, you can pick up a box from aisle 12.”
“Thanks.”
Munching on the coffee cake, Erica headed into the produce section. As she popped the second piece of cake into her mouth, she thought she might actually buy some.
A salad was her top priority though, so she stopped and picked a head of Romaine lettuce, a bundle of carrots, two tomatoes, and a cucumber. Next was a stalk of broccoli. She only needed one since Kevin hated broccoli. She wrapped the broccoli in a tear-off plastic sack and went in search of the pasta aisle. The thought of marinara sauce with a light sprinkle of parmesan made her mouth water, and she looked for a sign marked “Italian foods”.
As she rounded the corner into the grocery store’s back row, she saw the two teenagers standing by a dispenser containing cold drinks. They were facing away from Erica. Both were short and thin, one with dark, curly hair, the other with a blonde crop cut. The dark-haired girl seemed to be comforting the blonde. As Erica got closer, she could hear what they were saying.
“Tory?” the dark-haired girl said in a voice that was tinged with fear. “What’s the matter?”
Tory shook her head. She seemed to be clutching her throat. Immediately, Erica thought the girl was choking. But then Tory turned around, and Erica knew that the situation was much worse.
Tory’s face was bright red, and her lips, cheeks, and neck were grossly swollen. Her eyes were beginning to shut because of the swelling. The hissing sound was Tory gasping for breath through her constricting throat. It was a textbook case of a severe allergic reaction. If nothing was done in the next few minutes to halt the reaction, Tory would go into shock and die.
When the dark-haired girl saw Tory’s face, she screamed. A dozen eyes turned in the teenagers’ direction, and without thinking, Erica ran over to them, as did a man who looked like a student.
“What’s wrong with her?” the student asked.
“I don’t know,” said the dark-haired teenager. “She was fine just a minute ago.”
“She’s having an allergic reaction,” Erica said, coming to a stop in front of the girls and dropping her hand basket to the ground.
“You,” she said, pointing at the student, “go call 911 and tell them it’s an emergency.”
She turned back to the teenagers. “Is she allergic to something in that cake you just ate?” she said to the dark-haired girl.
“Tory asked about nuts, but the woman said there weren’t any.”
Erica put one hand on Tory’s shoulder and lifted her head. The swelling was spreading rapidly. Tory’s face was now the color of one of the ripe tomatoes in Erica’s basket.
Severe allergies to nuts were fairly common; 100 people in the U.S. die from them every year. And sometimes the allergic person didn’t even have to eat nuts. The cake without walnuts might have had a nut oil, which would produce the same effect.
Tory lunged forward, panicking because she couldn’t breathe. She stumbled over Erica’s basket, scattering the fruit and the contents of her purse across the linoleum floor.
Erica clasped Tory’s shoulders hard, knowing the only way to save her was to give her the dose of epinephrine people with severe allergies like hers were supposed to carry.
“Tory, I know what the problem is and I’m going to help you. But you need to calm down.” Tory shook her head, but didn’t resist.
“What’s your name?” Erica said to the dark-haired girl as she held on to Tory.
“Maggie.”
“Maggie, I’m Erica. I need you to help me get Tory lying down. If she passes out and collapses, she might injure herself.”
“Are you a doctor?” Maggie said.
“Yes,” Erica said, knowing that telling Maggie she was a med student would only cause problems. On the other hand, if you told people you were a doctor, they immediately trusted your abilities. “Now, grab her other side.”
Gently, they moved Tory to the floor. Her breath was now coming in shallow, ragged gasps.
“Where’s her epi pin?” Erica said, beginning to search Tory’s pockets.
Maggie looked at her, puzzled. “Her what?”
“Her epinephrine. With her allergy, she should always be carrying it.”
“I don’t…”
“Damn!” Erica said. All she found were Tory’s driver’s license and seven dollars in cash. She wasn’t surprised; both of the severe allergic reactions she’d seen in the ER resulted from the patients not carrying their epi kits.
“Damn!” Erica yelled. “Did they call the paramedics?”
“They’re on their way,” someone said.
“How long?”
“They didn’t say. Maybe five minutes?” The response was more question than answer.
The nearest EMS unit could be all the way across town for all she knew. She had to do something, otherwise Tory would asphyxiate in minutes. Even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t take long for the girl to sustain irreversible brain damage. In an emergency room, a tracheotomy might have been an option, but under these conditions and with her lack of experience, she could just as easily kill the girl. Erica’s only choice was to stop the swelling before it got any worse.
By now, a few more of the students had gathered around the scene. An obese man wearing a tie and name tag shouldered some of the students aside.
“What’s going on here?” he said in a gruff voice.
“Are you the manager?” Erica said.
“Yes. Is the kid all right?”
“No, she’s about to go into shock.”
“Who are you?”
”I’m a doctor,” Erica said, not wanting to waste time explaining. “Go to the front of the store and make an announcement over the PA. Ask if there is anyone in the store who is allergic to bees and carries epinephrine…” Sudd
enly, Erica realized that was unnecessary. She remembered the sign on the front of the store that said “Pharmacy.”
“Forget that. Is the pharmacy open?”
“Sure,” the manager replied.
“Good. Go to there and ask the pharmacist for an adult epi kit.”
“A what?” the manager said, obviously confused.
“An kit of epinephrine for…” It was going to take too long to explain. The manager still had a bewildered look on his face, and if he brought back the wrong thing, it might be too late.
“Never mind,” Erica said. “Where’s the pharmacy?”
The manager pointed at the far end of the store.
“Maggie,” Erica said. “Don’t let Tory get up. Keep her still. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get some medicine.” She stood and faced the manager.
“Come with me,” she said and sprinted down the aisle toward the pharmacy.
Ten seconds later she skidded to a stop at the pharmacy counter. A man in his early thirties was sorting pills near the back. When she hit the counter, he looked up, startled.
“I need…an epi kit,” Erica said, gasping for breath more from the stress than the exertion.
For a moment, the man was taken aback. Then he said calmly, “And your name?”
“No,” Erica said. “This isn’t a prescription.” As she said it, the manager caught up with her at the counter, huffing like he could have a heart attack any minute. Judging from his weight, it was a distinct possibility.
His eyes on the manager, the pharmacist said, “Epinephrine is not an over-the-counter drug. I need a prescription…”
“Listen,” she said. “A girl on the other side of the store had a severe allergic reaction to that coffee cake the woman was serving by the registers. If she doesn’t get epinephrine in the next few minutes, she will die.” She glanced at the manager. “Do you understand?”
The manager’s eyes widened at the implications of a huge lawsuit. He looked at the pharmacist. “I saw the kid. Her face was swollen like a balloon. This woman is a doctor. Get her whatever she needs, right now.”
The pharmacist nodded. He hurried to the last shelf on the right and grabbed a box near the top. He gave it to Erica, who ripped open the package and withdrew a small syringe.
To the manager, she said, “I want you to go to the front of the store and wait for the paramedics so you can show them where we are.”
Without waiting for a response, she ran to Tory.
Erica approached the crowd and shoved two people aside. “Everybody back up!” she yelled. The dozen people surrounding her complied.
Erica kneeled next to the prone teenager. By now Tory was no longer moving, and her breath came in short, shallow hisses. Erica propped her head back to look down her throat. It was what she feared. In seconds, the throat would be completely constricted.
Maggie was now almost hysterical. “Erica, do something, please! She’s dying!”
“She’s not going to die,” Erica said as calmly as possible. She stuck the syringe’s needle into Tory’s left quadricep and pushed the plunger to its stop. The epinephrine would quickly flow from the thigh muscle into the femoral vein and then straight to the heart. She removed the needle and stuck it into one of the tomatoes lying on the floor.
The only thing Erica could do now was tilt Tory’s head back to clear the airway as much as possible. Cradling Tory’s neck with her left hand, Erica gently pushed her forehead back. She leaned down and put her ear next to Tory’s mouth. It was only the faintest of puffs, but she was still breathing. Erica hoped the epi had come soon enough.
Erica looked into Maggie’s tearful eyes. “She’s going to be all right,” she said confidently, even though she wasn’t sure. But the words had the desired effect. Maggie nodded and tried to smile.
Two minutes later, she heard sirens blaring and then the honk of a piercing air horn. They were silenced as an EMS unit squealed to a stop in front of the store. The paramedics would be in here any second. Then another siren grew louder. The police, Erica thought with alarm. When they got here, they would certainly want a statement from Erica, including her name. She had to leave.
The contents of her purse were still scattered across the floor. She hurriedly scooped them up and stuffed them back in her purse. As she finished, the crowd parted and two paramedics holding emergency boxes pushed their way through.
Erica got up and spoke to one of them while he opened the box on the floor. “Anaphylactic reaction. Severe throat constriction causing stridor. A dose of epi was administered via left quad.”
Before he could ask any questions, she ducked past the crowd. As she ran down the aisle, she could hear shouts behind her. “Hey! Who was that? Come back!”
At the cash registers, she slowed to a walk when she saw a policeman. He was talking to the store manager, who had his back to Erica. She held her face down to avoid being recognized. As inconspicuously as possible, she turned away as the policeman followed the manager toward the rear of the store. She continued walking with her purse clenched tightly to her stomach and made it through the store’s front door without being noticed. Outside, clusters of people were talking and pointing at the emergency vehicles. No one looked at her. Although she was almost hyperventilating, Erica ran.
CHAPTER 27
Kevin gnawed on a leftover piece of pepperoni pizza as he studied the figures on the computer screen in front of him. The graph of the spectroscopic analysis showed an impurity in the carbon of 0.01 %, primarily in the form of methane and other organic molecules. He wasn’t surprised that there was some impurity. Instead of requiring a pure vacuum, the process produced the greatest yield when performed in a vapor of hydrogen gas. Still, to the naked eye, or even under a high-powered loupe, no flaws in the material would be evident unless one had been introduced artificially. Just as the Adamas Blueprint said, the process produced clear, flawless diamond.
Kevin shook his head, still in a mild state of disbelief that it really worked. He walked over to the test chamber and stared through the door’s porthole. The specimen sat in the middle of the chamber, imperceptibly acquiring new coatings of diamond every time the laser’s light flashed, coatings that were fused to the previous layer with the strength of the world’s hardest known substance. Because of this fusion process, the layers were not detectable. It was a single crystal.
Kevin’s contacts were bothering him, as they often did when he stayed up late. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. Almost half past midnight.
“Ready for bed?”
Kevin whipped around, startled by the voice behind him. Erica’s head peeked past the lab’s open door.
“Hey stranger. I didn’t hear you. What are you doing here?”
Erica came in the rest of the way and closed the door behind her.
“That’s a nice greeting. And when I came all the way over here to find out how you were doing.”
“Sorry. Been a long day I guess.”
“I know what you mean.” Erica walked over to peer into the chamber. When she saw the specimen, she gasped and then chuckled. “So that’s how we’re going to prove it’s an artificial diamond.”
“It was the only thing I could come up with.”
“I like it,” Erica said. “How much do we have?” She pulled up a stool and sat next to him.
“Not as much as I’d hoped. It looks like we might get 40 grams by Sunday.”
“How many carats is that?”
“I was wondering that myself, so I went and found a dictionary in Ted’s office. One carat equals 200 milligrams.”
After the slightest pause for a calculation, Erica exclaimed, “That’s 200 carats!”
“Yeah. I figured it would be enough to prove our point.”
“Liz Taylor might not be impressed.”
“She wasn’t. I’ve already got her order for a 300 carat diamond.”
“You have to
spend that alimony somehow. How did she know where to find you?”
“Smell. She can detect the scent of large diamonds from as far away as a thousand miles.”
“Is it a hypersensitivity to all jewels?”
Kevin nodded. “Large amounts of shiny objects.”
“That must explain her irresistible urge to be near Michael Jackson.”
He wanted to laugh, but he was too tired. He smiled, then couldn’t stifle a yawn.
“You need to get some rest,” Erica said. “You’ve barely slept the last two nights.”
“I’m all right.” He rotated his head around and then rubbed his neck. The lack of exercise was starting to get to him. “What did you do all afternoon?
Erica took over rubbing his neck and moved down to his shoulders. He moaned appreciatively. It was just what he needed, and her hands were obviously skilled in the art of massage.
“The reason I’m here,” she said, “is that I couldn’t sleep. Something happened today. I wasn’t going to tell you because I knew it would upset you, but I thought you should know.”
“What?” Kevin’s mind raced through a number of possibilities, all bad.
“Relax. You’re tensing up.”
“No kidding.”
“I won’t go on unless you relax.”
“All right,” he said reluctantly.
“Good. Today, when I went to the store, there was an emergency. A girl, a teenager, had a reaction to something she ate.”
“And?”
“She was severely allergic and went into anaphylactic shock.”
“What’s that?”
“Sorry. The body acts as if the allergen were a poison. In her case, her throat swelled shut.”
“Wow! Did she live? Is she going to be okay?”
“I’m not sure, but I think so.”
“That’s good…Wait a minute. What does this have to do with you?”
Erica took a deep breath. “I was right there when it happened. By the time anyone noticed, she couldn’t breathe. I guess my instincts took over, otherwise she would have died right in front of me. I had to help. She was suffocating.”
The Adamas Blueprint Page 20
