Code White

by Scott Britz-Cunningham

  As she pushed open the door to the operating room, she saw Kevin seated at his monitor, with his back toward Helvelius. Helvelius stood holding the microphone that he used to dictate his operative notes, shaking it as though it were a club.

  Kevin’s lips were curled with sarcasm. “Hey, I’m sorry I took a piss in your glory pool.”

  “Glory?” said Helvelius. “This isn’t about glory. This is about scientific progress. You act as though this TV p-production were all about you—wasting precious air time going on about your d-damned c-c-computer. On live television! Every minute spent on parlor tricks with Odin was a minute lost in getting the real m-m-message out.”

  “Look who’s talking. Hell, you did everything but go down on that TV babe. Meanwhile, the rest of us came off like peons on a coffee plantation. ‘Si, Senor Valdez! We pick-a the tasty coffee beans for you!’”

  “I gave you credit, you ingrate. I gave you a chance to talk about your w-w-work on camera. How did you return the favor? You insulted me, and you insulted K-K-Kathleen Brown—”

  “Oh, I think it’s quite clear who came off as the great mastermind of this project. Little does it matter that somebody else actually designed and built the fucking SIPNI device.”

  “At my direction.”

  “Right! ‘Let’s put a little computer inside some poor bastard’s brain, and see if a miracle happens.’ That was your direction. I never saw one freaking schematic from you. Not one flow chart. Not one practical idea—”

  Ali felt the hollow, shaky feeling that always came over her when people raised their voices in anger. It was even worse now, when she knew that, behind it all, they were really fighting over her.

  “Kevin, stop!” she said. Both Kevin and Dr. Helvelius turned toward her as she came through the doorway. “What’s the matter with you two? People can hear you, you know.”

  Kevin grinned. “Just coming down off that ole makin’ medical history high.”

  “To hell with you,” said Helvelius. “Let’s see how well you do getting a g-grant on your own.”

  “Go ahead, old man. I don’t need your stinking charity. I have a big grant application of my own in the works. Just got the pink sheets, in fact. My score is outta sight.”

  “Stop it!” Ali said. “You’re both acting like children.”

  “No! No, I’m not!” Helvelius slammed the microphone back into its cradle on the wall. “I’ve tried to do my best for him. For your sake, Ali, I don’t want to hurt him. But there are things a man doesn’t have to t-t-take.” He tore off his paper gown and wadded it into the trash bin, crushing the loose pile of Chux and drapes and bloody sponges that filled it nearly to the brim. For a moment he stood looking at Ali, his gray-haired chest heaving through the V of his blue scrub suit.

  “I’ll be in the f-f-family lounge, if you need me,” he said with exaggerated dignity. “The TV crew is already there. Jamie’s guardian will want to know how the surgery went.”

  “I’ll join you in a minute.” Ali waited until Helvelius had left the room, and then turned to Kevin. “Why are you pushing him? Can’t you see that this is the worst possible time?”

  “Really? It works for me.”

  No, don’t take the bait, she thought. Needling is his favorite weapon. It was better to stay natural, even friendly. “Do you really have a grant coming?” she asked.

  “Yes. And once I have it, I’m going to tell the old bastard and all his minions on the university board to shove it. Me and Odin’ll go settle somewhere else. Maybe Kathmandu. I hear they’re an up-and-coming center for high technology. And if not, they at least have the best slopes in the world for climbing.”

  “That’s good. Good that you’re getting funding. I was sorry when you didn’t get renewed last year.”

  “I would have, if the Bastard in Chief had written a proper letter of support like he promised.”

  “No, Kevin. It had nothing to do with him. Everybody’s having trouble with the NIH these days. Labs everywhere are losing their funding.”

  “Helvelius didn’t lose his.”

  “And you hold that against him? That’s what’s keeping this project—all of us—going. Richard’s been paying your salary. He’s been writing you blank check after blank check. I think a little gratitude might be in order.”

  “He just wants to own me. He wants the SIPNI patent.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it. This project was a team effort. It’s not just the SIPNI software. There’s the chip design, the contact points, the gel—there are at least a dozen patents involved. All of them are interlocking. None of them are the work of a single person. The university tried to explain this to you. None of us is going to get rich from this. Three-quarters of the royalties will go to the university, to fund future research.”

  “In guess whose laboratory?”

  “In the Laboratory for Neural Prosthetics. That’s bigger than you or me or Richard Helvelius. It’s something we all believe in. Don’t we?”

  “You’re taking his side.”

  “No, Kevin. I’m taking your side. I’ve been fighting harder than you know to keep you from getting thrown out of this institution.”

  “Fighting, for me? Now, there’s a novelty. You didn’t fight very hard for our marriage.”

  “You have no right to say that. I fought for years. I fought your jealousies, your false accusations, your constant carping about my work hours. I fought until I had nothing left to fight with.”

  “Work hours? Professional dedication, was it? Is that how you wound up in bed with this guy? I mean, of all the people to dump me for, you had to pick him?”

  “I didn’t leave you for Richard. I left you because of … us.” She had wanted to say “you,” but she knew that an accusation now would only throw fuel on the fire. “I never betrayed you—not once in all the time we were together. But we’re not together anymore. Whatever may or may not be happening between me and Richard is none of your business.”

  Kevin gave her a smug, almost childish smile. “I know what beta-hCG is.”

  “Beta-hCG? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a blood test they do to see if you’re pregnant.”

  Ali felt a shudder down her spine. “You’ve been looking at my medical records. That’s a federal crime, Kevin. You can be discharged from the hospital for that.”

  “I didn’t have to look. Someone told me,” he said in a singsong voice.

  “Who?”

  “It’s his, isn’t it?”

  “No. Not necessarily. It could be yours.”

  Kevin laughed. “I hardly think so. You moved out over three months ago.”

  “You forget. There was that night…” Ali stammered.

  “Oh, that.” Kevin drummed his fingers against his lips, in mock deliberation. “Is there a blood test for a crocodile heart? That would settle it.”

  “It doesn’t matter whose it is. I’m not having it.”

  “Of course not. It would get in the way of your work hours, wouldn’t it? Not to speak of it being one hell of an embarrassment for a certain chief of neurosurgery.”

  Ali turned to the wall, to keep him from seeing the anguish in her face. She had unconsciously wrapped her fingers in the lanyard of her ID badge, a half-inch-wide ribbon of heavy pink nylon, embroidered with the red-and-blue targetlike logo of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. It had been a present from Jamie Winslow for her thirty-fourth birthday. Whenever she felt weary or anxious, fondling it—or even just running her thumb down the inside of it—often calmed her. But she now twisted it so tightly that her fingertips hurt. “It’s none of your business, Kevin.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you told him, but not your lawful husband. Did he ask you to get rid of it?”

  “No. He … he wants … Look, I was going to tell you about it. But you’re unreachable, Kevin. I don’t know how to talk to you anymore.”

  “Try honesty. Try not sneaking around
behind my back. Try not withdrawing into that dark cave you flee to whenever somebody confronts you with real human feelings. Do you have feelings of your own, my sweet jasmine flower? Do you care for the feelings of others?”

  “Stop it, Kevin!”

  “What are you afraid of? I used to think there was a real flesh and blood woman behind those green eyes of yours. I spent years trying to reach that woman. God knows I did. That woman would not have gone off fucking her chief of surgery, and then cold-bloodedly disposing of the evidence—”

  “That’s not fair, Kevin. Stop it, please!” Ali spun around and faced him. Her eyes were still dry. He had not yet driven her to tears. “Look, I know I’ve hurt you, but do you expect me to feel sorry for you when you’re like this?”

  “Sorry? Give me a break. I don’t ask anything from you. Why should you feel sorry for me? I’m at the top of my game. You and Dildo Helvelius have no idea of the magnitude of what I’ve developed. All you can think of is that little SIPNI item. But SIPNI’s just a toy. I created SIPNI by creating the system that created SIPNI. And that system can do more—much, much more. You’ll find that out sooner than you think.”

  “You mean Odin?”

  “Odin. The cute little talking calculator that everyone takes for granted.”

  Ali sought for an olive branch—something to soften his relentless sarcasm. “I never doubted the importance of your work, Kevin. One day you’ll find the recognition you deserve.”

  “Recognition? Is that what you think I’m about?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Recognition is for pussies. One thing I’ve learned is that recognition isn’t something you ask for, like that stupid kid Oliver with a bowl in his hands. ‘Please, sir, may I have some more?’ Fuck him and his little bowl. Fuck all the medals. Fuck the Swedish Academy. Recognition is something you take. You don’t ask. You don’t give people any choice but to recognize you. You make your superiority a fact of life in the universe.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  “Triumph, baby. Not a bowl of oatmeal. Steak Chateaubriand, with seven courses.”

  Ali felt sick. Not like from the baby. This was from something else inside of her—the curses she wanted to shout at him but couldn’t, the dammed up rivers of tears that she was afraid to let flow. Was it possible that this man, whom she had once loved more than moon and stars, had gotten so twisted in his heart? Who was responsible for that? Was it her doing? “Oh, Kevin!” she said. “Let it go! You’re just tormenting yourself by thinking this way.”

  Just then there was another squawk from the overhead speaker. The speaker had been going for several minutes without Ali noticing it, but now she was startled to hear her own name.

  “Dr. O’Day. Dr. O’Day, please report to the neurosurgical recovery room.”

  She instinctively checked her pager, to see whether the battery had gone dead or she had missed a page. But the status bar read, “No Messages.”

  Why didn’t they just page me? she thought. Why are they using the overhead?

  “I’ve got to go,” said Ali.

  “Then go.”

  Ali’s feet didn’t move. “Listen, Kevin,” she said in a faltering voice. “I never wanted to hurt you. I just … I just couldn’t take—”

  “Spare me your apologies. What’s an apology but a gaseous discharge of emotional waste products? Mere air, like a vow.”

  Ali’s throat tightened with indignation. “You used to be so different, Kevin,” she said. “There was a time when I felt brilliant just being around you. But … but you haven’t been that man in a long, long time.”

  “Babe, you always see what you want to see.”

  The speaker squawked again. “Dr. O’Day. Dr. O’Day, please report to the neurosurgical recovery room, STAT.”

  The recovery room. That could mean only one thing—a problem with Jamie. Oh, God! Ali looked at the pager in her hand, absently, as though it and not the speaker had been the source of the sound. “We need … we need to talk this out, Kevin. There’s … there’s so much that I need to say to you. But—”

  Kevin laughed, a cold, perfunctory laugh. “You’ll never say it. You never can and you never do.”

  “I … I … I’ve really got to go,” Ali stammered. He’s right, she thought. I could never say it. To open my heart to him is impossible. Not with him smirking and scourging me with that look of betrayal in his eyes.

  He had stung her—playing upon her guilt, as only he knew how to do—but she would not give him the victory of her tears. Without looking back, she clenched her pager and hastened out of the room.

  * * *

  The nurse met Ali as soon as she appeared in the doorway of the recovery room.

  “It’s the Winslow boy. Look at how agitated he is.”

  “He’s awake already?”

  Ali peered across the room and saw Jamie tossing his head from side to side and flexing his wrists against the velcro restraints. As soon as he heard Ali’s voice, Jamie began to shout.

  “Doctor! D-doctor!”

  Ali hurried to the bedside and placed her hand on Jamie’s arm. “I’m here, Jamie. There’s no need to be afraid.”

  “I can’t see anything, Dr. O’Day. I can’t see anything at all. Did I have the operation?”

  “Yes, Jamie. It went very well.”

  “Then why can’t I see?”

  “It’s too early yet.” She was glad that he couldn’t see the redness that she was sure was in her eyes. “We’ve turned the SIPNI unit on, but it takes time to make the right connections. We’re trying to rewire parts of the brain that haven’t talked to each other in years.”

  “It’s going to take years?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “How long?”

  “I … I don’t know. You’re the first person ever to have this procedure. We don’t have enough experience to predict what will happen. Remember? We talked about all this.”

  “But you must know something!”

  The bed rails shook as Jamie thrashed at his restraints. His face turned red. He began to bawl like a three-year-old, his lips bridged with lines of spittle, his jaw quivering, his nostrils flaring wide.

  The sound of his wailing was more than Ali could bear. “Nurse!” she shouted. “Two milligrams of Ativan. STAT!”

  The nurse pulled a syringe from the top drawer of a cart and rushed to the bedside. While Ali held Jamie’s arm immobile, the nurse quickly injected the drug into the IV port.

  “What’s that?” screamed Jamie. “What are you giving me?”

  “Something to relax you.”

  As the injection took effect, Jamie began to breathe more quietly. His jaw stopped trembling. At last, he lay quietly, letting Ali daub the tears from around his eyes.

  “You know,” he said, “I don’t even remember what it was like to see. I could be seeing right now, and maybe I wouldn’t know it. I don’t even see things in my dreams.”

  “The tumor did that to you. But soon that will all change. Trust me, Jamie. Believe.”

  Jamie’s voice had shrunk to a whisper. “I do … trust you … Dr. Nefertiti.”

  He sank back into unconsciousness, but the red flush of panic lingered on his cheeks. Ali checked his vital signs on the cardio monitor, then adjusted the electroencephalograph leads taped to his scalp. All seemed well. But was it? Oh, God, she thought. What if we’ve let him down? She knew that the SIPNI device had been a gamble. There were a hundred things that could go wrong. Have we moved too fast? Did I let my feelings for Jamie cloud my judgment?

  It was too late now for second thoughts. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait and see.

  Whoosh! The plastic pneumatic boots used to prevent blood clots started through another cycle of deflation and reinflation. The cardio monitor kept up its monotonous beeping. The EEG traced silently. Delta waves and sleep spindles …

  Ali almost dreaded what would happen when Jamie reawoke.

  10:07 A.M.


  Kevin strode down the green-tiled corridor toward his laboratory on the first basement level under Tower A. Were it not for the eyes of the occasional passing janitor or cafeteria worker, he would have broken into a run. Two hours incommunicado in the operating room, cut off from developments on the most fateful day of his life, it had taken a superhuman effort to keep his cool. Now, free at last, with the safe haven of his lab in sight, he could scarcely brook a second of delay.

  At the entrance, Kevin swiped his ID badge and the red light of the lock turned green with a faint beep. Pushing against the door, he entered a large L-shaped room—a place that had once been used for washing glassware. A visitor would have found it dingy, like going into a cave. There were no windows, and to cut down glare on his computer screens, Kevin had removed all but a single fluorescent tube from the main bank of lights. Of course Kevin himself did not notice the gloom, nor the dank smell of puddled sinkwater, old cheese and stale coffee that greeted him. He had long grown accustomed to it, as a fox does to the scent of its den.

  Hastening to a large gray metal desk, where piles of papers and half-eaten food vied for space with a clunky old cathode-ray-tube computer monitor, he plopped into a leather swivel chair rigged like a starship commander’s seat, with a keyboard fastened to one armrest. Lifting his feet from the floor, he let the chair swing out to face a sixty-one-inch flat LCD screen on the back wall.

  “Odin, display endo lobby,” he said, his voice quavering with excitement.

  Instantly, the screen showed a security camera’s view of the Endocrinology Clinic waiting room.

  Kevin did a double take. “What are you showing me—the morgue?” He had expected to zoom in on a scene of panic in motion, a bunch of Keystone Kops darting around or cowering behind the furniture. Instead, the lobby was empty except for a single technician in a white paper suit, who knelt by the window and dusted for fingerprints. A yellow police tape drooped between two plastic bollards that blocked the glass doorway. The paper bag behind the planter was gone.

  “The Stones have left the stage,” he glumly observed. “Nothing left to do but send our greeting card.”

  “MESSAGE 2 HAS ALREADY BEEN E-MAILED TO HARRY A. LEWTON, CHIEF OF SECURITY, AT 8:35 A.M.”