Amanda's Story

by Brian O'Grady

  “So can I count on your cooperation?”

  “I don’t seem to have much choice,” she answered as defiantly as her situation allowed, vowing to change it.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Damnation! I can’t manufacture a positive result, no matter how angry you become,” Newton Moore drawled to his temporary boss, Dr. Martin. Moore was one of eight laboratory and medical technicians who had been given a day’s notice and uprooted from Atlanta to this hole in the ground miles from civilization. He was voicing the growing frustration that was shared by his seven comrades. “Can you please take a step back?” Martin was literally standing over him, the virologist’s tie draped over Moore’s shoulder. He and his colleagues had all agreed to deploy into the field in the event of an outbreak, but one woman, no matter how ‘‘hot,’’ was not an outbreak by anyone’s definition.

  “I am trying to see if you’re doing this correctly,” Martin answered testily.

  Moore abruptly stood. He was nearly a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than his boss and in a rare moment used it to intimidate Martin. “I will gladly watch you do it.” He forced Martin against the wall as he yielded the stool. Moore knew that Martin knew nothing about the new enzyme-linked assay that could reveal even the slightest traces of the EDH 1 virus. Moore had been a principal investigator into the technique and was arguably a world authority, which was exactly why he had been dragged from his lab and brought to Tellis. “I haven’t seen the sun in almost two weeks, and I’m getting pretty damn tired of you and the rest of your staff dogging my every step.”

  Martin was forced to look up at the angry man with his wild hair. Moore was a super-star in the field of immunoassay, and virtually untouchable. Even before leaving graduate school he realized his undeniable value and banked on it as he purposely tweaked the establishment with his hair and clothes.

  “All right, just call me when this sample has been run.” Martin backed his way to the doorway, giving Moore some space.

  “It’s going to be negative,” Moore said as Martin slipped out of the door. “Just like all the others,” he finished to himself. He returned to his seat and finished pipetting the last of the 96 wells in the microtiter plate. Martin’s team, with the full support of the CDC, had moved remarkably fast in isolating the virus and then fabricating an antibody to a portion of the virus’s protein wall, which was what made Moore’s test possible. An antibody solution had been bound to a chemical that changed color whenever it came in contact with the protein unique to the virus. Moore sat waiting for any of the samples to change to the bright yellow color that signified the presence of EDH 1. After fifteen minutes, each of the 96 small wells remained clear. “Negative,” he said, getting up from his seat. Four hours of work for the same result. He took the assay plate and tossed it into the large red medical waste bin. At least ten other plates had landed there in the last two weeks. He turned off his light and walked back to his room.

  “Are you off?” A voice caused Moore to pull up short.

  “Hey,” he answered as Scott Price approached from behind. Price and Moore had worked together in the same microbiology lab in Atlanta for twelve years. Moore tolerated the usually grim man partly because they worked closely, partly because every spring they played on the same softball team, and partly because no one else would suffer Price and his near constant black-cloud. “I’m done; at least until they find another part of that luscious body to poke.”

  Price held up a small tray filled with needles and blood tubes. “They want some more blood. Want to help?”

  “No, but I’ll be happy to hold her hand, or anything else she’ll let me hold.”

  “Hmpf,” Price responded with his trademark grunt.

  “So you’re going to tell me that she’s not the finest thing you’ve ever poked?” The double entendre only made Price grunt a second time, and Moore shook his head. “I’m calling Buuull Shiiiit on that one!”

  “I said she’s fine,” Price said. They descended the stairs to the main isolation room, or the Cell, as everyone had begun to call it.

  “I said she’s fine,” Moore mimicked Price with the voice of a prepubescent boy.

  “Are you ever going to gown up?” Price said after putting down the phlebotomy tray. He pushed Moore aside and reached for an isolation suit.

  “What the hell are you doing that for? She’s not infectious.” Moore pulled at the suit’s sleeve as Price tried to slip an arm in.

  “Stop it, asshole.,” Price yelled and Moore let go. “I don’t care what anyone says; I’m not touching her or any of her blood. Are you going to help?”

  “No. I think I’ll just stay out here and watch.” He faced the glass and Amanda was staring directly at him. “Sometimes I think she can see through that.”

  “The airlock is open, genius. She can hear you.”

  “Can she hear this?” Moore flipped off Price with both middle fingers. He watched his colleague stoop and walk into the small room, and then returned his gaze to the lovely lady. She watched as Price negotiated the open airlock and then she very deliberately turned and faced Moore. He stared at her and she seemed to stare right back at him; after a long moment he waved but she didn’t respond.

  ***

  Amanda couldn’t hear the obscene gesture, but Price’s response was clear enough. She had heard their voices over the chorus of inarticulate voices in her mind. Occasionally one would take the lead and add its own aria in some unintelligible language, but like now they usually blended into a cacophony of strange white noise. She was convinced that they weren’t drugging her and that the mental instability was purely organic, earned through stress and isolation. She clung to the hope that if she was ever released, her mind would naturally right itself, and if she was never released what did it matter if her sanity had slipped a little.

  She saw Price bang the top of his isolation suit against the airlock that opened to her room, and her mood instantly darkened as he emerged with a scowl on his face.

  “I need to draw some more blood,” Price introduced himself.

  “Why not? It’s been almost eight hours.” Amanda sat crossed-legged on her bed and pushed away a novel as Price approached. She presented a bruised arm, and with gloved hands he tapped her skin looking for an unused vein. “You don’t usually do this,” she said with an even tone. An aura of dissatisfaction surrounded him, and Amanda found herself in the middle of it.

  “No. We don’t have a regular phlebotomist, so we all have to take turns,” he said tersely, and Amanda didn’t have to ask him how he felt about that arrangement.

  “At least it gets you out of the lab.” Amanda tried to jar some positive emotion from Price.

  “My lab is in Atlanta,” he said sullenly as he wrapped a rubber tourniquet around her bicep. “Squeeze your fist,” he commanded, and Amanda complied. “Don’t move.” He jabbed a large needle into her forearm and predictably he missed the vein. He cursed quietly as one of Amanda’s mental voices suddenly took it up a notch. She focused on the strange, incomprehensible words as Price tried and missed again. He cursed a little stronger this time, and her mental soloist ratcheted up another notch. He tried a different vein as a large bruise began to form on her arm, and for a third time he blew the vein.

  “Fuck!” he said out loud, and even though it had become her new favorite word, Amanda was taken aback. His sullen demeanor had deteriorated into outright anger, and he callously ripped off the tourniquet and reached for her other arm. “Let me have that one,” he commanded when she hesitated.

  “No! Not until you calm down.” The heat of his emotions was like a sunlamp on her face, and the voice in her mind had reached a piercing level. It took a supreme effort to maintain her focus on Price as pain burst through her head.

  He grabbed her other arm and quickly rewrapped the tourniquet. For the fourth time he stabbed her and, like in the previous attempts, missed. H
e started ranting as he lined up for a fifth attempt, and Amanda grabbed his arm. The pain from his rough attempts, combined with the shrieking in her mind, nearly made her vomit.

  “No more! Get somebody else to do this!” She could hear his companion in the control room, or at least thought she could. Reality began to blur as the screaming in her mind began to resolve itself into a long tirade of obscenities. A distant and detached part of her mind was almost happy with the sudden clarity. Words, no matter how foul, were preferable to the inarticulate shrieking. But the resolution gave her no respite from the pain, which was beginning to threaten her level of consciousness. A hand reached her face in the fog of the half-reality and pushed her into a pillow. A sharp jab in her arm was followed by another scream in her ears and in her mind. Price and the voice vied to see who could cause Amanda the most pain.

  “God damn BITCH!” he screamed as he twisted her arm. He forced her face further into the pillow and she began to gasp for air as he finally cannulated a vein. He kept his arm across her back as the blood began to flow into the specimen tubes.

  I hope she passes out and dies from anoxia, said the voice in her mind. It followed with more invectives that Amanda knew were meant for someone else. Suddenly her mind began to fade and her body began to lighten. She felt an arm in her back, only she felt the arm more than her back. The synergy made her dizzy and she fought to stay conscious. Images of the sandy-haired Price and a small woman arguing in a car flashed through her mind.

  All I want to do is go home, and this bitch is keeping me here! He punctuated his thought by pushing her deeper into the pillow, and the sensation of pushing and being pushed overwhelmed her. She was suffocating, and her dying brain began to hallucinate wildly as she watched Price and the small woman renew their argument in a restaurant.

  It’s his wife, Amanda thought, and as her consciousness began to fade a flood of alien emotions and memories raced through her. Price and Moore walking down the hall. Price arguing over the phone. Price losing his temper. Price driving. Price sleeping. Price. Price. Price. And finally Amanda made the connection. The voice in her head was Price’s. His thoughts, senses, and life had merged with hers.

  Abruptly he released her. Her head popped off the pillow and she gasped for air. Her scrub top had been pulled up and for a moment his eyes lingered. A large man with wild hair stood over Price, and he too stared. She angrily pulled her top down. “No wonder your wife left you,” she spat at Price. The words were out of her mouth before she was even consciously aware she was speaking. His memory of the small, dark-haired woman running from their apartment raced through her mind. You’re nothing more than a coward! echoing in his mind, and Amanda wasn’t sure if she had yelled them or if it had been Price’s abused wife.

  He was on her in an instant. Amanda felt his blows as well as his anger as they reestablished the strange connection that had broken when he let her up. He was screaming in her ears and her mind, and she rejoiced in his impotent rage. Moore pulled the much smaller man off his feet and literally threw him across the room, where he struck the one-way glass. His face shield cracked and he ripped off the hood that covered his head. “You’re a fucking bitch and you should have died with all the others.” His face was red and his spittle flew halfway to Moore, who had interposed himself.

  “Get out, Price. Now, or so help me they be carrying your ass out of here.”

  Price’s voice still played in Amanda’s mind and she could hear him weighing his options. Finally he stooped to retrieve the four vials of blood and, after a moment’s hesitation, threw them against the wall. Glass and blood splattered over Moore. For a moment nothing happened, then both Moore and Price began to move at the same instant—Moore towards Price, who raced to the airlock.

  “Asshole,” Moore screamed as Price slipped out ahead of the larger man.

  “You’re friends with that fuck?” Amanda asked as Moore turned to appraise the damage.

  “Friends is too strong a word. We work together, but that ended about five seconds ago.” He picked a shard of glass from a tangle in his hair. Amanda tossed him a towel and he wiped the blood from of his face.

  “He beats his wife, or should I say ex-wife.”

  “Worst-kept secret in Atlanta,” he answered, and she liked the way he pronounced Atlanta. He leaned over and examined her face. “You’re going to need stitches,” he said.

  She ignored what he said and searched her mind for a voice that fit this not-so-gentle giant. It was soft compared to Price’s screams. He’s going to need more than stitches. Damn, how could he do this to that face? She blushed.

  “Turn your head,” he said, and for the second time she felt her body lighten as his hand lightly touched her chin. She felt his powerful physical attraction, but also a strong sense of propriety. She leaned away from him and the connection became more remote. “Sorry,”—he misinterpreted her response—“I’m not going to hurt you.” He was still close enough that she could hear him complete the sentence in his mind: I’m going to hurt Price.

  “It’s okay; it doesn’t even hurt,” Amanda said, subtly retreating from the large man.

  “It’s gonna; he hit you pretty good. Sorry I wasn’t faster.” He stood to his full height. “I’ll get someone down here to fix you up.”

  She tried to ignore his inner monologue. “Thank you for what you did.”

  “Should never have happened. And it will not happen again.” An odd look crossed his face. “Did you just say something?”

  “No,” she answered, and realized that their connection was possibly reciprocal.

  “Okay.” He still looked confused. “Are you going to be all right down here alone? I’ve got to get some help and find the future-former Mr. Price.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She smiled, and even with the developing bruise and the cut under her right eye, she felt Moore’s heart skip a beat.

  He walked to the airlock and turned back. The confused look returned. “You didn’t say any …” She shook her head. “I think I need my hearing checked.”

  She slid off her bed and looked in the mirror. She had seen her face reflected in Moore’s mind and the mirror’s reflection confirmed it. She touched her bloody cheek and began to laugh. Moore paused in the airlock.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, ducking his head back into the cell.

  His clear but confused thoughts floated across the room to her. “I am very okay.” Her acceptance of the assault only confused him even further. He paused a moment longer and then returned to the airlock.

  Amanda looked back at the mirror. She was already developing a first-class shiner, but it was a small price to pay for clarity. Her mental aberrations weren’t aberrations at all; in fact they weren’t even hers. She hadn’t actually seen Cameron Lambert dancing with his newborn baby; she had somehow tuned into the young man’s powerful memory of the event. It was the same with Colonel Bennett arguing with Dr. Martin, and with Price abusing his wife. She had become a receiver for the memories, thoughts, and emotions of those around her.

  “Damnation,” Amanda drawled.

  CHAPTER 21

  “I appreciate that a single incident should not prompt precipitous actions, but neither can we ignore it,” Marcus Sobel said to Nathan Martin.

  Sobel’s clipped and precise elocution was more than an affectation; it was a defining characteristic. Sobel’s appointment as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coincided with the untimely retirement of Stanley Cripps. Sobel had been Martin’s chairman at NYU, and the pair had managed to maintain a professional relationship for twenty years. The appointment of a protégée was fairly common practice, so Martin’s nomination to Director of Special Pathogens was met with little resistance. Sobel was the epitome of insider politics. He was groomed from an early age for high places, his family’s wealth afforded him an Ivy League education, and his father’s connections ensured a p
osition of respect and power. He possessed an uncanny ability to surround himself with people of great ability, insulating him from the mundane duties of his position and ensuring that they were done exceptionally well. He saw in Martin the tenacity of a bulldog and the look of one as well. He was comfortable that Martin would always get the job done and never pose a threat to him politically.

  “It has been dealt with, Marcus.” Martin had had a long discussion with Scott Price, before the younger man was fired.

  “Which leaves the larger issue of the young lady. I have given you great latitude, and a good deal of our budget, both of which are in very short supply at the moment. I believe that without any further developments, once this last set of cultures and antigen studies has been completed, we will be in a position to release Mrs. Flynn. Don’t you agree?”

  Martin had to bite his tongue as a comment about Sobel’s inability to interpret a clinical situation nearly made it out of his mouth. “Of course, that is one way of proceeding.” He paused for Sobel to respond, but his boss just waited for Martin to convince him or hang himself. “When I was a resident. you gave a lecture about how humanity’s future will be affected by the emergence of more resistant and pathogenic microbes. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.” Sobel’s tone made it sound like his mind had already shifted to the next order of business.

  “You posited that unless the rate of scientific advancement kept pace with population growth we would ultimately reach a tipping point. That the interaction between the human biomass and the microbial biomass would inevitably lead to ‘pandemics of biblical proportions.’ That was the very term you used.”

  Sobel took a long moment. “Unfortunately, I am still of the same opinion. However, you have yet to prove that this patient represents anything more than a potential PR nightmare.”