by Jan Coffey
“What happens in the case of images that the patient has not seen initially?” she asked.
“That’s the second part of the study,” Conway explained. “The same participants are shown a second set of images they have never encountered before. Now the model is programmed to take what it learned from the previous pairings and figure out what is being shown in the new set.”
“What’s the accuracy level of a test like this?”
Sid looked over at Desmond, who was watching Jennifer intently.
“In our last trial,” he said, “we were at ninety-five percent accuracy.”
“But you said the test was done on patients who were cognizant. Is this the same sequence that will be done on JD?” Jennifer asked.
Nat Rosen came around from his computer and smiled at her as he readjusted an electrode and went back to his seat. “What the heck are you doing working here? You ask more intelligent questions than our advisory committee.”
“You’ll go far brown-nosing me like that,” she told the young man.
Sid double-checked the connections for JD’s wiring. “We’ll try to follow the same sequence. But there’s no guarantee that JD sees…or processes…anything that we put in front of her. So at the same time, we try to use data from another test group and compare the second set of readings.”
“I’m ready,” Desmond told them.
Nat handed Sid a folder. Jennifer assumed these were the initial images. She moved to the foot of the bed, guessing the neurologist needed to have JD’s full attention.
“What do you hope for with the first run?” she asked.
“Anything,” Sid told her, opening the folder. “We’ll be happy with anything she’s willing to show us.”
Jennifer watched the young neurologist take a stack of photographs out of the folder. He held them one by one in front of the patient. Everything was timed. The other two physicians operated behind the computers. JD’s eyes were open. She seemed to be staring at the images.
The answers this test would provide were both exciting and terrifying. Jennifer was glad for the young woman. JD’s family had to be out there somewhere…wondering what had become of her. At the same time, Jen feared for JD. Someone had pushed her out of a moving car on the dark highway on a winter night. That person had intended to kill her.
“We have visuals,” Desmond announced.
“I haven’t shown her the second set of images yet,” Sid replied.
“The other model has established a match. It’s already giving us visuals.”
The other two physicians joined Desmond behind the computer. Jennifer didn’t think it was right for her to join them. So far they hadn’t minded her sticking around. She hoped they’d retain that attitude.
“What’s that?” Nat asked suddenly. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Desmond responded. “It’s another visual.”
“Are you sure it’s not a malfunction?” Nat asked.
“No, it’s a visual,” Desmond said adamantly. “Look…”
“Have you seen anything like this,” Nat asked Sid.
“No…it has to be that we don’t have the right model match for her.”
The curiosity was killing her. Jennifer looked at JD. The young woman’s eyes were still open. She was now looking at her.
“Is something wrong?” Jennifer asked finally.
Sid looked up surprised, as if he’d forgotten that she was there.
“You’re not happy with the readings?” she asked, too worried to refrain from asking.
“Well, we should be getting images of what she’s seeing now, but we’re getting a black screen. It has to be a malfunction of the computers.”
“It’s not malfunction of the computers,” Desmond Beruti said again. “That’s what she’s showing us.”
“A black wall?” Nat asked.
“Perhaps night?” Jennifer recalled the circumstances of her accident. “Could it be darkness? Are you picking up memory images?”
“No,” Desmond said firmly. “It is as if she is seeing something else. As if she were somewhere else right now.”
CHAPTER 13
Nuclear Fusion Test Facility
It wasn’t her imagination. He’d moved. He’d taken hold of her wrist.
“Dr. Lee,” Marion said softly, crouching down beside her advisor. She shined the light on the hand that she’d seen move. It lay motionless. She directed the beam toward the man’s head. There was blood everywhere she looked. There was a raw wound to the side of skull. Beyond that, she had no idea how many times the older man was shot or where. She didn’t know what she could do to help him.
“Please…Dr. Lee,” she whispered again. She put her fingers on his wrist, hoping to feel the pulse. She couldn’t find anything. She touched his neck, feeling for any sign of life. The blood was sticky on her hand. Whatever she’d thought her aversions were to the sight of blood, they didn’t count right now. She couldn’t move away if there was any chance he was alive.
Marion could barely feel it. But there was a weak pulse. She shined the light on the man’s face again. His lips were moving.
“Dr. Lee. Please tell me what to do.”
He was lying face down, his face turned to the side. She didn’t know if she should try to move him.
“Sa…sa…”
Marion crouched lower to the ground, bringing her ear closer to his mouth. She pushed her hair behind her ear. Her hand came away with fresh blood.
“Please…say it again…what do you want me to do?”
“Samp…samp….”
“Samp…?” she repeated. “Samples? The test samples.” She remembered the nine containers in the test chambers.
“L…leak…po…power…off. Leak…”
“The power,” she said aloud, realizing what he was telling her. With the power turned off, the samples will leak. Without power, the cooling cycles are disrupted. No controlled atmosphere for the tests. The sequencing had already started. A number of the tests might already be in catastrophic stages if the containers had failed. Or if not, it’d be matter of time before they did. Marion flipped open her phone and looked at the time.
“Is there any way I can stop the tests?” she asked.
“…ceme…cemen…”
“Cementation,” she said aloud.
She knew what he was telling her. There was no ventilation in the test chambers. It was only matter of the time before the containers would be generating and releasing hydrogen. When that happened, a flammable mixture of hydrogen and oxygen would form. The result, a fire or a possible explosion. With the lab being hundreds of feet under the ground, whoever was left down here would be dead.
The facility’s power had shut down at approximately the same time that the tests had started. She could calculate the time and figure out the worst case scenarios of when the first leaks could take place.
The scientist was saying ‘cementation.’ It was a way of sealing the containers so no gases could escape. She started to shake her head and then stopped, as the pain rocketed through her skull.
“There’s no power in the facility,” she told him. “I can’t get the mixes going without it. Dr. Lee, is there a backup system that you know of? A generator?”
There was no answer.
Marion shined the light on her advisor’s face. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t moving. She pressed her fingers to his neck where she’d felt a pulse before.
There was nothing. He was gone.
CHAPTER 14
York, Pennsylvania
The reference librarian wrote down the information Mark Shaw wanted before disappearing behind her wall of computers.
Mark was obsessed with finding whatever he could about Marion. The accident, her family, anything.
Newspapers, television, the Internet, and now the library. He reminded himself repeatedly that spending some twelve hours chatting with someone in a crowded airport didn’t really constitute knowing the person. But he coul
dn’t stop.
He opened that morning’s New York Times on one of the library’s oversized tables. There were no pictures of the scientists in today’s edition, but there was an article on page 2. He scanned it quickly. The gist of it was that the group funded by a grant from New Mexico Power Company had been working on developing portable nuclear devices. The power company had confirmed that no live radioactive material had been involved in the research program. Mark looked down at the names again. Marion Kagan was the last name listed.
Mark remembered the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Logan Airport had been packed with stranded passengers. There were no empty seats, and people sat huddled along any available wall and on the wet muddy floors. Everyone was miserable. There were long lines at each of the eating establishments. No flights were taking off or landing, and there was no information by the airlines or the airport on how long the storm was going to last. From Philadelphia to Maine, the East Coast was essentially shut down. Marion was sitting at the end of a row of seats, a carry-on suitcase propped up next to her. She seemed oblivious to all the complaining around her.
She was holding a cell phone to one ear. An IPod was plugged into the other ear. A foot kept beat with whatever music she was listening to. Her laptop was open, and her fingers were flying on the keyboard. She could just as well have been sitting in a park on her lunch hour on a beautiful summer day.
A four-by-four piece of real estate on the floor opened up next to her. Mark headed toward it, but as he got there her suitcase fell on its side, covering the space.
She looked down at the suitcase, up at him, then at suitcase again. He stood there, thinking she’d move it. She ended the conversation on her cell and lowered the display of her laptop.
“Can I sit here?” he’d asked her.
She’d looked up at his uniform. “Are you going or coming back?”
People were curious. He had no doubt she was asking about the service. “I’m going back,” he’d said. “I was on leave for a few weeks.”
“Iraq?”
He nodded.
“I have to tell you I’m against it. I hate our dependency on oil. I believe it’s wrong for so many people to die for a foreign policy based on oil. And I’m talking about Iraqis and Americans.”
He’d stared at her raised chin—at the defiance in her dark eyes. Mark thought she was beautiful.
“Do we have to have this conversation while I’m standing up?” he asked.
“Conversation and not an argument?”
“Conversation…argument…debate…whatever.”
“I like debates,” she’d said with a smile, reaching for the suitcase and pulling it out of his way. “Have a seat.”
“Officer Shaw?” The librarian’s voice broke into Mark’s thoughts. He looked up from the newspaper he had opened before him. It took him few moments to wipe Marion’s image from his mind’s eye. He stood up.
“Were you able to find anything?”
“There are no obituaries for any of the victims, as yet. Not even the universities have posted items. Perhaps tomorrow. I do see that the fire is hampering the investigators even reaching the accident site.”
The fire was still burning. From what Mark had read, the experts were saying that, because of the high temperatures, nothing would be left. No remains. They might not get down into the research facility beneath the platform for months. If then.
“I was hoping to find an address for Marion Kagan’s family to send some flowers,” he told her. He knew she was originally from Deer Lodge, Montana, but there were no one by the last name of Kagan listed in the phone book when he’d checked.
“You might want to check with the university she was affiliated with,” the librarian offered.
“I have…I did. They’re too overwhelmed right now and are only answering questions of the immediate family. Their suggestion was to wait for the service arrangements.”
“I’ll keep an eye open for it. If you want to check back with us…maybe Monday,” the woman offered. A thought struck her. “Don’t you have access to driver’s license records through the police department?”
“Yes, I could go that route…” Mark told her. The Department of Motor Vehicle records were traceable to when someone first got their license. In Marion’s case, he could most likely get her address in Montana and when first she’d applied. “But this is personal…not professional.”
“I see. Well, it just has to be a matter of time before the information starts getting posted.”
Mark nodded, pretending to be satisfied. But he wasn’t. The librarian returned to her desk. He closed the newspaper and put it back on the rack where he’d gotten it.
He needed to find something to do. He had too much time on his hand. The librarian had addressed him as Officer Shaw. Everyone expected that he would go back to the old job. In his conversation with his parents last night on the phone, it was clear they expected the same thing.
Now he could admit that part of his reluctance had to do with her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d imagined that he’d take a trip to California and possibly meet up with Marion Kagan. Two weeks he’d been back, though, and he hadn’t called her. And now she was dead.
What a waste, he thought, leaving the library.
CHAPTER 15
Nuclear Fusion Test Facility
The sight of Eileen Arrington’s dead body on the bunk in the room they’d shared was the last straw. She’d been shot in the forehead and her eyes were fixed on some spot above the door.
Marion’s stomach turned. She grabbed a waste basket next to her bed and bent over. Her body shook with dry heaves.
She pushed herself to walk out into the hallway. Out in the narrow passage, she crouched down and leaned against the paneled wall, hugging her knees to her chest. She laid the penlight on the floor. A sense of helplessness overwhelmed her. The tears she’d been trying to hold back finally let loose. Sobs rose in her throat. For a while, she had a hard time getting enough air in her lungs.
Neil Gregory and Steven Huang’s bodies had been in the kitchen area. Both men had been shot as they sat at the large table the group used for their meals. She knew it was useless to check for any vital signs in the two, but she forced herself.
Turning away from them, Marion’s gaze fell on the door of a facilities room off the kitchen. The door was slightly ajar and, pushing it open, she found what looked like a generator in the corner beside a water heater and an HVAC unit. The generator had been disabled. The people sent down here to kill them had known to do even that.
Eileen had been her last hope. But she was dead, too. Marion alone had survived the attack.
She sat for a long time with her back against the wall and her knees gathered to her chest. The air in the facility was becoming dank. A familiar odor hung in the air. She realized what it was. It was the Monday morning smell in the meat department at the grocery store where she worked during the summer when she was in high school. It was the smell of death.
Whether she sat there for ten minutes or an hour, Marion didn’t know. Time had lost all significance. She stared up into the darkness around her. The penlight she’d laid on the floor was growing dimmer. She patted her pocket for the other one she’d taken from Andrew Bonn’s desk. It wasn’t there. She guessed it had dropped out of her pocket when she’d gotten sick inside the room. That was where the facility emergency notebook had fallen, too, along with the clipboard she’d gone back into the control room to get
Marion recalled what her advisor had told her as he’d taken his last breath. The samples—the contamination. He’d asked her to seal the containers. She’d tried to get into the lab as she’d made her way from the control room. She wasn’t able to open the door. Perhaps there was another emergency generator in the facility that she didn’t know about. Even a backup battery source. There had to be something, she thought.
She had yet to calculate the hours before that time bomb would go off. She needed to know how much t
ime she had left.
Marion knew she needed to go back inside the sleeping quarters and get the things she dropped.
She was angry with herself for not paying attention to any details. She had other things to focus on. She knew she had decided early on that between all the experts in the facility, they’d take care of any possible emergencies. She’d been wrong. They were all dead.
It was now up to her. She didn’t know how to get inside the lab, but she had to find a way. But then, even if she did get in, the cementation procedure wasn’t something that she could do in the dark and without the proper apparatus. There was a long and complicated set of steps to follow, and to effectively seal the containers, she had to follow the steps. Marion didn’t know how she could accomplish any of that. Not by herself. Certainly, not without power.
Her head was pounding fiercely again. The darkness all around was disorienting. She took the phone out of her pocket and turned it on. The sunny beach wallpaper on the display made her pause. This was it. This was the end of her life as she knew it.
She stared at the time on the display. No one had come after them. There had been no rescue. She couldn’t fathom what the people at the power company’s R&D group were doing. It didn’t make sense for them not to respond after so many hours. They communicated with them via email on hourly basis. It just didn’t make sense.
Her fingers moved of their own accord and pressed the address book on her cell. Marion wondered if any of the people she had listed there would know that something had happened to her. Most importantly, how many of them care, or do something about it?
There weren’t too many names in the address book. There were even fewer people that she called on any regular basis. Since the start of this project, she’d been incommunicado, anyway. Looking at the dearth of names, she realized she’d been incommunicado her entire life.
