by Wendy Devore
The anesthesiologist bustled into the room pushing a cart containing a pair of computer-controlled propofol pumps. He efficiently connected the first machine to Lily’s IV, depressed a flurry of buttons, and checked the patient’s vitals. With a satisfied nod, he turned his attention to Andrew and began a similar procedure.
“I expect a call when they awaken,” Andric barked. He charged from the room without a further glance at either patient. As the door hissed closed on its pneumatic hinges, Janine Mori clenched her jaw, cursing under her breath in Japanese. She glared in the direction of the departed CEO, anger clouding her voice. “Isabel always warned me you were not to be trusted.”
Chapter 4
Andrew
September 19
The brilliant kaleidoscope of color generated by the video panels plastered on every building in sight counterbalanced the sallow gloom of dusk when Andrew stepped into the lobby of the Cardinal Hotel. His quick scan of the space confirmed that Lily wasn’t there, so he headed directly to the second floor.
When he reached his room, Lily was slumped on the floor in front of the door. He moved quickly to her side and reached for her chin.
Lily snapped to attention and slapped his hand away, hard. “Where have you been?” she hissed. “You’re hours late.”
He rocked back onto his heels and scrutinized her features. Her eyes were swollen and slightly bloodshot, and her forehead was damp with a sheen of sweat.
He frowned and stood, offering her a hand. “I’ve been gathering information.”
She blinked rapidly, rubbed her left eye vigorously, and allowed him to help her up. He noted with rising concern that her grip was uncharacteristically weak.
“Why aren’t you waiting in your room?” he asked. He reached for her arm as she stumbled.
“Something’s wrong…” Lily listed noticeably to the left, and her voice held an uncharacteristic tremor.
Andrew fumbled with the keycard and managed to open the door without dropping Lily. He moved her carefully to an armchair and lifted her wrist to check her pulse. Her arm began to quiver. At that moment, he felt a stabbing pain in his left eye.
“What are your symptoms?” He pressed his palm into his left eye.
Lily took a ragged breath. “I’ve lost vision in my left eye. My left arm has been convulsing on and off for the last hour.”
He moved closer and gently lifted her left eyelid, then her right, ignoring the small, dense hole forming in his own field of vision.
“Dilated pupils, clammy skin…” he muttered.
Lily’s body suddenly went rigid, her head twisting to the side as her eyes stared blankly into space. Then she began to convulse, her body jerking over and over. Her breathing became ragged and irregular, and her skin grew pale.
“Lily!” Andrew shouted, cushioning her head.
As quickly as it started, the seizure was over. Lily turned to him, a look of terror in her eyes.
“Andrew! What the hell is happening to me?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but then she blinked—and he had vanished.
Lily gasped; her eyes grew wild. She attempted to calm her breathing, forcing herself to inhale and exhale as time slowed to a crawl. Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty. Hot tears ran down her cheeks as she raised her uncontrollably shaking arm before her face. With a guttural sob, Lily slipped from the armchair to the floor and curled into a fetal position. “Please,” she implored in a voice now hoarse and raspy, “don’t leave me here.” When the next seizure began, there was no one there to bear witness.
Chapter 5
Andrew
September 19
Janine had sent the text mere minutes ago, and the CEO had responded instantly. Andric Breckinridge’s menacing step toward the cowering anesthesiologist was interrupted when the urgent pulsing of the monitors abruptly slowed to a steady, regular pace. The jagged peaks and troughs on Andrew’s EEG shifted; the erratic pattern suddenly stabilized. The deviation in sound from the tangle of machines stopped Andric midstride, and he turned toward the gurney. Beneath the warming blanket, Andrew shifted once, then again. His eyes fluttered, then opened.
In a hoarse voice, he whispered, “Lily. Did she make it back?”
Janine shifted her gaze to the flatlined graph of the EEG monitor beside Lily’s motionless body and shook her head.
Andrew closed his eyes once more and breathed a single ragged sob.
In the hospital bed beside him, the slight Filipino woman lay pale and lifeless.
The distraught anesthesiologist stood, solemnly disconnecting Lily’s propofol pump. “I’m terribly sorry, but there’s nothing more I can do for her.”
Janine inclined her head and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you. I know how hard it is to lose a patient,” she murmured.
Andric glowered at the medic as he gathered his equipment and rolled it from the room.
The moment the space was cleared, Andric snapped open a laptop and shoved it roughly onto Andrew’s lap. His face remained pale and his breathing was uneven, but Andrew’s eyes fluttered and opened.
“Write it down,” Andric barked, gesturing impatiently toward the computer. “Everything you saw. Every word you read.”
Andrew reached gingerly across the laptop and instead gathered up the small, silver device resting on the back of his right hand.
Janine gently removed the object from Andrew’s shaking grasp and took a step that placed her firmly between Andric and her patient. She squared her shoulders and affected a fierce stare.
“What he needs right now is rest,” she countered.
Andric scowled threateningly at the device, then over Janine’s shoulder at Andrew. “I expect your full report by tomorrow morning. No exceptions!”
Andric pulled sharply at the lapels of his fine suit jacket and abruptly spun on his heels. He charged briskly from the room.
Janine slumped into the chair between the two gurneys, crumpling as if all the air had gone out of her. At best she’d been able to snatch sleep in twenty-minute intervals over the past three days; she was exhausted in every sense of the word. Yet despite all her effort, the results had been disastrous.
She gently squeezed Lily’s unresponsive arm and tenderly removed an identical small, silver device from her hand. She cradled both objects, but her musing was interrupted by the tentative staccato clacking of the keyboard.
“Andrew, stop. Rest. It can wait,” she pleaded.
His lips were pinched in a firm, thin line. “No,” he said, pausing long enough to unclip the EEG cap from beneath his chin and casting aside the web of sensors. Andrew turned his attention back to the laptop. “He can go to hell, but I owe it to Lily to salvage what I can from this disaster.”
Janine stared at him in disbelief. “Salvage what? We’ve lost Lily—that’s devastating. I nearly lost you as well. This procedure is just too risky. There’s no choice. We have to shut it down.”
Andrew’s typing abruptly ceased, and he turned his hard stare to Janine.
“You’re right—this is dangerous. Now we know that we won’t converge unassisted. We can’t use the propofol protocol again. But we don’t have to abandon everything. I may have found our silver bullet.”
Janine snorted. “You can’t be serious. I won’t endorse another medically induced coma.”
Andrew’s gaze never faltered. “If I’m right, you won’t need to. It’s not a procedure I need. It’s a person. Keep this as quiet as you can, but find me a woman named Kathryn Rathman.”
Chapter 6
Kate
September 21
I sink heavily into a plush, almost buttery black leather sofa in a spacious modern condo high above Lake Shore Drive. The wall of windows showcases a panoramic view of Lake Michigan down to Navy Pier. The strong, nutty scent of expensive coffee permeates the space as it brews. It is near daybreak, and I casually follow the headlights of the early morning traffic as it flows along the thoroughfare below. A
fit and vital man in his early sixties wearing a brown silk bathrobe shuffles in and meets an attractive woman with bobbed gray hair and white satin pajamas in the kitchen. She reaches for a waffle iron and shuffles through her kitchen cabinets. They share a kiss, and he pours her a cup of coffee before preparing his own.
The tranquility of the morning is suddenly disrupted by the droning wail of the tornado siren. The man’s forehead wrinkles as he walks to the windows, his confusion intensifying as he notes there’s not a cloud in the sky. He fumbles for the remote control and flips on the morning news.
The first rays of the sun erupt over the lake, and I catch the glint from a silver object soaring through the sky. It grows larger much too quickly, and my pulse quickens as I realize it’s a wide-bodied plane.
As the man and his wife listen in shock, the newscast is replaced by a bright blue screen and a high-pitched warning tone accompanied by a prerecorded message—“This is not a test. This is an actual emergency. Please read and comply with instructions on the screen.” White text on the blue screen urges residents of Chicago to evacuate immediately. An air threat is imminent. A mounting feeling of dread turns my mouth to sandpaper, and I’m left with a sickening metallic taste at the back of my tongue.
“Harry, what’s going on?” the woman asks, her voice heavy with confusion. Harry is still staring at the television, silently mouthing the emergency information.
“This is bad…this is bad…” I chant. Something horrific is going to happen, any minute. I struggle to rise from the cushiony depth of the sofa. “YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” I shout.
Harry and his wife cannot hear me.
Agitated, I move to the wall of windows, willing the aircraft to swerve. The glorious sunrise intensifies above the sparkling blue waters of the lake, and the plane grows even larger. The speed and trajectory of the aircraft are undeniable; it’s headed directly toward us.
Harry finally looks up from the television and notices the plane. He drops his coffee; the stoneware cup explodes into a hundred shards on the travertine tile, and a pool of dark brown liquid spreads across the floor. He urges his wife into the bedroom, and I hear dresser drawers slamming and closet doors hastily pulled open. I wring my hands and pace. Why don’t they escape? They’re running out of time! They dash from their bedroom, haphazardly clothed, heading toward the flat’s entranceway. I know I should go too, but it’s as if I’m frozen in place. The dread burrows deeper in my chest, but I’m unable to follow.
The plane draws so near that I can see the elaborate crest of a two-headed eagle painted on the side, and I fear that this will be another 9-11 terrorist catastrophe—that the plane will impact the building. But at the last second, it pulls sharply upward. An oblong silver canister, sleek and aerodynamic, is released from its belly and begins its glide toward the earth.
The woman turns, uncertain, and rushes back to the sideboard, where she snatches a heavy glass-framed photo. It’s their wedding portrait. In an instant, the room is awash in a blinding flash of searing white light, and I sense heat intense enough to melt my flesh. The pain I should feel is instead supplanted by a terror so complete that my entire body trembles violently. My breath comes in short, ragged gasps, but I stay rooted to the spot, as if paralyzed. I watch as the woman’s face twists in horror, and her skin begins to burn and peel like newsprint in a fire, yet I cannot look away. I hear her husband’s earsplitting scream from the hall as the glass frame of the photo melts away and the picture turns to dust.
“IT’S A DREAM!” I shriek as loudly as I can. “IT’S A DREAM! IT’S A DREAM! IT’S A DREAM!”
I crawled out of my bed and stumbled to my mat, struggling to breathe. The violent afterimage of the detonation still burned my retinas. Stabbing pain pulsed behind my left eye. I smashed my hand hard against my skull.
I clutched the cushion to my chest, my trembling body still racked with spasms. Focusing on its familiar scent, I fought for each gasping breath for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, the tremors stopped, and my chest relaxed. I released my pillow to the ground and gradually settled myself. I needed to begin meditation practice immediately or the blossoming migraine might knock me out for the next week. I forced open one eye to check the clock: four thirty in the morning. Two nightmares in two days? There was no doubt that this was very, very bad.
I rested on the mat, eyes closed, palms up, thumbs touching middle fingers. “With this practice, may I be safe from harm,” I chanted in a ragged whisper, and then I compelled myself to breathe deeply and with intention. I forced all my attention on the sensation of my breath. Slowly, slowly, with each passing inhalation, I let every terrifying thought, every grisly image, every horrible tendril of the nightmare slip from my mind’s eye until I was left with nothing at all.
It took a long time, but the migraine was circumvented, and the dread and nausea had nearly passed. Sleep was not an option, so I headed to the shower and let the hot water do the rest of the work. When I emerged it was nearly seven. The last golden rays of sunrise stretched across the sky and birds chirped in the tree outside our sparse living room. I plopped onto our lumpy secondhand sofa and thanked all that was good in the world that no planes were flying anywhere near our building today.
My thankful musing was interrupted when my phone rang. I fumbled around until I found it, on the floor, and yanked it from its charging cable.
The photo that appeared on the phone’s lock screen showed a beaming eight-year-old girl side by side with her mother. Their joined hands cradled four darling little balls of fur. A wan smile crept over my lips. That was the year Mom and I had raised rabbits for my 4-H project.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Katie, I’m sorry I called so early. Did I wake you?”
I knew my mom rose with the sun, and in central standard time, she had already been up for hours by now.
“No, you didn’t wake me.”
“Well, I was just thinking about you. How did the interview for the fellowship go?”
I groaned. “It was a total disaster. The CEO of the company showed up and grilled me. There’s no chance I’m going to get that grant.”
“Oh, honey, you’re always too hard on yourself.”
“Just realistic, Mom,” I interrupted. “And to make matters worse, the nightmares are back.”
“Oh, no!” she gasped. “And you were doing so well! Are you okay? Is Michelle there? I should talk to her—”
“No, she’s still asleep. I’m fine; I didn’t get much of a headache. I’ll be okay.”
“Well, you should call Dr. Daniels right away. Maybe he would want you to go back on the medication.”
“No way!” I protested. “That stuff made me a waking zombie. If I hadn’t been on those drugs, maybe I could have gone to high school—like a normal kid. And the drugs didn’t work, anyway.”
“Well, yes, that was unfortunate. But you thrived in homeschooling.”
Except for my social life, I thought. Time to change the subject. “So…how are you and Dad?”
“Oh, we are doing fine,” she said in the traditional Midwestern way. “Your dad is just starting the corn harvest now, but that old combine harvester keeps breaking down. It’s lucky he has such a fine mechanical mind. It would cost us a small fortune to get that old thing repaired every time it decided to conk out.”
“Are you and Dad still planning to visit once the harvest is in?”
“It doesn’t look good,” Mom said dejectedly. “We had the twelve weeks of drought early in the summer, and then all the flooding in August—half the crop’s ruined. Thank goodness for the farm subsidy, but your dad still isn’t sure how we’re going to make ends meet.”
I closed my eyes against an unexpected wave of vertigo and pressed my fingers hard against my temple. For a second, I really thought my parents were coming to visit soon. I chalked it up to the aftereffects of the near-miss migraine, but this wasn’t a normal symptom of my weird nightmares. I’d have to mention it to Dr. Daniel
s.
“But you guys are okay, right?” I pressed.
“I hope we’ll scrape by.”
My heart sank. The weather had been weirder than usual across most of the country this year, but for some reason, I’d been certain that my parents were expecting a bumper crop. I hadn’t realized that my family’s fortunes were in such bad shape.
“Oh, Mom—I wish there was something I could do.”
“The best thing you can do is study hard and take care of yourself. Well, you should get started with your day, love,” Mom suggested. “You sure you can’t put Michelle on the phone?”
“I hate to wake her—you know how she’s always taking care of me. Let her sleep.”
“You know, it was her decision. We didn’t ask her to do it.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I feel so guilty. She shouldn’t have to babysit me. She deserves her own life.”
“Well, let’s just take things one step at a time,” Mom advised. “You just go see the doctor. Your dad and I love you, kiddo.”
“I love you too,” I replied. I disconnected, missing her more than I wanted to admit.
I was just about to set the phone aside when an email notification flashed on my screen. When I read the subject line, an uncontrollable yelp burst from my lungs.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!” I squealed.
Michelle dashed from her room, her rumpled black hair askew. “Kate! What’s wrong? Did you have another nightmare? Should I call—” She stopped short when she saw the enormous shit-eating grin plastered on my face.
“I got an email from Albaion—it’s Breckinridge’s company.”
“Is it about the grant? I thought you said the selection is in January…”
“They want to offer me an internship for the semester!” I flicked the display to read more.