Embryo 1: Embryo

by JA Schneider

  “Nobody ever tells nobody nothin around here,” he said.

  Noiselessly the metal door slid open.

  Jill found herself facing a wide hallway. An administration desk in the foyer was staffed by two nurses and a heavyset clerk, all of whom looked up questioningly as she followed the orderlies in.

  Look confident, she told herself, her mind running over the correct procedure for this: Introduce yourself as the patient’s doctor; say that a mistake had been made (“happens all the time,” she heard Mac say); the order hadn’t been signed, please send the patient back. Simple. And what if, in the meantime, a signed order had appeared at their end? Easy. Demand the name of the doctor who signed the order; say that the entire OB staff thinks he’s crazy.

  Send the patient back.

  The orderlies headed off into one of the side corridors, and a nurse smiled attentively as Jill told her story.

  “Sayers…Sayers,” the nurse repeated, going to her computer and scrolling.

  She smiled again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We have no such patient here.”

  Jill stared stupidly. “That’s ridiculous,” she said.

  The nurse appeared at a loss. Scrolled again and said hopefully: “We have a Mr. Jesse Sayers in Section Four. He’s an acute alcoholic with neurological – ”

  “May I see that?” Jill moved inside the nurses’ area and looked over the nurse’s shoulder. She read and reached forward to scroll – “May I?” - and then slowly straightened.

  “This has to be a mistake,” she said. “At 8:50 this morning two of your orderlies came for this patient. That means she was admitted here around 9:00. It is now 10:15. So exactly how – ”

  “May I help you?”

  Jill looked. Facing her was a plump, middle-aged woman in uniform. The black double stripe on her cap designated her as head nurse.

  “I certainly hope so,” Jill said. “Your department seems to have lost one of our patients. The last name is Sayers.”

  “I beg your pardon?” the woman said coolly. She wore a nametag that identified her as Vera Crowley.

  Jill came out from behind the nurses’ desk. “Our OB staff was told that your chief resident okayed the transfer verbally, which isn’t correct procedure. Now where is this patient?”

  Crowley shook her head. “One of our nurses was told emphatically that Dr. Downey had okayed the order. Someone on your floor wanted the patient out immediately.” She became defensive. “Your resident sounded very angry. Abusive, in fact.”

  “Well who, for God’s sake?” Jill was aware of the heavyset clerk, who had stopped sorting papers and was eyeing her steadily.

  “The name of the caller is in our notes,” said Crowley irritably, “and in any event it no longer matters. Just as Mrs. Sayers was brought in, her husband came for her. A wonderful young man,” she said primly. “He wanted to get her back to home and comforting surroundings.”

  Jill stared at her. “Mary Jo Sayers was divorced,” she said tonelessly.

  “Doctor, I saw her husband with my own eyes!”

  “You saw?” Jill burst out. “You mean any idiot can walk in off the street and call himself a husband? Take a patient away just like that? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Crowley, distraught, took a step back. A patient in blue pajamas came shuffling out of a near ward, and then another. The floor resident came hurrying down the hall and waved a tense hand.

  “What’s all this?” he demanded. Jill looked at his nametag – the mysterious Dr. Downey. He looked to be in his early thirties. He had fat jowls and an eye tic and his complexion was sallow.

  Breathing rapidly, Jill began her story, but he cut her off by turning to Crowley and saying, “You’ve told her the patient’s been discharged?”

  “Yes, but she refuses to – ”

  “Fine,” he snapped, and turned on Jill.

  “Listen,” he said. “You don’t just come barging in like this. You’ve disrupted my ward.”

  “And you,” Jill shot back, “have abetted a kidnapping!”

  “A what?” Downey’s eye tic speeded up. Jill wheeled before he could say more and headed back to the elevator. She heard angry stomping behind her, but did not turn. She punched the button, her mind still reeling.

  From behind she heard his voice, restored to the low, controlled tones of a psychiatrist. “I c-could g-get you thrown out f-for this. One c-c-call to Administration and you’d be t-toast.”

  She turned sweetly to him. “I know an excellent speech therapist.”

  His eyes blazed fury.

  “Me! Me-e-e!” she heard. Behind Downey shuffled forward a female patient. She had pinched features under straw hair with dark roots, and was gazing at the elevator in childish rapture. “I’m goin’ down too!” she cried. “Getting’ outta here!”

  Downey intercepted the woman, who struggled cursing him and pulling at his thinning hair. He yelled for the orderlies.

  They came. Jill stared. It was the same pair who had carried off Mary Jo. Doberman threw her a look of pure malice. A nurse arrived, proffering the inevitable syringe.

  “C-close the d-damn door!” Downey yelled, hauling the patient clear of the still-open steel door.

  Behind Jill the elevator arrived. She took one last, incredulous look at the scene and got in.

  So fast, was all she could think. So fast.

  Still shaking, two floors down, she fell into a chair where no one knew her. Minutes passed while she concentrated on just slowing her heart rate and getting her mind to stop running in frantic circles. It was too hard. Her problem lay in absorbing this latest turn of events.

  Two bizarre OB cases and both women gone? Moran dead; Sayers – presto, now you see her, now you don’t.

  Concentrate, she thought. Try…

  She stared into space, seeing Maria Moran bleeding to death. Shook her head, blinking away the terrible sight. Saw now Mary Jo Sayers begging for help.

  Head nurse Vera Crowley: “Her husband came for her. A wonderful young man.”

  Mary Jo rambling: “I wanted a child, but I’m divorced…”

  And Sayers had written “Divorced” on the top of her Admissions sheet, which the fools would have read if the chart had been sent…

  Jill stared down at her hands. Had she gone paranoid because of a couple of shocking cases? The sort of thing that experienced doctors took in their stride? She imagined her humiliation if Sayers really was married, or even separated. Estranged spouses often became concerned in times of crisis.

  And the mentally ill can sometimes appear deceptively lucid; can “flip in and flip out,” as doctors put it.

  That thought bothered her the most.

  Older docs were so casual. That was what she lacked. The cool detachment of a real pro. Emote, and you have two problems. How many times had she heard that at med school?

  A devastating thought occurred to her.

  She jumped to her feet.

  “I’m an idiot,” she said out loud.

  She ran to a wall phone and dialed an extension number. While she waited she checked her watch. It was 10:35. The so-called husband of Mary Jo Sayers had signed her out more than an hour ago.

  “Morgue,” a male voice answered.

  Jill identified herself. “Please look up an infant who succumbed yesterday around 2:00 p.m. The name is Christopher Sayers.”

  The voice said wait and was back in a minute. “Number fifty-eight in our log. He’s here.”

  “Have you been contacted by the family or a funeral service? Any calls at all?”

  “No, nothing. Fact is, we were beginning to wonder…”

  “Yes, it is unusual, isn’t it? Next, Maria Moran. Succumbed around nine yesterday morning. Do you still have her?”

  “Just a sec.” This was a longer wait, and Jill calculated: Maria Moran had been dead only twenty-six hours; funeral homes often did not pick up the deceased for two or three days.

  The voice at the other end came back. “Ye
p, she’s here too. Scheduled to be picked up at eleven, maybe before, because there’s going to be a wake and the funeral director called to say the flowers are there, please have her ready ‘cause they don’t like them wilting – ”

  “I’ll be right down.” Jill slammed down the phone.

  Twenty-five minutes before she had to be in the clinic.

  She sprinted down two flights to Pathology. The lab was full of interns and residents.

  “Specimen jars,” she breathed to a Path resident. “I need two small ones.”

  He gestured with his head. “Supplies over there,” he said, indicating a counter with cabinets and glassware. He bent over his microscope again.

  She found a small scalpel, some labels, and the glass containers she needed. They were the shape of baby food jars, only smaller. She took two, then carefully poured a small amount of isotonic saline solution into each jar. She straightened, pondering her next problem. The two jars had to be transported correctly, maintained at body temperature.

  To go out wheeling an incubator would attract attention. She’d have to find another way.

  In a supply closet she stuffed the tiny containers into her bra.

  And four minutes later she emerged from the elevator into the basement tunnel. Directly across was a sign that read, MORGUE: FOLLOW RED LINE.

  It was a decrepit part of the tunnel. She hurried, pushing down her fear of the century-old stone passageway. It was painted gray and dimly lit. The morgue’s red line ran along the middle of the wall, turned sharply where the corridor turned, and snaked its way down a curious grade. Place is like a crypt, Jill thought. Even the air was dank and smelled of decay.

  Finally appeared the morgue’s double-swinging doors. Be calm, Jill told herself, pushing them open.

  The gloom and smell of formaldehyde hit her. Ahead were four stainless steel tables, with slanting tops and drains at their lower ends. The floor was a dingy cement with stains here, there, that made her queasy. Ancient tiles lined the wall, and hooded lights hung over the work areas. Only two lights shone, their beams so narrow that they left the rest of the room in shadow. Jill looked toward the far end and saw the drawers. Tier upon tier of metal-fronted refrigerated drawers.

  She moved in that direction, trying to ignore the pounding in her ears as she walked quickly toward the right, picking her way around the last of the steel tables. This side of the room was in deeper shadow, but it had compensations. It was furthest from the shrouded form she’d seen on the far table, and the array of knives and scalpels placed haphazardly on its sheet.

  A liquid, sucking noise made her wheel in fright. “Oh!”

  A male voice said, “Did I scare you? Sorry, guess you didn’t see me come in.”

  Jill’s breath stopped. Across the room another examining lamp had flicked on, and a white-coated resident fiddled with faucets, directing the flow of water that ran down the table to the drain.

  “You an intern?” he asked casually, glancing at her scrubs. He had picked up a knife and was testing its edge with his thumb.

  “Yes,” she said shakily. “Here for some…follow-ups.”

  “Ah!” he said, throwing back the gray shroud from a body riddled with bullet holes. Jill shuddered. “Well,” he continued, pulling on a rubber apron, “you’re on your own, unfortunately.” With his knife he gestured toward a desk illuminated by a gooseneck lamp. “Attendant seems to have stepped away.”

  “I can manage,” she said. “Thanks.” She hurried over to the desk and found the morgue file – a worn, loose leaf notebook. Finding the drawer numbers was easy. Christopher Sayers: fifty-eight; Maria Moran: twenty-one.

  She went to fifty-eight first, the closer of the two, second tier up. Glancing first over her shoulder she eased out the drawer. Halfway was enough to see the tiny, doll-like remains of Christopher Sayers.

  She checked her watch. Hurry!

  She turned her back to the pathology resident, who was busily slicing away. And humming, she realized. In the semi-darkness she rummaged under her scrub top and withdrew the first of the specimen jars. Opening it, she placed it in the chill drawer next to the child. Not good, she realized; too cold in there.

  Her fingers were deft. Extracting the small scalpel from her left pocket, she reached in, gently slipped the little body on its side and, from under the armpit of the stub that should have been an arm, excised a small amount of skin. Then, hands shaking, she tapped the scalpel’s contents into the jar, closed it, got it back inside her bra, and closed the drawer. She checked her watch: nine seconds had elapsed. And the jar was still warm.

  Again she checked out the busy resident. He was lifting a gleaming, enlarged liver from the cadaver and plopping it into a scale. Talking into a suspended microphone too.

  She shook her head. Hurried to drawer twenty-one, remembering what the morgue guy had told her over the phone: the remains of Maria Moran were to be picked up by or before eleven. Good thing they’re late, she thought.

  At that moment they arrived.

  She had just found Maria’s drawer, first tier close to the floor, and was kneeling to open it when she heard a peculiar scraping noise. She looked up. Along the far wall was a ramp leading up into total darkness, which suddenly became a widening bar of sunlight as the door at the top was pulled open. Two men pushing a gurney headed down the ramp. Behind them the door swung closed with a heavy, groaning sound, and the ramp was again plunged into darkness.

  “Jeez, I hate this place,” said one man as they reached the floor.

  “Same,” grunted the other man. Both wore gray overalls.

  On her knees, Jill thought: Oh no.

  The first man, pivoting the gurney around, looked over to the pathology resident. “Hey doc, ya know where we can find a Maria Moran? We’re from Carey’s Funeral Home.”

  The resident kept his chin tucked in an attitude of concentration. “File’s on the desk,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said the man, and began heading in Jill’s direction.

  The second man lingered a moment. “Hey Frankie,” he called. “Look at that.”

  The first man stopped and followed his companion’s gaze.

  Open-mouthed, they watched the resident pick up a rotary saw and prepare to cut into the cadaver’s chest cavity.

  “Jeez, you gonna use that?”

  Looking annoyed, the resident flicked on the high, screeching machine. The men, grossed out but fascinated, came closer to watch.

  Jill thought, now!

  Still on her knees, she pulled open the drawer and for a horrible instant gazed at Maria Moran’s lifeless features. Then, quickly, she placed the open specimen jar on the corpse’s chest. Raising the stiff left hand, she cut a sliver of skin from under the small finger, rushed the specimen into the jar, clapped the top back on, and shoved closed the drawer.

  Straightening, she checked her watch. Ten seconds.

  The resident turned off the saw.

  One of the funeral men said, “I got a Black and Decker can cut through a drainpipe!”

  “That’s nice,” the resident said.

  Jill turned her back to transfer the jar from her sweating palm to the inside of her bra.

  Then turned back, marveling at the timing, because just then the two men began pushing their gurney toward her. She smoothed her hair, walking past them. “Moran’s in twenty-one,” she said as she headed for the door. They thanked her.

  “Leaving so soon?” asked the resident, looking up from the pile of bullets he was counting.

  She stopped by the door. Her heart was still racing. “Yes. Thanks for…the company.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and smiled. “Say, you know anybody going up to microscopic pathology? I’ve got some slides to send up.”

  Yeah, me, she thought. But said, “Better ring for an orderly. They’re fast.”

  “But not as pretty,” he said. “Oh well.” He reached to his suspended microphone and pressed a button. “Good luck with your follow-ups.”
<
br />   “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll need it.”

  She hurried out.

  15

  It was an eerie feeling, almost like bringing Maria Moran and the Sayers infant back to life.

  When Jill opened the door marked Pathology, the room was nearly empty. Only two residents were there, working separately. One, Peter Gregson, she knew a little. She decided to ask for his help.

  “Hi, Peter.”

  He looked up from the slides he was staining and grinned.

  “Hey, Jill!” he said. “What brings you here?”

  She showed him the specimen jars she’d just retrieved from her bra. “Would you show me how to grow out a tissue culture?”

  He shrugged as if she had asked for nothing. “Have a seat,” he said, indicating the stool next to him. “It’s easy.”

  She sat and handed him the two labeled jars. She knew the basic concept – that for as long as two days after death, a person’s skin cells continue to be viable. A man could be clean-shaven at death, then later be found to have sprouted several days’ growth of beard. This, she knew, was because hair, nails, and beards were all skin organs; and skin cells, unlike brain cells, required little oxygen.

  Gregson was saying, “…so you have to grind out a homolysate.”

  “A what?”

  “A homolysate. We’ve got to make some mush. Here’s how.”

  He stood and reached for what looked like a miniature food blender, complete with beaters and a 30 cc stainless steel flask. He eyed it affectionately. “We call it a smoothie maker for elves.”

  “Cute,” Jill said, and thought: please hurry.

  He pushed a jungle of glassware out of the way and positioned the homolyser. Removing the lid, he dumped in the contents of the first jar, flicked a switch and watched the beaters churn the specimen until it was frothy. “Pulverizing it like this is the only way to free the cells from their intercellular connections,” he said.

  Above the whir of the machine Jill asked how long it would take to grow the cells out.

  Gregson turned it off. “Actually you’ll get your first cellular divisions in a few hours.” Using a pipette he placed some of the soupy material on a glass slide which he pushed under his microscope. “But to be safe,” he added, peering in, “you’d better give it a couple of days.”