Embryo 2: Crosshairs

by JA Schneider

  “Like we needed to be told,” David groused on the second day, sprawled and scribbling on the bed in Jill’s on call room.

  “They probably want it on paper,” Jill sighed, on the floor plowing through a heavy pile of charts. They had slept most of the previous day.

  Cops and EMTS were also told to watch for sore throat, cough, any feelings of weakness or fever. Just as a precaution, they were told. You weren’t close to the creep like Raney and Levine; still, watch yourselves.

  Semi-quarantine meant friends could visit, however, and came running with hugs and tears and high emotion. Woody, Tricia, and Sam first, crowding into the on call room, insisting they hadn’t breathed that whole horrible night.

  They brought news too.

  The preemie nursery had been scrubbed top to bottom, with every baby checked. Ditto the regular newborn nursery. All babies were fine. Woody, Tricia, and Sam had also all visited the fetus – Jessie, sorry - and played his Beethoven happy music; made his tiny features smile.

  “Grin,” Tricia beamed with her mouth full. They were all sharing pizza. “That little guy’s got the widest little toothless grin…so precious.” She was sitting on the floor between Jill and Woody with their backs to the wall. Four stacked and empty pizza boxes made a nice little table before them. It was littered with Coke cans.

  “And Kassie Doyle’s looking really good, say hallelujah,” Woody said from the chair by the desk. He and MacIntyre took excited turns describing how Kassie’s fever was down to nearly normal, and they had taken her off sedation. She was clear, remembered the attack, and – they turned somber here - cried her heart out trying to understand Sandy Haig. But she was neurologically fine and there, talking with visitors, making the full trip back to health.

  “Stronger emotionally than we would have guessed, considering it was a so-called, ahem, dear friend who did it.” Woody shook his head slowly, looking full of wonder. “That part may come from having seen so many rape victims. But she’s alive, thanks to the cefepime.”

  That was the magic moment.

  Every eye welled and they all took a deep breath, deeper than they’d been able to breathe in days.

  They were so glad, relieved, for Kassie Doyle, but thrilled too that the drug worked, even after a rape so violent that it tore, carrying Pseudomonas, through the peritoneum. With the help of the bacteriology lab, David had found the one antibiotic out of hundreds that worked on that particular infection, so feared by hospitals.

  They all looked at David, but he didn’t look back.

  “Cefepime,” he said quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at the stack of empty pizza boxes, the rolling, empty soda cans. “Before this I wasn’t even sure how to spell it.”

  MacIntyre said, “Pity it can’t be given preemptively, if you just think you’ve been exposed.” He got The Looks, and waved a hand. “I know, I know. You can’t just start a drug before symptoms start. I’ve been reading about cefepime. It’s such a big gun it would create even more drug resistance to the lesser antibiotics. That’s all we need, huh?” He looked at Jill and David with a clinical eye.

  “But you two look good,” he said. “No weakness? Fainting spells?”

  “Nothing,” David said; and Jill said, “I can do cartwheels. Wanna see?”

  On the third day they were still symptom free, too; and on the fourth day they just went back to work.

  Gary Phipps, after hugging Jill and starting rounds with her said, “You must have some immune system.”

  She shrugged. “Or great luck.”

  Charlie Ortega couldn’t get over it. “But – do I have this right? - you were right under the guy, and he coughed?”

  She shrugged again. “First he was wearing a mask. Then I held my breath and kept my face turned away as much as I could.” She looked back to David, who was loading up a rolling chart rack. “Anyway,” she smiled in her most Ingrid Bergman, cinematic tone, “we’ll always have cefepime.”

  Ramu Chitkara told a story a friend calling back from London told him. “Some guy got stabbed in a pub fight with a box cutter. Not such a big blade, right? But on blade was the enemy, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The blade penetrated the peritoneum, nobody thought of cefepime, and the guy died.”

  They were all quiet for a moment, then inhaled and switched their gazes back to David loading his patient chart rack. “So many,” he was muttering. “All of these new?”

  But New was good. New babies, new lives, new families. You do what you can, and life goes on. Good - given a helluva struggle - had managed to prevail. Innocents had survived, and evil had been hosed off the asphalt under a blaze of flashing red lights. What remained of Haig’s blood had streamed from the gutters down to the sewer.

  Late that first day back, Jill got another call from Simpson to come to his office. As she walked in, he again stood and shook her hand. Jill thanked him, and took the seat he motioned her to.

  “David’s in delivery, I’m told.” He settled back behind his large walnut desk. “I’m so proud of you both. Will you tell him for me?”

  She smiled. “First thing.”

  He smiled back, adjusted his glasses, and opened a thick folder before him. “There’s even more I have to thank you for.”

  She regarded his folder tentatively. What was this?

  Simpson fingered the folder’s cover sheet, hesitated, and looked back at her. “After Clifford Arnett’s…demise, we were stunned by all that stuff he had in his secret lab. The equipment for the fetus alone would have cost close to two hundred thousand, so the question was clear. Where did he get the money?”

  He stared at Jill. “Arnett embezzled from the hospital. Like other researchers, he’d been cleared to acquire what he needed, and apparently was a whiz at cooking his books. So far, our accountants have traced well over three hundred thousand that he embezzled. This would not have been discovered if you hadn’t started, er-“

  “Snooping,” Jill supplied good-naturedly, not disguising her surprise. Arnett wasn’t just a mad scientist, he was also a thief. Busy guy.

  “There’s more,” Simpson said slowly.

  She locked eyes with him.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Arnett’s books were studied and his labs – both – were searched top to bottom. At the back of a floor cabinet was found a most curious item.”

  Simpson’s eyes stayed fixed on Jill. He shook his head as if not quite believing what he was about to say. “For unathletic, sterility-obsessed Arnett, a dirty old gym bag, stuffed with cash. Over four hundred thousand. The bag looked flung in forcefully just before Arnett died. We know because it knocked over bottles of saline solution delivered earlier that day.”

  The money? Over four hundred thousand?

  Surprise jolted through Jill. Her jaw dropped as she understood and looked away, blinking.

  “Sonny Sears,” she said. “Arnett paid him in drugs which he sold for cash.”

  Simpson nodded, shook his head in sad wonder. “Cliff Arnett had always been so meticulous, obsessively neat. He must have deteriorated fast.” He hesitated, then reached back into his folder. Produced a small, once-scrunched note, and handed it to Jill. “Have a read,” he said.

  “Doc,” the note began in a scrawl full of mispellings. “Pls stash this for me til I do Raney and find another place to crash. I think my asshol brother wants to kill me. He’s goten more nutso, thinks I’m screwing him. P.S. You still owe me 3k for that percosit deal.”

  A chill iced through Jill as she re-read the note. “Do Raney…do Raney…” Two very sick, twisted brothers who, from the look of it, even hated each other. One, a killer moron-for-hire; the other smarter, even talented, and much more deadly. Her fist clenched, just thinking that such people existed. Why do they exist? Sonny and Sandy Sears had had bad childhoods. But plenty of others had too, and didn’t grow up to become sadistic sociopaths.

  Something David said came back to her. Days ago, as they watched Jessie moving around in his silicone cylinder, she
had asked, “Do you think he’s going to be okay? I mean…psychologically? What if he turns out to be psycho or something?”

  With that crooked little smile of his, David had shrugged. “We get plenty of psychos the usual way. I’m betting he’ll just be a regular kid.”

  That calmed her a little but – oops – Simpson was droning about something. She tried to replay what had just flown past her, catch up to what he was saying now.

  “…there have been, fortunately, finders-keepers cases that have overturned forfeiture laws. There have even been cases where the police have given the cash-finders some sort of reward – often, the reward was the amount found; otherwise the forfeiture laws would encourage people to just take the money and disappear with it.” Simpson raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Our lawyers are betting on the found money law.”

  “That means finders keepers?” Jill said. “The hospital can keep the money?”

  “Very hopefully. Fingers crossed.”

  “Where’s the money now?”

  “In escrow. Not for long, I hope. We’ve made the point that our free clinic is in desperate need of funds. I think that will help if litigation looms.”

  Jill’s heart seemed to be bouncing around giddily in her chest. Words failed her for a moment, and then they came.

  “I couldn’t imagine cops taking money from a free clinic,” she said.

  Simpson looked at her, then nodded in agreement. He pushed the folder away from him, shoved it under a pile of other folders.

  He stood again, and smiled. “You’ve done a great thing, Doctor. “You’ve really saved us all.”

  Epilogue

  A Child Is Born

  THREE MONTHS LATER…

  They were speaking in hushed tones, though there was no need to. There was just that feeling of awe they all felt…

  The little guy was ready. It was two a.m. The OB floor was quiet, dimly lit, and it seemed like a good time to wheel into delivery the precious convoy: the rolling, whooshing, three-foot cube that looked like a cross between a heart-lung bypass machine and a dialysis unit; an attached monitor, and tubes sending oxygen and nutrients to Jessie’s umbilical cord, or carrying out carbon dioxide and waste products.

  Jessie’s silicon cylinder was a man-made uterus.

  Jill, Tricia, and Kassie Doyle waited in the delivery room, already scrubbed and gowned, gazing rapt at Jessie and his temporary home that he was about to leave.

  Kassie was beside herself. “I’m so excited,” she kept saying. “I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry.” She rushed around getting the little newborn table ready with sponges, soft towels, a scale, and a little blue blanket.

  Jill couldn’t stop gazing at Jessie. He was asleep, hadn’t awakened even for a second during his trip from the preemie nursery to delivery. Tricia, at Jill’s side, probed for her hand and squeezed her by the fingertips.

  Jill squeezed back, her body tingling with excitement, awe…and fear. Was this going to go okay? Would Jessie be alright?

  “Think he’ll mind?” Tricia asked quietly. “Having to leave his nice, warm, cozy place?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Jill said.

  David, Sam and Woody had scrubbed fast and were back, all gowned and masked.

  “Everybody ready?” David said, looking around. “Where’s the neonatologist?”

  Her name was Aisha Keene and she arrived seconds later, going straight to check out Jessie in his cylinder. “Looks even huskier,” she said in wonder. She had seen him twice before, and been briefed. “He’s more than ready.”

  Tentatively, MacIntyre held up his videocam. “To tape or not to tape?” he asked. “Last vote.”

  In their hearts, nobody liked the idea, but had admitted in long, soulful talks that there was history to consider. They had dwelt at length – again - about Louise Brown, the world’s first “test tube baby,” born in England in 1978. Back then, the event had morally outraged and frightened most people, including scientists and physicians who had feared that little Louise would be born deformed, diseased, or demented. More to the point, as far as Jill, David, and the others were concerned, were old media stories saying that Louise Brown had been taunted as a child. Called a freak, not “a normal kid.” Today, she was a British mum like any other, as normal as anyone.

  But this? Thirty-six years later, a child born this way? Started in a Petri dish and not even grown in a woman’s body? What would Jessie’s childhood be like? As a fetus he’d been on YouTube, had trended for days on Twitter and everywhere else in cyberspace. People knew about him and were counting the months, knew he was due any day.

  So said the suddenly-back media, the newspapers, the pretty TV reporters standing once again outside Madison Hospital Medical Center.

  At least now, on this night well into the twenty-first century, there was nobody else running in to some suddenly accessed attic, catching dim, lurid pictures on their phones. There was only, well, history and the world medical community to consider. Doctors would want to see, to know.

  Two nights ago, tired and anxious, they’d all reluctantly agreed that they really should tape it.

  Now, pulling on a long latex glove, David said abruptly, “Aw, screw it, I’ve changed my mind. Let this child be born into privacy.”

  Woody, fist to his heart, whooped in a giant, relieved breath. “God, you’ve just taken such a load off my chest.”

  Tricia also clutched her chest in relief. “When you think of it, everyone’s already seen him,” she said. “In his cylinder. What are we going to say? We took him out?”

  “Yess!” said MacIntyre, laying down his camera. “I don’t even want to announce the birth for a week, or until they start bugging us. Then we can say, “Yeah, he’s here. He’s already started dating.”

  Relieved laughter on every face. Jill’s eyes glistened, but she was grinning.

  And so…

  Together, they all gave birth to Jessie. It took a whole five minutes.

  MacIntyre unscrewed the cylinder top (“Jeez, like a pickle jar,” Woody said), and David reached in with his long-gloved hand, gently reached down through the amniotic-like fluid to Jessie’s ankles, and raised him upside down so fluid drained from his lungs, pharynx, and bronchial tree. Jill wiped his little mouth and nose clean. David was about to give the tiny tush a little smack when its owner indicated that he didn’t need it.

  He cried, a good, lusty wa-a-a! that said he was already breathing on his own.

  Cries of joy rang out, and more tears welled. Kassie and Aisha Keene were clapping and crying; the others felt too knocked out to draw breath. It was so astonishing, so breathtaking.

  Jessie spent barely a minute on the little newborn table where Woody double-clamped the umbilical cord, tied it off, and Aisha with her stethoscope gave the newcomer a full check. “Healthy little guy,” she said, as he squirmed on the newborn scale. “He’s an Apgar 10 and weighs seven pounds, twelve ounces.” The Apgar score evaluated newborns’ physical condition, on a scale on one to ten.

  It was done. Jessie the little-fish fetus was born, a real little boy. And a very cute baby, with sweet features.

  Jill sank down onto a stool, wiping her eyes. The others gathered around her, pulling up stools, and Kassie in tears handed her Jessie wrapped in his little blue blanket. “He’s so beautiful,” she breathed.

  Jill held him, gazed into his sleeping little face and hugged him just right, she thought. But David, leaning on her arm, said anxiously, “Not too tight” - and then felt ridiculous.

  “Why did I say that?” he asked, screwing his face.

  “Idiot.” MacIntyre laughed and smacked his head. “You’re like a new dad.”

  Tricia sweetly told David, “The way you know you love someone is when you worry about them.”

  Aisha started telling Woody and MacIntyre about a woman who was obsessively seeking a surrogate, but fretted – “like, paranoid” - about what they ate and whether they smoked or drank on the sly or walked behind bus
es belching fumes. Aisha had to leave, but leaned in first to touch her index finger to Jessie’s little nose. “Nice meeting you, cutie. You’re gorgeous.”

  She straightened and started heading out, telling them all thanks for including her, and goodnight. “Hey, maybe this will catch on,” she said to no one in particular. “With women who are using surrogates anyway?”

  The double doors swung closed behind her.

  Jill smiled, moving her pinky into little Jessie’s fist, hearing the others’ voices float around her. She was in her own world, seeing a kaleidoscope of how much had happened since she’d first seen Jessie, first seen…everything…on that long, dark night.

  From fear to cheer. It was a miracle. This baby now cozy and sleeping in her arms was a miracle.

  She felt so happy, and found herself praying. God, please protect this child. Keep him safe from…anything bad. Bless his health, teach him to love, and please, please let him not become a target for every weirdo…

  David listed tiredly against her. “Lemme hold him?”

  She smiled and passed the baby to him. Oh her other side Tricia looked around and counted them all, gathered close.

  “Sam, Woody, me, you two” – she looked back at David, now cuddling the baby. “Five people who love him,” she said. “Nice start.”

  Holding Jessie in one arm, David put his other arm around Jill and pulled her to him, kissing her brow.

  “The best,” he said, smiling at her.

  Author’s Note

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