The Select

by F. Paul Wilson

  Why on earth was she calling? She sounded upset.

  "Hi, Mrs. Cleary. I was just talking to Quinn."

  "Oh. That's why your line was busy. I was speaking to her earlier and she says she's going to stay down there next week."

  "She told me."

  "Matthew, you've got to get her home. Something terrible is going to happen to her if she stays there. Just like it happened to that friend of hers."

  Cold fingers did a walk along Matt's spine.

  "What do you mean, 'happened' to Tim? Tim took off for Las Vegas."

  "I don't know about any of that. I just know something bad's happened to him and the same will happen to Quinn if she stays down there. You know how stubborn she is. She won't listen to me."

  "She won't listen to me, either."

  "Maybe if you go down there, Matthew. Maybe she'll listen to you then and you can bring her back. I know it's a lot to ask..."

  "It's not a lot," he said, trying to soothe the growing agitation in her voice. "Not a lot at all. I'll leave as soon as they cut me loose on Friday."

  "Oh, thank you, Matthew." She sounded ready to cry. "I'll be eternally grateful for this."

  He eased himself off the phone, then sat there, wondering, feeling uneasy. Her sense that something had 'happened' to Tim rattled Matt. And she was so convinced the same was going to happen to Quinn. Superstition, of course, but still...

  Matt decided then to leave for Maryland Friday afternoon without telling Quinn. He'd catch her by surprise and work on her all weekend. By Sunday he'd have her packed up and ready to go.

  In a few days he'd have Quinn home safe and sound. But what about Tim? He wished he could do the same for Tim.

  Tim, old buddy, where the hell are you?

  *

  Tim existed in a timeless space of boredom, rage, and terror. Sometimes he slept, and dwelt in a nightmare in which he had no body. Sometimes he was awake, and dwelt in a nightmare in which he could not feel his body.

  The staff took good care of that body. Three times a day, every shift, his limbs were put through their ranges of motion to keep the joints limber and prevent contractures. He was turned back and forth, his position changed every few hours to prevent pressure ulcers in his skin. And whenever they were in the ward, all the nurses spoke to him constantly, like girls talking to their dolls.

  And that was what Tim began to feel like. He couldn't feel, couldn't reply, couldn't move on his own. He was a giant Ken doll.

  Despite all the care, he was afraid for his body. What had they done to it? Had they scorched his skin? Was he now a burn victim like the others? He felt nothing. If only he could feel something—even pain would be welcome—he might know.

  And Tim had begun to fear for his mind. Imprisonment in an inert, mute body was affecting it. Every so often he would feel his mental gears slip a few cogs, would catch his thoughts veering off and have to reel then in from wild, surreal tangents filled with giant, floating syringes and stumbling, mummified shapes. He knew one day—one day too soon—those thoughts could slip their bonds and never come back.

  Focus. That was the only thing that kept his mind in line. Focusing on movement, on brief, tiny increments of victory over the drug that crippled his nervous system.

  He'd learned to recognize the signs that his previous dose of 9574 was wearing off. Mostly it was a tingling, beginning in his fingertips and toes and spreading across his palms and soles. When the sensation came he focused all his will on his fingers. Sometimes he was positioned so he could see them, but many times he wasn't. He didn't let that stop him. For most of the day, his hands didn't exist. But when the tingling came, it told him where they were, and then he could locate them, focus on them, make them the center of his world, and demand that they obey him.

  Tim couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him that the episodes of tingling were lasting longer, starting a little sooner before each new injection. What did that mean? Was he building up a tolerance to the drug? Was his liver learning to break it down faster? He'd read that the liver could "learn." When a new substance was introduced to the bloodstream, the liver's job was to break it down and dispose of it. At first it would metabolize the substance slowly. But as the substance made more passes through the liver, the enzymes within the hepatic cells adjusted and became increasingly efficient. That was why a teetotaler could get tipsy on a single glass of wine while a drinker might down half a bottle with little or no effect: the teetotaler's liver has no experience breaking down ethanol but it's routine for the drinker's.

  Tim knew he had a good tolerance for alcohol—always had. Maybe that indicated an especially efficient liver. Maybe his liver was learning new ways to clear the 9574 from his blood, and getting a little better at it every day.

  He clung to that thought. It wasn't much of a hope, but at least it was hope. And he needed all the hope he could muster. His hands were tingling now. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, so he couldn't see them. But he knew where they were now. There was another sensation today. A dull pain on the outer aspect of his left thigh. He ignored that. It was his hands that concerned him. He focused on them, concentrating his will...

  "Is Number Eight awake?"

  That voice. He knew that voice!

  "Yes, Doctor."

  Alston. Dr. Arthur Alston. Tim wanted to roar the name, wanted to spring up and hurl himself at his throat, but all he could do was lie here and feel the growing tingle in his hands.

  "When's he due for his next dose?" Alston's voice said.

  "Not for another twenty minutes."

  "Give it to him now. I've got a little debriding to do here, and I don't want him twitching."

  Suddenly Dr. Alston's face loomed over him. He was wearing a surgical mask and cap.

  "Hello, Brown. I'm terribly sorry it had to come to this, but you gave me no choice. This, by the way, is the last time you'll be referred to by your name. From now on, you're the John Doe in bed eight. Don't look for rescue from the Ward C staff. These nurses have been hand picked by the Foundation. They don't know your real name, but they do know you're not one of our usual burn victims, and they know you're here because you're a threat to the Foundation."

  Tim would have groaned if he could. The nurses too?

  "Is that surprise I see in your eyes, Brown? A male chauvinist reaction? Do you see some reason why professional women such as these nurses can't share the goals pursued by the Foundation? We all have many common goals here in Ward C. Perfecting the semi-synthetic burn grafts is just one. We are all committed individuals, and we all work toward those goals in our own way. But it's a group effort."

  Alston sounded so sane, so rational. Tim would have much preferred a mad-doctor persona. It would have been easier to take. This was so damn unsettling. It almost made Tim feel like the deviate. Almost.

  Dr. Alston's face was replaced by the mocha-skinned nurse's. Her eyes crinkled warmly as she smiled behind her mask. She did something out of Tim's sight. He guessed it was another dose of 9574. When the tingling in his fingers and toes faded, he knew he was right.

  "All right, Marguerite," Alston said. "He should be ready now. Turn him on his side and we'll get to work."

  Tim's stomach gave a little heave and the room did a quick spin as hands he could not feel rolled him off his back and onto his right side. The picture window into the hall swam into view but the curtains were drawn.

  "Watch out for the N-G tube," Alston said. "Good. Don't worry, Number Eight. That feeding tube is only temporary. We'll put in a deep line for TPN soon. That's total parenteral nutrition—something you would have learned about in your clinical training over the next few years."

  Clinical training...

  Tim realized he'd never see his clinical training.

  "Right there," Alston said to Marguerite. "Perfect. And now the tray, please."

  Tim's mind screamed out to know what Alston was doing. He must have sensed Tim's thoughts. He spoke from somewhere behind him.

&n
bsp; "Just because you've been reduced to a vegetative state doesn't mean your days of usefulness as a productive human being are through. Quite the contrary. You're earning your keep, Number Eight. And you're making a significant contribution to the well-being of your fellow man."

  Tim sensed movement behind him, heard a rustle, the soft clank of a metal tray.

  "You see, one of the ongoing problems we've had with fully researching the new grafts has been our inability to test them on fresh burns. Since the grafts must be grown from cultures of the victim's own skin cells, they are, ipso facto, unavailable for treatment of a fresh burn. We could keep a bank of grafts for people at high risks for burns—firefighters, for instance—for immediate use should a burn occur, and I'm sure that such a program will come into being eventually, but at this early stage it's not feasible. So what we've needed for a while is another test subject whose skin grafts can be cultured in advance and then tested on fresh burns of varying severity and surface area."

  Another test subject? Tim thought.

  "You do realize, don't you, that you're not the first student to learn too much. We've had a few unfortunate incidents in the past when the subliminal intrusion of the SLI unit has triggered unsuspected psychoses in a student, but until now only one other student has learned as much as you. That was Anthony Prosser, two years ago."

  Tim remembered the phrase he'd heard a few second-year students use: To pull a Prosser. It meant to go over the wall and never be heard from again.

  Everybody probably thinks I've pulled a Prosser.

  "Anthony has been known as Number Five for two years now."

  Two years!

  "During that period he has made an enormous contribution to our graft research. But now..." Tim heard Alston sigh. "Now he's given all he has to give. Now he just lies there, completely mad. But we're not abandoning him. We'll take care of him as long as he lives."

  Give? What did Prosser give?

  "So, as unfortunate as it was that you had to stumble on our little secrets here at The Ingraham, in a way it proves rather timely. We were just beginning to perfect our acute-stage grafting techniques when Number Five ran out of undamaged skin. You can take over where he left off."

  Tim's brain was screaming. They're going to burn me!

  "We've been culturing your skin cells since you arrived. Yesterday we added a sedative to your afternoon dose of 9574. While you were unconscious, I inflicted a thirty-six-square-inch third-degree burn on the lateral aspect of your left thigh."

  Ward C—what Tim could see of it—blurred and swam before his eyes. They'd already burned him!

  "I felt it was kinder to put you out during the procedure. Even though you'd feel nothing, you'd still smell it. The odor of burning human flesh is rather unpleasant, especially unpleasant when it is your own. I spared you that. We're not cruel here, Number Eight. We bear you no ill will, no malice. In fact, we feel sorry for you. You are the victim of a particularly vicious and ironic Catch 22: The very attributes of intellectual curiosity and sharply-honed analytical brilliance that once made you an asset to The Ingraham have now caused you to become a liability. We couldn't let you go, and we couldn't kill you—despite what you must think of us, we're not murderers, Number Eight. So we chose this method of neutralizing your threat to the Foundation and The Ingraham. You still have your life and, in a very important way, you're still contributing to the medical well-being of your fellow man. Which was one of the reasons you came to The Ingraham in the first place, isn't it, Number Eight?"

  But you did kill me, Tim thought. You must have. Because this is worse than death. This is Hell.

  MONITORING

  Louis Verran noticed the red light blinking on the recorder. He nudged Elliot.

  "How long's that been lit?"

  Elliot glanced up at it and shrugged. "Beats me."

  "When was the last time you checked it?"

  "This morning when I came in. Wasn't blinking then."

  With an effort, Verran kept his voice low and even.

  "Well, it's blinking now. And when it's blinking it means the recorder's been activated. And when the recorder's been activated it means Cleary's been on the phone. And in case you forgot, we're monitoring all her phone calls. So do you think you could spare some time from your busy schedule to listen to it?"

  "Sure, Chief."

  Verran shook his head. The best goddam high-tech voice-activated recorder wasn't worth shit if nobody listened to it.

  He watched Elliot slip on the headphones and replay the conversation. He looked bored. Finally he pulled them off.

  "Same old crap, Chief. Her mother wants her to come home Friday. Her old boyfriend wants her to come home too, even offered to come down and get her but she blew him off. She's staying."

  "She should go. She's bad news, that kid."

  "She thinks Brown's coming back and she wants to be here." Elliot grinned. "She's got a loooooong wait, huh?"

  "Yeah," Verran said. "But as long as she's waiting, you keep an eye on that recorder. Anytime you see that light blinking, you listen right away. Not later. Right away."

  Verran almost felt sorry for Cleary. Her boyfriend was never coming back. There was no way out of the place Alston had put him.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Tim watched the day-shift nurses—the dark-skinned one called Marguerite and another whose name he hadn't caught yet— string garland and holly around the window on the hallway. They worked on the far side of the window; apparently Christmas decorations weren't allowed in the antiseptic confines of Ward C. They were laughing, smiling, presenting a Norman Rockwellesque portrait of holiday cheer.

  Who on earth would believe what they were involved in on this side of the window?

  And what would a Rockwell portrait of my right thigh look like? Tim wondered.

  All the shifts told him how well the graft was taking, as if he cared. How long since Alston had burned him? How long since he'd placed the graft? If only there was a clock here. Or a calendar. Tim's only measure of time was his injections. He knew today was Friday—he'd heard Marguerite say "TGIF" this morning—but which Friday? Was it one Friday before Christmas, or two?

  He was betting on two. That made today the sixteenth of December. Maybe.

  He hadn't been placed on his left side since the graft. He'd been on his right side, faced toward the hall window for the past few hours. Never since his arrival had he been rotated to the spot directly in front of it. Each of the other seven patients on Ward C got a regular turn there, but Tim was always kept near the back. Why?

  Because of Quinn, he guessed. Even mummy-wrapped as he was, there was still a chance she might recognize him if she got within a couple of feet.

  The thought of her was a deep ache in his chest. He liked being positioned so he could see some activity—anything but hours of staring at the ceiling—but he hoped Quinn wouldn't pass by. He longed for the sight of her, but each time she walked on after pausing at the window, a part of him died.

  He preferred watching Marguerite and the other nurse decorating the window.

  Go on, ladies. Do a good job. Take your time. Take all the time you want.

  Because the longer they stayed out there, the longer it would be before his next dose of 9574.

  Already his hands were tingling to the wrists. He'd begun concentrating on his left fingers the instant the tingling began. He knew they lay on his left hip. He wished he could see them, to measure his progress.

  And he was making progress—no question about that. He could feel his fingers moving, feel the pinky flex, then straighten...flex, then straighten. He just wished he knew how much movement he'd gained. He didn't know how far he could trust his proprioception—he needed to see those fingers move to believe it.

  Tim noticed one of the nurses—Marguerite—looking in his direction. He froze his hand in position. Had she seen the movement? He prayed not. If they saw the 9574 wearing off, they'd give him another shot of it. They might even start keeping a special
eye out for movement. And if they saw too much they might up his dose.

  Tim was sure that would push him over the edge into madness. All that kept him sane were these moments when he could feel something, do something. He spent his day waiting for these moments. He lived for them. If they were taken away...

  Marguerite turned and said something to the other nurse and they both laughed. They went on decorating the window. Good. She hadn't seen him. He could go on moving his fingers.

  He switched his concentration to his left thumb.

  ...flex...

  ...extend...

  ...flex...

  ...extend...

  *

  Snow.

  As she hurried toward Science, Quinn brushed at a flake that had caught in her eyelashes. The Baltimore radio stations were all talking about the big snowstorm charging in from the Midwest. Pennsylvania and New Jersey were slated to take the brunt if the storm stayed on its present course, with Maryland collecting a few inches from the periphery.

  Normally, she'd be excited. Quinn loved snow, loved to ski. During college, whenever a snow hit New England, she and a couple of friends would hop in a car and head for Great Barrington where her roommate's family had a ski condo.

  But she felt no interest, let alone excitement, in the coming storm. It didn't matter. Not much seemed to matter anymore.

  One thing the threatened snowfall did accomplish was the cancellation of the Friday afternoon labs. Since this was the last day before Christmas break, the administration had decided to let the students get a head start on the storm.

  Everyone who was going home, that is. For Quinn it meant an early start in Dr. Emerson's lab. She'd had lunch, helped a couple of friends load up their cars, and waved them off to their Merry Christmases.

  Merry Christmas.

  Not bloody likely.

  Another reason for not going home until the last minute: Quinn wasn't feeling very Christmasy—anything but Christmasy. And Mom always did Christmas up big, decorating the first floor like she was entering it in a contest. Everything would be so cheery and warm and happy and Quinn knew she'd be a horrible wet blanket. If she was going to mope, better to do it in private.