Life Support

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Push. Come on, push!” the woman commanded.

  The pain crescendoed to unbearable heights. Molly gasped in a deep breath, and again strained. Her vision blackened. New pain suddenly exploded in her head. She heard herself cry out, but the sound was foreign to her, like the shriek of a dying animal.

  “That’s it. Come on, come on . . .,” said the man.

  She pushed one last time, and felt the agony between her legs suddenly give way to the pain of tearing flesh.

  And then, mercifully, it was over.

  Groggy, clammy with sweat, she could neither move nor utter a sound. Perhaps she fell asleep—she wasn’t sure. She knew only that time had passed and there was movement in the room. The sound of splashing water, a cabinet clanging shut. It took great effort, but slowly she opened her eyes.

  At first the glare of light was all she saw, the trio of bright suns shining directly overhead. Then she focused on the blurred image of the man, standing near her opened thighs, and on what he was holding in his hands.

  It had hair, coarse black tufts of it clotted with blood. The flesh was pink and formless, like a clump of butchered meat lying limp in the man’s gloved hands. It moved. Only a quiver at first, then a violent shudder, the flesh balling up, the hair stiffening like the fur of a startled cat.

  “Primitive muscle function,” said the man. “And we still have rudimentary follicular and dentate structures. Haven’t eliminated the appendages yet, either.”

  “Saline bath’s ready.”

  “Are we all set up next door?”

  “Our patient’s positioned on the table. We just need the tissue.”

  “Let me get a weight on this.” The man rose and lay the clump of flesh on a table scale not far from Molly’s head.

  Molly stared. A single eye, lidless, soulless, stared back at her.

  Her scream shattered into a thousand piercing echoes. Again and again she screamed, her horror swelling with the sound of her own voice.

  “We have to shut her up!” the woman said. “The patient might hear it!”

  The man clapped a rubber mask over Molly’s mouth and nose, and Molly caught a whiff of noxious gas. She jerked her face away. He grabbed her by the jaw and tried to force her to hold still, to breathe in the fumes. Molly caught the man’s little finger in her teeth and bit down like a panicked animal. The man shrieked.

  A blow slammed into Molly’s temple with such force a hundred bright lights seemed to explode in her head.

  “Bitch! Fucking bitch!” the man gasped.

  “My God, your finger—”

  “The syringe. Get the syringe!”

  “What?”

  “The potassium. Do it now.”

  Slowly Molly opened her eyes. She saw the woman standing over her, holding a syringe and needle. She saw the needle pierce the rubber dam on the IV line.

  What felt like a line of fire slowly burned its way up Molly’s arm. In pain, she cried out and tried to pull free, but the strap held her wrist in place.

  “All of it,” the man snapped. “Give her the whole fucking thing.”

  The woman nodded. She squeezed down on the syringe.

  The count was extraordinary. Embedded in swirls of fetal brain tissue were at least thirty-three separate pituitary glands, more than any previous embryonic implant had produced. The cells appeared healthy and disease free under the microscope, and the girl’s blood tests had all been normal. They could not allow any infections to be transmitted. They had made that mistake with their first group of recipients, when they’d used intact fetuses harvested from the hired wombs of women in a poor Mexican village. A village where the cattle were already dying.

  This tissue had been grown from a genetically altered embryo started in his own lab. He knew it was clean.

  Dr. Gideon Yarborough dissected out three of the glands and dropped them into a vial of trypsin warmed to thirty-seven degrees Centigrade. The rest of the fetus—if one could call the clump of flesh a fetus—was rinsed and placed in a jar of buffered Hanks’ balanced salt solution. It bobbed in the liquid, and the blue eye surfaced, staring up at him. There was no functioning brain behind that eye, and no soul, nevertheless it gave Yarborough the willies. He covered the jar and set it aside. Later, he would harvest the remaining pituitaries. It was a valuable crop; there would be enough to implant ten patients. Twenty minutes had passed.

  He rinsed the vial containing the three pituitaries with salt solution. By now the trypsin had broken up the tissue and turbid liquid swirled in the vial, which no longer contained solid pituitaries but individual cells in suspension. The building blocks of a new master gland. Gently he aspirated the suspension into a syringe, then he carried it into the next room, where his assistant was waiting for him.

  The patient, lightly sedated with Valium, lay on the table. A seventy-eight-year-old man in satisfactory health who’d been feeling his age. Who wanted his youth back and was willing to pay for it, willing to endure a minor measure of discomfort for a chance at rejuvenation.

  Now the man lay with his head aligned in a Todd-Wells stereotaxic frame, his skull fixed in place. The amplified image taken by an X-ray tube was projected onto a fifteen-inch television. On the screen was a view of the sella turcica, the small bony well containing the patient’s aging pituitary gland.

  Yarborough sprayed a local anesthetic into the man’s right nostril and swabbed it with cocaine solution. Then he inserted a long needle up the right nostril and injected more anesthetic into the mucous membrane.

  The patient gave a murmur of discomfort.

  “I’m just numbing up the area, Mr. Luft. You’re doing fine.” He handed the syringe of anesthetic to his assistant.

  And picked up the drill.

  It had a simple twist bit, almost needle-fine. He inserted this up the nostril. With the image on the screen to guide him, Yarborough began to drill through bone, the bit whining through the floor of the sphenoid bone. As it broke through the other side, piercing the dura propria, the membrane lining the pituitary, the patient gave a sharp cry, his muscles tensing.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Luft. That’s the worst part of it. The pain should last only a few seconds.”

  As he predicted, the patient slowly relaxed, his discomfort passing. Piercing the dura always caused that brief jolt of pain in the forehead. It did not worry Yarborough.

  His assistant handed him the syringe containing the cell suspension.

  Through the newly drilled hole in the sphenoid bone, Yarborough introduced the needle tip. Gently he injected the syringe contents into the sella turcica. He pictured the cells swirling into their new home, growing, multiplying into healthy new colonies. Cell factories pumping out the hormones of a young brain. Hormones Mr. Luft himself could no longer produce.

  He withdrew the needle. There was no bleeding; a good, clean procedure.

  “It went perfectly fine,” he told the patient. “Now we’re going to remove the head frame. We’ll have you lie here for a half hour or so while we watch your blood pressure.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s all done. You sailed through with flying colors.” He nodded to his assistant. “I’ll stay and watch him. I’ll call the van when he’s ready to go back to Brant Hill.”

  “What do we do about. . .” His assistant glanced toward the door. Toward the other room.

  Yarborough stripped off his gloves. “I’ll take care of that too, Monica. You go back to the house and deal with the other problem.”

  The thermometer on the wall registered thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

  Toby huddled in a corner, her knees bent to her chest, a plastic sheet draped over her shoulders. It was a corpse’s shroud, and the smell of Formalin permeated the fabric. At first it had repelled her, and she had felt nauseated by the thought of stripping the sheet off one of the dead bodies for her own use. But then she’d started shaking from the cold and she knew she had no choice. It was the only way to conserve body heat.

 
But it wasn’t enough to keep her alive. Hours had passed, and her hands and feet had lost all feeling. At least her arm had stopped aching. But she was having trouble thinking, her mental processes slowed to the point where she could not focus on anything except staying awake.

  Soon, though, she lost the will to manage even that.

  Gradually her head sagged to the floor and her limbs fell limp. Twice she shook herself awake and found she was lying on her side and that the lights were still shining. After that, she slept.

  And dreamed. Not in images, but in sounds. There were two people speaking—a man and Jane Nolan—their voices distorted, metallic. She felt herself floating through black liquid, felt a welcome rush of warmth against her face.

  Then she was falling.

  She jerked awake to find herself lying on her side in darkness. There was a carpet beneath her cheek. A faint blade of light cut through the shadows and a door squealed shut. She tried to move but found she could not; her hands were bound together behind her back. Her feet felt numb and useless. She heard another door shut, and then the sound of a car engine starting up.

  A man said, “Shouldn’t you latch the gate?”

  The answering voice was Jane Nolan’s: “I’ve tied up the dog. He won’t get out. Let’s just go.”

  They began to drive up a bumpy road. The road from the house, thought Toby. Where were they taking her?

  A sudden jolt of the van slammed her left shoulder against the floor, and she almost cried out in pain. She was lying on her injured arm, and the merciful numbness from the cold room was now wearing off. With a burst of effort she twisted and managed to roll onto her back, but she now found herself wedged up against something cold and rubbery. Light had begun to filter through the darkness from streetlamps and passing cars. She turned her head to see what she had bumped up against and found herself staring into the face of one of the corpses.

  Toby’s shocked gasp drew the attention of her captors. The man said, “Hey, she’s awake.”

  “Just keep driving,” said Jane. “I’ll tape her mouth.” She unbuckled her seat belt and crawled to the rear of the van. There she knelt beside Toby and fumbled in the semidarkness with a roll of surgical tape. “Didn’t think we’d have to hear from you again.”

  Toby strained to free her hands but could not loosen the bonds. “My mother—you hurt my mother—”

  “It’s your fault, you know,” said Jane, peeling off a strip of tape. “So obsessed, Dr. Harper. Too busy worrying about a few old men. You didn’t even notice what was going on in your own home.” She slapped the tape over Toby’s mouth and said, in mock disgust: “And you call yourself a good daughter.”

  Bitch, thought Toby. You murdering bitch.

  Jane clucked as she peeled off a second strip of tape. “I didn’t want to hurt your mother. I was only there to keep an eye on you. Find out how far you were pushing it. But then Robbie Brace called your house that night, and everything got completely out of hand . . .” She slapped a second strip of tape over Toby’s mouth. “Then it was too late for you to have an accident. Too late to shut you up. People are so willing to believe the dead.” She tore off a final piece of tape and pressed it across Toby’s face, ear to ear. “But will they believe a woman who’d hurt her own mother? I don’t think so.” She gazed down at Toby for a moment, as though evaluating her handiwork. In the van’s semidarkness, cut only by the occasional gleam of passing headlights, Jane’s eyes seemed to take on a glow of their own. How many times had Ellen awakened to find those same eyes staring down at her? I should have known. I should have sensed the evil in my home.

  The van made an abrupt turn, and Jane reached out to steady herself.

  No, her name is not Jane, thought Toby with sudden comprehension. Her name is Monica Trammell. Wallenberg’s associate at the Rosslyn Institute.

  The van swayed as it moved down a winding drive. The pavement gave way to the unevenness of a dirt road, and Toby could feel the old man’s corpse bouncing against her, his flesh clapping against hers. They braked to a stop, and the side door slid open.

  A man stood silhouetted against the moonless sky. “Gideon’s not here yet,” the man said. It was Carl Wallenberg’s voice.

  The woman climbed out of the van. “He has to be here for this. We all have to be here.”

  “The patient needed stabilizing. Gideon’s staying with him.”

  “We can’t do this without him. This time the responsibility has to be shared, Carl. All of us equally. Richard and I have done too much already.”

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  “You have to. Is the hole dug?”

  The answer came out a sigh: “Yes.”

  “Then let’s finish it.” The woman turned to the driver, who’d already climbed out of the van. “Get them out, Richard.”

  The driver grabbed Toby’s bound feet and dragged her halfway out. As Wallenberg took hold of her shoulders, Toby squirmed.

  He almost dropped her. “Jesus Christ! She’s still alive.”

  “Just move her,” said Monica.

  “My God, do we have to to it this way?”

  “I didn’t bring the syringes. This way is bloodless. I don’t want any evidence splattered around.”

  Wallenberg took a few deep breaths, then once again grasped Toby’s shoulders. The two men swung her from the van and carried her through the night. At first Toby had no idea where they were bringing her. She knew only that the ground was uneven, that the men were having trouble navigating in the darkness. She caught glimpses of Richard Trammell’s head, his hair white-blond under the moonlight, then she saw sky and the shadow of a construction crane arching across the field of stars. Turning her head, she noticed lights shining through the filter of a fence, and she recognized the building in the distance: the Brant Hill nursing facility. They were carrying her into the foundation pit of another new building.

  Wallenberg stumbled and lost his grip on Toby’s shoulders. She fell, her head thudding to the dirt so hard it slammed her jaws together. Pain sliced her tongue, and she tasted blood, felt it pooling in her mouth.

  “Jesus,” Wallenberg muttered.

  “Carl,” said Monica, her voice flat and metallic. “Just get it over with.”

  “Fuck this. You do it!”

  “No, it’s your turn. This time your hands get dirty. And Gideon does too. Now finish it.”

  Wallenberg took a deep breath. Once again Toby was lifted and carried, squirming, into the pit. The two men came to a stop. Toby looked straight up into Wallenberg’s face, but she could not see his expression against the moonlit sky. She saw only a dark oval, a fluttering of windblown hair as he swung her sideways, then released her.

  Though she’d steeled herself for the landing, the sudden impact slammed the breath from her lungs. For a moment she saw only blackness. Gradually her vision returned. She saw a bowl of stars suspended above her and realized she was lying at the bottom of a hole. A sprinkling of dirt tumbled in from the side, stinging her eyes. She jerked her head sideways and felt gravel against her cheek.

  The two men walked away. Now, she thought. My one and only chance. She fought to free herself, twisting one way, then another, dirt spilling on top of her as she thrashed against the wall of the pit. No good; her wrists and ankles were too tightly bound, and her struggles only resulted in making her hands numb. But one corner of the tape had begun to peel off her cheek. She rubbed her face against the gravel, scraping her skin raw as more of the tape lifted away.

  Hurry. Hurry.

  She was coughing and choking on clouds of dust. Another inch of tape peeled off, freeing her lips. She took a breath and screamed.

  A figure appeared above the pit, staring down at her. “No one can hear you,” said Monica. “It’s quite a deep hole. Tomorrow it’ll be gone, smoothed over. Tomorrow they pour the gravel. Then the foundation.” She turned as the men reappeared, carrying one of the corpses. They threw it in, and it landed beside Toby, the man’s head thudding agains
t her shoulder. She recoiled against the far side of the pit, and fresh dirt sprinkled onto her face.

  So this is how it ends. Three skeletons in a hole. A concrete slab to seal us in.

  The men left to get the second corpse.

  Again Toby screamed for help, but her voice seemed lost in that deep pit.

  Monica crouched at the side of the hole, staring down. “It’s a cold night. Everyone’s closed their windows. They can’t hear a thing, you know.”

  Toby screamed again.

  Monica dropped a handful of dirt on her face. Coughing, Toby twisted sideways and found herself staring at the corpse. Monica was right. No one was listening; no one would hear her.

  The men returned, both breathing heavily from exertion. They threw the last body into the pit.

  It landed on top of Toby, the shroud flapping across her face, covering it. She could barely move under the weight of the corpse, but she could hear voices above her, and the sound of a shovel scraping through dirt.

  The first scoop of soil fell into the pit. It landed on Toby’s legs. She tried to shake it off, but then another shovelful fell, and another.

  “Wait for Gideon,” said Monica. “He has to be part of this.”

  “He’ll be here to finish up. Let’s just get it over with,” said her husband. He grunted, and a fresh load of dirt fell onto the top corpse, soil trickling onto Toby’s hair. Again she tried to move under the corpse’s weight. The shroud slipped down, uncovering her eyes. She stared straight up at the three figures standing around the pit. They seemed to sense that she was watching them, and they fell momentarily silent.

  Monica said, “All right. Fill it in now.”

  Toby cried out, “No!” but her voice was muffled by the fabric. By the weight of the corpse.

  Dirt tumbled down. She blinked against the sting of grit. Another shovel of earth fell onto her hair, then more dirt, rivers of it spilling around her body, covering her limbs. She struggled to move, but the corpse, and the steadily falling soil, trapped her in place. She heard her own heartbeat roaring in her ears, heard gasps of air rushing through her lungs. She caught one final glimpse of stars as she burrowed her face under the cover of the shroud.