Project 137

by Seth Augenstein

  Downstairs I told Mary about my underwater nightmare. She shook her head. She’d already put in two service calls for my Dormus, she said, but we still were far from the top of the list. I shook my head tiredly, my brain seeming to slosh in my skull. I kissed her, then headed out to the car to begin the day.

  Hectic energy buzzed around the hospital when I arrived, but it was a strange quiet bustle. No mass casualty incident was taking place, the plague victims were still alive, and some were even recovering. But a weird dread hung in the air. A meeting had been called by the administration for the early afternoon, and the heads of the hospital’s various units disappeared mid-morning. Even though I ran the third-floor rooms, I was technically not a unit head by title and I was not part of the gathering. Relief washed over me when I found the dossier still on my desk, unmoved and unopened. I slid it into a drawer, locked it, then started my rounds. The administrators reappeared after an hour or so, treading the hallway in file, haggard faces hanging.

  “I bet it’s something bad—something from the top,” Rothenberg said, snapping an energy stick into his espresso, watching the suits march past the breakroom.

  “It can’t be good, that’s for sure,” I said.

  “I heard—” Rothenberg said, before a violent fit of hacking and coughing overtook him, doubling him over, splashing the espresso over his lap, on the floor.

  “Jesus, Stuart, are you alright?” I said.

  “I’m okay,” he said, standing up straight. A weak smile crossed his white lips. But then his eyes rolled back in his head—and I caught him just before he hit the floor.

  Bubonic plague was the diagnosis. It was still in its early stages—though we weren’t sure any of the antibiotics left in the hospital’s supply were strong enough to treat it. And since Rothenberg had already taken preventive antibiotics before and after the visit to the apartment complex, basically nothing was left in our arsenal to save him. But we gave him doses of the two we had, and Betty sent a request out to the Bureau of Wellness to requisition a few more exotic varieties from Clara Maass. McDermott and I watched the nurses minister to the fever as Rothenberg lay unconscious inside a glass-walled isolation room in the intensive care unit. The machines beeped. We all stood outside, staring in, groaning.

  “Jaysis, the man’s got a bad dose,” McDermott whispered, carefully watching the shallow rise and fall of his fellow surgeon’s breathing. “You think any of us’ve got it?”

  “No,” I said, watching the tubes up Rothenberg’s nostrils. “We would already have symptoms. Besides, it was a total fluke that Rothenberg contracted it. He had protection, he was careful. It was just the luck of the draw.”

  “I can hardly believe it, mate.”

  “Poor Stuart. He’s got to pull through. Just think of his family.”

  “Rothenberg, a good man if there ever was one,” McDermott said, shaking his head. He tapped on the glass with his fingernail. “At least the poor fucker’s got a break from the Kraken.”

  We chuckled.

  “Yeah, at least he’s got that,” I said. “Although this is all her fault to begin with.”

  Hands grabbed our shoulders. We froze.

  “Having a good time, gentlemen?” said Suzanne Kranklein, her voice creaky. “I understand your concern for your colleague. But a schedule is a schedule. Time for our meeting.”

  We nodded, and followed her down the hallway, up a flight of stairs. We entered the big auditorium with stadium seating. It was the space for the biggest, most important staff meetings. All the seats were filled, and murmurs rippled along the rows and aisles as Kranklein entered ahead of us. McDermott and I lingered at the back and leaned against the wall, cups still in hand. The Kraken advanced to the lectern at the front of the hall. She tapped the microphone twice, sending a rip of feedback all the way to the top tier.

  “Hello, everyone,” she said, flashing a fake smile that was all teeth and no eyes. “Thank you all for setting aside some time.”

  The crowd grumbled. I noticed that all the nurses and doctors on the Saint Almachius staff were there. Nobody was minding the store, keeping patients alive throughout the rest of the hospital. Betty Bathory was in a cluster of nurses huddled together and whispering, and at the last seat in the back corner I spotted Nurse Culling’s oversized head, his eyes staring unblinking at the stage.

  “As you may know, we’ve had quite a busy time in the last week,” Kranklein continued. “We always plan for the worst—but hope for the best. We’ve gotten a little bit of both, between a horrific shooting, saving a bunch of patients, then losing them, and then responding admirably to an outbreak no one could have foreseen.”

  She cleared her throat.

  “But I think we’ve all done a great job keeping our spirits up, our outlook positive. We’ll keep on ministering to the sick and dying, and we’ll do the best we can. To that end, we have an announcement.”

  Total silence filled the auditorium during her brief pause. She pulled a hidden glass of water from the lectern. The woman was clearly in control, a born bureaucrat, and she relished the moment of total attention. I elbowed McDermott, and he nodded. The Kraken took a slow, theatrical sip. She nodded as she set the glass down again.

  “The Bureau of Wellness has taken note of the way in which Saint Almachius has handled some of the toughest situations a modern hospital can face. Especially over the last few days. So they’ve chosen us to helm a prestigious new study.”

  “What kind of prestigious new study?” called out McDermott.

  Whispers hissed among the aisles.

  “Good question,” she said. “It’s a program on the use of vitamins in the course of normal treatment.”

  Here she turned her head and looked straight at me. I smiled and winked at her. She seemed to take no notice, though.

  “The regional administrator informed us we were in a unique position to try additional infusions of vitamins for people who are undergoing a whole span of treatments—cancer, knee surgery, whatever,” she said. “They want to measure the net benefits. It’s going to be done discreetly, and we’re going to administer it as a double-blind study.”

  “Don’t the patients have to consent to this kind of thing?” hollered one of the gastroenterologists.

  “Not if it’s not dangerous,” Kranklein said. “If there’s only minimal risk, it’s legal by Bureau standards. And we are ‘doing no harm,’ for those of you with hangups about the Hippocratic Oath.”

  The audience went silent for a second, then a cluster of hands went into the air with more questions. Kranklein easily answered all of them, as she pored over her Atman—what must have been the talking points she’d been given by the Bureau. Just as she was about to wrap up the speech, I raised my hand.

  “Suzanne,” I hollered, not even waiting for her to call on me. “Does this program extend to everybody, and every unit? As in, is obstetrics going to be part of it?”

  “Yes, Joe, it does,” she said, brushing her hair back off her shoulders. “With a difference—most of the expectant mothers are being informed of their participation. The Bureau decided it was best to notify them, so that if the patients were already taking supplements, we wouldn’t be malnourishing the unborn children with double doses of vitamins.”

  “So,” I called out again. “Is this program mandatory?”

  “Mandatory is such a strong word, Joe,” she said, looking down, consulting the Atman again. “But really, it wouldn’t be scientific if we weren’t able to get a full cross-section of the patients. And the mothers don’t have to come to this hospital to have their babies. So they do have a choice.

  “Now, folks,” she said, turning, cutting me off, ignoring my still-raised hand, “we all know that this is another program run by the Bureau of Wellness, and there will be some additional regulatory forms to fill out.”

  Groans filled the auditorium.

  “But,” she continued, “you also know that this administration will be backing you up, making sure you
get it all done. And it will be funded by the feds, so that means another year of solvency at Saint Almachius. Maybe even raises, when all is said and done. So go back to your posts, and we’ll distribute instructions as the program progresses.”

  She winked and gave a crooked thumbs-up.

  “Just know that we’re here for you.”

  With a wave of her hand, everyone was dismissed. The crowd rustled and broke free from their seats, as nurses hurried back to their stations, and the doctors clustered to gossip about the new study.

  “I wonder what the hell this is all about. I’m not missing my Saturday tee time because of this bullshit,” said one young male doctor voice.

  “I guess the Bureau of Wellness sees us as a possible test group for a big program,” said another doctor, a bespectacled middle-aged woman. “It could be a great opportunity for the hospital, and for all of us.”

  “It’s fucking shite, whatever it is,” McDermott whispered to me, leaning in close.

  “Just another way for the Kraken to kiss the Bureau’s ass,” I said. “But at least vitamins are harmless. At least she can’t get people killed that way.”

  McDermott and I went down the hallway, pushed open the next door, and Betty Bathory stood there. She pushed past the Irishman and grabbed my sleeve.

  “Lanza’s looking for you,” she said. “He’s in your office.”

  I nodded and followed her. Lanza was sitting in my chair, feet up on the desk, buffing the badge on his chest as we walked in.

  “You’re getting to be a regular around here, Zo,” I said. “What is it today—another Biblical disaster? Are the locusts on the wing?”

  Slapping his feet down off my desk, I sat in one of the two patient chairs. Lanza leaned forward in the doctor’s chair, waving at Betty to sit, too.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just listen to me,” Lanza said. “We don’t think your Old Man is responsible for either of the attacks. Now everybody at the department thinks this Lamalade guy is the lone actor.”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” I said.

  “That’s what the motherfucking scumbag said himself,” Betty said.

  We just stared at her. She shrugged.

  “I just calls it as I sees it,” she said. “I came to tell you guys—Lamalade’s coming along. He’s conscious, and he can even talk a bit. Some guy in a suit came to visit him and ask questions. He flashed a Bureau badge at me, and he said he was part of the investigation.”

  Lanza slammed his fist down on the desk.

  “Goddamnit, we’re supposed to do the interviews. I want to talk to him now.”

  “He might be asleep,” Betty said.

  “We’ll wake him up,” I said, jumping to my feet, ending the debate.

  The three of us walked in silence down the hallways to the intensive care unit, and to the room in the farthest corner. Lamalade lay blanketed, in a pool of light from an overhead lamp. He wore a surgical mask over the bottom half of his face. The visible skin was nearly translucent. As our footsteps echoed into the room, the patient opened his eyes. Betty and I went to the foot of the bed. Lanza sat down in a chair next to the patient but leaned back as far as he could.

  “Officer,” Lamalade said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Don’t be scared, man, I’m not contagious—this is for my own protection.”

  “And this is for mine,” Lanza said, tapping the camera on his epaulet.

  “Hey man—I want a lawyer,” Lamalade said. “Isn’t there some kind of due process here?”

  Lanza laughed.

  “Don’t be stupid. All that went out the window with FOJA.”

  Betty elbowed me.

  “FOJA?” she whispered.

  “The Freedom of Justice Act,” I said.

  “Oh—that one,” she said.

  “We spent a little time reading up on you, Samuel,” Lanza continued. “Quite a fall from grace. Promising scholar, star athlete. But a few years later you dropped out of med school and embarked on a life of petty crime. Been jailed at least four times for short stints. Owner of several very illegal German assault rifles. And we know you were a janitor at this very hospital, on duty the very same night your victims from the stadium massacre died in their beds. What we want to know is, why? Why did you do it?”

  Betty elbowed me in my ribs again, but I shrugged it off. I was watching the sick patient. Lamalade was utterly strange and seemed on the verge of total collapse. From his bed, he stared at each of us. His crazed eyes narrowed to slits, mask crinkling as his smile widened.

  “I shot those people, and I started the outbreak,” he said. “But I never had access to the patient rooms. I was the janitor—I was cleaning shitstains and puke puddles, man. I was shining the floor just so thousands of filthy germbags could get it dirty again. Ask anybody here—I didn’t finish those people off. I have better things to do with my time, man.”

  “Like plan another attack?” Lanza said, a little louder. “Kill more people?”

  Lamalade laughed.

  “I’m not much of a planner, man.” He shook his head weakly, his glassy eyes shut slowly. “These things are just a product of bigger social forces at play. It’s all statistics, man.”

  A moment of silence. The madman’s words hung in the air.

  I cleared my throat and everyone in the room turned to me. I glanced at Lanza, and then looked at Lamalade.

  “Did you have anyone working with you?” I said.

  Lamalade opened his eyes, then blinked. His gaze flicked to the window on his right.

  “I had no help aiming and pulling the trigger at the arena, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said.

  “But with the outbreak, how did you do it?” I said. “Did you learn how to do all that at med school? Or while you were here at the hospital mopping floors?”

  “That was easy,” Lamalade said, eyelids fluttering. “It was just a vacuum in a jar, and if you hook up the right fixture to the right faucet, it back-sucks the bacteria right up into the water system. Instant outbreak. It’s not rocket surgery, man.”

  Lanza had his arms folded, and he glared at me. I bit my lip. This was his show, and I was ruining it. But I had to know more, and I knew he wouldn’t ask the right questions.

  “But why?” I asked the patient.

  “Oh, come on,” Lamalade said, limbs pulling for the first time at the restraints under his bedsheets. He stared hard at Betty. She looked away.

  “Nobody has any real idea why they do it,” Lamalade continued. “Some say they were abused as children, or that they get sexual gratification from snuffing another person’s life. I just wanted to do it. I got the idea, I got curious, and I tried it. I liked it, I did it again. There’s no big reveal, man.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, stepping toward the door. “Sounds sane. Well, good luck with the rest of the interview, and with a speedy and fair trial under FOJA. The nurses will drop in on you periodically. Tomorrow I’ll come myself to check if you’re still breathing.”

  I opened the door and walked out. Betty followed behind, and when we rounded the first corner, she yanked me by the arm into the alcove of the emergency exit.

  “Joe, what the hell are you doing, butting into a police interrogation?” she said. “Are you nuts? Even if Zo is your friend, there’s protocol.”

  “Lanza’s good at many things, but one of his fatal weaknesses is a faulty bullshit detector,” I said. “When we were kids, I put things over on him all the time. He still doesn’t even know I lost my virginity to his sister in high school. And I know this psychopath Lamalade is lying.”

  “You slept with Juliet?” Lanza roared, coming around the corner, stopping just a foot away from me.

  “Yes, Zo, it was her idea,” I said, holding up my hands. “But that’s not important now. That guy in the other room is full of shit. He’s just a patsy. Someone put him up to this.”

  “How do you know that, Joe? You a trained detective or something?”

 
; “No, but I do know the signs when someone’s lying. It’s been proven time and again that peoples’ eyes move up and to the right as the brain accesses the part of their cerebral cortex using imaginative powers. The bullshitting part of their brain. While he was delirious, he talked about others being ‘in on it,’ meaning the attacks—it says that in the medical case file. Plus, this guy’s too much of an idiot to put that device together. Even a talented engineer couldn’t do it without some serious outside help. He had plenty of assistance—from somewhere.”

  “You have the medical case file?” Lanza asked. “I thought it was against the law for doctors to have…”

  I glared at him.

  “Zo, don’t ask me a question if you don’t want to hear the answer,” I said.

  Lanza nodded. He snapped his fingers and his face brightened.

  “Could your Old Man be the guy?”

  “Truth be told, I bet he can’t be totally ruled out at this point,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure this is beyond him, too. I think this person has some heavy-duty backing. Professional, corporate—maybe even government.”

  Betty and Lanza looked at each other. They burst into laughter.

  “Government?” Betty said, rubbing her eyes. “Joe, you can’t be serious. You know what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I folded my arms and glared at the two of them, from one to the other. They stopped laughing. Betty looked down at the ground, shaking her head; Lanza put his hands on his hips and stared at the ceiling. He sighed.

  “You’re nuts. But let’s just say for a minute you’re right,” Lanza said. “Let’s say there is some vast conspiracy to kill innocent people. Tell me one thing: Why?”

  I looked from one to the other.

  “Just think about it. Any lone gunman, no matter his IQ, can take out a crowd of people. We see that all the time—we know that profile, that modus operandi,” I said. “But killing the survivors at the hospital, as if he was trying to eliminate all witnesses, and spreading plague at the apartments? That’s something totally different. Not just any homicidal maniac has the patience and execution to pull that off. They need to have help—even just to get the bacteria. If it’s not the government, it would have to be a biological facility or some expert. Maybe an academic. A true pro.”