Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) (8 page)

The doctor lifted the man’s lid again, and Jenny had to resist the urge to slap the man’s hands away.  His clinical detachment in the face of the man’s pain disgusted her.  But she did nothing to stop the doctor, keeping her attention focused on the man’s struggle to breathe instead.  If she took any action against the doctor, she was certain that she might soon join those who had been escorted from the room.  And Stone would not allow that to happen while he still lived.  Rather than put them both in danger, Jenny tamped down her animosity toward the useless doctor.

“Breathe,” she quietly urged the man again, still supporting his head in her hands, keeping his neck straight to give any air moving down his trachea easier access to his straining lungs.

“Interesting,” the doctor muttered, this time completely audible, still staring at the man’s eye. 

Jenny was close enough that she saw what the doctor found so fascinating.  The man’s pupil had been shrunken and tiny a moment before, but now it dilated back to normal size as they watched.

Based on what had happened with both her and Stone, Jenny took this as a good sign.  The inhaler had worked.  It had affected the bacteria somehow.  But, this was the absolute last time it would.  There was no doubt that the small canister was out of medication now.  The empty hiss of air after the last of the medication had been expressed had proven that.

“Can you not use the radio to request more inhalers be brought down?” Jenny asked the doctor.

“Yes, I can.  But, I’m afraid that the CDC has had the lift brought to the surface, and it will not be lowered again until the specialist arrives.   The inhalers won’t be brought down until then.”

“But they’re just inhalers.  Surely the CDC could send them down, and then raise the lift again.  It could save lives,” she urged.

The doctor shrugged again, unconcerned.  “I’ve been notified that, under no circumstances, will they send the lift down before the specialist arrives.  I don’t doubt their resolve.  Mr. Malnon’s directions were explicit.  And he’s in charge.  He wants no possibility of contamination on the surface.”

Jenny felt her heart shudder.  It was hopeless then. With no more Albuterol to stop the uncontrollable coughing fits that so many had experienced in the last two hours, when the specialist finally arrived all those remaining, presumably infected, visitors down in the mines could be dead. 

The doctor was looking at her now.  “I understand that you, and then those at your table, were some of the first to experience this coughing attack?”

Jenny nodded. There was no point in lying to the man.  Every person in the room could attest to what had happened earlier.

“Then, I’d like to start the blood tests with you and your group,” the man said, his tone implying that she really had no choice in the matter. 

Jenny looked at Stone’s tense face. His expression said otherwise. His expression said that she
did
have a choice.  She knew that if she objected to giving a sample of her blood, Stone would back her up and make sure she wasn’t forced. 

She glanced over to the two armed security guards, noticing the way that Stan was eyeing Stone, as if the man was just waiting for the chance to take Stone out.

Jenny shuddered at the thought.  “Fine,” she told the doctor. 

Jenny sat and watched as the doctor took large blood samples from all of the people at the table next to theirs.  She’d already taken her turn, as had Stone and his friends.

She’d watched with interest as the samples from the people at their table were quickly handed off to one of the other men in the quarantine suits.  If the lift wasn’t in operation, then the doctor must have a portable lab set up down in the one of the caverns for testing the samples – otherwise, what need was there for the rush? This made her wonder how he’d be transmitting his results.  Surely such complicated data could not be reported by radio?

“I need to talk to one of the staff,” Jenny muttered to Stone, watching the doctor carefully to make sure the man didn’t hear her.

Stone raised an eyebrow in question, but nodded silently.  A moment later, he rose from his seat and approached one of the young women who had been serving drinks earlier.

Stone motioned for Jenny to follow, and she felt every eye in the cavern focus on her as she rose from the table and moved to his side.

“My fiancé is a little light-headed.  I think it might be from giving blood – it was a rather large sample that they took.  Do you have any orange juice that she could drink?” Stone asked politely.

The server nodded.  “It’s in the back there.  I’ll get it.”

“Can I come with you?” Jenny asked, trying to adjust her voice to carry a plaintive note.  “Seeing the doctor stick needles into everyone’s arms is making me rather nauseated.”

The server looked toward John, as if waiting for permission.  She didn’t have to wait to catch his eye, since both guards were paying very close attention to Stone and already watching their interaction with the server with keen interest.

John nodded and shrugged, as if to say ‘why not’, and the server nodded back in understanding.

“Follow me,” the server said, and Jenny gave Stone a weak smile and headed off after the girl as she disappeared behind the tarp that was hung at the north side of the dining cavern, located well behind the tables where the remains of the catered dinner sat, cooled, congealed and forgotten in the chaos of the ensuing events.

Unlike the rest of the areas hidden behind tarps, the area behind this tarp was well lit, and Jenny could see that this small section of the cavern functioned as the kitchen and food prep section of the museum.   The server led her to a huge industrial-sized stainless steel refrigerator that was so large it couldn’t possible have fit inside the lift.  It must have been brought down into the museum on the lift in pieces and then reassembled in the kitchen area.  The girl opened the door on the massive appliance, revealing rows and rows of refrigerated beverages, stainless steel bowls brimming with apples, large blocks of exotic cheeses, and at least twenty bottles of chilled Cupcake Moscato D’Asti wine, which just happened to be Jenny’s personal favorite.

“We’ve got Florida’s Natural and Tropicana.  Which kind would you like?”

For a moment, Jenny looked at the wine and contemplated asking for it instead.  The alcohol in the beverage might take the edge off the anxiety that stabbed at her mind with every breath she took, but it would also dull her senses, slow her reactions and could even possibly react with the medication that had been in the inhaler.   

“Florida’s Natural, please,” Jenny answered reluctantly.

The girl grabbed a single-serving bottle of the juice from the fridge and handed it to Jenny.  She closed the fridge and turned to go back out into the cavern, but Jenny stopped her with a gentle hand on her elbow.

“Wait, I need to ask you a few questions,” she said, her voice pitched low so that it would be difficult for anyone beyond the tarp to hear.

The girl stepped back, her face a mask of apprehension, “I don’t know anything, and Stan said that the servers were not supposed to talk to the visitors about anything other than food.”

Jenny nodded, “I understand, but I still need your help.  You might know more than you think.  For instance, does the museum have a phone line?  Or a wireless network?  Or even a wired network?”

The girl glanced back towards the tarp that hung over the entrance to the kitchen area, looking scared.  “If Stan hears us, I don’t know what he’ll do.  He’s been wound tight as a spring ever since they found out that the bacteria’s environment had been broken.  He’s not acting like himself now.  He’s acting really, really weird, like his head isn’t on straight or something. He could do anything if he hears me talking to you about this.”

Jenny knew that the girl must be thinking about the man who had been murdered, shot in the back by Harry as he’d tried to flee.  Stan did seem on edge.  Jenny could not assure the girl that he wouldn’t try to do the same to them if he found them talking.  There were no comforting words that she could offer, so she opted for the truth.

Jenny nodded in agreement of the server’s fears, keeping her face calm and her voice quiet.  “That may be true, but we still need your help.  Surely you heard the doctor?  People are already suffering from oxygen deprivation, and he’s not going to do anything about it.  And, apparently, neither is the CDC.  If we don’t contact someone else to help us, what do you think is going to happen?  I think there’s a good chance that they don’t really care if we all die.  In fact, that would solve a lot of problems for them.  They could clean up the mess, blame it on some bizarre mining accident, and nothing more would ever be said.”

The girl’s eyes had grown larger and larger in her pale face as Jenny spoke.  “You think they’d let us die?  All of us?”

“I do,” Jenny answered, nodding.  And she did.  She knew that they would, and without a single qualm, if the doctor was any example of their depth of human compassion.

“What’s your name?” Jenny asked.

“Tammi.”

“And how long have you worked in the museum, Tammi?” 

“Not long.  They only bring me in for the big parties like this.  I’ve only done about five of them.”

“That’s okay.  You still know more than I do about this place. Can you think of any phones or any sort of network that we can use to communicate with those on the surface?” Jenny asked.

Tammi nodded, “They have a wi-fi network, but the CDC shut it down when they got here.  There’s no access anymore.  I tried… On my phone.  You know, cuz I had the password, since I’m a staffer.”

“What about a dedicated emergency phone line?” Jenny asked.

Again, Tammi nodded.  “There’s an emergency line by the lift.  In a metal box on the wall.  The line runs right up to the surface beside the lift, protected by steel tubing.  They explained all this in orientation so that, if something happened, we would know how to call up to the surface.”

Jenny smiled, “Thank you, Tammi. That’s what I needed to know.  Let’s get back before they miss us.”

Tammi nodded and started for the tarp.  Just before they passed through it, she leaned close to Jenny, “Promise me if you leave, you’ll take me with you?”

Jenny nodded.

“Of course.”

Stone was waiting for her when she left the tarped-off kitchen area.   He raised an eyebrow at her approach and she nodded, telling him silently that she’d gotten what she wanted. 

Seeing that Stan was watching them, she held up the bottle of Florida’s Natural orange juice. “They had my favorite kind, Stone.”

He nodded.

Jenny turned back to Tammi.  “Thank you very much.”

Tammi shrugged and avoided looking at her.

“Sure, no problem,” the girl said timidly.

Stone quickly escorted Jenny back to their table, and she made a show of uncapping the bottle of orange juice and taking several long drinks after she sat down, making sure that Stan saw her going through the motions.

Then she scooted close and leaned her head against Stone’s shoulder as if she really were light-headed and still needed his support.

Stone slung a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“Tammi said that they have an emergency phone line near the lift in a metal box,” she whispered for his ears alone.  “I think we should try to call someone for help.”

Stone stroked her hair and then bent and kissed the top of her head, acting the part of concerned fiancé.

“I’m sure that if the CDC is here, they’ll have that line monitored, but it is worth a shot,” he whispered into her hair.  “You’re right.  We need someone on the outside.”

Jenny nodded and sat back up, pretending that she was much recovered.  After taking another long swig of the juice, she whispered, “Tammi wants to go when we leave.”

Stone nodded, then looked over at the girl, as if taking her measure.  “That’s probably a good idea.  She’d know more than we do about this place, since I’ve never been here before.”

A shadow fell upon their table, and Stone and Jenny stopped talking.

The doctor hovered near Gilbert’s side, and Jenny desperately hoped that he’d not heard any part of their conversation.

“I have some preliminary results back,” he said, staring hard at Jenny through the clear plastic of his enormous hood.  “It seems that, miraculously, you and your fiancé are immune to the bacteria.  Or rather, something close to immune.   All of the others that have been tested so far have proven to be infected.  Of course we haven’t yet tested everyone, but I find these results to be rather odd.”

“What do you mean, exactly, by ‘something close to immune’?” Debbie asked.

“Well, the preliminary results are all very confusing.  It seems that the both of them have traces of the bacteria in their blood, as if they were initially infected. However, in their blood samples the bacteria has been… neutralized, for lack of a better word. Or perhaps, hibernating would better describe the status of the bacteria.  It is neither active, nor is it completely inert or eradicated.  It is in a state of stasis, much like it was for millions of years before it was found and then revived.”