The Select (22 page)

"Not."

Tim's laugh rattled over the line.
"Had you going there for a second, didn't I."

"Not for a nanosecond."

Matt was surprised at his sudden surge
of relief and asked himself, How come?

Tim went on, telling him that Quinn
had just left, so they talked—compared courses, teachers, test
difficulty, reminisced about the Good Old Days at Dartmouth—and as
they spoke, an aching void expanded slowly in Matt's
chest.

When he finally hung up, after asking
that Quinn give him a call when she had a moment, Matt felt more
alone than ever.

He felt as if he were being left out
of something. Something good.

*

Quinn hurried over to Science. She was
tempted to use the side door but decided to save that for when she
was running late.

Charlene was at the security desk
again. Quinn flashed her badge as she approached and Charlene waved
her by.

Up on fifth, Quinn tried not to look
into Ward C as she passed the window but couldn't resist a
glance.

The curtain was drawn shut.

Quinn intended to keep moving, but the
sight of that blank beige surface brought her to an abrupt halt
before the glass. She stepped closer and tried to peek around the
curtain's edges but found no openings.

Frustrated, she proceeded around the
corner to the nurses station. Maybe Marguerite would be there. All
Quinn wanted was for someone to tell her everything was all right
in Ward C. Not that she could do anything if it wasn't, but she
felt linked to those seven helpless patients, in some odd way
partially responsible for them.

The nurses station was deserted. Where
was everybody? Wasn't anyone watching Ward C?

Behind the counter and to the left
Quinn spotted a glass-windowed door. It had to open into Ward C.
Why else the red and white warning sign under the glass?

AUTHORIZED STAFF ONLY

She glanced up and down the hall.
Still no one in sight to ask. Shrugging, she stepped behind the
nurses station to take a peek through the glass.

What could it hurt?

Yes, it was Ward C, but it looked
different this time. Brighter. Instead of back-lit by daylight from
the windows, the room was bathed in the fluorescent glow of the
ceiling lights. Everything seemed to have a sharper edge.
Otherwise, nothing had changed. The patients still numbered
seven—at least no one had died—they still lay on their beds,
immobile mounds of white with—

No. Not all were immobile. One patient
lying on his side on a bed in the central area was moving slightly,
twisting, shifting his weight, sliding his red-bandaged leg toward
the edge of the bed. The red bandage on the thigh gripped Quinn's
attention. Something about the way it glistened...

She gasped and pressed her face hard
against the glass. That wasn't a bandage. That was blood. A patch
of raw flesh, oozing red.

And then Quinn noticed that the safety
rail was down on the side where the leg was moving toward the edge.
The patient was trying to get out of bed. If nobody stopped him, he
was going to land in a heap on the floor.

Quinn stepped back for another look up
and down the hall. Still empty. She called Marguerite's name twice
but no one answered. She thought of running down the hall for Dr.
Emerson but that would take too long. And what could he do then
that she couldn't do now?

She returned to the door. The
patient's bloody leg had moved farther along—the knee was jutting
over the edge of the mattress. Another thirty seconds and he'd
start sliding toward the floor.

Quinn realized she couldn't wait.
Setting her jaw, she pushed through the door and hurried to the
bed. She caught the lower leg by the calf just as the foot fell off
the edge.

"Whoops!" she said softly, smiling and
putting all the reassurance she had into her expression. "You're
going to fall if you're not careful."

Gently she guided the leg back onto
the mattress. She averted her eyes from the bloody patch of flesh
and looked into the eyes. They were blue, yes, the same eyes she
had seen here over Christmas.

Quinn jumped as a loud, angry voice
rang out behind her.

"
What the hell do you think you're DOING?
"

She whirled and found Marguerite
standing not two feet away, her dark eyes wide and angry above her
surgical mask.

"He—he was falling," Quinn
said.

"You're not allowed in
here!" the nurse cried, her shout muffled by the mask. "Can't
you
read
?"

"Just get her out of here,
Marguerite," said a sharp voice from the far side of the room
behind Marguerite. "Before she does any more damage."

Quinn knew that voice: Dr. Alston's.
She looked past Marguerite's shoulder and saw him standing—masked,
capped, gowned, gloved—in an alcove to the left of the door Quinn
had entered. He was holding something over a tray, something that
looked like a pink, wet paper towel.

Quinn felt as if she'd been slapped in
the face. "But I—"

"Get her
out
!" Dr. Alston
shouted. "We'll deal with her later!"

"You heard him," Marguerite said.
"Out."

Unable to speak, her cheeks afire,
Quinn brushed past her and hurried for the door. What did she do
that was so terrible? She'd only been trying to help.

*

Arthur Alston's face was livid as he
pointed a shaking finger at Quinn Cleary.

"It will be days before we know the
fall-out from your irresponsible misadventure, young
lady."

Walter Emerson watched Quinn closely,
curious as to how she was going to respond. She had come to him
with her story nearly an hour ago, visibly upset. He had listened,
calmed her down, but had given no opinion, saying only that he
would be with her when she faced Arthur.

That time came soon enough. Arthur
stormed into Walter's lab with that insufferable attitude of his,
demanding that "the ignoramus who invaded Ward C" be brought before
him. Walter had sent Alice on an early coffee break and summoned
Quinn. Now he was settled back in his chair, waiting to see how she
handled herself. If she had half the gumption he thought she had,
she'd stand her ground.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Alston," she said. "I
know I entered a restricted area, but I saw no other choice at the
time."

"The sign says 'Authorized Staff
Only'," Arthur said. "Can it be stated any more clearly than
that?"

"No, but—"

"There are no 'buts' here,
Miss Cleary. If you are to remain a lab assistant here—in fact, if
you are to remain a
student
at this institution—you will follow the rules, or
you will be out of here faster than you can blink your baby blue
eyes."

Walter watched Quinn's cheeks redden.
He was tempted to step in here before Arthur got out of hand, but
no. He wanted to hear Quinn's response.

"I saw one of your patients in danger,
Dr. Alston," she said through tight lips. "I saw his bed's safety
rail down and saw him slipping over the edge of the mattress. What
was I supposed to do?"

"You shouldn't have been at the door
in the first place!"

"What was I supposed to do,
sir?"

Very good, Walter thought. Stay
polite, respectful, but keep the ball in his court.

"You should have called for a nurse,"
Arthur said.

"I did, sir. More than once. No one
answered. What was I to do then, sir? Stand there and watch your
patient hit the floor?"

"You should not have ignored the sign
on the door, Miss Cleary. The health of those patients is extremely
fragile. Their graft sites are highly prone to infection. We allow
no one to enter Ward C unless they are wearing a surgical cap, a
surgical mask, and sterile gloves. You were wearing none of those.
God knows what you brought with you into that room."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, sir, but
wouldn't he be worse off contamination-wise if he'd fallen on the
floor?"

"That would not have happened, Miss
Cleary. Marguerite was keeping an eye on him all the
time."

"If you say so, sir. But I
could not know that at the time. I acted as I thought best. I'm
sorry it upset you or risked any harm to your patient. But may I
ask you, sir: If I'd stood there and watched your patient bounce
off the floor, would you now be here congratulating me for
not
acting?"

Arthur opened his mouth, then closed
it, then opened it again.

"Do not enter Ward C
again, Miss Cleary. Under
any
circumstances. Is that clear?"

"Very clear, sir." She turned to
Walter. "I'm going to call it a day, if that's all right with you,
Dr. Emerson."

Walter could see she was fighting back
tears. He wanted to shake her hand and congratulate her on the way
she'd handled herself, but he couldn't do that in front of
Arthur.

"Fine, Quinn," he said. "Get some
dinner and relax. It's Friday night. Have some fun
somewhere."

She gave him a forced smile that said
she was not in a fun mood, then she started for the
door.

"Good night, Dr. Alston," she said as
she passed him.

Arthur said nothing. When she was
gone, he turned to Walter, but Walter spoke first.

"A little hard on her, weren't you,
Arthur?" he said.

"Not hard enough, I fear," Arthur
replied. "That girl is trouble, Walter, sticking her nose where it
does not belong."

"She saw someone in trouble, she
rushed in to help. A humanitarian gesture. Why do you berate a
future doctor for a humanitarian gesture?"

"She could have contaminated the
graft. She shouldn't have been in there, pure and
simple."

Walter fixed Arthur with a stare. "And
the safety rail shouldn't have been left down," he said pointedly.
"Pure and simple."

Arthur returned the stare for a few
heartbeats, then turned away.

"This is getting nowhere. But it does
point up one problem: 9574 needs a longer half-life. The subjects
seem to be developing a tolerance to it. The longer they're on it,
the less efficacious it appears to be."

"I'm working on it," Walter said. "And
with Miss Cleary as an assistant, I may be able to solve that
problem for you."

Arthur looked at him and shook his
head. "You do love to rub salt in a wound, don't you."

"Only your wounds, Arthur. Only
yours."

They shared a laugh.

*

Tim had been dozing on Quinn's extra
bed. The sound of the key in the lock roused him. He leapt up and
tiptoed quickly to the door where he flattened himself against the
wall next to the hinges and waited. As the door began to swing
inward, he grabbed the knob and yanked it the rest of the
way.

"Booga-booga!"

Only it wasn't Quinn staring at him
with an open-mouthed, shocked expression. It was some fat, fiftyish
guy instead. Tim yelped in surprise and took a step
back.

"Who the hell are you?" Tim
said.

"That's my question,
buddy," the guy said in whiny voice. "Who the hell are
you
, and what the hell
are you doing in one of the female rooms?"

He looked rattled. He had a hang-dog
face and a bulging neck. He carried a flashlight in one hand and
some sort of electronic baton in the other. Tim gave him a closer
look and recognized him.

"You're Mr. Verran, the security
guy."

"Chief of Security. And you still
haven't answered the questions."

"Oh. Yeah. I'm Tim Brown. First-year
student here. I'm waiting for Quinn Cleary—this is her
room—"

"I know that. Let's see some
ID."

Tim fished his photo ID card out of
his wallet and handed it to Verran. He noticed a tremor in the
older man's hand as he examined it.

"Tell me something, Mr. Verran. What's
the idea of sneaking in here?"

"I'm not sneaking in anywhere," he
said sharply. He seemed to have regained his composure as he handed
back Tim's card. "There's...there was a report of some guy hiding
out in one of the girls' rooms. I came by to check up on it.
Where's the assigned occupant?"

"She's over in Science, working for
Dr. Emerson."

"She know you're here?"

"Of course. We're going to dinner
together when she gets back. But tell me something: Who
reported—?"

"A concerned fellow student. But how
do I know the assigned occupant knows you're here?"

"You don't. But we can wait for Miss
Assigned Occupant and she can tell you herself."

"Maybe I—" The walkie talkie on
Verran's hip squawked. He unclipped it from his belt and turned his
back to Tim. "Yeah?"