makes no headway. In computer slang, 'beta' means a program that is still being tested. Then she remembers hearing the word just hours earlier. She had been talking to some woman. But she can't remember who-“
'I changed the procedure this time,' comes a voice. 'I injected the special Beta enzyme separately from the activated stem cells. Whatever happens will happen at the enzyme's own pace now. And I kept the dosage as low as I could. We'll be monitoring her telomerase levels throughout the day. If there's no rejection, we will be past the first phase.'
'Is the dosage the only difference from before?' comes the other, accusing voice.
'At this point, David, manipulating the Beta is an art, not a science. I'm just attempting to create antigens, the way a smallpox vaccination does. Then we'll try to harvest them. This is not really a full-scale Beta procedure. I don't plan to do that ever again.'
There was another long silence.
'That man who was here with her. Her cousin, did he say? I saw no family resemblance, but he seemed very upset.'
'That's why I had him sent upstairs. I think he's the reporter W.B. was so concerned about. Anyway, he's gone.'
Stone. She realizes that's who they're talking about. And now he's gone. She's on her own.
Next the voices drift away for a time, into some echo space that mutes them. Finally, though, they come back.
'This should be adequate for another four hours. After that, you'll need a glucose IV to keep her hydrated.'
'I've already put it on her chart. By then we should have some idea of which way this is going. I'm thinking, I'm praying, that this time is going to be the charm. That I've learned how to modulate the enzyme.'
'Is she ready for transfer to IC?'
'Anytime.'
The voices start drifting away. A fuzziness is enveloping her senses, leaving everything soft and muted.
The pain is gone from her body now, and the bright lights around her seem to be dimming. The figures in the white haze on the perimeter are now disappearing, one by one, as though filing out of a room. And now she feels like she's floating, with things moving past her.
Then, finally, one lone voice is talking to her, is really talking to her, in a private and unmistakable way. And as she drifts back into the gulf of anesthesia, she listens to words that do not make a lot of sense.
'The Fountain. Through all the ages, we've been looking in the wrong place. It's
She listens as the voice begins to drift away. Yet she feels a genuine sense of closeness to it. She realizes she no longer has control of her destiny. But still she wants to be where she is.
Now the sea is coming back, flowing around her, and she tries to remember where she is and why, but all she is aware of is the sea rising, until she is engulfed.
Chapter 28
Stone awoke in his Yorkville apartment nursing a hangover and a lot of regrets. He'd inhaled a triple scotch after driving Ally's Toyota back and parking it on the street the night before. He'd needed it. Yesterday had been a day where, in sequential order, he'd seen a woman who'd lost her memory get kidnapped (probably); he'd been fired from his day job; he'd finally gotten inside the Dorian Institute, only to blow the opportunity completely. But the most important thing that happened was, he'd rediscovered a woman he'd once been in love with and he currently didn't have the slightest idea what was happening to her. Thinking back over their last few moments together, when she was being checked in by Van de Vliet and his research team and he was being hastily sent up to the lobby, Stone suspected that Ally was about to be subjected to something they didn't want anybody to know about.
Now he was determined to get back inside the institute and look out for her.
As he pulled himself out of bed and shakily made his way into the kitchen to start the coffee, he was trying to decide where to begin. As it happened he now had all the time in the world
He didn't mind all that much losing his position at the
The dream of just showing up at the Dorian Institute and walking in was no longer even a fantasy. There was a special 'not welcome' mat out for him. Even more than the first time, he'd need a calling card.
That had to be Kristen Starr. She clearly held the key to whatever it was Winston Bartlett and Karl Van de Vliet were trying to cover up. But how to find her? The only real lead he had was the apartment she'd come back to, apparently returning like a genetically programmed salmon going back upstream but not really knowing why.
Then he remembered that Ally had been given the key by Kristen's spacey subtenant, Cindy, the one who was renting the ground-floor apartment. Did she leave that key at her CitiSpace office or did she put it on her key ring?
Her car keys were lying on the table by the door, where he'd tossed them last night. He walked over and checked them out. There were several house keys on the ring in addition to her Toyota keys. Could she have put Kristen's key on the ring too? Or did she stash it in her desk at CitiSpace?
Swing by the apartment and try these, he decided Maybe I'll get lucky.
As he headed for the shower, a cup of black Jamaican coffee in hand, he thought again about the last thing Alexa's good-for-nothing brother, Grant, had said, something about how Alexa was their 'best shot.' Whatever that meant, it couldn't be good.
By nine o'clock he had showered, shaved, and was in Ally's Toyota headed for West Eleventh Street. As he turned right on Fourteenth, he had a fresh idea.
Kristen's phone was still working, at least as of yesterday. So did she have speed dial, a memory bank of numbers? That could be a gold mine of the people closest to her. But if not, there were other tricks, ways of getting phone information. There might even be information in the phone itself: who do you get on 'redial' and who do you get with *69, the last number that dialed in?
The last number that dialed in would probably be the Japanese guy who left a message and then kidnapped her. But the last call out could be interesting.
He had a nagging feeling that this wasn't the best way to be spending his morning, but he couldn't immediately think of anything else.
West Eleventh Street was comparatively empty, so he had no trouble securing a parking space. After he'd turned off the engine, he looked at Ally's key set again. Well, there were four other keys on it besides the Toyota keys. Give it a shot.
He got out and locked the car and walked up the steps. It was a perfect spring morning, cool and crisp, and this part of the Village was quiet and residential. He found himself envying the owners of these beautiful nineteenth-century town houses. There was something so dignified and secure about them.
Then he saw a man emerge from the apartment below the stoop, just a few feet from where he was standing.
'Hi. How's Cindy?' he called down, hoping the social gesture would let the guy know he wasn't about to do a second- story number on Kristen's town house.
