Syndrome

'I want to see Kristen. Now.'

'I thought the first thing you wanted was to go to the bathroom.'

'I'll get to that. You said she was downstairs somewhere. How do I get there?'

'It's in the security zone,' he said. 'You're not authorized-'

'You're a big shot around here. Winston Bartlett's right-hand flunky. So why don't you authorize me yourself.'

'Ally, you know I can't do that.'

'Thentakeme there.'

'I don't want to see Kristen anymore,' he declared, biting his lip. 'She's completely lost. . everything. I could deal with it until I saw her this morning. It's just too much.'

'Has he let her mother see her?'

'Are you kidding? Letting that psycho anywhere near her is the last thing anybody's going to do.'

'Then get mein, dammit.'

'Ally, forget about it.'

'Why?'

He hesitated, as though marshaling his thoughts.

'Sis,' he said finally, 'there're only so many risks I can take for you, and they have to be about something that matters. Forget about Kristen. Nothing can save her now. But I'm offering to help you get out of here before they go any further. I can't be seen helping you, but they've started you down a road that you don't want to go, believe me. I got you into this, but if there's still time, I want to try to help get you out.'

She didn't know what was going on, but if Grant of all people was freaked about what Karl Van de Vliet had in store for her, then maybe she'd better take it seriously.

But she was through relying on him for anything.

'Okay, but I want to call somebody to come and get me.'

'Are you referring to that reporter, by any chance?' he asked. 'The guy who drove you here? W.B. hates him.'

'Yes.' She was puzzled that he would know about Stone. 'How do you-'

'Bartlett has him.'

'What do you mean?'

'He's radioactive now. I actually kicked him out of here myself yesterday. This is not a moment for press freedom. He could screw up everything. W.B. said he's doing a book. No way is that guy going to be allowed human contact with anybody till the sale of Gerex is in the bank. He had a run-in with Bartlett in the city and they took him somewhere. I don't know the location. And I don't want to know.'

'Oh my God.'

'He's most likely okay. It's just temporary safekeeping.'

'All the more reason I'm not leaving till I see Kristen.'

'There's no way you're going to get into where they're keeping her, Ally.'

'All right.' There was no arguing with him when he was this freaked. 'What do you want me to do?'

He pulled a plastic card out of his jacket pocket. It was white, withthe gerex corporationembossed on one side and a magnetic strip on the other.

'This is a master key to this place. Because of security, you can't just go out the front, through the lobby. But if you take the elevator down to the first floor of the basement, where the lab is, there's a fire exit there, in the back, that opens onto a path down to the lake. If you'll go out that door and wait right there, I'll come around and get you to the parking lot. I know a way that will miss their surveillance cameras. I'm scheduled to go back to the city now and I'll take you with me.'

'But if I wanted to see Kristen?'

'You'd have to go into the laboratory and then take the elevator that's inside there. Don't even think about it. It's way too risky.'

She looked at him, trying to gauge his sincerity. Had he become a new man, finally caring about somebody other than himself? Or had a glimpse of whatever had happened to Kristen scared the hell out him and awakened the specter of being part of a felonious enterprise?

'Why are you doing this?'

'To make up for a few things,' he said, turning to leave.

With that, he walked out and quietly closed the door.

That remains to be seen,she told herself.

She went to the bathroom, then put on a bathrobe and headed out into the hallway. The nurse's station was not occupied. Marion was still in the kitchen on the first floor, presumably.

Good.

She was feeling shaky, not nearly as strong as she'd initially thought she was, but she pressed on, taking the elevator, her first use of Grant's Gerex master key. She bypassed the first floor and an instant later she was stepping into the basement's laboratory area.

At the moment it appeared to be entirely deserted, though the fluorescent lights bathed the space in a stark, pitiless light. Down the hall was Dr. Van de Vliet's office and the examining room, where she and her mother had gone when they were being admitted. At this time of night, everything was closed and probably locked.

She turned and looked at the forbidding entryway to the glass-enclosed laboratory. Through the transparent walls she could see the dim glow of CRT screens and incubators filled with petri dishes. And there at the back was-could her eyes be trusted? — the outline of an elevator door. She hadn't noticed it until this minute. It seemed to be built with a nod toward camouflage.

It could lead to Kristen, she told herself. Find out what Grant is so freaked about. He can wait a couple of minutes.

She was starting to feel even weaker, but she pressed on. Next to the heavy steel, high-security air lock leading into the laboratory was a card reader and she swiped the white card through the slot.

The air lock opened silent and perfunctory. When she went through, the door behind her automatically closed and then the hermetically sealed door in front of her opened. She was in.

Next a bright fluorescent light clicked on, all by itself.

'Jesus!'

Maybe it was connected to a motion sensor. Or on a timer.

Then she looked around.This, she thought,is the place where the Gerex Corporation has supposedly changed medical history.What was created in this very room had, if Grant was telling the truth, saved her mother's sanity. And if she could believe the monitors she had looked at in her room, her own heart condition had begun to be reversed after a lifetime of progressive decline.

Yet something about it had been pushed too far. Somewhere in the midst of this miracle, the Gerex Corporation had done something so obscene no one could even talk about it.

She looked around the laboratory, wishing she could understand what she was seeing. It smelled like solvent, acetone, with a mingling of more pungent fumes. The black slate laboratory workbenches were spotlessly hygienic and equipped with several large microscopes that featured flat-panel screens. She noticed a heavy server computer at the back, presumably networked to all the terminals in the building, and then she remembered that Van de Vliet had once spoken of computer simulations.

Someday soon, she told herself, she was going to understand what really was going on here, but for now she headed for the elevator.

Another zip of Grant's white card and the door opened. There was indeed a floor below the laboratory, and she pushed the button. The Dorian Institute was all about security, but this subbasement area was doubly secure.

After a quick trip down, the elevator door opened onto another air lock chamber, this an exit from the pressurized environment of the laboratory.

Why, she wondered, had no one spotted her yet? Perhaps this part of the clinic was such a lockdown that nurses and guards weren't necessary.

As she stepped from the air lock, she was in a hallway. She walked down and tried the first unmarked door. It was locked, but then she saw the slot for her card. She slipped it in and the door opened automatically.