still swelling. I’m surprised it’s not coming out his ears.
Nothing has helped; not the decompression, not the shunt, not massive steroids, not mannitol. I’m afraid we’ve just about given up.”
Victor had noticed there was no nurse in attendance. “Any hemorrhage or signs of trauma?” he asked.
“Nope,” Dr. Nakano said simply. “Other than the swelling, the kid’s clean. No meningitis as I said earlier. We just don’t understand. The man upstairs is in control.” He pointed skyward.
As if responding to Dr. Nakano’s morbid prediction, the cardiac monitor let out a brief alarm, indicating that Mark’s heart had paused. Mark’s heart rate was becoming irregular.
The alarm sounded briefly again. Dr. Nakano didn’t move.
“This happened earlier,” he said. “But at this point it’s a
‘no-code’ status.” Then, as an explanation, he added: “The parents see no sense in keeping him alive if his brain is gone.”
Victor nodded, and as he did so, the cardiac monitor alarm came on and stayed on. Mark’s heart went into fibrillation.
Victor looked over his shoulder toward the unit desk. No one responded.
Within a short time the erratic tracing on the CRT screen flattened out to a straight line. “That’s the ball game,” Dr.
Nakano said. It seemed like such a heartless comment, but Victor knew that it was born more of frustration than callousness. Victor remembered being a resident too well.
Dr. Nakano and Victor returned to the desk where Dr.
Nakano informed the secretary that the Murray baby had died.
Matter-of-factly the secretary lifted the phone and initiated the required paperwork. Victor understood you couldn’t work here if you let yourself become upset by the frequent deaths.
“There was a similar case last night,” Victor said. “The name was Hobbs. The child was about the same age, maybe a little older. Are you familiar with it?”
“I heard about it,” Dr. Nakano said vaguely. “But it wasn’t my case. I understand many of the symptoms were the same.”
“Seems so,” Victor said. Then he asked: “You’ll get an autopsy?”
“Absolutely,” Dr. Nakano said. “It will be a medical examiner’s case, but they turn most over to us. They’re too busy downtown, especially for this kind of esoteric stuff.
Will you tell the parents or do you want me to do it?”
Dr. Nakano’s rapid change of direction in his conversation jarred Victor. “I’ll tell them,” he said after a pause.
“And thanks for your time.”
“No problem,” Dr. Nakano said, but he didn’t look at Victor. He was already involved with another crisis.
Stunned, Victor walked out of the ICU, appreciating the quiet as the electronic doors closed behind him. He returned to the waiting room where the Murrays guessed the bad news before he could tell them. Gripping each other, they again thanked Victor for coming. Victor murmured a few words of condolence. But even as he spoke a frightful image gripped his heart. He saw VJ white and hooked up to a respirator in the bed where Mark had lain.
Cold with terror, Victor went to Pathology and introduced himself to the chief of the department, Dr. Warren Burghofen.
The man assured Victor that they would do everything in their power to get the two autopsies, and get them as soon as possible.
“We certainly want to know what’s going on here,”
Burghofen said. “We don’t want any epidemic of idiopathic cerebral edema ravaging this city.”
Victor slowly returned to his car. He knew there was little likelihood of an epidemic. He was only too conscious of the number of children at risk. It was three.
As soon as Victor got back to his office he asked Colleen to contact Louis Kaspwicz, the head of Chimera’s data processing, and have him come up immediately.
Louis was a short, stocky man with a shiny bald head, who had a habit of sudden unpredictable movements. He was extremely shy and rarely looked anyone in the eye, but despite his quirky personality, he was superb at what he did.
Chimera depended upon his computer expertise for almost every area, from research to production to billing.
“I have a problem,” Victor said, leaning back against his desk, his arms folded across his chest. “I can’t find two of my personal files. Any idea how that could be?”
“Can be a number of reasons,” Louis said. “Usually it’s because the user forgets the assigned name.”
“I checked my directory,” Victor said. “They weren’t there.”
“Maybe they got in someone else’s directory,” Louis said.
“I never thought of that,” Victor admitted. “But I can remember using them, and I never had to designate another path to call them up.”
“Well, I can’t say unless I look into it,” Louis said.
“What were the names you gave the files?”
“I want this to remain confidential,” Victor emphasized.
“Of course.”
Victor gave Louis the names and Louis sat down at the terminal himself.
“No luck?” asked Victor after a few minutes when the screen remained blank.
“Doesn’t seem so. But back in my office I can look into it by using the computer to search through the logs. Are you sure these were the designated file names?”
“Quite sure,” Victor said.
“I’ll get right on it if it’s important,” Louis said.
“It’s important.”
After Louis left, Victor stayed by the computer terminal.
He had an idea. Carefully he typed onto the screen the name of another file: BABY-FRANK. For a moment he hesitated, afraid of what might turn up—or what might not. Finally he pushed Execute and held his breath. Unfortunately his fears were answered: VJ’s file was gone!
Sitting back in his chair, Victor began to sweat. Three related but uncrossreferenced files could not disappear by coincidence. Suddenly Victor saw Hurst’s engorged face and remembered his threat: “You’re not the white knight you want us to believe . . . . You’re not immune.”
Victor got up from the terminal and went to the window.
Clouds were blowing in from the east. It was either going to rain or snow. He stood there for a few moments, wondering if Hurst had anything to do with the missing files. Could he possibly suspect? If he did, that might have been the basis for his vague threat. Victor shook his head. There was no way Hurst could have known about the files. No one knew about them. No one!
5
Monday Evening
MARSHA looked across the dinner table at her husband and son. VJ was absorbed in reading a book on black holes, barely looking up to eat. She would have told him to put the book away, but Victor had come home in such a bad mood she didn’t want to say anything that would make it worse. And she herself was still troubled about VJ. She loved him so much she couldn’t bear the thought that he might be disturbed, but she also knew she couldn’t help him if she didn’t face the truth. Apparently he’d spent the whole day at Chimera, seemingly by himself because Victor admitted, when she’d specifically asked, that he’d not seen VJ since morning.
As if sensing her gaze, VJ abruptly put down his book and took his plate over to the dishwasher. As he rose,
