Wendy opened the refrigerator and peered inside. Bags of blood, sorted by type, lay in rows on shelves in front of her. She glanced over her shoulder, then reached inside and shifted the bags around, looking through them, examining the labels. “Come on,” she said. “Where are you?” Her fingers moved through the bags until finally she found one labeled “B-Pos.” “Ah,” she said. “Gotcha.”
She took the bag of blood out of the refrigerator and placed it inside a towel, then rolled the towel up and placed it under her arm. She made her way back to the storage closet where she had stashed her phlebotomy cart and pulled it out into the hallway. Wendy looked over both shoulders, then placed the rolled-up towel on top of the cart and pushed it toward the elevator.
She walked down the hallway under a sign that read “Welcome to Bigwood Springs” and looked from side to side into the rooms of the patients housed in this wing. The sounds around her beat their way into her head, sounds that echoed and resonated with hope: laughing, talking, kissing. Wendy took a deep breath, and then forced her gaze straight ahead, her eyes locked on the elevator at the end of the hall.
A little girl darted out of an open door and careened into Wendy’s cart, nearly upsetting it. Wendy made a dive for the towel, barely catching it before it and its contents tumbled to the floor.
“Oops, sorry!” the little girl squealed before collapsing in a cascade of giggles. “McKenna!” her dad barked from the open doorway. “Come here!” McKenna’s giggles subsided before she turned and marched back to the room. Wendy looked at the man standing in the doorway. He was tall and gaunt with striking features and brown eyes peering out from beneath a shock of salt and pepper hair. He wore a blue bathrobe, and an IV drip bag hung from a wheeled metal holder at his side. “Sorry,” the man said. “She’s excited.”
“I can see that,” Wendy said. She looked down at McKenna. “You’re sure happy,” she said.
McKenna beamed. “My daddy gets to come home,” she said. “He’s all better.”
Wendy swallowed hard before looking up at the man. “Not yet,” he said. “We’ve got to wait for this cure stuff to work.” The man rubbed his side. “I got the shot almost a week ago, but there’s still no appreciable reduction in viral replication, and my liver is still sick.” McKenna came running over and clutched her dad’s leg. “But they’re running tests,” he said. “They think everything will be fine. Dr. Marcus says it may be that TL may have mutated again, meaning it will take longer for the serum to kill the viruses.”
Wendy smiled and nodded. Bull, she thought. Dr. Marcus doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s playing C.Y.A.—and I’m killing people. “I’m sure everything will turn out just fine,” she said. She turned to McKenna. “You take care of your daddy.”
McKenna nodded and smiled. Wendy resumed her march toward the elevator, but then saw Gwen coming out of another room. She diverted her eyes, but Gwen descended on her anyway. “Hey, girlfriend,” Gwen said. “Long time no see. Where’ve you been hiding?”
“Oh, I’ve been around.”
“Hanging out with Jason, I bet. Lucky girl. He’s the star of the show!”
Wendy looked past Gwen toward the elevator. “Right,” she said. “Star of the show.” She paused, deliberating, then gave in to temptation. She looked Gwen in the eye. “So, a lot of people getting the cure?”
“Oh sure, bunches. Like this new lady, Susan Gunderson? She’s from Salt Lake—her hip has broken five times from TL, and she’s got five kids! Can you imagine? And they’re all under ten! She and her husband must’ve been busy. Susan couldn’t be more than, say, 35. Cute as a button, though—”
“That’s great!” Wendy said, cutting her off. “Look, I gotta run.” She gestured toward the cart. “Jason awaits.”
“Oh, sure,” Gwen said. “I’ll see you later.”
Gwen moved off toward the nurses’ station. Wendy waited until she was out of sight, then made her way down the hall until she found a nametag on a door that read “Gunderson, S.” She peeked in and saw a pretty young woman with long, straight brown hair sitting up in bed. A tired-looking man stood beside her. Wendy listened to their quiet conversation. They spoke of husband and wife things: Kelly needed new shoes, and Sierra had lost a tooth. Wendy leaned on her cart, her head down. After a moment, she lifted her head and shoved the cart toward the elevator.
Wendy pushed the cart into Jason’s room just as she’d done twice a day, every day, for the past six weeks and moved it next to Jason’s bed. She bumped the cart into the metal bed frame with a loud clang and Jason’s eyes popped open. “Hey,” he said. “Can’t a guy get any sleep around here?”
Wendy stood, dumbfounded, frozen in place, looking at Jason. A slow smile spread across her face, and then she raced to the head of the bed and grabbed Jason in a bear hug. “How do you feel?” she said.
“Except for the fact I can’t breathe,” Jason said, muffled, his face still smashed to Wendy’s bosom, “I’m fine.”
Wendy giggled, and then released her grip on Jason and he slid back down into bed. Wendy wiped her face with the back of her hand, her bright smile contrasted with her red-rimmed eyes. “Thank heavens you’re all right,” she said.
“I’m hungry,” Jason said. “I must’ve slept through breakfast.”
Wendy laughed out loud, then stood up, looking down at Jason’s thin face. “One or two breakfasts, actually,” she said. “I’ll get you something.”
Jason looked at the cart next to the bed and in a Pavlovian response held out his arm and pushed up his sleeve, exposing the shunt. Wendy stood, motionless. She fingered the rolled up towel on the cart, feeling the soft, squishy package it contained. They stood in silence while Jason waited, arm extended, while Wendy stared at his arm. “Well?” he said.
Wendy continued staring, and then looked at Jason. “We need to talk,” she said.
Jason withdrew his arm. “Uh-oh. I hate it when a woman says that. It always means trouble.”
Wendy smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. “You’ve been out of it for quite a while.”
“’Out of it?’”
“Unconscious. Almost dead. You haven’t been completely lucid for several weeks.”
Jason shook his head. “Can’t be. I remember your coming in here, taking blood, visiting, the whole nine yards.”
“I haven’t taken any blood from you for five days.”
Jason fingered the shunt in his arm, and then ran his hands across his face, feeling the long scratchy stubble on his chin. He eyed Wendy. “What have you been up to?”
Wendy stood, her eyes down, and moved to the foot of the bed before finally spinning on her heel to face Jason. “They were killing you!” she said. “Porter and Marcus were killing you! They were draining the life out of you with all the blood they were taking. I had to do something.”
Jason studied her. “What exactly did you do?”
Wendy blanched, then removed the towel from around the bag of blood lying on top of her cart. Jason stared down at it, not comprehending. “So? It’s a bag of my blood.”
Wendy felt the sting of conscience. “No,” she said. “It’s not.”
Jason reached out and picked up the bag, then looked at the label. Suddenly, his expression changed. Wendy watched the lines in Jason’s forehead deepen and his eyes open wide as he realized her ruse.
“I remember!” he said. “Just before I passed out, I saw you with a tourniquet around your arm.” Jason tried to lift his head from the pillow. “But you can’t do that!” he said. “They’ll know it’s not my blood. You have a different blood type.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Wendy said. “To the lab techs, it’s just blood. They just know to extract out this one certain protein, and a machine does that. The factor is a protein everybody has—like plasma— except that in you, that protein is specialized somehow to kill TL. And since it’s like plasma, blood type doesn’t matter. But lately I’ve been, uh, borrowing B-pos just in case. And I haven’t used my own blood since that first time.”
“But if you’re not using my blood, it won’t cure anything.”
Wendy stopped, her back to Jason, the muscles in her jaw and neck tensed. She thought of McKenna and Mr. Adams. And Susan Gunderson. “I know that,” she said.
“But Marcus will know something’s wrong when he sees I’m not comatose anymore.”
Wendy took a deep breath before turning around to face Jason. “That’s right,” she said. “That’s why we’ve got to get you out of here.”
Jason stared at Wendy, eyes wide. “What?”
“Yeah. Back to San Francisco. Out of here. Away from the needles and the stainless steel bank vault two stories below ground.”
Jason looked at the floor and rubbed his hand through his already disheveled hair. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “You got a plan?”
Wendy held up the bag of blood. “You’re looking at it. So far.”
“Look, I’m all in favor of getting me out of here, but what about all those people dying upstairs?”
Wendy sat down on the edge of the bed and took Jason’s hand. It was cold, and his skin felt dead next to hers. “Don’t you think I realize what I’m doing?” she said. “Can you imagine how I’ve been rationalizing my actions?—’Oh, those people have TL. They would have died anyway.’”
Jason touched Wendy’s cheek. “Look, we’ll talk to Dr. Marcus, work something out. I can’t go right—”
“You have to go,” Wendy interrupted. “We have to go. Peoples’ lives—your life—depends on it. If Porter and Marcus kill you, that’s it. No more cure—for anybody.” Wendy looked down. “Including Jenny,” she said.
Jason withdrew his hand, suddenly tensing. “But why should you be able to withhold the cure from those people upstairs? I don’t want to be a party to murder.”
Wendy folded her hands in her lap and looked at the floor. “And I won’t be a party to your murder,” she said.
Jason opened his mouth to respond, but stopped and looked up as the huge silver door separating him from the rest of the world slid open with a series of soft clicks. Wendy dropped the syringe she was holding and threw a towel over the bag of blood on Jason’s bed just as Phillip Porter walked into the room. Her jaw dropped when she saw his emaciated form, a cigarette hanging precipitously from his lower lip.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Porter said. “Please continue.”
“Uh, no, that’s O.K.” Wendy stammered, sliding the blanket over the syringe, “we just finished.”
Porter’s eyes glanced down at her movement, but shot back up to meet her stare. “You seem surprised to see me.”
Wendy’s mouth hung open, moving, but no words came out. Jason saw her plight and sat up in the bed. “No, not at all, Mr. Porter. It’s just that we weren’t expecting anyone. Nice to see you.” He pointed to Wendy. “This is Wendy—”
“Wendy Ross, your phlebotomist; yes I know. I made certain inquiries before I came down to visit.” Porter waited, watching them, gauging their reaction the way a snake watches a mouse.
Jason reached out and gave Wendy’s hand a reassuring squeeze, a gesture hidden by the blankets. “Great,” Jason said. “Always nice to have company. Especially you, Mr. Porter. I don’t remember your coming down here before.”
“Oh, I’ve looked in on you every once in a while. Protecting my investment, and all that. Seems that every time I stopped in you were asleep, however.” Porter shot Wendy another glance, and Jason squeezed her hand harder. “Glad to see you’re up and around today, though,” Porter said.
Jason laughed. “Up, at least, but maybe not around. Not yet.” Jason caught Wendy’s eye, encouraging her to laugh along, which she did, halfheartedly. The laughter subsided, and Jason paused in the ensuing silence, looking at Porter’s yellow skin and eyes. “So, how have you been, Mr. Porter?”
Porter held out a hand and turned it over and back in front of them. “Not too well, as you can see. Dr. Marcus is running tests now. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” He lowered his hand and moved a step closer to the bed, turning to Wendy. “I think the more relevant question is ‘How are you?’”
Jason watched the color drain from Wendy’s face. “I’m fine, I think,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
Porter reached inside his jacket and withdrew a sheaf of papers. He unfolded them and held them up, scanning the rows of numbers they contained. “It seems,” he said, “that there’s a problem with the cure.”
Wendy’s nails dug hard into the back of Jason’s hand. “Problem?” Jason said.
“A concern really. Some of the patients to whom your blood factor has been administered are not showing signs of improvement.”
Silence. Jason’s eyes met Wendy’s, and Wendy took a breath then spoke. “Maybe those patients’ viruses don’t respond to the factor,” she said. “I heard that TL is mutating.”
“True enough,” Porter said. “But we have tested it on all the most virulent mutations Trips Lite has yet to offer, and the Kramer protein—” he said it objectively and in the third person, like Jason wasn’t in the room—"completely suspended viral replication. It killed everything.” He smiled thinly. “But not recently,” he said. “It’s very odd.”
Jason let go of Wendy’s hand under the quilt and pushed himself to a full upright sitting position. “Look, Mr. Porter, maybe it’s time we ended this experiment, if the cure’s not working and—”
Porter exploded in laughter, cutting him off. “Your gall is quite remarkable, Mr. Kramer.”
Jason and Wendy stared at Porter.
“You are an investment to me, nothing more. Dr. Marcus persuaded me to play this little game for a time, but perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you have outlived your useful life to Porter Pharmaceuticals. I frankly don’t care if the cure works or not—people will still come and pay because they so desperately want to live, want to believe that a cure exists. But I am concerned about the financial repercussions of patients paying millions of dollars for what is, at the end of the day, snake oil when we have advertised it and sold it as having a 100 percent success rate. Do you have any idea of the exposure to damages we would face in the lawsuits for fraud that would surely follow this little episode?” Porter shook his head and sighed. “Thank goodness most of them will die before they can sue.”
Wendy opened her mouth to respond, but Porter held up his hand. “A word to the wise, then. We promised these people a cure for TL, and we’re going to give it to them—” Porter smiled “—for as long as we can. Agreed?”
Wendy and Jason nodded numbly.
“I do not plan on mentioning our little visit to Dr. Marcus. I suggest you refrain as well. Dr. Marcus has a tendency to get jumpy when problems arise. Now you’ll excuse me,” Porter said. “I’m expecting a new batch of take-out Chinese food from San Francisco.” They watched as Porter turned and left the room, the steel door closing behind him.
They stared at the door for several seconds before Jason spoke. “Uh-oh.”
“Yeah,” Wendy said. “Uh-oh.”