Lost in La La Land(9)

At that moment, she twitched. Her eyes darted about the ceiling as her lips formed a word, actually two, “Danny Jacobs.”

I honestly didn't recall all the characters. It had been years since I’d read the novel or seen the movie. “Did you somehow fall in love with it all? Or just Danny?”

“Danny.” Her eyes fluttered for a moment before she lost responsiveness, and she was again stuck staring at the ceiling.

“Did she say anything?”

I glanced back at the doorway, nodding. “Danny Jacobs, one of the characters in the book, I assume. She must somehow be stuck in the story. I don't see how this is possible. I’m worried she may have had a stroke during the program or something. I can check my records for her vitals, but I doubt there is anything there. My sensors would have picked up even the slightest change unless maybe they’ve glitched. I mean, it’s possible. I’ll go over everything again. She shows signs of being in shock or possibly the nanocomputers haven’t left the system, which should be impossible, in theory, but there could always be a glitch. Nothing is perfect.”

The mayor’s eyes became slits, dark angry slits. “What did you just say?”

“What?” I hesitated to repeat it. “Which part?”

“Did you say Danny Jacobs?”

I nodded, completely confused. His rage took over.

He flew toward me, ripping me from the chair and gripping my arms. My head jerked back and forth like I was being murdered in a martini shaker. His screams owned all the air around us. I screamed in response and when attendants and nurses filled the room, he was pried from my body.

“Stop!” I blinked through tears.

“GET HER OUT OF HERE! GET HER OUT!” he screamed and pointed, hitting women and men alike.

I scrambled to my feet, racing from the room as they pinned him against the far wall in the hallway. I didn't wait for the elevator. I took the stairs, sprinting as fast as I could. When I broke through the doors at the front of the hospital, I dropped to my knees, gasping for air and sobbing.

I had no idea what just happened.





Chapter Four


Running my fingers across the machine, I considered a thousand possible outcomes. Two stood out the most.

If she’d had a stroke, why hadn’t the machine caught her body’s reaction to the program or the fluctuation in her vitals?

If indeed the nanocomputers were still adhered to her, she needed the pied pipers, the sirens of doom, to enter her body again to beckon them.

My only option was to sneak the syringe of nanocomputers into the hospital, inject her, and run the pied piper call through her body once more.

If that wasn't it, and the tests they ran on her brain didn't show a stroke, I would have to face the music. It could be a complete mental breakdown because she possibly had a preexisting mental disorder I wasn't made aware of, and I had put her at risk the entire time, slowly degrading her mental stability.

I would be liable in some ways, but if she had lied to me, the form she signed at the beginning would waive any responsibility on my part. Not that it would make me feel better. She was still sick in some way and my machine was partly to blame.

The mayor’s response to Danny Jacobs made me curious too.

I sat at my computer and ran his name with hers in Google. It took a lot of sorting through different social media sites until there it was: the most important key to her addiction to the machine.

“Danny Jacobs dies in terrible crash.” The words left my lips with horror and shock.

How had I missed this?

The moment I asked her the question flitted about my mind. She had laughed and shaken her head, completely relaxed and at ease.

She had lied like it was her job.

The headline gave me chills but the article made me sick to my stomach. I burst from my chair, grabbing a syringe of the pied pipers, the tablet I used to run the program, and darted for the door. Hailing a cab in the cold and dreary weather was nearly impossible. Every one of them already had a passenger. Finally, a cab stopped and I jumped in, shouting, “The private hospital on Saint Nicholas Avenue!”

The driver hit the gas, sensing my urgency.

I held up my card for him to scan when we arrived, fleeing the cab the instant the light turned green on the machine. I didn't take the elevator, hoping to sneak into the room when no one was looking. The six floors up were murder.

I was gasping for air and wheezing when I cracked the door open, scanning the nurses’ station and surrounding area for people. The lone nurse had her head down, reading or sleeping. I couldn't be sure which. There wasn't a single other person in the area.

Something sounding like a radio went off, causing the nurse to lift her head. She got up and sauntered down the hallway, opening the door I needed to get through. I took my chance, springing from the stairwell and dashing into the room where Lana continued to lay perfectly still.

I closed the door behind me and injected her immediately before I hurried to the other side of the bed to slide down the wall and wait for the nanocomputers to link to my tablet. I tapped the start of the sirens’ call, setting the pied pipers into motion. The program to dislodge any and all nanocomputers from her brain ran exactly as it had before, signaling it had completed its task. In a perfect world, I would have already created nanocomputers to take a tour of the brain, scanning for any rogues that had hung on. Or perhaps added a tracking device to each one, but that might have increased the size of them.