Under the Knife(109)
Nothing we’re carrying, nothing in the construction site, nothing on Delores, so … what is it?
Sebastian stared at Wu, thinking.
Why had her device suddenly stopped working this morning in the OR? And then, just as suddenly, started back up? And then stopped again later, in the ER, for good? And what about her sister’s implant? There had to be a pattern to it. What was he missing?
Something on Wu?
He walked toward her, stepping absently around several red, metallic gas canisters stacked on the floor, each of which was knee height and stamped in large white letters with the words:
ACETYLENE
NO SMOKING OR OPEN FLAMES!
He’d noticed them earlier while getting the room ready. Acetylene, he knew, was for welding. The construction workers had likely stashed them here to shelter them from the rain, probably in violation of a shitload of safety codes. Whatever. This was the best room he’d scouted out, and he hadn’t had time to move the canisters. Besides, it didn’t matter.
He started with her feet. He left her jeans on because he knew they’d be a pain in the ass to get off, as he inspected most every part of her, probing and prodding with clinical detachment, moving his hands 360 degrees around her body. Feet. Legs. Pelvis. Abdomen. Chest. Neck. Head.
Nothing.
He frowned, and was turning to say something to Finney when something caught his eye, nestled behind Wu’s right ear.
What the hell?
It looked like a quarter, with borders too regular and smooth to be anything but artificial, and an off-flesh color that differed from the surrounding skin.
He reached out and gingerly scraped at it with his fingernail (Maybe not such a good idea, some part of his brain declared, not knowing what it is, or what it might do to your finger), testing to see if its edge would peel upward, away from the underlying skin.
It did. He coaxed the corner off a bit more, then peeled the entire thing off and held it up to the light. It looked like a circular Band-Aid, except stiffer, with flexible metallic fibers interwoven into its material.
“What is that?” Finney asked, staring at it over his shoulder.
“I don’t know. But someone must have put it there on purpose.”
“Why?”
“I’ve no idea.”
Sebastian dropped the metallic Band-Aid on the floor and ground it underneath the heel of his boot.
Delores’s red light stopped blinking and turned green.
“Wireless connection reestablished. Operative systems online.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sebastian murmured.
“Resuming laparoscopic appendectomy protocol.”
There was a beep, and an ecstasy of small gears spinning.
The scalpel resumed its course toward her belly.
The blade came into contact with the skin just above Wu’s navel …
… and then stopped before it could apply pressure to it.
“System error,” Delores said. “Wireless connection broken.”
The red light on the central unit winked at them.
“What now?” Finney huffed, bending over the flashing red light.
That’s when Dr. Spencer Wallace Cameron tackled him.
SPENCER
Spencer saw two men standing together over Rita. He didn’t know them, or understand why they were here, but it was obvious that they meant to hurt her, and in the most horrific way.
He blindsided them, catching them by complete surprise, rocketing out of the surrounding gloom, a human missile of massive proportions.
Raj. Thank God for Raj. It had been Raj’s idea to use her EEG electrode as a tracking device, tying it into her location like a GPS.
His first irrational impulse—after he’d gone to Rita’s hospital room to check up on her, and discovered that she was gone and that the nurses had no idea where she was—had been to call 911 to report a missing person. The dispatcher had listened politely, then informed Spencer that an investigating officer would be out within twenty-four hours to take a report.
Twenty-four hours! Spencer had thundered.
To which the dispatcher had responded: Was it not possible that she simply had left the hospital and gone home without telling anyone?
Yes, Spencer had admitted.
And the dispatcher had asked him, quite reasonably: Why then, sir, do you suspect she’s missing?
Spencer had hung up in a huff, thought, then called Raj, who was awake and hungry for more news. Raj was nonplussed, but game, after Spencer explained the situation, emphasizing that he suspected Rita was confused from whatever was going on in her head and that she may have wandered off, and why involve hospital security since they would simply give him the run-around, like the police had? Raj disliked authority, so avoiding hospital security appealed to him.
To their surprise, and Spencer’s increasing sense of dread, Raj had led Spencer to the second-floor bridge connecting Turner to the new hospital wing, then under the yellow construction tape blocking its entrance and through a door someone had left ajar, and then across the bridge and into the darkened interior of the construction area. The signal had dropped at that point; Spencer had wondered if it had something to do with his phone, which was almost out of power.
But by that time, he could hear their voices, which, along with a faint glimmer of light, had led him here, to this bizarre scene straight out of some Hollywood slasher movie.