Under the Knife(83)

And harmony would be restored to the universe.

Albeit a harmony he would find less satisfactory.

Sebastian seemed to sense Finney’s willingness to walk away from the deal. “Okay, boss,” he finally said. “Just this last thing. For 18 million. Paid in full, immediately on completion of the task.” Sebastian’s hands remained at his sides. He knew how Finney felt about handshakes.

“And you’re confident you can accomplish this?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“She’s not going anywhere. I checked: They’re keeping her in the hospital for the time being. Overnight at a minimum.” He stole a glance at his watch. “Just give me a few more hours of prep time before I drive you home. Okay?”

Reasonable enough. Besides, Finney liked the solitude of the windowless room in his building. A few more hours there, alone, sounded appealing. “Yes.”

As Sebastian walked away, back to Turner, Finney gripped the railing and watched the gathering storm. By the look of things, the weather reports were right: It was shaping up to be a big one.

No. Dr. Wu certainly wasn’t going anywhere.

Nor would she, ever.

One way or another, she would never leave Turner alive.





SPENCER


Spencer and Raj were at one of the cement picnic tables in Higdon Park, a take-out lunch from a sushi place located in one of the adjacent office buildings spread out on the table in front of them. Raj’s opinion was that, for sushi, hole-in-the-wall was the only way to go. Raj’s favorite place in San Diego was the size of a broom closet, located in a random strip mall next door to a 7-Eleven. But Raj thought this place was pretty good, too, and Spencer agreed.

Raj’s shoulder-length hair was wet. His wet suit, draped over the bench next to him, was drying in the fitful afternoon sun. His generous belly spilled through the gap of his unbuttoned Aloha shirt and over the waist of his swimming trunks. His surfboard lay in the grass nearby, upside down, its three triangular fins aimed toward the sky.

Spencer, still in scrubs, sat in front of his untouched lunch. At first, Raj dug into his with his usual enthusiasm, but slowed as Spencer brought him up to speed on the morning’s events, starting with what Wendy had told him. The further Spencer got into his story, the slower Raj ate.

Raj put his chopsticks down when Spencer reached the part about Rita’s sticking the scalpel into the liver.

“Fuck me,” he observed.

“You’ve got that right,” Spencer replied, then went on to describe Rita’s seizure, and the robot’s mind-boggling repair of the liver laceration; and about his helping the code team stabilize Rita and transport her to the ER, and making sure she was stable before he came to Higdon to meet up with Raj.

What he didn’t say was that he’d rather have stayed over in the ER at Rita’s bedside. But he’d had no business being there, as far as anyone else knew.

Once he’d finished, Raj said, “Holy shit, Spencer. Holy shit. That’s … wow. Wow, man.” He shook his head.

“I know. Right? I mean—have you ever heard of anything like it?”

“No. No way.” Raj shook his head emphatically. His wet hair whipped around his neck in thick cords. “Not even close. It’s … surreal, man. So … what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Psychotic break, maybe?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But she seemed pretty lucid in the OR. Right up until the—you know … scalpel thing.”

“Psychotics can seem perfectly lucid when they want to.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Had she woken up yet? When you were still in the ER?”

“Kind of, but not really. Her vitals were stable. She opened her eyes about ten minutes after we transported her down there. She started talking, but not making any sense.”

“Psychosis. Definitely.”

“No. I don’t think so.” He frowned. Raj, he thought, was a little too eager to write her off as deranged. “Classic postictal state. I’ve examined lots of patients after they’ve seized, and her behavior was typical. She didn’t recognize me or anyone else. She kept mentioning Delores—that’s the name of the surgical robot—and someone named Jenny. While they were stabilizing her, and cleaning her up, she kept telling Jenny that she was sorry. I checked: Jenny was not the name of the patient she was operating on.” I wish I knew who Jenny was and what Rita was so sorry about. “In any case, she won’t remember any of it once she’s fully awake. Patients rarely remember anything after a major seizure.”

“So what now?”

“Well, nothing else scheduled for me today, so I thought I’d go back over and check on her once we’re done with lunch.” By then, Spencer figured, the ER guys will have gotten a head CT, or maybe an MRI.

I hope she doesn’t have a tumor. Please, God, don’t let her have a brain tumor.

But a brain tumor would explain a lot.

Raj picked up a California roll, considered it, then dropped it. “Do you—still have a thing for her?”

Spencer reached back to scratch his head and felt the nub of the EEG electrode behind his right ear. He’d forgotten it was there. He slid the button back into the ON position as he watched two guys standing near the safety railing overlooking the ocean. One had medium-length dark hair and was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, sunglasses, and a baseball cap. A little on the short side. He looked Hispanic. No, Asian. Both? He couldn’t tell at this distance. The other, tall and lanky with sandy hair, had on a striped dress shirt with comfortable-looking khakis, like a pair you’d buy at the Gap. They were chatting, the one in the khakis showing the dark-haired one a little book.