Thomas Hoover - Syndrome

"I have no idea who you are. You could be. . He says they're trying to help me, but I'm not getting any better."

Ally was pulling onto the interstate, heading south. It was hard to concentrate on driving, but at the same time she wanted to push the speed limit. Kristen sounded like she was getting ready to disintegrate or flee.

Then she had another thought.

"Kristen, it's okay if you don't trust me. But could you tell me more about your. . side effects? Are they-"

"I think that's why he moved me. To that place. But then he …" She was growing even more agitated and impatient. "Look, I really can't talk anymore."

I'm losing her , Ally thought. Try to make her hang on.

"Kristen, would you please take my phone number? You sound like you could use a friend."

"Oh Christ, I'm so scared. I don't-"

"Just take it. No harm. Then if something happens and you want to-"

"All right," she said finally. “Tell me and I'll write it down."

Ally gave it to her, then added, "I run an interior-design firm. I actually did some work for you once, so we've met. You can call my office, so let me give you that number too. No way am I connected to the institute where you were."

She said she was writing it down.

"You know," Kristen went on, "I think this is God's way of punishing me for wanting something nobody should have." Then she began to sob again.

"How exactly-"

"I found a door that wasn't locked and I just came here. I don't know what guided me. And when I got to this street, I knew exactly which building it was. There was no name on my bell or anything, but I knew. I even knew who had my emergency key. It's like I have a sense memory of this apartment but I can't remember ever actually living here."

"Your name is Kristen Starr," Ally said again. "Try to remember that. And will you please stay there till I can get there and talk to you?" Then she made what she immediately realized was a fatal mistake. "There's a reporter, a sweet guy who's doing a book about. . a medical procedure at the clinic where you were. And he's dying to talk to anybody who's been part of the clinical trials there. Could he talk to you too? It sounds like you've got quite a story to tell."

"You've got to be kidding. If they find me, I don't know what they'll do." And the connection was severed.

"Shit, don't do this." She quickly tried the cell phone number for Stone Aimes.

"It's me again. Listen, she's actually there . Kristen's in the apartment on West Eleventh Street. I just got off the phone with her. She's the one you want. But she's like a frightened rabbit. She said she was about to leave, but if you get there soon, you might be able to catch her."

"Damn, we're stuck in traffic at Fifty-ninth Street. There was a fender bender on Lex. But I'll get there as soon as I can."

"Okay, maybe get your driver to try Fifth."

"Good idea."

She clicked off and stared at the road. The George Washington Bridge was just ahead. If she broke the speed limit once she hit the West Side Highway, and caught the lights right, she might even beat Stone there.

Wednesday, April 8

12:34p.m.

"W.B., we've got a problem," Karl Van de Vliet said into the microphone. He was in his private office, on the scrambled videophone. "Kristen's mother showed up just before noon with a pistol, demanding to know where she was. When I tried to take the gun away from her, she accidentally shot herself through the side. Fortunately, it was only a flesh wound, but it took us almost an hour to stabilize her."

"Christ! Even Kristy thinks she’s crazy. Why did she-?"

"Kristen smuggled her a letter somehow. And she came looking for her." He thought about how they shouldn't be having this conversation on any kind of phone, even one that was supposedly scrambled. But there was no choice. "It gets worse. I just called Eight-Eighty Park and they checked her room and Kristen's not there. She was there when Roxanne brought up her breakfast at nine, but nobody's seen her since. They assumed she'd gone back to sleep. Nobody there has any idea where she went."

"Shit. What am I paying them for? The staff is there for the sole purpose of making sure something like this didn't happen."

"Well, W.B., that's your part of the show. I'm just trying to practice medicine. In any case, she slipped out somehow. So the thing now is, where did she go?"

"Well, she didn't come here. Or at least she hasn't yet. Depending on how much she can still remember, she might have gone to her old place down in the Village. Maybe she still has a homing instinct. That's probably the first location we ought to check. Jesus, if she gets recognized and starts acting crazy and then Cambridge Pharmaceuticals finds out-"

"W.B., the bigger problem now could be her mother, Katherine. You know her. She's unbalanced but she also still remembers how it all started. She was actually here a couple of times. If she sees Kristen, then God help us."

"Karl, I've got everything-and I do mean everything- riding on this. What happened with that Hampton woman? You've got to get started with her. Is she on board yet or what?"

"She was here this morning, but she got temporarily spooked by the gun and the craziness. She'll be back, though."

"When?"

"I took care of it, trust me," Van de Vliet declared. "In the meantime, I'll try to maintain Kristen's mother under sedation as long as possible. But we can't keep her out of touch forever. That would be flirting with kidnapping."

"I'll send Ken over to West Eleventh Street to check out her place," Bartlett said. "If she's there, he'll get her."

And he signed off, the image on the computer going dark.

Van de Vliet felt a wave of apprehension. Every day it got worse. Would any of the other patients develop the Syndrome? Or was its development unique to the Beta?

Kristen had agreed of her own free will to undergo the Beta, and she'd been warned that any experimental procedure involved significant risk. She'd signed release documents absolving Gerex of any liability. But when treatments go awry, patients tend not to recall the releases they signed. Undoubtedly, she'd now conveniently forgotten that fact. Assuming she still remembered anything.

Time to go back to the OR and see how Katherine was doing. If she seemed completely stabilized and coherent, she could be moved down to the intensive-care area in the floor below, the subbasement. That way absolutely nobody could get to her. He clicked off the computer and walked back to the OR.

"Karl, she's awake," David said as he walked in. He'd been monitoring her. "It's probably okay to move her."

Thank God , Van de Vliet thought. Maybe there's some way to reason with her rationally. He moved over and looked down. Her hair was soaked with sweat and she looked very, very tired.

"Mrs. Starr, can you understand me? I'm Dr. Van de Vliet. I need to talk to you about your daughter, Kristen."

"Who. . who are you?" she mumbled, her eyes trying to focus.

"I'm Kristen's physician. She came to see me some months back. Do you recall? About her. . skin problem. I seem to remember you came here with her at one point."

She stared at him mutely for a moment, then closed her eyes and nodded.

"At that time, Mrs. Starr, we discussed some radical treatment options. Things that hadn't been tried before. Do you have any recollection of that?"

She opened her eyes again and stared at him, trying to focus.

"You said she'd be all right," she mumbled, slurring the words. "Then your receptionist told me she'd gone to New Mexico. But I got a letter-"

"That story was to protect her professionally," he lied. "She was afraid the press might find out she was here and start speculating about her health. But now she's in the post-procedure phase of treatment. It may be a while longer before she's able to return to the normal life she's used to."