Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

"Help me! Oh, please help me! Grandma! Aunty Nat! Someone please help me."

Driven by the girl's cries, Natalie pushed to her hands and knees and willed herself forward. She was on the last hundred meters of a fifteen-hundred-meter race, elbow to elbow with another fierce competitor. Her lung was on fire, and her legs were screaming that they could give no more than they were, but the finish line was closing, and she knew she wasn't going to lose. No matter how much the runner beside her had left, she was going to have more.

Blinded and smothering, she hurled herself through the doorway to Jenny's room, and struck heads with the girl, who was lying next to her toppled wheelchair, and whose unbridled hysteria kept her from even registering what was happening.

"Hi, baby…It's okay now…It's…Aunty…Nat."

Jenny's only response was a whimper of Nat's name.

Compared to Hermina, the ten-year-old was a feather, but she was also virtually deadweight, and Natalie was spent. She pulled Jenny's tee up to cover her mouth and nose, hooked her hands under the girl's arms, and pushed back just as she had done with her mother — six agonizing inches at a time. But before she had crossed a third of the kitchen, her legs and her lung would respond no more.

With flaming embers raining down, she pulled her sobbing niece close to her and shielded the girl with her body. Then she closed her eyes tightly, and prayed that the inevitable wouldn't be too painful.

Socrates, welcome back to the council."

"Thank you, Laertes. My next term actually doesn't begin for another two months, but I assure you I am looking forward to it. Is everyone on?"

"They are."

The four members of the council, speaking at the same time from three continents, greeted one of the founders of their organization.

"So?" Socrates asked.

"So," Laertes said, "we are calling you about H, client number fourteen on your list. With little warning, his health has begun a fairly rapid deterioration. He needs his procedure done within ten days, his physicians estimate — sooner if at all possible. As you can no doubt extrapolate from his name, there is a great deal at stake politically and financially. We know you have been very busy on our behalf, but we need to know if you can take this case."

"I will make it my business to be available. Donor?"

"We have three possibles. Forty-year-old male baker from Paris, eleven-point match."

"Information on him?"

"Some. He's a pretty typical Producer. Doesn't own the bakery, never will. Two children. People in his neighborhood say he makes excellent bread."

"Themistocles here. It seems to me that to remove even one good baker from the world would be a sin. I vote we look elsewhere."

"The next two are from the United States. First is an actor from Los Angeles — thirty-seven years old. Eleven-point match."

"What has he been in?"

"Grade B horror films, mostly. He's already been married at least four times, has a gambling problem, and is loaded with debt. Credit rating is poor, doesn't seem to have much respect in the industry."

"No matter," Glaucon said. "However untalented, he is still an actor, and that makes him an Auxiliary. And furthermore, he's an eleven. I vote last resort only."

"I agree," Polemarchus chimed in. "Producers before Auxiliaries. That is our policy. Besides, I'm sure Socrates would be first in line for a twelve if we can get him one."

"That is true," Socrates said, "even though our work has shown that the difference in outcome between an eleven and a twelve is minimal. Still, all else being equal, I would certainly prefer a perfect match. An adult Producer, negative health history, the younger the better."

"I am pleased that we have such a match," Laertes said. "Thirty-six year-old female. Lower-level Producer. Works waiting tables in some sort of restaurant. Divorced. One child. Doesn't do much of anything outside of her work. Our investigator reports that some of the married women in her town do not trust her."

"And she's a twelve?"

She is.

"What state is she from?" Socrates asked.

"Let me see. I think it's…yes, Tennessee. She is from the state of Tennessee."

"Probably listens to that ghastly country music all day," Polemarchus muttered.

"We will do her the honor of selection. Objections'"

"None."

"None."

"Good choice."

"Okay, then, Socrates. As of now, you are on standby. Good day, gentlemen."

Alright, Nat, it's time. Your blood gasses are back and they're pretty — A good. Your oxygen saturation is ninety-eight. I see no reason we can't pull that tube out. You ready?"

Natalie nodded vigorously to her doctor, Rachel French, the head of pulmonary medicine at White Memorial. For many hours she had been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit, drifting back and forth across the line separating awareness from the beyond, and often, when she awoke, French's kind, intelligent face was looking down at her.

It was probably whatever medication they had her on, but the endotracheal breathing tube wasn't nearly as bad as she had often feared it would be. She had no memory at all of the one that had kept her alive in Santa Teresa's, and doubted she would remember much of this ordeal, either. God bless the pharmacologists. After blacking out on the kitchen floor, her first indication that she wasn't dead was the siren of the ambulance that was speeding her up the Southeast Expressway to White Memorial. Apparently her oxygen levels were bad, because, according to Rachel, the tube was immediately inserted by somebody in the emergency ward. But of that turmoil, she had no recollection whatsoever.

According to the clock on the wall across from her bed, it had been about twelve hours since the sedation and painkillers had been cut back to where she could hold on to a thought for more than a few minutes. Altogether, nearly forty-eight hours had passed since the fire.

She had to be told several times before she had finally retained the news that both her mother and Jenny were alive and doing well in another hospital, and that she was being given full credit by the fire department and in the press for having saved their lives. Word was that only minutes after the firefighters pulled her and Jenny from the kitchen, the ceiling in Jenny's room collapsed, and the house went up completely — a total loss. The main unanswered question now in her mind was what, if any, damage had been done to her. It was one of those situations common to medical students and physicians, where she simply had too much knowledge of the possibilities.

French, the mother of twins as well as one of the youngest department heads in the hospital, was the sort of dedicated, widely regarded female physician that Natalie, herself, had hoped one day to become — assertive and effective without ever compromising her femininity and compassion. During Natalie's brief hospitalization following her return from Brazil, French had become her physician, and the two of them had spent hours sharing philosophy, life stories, and thoughts about the future.

"A few crackles at the base," French said after a prolonged examination with her stethoscope, "but that's not a surprise. Dr. Hadawi is here from Anesthesia. Just do what he says, and that tube should be out in a few seconds. You understand that if things aren't perfect, we're not going to wait too long before we put it back, yes?"