Robin Cook - Critical

"They were fine, particularly from a teaching perspective, such that they took longer than I hoped. I wanted to get up here ASAP and work on my matrix." She patted the legal pad. "It's the only thing left that I have that has a snowball's chance in hell to convince you that you are specifically at risk for being exposed to MRSA during your scheduled surgery."

"And?" Jack asked, looking at Laurie askance.

"I haven't found anything yet," she admitted before looking at her watch. "But I still have about fifteen hours."

"Ye gods. And you call me bullheaded."

"You are bullheaded. I'm merely persistent, and, of course, I have the added benefit of being right."

Jack waved Laurie away and gathered his crutches. "I'm heading to my office to clean things up since I'll be gone for a few days." He emphasized the few days.

"How were your cases today?"

"Don't ask. Riva promised some good ones; instead she gave me two natural deaths and an accidental one, none of which were at all challenging. Lou's case was more interesting. The slug's caliber and the indentations from an apparent chain to keep her sunk suggested the same killer. The difference was she was raped."

"Tragic."

"Another testament to the inherent wickedness of man."

"I'm glad you said man. Now get out of here. I only have fifteen hours."

"What time do you want to leave this evening?"

"Actually, we should take separate cabs, unless you want to stay late. I want to finish this matrix."

"I'll come back here when I'm done in case you change your mind. I don't want to hang around, because I want to watch my buddies play basketball to remind me why I'm willing to go under the knife."

On that issue, Laurie had to hold her tongue. Instead, she said, "Is Chet still in your office, or has he left for the day?"

"I wouldn't know. I stopped in here first."

"Well, if he is, you should try to dampen his enthusiasm for his new lady friend."

"Oh? How come?"

"By coincidence, she's the CEO of the company that has built the three Angels specialty hospitals."

"Really?" Jack said, raising his eyebrows. "That is a coincidence. Why dampen his enthusiasm?"

"She's the one who all but ordered me out of the orthopedic hospital yesterday. I don't know about long-term, but right now I question her motivation."

"Not to worry," Jack said. "I'm sure Chet will have eyes for someone else tonight. A week from now, he won't even remember her name."

"I hope so, for his sake."

With Jack out of her office, Laurie went back to the microscope. Although she had made an effort to appear upbeat with Jack, she was again feeling despondent. She'd joked about the fifteen hours, but in reality, it was far too little time to solve a mystery that had been confounding people with Ph.D.s in epidemiology.

Suddenly, Laurie's hand stopped twirling the horizontal mechanical stage control. She'd seen something unusual zip past the microscope's field. Since she was viewing at high-power, objects moved very quickly in and out of the field with very little rotation of the control. She slowly reversed direction with the control, and the strange object came into view.

Laurie was entranced. It appeared to be in the middle of what had been a bronchiole, probably close to what had been an alveolus, or the terminal sac in the bronchial tree where oxygen entered the blood and carbon dioxide came out. Laurie immediately questioned whether it had been there originally or was an artifact, inadvertently introduced or formed during the slide's preparation. It was about the size of the white cells Laurie had seen, which were the body's defensive cells, but there was no nucleus. It had absorbed almost none of the standard stain used by histology.

Most remarkable, it was a nearly round disk, symmetrical with a scalloped border, giving it a stellate appearance. Why she thought the symmetry was important was that most artifacts she'd seen didn't have such symmetry. Laurie looked at the object itself. The scalloped border comprised about one-fifth the diameter. The center of the object was opaque, with the mere hint of either nodularity or being mottled. One minute she'd see it, the next minute she wouldn't. She wished the object had taken the stain, because if it had, she would have known if what she was seeing was real or something she was conjuring up. Trying to keep her excitement in check, Laurie took out a grease pencil to mark the glass slide so that if the scope's mechanical stage were to accidentally move, she could find the object again. She did this by placing four dots in the cardinal directions. Satisfied, Laurie then shifted to low power. When she looked in again, the object was significantly smaller, and because it lacked staining, it tended to blend in to the chaotic surroundings.

Switching back to high power, she made sure the object, whatever it was, was still in the field. With that ascertained, she quickly went down to get Jack.

When Jack looked at the object, he said, "My gosh, how did one of my grandmother's butter cookies get into David Jeffries's lung?"

"Be serious," Laurie said. "What do you think it is?"

"I'm not fooling. It looks just like it came from one of my grandmother's cookie cutters. We called it a star, but obviously it has far too many rounded points."

"Do you think it is an artifact?"

"That would be my first guess, but it is surprisingly symmetrical. I suppose that's due to the dynamic tension between the hydrophilic and hydrophobic forces at the interface of the menisci."

"What the hell is that?"

"How should I know?" Jack said, still looking at the microscopic object. "I'm just running off at the mouth, speaking pseudo-scientific gibberish."

Laurie swatted Jack's shoulder playfully. "Here I thought you knew what you were talking about."

Jack looked up. "Sorry, I have no idea what it is. I don't even know if it is real or artifact."

"Nor do I," Laurie admitted.

"Have you found any others, or is this it?"

"So far that's it. Now that I found it, though, I'm eager to see if there are more."

"Do you have any idea what it could be?"

"I know what I think it looks like, but it can't be."

"Come on! Run it by me!"

"It looks like a diatom. Do you remember those from biology?"

"I can't say that I do."

"You must. They're a type of algae or phytoplankton with silicate cell walls."

"Give me a break," Jack said. "Now, how do you remember that?"

"They're so beautiful, kinda like snowflakes. I did sketches of them in high-school biology."

"Well, congratulations on your discovery. But if you're interested in my vote, I'd say I'd lean toward artifact rather than a pelagic diatom unless the university gave him a glass of Antarctic sea water as part of his terminal treatment."

"Very funny," Laurie said sarcastically. "Artifact or not, I'm going to look for more."

"Good luck! Say, I'm about to head out. Do you want to change your mind and come along?"

"Thank you but no thank you. I'm going to look at these slides for a while, then finish my matrix. Don't wait up for me. I know you're going to bed early."

"Good grief, Laurie. You're beating a dead horse."

"Maybe so, but I'm not sure I'm going to sleep that much tonight, one way or the other."

Jack bent down to give Laurie a hug, but she stood up and gave him a real one.

"See you later," Jack said, affectionately touching the end of Laurie's nose with his index finger.

"What's that for?" Laurie asked, reflexively backing away.

Jack shrugged. "Beats me. I just wanted to touch you because, I guess…" Jack paused, acting suddenly self-conscious. "I guess I think you are terrific."

"Get out of here, you oaf," Laurie said, nudging him. Jack's clumsy sentiment threatened to break down Laurie's carefully constructed defenses. In truth, her own emotions were barely under the surface. On the one hand, she wanted to support him through his surgery, as she assumed he could use, as everyone could, but on the other hand, she didn't want to lose him and was furious that he was putting her in such a conflicted state.