Robin Cook - Acceptable Risk

“They’re new,” Kim explained.

“Well, I hope they came with directions,” Edward said.

“It’s easy in the light,” Kim said.

“I finally gave up,” Edward said. “When I came back around the house, the door was closed. I also thought I smelled your cologne. Since I’ve been taking Ultra, my sense of smell has improved remarkably. I followed the scent around the house and eventually to the shed.”

Kim poured herself a mug of the hot tea. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” she asked.

“I couldn’t,” Edward said. “Just sitting here is a strain. I’ve got to go to sleep. It’s as if my body weighs five tons, including my eyelids.” Edward slipped off the stool and staggered. Kim reached out and steadied him.

“I’m okay,” he said. “When I’m this tired it takes me a second to get my bearings.”

Kim listened to him struggle up the stairs while she put away the tea and the honey. Picking up her mug, she followed him. At the head of the stairs she looked into his room. He was on his bed asleep with his clothes half off.

Kim went into the room, and with a great deal of difficulty got his pants and shirt all the way off and put him under the covers. She turned out his light. She felt jealous how easily he could fall asleep. It was such a contrast with herself.

Sunday, October 2, 1994

In the misty predawn light Edward and the researchers met halfway between the cottage and the castle and trooped silently through the wet grass to the lab. They were all in a somber mood. Inside, they poured themselves cups of morning coffee.

Edward was considerably more dour than the others, and he had improved from a half hour earlier when he’d first awakened. As he’d gotten out of bed he’d been shocked to find a carcass of a chicken on the floor that looked as if it had come from someone’s garbage. It was encrusted with coffee grounds. Then he’d noticed his fingernails were filthy, as if he’d been digging dirt. In the bathroom he’d looked in the mirror and saw that his face and undershirt were both smeared with filth.

Everyone carried their coffee to the area of the lab they used for their meetings. François was the first to speak. “Even though my dose of Ultra was more than halved, I was still out last night,” he said gloomily. “When I woke up this morning I was as dirty as I’d ever been. I must have been crawling in the mud. I had to wash my sheets! And look at my hands.” He extended his hands, palms up, to show a myriad of shallow cuts and scratches. “My pajamas were so dirty I had to dispose of them.”

“I was out too,” Curt admitted.

“I’m afraid I was as well,” David said.

“What do you think the chances are we wander off the property?” François asked.

“There’s no way to know,” David said. “But it’s one hell of a disturbing thought. What if we had something to do with that vagrant?”

“Don’t even bring up the possibility,” Gloria snapped. “It’s beyond contemplation.”

“The immediate problem could be the police or some local inhabitant,” François said. “If everyone in the town is as worked up as Kim says they are, one of us might be confronted if we go beyond the fence.”

“It’s certainly a concern,” David said. “I suppose there’s no way to know how we’d react.”

“If we’re functioning on our reptilian brains, I think we can imagine,” Curt said. “It would be a survival instinct. We’d undoubtedly fight back. I don’t think we should delude ourselves. We’d be violent.”

“This has got to stop,” François said.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t out,” Eleanor said. “So it’s got to be dose-related.”

“I agree,” Edward said. “Let’s halve our doses again. That will take the maximum to one fourth of Eleanor’s original dose.”

“I’m afraid that might not be enough,” Gloria said. Everyone swung around to look at her. “I didn’t take any Ultra yesterday, and I’m afraid I still went out. I’d intended to stay awake to make sure no one else did, but I found it virtually impossible to keep from falling asleep no matter what I did.”

“Falling asleep quickly is something I’ve been doing since I began taking Ultra,” Curt said. “I thought it was due to the level of activity it caused during the day. Maybe it has something to do with the drug itself.”

Everyone agreed with Curt and added that when they awoke in the morning they’d had the feeling they had had a particularly good night’s sleep.

“I even feel rested this morning,” François said. “I find that especially surprising with the evidence that I’d been out running around in the rain.”

For a few minutes everyone was silent as they pondered the dilemma posed by Gloria’s revelation that even though she’d stopped taking the drug, she’d still experienced somnambulism.

Edward finally broke the silence. “All our studies show that Ultra is metabolized at a reasonable rate, certainly a lot faster than Prozac,” he said. “Gloria’s experience only indicates that the concentration in her lower brain is still higher than the threshold for this unfortunate complication. Maybe we should cut our doses even more, like even a factor of a hundred.”

François again held out his hands for everyone to see. “These cuts are telling me something,” he said. “I don’t want to take this risk anymore. Obviously I’m out wandering around with no comprehension of what I’m doing. I don’t want to get shot or run over because I’m acting like an animal. I’m stopping the drug.”

“I feel the same,” David said.

“It’s only reasonable,” Curt said.

“All right,” Edward said reluctantly. “You all have a point. It’s unconscionable for us to take any chances with our safety or the safety of anyone else. We all liked to think of ourselves as animals while we were in college, but I guess we’ve outgrown the urge.”

Everyone smiled at Edward’s humor.

“Let’s stop the drug and reevaluate in a few days,” Edward said agreeably. “As soon as the drug is out of our systems, we can contemplate starting again at much lower dosages.”

“I’m not going to take the drug until we find an animal system that mimics this somnambulistic effect,” Gloria said. “I think it should be studied completely before any more human use is considered.”

“We respect your opinion,” Edward said. “As I’ve always indicated, self-medication is totally voluntary. I should remind you that it was my intention for me to take the drug alone in the first place.”

“What are we going to do in the interim for safety?” François asked.

“Perhaps we should run EEGs while we’re sleeping,” Gloria suggested. “We could rig them with a computer to wake us if the normal sleep patterns change.”

“Brilliant idea,” Edward said. “I’ll see that the equipment is ordered on Monday.”

“What about tonight?” François asked.

Everyone thought for a few moments.

“Hopefully there won’t be a problem,” Edward said. “After all, Gloria was on the second-highest dose and probably had significantly high blood levels in relation to her body weight. I think we should all check our blood levels with hers. If they’re lower, maybe we’ll be okay. Probably the only person who poses a significant risk is Curt.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said with a laugh. “Why don’t you just put me in one of the monkey cages?”

“Not a bad idea,” David said.

Curt took a playful swipe at David’s head.

“Perhaps we should sleep in shifts,” François said. “We can watch over each other.”

“Sleeping in shifts is a good idea,” Edward said. “Plus, if we do blood levels today we’ll be able to correlate them with any episodes of somnambulism tonight.”