Robin Cook - Shock

CURSING UNDER HIS BREATH from having smacked his shin against an unknown metal object, Bruno stumbled back along the corridor in the darkness using his fingers against the brick wall to guide him. He tried not to trip over any more of the trash cluttering the floor but it was impossible, and he winced every time he collided with something, more from the sound it made than from any pain it caused. As soon as his fingers detected a corner, he eased himself around it. Only then did he venture a look back the way he'd come. In the distance the stainless-steel door of the culture room suddenly snapped back into place a hundred times faster than it had opened. But in the brief interval Bruno was able to catch sight of the two women standing within the lighted space beyond.

Quickly Bruno got out his flashlight, switched it on, and stuck it in his teeth to hold it. He directed the beam into the recess he’d eased into rather than back out into the corridor. He didn't want the women to suddenly look back and see the light if they happened to open the door. Next he struggled to get his cell phone out of his pocket. As quickly as he could, he used the phone's internal directory to find the culture room number. The moment it popped onto the screen, he pressed the talk button.

Although cell-phone reception in the Wingate's basement was not good, he could hear the phone ringing through static. "Come or. Answer!" he urged out loud.

Finally a voice came on the line: "Culture room, Cindy Drexler speaking."

"This is Bruno Debianco. Can you hear me?"

"Just barely," Cindy answered.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Of course," Cindy said. "You're the security supervisor."

"Then listen up!" Bruno said, talking as loudly as he dared. "Two women have just come into the culture room. How they got an access card I have no idea. Do you see them?"

There was a pause. "Not yet," Cindy said coming back on the line. "But I'm nowhere near the entrance."

"This is important," Bruno continued. "Keep them occupied for fifteen or twenty minutes. Be creative! Tell them whatever they want to know, but keep them there. Do you understand?"

"I guess," Cindy said. "Tell them everything?"

"Anything and everything; it doesn't matter," Bruno said. "Just don't alarm them. Kurt Hermann is on his way, and he'll personally be taking them into custody. They are unauthorized intruders."

"I'll do what I can," Cindy said.

"That's all I ask," Bruno said. "We'll be in there as soon as he gets here."

Bruno disconnected from Cindy, then speed-dialed Kurt's number. There was even more static when Kurt answered than when Bruno had spoken with the culture-room technician.

"Can you hear me?" Bruno asked.

"Well enough," Kurt answered. "What's going on?"

"I'm outside the culture room in the Wingate basement," Bruno said. "The women had a card to get them inside. I called the technician and told her to keep them in the room. You'll be able to nab them with ease."

"Did they see you?"

"No, they're unsuspecting."

"Perfect] I'm just entering Bookford. I'll be there in ten minutes, fifteen tops. Do you have handcuffs with you?"

"That's a negative," Bruno said.

"Get some from the gatehouse!" Kurt ordered. "And meet me at the gate! We'll grab the women together."

"Ten-four," Bruno said.

FOR SEVERAL MINUTES THE WOMEN STOOD STILL, ABSORBING the surroundings. In keeping with the starkly modern door they'd just passed through, both had expected a futuristic netherworld. Instead they were in a maze of rooms with the same general decor as the rest of the basement, separated from one another by the same brick archways. The difference was the bright light coming from banks of newly installed fluorescent fixtures, the ambient temperature, and the contents. Instead of discarded hospital and kitchen material, the room they were in and the others they could see were filled with modern-appearing laboratory equipment, mostly in the form of large incubators brimming with tissue culture dishes. Most of the incubators were on wheels.

"I expected something a bit more dramatic," Joanna said.

"Me too," Deborah said. "It's not even as impressive as the lab upstairs."

"It feels like the tropics. What do you think the temperature is?"

"Close to body temperature," Deborah said. She turned back to the stainless-steel door. A laminate box was mounted on the wall just to the right of the door. The box had a central protruding red panel. On the panel in block letters were the words OPEN,CLOSE.

"Before we take a tour I want to make sure we can get out of here,' Deborah said. "The way this door snapped shut, I want to reassure myself it's going to open again." She pushed the red panel.

The door slid open just as it had a few moments before. Then when Deborah pushed the panel again, the heavy, insulated door closed in the blink of an eye, and its silence was as impressive as its closing speed.

Deborah was about to comment about the door when Joanna frantically grabbed her arm and blurted out in a whisper, "We have company}"

Deborah's head snapped around in the direction Joanna was looking. In one of the archways stood a smiling, middle-aged woman with a narrow, deeply tanned face displaying prominent crow's feet and smile creases. She was dressed in a super-lightweight white cotton outfit. Her hair was contained in a hood of the same material. A surgical mask was tied around her neck and hung down over her chest.

"Welcome to the culture room!" the woman said. "My name is Cindy Drexler. And what might your names be?"

Joanna and Deborah exchanged a brief, confused, and panicky glance.

"We're new employees," Deborah managed to say after a few false starts.

"How nice," Cindy said. She came forward, hand outstretched, and shook hands with each of the women. "And your names?" she repeated, looking directly at Joanna, whose hand she'd just shaken.

Joanna stuttered for a moment, desperately searching for some rational way to decide whether to use her real name or her alias. "Prudence," she blurted out, remembering they were trespassing.

"Georgina," Deborah quickly mimicked.

"Nice to meet you two," Cindy said. "I suppose you've come for a tour?"

Joanna and Deborah exchanged yet another rapid glance although now out of auspicious surprise rather than panic.

"We'd love a tour," Deborah said. "We were so mesmerized by the door, we had to see what was in here." Deborah gestured self-consciously at the stainless-steel door.

"I'm not accustomed to giving tours," Cindy said with a self-deprecating laugh, "but I'll give it my best shot. Here, in this room, which, by the way, was the old pantry for the kitchen back in the Cabot days, we have the eggs ready for nuclear transfer tomorrow. They will be going up to the lab in the dumbwaiter which is just around the corner. They're in the incubators with the red tags. We use a color-coding system down here. The incubators with the blue tags are the fused cells which will be going back into the embryo room."

"What kind of eggs are they?" Deborah asked. "I mean, what species."

"Human eggs, of course," Cindy said.

"All of them?"

"Yes, the animal eggs are handled in the animal culture room down at the farm."

"Where do so many human eggs come from?" Deborah asked.

"They come from what we call the organ room," Cindy said.

"Can we see?" Deborah asked.

"Of course," Cindy said. "Just follow me!"

Cindy gestured toward the archway through which she'd arrived and motioned for the women to follow. Joanna and Deborah fell in behind her. "What luck to run into her,' Deborah whispered, leaning her head close to Joanna's. "This is almost too easy."