Robin Cook - Host

“Sounds so Orwellian,” Lynn said.

“I hope this means you’re planning on coming to the ophthalmology lecture in the morning?”

“I guess I have no choice.”

As they rode up in the elevator they leaned against opposite sides, regarding each other.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked.

“I’m a basket case,” Lynn admitted. “I’m wasted and I’m still shaky. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired and drained. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

“Will you be able to sleep?”

“I hope so.”

“I might be able to find an errant sleeping pill if you’d like.”

“I’d like,” Lynn said. “And I do have yet another request.”

“Hit me!”

“Would you mind if I dragged my mattress down to your room? I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Not a problem, as long as you don’t take advantage of me.”

“Under the circumstances, I don’t find that at all funny.”

“Sorry!”

Wednesday, April 8, 9:22 A.M.

Lynn put her pen down on top of her spiral notebook. She had been trying to take lecture notes but wasn’t able to concentrate. She was distracted by the previous night’s horrific experience and what she had learned from the anesthesia records. To make matters worse, the lecturer spoke in an all too typical medical-school monotone. On top of that, the subject matter seemed to her to be truly stultifying. As beautiful as the eye was in its overall structure, this minutiae of the retinal circulation was overkill in relation to what she would need to know once she was a practicing orthopedic surgeon. Even if eye surgery had the benefit of being short and bloodless, she couldn’t understand why her friend Karen Washington wanted to study ophthalmology as a specialty. After spending four years learning about the whole body, it seemed much too narrow in scope from her perspective.

Adding to her inability to focus, Lynn felt groggy, despite having slept for more than six hours. Six hours was about normal for her, but what she had experienced last night had not been entirely normal sleep. She had taken the Ambien tablet Michael had found for her. As she rarely took sleep meds, she was sensitive to them, and when she did use one, she invariably felt a residual hangover.

When she had awakened that morning just before eight on her mattress on the floor of Michael’s room, Michael was already in the shower. It had been the sound of the shower turning on that had aroused her from her drugged slumber. She didn’t get up immediately as it had taken her a few minutes to unscramble her brain and try to put in perspective what had happened the previous evening.

There had been a few times during her first year in college when she’d found herself in mildly problematic situations involving the potential of sexual assault, thanks mostly to alcohol, but she’d never suffered an actual episode. Actually, it had never even come close until last night. The mere thought of how close made her feel almost nauseous. Never had she felt quite so thankful and appreciative of Michael’s friendship, size, and strength. If he hadn’t thrown caution to the wind the night before when he couldn’t get ahold of her on her mobile and when he attacked the intruder, she knew she’d be feeling very differently at that moment.

After sticking her head into Michael’s steamy bathroom to yell at him that she’d be ready to head over to the hospital in a half hour, she carefully collected the beer bottles Vladimir had handled and went back to her own room. Making sure not to touch the bottles, to avoid messing up any of the Russian’s fingerprints, she put them on her desk before getting into the shower herself.

On the way from the dorm to the hospital, Lynn and Michael talked about the paranoia that came with the worry that they were possibly being watched. To both of them, everyone who eyed them looked suspicious, even a couple of the gardeners working in the flower beds who happened to glance up as they passed.

For the first twenty minutes of the ophthalmology lecture, Lynn had tried her best to pay attention, but it wasn’t working. When the lecturer turned off the lights once again to go through another series of slides, this time showing fluorescence angiography studies of the back of the eye, she leaned over to Michael, who was sitting next to her as both had taken seats near the door: “I’m outta here,” she whispered.

“I thought the deal was that you were going to make it look like you were back to being a full-time medical student.”

“My mind’s going a mile a minute. I can’t sit still and can’t concentrate worth a damn. I’ve got a couple of errands to run.”

“What I’m worried about is what you might do. Don’t try to get yourself into the Shapiro without me or you and I will be having one hell of a beef!”

“I wouldn’t think of it. Take good notes for me!”

“Screw you! You gotta stay and take your own goddamn notes. It’s not like I’m enjoying myself. This guy is trying to put us to sleep.”

Lynn had to smile. After a quick glance at the lecturer, who had his back to the audience while using a laser pointer to indicate a subtle detail, she stood up and headed for the nearest exit. To make it look like she would be returning, she left her spiral notebook on the arm of her chair. She knew Michael would bring it back without having to be told.

Once outside the lecture room, Lynn went directly to the restroom. Her thinking was that if anybody was watching her, going to the bathroom wouldn’t raise any suspicions. As she walked, she tried to see if anyone in particular took note. No one did.

As long as she was in the restroom, Lynn decided to use the toilet. Afterward she looked at herself in the mirror, thinking she looked like death warmed over. There were dark circles under her eyes and her split lip was crusted with a small scab. There were also a few broken capillaries over her cheekbone that she had tried to cover up with a bit of makeup. She used a damp paper towel to get rid of the crust on her lip.

After combing out her hair and putting it back into her barrette in an attempt to look as presentable as possible, Lynn walked out of the restroom. At first she headed in the general direction of the lecture hall, all the while scanning the busy clinic area for anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to her. Except for a few waiting patients who responded to her white coat in hopes it meant the ophthalmology clinic was about to begin seeing patients, no one seemed to give her a second look.

Deciding she was in the clear, Lynn headed over to the hospital. Since she’d awakened that morning she had given a lot of thought to the “looping” she’d discovered in the anesthesia records. She knew it had to be seriously significant and that someone had to be told, and the sooner the better. Initially she’d thought of Dr. Rhodes, but had quickly nixed the idea after remembering his ranting the day before. It also occurred to her that if there was a major conspiracy there was a chance that Rhodes, as head of Anesthesia, might possibly be involved on some level. She thought the chances small, but not nonexistent. Ultimately she settled on letting Dr. Wykoff know. After a lot of thought, she’d come to agree with Michael that the woman was shaken by what had happened to Carl, and if that were the case, the chances of her being involved in some grand conspiracy seemed nil.

Once in the crush of the hospital, Lynn wasn’t as worried about being observed. There were just too many people. Going to the information booth near the front door, she got a piece of hospital stationery and wrote a short explanation of the looping she’d found in the three cases. There was nothing else in the short note, not even a signature. She folded the paper and slipped it into a hospital envelope and sealed it. On the outside she wrote simply: Dr. Wykoff.