M.L.N. Hanover - Vicious Grace

“I remember that,” Kim said. “Grace is worse.”

The office was too small for all of us to fit comfortably. There wasn’t even space to put down the backpack I used as a purse. A thin window had wedged itself in one corner, daylight spilling across one wall. Kim’s computer hummed and whirred, a screen saver cycling through images that I assumed fit in with her work: X-rays of skulls, bright pink-and-white pictures of what might have been flesh, drawings of complex microorganisms with joke labels on them like “extra cheese” and “On the Internet, no one knows you’re infectious.” The air smelled of oil and old carpet.

“We do our actual lab workups down in Pathology or over on the UIC campus,” Kim said as she dug through a small metal filing cabinet, “but the paperwork’s all here.”

“Who are you working with?” Aubrey asked.

“Alepski and Namkung,” she said.

Aubrey crossed his arms and leaned against one wall.

“Didn’t expect to hear those names again,” he said.

“Namkung’s the official lead, but she came here because Alepski and I were willing to sign on if the study was based out of Grace. They ask about you sometimes.”

“And what do you tell them?” he said with a laugh in his voice.

“That you’re traveling the world,” Kim said. “They’re comfortable with that. It’s a good team. One of the nice things about working with them is that sometimes the residents will actually consult with me.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Ex asked.

“I’ve got a PhD. Alepski and Namkung both went on to get MDs, and so I’m respectable by association,” Kim said, as if that explained everything. When she stood up, she had a card in her hand. I caught a glimpse of an old picture of Aubrey on it and a silver magnetic strip. “I got guest researcher access for Aubrey on the strength of the papers we did together. It won’t get you on the medical wards, but if you need to get in there, you can use it to sweet-talk the nursing staff.”

“And the rest of us?” Chogyi Jake asked.

“Are limited to public areas or else going chaperoned,” Kim said. “Or you can get a white coat, carry a clipboard, and scowl a lot. That’s usually enough to keep anyone from bothering you.”

“Security would be difficult with this many people,” Chogyi Jake said.

“More than people, it’s the different systems,” Kim said. “On any given ward, you’ve got the nurses and technicians who work there, and the doctors who come in and out. And then the therapists. And the social work staff. And security and the physical plant guys. Janitorial. Kitchen staff. Compliance inspectors from the state and the fed. And the researchers like me. And the patients. And the families. And everyone answers to a different set of management, if they answer to anyone at all. Everyone has different methods for interacting with everyone else. It’s a complex tissue. By and large, if you aren’t keeping someone from doing their job, they don’t much care whether you’re there or not.”

“So don’t piss off the security guys,” Aubrey said as he clipped his new ID card to his belt. It was just a little square of plastic, but it made him look like he belonged there. It was such a small thing to be a disguise.

“That should be all right,” I said. “We’re just getting the lay of the land, right? Basic recon.”

“Fair enough,” Kim said. “Where did you want to start?”

“I assume there’s a chaplain,” Ex said. “Resident priest might have more of an idea of the spiritual state of play than the other staff.”

“And is there a mental health service?” Chogyi Jake asked with his customary smile. “Possession can be mistaken for mental illness.”

“There are three, actually,” Kim said. “Adult, pediatric, and geriatric, but the psych wards are high privacy. They’re strict about keeping patient information away from anyone but physicians and family. If we get someone specifically that we want to look at, I can try to talk to the attending. But even then it’ll be tough.”

“Maybe just the commissary, then,” Chogyi Jake said. “Where the nurses and technicians would be likely to eat.”

“Is there something you’re looking for?” I asked.

He spread his hands in a gesture I took to mean anything interesting .

“I’d like to see Oonishi’s lab,” I said. “Dreamland. If that’s where this thing is showing up, that seems like a good place to start.”

“I’m fine with any of it,” Aubrey said. “How do you want to do this? All stick together, or split up the party?”

The last questions were directed at me. All gazes shifted. While it was true that I was responsible for signing all the checks, I still hadn’t quite gotten my head around being the boss. Moments like this one left me squirming inside, but I put my brave face on.

“Let’s split up,” I said. “Cover some ground. I figure the chaplain is going to be someone you can get to without going through restricted-access areas. The staff commissary, maybe not. So how about Ex tackles the priest, Aubrey and Chogyi Jake can go schmooze with the locals, and Kim can introduce me to Oonishi. It’s eight thirty now, so find out what you can, and we’ll plan to meet up for lunch and compare notes.”

“I think we have a plan,” Aubrey said.

“We should set a solid meeting place and time,” Kim said. “Cell phones are kind of tricky in the buildings.”

We settled on half past twelve in the main lobby. Kim wrote detailed maps to get Ex, Chogyi Jake, and Aubrey where they were going, and then we headed off. It didn’t take long before we were in the public parts of the hospital again. We passed a waiting room where an oversized television was blasting SpongeBob SquarePants to a shell-shocked, unsmiling family. In the hallway, a guy who was just about my age hunched over his cell phone, saying something about lab results and trying not to cry. The air smelled like cleaning solution. Outside the windows, blue sky and fluffy white clouds hung high above the buildings, pretending there had never been a storm. The Sears Tower—now officially the Willis Tower—peeked out from behind smaller, closer structures, and I tried to pay more attention to it than to the thousand small human dramas we were walking past. It seemed polite.

“What a difference a year makes,” Kim said. Her voice sounded tight. Clipped.

“You think?” It hung halfway between question and agreement, and it got a hint of a smile. She didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press.

Thinking about it as Kim led me confidently down the corridors and wards, I realized there was something to what she said. It wasn’t that the others wouldn’t have listened to me before—well, except Ex, and that was more about his own weird paternalistic streak. But when Kim had first met me, I’d been younger. And it was more than just the months and weeks. It was the mileage.

Being Eric—taking over the work he’d left behind—had put me in harm’s way more than once, but it had also given me chances to figure out who I was. To try being the sort of person I wanted to become. I was more confident than I’d been the first time she met me, more in control of myself and the people around me. I wondered if my parents would have recognized me as the same girl who’d hurried through the kitchen on her way to school and church, or if I’d become someone so alien to my own past that I’d be a stranger to them. I wasn’t sure if the idea left me sad or proud.

I was still lost in thought when it happened.

We passed through a set of automated swinging doors, a blue-and-white sign above them announcing the rooms within as the Cardiac Care Unit. The hallway marched out before us, the glass walls of patients’ rooms arrayed around a wide, high nurses’ station, the same panopticon architecture as a prison. Half a dozen men and women in hospital uniform and almost that many in civilian clothes stood behind the desk or before it, engaged in at least three separate conversations. I didn’t see the man until I bumped into him. It was like stumbling against a wall.