CHAPTER 5.

SUSAN WALKED DOWN THE HALLWAY of the hospital, quickly detouring on sight of David Goldstein rounding a corner in front of her. She darted into the gift shop, showing a sudden interest in the magazines. She picked one up and hurriedly thumbed through it, glancing over the cover to see when Goldstein and his colleague had pa.s.sed. When the hallway was clear, she set the magazine down, embarra.s.sed to realize she had taken a sudden interest in "Teen" magazine. She nodded at the proprietor of the store, who was gazing at her with some disapproval.

Susan quickly entered the elevator, sliding her security card through the reader. She leaned against the wall, breathing a sigh of relief as the elevator began to move smoothly upward. Her relationship with David Goldstein had only grown worse over the years, and it had started out as a disaster.

David Goldstein was already a full doctor at the time Susan began completing her residency. When she first arrived at the hospital, a few of the nurses approached her and warned her of Goldstein's wandering hands and inappropriate comments. It hadn't taken very long for him to target Susan as his next conquest. Susan quickly tired of the constant innuendo and intimate touching, so she confronted him. When that had no effect, she filed a complaint against Goldstein for s.e.xual hara.s.sment.

Little was done regarding the complaint, but the behavior did stop. Goldstein treated her like a pariah from that point on, but that was fine with Susan. The nurses were also secretly pleased, and Susan became an underground heroine to them.

After that incident, Goldstein ignored her for years. Susan successfully completed her residency and began her research in her spare time. Possessing far more ingenuity and dedication than David Goldstein, it wasn't long before she pa.s.sed him in the hospital's hierarchy. When the first patent came in, it established Susan as a significant contributor to the hospital's coffers, and more than David Goldstein's equal.

Susan glanced upward, not really seeing the digital numbers illuminate as the elevator pa.s.sed each floor. Her exalted position in the hospital, however, had not stopped Goldstein from attempting to take advantage of her several years later, probably at the worst time of her life.

She was 28 and heady with the success of her research. She had taken only a few months off to give birth to her son, then returned to the excitement of the lab. Her husband, Brent, was an angel, willing to care for their infant while Susan worked long hours. Susan was extremely happy, wondering how life could get any better.

And then she received the news that made her wonder how life could get any worse. Brent had been killed in a plane crash. The airline pilot, a 20-year veteran, had forgotten to de-ice the wings upon take-off. The plane never made it off the ground, and the ruptured fuel tanks ensured that no one survived. Susan's grim consolation was the fact that Brent had changed his mind at the last minute and decided not to take their son. Beyond that, she was completely devastated.

It was in this setting that David Goldstein again attempted to initiate a relationship with Susan. At first his warmth touched Susan, but once she realized it was feigned, she attempted to withdraw from him. Goldstein would have none of it, however, and pressed his attentions until he ended up nearly raping her in a service elevator. But the attempt was not to succeed because Susan's grief and devastation coalesced into a fury that both stunned and overwhelmed Goldstein. After kneeing him in the groin and delivering a solid right cross, she beat him nearly senseless with her handbag. He never touched her again.

The doors opened in front of her, causing Susan to start. She had almost forgotten where she was. She stepped out into the hallway. Few people had access to the research and development wing, and no one had security clearance to her lab. It was one of her demands of work conditions, allegedly to guard against industrial espionage.

In reality, Susan just didn't want to be bothered. She stepped off the elevator onto her floor, feeling the familiar comfort of her "office." The only place she felt more comfortable was with her son, regardless of location.

She peered into the darkened lab as she slid her security card through the reader. The door opened with a barely audible click and the motion detectors turned the lights on. She waited until the door whispered closed behind her, then went into her inner sanctum. She peered through the window of the observation booth into the sterile room beyond.

The woman was exactly as she had left her. She appeared to be a corpse hooked up to some monitors. Susan glanced over at the readouts which displayed the woman's vital signs for the last 12 hours. Respirations, none. Blood pressure, none. Pulse, five.

Susan glanced at the readout closer. Per hour. Five beats per hour.

She turned back to the woman who lay unmoving in the bed. At first, Susan had stayed with the woman for 24 hours, expecting some dramatic change in her condition. But when nothing changed, Susan finally determined there was no sense in her standing by. She felt some guilt, as if she were abandoning a patient, but then was angry at herself for feeling that way. She wasn't even certain this woman was alive, and she couldn't describe any more bizarre circ.u.mstances.

The body had seemed to "draw" blood even though the IVs ran on gravity feed. That would have been strange in and of itself, but the body had "drawn" a total of 19 liters. The average human body held only nine. Susan was not certain where all the blood was going, but knew that Mason was becoming concerned after his fourth trip to the blood bank. She herself was concerned, wondering if she was not on the verge of creating the human tick.

Susan was also uncertain what she was going to do if the woman showed any additional signs of life. She had convinced herself the woman was dead and that she was just continuing treatment for experimental purposes.

Susan glanced over at the EEG readout. That was the one thing that had remained constant, the inordinate amount of brain activity. Susan had even placed the electrodes on herself to test the machine. The readout quickly stabilized into one of normal brainwaves. When she replaced the electrodes on the woman, the pattern quickly arced back into the strange but symmetrical patterns of before.

Susan donned a sterile gown, then hit the release to the door. She entered the antiseptic room and moved the full-body scan, portable MRI into place. It was quite an expensive test and Susan wasn't quite sure how she was going to justify it to accounting.

She didn't care. She exited the room and re-entered the control booth. She adjusted a few controls on the panel in front of her, then turned to watch as the blue beam slowly traveled the length of the p.r.o.ne body. Susan turned expectantly to the floor-to-ceiling screen on the wall next to the gla.s.s window. The screen flashed a few times then sprang to life with the full-size picture of the internal organs and skeletal structure.

Susan stared at the image for a moment, a look of puzzlement on her features. She stood up and took a step towards the image, her puzzlement turning to confusion, then concern. She was not one to talk to herself, nor was she one to use profanity, but she now did both under her breath.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

Susan stared at the image, trying to figure out what was wrong. But what was "wrong" was subtle, and though she immediately recognized something was amiss, it was hard to put her finger on what exactly that was.

She c.o.c.ked her head to one side, as if by looking at the internal structure from another angle she could better understand it. She turned her head to the other side, but the body was no more comprehensible.

"Where the heck is the stomach?" she murmured aloud.

She reached over and hit the print b.u.t.ton to burn a hard copy of the readout. The full-size copy began spooling from the machine and she caught it before it touched the floor. She laid it out on the table, staring at the picture in confusion. She was unable to draw even obvious conclusions.

She glanced through the window at the p.r.o.ne body, then reached over to the keyboard on her computer. She typed in a few commands to load the voice activation unit, then adjusted the microphone. As she began speaking, the computer began diligently recording her words, the letters spilling across the screen.

"The heart appears to be suffering from some type of pulmonary edema," she said, her attention returning to the printout. She circled the large organ in the center of the chest. "Although pulmonary edema is an understatement. I've seen cases of pericarditis, but I've never seen anything like this."

Susan paused, c.o.c.king her head to one side. She leaned closer to look at the heart. "Actually it doesn't appear to be edema, either. It doesn't show up as fluid at all. The tissue there is contiguous with the heart muscle." Susan stopped, disbelief evident in her own voice. "It appears the heart is three times its normal size."

The computer dispa.s.sionately recorded her words, stopping when she stopped. The words began to spill across the screen as she resumed. "Perhaps this is a birth defect of some kind, or some sort of deformity. Not severe enough to cause death but perhaps something that could be adapted to over time." Susan stopped again, unable to believe her own words. A birth defect. As if anyone could live with a heart three times its normal size. She peered over the image. And she still couldn't find the stomach. Perhaps it had shrunk during the woman's comatose state.

Susan resumed her discourse. "The liver appears slightly larger than normal and the lungs appear about half-size for an adult of her size." She eyed the veins and arteries that snaked throughout the image. "It appears the subject has an extremely well-developed circulatory system. The capillarization of the muscles is extraordinary."

Susan stopped, suddenly noticing one very prominent artery. She had to look twice before she could articulate what she was seeing. Even then, her a.s.sessment deviated from her former professional monologue. "Well, I haven't actively practiced medicine in a few years," she murmured to herself, "but I remember enough to know the esophagus is not connected to the aortic valve."

Susan pushed away from the table, suddenly angry. The most logical explanation was that someone had gone in and "operated" on this corpse to make it look like a radically altered anatomy. The body in the image was impossible. Someone had created a rather elaborate scheme to make her believe this person was still alive, and she had a pretty good idea whom that someone might be.

Her mind began racing. She suddenly realized Mason would have to be in on it as well. It would have been fairly easy for he and David Goldstein to rig this entire episode, first to make her look foolish in ER, then...

Susan felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. Then they would catch her up here, running all sorts of "Dr. Frankenstein" experiments on an obviously dead corpse. Her indiscretion involving the "borrowed" bodies would come to light, her reputation as a researcher would be ruined.

Her paranoia began to s...o...b..ll. She looked to the EEG. It would be simple enough for someone to rig the machine, and the heart monitor as well. She began to cast her gaze wildly around the cubicle, searching for a camera or recorder. They could be watching her right now, doc.u.menting her actions. Her paranoid gaze settled on the computer screen, and her last words blinked at her incriminatingly.

This whole thing was a matter of manipulating Susan into believing what she wanted to believe. Mason had played her so easily, pretending to be dumb. He and Goldstein had known Susan would begin twisting the evidence in the direction of her research.

Susan leaped to her feet and rushed into the sterile room. If she could just get rid of the body before they had an opportunity to spring their trap. She could get rid of all the evidence, then play dumb when they tried to catch her in the act. If she could just get rid of this body...

She gathered the sheets, trying to wrap the body completely so that no part of it showed. But her hands were shaking so badly she nearly knocked the body to the floor, and in her struggle to catch the corpse, lost the sheet completely. The lower half of the woman's body was now exposed.

She struggled against the weight of the woman and finally succeeding in shoving the body back onto the bed. She reached down to pick up the sheet and her eyes caught sight of the woman's legs. She stopped.

For a long moment, she didn't move. She slowly stood upright, the sheet forgotten as it slipped from her nerveless fingers. She reached out, hesitantly touching the body.

The woman's legs were intact. There were no compound fractures, no broken skin, only mild bruising where before there had been horrendous injuries.

Susan gazed at the legs. She had been so caught up in looking at the internal organs on the MRI printout she had missed the obvious. She felt a cold chill whisper down her spine, but it was a very different chill than she had experienced a moment before. This was a much more primitive fear. Thoughts of a conspiracy slipped away.

Susan slowly began backing away from the body. It was still slightly askew in the bed, but she was not going to right it. Nor was she going to turn her back on it before she left the room. She felt for the doork.n.o.b behind her, then slid through the crack she opened.

Susan slammed the door, locking it. She peered through the window, not exactly certain what she expected to see.

The body just laid there. The woman appeared to be sleeping. Not completely comfortably, but sleeping nonetheless.

Susan forced herself to take several deep breaths. "Get a hold of yourself, girl. Remember, you're a scientist."

As if in support, the computer printed out the rea.s.surance. Susan thought about turning the voice activation off, but she needed the company at the moment, even if it was self-generated.

"Okay," she said aloud, now addressing the computer as if it were another person. "We've got something new, now." She tried to return to her professional voice. "Not only does this woman possess an extraordinary anatomy, she appears to be healing at an accelerated rate."

She glanced down at the MRI printout in front of her, and her professionalism fled. "Well that was the understatement of the year, Dr. Ryerson. " She began to think aloud again. She tried to regroup, putting her research voice on. "This could be some type of chromosomal defect, or perhaps some type of genetic engineering," she paused, "but if so it's way beyond anything I've even heard about."

The EEG sprang into action behind her, and she jumped, startled. She felt foolish as she pushed her heart back down into her chest where it belonged. She glanced at the monitor, then turned to look through the gla.s.s window. Even from where she was standing she could see the twitching of the intact eyelid, could see the rapid eye movement indicating a dream state.

Susan's fascination overcame her fear as she stared at the p.r.o.ne body. Half the woman's face was gone. Her skin had the pallor of death. And yet she was obviously dreaming. What in G.o.d's name could be in that woman's head to generate such activity?

CHAPTER 6.

THE BOY STILL REMEMBERED THE FIRST TIME he saw the Man. It had been shortly after Bertha's daughter had died in childbirth. She had been small and the baby had been large. Neither had survived.

The boy was standing in the middle of the dirt road that split their small village. He was playing with some of the other boys, boys who were larger than him but never quite as strong or as fast.

They all heard the sound of hooves off in the distance and the boy looked to the west at the cloud of approaching dust. It was rare that horses came to their village; it usually meant that tribute was due.

The other boys scattered but the fair-haired one stood in the street. He was more curious than afraid. He saw what seemed to be a great number of horses; he could not count so in his mind it was simply more than two.

The horses stopped at the edge of the village, snorting and rearing, their riders trying to control them. The men atop their backs were dressed in finery, leather jerkins, steel mesh, brightly colored crests. The boy watched curiously as they gathered and wheeled about.

The horses parted as if on command and a man on a huge black horse rode through the gap to the edge of the clearing.

The boy's heart stopped. The man was looking directly at him with piercing black eyes. He seemed almost as if he had been looking for him. He studied him intently, his gaze traveling from the top of the boy's fair head to the bottom of his dusty feet.

The boy stood as if mesmerized. Indeed, if the man's troupe had decided to run him down he would have been unable to move. But instead the man wheeled his horse around with a shout and the troupe moved to follow him. As quickly as the contact had been initiated it was broken, and the band galloped to the southwest. The boy stood in the street, feeling an inexplicable loss.

It did not take long for word to travel through the small village that the band was encamped a short distance from their rough huts. There was much speculation on the ident.i.ty of the visitors and whether this was a good or bad omen. It was evident that his lordship, whoever he might be, was very wealthy and powerful. Some even speculated that it might be the King, or at least a relative. Few, however, were exactly sure who the King might be and none would recognize him if they saw him. Lacking pictures or even the most rudimentary artwork, if a man didn't know another face-to-face, he didn't know him.

Hans' wife watched her son with a certain amount of anxiety. She had seen his lordship eye the boy. Her son possessed a remarkable beauty and it was only by the grace of his unknown benefactor that he remained untouched by the lecherous world that surrounded him. The priest was afraid to touch him but someone as powerful as the stranger might not know of his protector, or care.

The boy was preoccupied, stirring his watery soup with his finger. He could not seem to get the man out of his thoughts. The man had looked at him strangely, almost as if he had known him. And the man had looked at him in a way like the priest looked at him, but somehow differently.

The sun was going down and soon blackness would blanket the land. It was a moonless night, and save for a few lamps and still-burning embers, the blackness would be complete.

The boy settled onto the rough-hewn mat he shared with his parents. He heard his father's rough grunts a few feet away as the evening ritual began. The slap of flesh would keep the boy awake, but tonight he was not going to sleep anyway.

Hans finished quickly and soon his snores filled the small hut. The boy waited until he was sure he could hear his mother's rhythmic breathing, and then he rolled off the mat.

He pulled the cover back into place in the doorway and set off toward the glow of the firelight in the distance.

No other person from the village would dare roam about at night like the boy did. They were terrified of the various creatures that lurked in the surrounding forest. Many stories of demonic creatures, half-man, half-wolf, circulated through the village. The villagers knew the stories were true; they were in the Bible weren't they?

The boy paid no mind to the stories. He knew they were true, but he was willing to take the chance. He picked his way through the underbrush with care.

He climbed a tree where he could overlook the clearing where the troupe was encamped. He had chosen a lucky spot because an elaborate tent was pitched within his view; he was sure it belonged to the man.

He clung to the branch, watching the few men still awake mill about the camp. He did not have to wait very long. Almost as if on cue, the flap of the elaborate tent was pushed aside and the man stepped out.

A serf rushed up to the man but he waved him off. The serf quickly disappeared into the shadows. The boy took the opportunity to study the man. He was tall, nearly taller than the head of a horse, and he had none of the fat the boy had seen on other feudal lords. His hair was black, as dark as his eyes, with no gray to betray his age.

The man turned and looked directly into the boy's eyes. The boy was so startled he nearly fell backward out of the tree. The man had to be further than the distance the boy could throw a stone, and the boy could throw far. He regained his balance and again locked eyes with the man.

Another man approached his lordship and their words drifted to the boy's location.

"Is something wrong, my lord? Is there something you need?"

The younger man peered out into the blackness, seeing nothing. The man spoke, and his voice was smooth, smooth like the stones at the bottom of the river that had been worn by water and time.

"Nothing you can provide me."

The reply seemed to anger the young man and he stalked off. The man watched his departure mildly, then turned his attention back to the boy.

Or at least it seemed that way to the boy. But he realized there was no way the man could see into the blackness, no way he could see across the clearing to his hiding place. Still, the boy's heart was beating so loudly it seemed the man could hear it.

The boy quickly climbed down the tree. He began to make his way back through the forest, more hastily than he had come. No sense in staying out here all night.

The boy was about half the way home when he stopped, feeling as if something was behind him. His senses strained the blackness around him, but he heard nothing. He shrugged and started on his way once more.

He again stopped, whirling around as if to catch whatever was stalking him. And that was what he felt, as if someone, or something, was in the darkness behind him. There was nothing but silence.

The boy began to trot, and then to run. Whatever was behind him seemed maddeningly close yet unidentifiable.

The boy had feared few things in his life. He had always been faster or stronger than most things that threatened him. But he was very afraid right now, and he began to crash through the underbrush, his breath coming loud and harsh and his heart pounding in his chest.

Whatever was behind him was not only keeping pace but was catching him. He could not see it but knew it was too large for a wolf and too fast for a bear. He began to dodge side-to-side in a futile attempt at evasion.

He was tackled from behind and went face first into the warm, dark earth. He could taste the rich soil in his mouth as he was grabbed roughly from behind and lifted off his feet. He was imprisoned in a grip as strong as a vice and waited to be torn limb from limb.

He did not have long to wait. He felt a piercing pain, then felt his insides turn to liquid. He saw an extraordinary redness behind his eyelids, then all went black.

CHAPTER 7.