Resonance by J. B. Everett (free ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📕

the brains of this operation!” He gestured back at the prone form in her blue scrubs.

 

That, at least, made Landerly look up at him. Finally some strength in his eyes. “This took my wife and daughter away from me… . and I don’t mean to sound horribly trite and cliché, but I did spend too much time at the office. And I do regret it.” He stood to his full height, able to look down on Jordan if only by half an inch. “But I will not let you tell me that we’re useless without

 

her. You and I have more brains in our heads than ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the population, and we are trained for this. So let’s get a move on.”

 

He began walking out of the tent. “Draw her blood and meet me in the lab. We have profiles to review and phone calls to make.”

 

Her eyes hurt. Her fingers twitched randomly. And there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

With effort Jillian pried her eyes open. The tent top came into view again along with a weird sort of déjà vu.

 

She remembered she had practically passed out after Becky had died. And Jordan carried her back and laid her on the gurney.

 

She looked around, the dim light in the tent telling of evening.

 

But something was wrong.

 

It took her a moment to place it.

 

She’d been moved. The gurney where Jordan had laid her down, the last thing she remembered, was at a ninety degree angle to the one she was on. She could see that it was vacant when she bent her neck back and looked. The empty bed was military sharp, the sheets drawn up quarter-bounce tight.

 

She breathed in, thinking that she felt well rested. And wondered why they had left her alone. Well, I needed sleep, that’s for sure. But it had only been about five hours according to her watch.

 

Or … twenty-nine hours.

 

That was a distinct possibility. That would explain the well-rested feeling. Much better than five hours.

 

David!

 

She was in his bed. So where was he? And why hadn’t she woken up when they moved her?

 

With an audible groan and severe pressure in her head, she swung her legs over the side. Stopping there to take a rest and wait for the little man with the ball-peen hammer in her head to stop whacking her, she squeezed her eyes. And heard the muscles move in what sounded like a midpitch thunder roll.

 

She must have sat there for about five minutes by her musing. Brain churning despite the pain.

 

Twenty-nine hours. Definitely.

 

That was the only explanation for her muscles feeling so unused. She forced her breathing to deepen, her ribs feeling the stretch again.

 

A normal life would be so appreciated. Waking up in her apartment. Going in to work to fill out forms about botulism. Or salmonella. Maybe a pet dog to keep her company. Or a cat.

 

With sadness she wondered if both species still existed. That was a bizarre thought. A world without cats. Mushu. A portrait of her beloved childhood kitty, the first and only fuzzy pet she’d ever had, popped into her head.

 

She pushed off from the gurney, landing on shaky legs and, using the bed frame, stabilized herself. Another minute. Time to walk.

 

Just then she heard a voice. Her reaction time being slow, she was barely able to shield her eyes as the tent flap was thrown in. Because she was facing west, the sunset poured through the open side, illuminating the silhouette of a woman holding back the heavy fabric.

 

“Oh my God, Doctor Brookwood! You’re up!”

 

“Of course I’m up.” Why wouldn’t she be? Again something niggled at the back of her brain. She knew that voice.

 

As the woman approached into the darker portions of the tent, she developed eyes and features. Lucy. Jillian sniffed. She blinked. Hadn’t Lucy died? Well, whoever was keeping the records had done a crappy job. She wondered who else was mis-recorded. Her own family. Jordan’s. She shuddered.

 

“Is something wrong?” Lucy tilted her head as if trying to see her more clearly.

 

“No. It’s nothing.” But Jillian wondered. She held her tongue, figuring Lucy wouldn’t want to know she’d made the ‘dead’ list. Or maybe she would. “It’s just … I thought I saw your name on the ‘deceased’ list. You might want to call your family.”

 

Lucy raised her eyebrows disbelievingly, and turned to a physician who was standing right beside her. The young man shrugged and Lucy turned back to Jillian. “Dr. Brookwood, I’ll check that right out. But if you’ll just sit back, Dr. Lee will take all your vital signs.”

 

“Vital signs?” Jillian almost laughed. “Wow. Are y’all getting paranoid?” But she knew what it was like to have a non-compliant patient, so she shrugged out of the left sleeve of her jacket, being careful not to drag the cuff along the IV insertion site on the back of her hand. But she didn’t even scrape it, just continued to question the doctor.

 

Her first thought was that he was very intent on listening to her pulse as he took her BP. He didn’t even make eye contact. As though he had never done this before. Her second thought was that he was young.

 

Which was disturbing, because she was considered young to be a practicing physician.

 

He stood upright and nodded at her. “It’s all textbook.”

 

She smiled, feeling a little condescending, even though she wished it would go away. “I’m always 120 over 80.” He wrote in her chart, having had it thrust out to him by Lucy. And Jillian startled. She hadn’t remembered to pull a single chart this whole time. It was the right protocol but it hadn’t even crossed her mind. And clearly the record keeping was getting screwed up if Lucy Whitman had made the ‘dead’ list.

 

But she shook it off. “What’s with the complete set of vitals after a nap? Did it concern you that I slept so long?”

 

“Well, it was a long nap.” Lucy looked at her young physician in some side glance that Jillian couldn’t decipher. But she didn’t want to. She hadn’t ever been able to make hide nor hair of Lucy. So she let it be.

 

She started out of the tent. “I’m going to go now.” She had to find Jordan, and David. And the more she thought about it, they needed to be in charge of notifying Becky Sorenson’s family, whichever of them had survived. And Leon Peppersmith’s, too. She’d let the person in charge handle the rest. But she felt she owed it to those two families. And she knew Jordan would agree. But as she passed the front entry of the tent the young doctor’s hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm. The grip wasn’t harsh, but she also wasn’t going to go anywhere until he decided to release her.

 

And that pissed her off. Trying to stay as level-headed as she could, she ground the words out between her teeth. “Would you mind explaining to me why you’re restraining me?”

 

She felt the heat flare under her skin as he had the balls to look sheepish. “Oh, I’m not restraining you, doctor.”

 

“Then remove your hand.”

 

He did, but stepped in front of her. And just as she was about to yell at him, he spoke. Again sounding trite. “I just think it’s important that you understand that you just woke from the coma that you saw so many patients go into.”

 

Her muscles relaxed. “Well now, there’s the problem. I was actually out of this coma before any of you were. I woke up first.” She continued even though they were clearly questioning her. Sharing furtive looks as if she were a child. “I went back to sleep because I was exhausted. I had spent so much time hauling people inside and checking them out that I practically passed out.”

 

She could see that they didn’t believe her, but she had really ceased to care. They had been busy sleeping their time away, while she had worked herself to the bone. Then the little smartass in the white jacket tried again to stop her from leaving the tent. “Dr. Brookwood …”

 

“Dr…” She read the name on the front of his jacket, since she had forgotten it precisely the moment after Lucy had told her. “Lee.” She’d had enough. “I’m leaving.”

 

“I don’t think that’s wise.”

 

Her teeth clenched again. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the world had dropped dead one by one around her. That Landerly was threatening to name the damn thing after them. This little.

 

. whatever he was, was trying to restrain her. “I understand that you don’t think that. I don’t care.”

 

“As your physician-”

 

She didn’t let him get any further than that. “You aren’t my physician. You’ll do well to remember that I am a physician.”

 

He opened his mouth and she didn’t let him start, just gave him something to chew on. “I am also your superior.”

 

With that he huffed out his breath and turned to Lucy Whitman. “Well, I guess we’ve done what we can.”

 

“All right then.” Lucy handed him the chart. “We did the right thing. If she won’t listen then that’s her own fault.” The two of them strolled out of the tent looking like old chums. Like there hadn’t been a fully charged atmosphere just a second before.

 

But Jillian took it as a breath of relief. The air was clear now. They were gone.

And, as usual since this whole thing had started, she had plenty to do.

 

She had to find Jordan, and see where he had moved David. And …

 

Jillian blinked.

 

She had just realized that she never found out what had happened to Dr. Landerly.

 

Her chest constricted a little at the thought that he was probably gone. She’d seen his labs, and he had all the hallmarks of the ones who had failed early.

 

David’s stare had gone blank.

 

Jordan had witnessed the blow to pride the man had taken just to ask for morphine, and he had happily pushed the drug into David’s IV. It took only a second away from the paperwork that he was pouring over with Landerly. And for a moment it took his mind off Jillian.

 

It was all insane.

 

Jillian and David had seemed immune. But she had slipped back under - for no apparent reason. Why hadn’t David gone back under? It had to have something to do with the pattern of exposure. Jordan’s hands clicked through the rhythms of capping the needle and flicking it into the sharps container while his brain wandered through problems.

 

He had identical exposure to Jilly, up to a point. When he had gone to Lake James he had continued going in and out of the weaker bubbles. Jillian and David had stayed in Nevada, and had wandered into the path of that sweep - which felled everyone in its path, healthy, old, young. And now they were showing different symptoms than everyone else.

 

His theory was Swiss cheese it had so many holes. The problem was that they weren’t just different now - they had been different even as far back as Nevada. When that reversal had swept, Jillian and David had walked out. And the way Jilly had told it, they had stood within the bubble and watched others walk in and fall at their feet. So they had to have been mutated, or different, before that.

 

If only Jillian would wake up and tie the loose ends.

 

Landerly hadn’t come into the tent to check on her. The old man was too much like Jillian. If it was scientifically interesting he would be able to stand for hours and watch a patient breathe. After about two minutes of that he would be able to point out that every seventh breath was some micro-seconds shorter than the others and why that was significant. Then he’d check the chart for the patient’s name. But if there was nothing new about this patient, someone else could make the effort.

 

So Jordan had called his father, leaving Landerly alone with the reams of lists. Glad to hear Jackson’s