Passage. Part 8

"He found me," Joanna said. "He wants me to work on a research project with him. Studying NDEs."

"And-?"

"And I don't know," Joanna said wearily.

"He isn't cute? Louisa said he had blond hair and blue eyes."

"No, he's cute. He-"

"Oh, no, please don't tell me he's one of those near-death nutcases.""He's not a nutcase," Joanna said. "He thinks NDEs are the side effect of a neurochemical survival mechanism. He's found a way to simulate them. He wants me to work with him, interviewing his subjects."

"And you said yes, didn't you?"

Joanna shook her head. "I said I'd think about it, but I don't know."

"He doesn't want you to do this simulation stuff, does he?"

"No. All he wants me to do is consult, interview subjects, and tell him if their experiences match the NDE core experience."

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't know... I'm so far behind in my own work. I have dozens of interviews I haven't transcribed. If I take on this project, when will I have time for my own NDE subjects?"

"Like Mrs. Davenport, you mean?" Vielle said. "You're right. Gorgeous guy, legit project, no Maurice Mandrake, no Mrs. Davenport. Definitely sounds like a bad deal to me."

"I know. You're right," Joanna said, sighing. "It sounds like a great project."

It did. A chance to interview patients Mr. Mandrake hadn't contaminated and to talk to them immediately after their experience. She almost never got the chance to do that. A patient ill enough to code was nearly always too ill to be interviewed right away, and the greater the gap, the more confabulation there was. Also, these would be subjects who were aware they were hallucinating.

They should be much better interview subjects. So why wasn't she leaping at the chance?

Because it isn't really about NDEs, she thought. Dr. Wright saw the NDE as a mere side effect, a-what had he said?-"an indicator of which areas of the brain are being stimulated and which neurotransmitters are involved."

It's more than that, Joanna thought. They're seeing something, experiencing something, and it's important. She felt sometimes, like this afternoon with Greg Menotti, or with Coma Carl, that they were speaking directly to her, trying to communicate something about what was happening to them, about dying, and that it was her duty to decipher what it was. But how could she explain that to Vielle or to Dr. Wright, without sounding like one of Maurice Mandrake's nutcases?

"I told him I'd think about it," Joanna said evasively. "In the meantime, would you do something for me, Vielle? Would you check Greg Menotti's records and see if his girlfriend's phone number had a fifty-eight in it, or if there was some other number he might have been talking about, his own phone number or his Social Security number or something?"

Vielle said, "ER records are-"

"Confidential. I know. I don't want to know what the number is, I just want to know if there was some reason he kept saying 'fifty-eight.' ""Okay, but I doubt if it's anything," Vielle said. "He was probably trying to say, 'I can't have had a heart attack. I did fifty-eight push-ups this morning.' " She took Joanna's arm. "I think you should do the project. What's the worst that could happen? He sees what a great interviewer you are, falls madly in love with you, you get married, have ten kids, and win the n.o.bel Prize. You know what I think? I think you're afraid."

"Afraid?" Joanna echoed.

Vielle nodded. "I think you like Dr. Right, but you're afraid to take a chance. You're always telling me to take risks, and here you are, turning down a terrific opportunity."

"I do not tell you to take risks," Joanna said. "I try to get you to avoid risks. It is the front down there in the ER, and if you don't transfer out-"

The elevator dinged. "Saved by the bell," Vielle said and stepped quickly into the elevator. "This could be the chance of a lifetime. Take it," she said. "See you Thursday night. Nothing with dying in it.

And remember," she burst into song, " 'You've got a lot of living to do!' "

"And no musicals," Joanna said. "Or dopey romances," she added as the door closed on Vielle.

Joanna pressed the "up" b.u.t.ton, shaking her head. Love, marriage, children, the n.o.bel Prize.

And then what? Boating on the lake? An Angel of Light? Wailing and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth? Or nothing at all? The brain cells started to die within moments of death. By the end of four to six minutes the damage was irreversible, and people brought back from death after that didn't talk about tunnels and life reviews. They didn't talk at all. Or feed themselves, or respond to light, or register any cortical activity at all on Richard's RIPT scans. Brain death.

But if the dying were facing annihilation, why didn't they say, "It's over!" or, "I'm shutting down"?

Why didn't they say, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, "I'm melting, I'm melting"? Why did they say, "It's beautiful over there," and, "I'm coming, Mother!" and, "She's too far away. She'll never get here in time"? Why did they say "placket" and "fifty-eight"?

The elevator opened on fifth, and she walked across the walkway to the elevators on the other side. The Other Side. She wondered if this was how Mr. Mandrake envisioned the NDE, as a walkway like this. It was obvious he thought of the Other Side as a Hallmark card version of this side, all angels and hugs and wishful thinking: everything will be all right, all will be forgiven, you won't be alone.

Whatever death is, Joanna thought, taking the elevator down to the parking lot, whether it's annihilation or afterlife, it's not what Mr. Mandrake thinks it is.

She pushed open the door to the outside. It was still snowing. The cars in the parking lot were covered, and flakes drifted goldenly, silently down in the light from the sodium streetlights. She lifted her face to the falling snow and stood there, watching it.

And how about Dr. Wright? Was dying what he thought it was-temporal-lobe stimulation and a random flickering of synapses before they went out?

She turned and looked up at the east wing, where Coma Carl lay boating on the lake. I'm goingto tell Dr. Wright no, she thought, and started out to her car.

She should have worn boots this morning. She slipped on the slick snow, and snow filled her shoes, soaking her feet. Her car was completely covered. She swiped at the side window with her bare hand, hoping against hope it was just snow and not ice. No such luck. She unlocked the car, threw her bag in the backseat, and began rummaging for the sc.r.a.per.

"Joanna?" a woman's voice said behind her.

Joanna backed out of the car and turned to face her. It was Barbara from Peds.

"I've got a message from Maisie Nellis," Barbara said. "She said to tell you she's back in and that she has something important to tell you."

"I know," Joanna said. "I've already been up to see her. I understand she's doing really well."

"Who told you that?"

"Her mother. She said Maisie was just in for tests, and the new antiarrhythmia drug was working wonders. It isn't?"

Barbara shook her head. "She is in for tests, but it's because Dr. Murrow thinks there's a lot more damage than showed up on the heart cath. He's trying to decide whether to put her on the transplant list or not."

"Does her mother know that?"

"That depends on what you mean by knowing. You've heard of being in denial, haven't you?

Well, Maisie's mother is Cleopatra, the Queen of Denial. And positive thinking. All Maisie has to do is rest and think happy thoughts, and she'll be up and around in no time. How did you get permission from her to interview Maisie about her NDE? She doesn't even let us use the term heart condition, let alone death."

"I didn't. Her ex-husband was the one who signed the release," Joanna said. "A heart transplant?

What are Maisie's chances?"

"Of surviving a transplant? Pretty good. Mercy's got a seventy-five percent survival rate, and the rejection stats keep improving all the time. The chances of keeping her alive till a nine-year-old's heart becomes available? Not nearly as good. Especially when they haven't found a way of controlling the atrial fib. She's already coded once," she said. "But you know that."

Joanna nodded.

"Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know she was back in. She loves it when you visit her.

G.o.d, it's cold out here! My feet are freezing!" she said and headed off toward her Honda.

Joanna found the sc.r.a.per and started in on the front winds.h.i.+eld. The wait for a heart was frequently over a year, even if you were moved to the top of the list, a year during which the damaged heart continued to deteriorate, dragging the lungs and the kidneys and the chances of survival downwith it.

And that was for an adult heart. The wait for children was even longer, unless you were lucky.

And lucky meant a child drowned in a swimming pool or killed in a car accident or frozen to death in a blizzard. Even then the heart had to be undamaged. And healthy. And a match. And the patient had to be still alive when it got there. Had to have not gone into V-fib again and died.

"If we can figure out how the dying process works," Richard had said, "that knowledge could eventually be used to revive patients who've coded."

Joanna moved to the back winds.h.i.+eld and began brus.h.i.+ng snow off the window. Like the elderly woman she had seen from Coma Carl's window. Heart attack weather, Vielle had said. Dying weather. Disaster weather.

She went back into the hospital and asked the volunteer at the front desk if she could borrow the phone. She asked for Dr. Wright's extension.

He wasn't there. "Leave a message at the tone," the message said. It beeped.

"All right," Joanna said to the answering machine. "I'll do it. I'll work with you on your project."

5.

"CQD CQD SOS SOS CQD SOS. Come at once. We have struck a berg. CQD OM.

Position 41 40' N, 50 14' W. CQD SOS."

-Wireless message sent by the t.i.tanic to the Carpathia.

Richard checked his answering machine as soon as he got to work the next morning to see if Joanna had called. "You have twelve messages," it said reprovingly. Which was what you got for spending all day running around the hospital looking for someone.

He started going through the messages, clicking to the next one as soon as the caller had identified himself. Mrs. Bendix, Mrs. Brightman. "I just wanted to welcome you to Mercy General,"

she said in an ancient, quavery voice, "and to tell you how delighted I am that you are researching near-death experiences, or, rather, near-life experiences, for I feel sure your experiments will convince you that what these patients are witnessing is the life and the loved ones we will find again on the other side of the grave. Are you aware that Maurice Mandrake is also at Mercy General? I presume you have read The Light at the End of the Tunnel?"

"Oh, yes," Richard said to the machine.

"We're extremely fortunate to have him here," Mrs. Brightman's message continued. "I feel sure you two will have a great deal to say to each other.""Not if there's a stairway handy," he said and hit "next message." A Mr. Edelman from the National a.s.sociation of Paranormal Experiences, Mr. Wojakowski.

"Just double-checking about tomorrow," Mr. Wojakowski said. "Tried to call you before, but couldn't get through. Reminds me of these telephones we had on the Yorktown for sending messages up to the bridge. You had to wind 'em up with a crank kinda deal, and-"

Mr. Wojakowski, once started on the Yorktown, could go on forever. Richard hit "next message." The grants office, telling him there was a form he hadn't turned in. "Wright?" a man's voice said. Peter Davis, his roommate when they were interns. He never bothered to identify himself. "I suppose you've heard," Davis said. "I can't believe it about fox, can you? This isn't some kind of virus, is it? If so, you'd better get vaccinated. Or at least call and warn me before you hit the star. Call me."

He wondered what that was all about. The only Fox he knew was R. John Foxx, a neuropsychologist who'd been conducting research on anoxia as the cause of near-death experiences.

Richard hit "next message" again.

Someone from the International Paranormal Society. Mr. Wojakowski again. "Hiya, Doc.

Hadn't heard from you, so I thought I'd try again. Wanted to make sure it's two o'clock tomorrow.

Or fourteen bells, as we used to say on the Yorktown."

Amelia Tanaka, saying, "I may be a few minutes late, Dr. Wright. I've got an anatomy exam, and last time it took the whole two hours. I'll be there as soon as I can." Mr. Suarez, wanting to reschedule his session for tomorrow. Davis again, even more incomprehensible than before. "Forgot to tell you where. Seventeen. Under phantom," followed by an unrecognizable tuneless humming.

Housekeeping.

"Dr. Wright?" Joanna's voice said. He leaned alertly toward the machine. "This is Joanna Lander. A-Your machine is full," the answering machine said.

"No," Richard said. d.a.m.n Davis. d.a.m.n Mr. Wojakowski, with his endless reminiscences of the Yorktown. The one message he really needed to hear- He hit "repeat" and played the message again. "Dr. Wright? This is Joanna Lander. A-" Was that sound at the end "I," as in, "I'd love to work with you on your project." or a short "a," as in, "After due consideration, I've decided to decline your offer"?

He listened to it again. "Ah," he decided. As in, "Ah, forget it"? Or, "All my life I've wanted a chance at a project like this"? There was no way to tell. He'd have to wait until ten o'clock and see if she showed up. Or try and locate her.

Or not, considering this hospital. That was all he needed, for her to be here waiting and looking at her watch, while he tried to find his way back from the west wing. He picked up the phone and paged her, just on the chance she had her pager switched on, and then hit "repeat" again. There must have been something in her tone that would be a clue as to whether- "All your messages have been erased," the machine said. No! He dived at the machine, hit "play." "You have zero messages."Richard grabbed for a prescription pad. "Wojakowski," he scribbled. "Cartwright Chemical, Davis-" Who else? he thought, trying to reconstruct the messages in his mind. Mrs. Brightman, and then somebody from Northwestern. Geneva Carlson? The phone rang. Richard s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, hoping it was Joanna. "h.e.l.lo?"

"So, have you seen it?" Davis said.

"Seen what, Davis?"

"The star!"

"What star? You call and leave an undecipherable message-"

"Undecipherable?" Davis said, sounding offended. "It was perfectly clear. I even told you what page the article was on."

Not a star. The Star, the tabloid newspaper. "What was the article about?" Richard asked.

"Foxx! He's gone nutcase and announced he's proved there's life after death. Wait a minute, I've got it here, let me read it to you..." There was a thunking sound as he dropped the phone, and a rattle of paper. " 'Dr. R. John Foxx, a respected scientist in the field of near-death research, said, "When I began my research into near-death experiences, I was convinced they were hallucinations caused by oxygen deprivation, but after exhaustive research, I've concluded they are a preview of the afterlife.

Heaven is real. G.o.d is real. I have spoken to Him." ' "

"Oh, my G.o.d," Richard murmured.

"He's leaving medicine to open the Eternal Life Inst.i.tute," Davis said. "So, my question is, is this something that happens to everybody who does NDE research? I mean, first Seagal claims he's located the soul in the temporal lobe and has photos of it leaving the body, and now Foxx."

"Seagal was always crazy," Richard said.

"But Foxx wasn't," Davis said. "What if it's some kind of virus that infects everybody who studies NDEs and makes them go wacko? How do I know you won't suddenly announce that a picture of the Virgin Mary appeared to you on the RIPT scan screen?"

"Trust me, I won't."