Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner (18 page)

"Fine. But how?"

"There's a computer man at the hospital owes me a favor," Doc said. "Jerry Kosinski. We fixed his kid's broken leg last year, remember?"

"Little guy with glasses? Yeah."

"He knows more about surveillance systems than anybody else I can think of. At least he could check out your room for you, and maybe do something about the transponder too. You go ahead and eat; I'll make a call from the corner."

A few moments later Doc was back. "Got him, and he'll meet us. Your room, as soon as he can get there. We'd better get along." He finished his steak, saw that Billy's soup was untouched. "What's the matter, you sick?"

"Just not hungry," Billy said, pushing the soup away. "Let's get out of here."

Back in his room Billy emptied a chair for Doc to sit down in and made a pot of coffee. They waited in silence as an hour passed, then another. Doc dozed, his head on his chest; Billy paced, pausing now and then to peer down at the street below through the steamy window. At last there was a rap on the door, and Billy let the little computer man in.

Jerry Kosinski nodded to Doc, shook hands with Billy, and set a small black valise on the floor. "Sorry to take so long," he said. "The snow has slowed traffic all over." He wiped steam from his glasses and peered around the room. "So you're having trouble with bugs, eh?"

"You might say so," Doc said. "We're not sure about the room, but there's no question about the bracelet the boy's wearing."

"Well, let's take the room first. You said there was a matchstick receiver installed here two days ago that's gone now, right? Where was it?"

Billy showed him the tiny hole in the floorboard where the bug had been. With flashlight in hand the little man went over the whole room, whistling through his teeth as he peered and probed. One by one he pulled testing instruments from the valise, completely absorbed in his task. He paid special attention to the telephone and computer console, at one point making an outside call and waiting for a call-back. Finally he sighed and looked at Billy. "If there's anything in this room that's bugged right now, I can't spot it. I think you're clean."

Billy took a deep breath and sat down on the bed. "That's good news," he said finally. "Now if there were just some way to shake this bracelet—"

"Let's have a look," Kosinski said. He studied the transponder closely, took some intruments from the valise, fiddled with dials. "Well, it's a standard police transponder," he said at length. "You don't dare try to take it off, or tamper with it, but we can certainly spoof it."

"Spoof it?"

"Fix it so it doesn't tell them anything." The engineer dug in his bag again and laid two devices out on the table. One looked almost identical to Billy's transponder, the other like a woman's hairnet made of fine silvery wire. "The idea is to set up a phony signal that they can't distinguish from the real one, and then block the real signal so they think the phony signal is valid. This gadget here is just another transmitter like the one on your wrist. We'll tune it to transmit exactly the same signal as your bracelet. Once I start it, we'll just lay it on your dresser here and leave it. It'll keep broadcasting for at least two months on the power pack that's attached. Meanwhile, we'll muffle your bracelet with this wire net gadget here. It's very similar to the old-fashioned Farra-day cages they used to use for privacy screens, but it's much smaller. It does the same thing, though—it keeps signals from going through. Once it's on, you can go any place you want and they can't follow you. Now let's get this set."

For several minutes Kosinski worked with the phony transponder, adjusting it, checking a tuning dial, then readjusting it. "Now hold out your wrist." He made a final adjustment and pressed a stud on the phony transponder. Quickly, then, he wrapped the wire mesh around Billy's wrist transponder and anchored it in place with a couple of laces. "There," he said. "You'll have to be sure that stays on, but as long as it does, the police grid will be picking up the signal from the phony transmitter, not from yours."

Billy looked at the wrapped bracelet and then at Kosinski. "You mean that's all there is to it? The phony is working now?"

"That's right."

"And if I leave it on the dresser there I can go anywhere I want and they'll think I'm right here?"

"Right. If you're smart, you'll take the phony with you when you go out to eat and things like that, so they'll see
some
activity, but leave it here when you don't want to be followed. If you want to switch back for some reason, just unwrap the muffler and then unlock the stud on the phony transmitter—but then don't

try to activate the phony again without help. Just give me a call."

Billy laughed. "Fat chance of that. Doc, we're back in business."

Doc smiled. "Thanks to Jerry."

"Don't fret, Doc. Junior may break another leg." The little engineer repacked his valise and climbed into his coat "Any problems, just let me know. I'd better get back now before I'm snowed in."

When the engineer had left, Billy lay back on the bed. "Okay, Doc. Now what?"

"For the moment, nothing," Doc said. "While you've been having your troubles, I've been having mine, and I think we'd better lie low for a day or two. You get your phone reconnected, and stand by. I'll contact you when I need you."

"Suits me," Billy said. "With this headache I feel like I could sleep for a week."

Doc looked up sharply. "I thought you looked lousy. How long have you had a headache?"

"Since this morning."

"Anything else?"

"I've been chilly all day. A little sore throat, and I kind of ache all over. That's about all."

"All right, let's check your temperature." Doc pulled a small leather pack from his pocket.

"Aw, come on, I'm just catching cold, that's all."

"Maybe and maybe not. After what I've seen going on, I'm not taking any chances." He stuck a thermometer in Billy's mouth. A moment later he checked it and swore aloud.

"What is it?"

"A hundred and three," Doc said disgustedly. "Why didn't you say you were getting sick?" He pulled a sealed culture tube from his kit, swabbed Billy's throat, and sealed the swab back in the tube. Next he withdrew a syringe and needle and injected some medicine into

Billy's shoulder. "That Viricidin, just in case this is the Shanghai flu you're coming down with. I'm also leaving some capsules here. Take two of them now and two morning and evening until they're gone—got that? And if that headache isn't gone by tomorrow evening, don't wait for me to call, you call me . . . okay?"

Billy nodded dully, shivering in the overheated room. At Doc's urging, he repeated the medication instructions. "Good," Doc said finally. "Take some aspirin too, and then get to bed and stay there. I'll keep in touch."

Moments later Doc was back down on the street. He walked through drifting snow to an Upper City arterial, clutching his coat collar to his throat, and finally caught a ground-cab. He sat back wearily, suddenly and overwhelmingly sleepy. It had been a long and disquieting day, and he could not shake the feeling that he would need energy to spare when he reached the Hospital next morning.

IX

His code number was flashing intermittently on the paging system when he walked into the Hospital just before seven next morning, and a light blinking on his mail box indicated a message was there. In the box he found copies of two new patient admission slips bearing his name as attending physician—one for a Will Hardy, aged forty-eight, the other for Robert Hardy, aged twelve. According to the slips, father and son had arrived at the hospital by ambulance shortly after midnight and had been admitted to an isolation ward by the emergency room intern who had first seen them. In each case the admitting diagnosis was acute meningitis.

So the Hardys
had
come back, after all. Doc tucked the notices in his pocket, and made his way across the hospital lobby to the doctor's lounge. Here he picked up a telephone to answer his page, sipping coffee and munching a doughnut as he dialed his code. Two calls were in for him, one from 14 West, the isolation ward where the Hardys were admitted, and one from Katie Durham. He rang the isolation ward first. The desk nurse there, dressed in isolation gown and mask, looked relieved when she saw him on the screen. "Did you get slips on your two new patients, Doctor? They both look very sick, and we'll need some orders on them."

"Okay, I'll be up right away," Doc said. He rang off, started to ring Katie Durham's office, and then put the phone down. He was early, and Katie could wait. Finishing his coffee, he left the lounge and jumped on a west-wing jitney. Ten minutes later he was slipping into an isolation gown and mask in the dressing room of 14 West.

"I'm glad you got here," the nurse was saying as she led him down the corridor to a six-bed wardroom at the end. "The intern has gotten routine studies started and ordered up IV's, but we need continuation orders for the Viricidin, and something for pain and fever."

"Any sign of convulsions?" Doc asked.

"Not yet, but if they go like some of the others, that could begin any time, and then the ones we've had have just gone right on out."

"Well, we may be in time." He stepped into the room and saw the two Hardys in beds at the far side. An intern was adjusting an IV on the older man. Doc crossed the room, frowning. Will Hardy was obviously far sicker than when Doc had last seen him thirty-six hours before, but he managed a feeble wave of his hand. "Hi, Doc. I should have done what you said. This neck's really getting me now."

"How's the boy?" Doc said, looking across at the sleeping figure in the other bed.

"Better than me," Hardy said. "His stifl neck didn't start until after dinner last night."

"Well, let's take a look at you." Carefully, painstakingly, Doc examined the older man, checking heart and lungs, extremities, neurological signs. Then he took the chart from the intern, nodded in satisfaction. "Okay, things seem to be under control here. You'll both need continuous IV's, and we're going to keep you loaded up with medicines. You're going to have to be here awhile, I'm afraid, and you're to do everything the nurse tells you—no nonsense whatever, understand?"

"Don't worry, I'll behave."

"You'd better. Now what about your wife?"

"I'm not sure. They kept her in the emergency room for some tests and shots, I think."

"Well, I'll check," Doc said. "She didn't get the Shanghai flu when the rest of you did; she may be all right with just immunizations. I'll check back with you tonight. Meanwhile get some rest."

Back at the nurse's desk Doc wrote examination notes on the charts, together with additional orders. "Keep a close eye on them," he told the nurse. "They should have come in two nights ago, but there may still be time."

"I hope so. Sometimes these Naturist people just don't use good sense."

"It isn't just the Naturists that are in trouble," Doc said. "You're going to have a floor full of sick people here before this is over, unless I miss my guess." He finished his notes and handed her the chart. "Page me if you need me," he said.

By eight o'clock the hospital was alive with early-morning activity, with elevators and jitneys full. Back in his street clothes, Doc made his way up to Katie Durham's office. In the reception room her secretary looked up from the two telephones she was handling simultaneously and sighed. "TTiere you are! Dr. Durham is about climbing the walls."

"What's the trouble?"

"They don't tell
me
the trouble, but it's like a convention in there, computer people in and out all night. They called me in at five o'clock to handle the phone, and I don't think Dr. Durham got home at all."

Katie's head appeared at the door. "Will you try paging John Long again, urgent? Oh, he's here." She looked weary and shaken, and there was no mistaking her relief at Doc's presence. "John, did you ever call it! You have no idea. Come on in, we're finally making some sense out of these figures."

Doc followed her into her office, then stopped dead. The place was in chaos. Two large tables in the middle of the room were heaped high with papers, with computer print-outs cascading to the floor on all sides. Dr. Ler-ner and two other people from Records were huddled over one pile of papers, speaking into small microphones, and a technician was punching colored pins into a city map draped the length of one wall. Across the room by the window, separate from all the activity, was a short, balding man with wire-rim glasses and a small mustache. "John, you must have met Mason Turnbull, Chief of the Eastern Division of the Department of Health Control?"

"Oh, we've met," Doc said. "He ran that four-day conference on the robot-training program last year, remember? Look, if I'm interrupting something—"

"Not at all," Turnbull said. "On the contrary, we've been waiting for you for some time."

Doc's face darkened, and he turned to Katie. "Look,

I had an appointment with
you
this morning. What's he doing here?"

"I called him at two o'clock a.m., that's what he's doing here. John, we've got
trouble
on our hands, we aren't worrying about the robot-training program right now."