Die Again Tomorrow (17 page)

CHAPTER 31

 

“G
alileo?” Isabel knocked on the door to his cabin. It was the morning after the storm. Now the sea was at peace again, and the mast had survived as a charred hunk of wood, but the atmosphere inside the ship was more turbulent than ever. All anyone could speak or think about was Dr. Quinn. Since his collapse, he had been sequestered in the operating room on the lowest deck, tended to by the most senior doctors and nurses aboard, including Chris.

No one else knew what was going on. Was he dead or alive? Did his own drug work to save him? Had he told anyone the formula? What if he didn't make it? The speculation was morbid and all-consuming.

The only question people
weren't
asking was why he allegedly slipped in the first place. He was a feeble old man with poor balance. Of course the violent storm could have caused him to slip and hit his head on the railing. A tragic conflation of circumstances. Only Isabel and Richard harbored suspicions. And she wasn't doing any good by keeping them to herself.

“Come in,” Galileo called. His door was unlocked. She went in. His cabin was as unpretentious as the others, which surprised her. She was expecting a master suite for the man in charge. Instead, in a cursory glance, she noted his narrow white walls, twin bed, plain wooden desk. Not enough floor space to cartwheel.

He was hunched over the desk scrutinizing a piece of paper. A ray of light from the porthole shone on his face. She noticed the wrinkles around his mouth and the heaviness of his eyelids. The mischievous smile in his eyes was gone. He looked bereft.

An uneasy feeling settled over her when she realized the extent of her reliance on this man she barely knew—to protect her family. To protect her. To catch her killer. It was tempting to think of him as almost superhuman, the leader of a powerful Network who could accomplish the unimaginable. But no matter how much confidence he inspired, she saw that he was just as vulnerable as anyone else.

“Isabel,” he said wearily. “What can I do for you?”

She struggled to get out her message. Somehow, keeping it to herself made it less threatening, less real.

“How's Dr. Quinn?” she started.

Galileo gave a little shake of his head, his lips tight. She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.

“Well,” she said, “I don't want to disturb you, but I thought you should know something about his . . . accident.” She took a deep breath to slow her palpitating heart. What she was about to say could not be taken back. The strange part was that she actually liked Chris. His rebellious spontaneity excited her. But any romance they might have shared was obviously out of the question now.

“Um, that's the thing,” she said. “It wasn't an accident.”

Galileo frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Chris did it,” she blurted. “Richard saw the whole thing. Everyone else was distracted by the fire, but Chris pushed him when the ship was rocking and that's why he hit his head.”

Galileo narrowed his eyes. “You've got to be joking.”

“I'm not. And then when I went over there, I could tell Chris wasn't really crying.”

“First of all, it was dark and pouring rain, so you couldn't have seen much.”

“But my senses are heightened! I notice everything.”

He lay his large palm flat on the desk. She could tell his patience was thinning. “We agree that your and Richard's perception seem enhanced by the X101, right?”

“That's what I'm saying.”

“But we don't yet understand how or why, or what other side effects you might experience. That's partly why you're here. All we know is that certain neuronal pathways are impacted during the metabolic process. Isn't it possible that in your heightened
emotional
state from the fire, you thought you perceived something and jumped to conclusions? More possible, I think, than one of my researchers assaulting his mentor out of the blue?”

“I know what we saw,” she said stubbornly. “We weren't hallucinating.”

Galileo sighed. “Chris has been here a long time. Years. I assure you I know him a bit better than you do.”

“So you trust him?”

“Let me put it this way: Horatio insisted on working with him above anyone else. And he had a pretty hard time with trust.”

She flinched at his use of the past tense. Did that mean the doctor was dead?

“Maybe he had a blind spot,” she muttered, thinking of her ex-fiancé who had betrayed her when she was least expecting it. “Sometimes that happens with the people closest to you.”

But as she said the words, an inkling of doubt crept in. What was the drug doing to her brain? Could she even trust herself anymore?

Galileo ignored her comment. “What were you doing with Chris in the lab last night, anyway?”

She reddened. “He only took me there to show off. We heard you coming and got embarrassed.” She hoped he wouldn't remember that she'd been half naked.

“So let me get this straight: last night you guys were, should we say, involved, and now you're turning him in?”

“I didn't know what he was capable of.”

“Well, I do.” His tone was edgy. “So forget all about it, okay?”

She opened her mouth to protest, but sensed it would be smarter to back off. In just forty-eight hours, they would dock in New York. She couldn't risk him reneging on their deal because she insisted on stirring up trouble.

“Okay.” She turned to leave. “I just thought you should know.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, but he wasn't smiling.

Back in her cabin, Richard was waiting for her. He stood up from her bed when she entered.

“Well?”

Instead of explaining, she trudged toward him and rested her cheek against his chest. His heart thumped under his shirt with reassuring steadiness as he wrapped his arms around her.

Are we going crazy?
she wanted to ask him. But deep down she knew the truth. The reality they perceived wasn't a side effect of the drug. A violent criminal was loose on the ship—even if Galileo didn't believe her. But why should he take her seriously? He knew her as scarcely as she knew him.

Terror overwhelmed her—along with an intense longing for the people who supported her and respected her judgment. Her mother. Her brother. And Richard.

Richard had been one of those people all along.

 

 

“I'm afraid I have some bad news.”

The chatter on the top deck immediately ceased. Galileo looked grim as he surveyed the thirty-seven out of thirty-eight residents aboard—everyone except Dr. Quinn. Everyone stood huddled before him in groups of twos and threes, awaiting the update he had promised to deliver that evening.

In the back row, Isabel squeezed Richard's arm. Her mouth was dry. She saw that Chris was standing a few yards in front of them next to Theo, the young researcher who had also assisted in her resuscitation. Chris's hands were shoved in his pockets. He was staring straight ahead, his expression appropriately somber. Apart from their brief encounter the night before over Quinn's head injury, she had not spoken to him since their rendezvous in the lab. How long ago that seemed!

Galileo leaned against the glass wall as if standing took too much effort. Behind him, the twilight sky was flecked with stars that someone, somewhere might have found beautiful.

He drew a ragged breath. “I'm deeply sorry to report that Dr. Quinn is in a vegetative state. Even though we were able to get his heart back, his head injury was too severe to allow the X101 to restore his brain function.”

Isabel was struck by surreal detachment. Was this really happening? She heard the crowd's gasps, felt her entire body clench, saw the devastation all over Galileo's face. But still the news—and its implications—didn't sink in.

“What's gonna happen to him?” someone shouted. A chorus of voices echoed the sentiment.

Galileo grimaced. “As many of you no doubt realize, this is what Horatio himself most feared. He never wanted to resuscitate a patient only to have the drug fail and leave them brain-dead. He and I spoke many times about what to do in such a case, which, fortunately, he never encountered. He was very clear that he considered it an affront to human dignity to keep such a patient alive on machines with no prospect of recovery. During one discussion, he became so adamant that he spelled out his own wishes in writing.”

Galileo pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. Isabel recognized it as the one he had been examining earlier that day at his desk. He read aloud:

“
I, Horatio L. Quinn, never want to be kept alive on machines in a state of permanent unconsciousness. If it comes to that, then for the love of God, just hasten my death with morphine instead of removing the tubes and waiting for all my organs to shut down. I don't give a damn about a natural exit. Only that it's fast and painless. And please don't make a fuss about a burial. I'd rather swim with the fish than rot underground. Just say something nice and get on with it. Then go back to work.
”

Galileo raised his eyes to the crowd with a pained smile. “He was a bit unorthodox, as we all knew.”

Isabel exchanged a troubled glance with Richard. Dr. Quinn was asking to be euthanized. That was illegal in the U.S.—though the Network was, of course, outside the law. Loads of people considered it unethical as well, a form of murder. But was it, if the patient asked for it?

“Since he couldn't have been more explicit,” Galileo went on, “we're going to follow his instructions. I feel it's only right to honor his wishes. Tomorrow morning, we'll hold a brief funeral. Then we'll dispose of his body in a respectful manner in accordance with his instructions.”

The researchers murmured their approval. Just then, Chris glanced over his shoulder in Isabel's direction and caught her eye. He raised his eyebrows as if to say
You all right?

She tried not to appear flustered. It was clear he had no idea about her suspicions. So she just gave him a weak nod and shifted her gaze back to Galileo.

“There's one other thing,” he was saying, “that I know many of you are wondering about. The X101. Unfortunately, Horatio never did reveal its formula—and the only dose we had was used up on him.”

Agitated cries broke out. The drug was the Network's crown jewel. The cash cow they were depending on to fund other research for decades—and everyone knew it.

Galileo held up a hand. “Wait, before you all panic.” Isabel stifled a noise in her throat when he gestured to—of all people—Chris.

“We're extremely lucky that Horatio's protégé is such a diligent student. Chris thinks he's picked up all the complicated elements of the chemical compound and its synthesis from years of observing Horatio in the lab. If he can replicate it successfully on his own, we're back in business. As you all know, I can't overstate how crucial this is.

“And for that reason, I owe you an apology. I feel I've failed you as a leader. I should have held firm that Horatio hand over the formula long ago. But he refused to work under any rules but his own, so I always gave in, thinking he would relax eventually. Just last night, I thought we might have reached a tipping point.” He sighed. “The timing could not have been worse.”

It's not a coincidence
, Isabel wanted to shout. The only logical explanation lit up in her mind like a flare: Chris must have known he could synthesize the drug the whole time. Then when he overhead Dr. Quinn about to give up the secret, he seized on the soonest possible opportunity to get rid of him. Maybe, she thought, Chris had been planning to get rid of him at some point all along.

Her eyes bore into Chris's back. From her angle, the side of his long face was visible. He was watching Galileo ever so innocently.

“There's just one big challenge in Chris's way,” Galileo continued. “Total precision is required for the drug to be synthesized properly. To ensure quality control, Horatio would compare each new dose against a perfect sample. That's why he always made sure to have at least several doses on hand. But the supply got low from the trial, and before he could replenish it, those couple doses unexpectedly went to our new subject Richard, and then to Horatio himself.”

“So how can Chris make it right?” one researcher shouted. “We're screwed!”

Isabel frowned, thinking back to the previous night. Chris must not have been expecting to sacrifice that last dose. She remembered how he'd protested at first before using it on Dr. Quinn—some excuse about the severity of his brain injuries. But now his real motive clicked into place. If her hypothesis was right, Chris was no friend of the Network. He was feigning loyalty now to exploit its resources so he could make a new dose, if accuracy was even still possible. Then he'd steal it for himself—and there was no telling what he might do to get away with it.

“Not necessarily,” Galileo said. “There's hope yet.” He squinted into the crowd until his gaze rested on Isabel and Richard standing in the back. She glanced behind her to see who he might be looking at, but there was no one else except for the dog, Captain, lying at her feet.

“Isabel, Richard,” he said, “you guys are experiencing temporary side effects of the X101 because it's
still in your body.
Chris can use your blood to extract its traces and reverse engineer the perfect sample. It's a tall order, but if anyone can do it, I have confidence in him.”

Her lips fell open. All the researchers turned to gawk at them as though they were the last members of some endangered species.