The Man Who Would Not Die by Thomas Page

Author:Thomas Page
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2019-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

The people Evan Branch had invited to view Forrester numbered over thirty and included representatives from the state board. They descended on the clinic over a period of a day and night, summoned from New York, Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, and parts unknown. Most were in their fifties and sixties, reminding Dutton that Branch had had quite a reputation in his day.

Bickel and his team arrived that morning to prepare the capsule for transferral. The assembled doctors studied the printouts and history of the patient and asked numerous questions about the LS system and its operation. Several were fortunate enough to witness a two-hour arrest which began just after ten-thirty in the morning and ended at twelve-forty-five.

Dutton searched the faces for some hint of awe, for something that would make him feel as if what they’d witnessed were incredible. He wanted desperately to share it, to take the burden off his back. But it was no good. When Forrester’s heart started again the only reaction was a solemn shaking of heads and an intense quizzing of Bickel about the device. There was one exception. A lady in her sixties, a doctor named Kampmeier, whose name Dutton recalled as being connected with virus research, continued watching Forrester’s body after it began breathing again, changing eyeglasses as her gaze went from the console to the capsule. She looked at Dutton with a sharp, suspicious expression. In a thick American-German-­­­­­­­­­

Yiddish-Hungarian and possibly part-British accent, she grumbled to Dutton, “Rigor mortis?” She sounded like she was blaming the doctor.

“Yes. And within three hours after revival, it’s gone. How, I don’t know, but the machine does inject a lot of protein.”

She grasped his shoulder and spoke with an undertone of bafflement. “Rigor mortis means he is dead. This cannot be right.”

Bickel had approached them, sensing the woman’s state of mind. “Don’t worry,” he said with a calming ease which would have been worthy of Forrester himself. “It’s almost certainly the machine circuitry, not the patient.” Bickel had been taking compliments from the doctors all afternoon. The fact the body was in such good condition after repeated cardiac arrests was considered a tremendous technical achievement. “The only thing that can kill the patient now is machine damage or someone putting the wrong drug into the system. And even if that happens, the machine will warn us.”

“I’d like to put some arsenic in it,” whispered Bernice into Dutton’s ear while smiling at the doctors.

Dutton had been cranking himself up to a series of decisions all afternoon. Grasping Bernice by the shoulders, he led her away from the group. “Bernice, I’m going to tell Bickel what happened. I want you to back me up.”

“Yes, sir. If you think so.”

“Now listen, love, don’t you have a vacation coming up?”

Bernice’s eyes acquired that soft shine inspired by religious visions and checks in the mail. “Do you think Dr. Branch would let me?”

“I’m letting you off. Go home and come back on the twenty-ninth. I’ll cover for you. Just stay long enough to help me button­hole Bickel.

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