Code White by Scott Britz-Cunningham Read Free Book Online

anything.”
    She shut her eyes tightly, as if trying to escape an inner vision. “Don’t talk about Ramsey,” she snapped.
    “Ali, I was there. I remember how rough it was for you. If you’re worried that … we can get the best prenatal evaluation.”
    Ali felt a wave of nausea building. “I can’t do it, that’s all,” she said. “I can’t bear to even hope for anything anymore. It’s the hoping that hurts.”
    “At least think about it. P-p-promise me that.”
    “Look, Richard, I don’t even know it’s yours.”
    *   *   *
    Indeed, she did not know.
    Nine weeks and two days ago . It had been a long, awkward day with Kevin in the lab. They were performing a critical experiment for SIPNI, a test that everyone hoped would prove to the FDA that the device was ready to be tried on a real patient. SIPNI had been wired to a camera, and its ability to distinguish pattern, motion, and perspective was compared to a group of medical student volunteers. For seven hours, Ali and Kevin sat together in a semidarkened room, keeping score while test images and snippets of movies were projected onto a screen. They avoided speaking about the elephant in the room—Ali’s move out of the apartment—and tried to focus on the test. After some early glitches, SIPNI’s learning curve took off, so that by late afternoon the poor medical students got the pants beaten off them by a gizmo the size of an egg. SIPNI could instantaneously count 1,031 pencils in a jumbled pile, and identify the one pencil in 1,031 that had no eraser. In less than a second, it could do the same thing from a movie of the pencils being poured out of a canister. By every yardstick Ali and Kevin could devise, SIPNI saw more sharply, more vividly, more discerningly, and in more colors than the human eye and brain. Three years of work had culminated in a resounding success. The FDA would have no choice but to grant approval.
    There had to be a celebration. As the experiment broke up, Kevin suggested a late dinner together at Napoli, a quiet Italian hole-in-the-wall on Damen Avenue that had been his and Ali’s favorite for years. An innocent suggestion—except with Kevin, nothing was ever innocent. Everything was a move in a chess game. Ali felt uneasy about it from the start. As she drove to meet him at the restaurant, there was one point, waiting at a light, when she almost turned the car around. But it’s the least you can do , she thought. You walked out leaving a Dear John letter on the dresser. He deserves a face-to-face explanation. The restaurant, she knew, would be safe. If he made a scene, she could quickly leave.
    She was little prepared for what did happen. Kevin was as gentle as a puppy. He rose to greet her as she came through the door. He ushered her to their “special” booth in the back, and ordered for her, faultlessly remembering her penchant for funghi ripieni, stracciatella alla romana, and tortolloni quatro formaggi . There were no recriminations. He spoke only of how much he missed her, how cold and dark the apartment was without her. He reminisced about a trip they had taken to the Valle d’Aosta, in the Italian Alps, and how they had once planned to spend a summer walking the Grande Traversata together. And then he asked her point-blank to come back. He spoke feelingly, without guarding himself, without trying to hide the pain in his eyes or the nervous quaver in his voice. It was the hardest thing for him to do, she knew, to surrender his pride like that.
    No, it’s too late, she ought to have said. But her heart went soft at the sight of him pleading like a little boy. He seemed so different from the sarcastic egotist who had driven her away. Could he have changed? Had she judged him too hastily? She had brooded over her decision every hour of every day since moving out. Now, she was less sure than ever.
    Without answering him directly, she touched him on the hand and suggested they go for a walk. He paid the check