Streams of Babel by Carol Plum-Ucci Read Free Book Online Page A

kept watching him because, in spite of his shrug- it-off tone, I sensed some tension. Being that my mother's presence here was taking my brain apart, it took me a minute to draw up obvious question number two.
    "So, what the hell is Johnny Gallagher doing here at midnight? Couldn't this wait until tomorrow? It's not like he's got the mayor on his slab."
    He shrugged. "He had to scrub to a Level Three, being that she was a needle user. Maybe he doesn't like to waste so much time during the day."
    I almost missed the way his eyes dropped from mine when he spoke. They didn't dart like most liars' would have.
    "That was pretty good, Alan. Nice try."
    "What?"
    "Come on. Did USIC call Johnny in to work on that corpse?"
    "
Mm...,
" he moaned, like a guy finding himself in check in a game of chess. "Your powers of observation have amazed me since you were about six."
    I watched as he put his feet up on the seat, and I said, "If there's anyone you guys should trust, it ought to be those of us who pick up the sick and the dead. What's going on?"
    "Probably nothing. I called Washington tonight to tell them I was putting this autopsy on my tab, under my training budget. They called back half an hour later and said to send any samples to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta."
    He shrugged again, and this time I sensed more sincerity, though the news disturbed me. The CDC is where all the paramedics' memos came from on emerging infectious diseases. And Mr. Steckerman had his own mountain on symptoms of bioterror. Welcome to the year 2002. The dust of the Trade Center falling couldn't reach into South Jersey, but the world seemed more panicky now. My supervisor, Phil, was always shaking his head at our memos and saying, "Strange times, strange times." The emerging infectious disease awareness had actually struck the summer before 9/11, but it was after 9/11 that we noticed our mail slots at work filled beyond what we
were able to read on the job. Add terror intrigue to science, and you've got Mount Memo.
    "Probably the CDC discovered extra space in its Strange Sinus Phenomena refrigerator, blathered that to the bosses, and we're just being good, contributing Americans. That's the assumption I'm working with at any rate. Even if Johnny Gallagher jumps when I mention the CDC. Generally, these things turn out to be nothing, Scott.
No-thing.
"
    Even if it was
no-thing,
my head went a little nuts. I envisioned Washington telling him some terror cell was trying to blampf us with the Ebola virus. Ebola kills with 90-some percent accuracy, and its deaths come equipped with bloody noses. Rumors flew that some sicko terror nations had gotten their hands on a few Ebola samples and had tried injecting it into soda cans as part of their fun-and-games curriculum.
    I would have laughed outright at my own imagination, but one's version of reality shifts a little when one's own mother lies down the hall—with a strange flu and accompanying nosebleed.
    I leaned forward in my chair as my mind for detail suddenly fired off a useful yet slightly nauseating image. "Alan, I'm sure you're sick of hearing the words 'water tower' after what you went through in January. However. You know that puddle in front of the Holman house has been there for weeks. I wasn't thinking of it too much tonight, except that it forced us to park the ambulance in the middle of the street. But if we're going to sit here and talk about USIC intrigue ... I'm thinking of it, okay?" I laughed uncomfortably. "I don't know how water towers work and all, but ... it's just funny, that puddle. It hasn't rained in over a month, and there's no sewer in the middle of that block to back up, so..."
    "So you're imagining some ... what? Some poison in the water so strong that it could eat through a pipe? Leak into the street?" He laughed, too. "Think of it. If a germ was that strong, we'd all be dead."
    "Well, don't snicker at me for trying too hard."
    "Actually, I'm laughing at myself! When we