Side Effects by Michael Palmer Page A
Authors: Michael Palmer
Tags: Fiction, thriller, Suspense, Medical, Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, Fiction - Espionage
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flashy enough. Not showy enough. Her services are no longer required.
Excuse me, I'm going to the bathroom to get sick. Then I'm going to my hospital. People there are grateful and appreciative for the things I do well. I like that. It helps me to get up in the morning." Fists clenched, she turned and raced from the room.
Roscoe, who had settled himself under the table, padded to the center of the room and after a brief glance at the men, followed.
^..'/
Ginger Rittenhouse, a first-grade teacher, had just finished her run by the ice-covered Charles River Page 21
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
when she began to die. Like the random victim of a crazed sniper, she did not hear the sound or see the muzzle flash of the weapon that killed her. In fact, the weapon was nothing more malevolent than the corner of her bureau drawer; the shot, an accidental bump less than twenty four hours before to a spot just above her right ear.
"That's one incredible lump!" her new roommate had exclaimed, forcing an icepack against the golf ball-sized knot. The woman, a licensed practical nurse, had commented on the large bruise just below her right knee as well. Ginger was too self-conscious to mention the other, similar bruises on her lower back, buttocks, and upper arm.
Her death began with a tic--an annoying electric sensation deep behind her right eye. The wall of her right middle cerebral artery was stretching. Bruised by the shock from the bureau drawer, the vessel, narrow as a piece of twine, had developed a tiny defect along the inner lining. The platelets and fibrinogen necessary to patch the defect were present, but in insufficient amounts to do the job. Blood had begun to work its way between the layers of the vessel wall.
Squinting against the pain, she sat on a bench and looked across the river at the General Electric building in Cambridge. The outline of the building seemed blurred.
From the rent in her right middle cerebral artery, blood had begun to ooze, a microdrop at a time, into the space between her skull and brain. Nerve fibers, exquisitely sensitive, detected the intrusion and began screaming their message of warning. Ginger, mindless of the huge lump over her ear, placed her hands on either side of her head and tried to squeeze the pain into submission. Powered by the beating of her own heart, the bleeding increased. Her thoughts became disconnected snatches.
The low skyline of Cambridge began to fade. Behind her, runners jogged by. A pair of lovers passed close enough to read the dial on her watch. Ginger, now paralyzed by pain that was far more than pain, was beyond calling for help.
Suddenly, a brilliant white light replaced the agony.
The heat from the light bathed the inside of her eyes. Her random thoughts coalesced about woods and a stream. It was the Dingle, the secret hiding place of her childhood.
She knew every tree, every rock. Home and safe at last, Ginger Rittenhouse surrendered to the light, and gently toppled forward onto the sooty snow.
Monday 10 December
First there was the intense, yellow-white light--the sunlight of another world. Then, subtly, colors began to appear: reds and pinks, purples and blues. Kate felt hers elf drifting downward, Alice drawn by her own curiosity over the edge and down the rabbit's hole. How many times had she focused her microscope in on a slide? Tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands. Still, every journey through the yellow-white light began with the same sense of anticipation as had her first. The colors darkened and coalesced into a mosaic of cells; the cells of Beverly Vitale's left ovary, chemically fixed to prevent decay, then embedded in a block of paraffin, cut thin as a slick of oil, and finally stained with dyes specific for coloring one or another structure within the cell. Pink for the cytoplasm; mottled violet for the nuclei; red for the cell walls.
With a deep breath calculated at once to
Excuse me, I'm going to the bathroom to get sick. Then I'm going to my hospital. People there are grateful and appreciative for the things I do well. I like that. It helps me to get up in the morning." Fists clenched, she turned and raced from the room.
Roscoe, who had settled himself under the table, padded to the center of the room and after a brief glance at the men, followed.
^..'/
Ginger Rittenhouse, a first-grade teacher, had just finished her run by the ice-covered Charles River Page 21
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
when she began to die. Like the random victim of a crazed sniper, she did not hear the sound or see the muzzle flash of the weapon that killed her. In fact, the weapon was nothing more malevolent than the corner of her bureau drawer; the shot, an accidental bump less than twenty four hours before to a spot just above her right ear.
"That's one incredible lump!" her new roommate had exclaimed, forcing an icepack against the golf ball-sized knot. The woman, a licensed practical nurse, had commented on the large bruise just below her right knee as well. Ginger was too self-conscious to mention the other, similar bruises on her lower back, buttocks, and upper arm.
Her death began with a tic--an annoying electric sensation deep behind her right eye. The wall of her right middle cerebral artery was stretching. Bruised by the shock from the bureau drawer, the vessel, narrow as a piece of twine, had developed a tiny defect along the inner lining. The platelets and fibrinogen necessary to patch the defect were present, but in insufficient amounts to do the job. Blood had begun to work its way between the layers of the vessel wall.
Squinting against the pain, she sat on a bench and looked across the river at the General Electric building in Cambridge. The outline of the building seemed blurred.
From the rent in her right middle cerebral artery, blood had begun to ooze, a microdrop at a time, into the space between her skull and brain. Nerve fibers, exquisitely sensitive, detected the intrusion and began screaming their message of warning. Ginger, mindless of the huge lump over her ear, placed her hands on either side of her head and tried to squeeze the pain into submission. Powered by the beating of her own heart, the bleeding increased. Her thoughts became disconnected snatches.
The low skyline of Cambridge began to fade. Behind her, runners jogged by. A pair of lovers passed close enough to read the dial on her watch. Ginger, now paralyzed by pain that was far more than pain, was beyond calling for help.
Suddenly, a brilliant white light replaced the agony.
The heat from the light bathed the inside of her eyes. Her random thoughts coalesced about woods and a stream. It was the Dingle, the secret hiding place of her childhood.
She knew every tree, every rock. Home and safe at last, Ginger Rittenhouse surrendered to the light, and gently toppled forward onto the sooty snow.
Monday 10 December
First there was the intense, yellow-white light--the sunlight of another world. Then, subtly, colors began to appear: reds and pinks, purples and blues. Kate felt hers elf drifting downward, Alice drawn by her own curiosity over the edge and down the rabbit's hole. How many times had she focused her microscope in on a slide? Tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands. Still, every journey through the yellow-white light began with the same sense of anticipation as had her first. The colors darkened and coalesced into a mosaic of cells; the cells of Beverly Vitale's left ovary, chemically fixed to prevent decay, then embedded in a block of paraffin, cut thin as a slick of oil, and finally stained with dyes specific for coloring one or another structure within the cell. Pink for the cytoplasm; mottled violet for the nuclei; red for the cell walls.
With a deep breath calculated at once to
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