“Are you asking for my opinion whether to proceed?”
“Precisely. Ultimately, he is your patient. In this rather unique situation, I am, as you Americans say, only a hired gun.”
“How confident are you of your needle’s position?”
“Very confident. In all my experience with the stereotaxic frame, I have never not been where I targeted. There is also another reassuring factor in this case. We are adding cells, not doing ablative surgery, which is what I am usually doing with this procedure and which would cause far more problems if the needle were to be slightly off.”
“It is hard to argue with a one hundred percent record. I’m confident we’re in good hands. Let’s do it!”
“Right you are!” Dr. Nawaz said. He picked up the syringe, now loaded with the predetermined aliquot of treatment cells. After removing the trocar from the lumen of the imbedded implantation needle, he attached the syringe. “Dr. Newhouse, I’m ready to begin the implantation.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Newhouse said. He liked to be informed at critical stages of a procedure, and he quickly rechecked the vital signs. When he was done and had taken the stethoscope from his ears, he motioned for Dr. Nawaz to go ahead.
After raising the drape and having Dr. Newhouse give Ashley another nudge to wake him, Dr. Nawaz repeated the same instructions he’d given Ashley before inserting the needle. Only then did he start the implantation, utilizing another manual mechanical-assist device to depress the syringe’s plunger in a slow, even fashion.
Daniel felt a chill of excitement as he watched the implantation proceed. As the cloned dopamine-producing neurons augmented with genes from the blood on the Shroud of Turin were being slowly deposited in Ashley’s brain, he was confident medical history was in the making. In one fell swoop, the promise of stem cells, therapeutic cloning, and HTSR was being realized to cure a major human degenerative disease for the first time. With a sense of mounting exhilaration, he turned and flashed Stephanie a victory sign with his index and middle fingers. Self-consciously, Stephanie returned the gesture, with hardly the same alacrity. Daniel assumed it was because she was uncomfortable having to stand alongside Paul Saunders and Spencer Wingate and make small talk.
Midway through the implantation, Dr. Nawaz stopped as he’d done during the needle insertion. When he lifted the edge of the drape, he discovered that Ashley had fallen back asleep.
“Do you want me to wake him?” Dr. Newhouse questioned.
“Please,” Dr. Nawaz responded. “And maybe you could try to keep him awake for the next few minutes.”
Ashley’s eyes struggled open in response to being jostled. Dr. Newhouse’s hand was gripping his shoulder.
“Are you okay, Mr. Smith?” Dr. Nawaz asked.
“Delightful,” Ashley mumbled. “Are we finished?”
“Almost! Just a moment longer!” Dr. Nawaz said. After letting go of the drape, he looked at Dr. Newhouse. “Is everything stable?”
“Rock solid.”
Dr. Nawaz went back to depressing the syringe’s plunger. He continued at the same slow, controlled rate. At the moment he was about to give the mechanical-assist device the final twist, which would have delivered the last bit of treatment cells, Ashley mumbled something unintelligible beneath the drapes. Dr. Nawaz stopped, glanced at Dr. Newhouse, and asked if he’d understood what Ashley had said.
“I couldn’t hear it either,” Dr. Newhouse admitted.
“Is everything still stable?”
“There’s been no change,” Dr. Newhouse said. He put the earpieces of the stethoscope back in his ears to recheck the blood pressure. Meanwhile, Dr. Nawaz raised the edge of the drape and peered in at Ashley. The appearance of his face, which was visible only to the level of his eyebrows because of the frame, had changed rather dramatically. Curiously, the corners of his mouth were drawn up, and his nose was wrinkled in an expression that suggested disgust. This was even more surprising, because earlier his face had been demonstrably blank, a symptom of his disease.
“Is there something bothering you?” Dr. Nawaz asked.
“What is that awful stink?” Ashley questioned. He still sounded drunk, with his words running together.
“You tell us!” Dr. Nawaz said, with the stirrings of concern. “What does it smell like?”
“Pig shit, if I had to guess. What the hell are you people doing?”
An intuition of potential disaster spread through Dr. Nawaz like a faint, unpleasant electric current leaving a weak feeling in his stomach that only experienced surgeons know. He glanced at Daniel for consolation, but Daniel merely shrugged. With limited personal surgical experience, Daniel was only confused. “Pig manure? What’s that about?” he asked.
“Since there are no pigs in here, I’m afraid he’s having an olfactory hallucination,” Dr. Nawaz said, as if angry.
“Is that a problem?”
“Let’s put it this way,” Dr. Nawaz snapped. “It worries me. We can all hope it’s nothing, but I recommend we forego the last bit of implantation cells. Do you agree? We’ve given well over ninety percent.”
“If there is any question, absolutely,” Daniel said. He didn’t care about the last of the treatment cells. The amount he had decided on had been a mere educated guess, based on the mouse experiments. What bothered him was Dr. Nawaz’s reaction. He could tell the man was concerned, but he had no idea why a bad smell would be so worrisome. But the last thing Daniel needed was a complication of any sort, especially not when they were this close to success.
“I’m withdrawing the needle,” Dr. Nawaz said for Dr. Newhouse’s benefit, although there was no inhalation anesthesia to lighten up. With the same amount of care Dr. Nawaz had used for the insertion, he slowly extracted the implantation needle. Once its tip cleared the brain, Dr. Nawaz checked for any sign of bleeding from the site. Thankfully, there was none.
“Needle out!” Dr. Nawaz announced and handed it over to Constance. He took a deep breath and then lifted the edge of the drape to look in at Ashley. He could sense Daniel was looking over his shoulder. Ashley’s expression of revulsion had changed to irritation. His mouth was now set, with his lips pressed together in a thin line. His eyes were open wider and his nares flared.
“Are you all right, Mr. Smith?” Dr. Nawaz asked.
“I want to get the hell out of here,” Ashley snapped.
“Do you still smell that odor?”
“What odor?”
“You complained about a bad smell just a moment ago.”
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. All I know is I want out of here!” Suddenly intent on standing up, Ashley strained against the tape holding his torso to the cranked-up operating table and against the tape on his wrists. At the same time, he drew his legs up, bringing his knees to his chest.
“Hold him down!” Dr. Nawaz shouted. He leaned across Ashley’s lap, trying to force Ashley’s legs back down flat with the weight of his body. Dr. Nawaz was still holding up the edge of the drape, watching Ashley’s face turn red with effort.
Daniel dashed to the foot of the operating table and reached in under the drapes to grasp Ashley’s ankles. He tried to pull them down and was surprised at Ashley’s strength of resistance. Dr. Newhouse had released the hold he had on Ashley’s shoulder to grab his wrist, which Ashley had succeeded in freeing from its taped restraint. Marjorie leapt around the table to grab Ashley’s other arm, which was also coming free.
“Mr. Smith, calm down!” Dr. Nawaz shouted. “Everything is okay!”
“Get off me, you freaking animals,” Ashley shouted back. He sounded like the quintessential belligerent drunk, resisting all efforts to be constrained.