The Nirvana Plague (7 page)

He stared straight up, not looking at her.

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Roger?” she sobbed.

His head turned toward her. One eye was swollen almost shut, but the other focused on her in the gloom. She noticed he had another line of stitches across his right ear.

“Oh, honey!” she said, and bent over him.

“Karen,” he said, slowly, his voice cracked.

She kissed his face gently. “Honey, why didn’t you call me?”

“Call you,” he said.

She sat up again. “Why didn’t you call me when you left Joplin this morning?”

His gaze drifted away. “Why?” he repeated, as if unfamiliar with the word.

“Are you hurting very bad?” she said.

“There is pain,” he said. “There is, it is — I mean, here there is pain. I mean, not there. I mean. I mean. Mmm. That’s the meaning.”

She looked him up and down. “Where, honey?”

“Here,” he said. “Not there.”

“Not where?”

“Not there.”

He made a slight gesture, and she realized he meant
her
. Not
her.
That the pain was not her pain. “No, honey, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”

“No,” he agreed.

She heard a footstep behind her as Marley came in from the corridor.

“Nice to see you again, Roger,” he said. “I let the staff know that I’m your psychiatrist, and had a look at your chart. I’m sure they’ll be releasing you in the morning. I won’t keep you awake now, but I’d—”

Roger looked at Marley and extended his good hand toward him, and the doctor took it spontaneously. Roger gripped his hand firmly.

“And I’d —” Marley stammered, looking down at their joined hands. “But I’d like to talk to you again soon.”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow.” He felt Roger’s grip tighten. It seemed to him a kind of chill shot through his arm. “About — About your—”

“Yes.”

He stopped trying to speak.

Roger said nothing either.

Finally, he used his free hand to pull Roger’s hand loose from his own. “All right then,” he said. “I’ll let you sleep now. Karen, I’ll wait for you in the visitors’ lounge. It’s just around the corner there.”

After he’d gone, Karen asked Roger what had happened to him.

Roger’s gaze drifted up to the ceiling again. “Remember,” he said.

“Remember what?”

“Yes,” he said. “Remember what?”

“Don’t you remember what happened to you?”

“Memories. Thoughts.” He spoke slowly, as if he wasn’t sure whether he was using the right words. “There is that, yes.”

“Just tell me.”

“There is asking. And answering. Asking causes answering. But. But. But who?”

“Roger, just talk to me.” She took his face in her hands. “To
me.
”

In the gloom of the room, his small eyes sparkled under her face. “There’s, there’s no, there’s no — ”

He stopped trying to talk and just looked at her —
into
her. She hadn’t seen such a look from him in many years. But it wasn’t just intimacy. He
saw
her. Suddenly she felt fear — or something like fear. She began to cry again, silently, tears spilling from her eyes and falling on him. She saw his eyes soften.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “No need.”

“I’m not worried, honey,” she whispered. “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

“Understand.” Vaguely.

“Please get some sleep now, OK? I’ll be here in the morning. I’ll take you home.”

He said nothing, his eyes softening more, already going to sleep, as if on command.

“Roger? Promise me that you won’t try to leave your room tonight.”

But he was already asleep.

Karen picked up the sheets and blankets he had knocked on the floor and spread them over him.

She sat beside him for a long time while he slept.

She found Marley sitting in the visitors’ lounge near the nurses’ station, reading something on his tablet. She slumped into the seat next to him. Typical hospital furniture — she might slide off it any second.

Marley looked up.

“How does he seem?”

“I’m staying here tonight,” she said. “I don’t trust him not to try and leave.”

“I’ll stay too.”

“Nonsense.”

“He’s different, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

She shifted in the chair. Comfort was impossible. “Now go home,” she said.

“I want to talk to him as soon as possible tomorrow.”

“What’s the urgency?”

“The urgency is that it may continue to spread.”

“Worried about a patient rebellion?”

“Among other things.”

“Well, you can go home tonight. Come back tomorrow. Don’t you want to get some sleep?”

“I can talk my way into the doctors’ lounge.” He nodded toward a pillow and folded blanket stacked on the sofa beside her. “Also I asked the charge nurse to bring you a blanket and pillow. You can stretch out here on the couch.”

“You’ve really become almost human, doc.”

“Almost.”

“What are you doing there?”

He tapped his tablet. “I’ve been doing some research. The thing is, I’m having trouble labeling the symptoms. When I interviewed the other two patients today, I strongly felt the similarity of their behaviors with what I saw in your husband this morning, yet I can’t quite put my finger on what these behaviors are. Behaviors doesn’t even seem like the right word.”

“I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve never seen Roger talk so slowly, and, and something else. So
indefinitely
. He always thought fast and talked fast — and with complete assurance. Even before he got sick. A lot of people, when they first met him, thought he was arrogant, but I liked it. But now he doesn’t seem to know what he wants to say. It’s like talking to a child in some ways. Did you ever have a four-year-old try to tell you something they didn’t have the words for? Lots of false starts, and repetitions, and disjointed syntax.”

“Right. All three of these patients seem to be at a loss for words. But it isn’t like they don’t understand what happened to them, they just don’t know how to say it. However, I will tell you Roger is less coherent now than he was earlier today. Not surprising, considering what he’s been through.”

“I wish I’d seen him.”

“I’d guess you’d have been even more impressed than I was.”

“So what do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“But you have a theory.”

“Not a theory. But I see certain correspondences.”

“With what?”

“Let’s talk more about it later. I’m not sure what I think yet.” He stood up. “I’ll come find you for breakfast.”

“It’s silly for you to stay over. What about your wife — Ally?”

“She‘s a big girl.”

He said it defensively. Karen saw it. There was more to that story.

Morning rounds done, Marley had returned to his office on Joplin’s second floor and logged in to the
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
to check the feedback on his article, “Case Report: Pseudo-infectious Iatrogenesis of Depersonalization Disorder in Five Schizophrenic Patients.” He had an hour for lunch between morning rounds and his first outpatient appointment. For the past week, since his article had come out, he’d been spending that hour at his desk, reading and responding to feedback. The article was getting some attention. Several prominent physicians had already posted responses, challenging some of his assumptions, calling for more details, grabbing some attention for themselves. And he’d also received two invitations to consult on similar outbreaks at two other primary care facilities. Checking his e-mail now, Marley was pleased to discover an enthusiastically-worded invitation from the chairman of the planning committee for the Annual Convention of Clinical Psychiatry to present a follow-up report at their upcoming meeting in New York. He began composing his acceptance at once:

“I would be happy — I would be honored — I would be pleased to present—”

The receptionist beeped in, interrupting his composition. “Dr. Marley?”

He thumped the answer button on his screen. “Yes? What?”

“There’s a Colonel Benford asking to see you.”

“Lunch break.”

“I know. She says it’s urgent.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Colonel Sarah Benford.”

“What does she want?”

“She says she’s from the NIH.”

Pause.

“She says it’s about IDD.”

Holy shit. “Send her in.”

Marley tapped the door open from his screen and stood up.

A few seconds later, a female Army officer stepped into his office, flanked by two subordinate male officers. She was in olive uniform — slacks, overcoat over one arm, flight cap tucked in her belt. She looked about fifty, slightly greying blond hair pulled back in a tight roll, sharp eyes, fit build. She smiled and crossed to his desk, extending her hand. She moved with a controlled, economical grace and self-assurance.

“Dr. Marley, pleasure to meet you. I’m Dr. Benford, from the NIH.”

Marley shook her hand, glancing at the expressionless subordinates who’d closed his office door behind her and taken up positions inside it. When the guards stand inside it’s to keep you from getting out.

“What can I do for you?” he said.

“I want to talk to you about depersonalization disorder. Shall we sit down?”

Marley hadn’t thought to offer her a seat. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was with armed guards in the room.

Benford sat down in the chair in front of the desk and crossed her legs.

Marley returned to his chair behind the desk. “You say you’re from the NIH?”

“Yes,” she said. A slight smile crossed her face and was gone. “I’ve just flown in from Washington.”

“You came from Washington just to talk to me about depersonalization disorder?”

“Yes.”

On his desktop screen, the cursor in his message editor blinked on the first line of his reply.

I would be pleased to present |

He tapped it off.

“OK. Well, you have my attention now.”

Again the brief smile appeared on her face and vanished. “Dr. Marley, what I’m about to tell you is classified. I want to make sure you understand that. If we are to continue this conversation, it can only be with the understanding that you may not discuss anything we say here with anyone outside this room. You were a communications officer in the Navy, and you had clearance at that time, so you understand the implications.”

Was this for real? It was easy to see that she had carefully planned what she was going to say to him and how she was going to say it.

“So, shall we continue?” she said.

He nodded. He felt wary. And excited.

She seemed to relax a bit. But even that looked planned.
Now when he agrees to continue, sit back a little.
“My boss reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security,” she said. “Under the auspices of the NIH, I have been ordered to organize and take charge of a special infectious disease task force. Your brief on an outbreak of infectious depersonalization disorder here at Joplin was forwarded to me by our research staff.”

“Pseudo-infectious,” he said. “I called it
pseudo
-infectious depersonalization disorder.”

“You don’t think five cases in one week counts as a bona fide infectious outbreak?”

“Not without a plausible vector.”

“Dr. Marley, the cases of IDD you observed at Joplin last month were not isolated.”

“I know. I’ve been contacted by doctors at two other hospitals who think they may have the same thing going on.”

“Dr. Marley, we’ve known about IDD since January. According to the latest estimate by Defense Department doctors, there are now more than three-hundred active cases.”

That stopped the clock. “Three-hundred?”

“Yes. More.”

“I don’t follow. Where are these cases?”

“Among active duty personnel.”

“You have soldiers with psychiatric disorders?”

“We do now.”

He looked at her blankly.

“Doctor,” she said, “it’s happening on the line. It’s happening to perfectly healthy young men and women.”

“On the battlefield?”

“Yes. On the battlefield.”

“What makes you think it’s the same disorder I wrote up?”

She smiled again — more than a flash this time. He saw he’d finally asked the right question. “That’s why I want you to come to Bethesda and join my team.”

Marley studied her.
Pull the other one.

She waited for a response.

He realized she wanted to see how he would react.

“OK,” he said, more or less seriously. “I’m in.”

“We’re going to figure out what this thing really is and find a way to stop it. Organizational meeting will be 0800 in Building 33. You’ll be housed on the NIH campus. There’s a C-20 transport with priority clearance waiting at O’Hare to fly us back to Washington.”