The Nirvana Plague Read Online Free Page B

seemed natural to ask Roger.
    “Wrong?” Roger said. “What’s wrong mean?”
    Chandra started flexing her hands, making tight fists then opening her hands and pressing them flat on the table. Each time she balled them up, she grunted with effort.
    “Chandra?” Miles said.
    “Statements can be wrong,” Roger said. “People can only be what they are.”
    Roger looked far away, distracted. Meanwhile, Chandra was becoming increasingly agitated.
    Miles reached out and put his hand on her arm as she made a fist. It felt like a smooth branch, hard as wood. Startled, he caught his hand back.
    Chandra erupted into a loud howling cry, “Ahhhhh!”
    The sound of it put Miles’ teeth on edge.
    The whole ward froze.
    Chandra stood abruptly, throwing her chair over. Her face opened and her eyes blazed white hot.
    “Oh, shit!” Miles said, getting up.
    Roger and Jeanette looked up at her, impassively, interested.
    She threw her arms out and yelled something incomprehensible.
    The other patients in the ward started reacting now — some of them heading toward their rooms, some of them putting their heads down, some of them watching and getting upset.
    Someone said, “It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault,” over and over.
    Nurses and orderlies were coming toward them from two directions now, weaving through the patients.
    Chandra looked down at Roger sitting beside her, her face glowing, mouth open, trying to speak, finding no words.
    Roger calmly held her eyes with his.
    “Roger!” Miles said, “what’s happening?”
    But he didn’t answer.
    The reinforcements had arrived. One of the orderlies took hold of Chandra’s left arm.
    “Miles!” Mary-Lynn barked. “Get her other arm!”
    “No!” Roger yelled suddenly and stood up. “Let her be!”
    But now Chandra was violently trying to wrench herself free. In another second she’d dislocate her shoulder. Miles had to grab her too.
    Chandra was a small woman, but she squirmed and twisted, and it was hard to carry her out without dropping her.
    Jeanette sat calmly across the table from her the whole time, watching the struggle.

Chapter 4
    Thursday was Karen’s busy day on campus — two lectures, a lab, and office hours. She saw Marley’s call come in on her tablet during her first lecture (Introductory Microbiology), but she didn’t return it till nearly four o’clock. Back in her office (an eight-foot cinder-block cube with a narrow pasteboard door in one side), she shut the door behind her, dropped her shoulder bag full of books, slumped into her chair, and called him on her desk phone.
    His office manager put her on hold.
    While she held, she put the call on speaker, threw her legs up on her desk, popped the cap off a bottle of water, and took a slug. Leaning back, she played with it in her mouth, sloshing and gurgling.
    Marley’s voice burst from the phone:
    “—Hanover?”
    Startled, Karen blew water up her nose. “Y-yes-s-s,” she coughed.
    “Are you there?”
    “Yeah,” she muttered, reaching for the mute button with one hand and a Kleenex with the other.
    “Sorry, I thought we’d lost you. You still there?”
    She punched the mute off again. “Yes, doctor. I haven’t had a chance to return your call till now.”
    Marley sounded tense. “Can you go to video, please?”
    “Uh, sure.” She turned the screen of the phone around and flipped on feedback-only — using it as a mirror to inspect her face for errant snot before going to video. Face clean, she enabled two-way.
    Marley’s face appeared. He smiled thinly. “I met with your husband this morning. Have you talked to him yet?”
    “No. This is the first chance I’ve had to use the phone. I was planning to call him after I talked to you. Thursday’s are — Why do you ask? Is he all right?”
    “So you don’t know he checked himself out of the hospital?”
    “What?”
    “Yes, I just found out myself.”
    “Jesus. What time did this happen?”
    Marley looked