Transhuman Read Free Page B

deep, shuddering breath before replying. “Dad, I know you want to help. You believe you can. But everybody else says you can’t. Even if they gave you permission to try, it’d never work. Angie’s going to die, and there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”
    Luke felt shocked. Norrie doesn’t believe in me? My own daughter doesn’t trust me?
    Without another word, he got up and brushed past Del, went out to the front hall, and pulled his overcoat out of the closet.
    Del came up behind him, still obviously simmering with anger. “Luke, I don’t want you telling Lenore any more of this crap about saving Angie. It’s tough enough for her without you telling her fairy tales.”
    Luke looked up at his son-in-law’s grim face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t bother either of you again.”

 
    University Hospital
    E ITHER THIS WORKS or I end up in jail, Luke said to himself as he strode through the front entrance of the hospital. It was eight A.M. , the hour when the administrative offices officially opened for business.
    The door to the admitting office was open, but no one was at the counter. The desks beyond the counter were unoccupied, the computer screens dark. Luke could smell coffee brewing and heard voices chatting through the open door to the back room. Frowning, he hollered, “Is anybody here?”
    He had spent the past two weeks preparing for this move. He had gutted his bank account and used part of the cash to buy a used Ford Expedition SUV, blood red. Then, in the garage beneath his Beacon Hill apartment building, he had done his best to turn the van into a makeshift ambulance.
    Stocking the vehicle with the equipment and medications Angie would need wasn’t easy, but the grad students who staffed his lab were willing labor. He answered their questions with gruff half-truths.
    Now came the big hurdle: springing Angie out of the hospital. I signed her in, he told himself, I ought to be able to sign her out. He hoped.
    At last one of the administrative staff came into the room in answer to his call. She looked nettled to see someone there so early in the morning.
    â€œCan I help you?” she asked, unsmiling. She was a Latina, considerably overweight, her skin the color of milk chocolate.
    Three hours later, Luke realized that these paper shufflers would have allowed Godzilla to check out a patient, as long as he could fill in all the forms. They didn’t recognize Luke; they hardly looked at him. All they wanted was for him to check each and every box on the stack of papers they handed him. Consent forms. Discharge forms. Insurance forms. Lots of insurance forms.
    Doesn’t matter to them who’s doing what to whom, Luke told himself as he waded through the paperwork. As long as all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed, their asses are covered.
    Halfway through the papers his bladder started sending distress calls. The joys of an enlarged prostate, Luke grumbled to himself as he got up and headed for the men’s room. He urinated, washed his hands, then returned to the administrative office and sat down to finish the seemingly endless forms.
    â€œJust what do you think you’re doing?”
    Startled, Luke looked up from the papers and saw Tamara Minteer standing over him, fists on white-coated hips, her expression halfway between suspicion and anger.
    Damn! he thought. I should have known these bureaucrats would contact the attending physician.
    â€œI’m taking my granddaughter to a different facility,” he half-lied.
    â€œYou can’t do that.”
    Luke saw that several of the administrators on the other side of the counter were staring at them. He pushed the papers aside and got to his feet. In a lowered voice he insisted, “I got Angie admitted to this hospital. I can get her discharged.”
    â€œHer parents—”
    He smiled grimly and pawed through