Taji's Syndrome (34 page)

“Yes,” Weyman said to her back.

—Jeff Taji and Mason Ross—

HARPER ROSS
glared across the table at Jeff Taji, his hands clenched on top of a stack of printouts. “These figures have to be wrong. The readings aren’t accurate. Have you checked the equipment?”

“Yes; so have you.” Jeff felt bone-weary. “There isn’t an error.” He put his hand to his eyes. This interview was going more badly than he had feared; he had not found the proper things to say to Harper, to help him accept what the most recent tests had finally and incontrovertibly revealed.

“There’s got to be. Mason a TS carrier! It’s ludicrous.” Harper hit the table twice. “If he’s a carrier, how come no one noticed until now?”

“We weren’t looking for carriers. That’s our fault,” said Jeff. “And the confirmation wasn’t available until we started comparing his previous tests with the full PAST scan.” He saw resistance in Harper’s face but could not blame the man for his feelings. How would he feel if it were one of his kids in this predicament, he asked himself. How would he bear it?

“How many others do you think there are out there? What makes you choose him?” Harper choked out the question, unable to look away from the printouts.

“We don’t know.” Let it be few, he added to himself. “We’ve found Mason because of Kevin. We’re tracing back to the first cases in all the areas where there have been outbreaks. We have thousands of cases to check yet. That we found Mason so soon was more luck than we deserve.”

“I assume you’re looking?” The question was far more painful than sarcastic. Harper slapped the papers down and got up from the chair. “There’s a mistake.”

“Not in the figures. Not in the case.” Jeff shifted his position so that he could watch Harper.

“I’ll find an answer to this. We’ve come a long way for a short time. There’s more information now and we’re learning more every day. It stands to reason that we’ll make breakthroughs.” He was speaking to the air, paying no attention to Jeff. “There’s got to be an answer.”

“Yes,” Jeff agreed softly. “But in the meantime—I’m more sorry than I can say, Harper—Mason has to go into isolation. At once. It’s the only thing we can do, at least for the time being.” This was the part he had dreaded, and from the expression on Harper’s face, he had been right to do so.

“Don’t give me that crap!” Harper rounded on him, the full weight of his frustration and outrage falling on Jeff. “Don’t take that superior attitude with me. I’ve been working on TS since Kevin died, and I’m sick and tired of your assumption that all you have to do is flash your Atlanta credentials and the whole world will do what you tell it to. Who are you to send my boy into isolation because of a few questions, a few unusual readings in his PAST scan? What makes you think you have any right to do this?”

“I wish it weren’t your child. I wish it weren’t anyone’s child,” Jeff said. “I wish TS had never happened.”

“And that’s supposed to make it okay?” Harper’s voice had risen and his face was flushed. He moved awkwardly, as if his body was not entirely his own. “I won’t let you get away with it.”

“Harper, it’s not a question of anyone getting away with anything.” He stretched, trying unsuccessfully to ease the tension that was building in his neck and shoulders. “I don’t know what to say to you.” He heard his shoulder pop as he moved: was that stress or age?

“For starters, you can pull a few strings to keep my kid out of isolation,” Harper insisted. “Damn it, Jeff, you can’t pack him off like some kind of criminal. There are laws; he has rights.”

“I haven’t the authority to keep him out of isolation, and you know it.” Jeff put his hand to his head again. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t, not with a disease like this one.”

“How righteous.” Harper swept the printouts off the table with one long arc of his arm. “You proper bastard.”

Jeff watched the paper slither over the floor. “Harper,” he said quietly, “consider this a moment: suppose Mason knew about his condition—do you think—”

“He’s not going to know! I won’t let you do that to him!” Harper was shouting, his face working with emotion.

“—do you think,” Jeff persisted, “he would want to carry TS to one more person than he already has? Don’t you think he’s going to have trouble enough with his feelings now? Don’t you think he would want to isolate himself if he understood what was at stake?”

“Oh, that’s a very pious attitude,” Harper scoffed. “Mason’s thirteen. He’s been in the top of his class for years. He’s a popular kid. You’re proposing to turn him into a laboratory animal. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you see what you’d do to him?”

“I’m thinking about your son. You might not believe that, but it’s true.” He held Harper’s eyes with his own. “Your son is a carrier of TS. That is a fact. TS is a deadly disease. That is a fact. For his own protection, if not for public safety, Mason has to be placed in isolation, as do any and all carriers of TS.”

“Why so institutional? Why does it have to be in Atlanta, on the other side of the country? Why not let him stay here, under an arrangement of some kind, maybe house arrest. Why do you have to take him away from us.” Harper was not so angry now, but his desperation was plainer.

“For one thing, no one can guarantee you won’t get TS. You’ve been exposed to it, and there are signs that you could develop it. You can’t screen everyone who has any contact with him or other family members all the time, not full blood work and PAST scans and the rest of it, to say nothing of the tests we’re developing and trying. The hospitals are already having trouble, and adding another layer of regular tests would be more than they can handle. Think about what would have to be done, each day, every day. That simply isn’t possible, is it?” Jeff hesitated, worried about how Harper would respond to his next argument. “And there is the question of his protection. There are people out there”—he gestured toward the windows and the city of Seattle beyond—“who might want to exact vengeance on your boy because someone they loved died of TS. Can you be certain you could deal with that?”

“That’s being a little extreme,” said Harper carefully.

“People under stress are extreme by nature. Most of them will want to have the chance to claim their pound of flesh.” In a remote part of his thoughts, Jeff tried to decide if that was a mixed metaphor, and decided that it wasn’t, it was merely bad use of language. “Your son would have mote to deal with than his own doubts and guilt.”

“Mason’s not like that,” Harper declared.

“If he’s any kind of a human being, he is,” Jeff said, deliberately harsh. “How did you feel when you were a kid and you hit a squirrel on your bike? How did you feel when a friend caught your summer cold? Well, that’s just the tiniest part of what Mason is going to feel. You want to deny he’s a carrier, but for him it’s apt to be more of a crusade, an expiation. It’s not an uncommon reaction, particularly in young people. He’s going to need your help, not your denial.”

“That’s a well-rehearsed speech, Doctor Taji,” said Harper, sneering. “00 you use it on all your difficult cases?”

“I don’t like to make speeches at all,” said Jeff, refusing to rise to the bait. “I know people you can talk to who can explain this better. There’s a Doctor Loren Protheroe who specializes in cases like this. He’s already been assigned to the TS carriers. He’ll know more than I do. Let me give you his number.” He moved forward in his chair, reaching for his pen.

“Wait just a minute,” said Harper. “I want to get a few things straight with you.” His manner was outwardly calmer, but it was clear he was smoldering. “You’re prepared to take Mason no matter what, in part because you think he could be the target of something like a lynch mob. You’re not confining him, you’re sparing him hurt and dishonor.”

“If that’s the side effect, then fine: my purpose is to save lives, including your son’s, if I can,” said Jeff, making more of an effort to keep control of his temper. “Harper, I have to go see Mason. You can come with me or you can stay here, but if you do come with me, I hope you won’t decide to fight with me. What Mason has to hear is going to be hard enough without you being distraught.”

“Stop it!
Just stop it,” ordered Harper. “I can’t handle this.”

“Harper,” Jeff went on, “we haven’t time to smooth the way as much as I’d like. There is too much risk—can’t you understand?—in leaving Mason out of isolation.” He got up and reached for his attaché case. “Mason’s a smart kid. You’ve said so yourself. He has so much going for him. If anyone can handle this, he can. I’m depending on you to give him a break, so that he’ll have a chance to come to terms with his condition. Will you do that?”

Harper stood looking down at the printout he had shoved aside. “You really are convinced, aren’t you?”

“If it were any kid but Mason, you’d be, too,” Jeff said gently.

“No,” Harper said. “No, I don’t think I could ever see things in the cut-and-dried way you do, Jeff. Maybe that’s the difference between a professor of criminology and an epidemiologist.”

“Maybe,” Jeff said. “You ready?”

“You go ahead. I have to . . . think this through. I’ll be along in a while, and I’ll spend a lot of time with him then.” His face was sad and when be looked at Jeff, he could not speak at all.

“If that’s what you want. I’ll tell Mason you’re on the way.” The last was almost a question.

“Thanks.” He looked away, toward the windows.

It took Jeff almost ten minutes to get to Mason’s room, part of that time spent in putting on the quarantine gear that was still required for TS cases. As he checked the cuffs at wrist and trousers to make sure the elastic was sufficiently tight, he did his best to compose himself, to gather his thoughts before he had to face Harper’s son.

He found Mason sitting up in bed, wearing pajamas and watching television. “Doctor Taji?” Mason asked as Jeff got nearer his bed. “Everyone looks like they’re from Mars in those rigs.”

“Worse than that,” said Jeff, selecting one of two chairs in the room. “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad,” Mason answered, doing his best to hide his own puzzlement. “No one has said anything about my tests.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” said Jeff. “They leave those kinds of talks to me.” He wanted to ask Mason to turn the TV down or off, but could not bring himself to deprive the youth of his entertainment. “What are you watching?”

“One of those real old PBS reruns. The one about that spy, Sidney Reilly. It’s real good. They’re doing a whole bunch of those old mini-series on PBS right now. Next week they’re doing that
Wuthering Heights
they did five years ago.” As he spoke, he watched Jeff in a guarded, secretive way. “I got a kick out of it back then, even though we had to watch it for English at school.”

“I hope you’ll enjoy it as much now,” said Jeff. He tried to find a natural position to sit in and only succeeded in wadding up the quarantine garments more uncomfortably.

There was the sound of metal slamming against metal in the hall; Jeff winced and Mason did his best not to react at all.

“Have I got TS?” Mason asked suddenly.

“Not exactly,” said Jeff.

“How can I not exactly have TS?” Mason wanted to know. “You don’t have to try to make it easy for me, Doctor Taji. I’ve come to terms about Kevin. A lot of my friends have got it now. You can tell me whatever I have to know.”

“All right,” said Jeff, gathering his thoughts. “You remember back when your brother died, we were all pretty sure it was the result of an environmental toxin. I found the abnormalities in the blood and the ACTH and—”

“Yeah, I know about that. Dad’s told me about it, when he comes home from work. It’s almost all he talks about these days.”

Jeff held up a hand, silently recommending patience. “Identifying the nature of the symptoms was how the disease ended up with my name. We then thought that we had a cumulative or synergetic toxin—that is, a two-stage contamination—and then we changed our minds again and tried to find out if there was a genetic or a biological trigger. The trouble is, the Standard Public School Blood Screen hadn’t provided any warning or early information, and that’s what caused so much confusion.” He was finding it increasingly difficult to go on. “And now we have to admit that what we have is a mutant disease, highly communicable, that at least began with carriers.”

“Carriers? You mean like that lady who had typhoid and worked in kitchens? That kind of carriers?” Mason clearly did not accept this notion. “How can something that spread the way TS has spread be because of a carrier?”

“Because once you reach the second stage of the disease, you become a carrier as well, until the fever starts.” Jeff leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. On the TV screen, an actor who looked uncannily like Josef Stalin was writing out a document.

“You think someone in the family might be a carrier?” Mason asked, for the first time looking frightened.

“We know someone in your family is a carrier,” Jeff corrected as gently as he could.

“Dad?” Mason said, his voice rising an octave. “Is that why he’s not here?”

“No,” said Jeff. “No, it’s not your father. I’ve been trying to find the right way to say this to you, Mason, but there isn’t any right way. You’re the carrier, I’m afraid, and there are some measures we must take at once for everyone’s safety.”