"Is the dosage the only difference from before?" comes the other, accusing voice.

"At this point, David, manipulating the Beta is an art, not a science.

I'm just attempting to create antigens, the way a smallpox vaccination does. Then we'll try to harvest them. This is not really a full-scale Beta procedure. I don't plan to do that ever again."

There was another long silence.

"That man who was here with her. Her cousin, did he say? I saw no family resemblance, but he seemed very upset."

"That's why I had him sent upstairs. I think he's the reporter W.B. was so concerned about. Anyway, he's gone."

Stone. She realizes that's who they're talking about. And now he's gone. She's on her own.

Next the voices drift away for a time, into some echo s.p.a.ce that mutes them. Finally, though, they come back.

"This should be adequate for another four hours. After that, you'll need a glucose IV to keep her hydrated."

"I've already put it on her chart. By then we should have some idea of which way this is going. I'm thinking, I'm praying, that this time is going to be the charm. That I've learned how to modulate the enzyme."

"Is she ready for transfer to IC?"

"Anytime."

The voices start drifting away. A fuzziness is enveloping her senses, leaving everything soft and muted.

The pain is gone from her body now, and the bright lights around her seem to be dimming. The figures in the white haze on the perimeter are now disappearing, one by one, as though filing out of a room. And now she feels like she's floating, with things moving past her.

Then, finally, one lone voice is talking to her, is really talking to her, in a private and unmistakable way. And as she drifts back into the gulf of anesthesia, she listens to words that do not make a lot of sense.

"The Fountain. Through all the ages, we've been looking in the wrong place. It's within us. Together, Alexa, we have this chance."

She listens as the voice begins to drift away. Yet she feels a genuine sense of closeness to it. She realizes she no longer has control of her destiny. But still she wants to be where she is.

Now the sea is coming back, flowing around her, and she tries to remember where she is and why, but all she is aware of is the sea rising, until she is engulfed.

Chapter 28

_Thursday, April 9

8:00 A.M.

_

Stone awoke in his Yorkville apartment nursing a hangover and a lot of regrets. He'd inhaled a triple scotch after driving Ally's Toyota back and parking it on the street the night before. He'd needed it.

Yesterday had been a day where, in sequential order, he'd seen a woman who'd lost her memory get kidnapped (probably); he'd been fired from his day job; he'd finally gotten inside the Dorian Inst.i.tute, only to blow the opportunity completely. But the most important thing that happened was, he'd rediscovered a woman he'd once been in love with and he currently didn't have the slightest idea what was happening to her.

Thinking back over their last few moments together, when she was being checked in by Van de Vliet and his research team and he was being hastily sent up to the lobby, Stone suspected that Ally was about to be subjected to something they didn't want anybody to know about.

Now he was determined to get back inside the inst.i.tute and look out for her.