The Thanatos Syndrome

to be patted.
    LL NA24—O C137—O
    TM NA24—O C137—O
    We gaze and blink some more.
    â€œDoes that mean what I think it means?” Lucy asks me.
    â€œIt means you and I are negative, zero levels of heavy sodium and chloride.”
    â€œI don’t get it,” says Lucy at last. “We both live here.”
    I look at her. “Have you heard anything about an accident over there? Or an incident? Or event?”
    â€œNot a word.”
    â€œWould you hear if there had been one?”
    â€œI don’t know. But I live next to the damn thing. So if anybody got sick, it would be me, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œOne would think so. If, that is, it—” I fall silent. “You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?”
    She cocks an eye. “Wouldn’t you have to test me to find out?”
    â€œTest you for what?”
    â€œPresenting rearward. Think about that.”
    â€œThat’s true,” I say, thinking about that.
    â€œOkay,” she says, not smiling, but eyes round and risible. “How many patients in your series?”
    â€œMaybe twenty or so.”
    â€œHow many were hospitalized or had blood work?”
    â€œMaybe half a dozen.”
    â€œDo you know who and where?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œLet’s try a couple.”
    â€œOkay. How about Mickey LaFaye? Here’s her SS number. But her workup was done at the local hospital.”
    â€œNo problem. They have a terminal and I’ve got their number. Now, she’s the one who—”
    â€œNew England lady, married Durel LaFaye—you know him—high roller—ended up as a starveling Christina with free-floating anxiety, panic, unnamed longing—”
    â€œMe too.”
    â€œWhat? You don’t look much like Christina.”
    â€œAren’t you glad?”
    â€œâ€”now a complete turnaround: a voluptuous Duchess of Alba pigging out on Whitman’s Sampler, goes berserk, shoots half her thoroughbreds, perhaps fooling around with groom—”
    â€œI got it!” She takes my arm in both hands, eyes bright. “Let’s run her! No, wait. Oh shoot. Their little terminal would be down. No, wait. They would have to report to Baton Rouge, wouldn’t they? Let’s try the mainframe again.”
    â€œJust ask for sodium. It’s the active ion.”
    Long colloquy, nixes, queries, Sn errors; then: okay, access; then: Na-24—18mmg.
    â€œWhat do you know.” I am gazing at the screen. Again there’s a tingle under my Bean collar. There’s more. There’s the heavy, secret, lidded, almost sexual excitement of the scientific hit—like the chemist Kekule looking for the benzene ring and dreaming of six snakes eating one another’s tails—like: I’ve got you, benzene, I’m closing in on you.
    Lucy feels the same excitement. She pulls up close, round-eyed. Her exultation gives her leave. She can say things, ask things she couldn’t ordinarily.
    â€œWe’ve got something big, Tom,” she says, pulling close.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI’m sorry about Ellen,” she says, still holding my arm, flushed with six emotions, happy enough to afford sorrow.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do about—” She stops, eyes searching my face.
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œAbout Ellen and—? About Ellen and—your life.”
    I don’t say anything.
    Another searching look, hands still on my arm, then a squeeze and a brisk yank at my sleeve, a brushing off. She lights up a cigarette, plucks a tobacco grain from her tongue.
    â€œLet’s do another one, Tom.”
    â€œAll right. Donna S—. That’s Donna Stubbs. Fat girl.Molested by father. A romantic at heart, expected a certain someone—”
    â€œMe too.”
    â€œâ€”did well in therapy, took up aerobic dancing, lost weight, dated, but when I saw her last week, she exhibited an unusual erotic response.”
    â€œUnusual?” asks Lucy, hands on the keyboard. “How?”
    â€œI told you about her. Presenting rearward—like estrus behavior in a pongid.”
    â€œHow would you know?”
    â€œShe also had the peculiar language response I told you about. Mention a place name, like her hometown Cut Off, and they seem to consult a map in their heads, a graphic like your computer here. They seem to look over my head as if they were following a cursor on