Laurie was again awed by the degree of damage wrought by the bacteria, many of which she could see as disc-like clusters in the microscope's two-dimensional field. The normal alveolar structure of the lung was being dissolved by the bacteria's flesh-eating toxins such that abscesses of varying sizes were being formed. As she moved around with the help of the mechanical stage, she could see capillary walls in various stages of sepsis, causing hemorrhages into the septic soup that filled the lungs. The amount of destruction of the lungs' normal architecture reminded her of images of a city following a carpet bombing or a trailer park directly ravaged by a category five hurricane.

For more than an hour Laurie went through the tray of slides one by one. Using a higher-power lens, Laurie was even more impressed with the bacteria's pathogenicity. Focusing in on fibrous tissue responsible for maintaining the lung's normal structural architecture, she could see that the tissue was coming apart like the skin of an onion. Covalent bonds were being broken and collagen itself was dissolving into its constituent molecules.

"Hey, sweetie," Jack said as he quietly breezed in. He was becoming progressively adept on his crutches. "How's your day going?"

Laurie looked up, her face paler than usual.

"What's up?" Jack questioned. His smile waned. "You look terrible."

Laurie took in a deep breath and let it out. The tissue destruction she had been viewing had had a visceral effect on her. The fact that it had occurred within hours in a previously healthy person couldn't help but underline how fragile human beings ultimately were. The idea of enjoying any sort of health seemed a miracle.

Jack put his hand on her shoulder. "Really, are you okay?"

Laurie nodded and took another breath. She tapped the barrel of her microscope. "I think you ought to take a look at this. Keep in mind it was a normal, healthy person just a few hours earlier."

Laurie pushed herself back from the desk to give Jack room.

Jack put his crutches aside and leaned down toward the eyepiece, but about halfway he hesitated, then regained full height.

"Wait a second," he said suspiciously. "Is this a setup? Am I being slyly seduced into looking at a slide of your MRSA case from yesterday?"

"Remind me never to try to slip something by you," Laurie said with a wan smile. Her blood pressure had quickly risen back to normal, returning color to her face and clearing the accompanying queasiness. She admitted it was a section of lung from David Jeffries.

Jack looked into the microscope, and, moving the mechanical stage, he took a quick tour of the section. "Wow," he said. "It's totally destroyed. I see hardly any normal architecture."

"Does it change your mind about elective surgery where you might find yourself dealing with such a pathogen?"

"Laurie!" Jack scolded.

"Okay," Laurie said, pretending to be nonchalant. "I just thought I'd ask."

"How were your cases today? You seemed to have been engrossed more than usual."

"They were fine, particularly from a teaching perspective, such that they took longer than I hoped. I wanted to get up here ASAP and work on my matrix." She patted the legal pad. "It's the only thing left that I have that has a snowball's chance in hell to convince you that you are specifically at risk for being exposed to MRSA during your scheduled surgery."

"And?" Jack asked, looking at Laurie askance.

"I haven't found anything yet," she admitted before looking at her watch. "But I still have about fifteen hours."

"Ye gods. And you call me bullheaded."

"You are bullheaded. I'm merely persistent, and, of course, I have the added benefit of being right."

Jack waved Laurie away and gathered his crutches. "I'm heading to my office to clean things up since I'll be gone for a few days." He emphasized the few days.

"How were your cases today?"

"Don't ask. Riva promised some good ones; instead she gave me two natural deaths and an accidental one, none of which were at all challenging. Lou's case was more interesting. The slug's caliber and the indentations from an apparent chain to keep her sunk suggested the same killer. The difference was she was raped."

"Tragic."

"Another testament to the inherent wickedness of man."

"I'm glad you said man. Now get out of here. I only have fifteen hours."

"What time do you want to leave this evening?"

"Actually, we should take separate cabs, unless you want to stay late. I want to finish this matrix."

"I'll come back here when I'm done in case you change your mind. I don't want to hang around, because I want to watch my buddies play basketball to remind me why I'm willing to go under the knife."

On that issue, Laurie had to hold her tongue. Instead, she said, "Is Chet still in your office, or has he left for the day?"

"I wouldn't know. I stopped in here first."

"Well, if he is, you should try to dampen his enthusiasm for his new lady friend."

"Oh? How come?"

"By coincidence, she's the CEO of the company that has built the three Angels specialty hospitals."

"Really?" Jack said, raising his eyebrows. "That is a coincidence. Why dampen his enthusiasm?"

"She's the one who all but ordered me out of the orthopedic hospital yesterday. I don't know about long-term, but right now I question her motivation."

"Not to worry," Jack said. "I'm sure Chet will have eyes for someone else tonight. A week from now, he won't even remember her name."

"I hope so, for his sake."

With Jack out of her office, Laurie went back to the microscope. Although she had made an effort to appear upbeat with Jack, she was again feeling despondent. She'd joked about the fifteen hours, but in reality, it was far too little time to solve a mystery that had been confounding people with Ph.D.s in epidemiology.

Suddenly, Laurie's hand stopped twirling the horizontal mechanical stage control. She'd seen something unusual zip past the microscope's field. Since she was viewing at high-power, objects moved very quickly in and out of the field with very little rotation of the control. She slowly reversed direction with the control, and the strange object came into view.

Laurie was entranced. It appeared to be in the middle of what had been a bronchiole, probably close to what had been an alveolus, or the terminal sac in the bronchial tree where oxygen entered the blood and carbon dioxide came out. Laurie immediately questioned whether it had been there originally or was an artifact, inadvertently introduced or formed during the slide's preparation. It was about the size of the white cells Laurie had seen, which were the body's defensive cells, but there was no nucleus. It had absorbed almost none of the standard stain used by histology.

Most remarkable, it was a nearly round disk, symmetrical with a scalloped border, giving it a stellate appearance. Why she thought the symmetry was important was that most artifacts she'd seen didn't have such symmetry. Laurie looked at the object itself. The scalloped border comprised about one-fifth the diameter. The center of the object was opaque, with the mere hint of either nodularity or being mottled. One minute she'd see it, the next minute she wouldn't. She wished the object had taken the stain, because if it had, she would have known if what she was seeing was real or something she was conjuring up. Trying to keep her excitement in check, Laurie took out a grease pencil to mark the glass slide so that if the scope's mechanical stage were to accidentally move, she could find the object again. She did this by placing four dots in the cardinal directions. Satisfied, Laurie then shifted to low power. When she looked in again, the object was significantly smaller, and because it lacked staining, it tended to blend in to the chaotic surroundings.