FACING THE ABYSS

Chapter One

Jaime couldn't feel the grass between her toes...but she could still sense it. When she was a little girl, crunching the bright green blades underfoot had made her feel giddy and alive. Today, standing in this spot, the grass gave her a creepy, eerie sensation that shivered through her entire body.

She'd been in this exact spot hundreds of times in the past. Her father's grave was to her left and her mother's grave to her right. Jaime gripped the two traditional bouquets of yellow roses tightly in her left hand, unable to move as her mind whirled in a kaleidoscope of confusion. The ground beneath her was different than the patches of grass and earth that surrounded it. The soil had been recently disturbed, pressed firmly back into place and then sodded over as though nothing had ever happened there. Even the groove in the plot where a tombstone would go had been carefully filled in with barely a dent remaining.

Jaime laughed bitterly; they'd certainly done a good job. They'd made it look so 'normal' again, when she now knew it was anything but normal. How 'normal' can you feel (she wondered to herself) when you're standing on your own grave?

* * *

It was a deception with only the best of intentions. Jaime herself was at the center of it all, but she'd been one of the last to find out the true nature of what had happened – and had played absolutely no role in what had become a carefully planned government charade.

She hadn't been aware of the beginning. How could she have known? She was dead. Rudy Wells stepped away from the table with one last look at his patient. He and his team had tried diligently to save her, but even the very best science and medicine combined could not overcome a massive cerebral hemorrhage. She'd really never had a chance. Jaime's body had rejected her bionic implants (something they had never seen coming) and the result had been catastrophic. Blood clots had formed in her brain and the intense pressure had ruptured multiple blood vessels. Unwilling to accept defeat, Rudy had doggedly kept trying until the line on the monitor went flat. Even then, it broke his heart to walk away; he had made her bionic, given her a new life, and Jaime had become as close to him as the daughter he'd never had.

Oscar Goldman followed Rudy into the hallway. The head of the OSI knew they needed to give Steve some time to say a private goodbye to Jaime. "You did the best you could," he told the crestfallen doctor, "the best anyone could."

Rudy shook his head. "It wasn't enough." He leaned wearily against the wall and wiped a hand across his forehead. "I should have seen this coming. I should have -"

"There was nothing you could have done," Oscar insisted. He placed a hand gently on his friend's should, intending to say more, when they were interrupted by a breathless young man who'd just come running down the hallway from the opposite direction.

"I was in the operating theater," Michael Marchetti (Rudy's young protege) said urgently. "I saw what happened. Rudy, I think I can save her..."

Thus, it began. Michael convinced Rudy and Oscar to let him try his newly developed cryogenic techniques in an effort to save Jaime. While they had only been tested on monkeys until that moment, as Michael pointed out, Jaime was dead. She had nothing left to lose. The doctors turned to rush back to the OR just as a bereft Steve was coming out of the other exit.

"Better tell Steve," Rudy said to Oscar before disappearing through the big double doors.

Oscar stood his ground and thought it over. Steve was already gone, disappeared through another doorway with tears in his eyes that begged for some solitary time to grieve. He and Jaime had grown up together, found each other again as adults and fallen in love. The wedding was only weeks away – and now...this. Oscar knew he should tell his bereaved friend something – but what? Should he offer condolences – or hope? What if Rudy and Michael's procedure failed, and Steve's hopes had been raised only to be cruelly dashed as he lost her once again? No, it was better to wait, at least for now, Oscar decided. Resolutely, he turned toward the doors of the operating room's theater to await the outcome of this new round of surgery.

Steve was alone in a small alcove, unsure where to go or exactly what to do with himself. He had finally found a meaning to his life (other than the James Bond-like existence that government service had thrust upon him) and now it was simply...gone. It had been many years since he'd last allowed himself to cry – or even felt the need – but now, alone with a pain that seemed insurmountable, the tears flowed freely and silently down his face. Maybe, he reflected, he'd always been destined to be alone...

Back in the operating room, things were moving at a rapid (but very careful) pace. The room itself had been cooled to a near-freezing temperature and Rudy and Michael's teams struggled to keep feeling in the hands that labored to bring the young woman on the table back to life. Michael and his team kept Jaime's body cooled with his cryogenic techniques, hoping to ward off any cellular damage, while Rudy and his team painstakingly repaired the ruptured blood vessels in Jaime's brain. Finally, they were ready. She'd been gone for several hours; would it work? They all held their breath as the paddles were placed on Jaime's chest. Nothing. They tried again; still no response. Had they taken too long? Rudy adjusted the settings for one last try...and the steady flat line of the oscilloscope jumped! Then it jumped again – straight into a weak but steady rhythm! They'd done it; Jaime was back!

There was no time for celebration. Jaime was alive, but she was far from stable. They quickly closed the incision and transferred her to a private room with a nurse at her bedside and a guard posted at the end of the hallway who'd been instructed to let no one enter without authorization from Rudy Wells or Oscar Goldman. Two hours later, when Rudy and Michael had done everything they could for the moment, they met with Oscar in Rudy's office.

"Where's Steve?" Rudy asked quietly.

"I...didn't tell him," Oscar admitted. "We didn't know how this would turn out, and he's already been through hell. To have to watch her die all over again...it would just be too much."

Rudy nodded. "You did the right thing. Jaime's condition is still extremely critical. If she does survive, and that's IF, there may be brain damage -"

"Hopefully, we were able to prevent any further damage," Michael interjected, "but right now it's just impossible to tell. We'll know more when she wakes up."

"If she wakes up," Rudy said gently.

"Then it's best we don't tell Steve any of this," Oscar concluded. "At least until we know more." It pained him deeply to even suggest keeping Jaime's revival from her fiance, but the last thing Oscar wanted to do was make Steve's pain any deeper.

"He'd want to be with her," Michael suggested. "I think we should tell him."

"Maybe," Rudy allowed, "but not just yet. Let's see what the next twenty-four hours bring, in terms of her condition; then we'll decide."

Michael fell silent. There was really nothing more he could say. His two superiors knew Steve (and Jaime) far better than he did. Perhaps they were right.

* * *

Twenty-four hours turned to forty-eight...and seventy-two...and still the doctors saw no improvement in Jaime's condition. She was deeply comatose, with very little appreciable brain activity.

"Steve would want to be here," Michael persisted, pleading his case solely to Oscar this time while Rudy was attending to their patient. "When Jaime does wake up, she'll be confused – frightened – she's going to need him."

"Rudy says she may wake up a vegetable – or not wake up at all!" Oscar reminded him.

"That's worst-case scenario," Michael argued. "We can't let ourselves allow the possibility -"

"We have to prepare for the possibility," Oscar sighed. "Besides, Steve is out of the country; he left last night for an assignment in China."

"But the funeral is in two days – and Jaime is alive!" Michael couldn't fathom how they'd planned to pull this off. "Don't you think it's a poor time to send her fiance clear across the globe?"

Oscar stood up from the chair and rose to his full height. "Are you questioning my judgment? Or Rudy's?"

"Of course not," Michael told him. "I'm just giving you my opinion – as the person who brought Jaime back – and I'm wondering what kind of funeral you can have when there's no body! Her family, her friends...they're grieving, Oscar – and Jaime is alive! How can you tell me that's the right thing to do?"

"Rudy and I are still working on the details," Oscar allowed. "We'll finalize everything today. But the science and the medicine that brought Jaime back are Top Secret, Michael; you know that. We can't just blithely announce to the world they 'Hey, we made a mistake; Jaime is really alive' when for all we know she may not be tomorrow! And that sort of announcement would expose what killed her – a reaction to her bionics! Bionics, Michael! Do you know what would happen if that became common knowledge?"

Rudy cleared his throat, having silently witnessed most of the argument from the doorway. Michael, outnumbered once again, sighed and sank into a chair. The deception was about to hit full-stride.

* * * * *