"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Thirty-Two -

"Horses and Zebras Galloping"

They were there to get him at 8:00 a.m., just as they said they would be. He hadn't had breakfast yet, and let them know it. They laughed at him … Earl, Bill, Bart and Kip … and they said something smartass about not wanting to be puked on during the surgery.

His attitude had done a complete about-face from the day before, and he actually seemed eager for the procedure to begin. They told him he could have anything to eat that his little heart desired … after the nanocite implants … and until then it might be a good idea if he would just "button his beak!" He would probably be a little too groggy and a little too sore to be hungry by that time anyway.

He shrugged and shut up. His facial expression remained neutral. His breathing, however, was ragged.

Standing to the side, Wilson studied his friend closely and knew without a doubt that House was covering up another wave of returning pain. He looked across to the others, their attention elsewhere, talking quietly amongst themselves and pointing to a printout of something that looked almost like a football game playbook. Then he glanced over at Bartholomew Kirkpatrick and deduced that Gregg was not fooling the blind man either, not in the least.

Scowling, Bart reached across and placed his hand firmly around House's forearm. Wilson walked over to them both and touched Bart's shoulder with his own, letting Bart know he was there, and acknowledging that the old man had indeed guessed the truth. On the bed, Gregory House played his gaze between the two of them, knowing he had been busted again, but absolutely unwilling to give voice to that kind of complaint. He was much too close to liberation to allow attention to be focused on how much he hurt.

"Did someone attend to your foot this morning, Gregg?" Bart asked.

"Yeah," House answered. "About six o'clock, I think."

Bart recognized the opening and took it. "It hurts, doesn't it?"

House nodded. "Yeah …" The word faded off into a quiet gasp.

His forced admission galvanized the others. Kip turned to Bill Bernard and pointed to the head of House's bed. "I think it's time to get this man over to OR and have a go at fixing his problem."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Bill agreed.

Earl took the "game plan" from Kip and laid it across his lap. He turned his wheelchair around and headed for the door. "Let's go then …" he said.

House found himself quickly disconnected from his IVs and electronic monitors hooked to the wall behind him, and just as quickly rehooked to a large battery array beneath his bed. For the present time the IV could sustain itself on gravity drip until they reached the operating theatre.

Then he was moving. Kip and Bill took the foot of the bed, pulling, while James and Bart pushed from the front, near House's head.

The trip down the hallway was fast and efficient. They arrived quickly and rehooked everything back into wall monitor sockets and fresh electrical outlets. House would not have felt the difference anyway, because the pain in his leg was spiking.

He began to arch his back in response, but someone covered the lower half of his face quickly with a clear mask, which administered nitrous oxide anesthesia. He writhed in pain no more. A beatific expression of euphoria replaced the embattled frown.

They transferred him bodily from his bed to the low operating table and stripped him of every stitch of clothing. They covered him with a sterile blanket warmed in an autoclave, and tucked it gently beneath his chin. He did not move. His breathing deepened. His eyes were closed, face becoming relaxed.

Earl moved to the bed quickly, his wheelchair just the right height to place House's bad leg directly beneath his hands. He brought with him a device that resembled a lubricating rod affixed to a long, high-pressure hose. That device, in turn, hooked into a gleaming stainless steel servo-unit on the wall. Earl flipped a switch on the rod and the wall unit began to beep rhythmically, blinking a small red signal light with every beep. A gentle hum emanated from what were obviously small electric motors within it.

At the left side of the unit, Kip Bernoski stood holding a thick cable with an electrical connection and a toggle switch. Across from him, Bill Bernard studied a clipboard displaying the printouts they had seen earlier. They waited. Everyone waited. A buzzer sounded. Kip's eyes fastened on a timer display at the front of the unit's base. When the needle reached the number "10", Bernoski hit the toggle switch and the buzzer stopped counting down …

Bernoski locked eyes with Earl Keirkgaard. "Ready number one."

Wilson stood to the side and watched, fascinated, as Earl prepared to begin the procedure. Wilson wondered how Earl was able to maintain a sterile field. As far as he could tell, no such precautions had been taken, no decontamination measures observed. James frowned, but did not interfere. While he stood there, he was aware that Bartholomew Kirkpatrick had moved closer to stand at his left shoulder, the blind man's soft, warm hand at Wilson's elbow. "Watch the tip of the rod in Earl's hand," he said.

"Tell me when you see a silver glow that lights up the end."

Wilson fixed his eyes on the tip of the rod with the concentration of a cat watching a mouse. "There!" He said.

There was a soft vibration from across the room, and the sound of the servomotors in the wall unit dropped a few decibels. Earl made a quick thrusting motion with the rod and then switched it off. The hum heightened again and returned to the rhythmic sound it had made before. The stringer wound at the upper right quadrant near House's surgical scar rippled beneath the skin like a miniature ocean wave. They could see the muscle respond for a moment, and then the rod bucked, Earl backed it away again, and just that quickly the gleam of silver was gone, leaving the tip of the rod clean and empty.

Again Bernoski flipped the toggle on the electrical conduit. Bill Bernard moved his finger to the next in line of the calculations on the clipboard and nodded his head to Kip. The unit beeped, the red light blinked and the buzzer sounded. The pressure gauge moved gradually to the "10". Kip nodded to Earl and said "Ready #2."

The servomotors engaged; Earl poised the rod over the lower left quadrant of House's scar, made the thrust. The servos changed in pitch and then resumed. Again, House's leg muscle surged, the rod bucked, and Earl backed it away.

Twice more the strange procedure made the muscles quiver beneath the skin of House's thigh, and each time Wilson knew a prescribed number of nanocites had been loosed toward the damaged nerves of Gregory House's ruined leg.

What would they do for him? What would they do to him? Would he one day walk without pain? Would he be able to get a night's sleep without waking and having to bury his face in the pillow to keep from crying out in agony?

When the apparatus was finally removed from the operating table, the IVs were all withdrawn. Monitors were rolled away from Gregg House's bed, and James Wilson found that he was astounded House would need them no longer. Even the Foley and its accouterments had been gently withdrawn and whisked quickly to disposal. Earl looked up and grinned at Kip and Bill, then turned to Wilson, standing with Bart, whose hand rested on his forearm.

"It went well," Earl said. "They're in. They went directly to the site and are working. Soon they'll begin to reproduce, and then they should attach to his damaged nerve endings and give Gregg his first real relief from pain in … how many years did you say?"

"Going on ten …" Wilson whispered. He found that the lump in his throat was trying to choke off his voice. "Tell me why he isn't hooked to some kind of monitoring device. All the IVs are gone … no BP, no heart monitors … I don't understand."

Earl's grin widened. He pointed to the rear of the room where the wall of electronic devices Wilson had seen before were located.

"Lillian Chan and her Techies are back there," he said. " 'Talking to the children' as we call it. The probes are programmed into the computers. We've been working on them for two days, and Lillian has set them up to Gregg's exact specs. These probes will work on no one but Gregg, and he doesn't need monitoring any longer. The little devils are doing it for us.

"By this time tomorrow he can probably get into a wheelchair and begin to move around. If it weren't for the damn wound on his foot, we might have let him up on crutches … but we can't take the chance of a bump and having the foot reinjured. He will need to exercise the leg, but you can help him to do it manually; just a series of bend-straighten movements so he doesn't lock up.

"A week from now he'll be walking around on his own. Crutches, of course. But when the ulcer finally heals, he can go back on his cane again … only this time he'll be using it mostly for balance and to compensate for the missing muscle in his thigh.

"That's something the nanocites can't cure … sorry."

Wilson shook his head. "This is … astounding. There's no way I can possibly find the right words to say thanks. If this works for him, I may even get back the best friend I knew before his infarction. I'm not sure if I could ever get used to seeing him with a smile on his face though …"

"Screw you, Wilson!"

The words came from the low bed, and they looked at House, already half recovered from his round with the nitrous oxide. He was not exactly smiling pleasantly, but there was a familiar smirk playing around his mouth, and he was lifting the edge of the blanket to peer down at his leg.

"I'd sure appreciate it if somebody brought me a pair of pants," he growled. "I'm freakin' naked!"

Wilson sighed.

Bart snickered.

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