"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Thirty-Nine -

"Tick … Tick … Tick … Tick"

Bobby was a big dog, even as German Shepherds went. He weighed seventy-seven pounds and stood twenty-six inches high at the shoulder. Or he did!

Bobby lay left-side down on the table. A container with phosphate buffered formalin stood by. Both left legs were reflected upward and Kip inserted the knife to make the first cut.

Bobby's flesh parted and Kip reflected the resultant flap away also, sadly watching their old friend's bodily fluids head for the drains on the stainless steel table. Kip was mainly interested in the musculature of the shoulder, defaulting the dog's lower body in the effort to get to the reconstructed bone structure of the amputated right foreleg. The second cut laid bare the muscles of the shoulder, and as they parted cleanly, the scalpel hit something solid; not bone.

"What the hell is that?" Gregory House inquired from his position close by Kip's right elbow.

Kip looked up and met the intense gaze. "Metallic caul," he said. "When the bus hit him, he went under the front end and was dragged twenty or thirty feet before the driver could stop. One the struts fastened below the axle took his leg off clean above the radius and tore the muscle away from the humerus almost all the way to the scapula.

"Some guy in a car behind the bus took him to a vet, but there wasn't much they could do. He was dying. They were gonna euthanize him. One of the vets called me, and we went to get him." Kip was still working to open up the shoulder further, and as he did so, he stepped aside to allow House to look into the wound. "Can you see the mesh of the caul?"

House nodded. "Yeah," he said. "That's what you used to pull the remaining muscle back to the bone and hold it there?"

"Yup." Kip pushed aside a knot of muscle with the scalpel and with his other hand, parted the meat and pointed to the juncture of the humerus where it joined the bottom of the scapula. "We had to tie it off like a hammock around the end of the amputated bone, and that's why he had to lose his leg nearly to the shoulder. It was almost like stuffing what was left of the leg into a plastic shopping bag and shoving it back in there, then repairing the wound and suturing the skin over it."

House nodded again and then paused to squint a quick look into Bernoski's face. "Could I get closer so I can poke around in there? I think the 'mesh caul' idea might be feasible for trauma surgery in humans too. Who came up with the idea?"

"It was my idea, initially," Kip said. "But it was Bill and Earl who improvised the process of using metal mesh so the dog's entire shoulder wouldn't be frozen fast for the rest of his life. They found a way to insert it so that Bobby's body fluids provided the necessary lubrication and kept his shoulder joint freed up. So, actually, what you said awhile ago about people's bodies and dogs' bodies and race cars … hit closer to home than you realized."

He began to move aside to allow Gregg House closer access to the table, but the tightness of the other man's features told him it might not be a very good idea. House had been standing too long in a position that had already begun to tell on him hours before, and his mounting discomfort was becoming more obvious.

Kip leaned closer and spoke in a low voice. "I'll give you five minutes to check it out. After that, your butt goes back to the wheelchair. I won't have you fainting dead away and landing face down on my table." His voice had the ring of amusement, but Gregg had no doubt he meant every word.

"Agreed. Thanks." He angled his body carefully against the table and leaned the crutches forward to act as a brace while his hands were away from the grips. Then, with both rubber-gloved hands, he reached deep into the dog's shoulder cavity and began to manipulate the musculature and the expanse of stainless wire mesh, which had held Bobby together for more than a year.

Behind his back, Kip Bernoski motioned with both hands to those who watched from positions further away. Silently, James Wilson fingered the Vicodin vial in his pocket and moved to House's right side. Bart Kirkpatrick, who'd returned to the room shortly after the others got there, used James' arm as a guide and moved into the space at his left. Kip grunted his thanks to both of them and walked around to the other side of the table.

House was aware of the switch, and though he did not allow himself to show it, was grateful for their presence. They both reminded him once again of the pressure being exerted by the wound in his foot; and his hand ached from the site of the half-healed laceration all the way to the middle of his palm.

After the passage of five minutes, precisely, Kip motioned for Bill Bernard to bring over the wheelchair. House looked up from his digging and scowled, but Wilson, Kirkpatrick and Bernard all scowled right back.

"You agreed!" Bernoski grumbled hotly.

House sighed, exasperated, and swung his head about to look, in turn, at the men who flanked him closely. Wilson's eyes were shooting intense brown sparks, and Bart's were just as intense in their blueness, even though they were centered at a point just off his right shoulder.

Bill was right behind him with the wheelchair, and he grunted with distaste as the two others lowered him gently into it while Bill held it steady. They stripped him of all the sterile layers until he was down to sweats and one sneaker. "This crap wouldn't be happening if we were back at Princeton-Plainsboro!" He groused. "Dammit, we need to find a way to locate the freakin' bugs and find out whether they killed him … or whether it was something else."

"House!" Wilson's tone stopped him before he began a tirade that would have everyone rolling their eyes. He looked up and saw a frown furrowing his friend's forehead. James Wilson was one of the most patient of souls, but there were times when he got filled up with House's shenanigans. Gregg clamped his mouth shut, knowing exactly when deference was the best defense.

They got him settled with his lame hand in his lap and his foot elevated on a raised leg rest. Bart's soft fingers rested on his forehead and then traveled down over his temples to his shoulders. There they rested, and Gregg wondered what the man was thinking, what he was feeling.

"You're going to pay for your overindulgence tonight, son," Bart told him. "You must learn to offset your periods of activity with periods of rest. The pain in your weak leg is gone for now, but you have no guarantees … since this distressing incident … that it won't come back. If you intend to aid your recovery, you must take it slowly. Regulate down time with periods of physical activity. I don't like the distress I feel coming from you. Constant abuse of your foot is not good. Jim has put the vial of Vicodin in his pocket. I suggest you ask for one of them. In a polite manner …"

House looked at Bart Kirkpatrick in a manner filled with intense puzzlement and a thin veneer of confounded concentration. He did not conjure a sarcastic remark or let loose a snort of disdain. He turned back to look up at Wilson again and lifted his right hand, palm up and cupped. "Please." He said. The politeness Bart requested was there in simple, obedient demeanor. House's respect for this wise old man was growing by the minute.

If he disappointed Bart, he would feel almost as though he were disappointing Santa Claus. Or God.

Solemnly, Wilson withdrew the vial of pills he'd taken from the nightstand and dropped one of them into the upraised palm, then watched as House tossed back his head in the familiar manner of long practice … and took it dry. "Thanks …"

Across the small space that separated them, he saw Wilson and Kirkpatrick both grinning into the air.

At the necropsy table, meanwhile, Kip Bernoski and Bill Bernard continued to examine the remains of Bobby the German Shepherd. The next incision disclosed the animal's vital organs, which they noted contained nothing abnormal: no tumors, decomposition, changes in color, or signs of hemorrhaging. The heart, kidneys and liver seemed normal for a canine of his age. They removed them and placed them in the container of formalin, along with viscera they had collected as the work progressed.

They closed his chest cavity presently, and returned to the area of the shoulder where a year before, a vial of nanocite globules had been inserted near the elbow at the bottom of the scapula. Prying and lifting strands of tissue delicately, they probed for evidence of the nanocite masses or evidence of their reproduction. They found nothing.

Wilson walked up between both men and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "How about an electromagnet with a probe? There's a good chance you could attract them electrostatically and draw them out that way."

Kip placed his scalpel on the table and turned around to look at Wilson with an expression of speculation. "Might just work, Jim," he said. "What do you think, Bill?" He turned further and located Earl Keirkgaard, sitting near the rear of the room, not participating, but not leaving either. "Jim suggests we try an electromagnet. It's a good possibility, but I need to know what you guys think …"

Earl shrugged, but did not come any closer, or offer any input. Kip understood how he felt and left him alone. He turned his attention back to Wilson and Bernard. "Well?"

"Let's try it," Bill said. Wilson nodded.

"Looks like the 'ayes' got it …" House commented from the wheelchair. Off his feet, he had perked up a bit. "You gotta locate the little bastards so you know which way to take your research next, ya know."

Kip nodded. "Oh yeah … don't I know it, man …"

They rolled it out. Hooked it up and got it charged. Kip moved the solenoid in a direct field, holding the back of the probe directly over the site where Earl Keirkgaard had injected the "bugs" into Bobby's shoulder muscle last year.

At first there was no reaction. Only a quiet buzz with a slight hitch in it that sounded a little like an old gasoline engine with a flat spark plug. Kip expanded the area of search in an outward circular pattern and activated the probe again. For a time, there was nothing. He was close to shutting it off and trying something else.

"Keep going, Kip!" They had not heard Earl roll up behind them. They were too caught up in the drama of the search. The man in the mechanical wheelchair had determination stamped on his face like the blue USDA Seal. "They're there! They're in there, and you have to find them. If you don't, then we're all gonna be freakin' goddamn guilty if something shitty happens to Gregg here ..."

The magnet buzzed, and a red light on the base unit blinked on and off and then stopped. The solenoid stopped charging and went quiet also. Bernoski lowered the tip of the probe device into a glass beaker and Bernoski sped the beaker behind the partition at the back of the room where Lillian and the Techies waited …

Minutes passed.

Lillian Chan's voice came over the intercom. "I have them, Kip. They're all dead. They stopped replicating … stopped working. I'm … sorry. They helped Bobby … and then they killed him."

"That clinches it!" Earl snarled. "We have to get them out. Gregg first … then the rest of us. God only knows what kind of window we have left with Gregg, but we don't dare let it go. His probes are only two days old. The damn bruises are still on his leg, for God's sake! But if the nanoprobes are defective, his immune system could soon become compromised … if it's not already …"

He made a face and shifted his gaze between Kip and Bill, the other two who had been injected with nanocites the year before.

"Bobby's hardly cold, and not even in his grave yet. The others of us were injected as soon as we knew it had worked for him.

"The rest of us could be nothing more than ticking time bombs … and the counter is running down …"

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As you read this, I am on my way to a week's vacation where I am not sure of computer access. If I have it, then posts will be up every morning as usual. But if I have not, then I will be back with you early Monday morning, July 23. Thank you. Bets;)

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