CHAPTER TWO

"WILL, WE WANT to give you another heart biopsy," Jaeson told me, a clipboard in his hands. His orderly black hair, piercing purple eyes, and height of six feet tended to intimidate people, but I had known Jaeson for a long, long time, and he didn't scare me anymore, not at all. Even with what his true DNA proved he was.

Jaeson Oracle was a pretty impressive man. He had graduated medical school seven years ago, when he was nineteen, but it would have been earlier had he not previously been taking classes in detective work. He was even smarter than I was, and that was definitely saying something huge.

Doctor Jaeson Oracle now ran PIPA's Chicago base, though he was more focused on the medical center. His assistant and sister, Destiny Oracle, helped mostly with the actual base itself and its ins and outs.

Now he had his crisp white lab coat on and what I believed to be a consent form on the clipboard in his hands. Noting it, I nodded and asked him, "Why another biopsy now?"

Jaeson responded, "The first time we did it you last had an attack four months previously. You had another three days ago. Possibly there is some change in your heart, so I'd like to compare."

I nodded and held a hand out. Jaeson handed me a pen and the clipboard and I signed and then wondered, "When?"

Glancing at his watch, he told me, "Three hours and twenty-five minutes from now."

"You could just say five-thirty," I told my friend. Jaeson shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "All right," I sighed at him, "I'll be there."

Jaeson nodded curtly and took his things back. "Good." Just then his pager started ringing, and he nodded at me again before leaving. I was about to go back to my office when my own pager started ringing. It's little screen read, "Exam room eight. Now."

I sucked in a breath and started running for the room, hoping whoever it was wasn't dying yet.

The familiar white-green room greeted me along with the beeping of several machines. The chorus of noises sounded right to me, and glancing at the red letters and lines confirmed that the patient's heart and breathing were normal. Not dying yet. Thank goodness.

I turned away from the machines and looked at the person I'd be treating.

It was only Blueaura. "Hello," my friend Lighting said from a chair beside him, smiling her usual smirky smile.

Lighting's real name was Elsie Strike. She was thirty-two years old and had gone to the PIPA college for detective work when she was fourteen, which was normally four to six years premature, but her case was... a special one. A very, very special one.

In the bed next to her was Aaron Blueaura, though we just called him by his last name. He was just like Lighting: a special case and a fourteen-year-old drop-in. The two of them met here and started dating when they were fifteen years old, and they were still. No time for a wedding when you're an agent, I guess.

"What's wrong with Blueaura?" I asked, feeling my muscles tense.

She shrugged. "His heart rate went down three beats. I got worried."

I glanced at the heart rate monitor again. It was normal. "He's fine now." I looked back to her, and saw how her usually-hard face had cracked just enough to show me the worry that had entered her expression. This was a very, very rare thing I was witnessing.

I walked over to Lightning and gave her a hug, whispering gently, "He doesn't have what I do, Lightning. I promise. We're thinking it's genetic." I pulled away and smiled softly at her.

She nodded, looking at her feet against the tiled flooring. "Okay."

"Dang..." Blueaura moaned softly.

Lightning snapped back to her usual self, though I could still see the worry hiding in her eyes. "Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," she murmured with a smirk.

"I should hit you," Blueaura muttered, and shifted to sit up. He flinched as he did.

"What happened?" I wondered.

Blueaura shrugged. "Bullet shrapnel embedded into my shoulder. Bloody forehead. Nothing too terrible. I'll be back doing missions soon enough."

I nodded in agreement, noticing the bandage peaking out of his right shirt sleeve. "Does it still hurt?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I'm just tired. That mission was twelve hours without sleep."

"I hate those," Lightning muttered. She sat down and leaned back to throw her head over the top of her chair and said, "Surveillance missions suck, even when there's action."

"Hah, I get to stay here in the safe little hospital," I bragged, grinning at the two as I was fully aware how boring they thought my job was.

"But you're freaking stuck in this bloody white hospital all day and you have. No. Action," Lightning exclaimed, her head still hanging over the chair back.

Staring at the floor, Blueaura quietly added, "And you fight enemies within an ally."

I nodded at Blueaura, silently agreeing with him. "Lightning, there's plenty of action here." Just then my pager rang, and I looked up to grin at her. "Like now. Bye guys."

"Go save some lives, Will!" Lightning called as I raced out of there.

A FEW HOURS later, I lied on an exam table and watched as Jaeson prepared the heart biopsy. What he would soon be doing is cutting a vein in my neck and threading a tube down into my heart to take a tiny piece of tissue. I'd be given a painkiller, but I'd remain awake.

"Okay, I'm going to start. You ready?" Jaeson asked.

I nodded and looked away from the screens around me. I didn't want to see the thing inside me, and I didn't want to see my heart and its scarring from the other biopsies and tests I'd put myself through to try and solve my medical mystery. Though really I wasn't doing it just for me- I was doing it because I was certain there'd be more cases. So far I was the only documented one, but others couldn't be far behind.

I hoped I was wrong, that no one else would get this disease. Hoped with all my being that no one would have to go through what I have been through.

I was hyper aware of Jaeson giving me the localized painkiller, and I felt and heard (from the monitors) my heart beat just a bit faster when I felt the tiny pressure of the tube being threaded down my blood vessel and into my heart. Jaeson very calmly guided me through it, told me when he entered which vessel. He knew I didn't like to watch.

It all went smoothly... until it was just outside my heart.

The beeps started unhurriedly dropping, and I started feeling dizzy- the first sign. Quickly I felt the pulse on my left hand and confirmed its slowing.

"Jaeson," I gasped, "My heart."

Jaeson's muscles tightened immediately. He grabbed my arm from me and felt my pulse himself, then swore loudly and yelled for assistance.

"Do the biopsy," I choked out to Jaeson, knowing this was our chance. If my heart changed during the attacks, this would be the best way to find out. "And take blood."

"Okay," Jaeson responded, sounding tense. "How much time do we have before you're critical?"

I felt my pulse in my wrist again. "About two minutes."

"Shit," Jaeson muttered in reference to the time, then more loudly: "Damn!"

"What?" I asked, knowing something was wrong. Dread squeezed my insides.

"It's stuck on a blood vessel!" he exclaimed angrily.

"Use that, then," I decided, my voice growing cracklier, as I pointed to a long, hollow needle usually used for lumbar punctures.

"I'd be stabbing you," Jaeson argued, but he knew I was right. We needed the piece of heart tissue immediately.

"I know," I said calmly, then closed my eyes and told him: "One minute."

Jaeson gritted his teeth, but picked up the device.

Just then a team of nurses flooded in, though Jaeson held them off. He stabbed the needle down through my muscles and into my heart as I screamed so loud my voice faded out.

"Get some blood. Now!" Jaeson yelled at one of the nurses, who did it immediately. He turned to another one and instructed, "And you, too. You for a karyotype."

"Thirty seconds," I gasped.

"You!" Jaeson demanded from the last nurse, "Get the AED charged up."

Jaeson took the needle out of me and within seconds the blood tests were also done.

"Five seconds," I whispered, seeing black spots start on my vision.

"Put it at level six!" Jaeson demanded, and took the defibrillator from the nurse. He shocked me, and I screamed again as the electricity bounced through my body. Jaeson counted down and I kept screaming until he reached level one. My heart rate was still not normal, so he stated once again at level six.

The second time he reached level two I fainted, whispering what I thought were to be my last words: "Goodbye everybody."

The last thing I heard was Jaeson yelling, "Don't say goodbye! I won't let you die!"