Part 33 (1/2)

Elise walked to the door, which had a video camera mounted above it, and a split second later, it buzzed, signaling it was unlocked.

This is a lot of security, Ally thought, for a clinic doing research on cells. Are they worried about spies getting in, or patients getting out?

But the locked steel door was just the beginning of the security. Next they entered a small room just inside the door with an X-ray machine to see into purses and parcels.

”The first floor is reception and dining,” Elise explained as she swept through the metal detector. ”There are rooms-- we call them suites-- upstairs for patients, and the research lab and offices are in the . .

. lower area.”

”What ... what is all this security for?” Ally asked.

”The work here is highly proprietary. No one is allowed to bring in any kind of camera or recording equipment.”

The guard dressed in white looked like a retired policeman, with perhaps a few too many jelly doughnuts over his career. He had a beefy red face and a hefty spare tire. But he was certainly alert to his responsibilities, eyeing the three newcomers with scarcely disguised suspicion.

In fact, Ally sensed a palpable paranoia in the air. Well, she told herself, medical research is a high-stakes game. It's understandable they would be concerned about industrial espionage.

After the security check, they went through another steel

door and entered the actual lobby. The first thing she noticed was a grand staircase leading up to the second floor, and then to the third.

Off to the right was a modern elevator with a s.h.i.+ny steel door.

A number of patients were coming down the stairs and heading for a hallway leading to the back. They were mostly women, whose ages ranged anywhere from forty-five to well beyond seventy.

Who are these people? Ally wondered. They must have been sufferers of various kinds of debilitating afflictions, but now they were certainly ambulatory, if not downright sprightly. She wanted to talk to some of them, watching them moving along chatting and smiling, but this was not the moment.

”At eleven-thirty we have meditation in the dining hall,” Elise was saying as she led them through the lobby, ”for those who care to partic.i.p.ate, and after that a vegetarian lunch is served at twelve- thirty sharp.” Then she glanced back. ”After you see Dr. Van de Vliet-- and a.s.suming you're admitted--there'll be an orientation and then you're welcome to begin partic.i.p.ating fully in our activities.”

”Actually,” Ally said, ”if people are well enough to be in 'activities,' why can't they be outpatients?”

”These clinical trials require twenty-four-hour supervision,” Elise explained, heading for the wide desk in the center of the room. ”Now, if you would all sign in here at the desk, Ellen can take you downstairs to the medical reception.”

A dark-haired woman smiled from behind the desk, then got up and came around. A sign-in book was there on a steel stand. Ally finally noticed that light cla.s.sical music was wafting through the room, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake suite.

”You must be Ms. Hampton,” the woman said. ”And this must be your mother. We were told to expect you.”

She nodded a farewell to Elise, who said, ”It was so nice to meet you.

Good luck.”

She then turned and headed for the back.

Ally signed all three of them in.