Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 13:38:20 EST Reply-To: Russ McMillan Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Russ McMillan Subject: Mortality Rate, Part 3 Well, folks, I'll be away for a whole week and unable to work on the rest of this story, so it may be a while before the next installment. But Part 3 does bring us to a fairly good stopping point. Thanks for being patient! Mortality Rate, Part 3 by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu Late at night is a lousy time to start an investigation by ordinary methods, but it's perfect for hacking into databases. I can't count how many times I've sat trying to stay awake while Mac played with his computer. Now here I was doing the same thing in Joe's office. "Whoever purchased this database system for the hospital had no clue what they were doing," Joe grouched as keys clicked under his fingers. "This is just about as secure as a doghouse." "Does that mean you'll be in soon?" I mumbled. "Oh, I got in five minutes ago." I opened my eyes. "So what did you find?" "Nothing, yet. I still haven't figured out how to do the search. The system is incredibly user-hostile." "Maybe they were counting on that to make up for the bad security," said Barbara, who was curled up on the other end of the couch from me. "Heh. Wait, here we go. Now the damn thing's listening to me. Okay." Joe consulted his notes. "Age . . . female . . . height, weight, hair color, eye color . . . start search . . . eighty-seven matches! It'll take more than a month to check them all out." He glared at the screen. "Pregnancy in the past few years," Barbara put in. From Joe's look, he wasn't any more convinced of that than I was, but he typed it in anyway. "That narrows it down to five," he said. "Might as well see what the hospital has on them." "This woman was Immortal," I pointed out. "Chances are, the hospital won't have any records on her at all." I leaned my head back and closed my eyes again. "What about that examining room image you got from her?" Barbara put in. "We think she was a new Immortal anyway, remember?" Joe added. "After all, the hospital has records on you." I jerked up straight. "How do you know?" "We copied them." "Dammit --" Joe held his hand up to keep me quiet while he read the search results from the screen. "Possibility number one -- deceased last year. Scratch her. Second candidate . . . hmm, mother of six? That doesn't sound right." "And she's the same age as the woman who was killed here today?" Barbara asked. "Twenty-eight, according to the file. Ooh, and a seventh on the way. I didn't think anybody had families that big anymore. Okay, candidate number three . . . whoa. This is a big file." I waited while Joe scrolled through several screens of information, then said, "Well? Is there anything there?" I was still annoyed about having my private medical history in the Watchers' database. "Maybe," Joe said slowly. "This is interesting -- fertility problems. She was trying to get pregnant for a long time. Being in an examining room must have been a pretty common experience for this lady. All kinds of test results, I don't really know what they mean . . . bingo! In vitro fertilization, almost a year ago." "What does that mean, like a test tube baby?" "It means the egg came from a donor; it wasn't hers," Barbara explained. "They fertilized it in the lab and then implanted the embryo in her body." "Eugh! They can do that?" "Sure they can. And you know what?" Joe's eyes were alight. "It might even work for an Immortal woman." "Really? So -- she _could_ have been pregnant!" "Yeah, maybe." "So you think this is her? The dead woman?" "What was her name?" Barbara cut in, leaning forward on the couch. "Um, Sarah Pirelli." Joe was still reading. "Uh-oh. She lost the baby. Abnormal termination at seven months." He leaned closer to the screen, his eyes going wide. "What? What is it?" I demanded. His little laptop's monitor was too small for more than one person to read at a time. "I think I may have found her first death," Joe whispered. "Listen to this: 'Cause of fetal mortality unknown -- possibly trauma induced by recent automobile accident. Examination after the accident indicated no injury to mother or fetus, but death of the fetus occurred within one week.'" I thought about this. "Her first death? You think maybe it really was a bad accident -- it killed her, and then she turned Immortal?" "Yeah, it could have been. This was just two months ago." "And she didn't mention a miraculous recovery to the doctor?" Barbara asked skeptically. "Maybe she thought she just blacked out for a few seconds. This note says her husband was injured at the same time -- he was the driver." "He was? That's interesting," Barbara said with a little smile. Joe threw her a glance. "She could have been too worried about him to think about herself." He continued paging down. "How could she not know that she died and came back to life?" I said. "It's not the kind of experience you forget about!" "I don't know," said Barbara. "Have you ever been in an accident? You don't think clearly when something like that happens, especially if someone else is hurt." She looked inward, like she was speaking from experience. "This is interesting," Joe broke in. "The last entry in Sarah Pirelli's records. She was brought in to the emergency room just last week." "Last week? But if she's our woman she would have been Immortal by then," I objected. "She wouldn't need to go to the emergency room!" "Her husband brought her in. Attempted suicide, it says." Barbara took a quick breath. "How?" she whispered. "It doesn't say. The notes are pretty sketchy. But guess who was the attending physician?" Joe raised his head and looked at me. "Oh, no," I said. "Not --" "Dr. Anne Lindsay." Barbara looked back and forth between us. "Is this a friend of yours?" "Yeah, she, uh . . . " I didn't know how to explain. "She's a good friend of MacLeod's," Joe filled in. I frowned. What had Joe been telling her about Mac? "Does she know about Immortals, then?" Barbara asked. "Yes, she does," Joe said thoughtfully. "That might explain why her notes don't say much. Hmm. I think we should get MacLeod to help us on this." "No." I must have sounded kind of harsh, because Joe looked surprised. "Why not? He's good at this sort of thing." I glanced at Barbara, wishing I could talk to Joe in private. "He's been having a rough time lately," I said. "I don't want to give him anything else to worry about." Joe looked at me. "You're not upset with him because of what happened with Kristen, are you?" "No!" I yelled, startling all three of us. I stood up and started to pace. "Look, I don't blame Mac for that. It wasn't his fault. He didn't even kill her. I just --" I looked again at Barbara. Joe wasn't going to take the hint and send her away. Once Joe decides someone is a friend, he wants to include them in on everything. He does the same thing with Mac, and it's gotten him into trouble with the other Watchers. But then he also treats me that way, and I appreciate it. "I'm worried about Mac," I said finally. "He seems stressed out. He's been a little weird, lately." Joe took a deep breath. "You think he's losing it?" "I don't know! I've thought that a few times before, and I was wrong. Maybe I'm wrong this time. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe _he's_ upset about Kristen. I just don't want to get him involved in something ugly like this, especially if it doesn't have to concern him." "All right," Joe said slowly. "We'll leave MacLeod out of it unless there's some reason to bring him in. Tomorrow, we go talk to Anne." "Sounds like a plan," I agreed. We all trooped back into the bar, which was mostly put back together by now. Mike had already left. Barbara got herself another drink; if it was as strong as the others she'd been downing, she wouldn't be on her feet a lot longer. For myself, I didn't need anything to help me get to sleep. "It's after midnight," Barbara said quietly after a quick gulp. "Yeah, I should get to bed soon," I said, just about to head for the door. "Happy birthday to me," Barbara said with a little sad smile, and raised her glass in a toast. I paused. "It's your birthday?" "Yep." She took another sip. "I'm thirty-five." "Oh. Well -- congratulations." She laughed, but it didn't sound exactly cheerful. "Don't congratulate me for being a year older. Congratulate me for being rich!" She tipped her head back. "I just inherited a _lot_ of money," she told the ceiling. Joe shared a look with me like maybe he understood everything now. "Did you just lose a relative?" he asked gently. Yeah, that might explain why she wanted to be numb. "Oh, not recently," she said. "My father died years and years ago. But he put his money in trust for me, so I couldn't touch it until I turned thirty-five." "He didn't trust you to handle it yourself?" I said. That sounded like some of my foster-parents. Actually, it sounded kind of like Mac, too -- even though he tried to pretend he wasn't over-protective, he was always trying to boss me around for my own good. Like with Kristen. Damn Joe for bringing her up anyway. Now I _did_ want a drink of my own. "It wasn't _me_ he didn't trust," said Barbara, still stuck on her own worries. "It was my husband. And you know what? He was right!" Joe got another now-I-understand gleam in his eye, but this time he wasn't sharing it. "Well, that's all over now," he said reassuringly. "You have the money." "Yep, lots of it. And Robert's long gone." She giggled. "That's the really good part. Money's just trouble. Just a lot of paperwork, and I _hate_ paperwork. Maybe I should give it all away. I don't know who to give it to, though." She blinked up at me and Joe. "You think MacLeod could use a few million dollars?" I frowned. "Why him?" "Well, he saved my life! More than once." She stared at her empty glass. "More than once." Something relaxed inside of me as I realized she already knew Mac from somewhere else; Joe hadn't just volunteered information about him out of nowhere. I should have known I could trust Joe. Joe took the glass away and rinsed it. "Come on, Barbara," he said gently. "I have a guest room where you can stay." I was ready to help if she needed to lean on someone's shoulder, but Joe was used to dealing with drunks. He nodded goodbye to me over Barbara's head and led her away. =========================================================================