Unnamed medical thriller:
An
ER doctor gets accidentally exposed to a bacteria genetically
engineered to effect mitochondria and give soldiers an energy boost
during crisis in wartime. The only problem: the bacteria has adapted to
the antibiotic vulnerability the scientists thought they had programmed
in. And it's spreading, causing a near epidemic of what looks like
leukemia in some patients, sickle cell crisis in others.
Nights in the ER I can roll up my sleeves and get to
work.
Literally. And at least now, with the sun setting by 4:30, I
actually have a life outside of the graveyard shift. Most of the rest
of the New Englanders around me are doing their annual battle with
seasonal affective disorder, but this is my favorite time of the
year. The sooner it gets dark, the happier I am.
I've
lived my whole life avoiding sunlight. I'm not really a
vampire
and I won't explode in a cloud of dust as the sun rises. What
I
face is more like a death by slow torture. My first melanoma
was
removed when I was six.
My
girlfriend does a complete skin check on me every month. It's
not
so bad, actually. Michelle loves me, XP and all and she
doesn't
let me feel sorry for myself. The last skin check involved a
blindfold--for me, not for her--and was a lot more fun then when my
dermatologist examines me.
It
was nearly five am and the ER was finally quiet. Michelle
would
be gone by the time I was through with this shift, but our off-kilter
schedules mostly worked. She got to maintain a normal daytime
life, I was the scourge of the ER from midnight to seven, and we had
the third shift to take care of us.
Shift
change was coming soon and barring any last minute crises, I might be
able to get home on time. I finished dictating the notes from the last
wave of gunshots and stab wounds, tossed my sunglasses next to the
computer monitor, and rubbed my bleary eyes.
"So you're human like the rest of us."
I looked up and smiled. The night nurse manager dropped into
the chair next to me.
"Sorry to disappoint you," I said.
Bernie
looked me over, her deep brown eyes hound dog worried, but her voice
was its usual take-no-prisoners drill Sargent. "You're not
getting enough sleep, Count Dracula."
She
was the only person who called me that to my face.
"Well, my coffin's at the dry cleaners," I said, leaning back
in
the chair. I was tired. This was my fifth extra
shift this
month, but my loans weren't paying themselves and Michelle and I were
hoping to buy a condo. Just call me Greg Dalton, ER whore.
The 2 story ideas below are
simmering on the back burner.
The
Forgetting: In a world in which spoken language preserves history and
sets the course of the future, Unegen, a powerful mage, begins to lose
his mastery over words. Epic fantasy set in a nomadic culture.
Unnamed YA/urban fantasy: A young girl researching her roots for a
school genealogy assignment discovers her own adoption papers. But even
family secrets and lies are not what they seem and searching for her
'real' parents sends her into a past she's never studied in a history
book.
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