Glimpse of Infinity

Lorn Skye

© 2024 by Lorn Skye

PART ONE

Chapter One

It was a week ago that John Doe died in my office. It wasn't unusual for a John Doe to die in my office. When you have a small walk-in clinic in the heart of a big city, John Doe's often stumble into the clinic. Worse yet, they are waiting on the doorstep in the morning when you arrive. Though they often recover within a few hours or a few days when the alcohol or dope wears off, they also often die. Even when I do help them survive their current problem, they usually go back to whatever vice they enjoy most, and soon enough it claims it's due.

This particular, John Doe, though, had captured my attention. Unlike the usual folks who ended up on my doorstep, this one didn't appear to be intoxicated. He was an older gentleman, an oddity for this part of the city. Most people who came into the clinic looked old, aged by the harshness of life on the street, by life as an addict. This John wasn't like that, he appeared to be truly old. I wasn't quite sure why I thought this, it was simply my physician’s instinct that told me how old a patient might be, both physically and spiritually.

I first saw this John when an old blue Plymouth, tail fins and all, dropped him off on the doorstep. I didn't see who dropped him off. Someone started beating on the door, but by the time I opened the door, all I caught was the tail end of the car speeding around the corner. He was lying on the doorstep, draped in an awkward position, and unresponsive. He had a peaceful look on his face and appeared to be resting comfortably.

I checked his pulse, which was slow but regular, and his breathing, which was also slow but not labored. His pupils were equal and reactive to light, and his breath was surprisingly free of alcohol. I called for the orderly to help carry him into an examining room as I rolled up his sleeves to check for tracks on his arms. These were also strangely absent and I was beginning to become intrigued with this new stranger.

The orderly arrived and we carried him into an examining room where I began to undress him as the nurse took his vital signs. For an older gentleman, he was in strangely good shape. His muscle tone was excellent. There were no signs of trauma, either past or present, no surgical scars, and his skin, though aged, was thick and healthy, unlike the skin of a person his age.

The nurse told me his vital signs, which were all slow but stable. I pulled out my stethoscope and ordered the nurse to draw some blood for routine tests while the orderly finished inserting the IV.

As I listened to his heart and lungs, I listened to a man die. Slowly, but steadily, his body simply stopped. One moment his heartbeat was slow but steady, otherwise sounding completely normal, and the next moment it began to slow noticeably. I yelled for the orderly to bring the code cart and quickly probed his abdomen, which was also normal, and then began CPR.

When the code cart came, I quickly gave him an amp of epinephrine to stimulate his heart and then prepared the paddles to shock his heart back into rhythm. I cleared everyone away and gave him the first jolt.

I was surprised when his heart responded exactly as it was supposed to do. I was even more surprised when he opened his eyes. The smile was gone from his face, replaced by what I can best describe as a look of consternation. He then slowly shook his head, almost sadly, then closed his eyes again.

I stepped back to look at the monitor and this time I watched his heart slow and stopped on the monitor. Once again, I started CPR and once again, I got him back. But just as soon as his heart had restarted, it again slowed and stopped. This time no matter what I did I couldn't get him back.

---

"Dammit!" I muttered aloud, disturbing the other people in the library.

That had now been more than a week ago and I was still bothered by the death of this odd gentleman. The coroner had come and gotten his body a few hours after I had pronounced him dead and an autopsy performed the next day had revealed that the man had died of natural causes, a term that meant that we didn't know why he died, he just simply had. There was no obvious cause. The tox screen was also clean, not even a trace of marijuana, cocaine, meth, or any of the other favorite substances of the street people.

At least they had confirmed that there hadn't been anything else I could have done. Somehow though, that had not relieved my conscience. There was something that bothered me about the man, I had not been able to get him out of my mind. I felt like I missed something, something important.

I stared out the window at the pouring rain. The gray, gloomy day rather matched my mood, something that never ceased to amuse me. It always seemed to rain when I was in a foul mood. My research at the library had been unrewarding and I had as many questions as when I had begun. I turned in the pile of books I had been pouring over, checked out a couple I wanted to read at home, and went out into the pouring rain. I stood there on the steps of the library, letting the water run over me, awakening me, making me feel alive again.

When people started staring at me standing there soaking wet, I decided it was time to go. I climbed into my car and pulled a towel out of the overnight night bag I kept there. I dried off as much as I could, shedding my shirt for a dry t-shirt in my bag and my pants for a pair of workout shorts I had in there as well. I cranked the car and decided to give in to the vice that I enjoyed most, driving fast. I had a little game going with some of the local cops who routinely patrolled the expressway. I had bet them that my BMW was faster than their best patrol car. To date, I was still winning, and I decided to give it a try in the rain.

Popping in a loud rock CD and hooking up the radar detector, a trick I used to spot the cops so I could be up to speed when I ran across one, I put the car in gear and headed for the highway.

Soon, I was doing a hundred and fifty down the rain-soaked roads. Luckily the traffic on the roads was light and I quickly engaged one of the local boys in a little chase down the roads. I turned on my emergency light, a fringe benefit of working in an emergency room, and floored it.

Before long, the thoughts of John Doe were gone from my mind, and in just a bit longer the police officer was gone from my rear-view mirror. Not even a challenge today. What a downer.

I pulled into my driveway and set my watch to time a speed run down the five-mile drive to the house. One of the first things I had bought when I got out of med school was land. Every cent I could save during those lean years of the recession of the nineties went toward land. Soon I had a nice-sized estate, around three thousand acres with a nice house on the far end of the property from the road and backing up to a newly expanded National Park wilderness area.

My speed run was one of my slower times down the curving driveway that had been a gift from the county after I had saved the lives of three police officers who had been shot by moonshiners on the road bordering my property. One of them had been the mayor's son and that had a lot to do with the gift, but I enjoyed it every day, even if I had felt a little guilty accepting it at the time.

My dogs were waiting for me when I pulled into the garage. I had three purebred black German shepherds, very rare dogs that brought in a nice income for themselves in stud fees. They had almost paid for themselves, and their upkeep, and that was saying a lot since I had imported them from Germany.

Giving each an affectionate hug and ensuring that they had plenty of food and water, I sent them off to patrol the grounds while I showered and warmed up. I was glad to see the pups, they always seemed to cheer me up no matter how foul my mood. Since my wife had left me nearly five years ago, they had been my only companions.

I watched as they ran off into the woods, their tails wagging and their only thoughts were to find something to bring back to me to get another hug or another treat. I mused that the love of a dog had to be close to the love of a god. They loved you regardless of how you looked, how you smelt, how you felt, or who you were.

---

It was two days after the John Doe had been left on my doorstep that I noticed the little leather pouch lying under the bushes near where he had been left. I stooped over to pick it up from where it was lying and carried it into the office. I laid it on the desk and proceeded to forget about it as the busy day began. That evening though, as I was packing up to drive home, I saw it on the desk where I had left it.

I took a moment to examine it more closely. There was a strangely ornate symbol embossed on the pouch, and a red and white pattern seemed to have once been painted over the embossed portion of the pouch, though most of the color had been worn away.

A leather cord attached to it appeared to be broken like it had been pulled off, but the pouch was still tightly closed. I felt the pouch between my fingers and it seemed to be filled with dried leaves that crunched in my fingers, like the feel of dried herbs. I grabbed a sheet of white paper, cleared a space on my desk, and swung over a magnifying lamp. I placed the pouch on the paper and opened it.

Inside the pouch was what appeared to be dried herbs, but they were a color I had never seen before in an herb. When the bag was empty, I examined it more closely with the magnifying lens. The pattern, as near as I could tell, was that of a leaf that had been painted red. Beneath the leaf, there were three hieroglyphic-looking symbols stamped into the leather and covered by black dye.

The pouch appeared to be made of one piece of leather, ingeniously constructed to pull together tightly at the top without excess leather bunching there. Though it appeared to be very old, from the wear that was evident on the leather, it was in excellent shape as if it had been cared for on a regular basis.

The contents of the bag were a different matter. There appeared to be a couple of tablespoons of a dried and crushed dark red leaf in the bag. Between my experience working in the clinic and seeing most of the recreational drugs that went through there, and my experience in the kitchen using herbs and spices, I had never encountered anything that looked like this plant.

I couldn't find out anything else about the leaf here so I decided to ship a bit of it to a toxicologist friend of mine from med school. He was one of the best in the country and I knew I could trust him to keep whatever he found to himself. I was fairly certain, that this pouch belonged to the John Doe and I thought it might have something to do with his very strange death.

Sealing up the package I was sending to be analyzed and then pouring the rest of the contents back into the pouch and pulling it closed, I tossed it into my briefcase and carried it home.

---

When I walked into the house, I was greeted with a delicious aroma, signaling that I had dinner waiting for me. I grabbed a hot shower and sat down to the warm meal prepared by my housekeeper. A few years ago, she had taken it upon herself to prepare my meals because she was afraid that I wasn't eating well enough, even though I was a doctor.

As I ate her delicious Hungarian goulash, I flipped through some of the books I had checked out from the library on ancient Egypt and hieroglyphics. I had decided that until I heard back from the toxicology lab, and since my search through the library's collection of books on plant identification had so far been fruitless, I would try and decode the three symbols that were on the leather pouch below the imprinted leaf.

I had always dabbled in languages, learning a bit of German, French, and Italian. But I learned quickly that hieroglyphs were another matter altogether. I understood how an ancient language had baffled experts for years until one little piece of stone had proven to be the key to a whole civilization. This effort was severely trying my patience and my intelligence. I had transferred the symbols onto a piece of tracing paper and I was flipping through a volume that was as close to a translation dictionary as I could find, trying to find a corollary or a rude translation of these symbols.

At midnight, after four hours of peering at strange drawings that made little sense and seeing no symbols that resembled the three for which I had been looking, I decided to call it a night. I packed away the books to return them in the morning and prepared for bed, my thoughts were filled with strange symbols and herbs.

It was around four that morning when the sound of barking awakened me. I instantly knew that something was wrong, the dogs were trained to bark only when they saw me, they were fed, or when there was danger. I immediately grabbed my gun, donned a black t-shirt, and grabbed my night vision goggles.

A few years earlier, some punks had decided to rob my house, partly in retaliation for helping save the cop they had tried to kill. The dogs had saved my life that night, attacking the men and buying me a few precious seconds to get away. Since then, I had taken security a bit more seriously, and the night vision goggles, that had been a gift from a friend in the Army, were an integral part of that security.

I doused the power to all the lights, a signal to the dogs that any intruders were fair game. It also gave me an advantage over any idiot who might try to rob me. I then checked the house alarm system to ensure that the intruder was not already in the house. What I found instead was that the entrance alarm had been blatantly tripped and there was a black Porsche 928 parked in the drive. Surrounding it were the three lads, angrily barking and lunging at the windows of the car, and the seemingly helpless individual inside.

Shedding the extra equipment, but keeping the gun, I turned the lights back on a rushed down to call off the dogs. What I found was my good friend, Jonathan, the toxicologist, sitting in his car looking pissed off and scared all at the same time. When he saw the dogs relax and back off, he looked up and saw me. I motioned him to come into the house, but it was only when I had put the lads back in the garage that he reluctantly got out of the car.

"That's quite a pack of dogs you have there, quite a way to greet an old friend," Jonathan said.

"Well Jonathan, if you would quit conducting business in the middle of the night and make your house calls during the day when sane people might be expecting you, you wouldn't get this kind of reception," I replied.

We laughed and shook hands, the friendship of many years showing through. I invited him into the house and poured each of us a shot of bourbon, a tradition we began long ago in the first years of medical school. We sat down in the den and briefly caught up on old times, how his family was doing, how my ex-wife was doing, and how much the world had changed since we had been in school.

Through the whole conversation, though, I could tell that he had something on his mind. He was carrying on small talk, but his eyes kept roaming the room and then returning to me, a troubled, and questioning, look on his face.

After the small talk had reached a lull and a certain uncomfortableness arose in the room, I finally decided to simply breach the subject broadside.

"I assume you are here because you found something interesting about the small sample I sent you a few days ago,” I stated rather bluntly.

"Where the hell did you get that damn stuff. Do you have any idea what hell you have put me through trying to analyze that shit and find out what the hell it is?"

I knew he had been uncomfortable, but I had no idea that he had been angry. I was rather taken aback by his outburst and at first, I was worried that my sending him that sample had somehow gotten him into some trouble with the government. I was pretty sure that it wasn't an illegal substance, I was quite the expert on those from my work in the inner city.

"Look, Jonathan," I replied, "I'm sorry if somehow that sample got you in trouble, it was just that it might relate to a patient’s case and I needed to know what it was."

"No, no, you didn't get me in trouble, it's just that I've had a hell of a time trying to identify that stuff. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before and doesn't seem to conform to any group of substances I know."

He paused here and took a deep breath before continuing, "But it does have some interesting qualities that I discovered. I thought I should tell you about them in person. For instance, it contains a double six-member ring that is interlinked, like two links of a chain. It also has some interesting combinations of carbon and rare metals that will need some further investigation. As to what it does, or from where it came from, I have no idea, and that is why I'm here, to see if you could give me any clues."

I sat there and looked at him, wondering how I had gotten wrapped up in this ever more bizarre tale. I had somehow expected the material in the pouch to contain a strange substance, but in all reality, I had figured it would just be some smelly Egyptian tea that got people high.

"That was why I sent the stuff to you. I suspect that a patient who died on my doorstep had been consuming some of that substance. I thought that maybe it had been related to his death. The coroner, however, seems to think the man died of natural causes and there was no evidence of toxins or foul play."

Jonathan looked at me, his eyes seemed to peer through me, trying to detect what it was I wasn't telling him. I could feel that he didn't believe me, that I was only telling a partial truth, and though Jonathan and I went way back to medical school, there was something about this whole situation that rubbed me the wrong way. Somehow, there was something odd about the whole situation that made me want to trust no one.

"Well, I was wondering," Jonathan began again, “if perhaps you had some more of that substance. I would like to run some more intensive tests and to be quite honest I have used up all that you sent me because I hadn't expected it to be so different.

"In fact, it was only tonight that I made my little discovery, and I just had to rush out here and tell you in person. I was fairly certain I couldn't trust my lab people with something this different, and when you first sent me this stuff, there appeared to be some urgency in getting it back to you."

"Well, there was some urgency at the time," I began, tying truth and half-truth together into a new symbiotic creation, “I found the sample I sent you in the pockets of a patient who was dropped off in front of my clinic. At first, I thought he was simply high, but the urine drug screen was negative, and when I searched his pockets that was all I found.

"Anyway, the coroner sent me a nice letter saying that there was no evidence of foul play and all his tests revealed no traces of unknown substances in the man's bloodstream."

Jonathan sat there for a minute, his eyes continuing to search for the truth that was hidden in my little scheme. I felt bad misleading him, but until I found out more about this situation, I had decided not to trust anyone.

"Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed. It's not often that a toxicologist gets to play with a new drug. I assume there hasn't been any progress on the man's identification?"

"If there has been any progress, I haven't been informed. To be quite honest, I don't expect we'll ever find out who he was. There are hundreds of John Does buried in this city every year and I doubt the police are going to put a whole lot of effort into an identity search into a man who the coroner said died of natural causes."

Jonathan nodded, the sadness reflected in his eyes. "Well, like I said, I had to try. Please let me know if anything more comes of the case."

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and talked for a while about the past, the good old days of med school and residency. It was close to morning when we parted, and as he was climbing into the car, he stopped for a moment, looked at me, and then shook his head. He climbed into his car and roared off down the driveway, his taillights disappearing into the woods, the roar of his engine slowly blending into the early morning sounds of the forest.

"God damned obnoxious birds! Chirping at this time of morning!" I yelled out, to no one in particular, as I walked back into the house, faithfully flanked by my three beautiful dogs.

---

Saturday, I rounded late on my patients in the hospital climbed into my car, and headed for the Capitol to see if I could find out anything more about the symbols on the pouch. I was hoping to get a few minutes in the university library to run a search through their database on hieroglyphics.

On this trip I had to be more careful, for although I did have an emergency light, the state police didn't take kindly to abusing a privilege. That didn't stop me from using the radar detector though! And it was a sunny spring day and I was enjoying the beauty of the North Carolina landscape freshly cleansed by yesterday’s rain.

As I drove down the highway, I tried once again to piece together what I knew about Mr. Doe and his Egyptian wonder bag. At least that was the working title I had for this whole scenario.

First, Mr. Doe was dead. He had died of what the coroner had deemed natural causes. All that meant was that there was no evidence of foul play and no other obvious cause of death. In other words, he appeared to have died of old age.

I thought back to his last moments, to the efforts my staff had made to save his life. What I seemed to remember the most was that he seemed to want to die. After the first time I had revived him when he shook his head at me, I had known that this man wasn't going to survive. If a man didn't want to live, then even the best in medical science couldn't keep them alive, not even on a ventilator.

So secondly, a seemingly healthy older gentleman had for some reason wanted to die and had succeeded.

Thirdly, there was the unknown pouch of material that contained a heretofore unknown substance that may or may not have related to this man's death. A strange biochemical content and even stranger form, function unknown, in a leather pouch with three unknown symbols on the front of the pouch.

That was, of course, number four, the three unknown symbols and my starting point in my search for some answers.

Before I realized it, having been lost in thought, I had arrived on the outskirts of the State Capitol, and within a few more minutes I was parked outside the largest library in the state.

Being Saturday, the computer terminals were rather empty. There were only a couple of professors, who seemed to have nothing better to do on a beautiful Saturday, and a few students, who seemed to be trying to cram in a project just before the deadline. I consulted the manual and entered my password. I had to re-enter it to verify who I was. It had been that long since I had been on the network. I was soon working on entering the shape of the first symbol and setting up the program to have the computer scan through the computer backs for a similar match.

The first two searches revealed no matches, but the third symbol revealed an exact match. The symbol, only one reference of which was listed, was believed to have been associated with a small town located on the far reaches of the Egyptian empire almost three thousand years before the Common Era. The symbol was found on a plaque located on a column in the middle of town and was believed to represent eternity.

I printed out this information and then went back and reset my search parameters to search for related symbols to the first two. I set wide parameters and figuring that the search would be long and generate a lot of useless information, I set the computer to store the information in my account.

I then took a stroll around the campus, remembering my days on a similar campus, enjoying the beauty of the coeds sunning themselves on the lawn, and sadly enough, I even began remembering the days spent on another similar campus with my ex-wife and all the wonderful times we used to have.

Luckily, I also remembered all the sad times and that quickly cheered me up. The single life had been very good to me and I wasn't one to complain. Instead, I headed for the nearest bar to have a quick drink, to scope out a possible companion for the night, and then I figured I would head back to the library for a little more work at my little deciphering game.

Chapter Two

The bar was rather empty that time of day, though it was beginning to pick up with some people beginning to sit out on the patio, having a beer and enjoying the warm weather.

I ordered a beer, grabbed a seat at the end of the bar, and watched a few minutes of a preseason baseball game that was on the television. I was also checking out the crowd that was beginning to slowly accumulate indoors when I noticed the two older gentlemen that entered the bar and took a seat in a corner booth. I didn't think much about it at the time, I had simply noticed them as being out of place in the bar, but then I thought that I must seem out of place there as well. Realizing that it was probably foolish of me to try and pick up a woman here, and realizing that I had finally gotten too old for the college scene, I paid my tab and headed for the library.

The walk back was quite serene and I watched the sun set over the large field on the edge of campus where a small crowd had gathered to watch a fraternity softball game, keg ball as we used to call it, where the runner had to drink a beer at every base.

I stopped and watched for a moment and as I turned for the library, I ran right into the most beautiful woman I had seen in ages. She wasn't tall or even voluptuous, but she appeared perfectly proportioned and she had the most beautiful brown eyes that were framed by a lovely halo of soft brown hair.

She had apparently been watching the game as well, and when I suddenly turned and bumped into her, I had knocked her backwards, scattering her armful of books across the grass, and knocking her glasses onto a rock where, as if on cue, one of the lenses cracked. Luckily, she was unhurt, slightly dazed, and maybe even embarrassed, but regaining her composure quickly she arranged herself and sat up gracefully, searching the ground for her glasses, which I picked up and handed to her.

"I'm so sorry," I began, “I didn't realize that you were behind me. Let me help you up." I said, offering a hand which she accepted, and though it sounds silly there was some sort of electricity in her touch, and, for a brief moment, our eyes locked. Then as quickly as it happened, it was over and I realized that I was still holding her hand.

Letting go and dropping to one knee, I helped her gather up her books and papers, the whole time thinking that this was something out of a Laurel and Hardy movie. Boy knocks girl over, boy meets girl, and boy and girl fall madly in love and elope to Reno. Instead, I gathered her papers, helped her gather herself up, and apologized again, heading off to the library without even introducing myself or finding out her name.

In the library, I was the only person in the computer lab and I quickly logged onto the computer and downloaded the information the computer had generated onto a couple of disks that I had brought along, figuring that I would peruse the information in depth at home.

After completing that task, I figured I would glance through what information there was and then grab a bite to eat at my favorite restaurant here in town. I hadn't eaten here in more than a year and I hoped that I would be able to get a table this time of night.

I opened the file on the computer and began scanning the information about the first symbol. It appeared that it was closely related to two other symbols the computer had found and appeared to be derived from a particular base symbol that meant plant.

The other two closely related symbols were of medicinal plants, one of which was a plant native to Egypt and now thought to be extinct and the other, more distantly related symbol, represented the poppy plant, from which that dreaded vice opium was derived. I wondered what the symbol actually stood for and how it related to my John Doe. It was the second symbol that really confused me and threw me off my rocker. The second symbol was apparently related to either cooking or metal making. There were apparently several symbols that were related, but none very closely, and there was no clear symbol from which it was derived.

My mind immediately flew back to the previous night when Jonathan had said that the substance contained an "unusual mixture of metals in a double ringed carbon structure." I wondered if perhaps this second symbol was a way to prepare whatever mixture there was to be made from what I assumed was a plant in the first symbol.

How the third symbol fit in I had no idea. Perhaps it represented some cult or sect that produced this mixture. Possibly this mixture was prepared to help people into the next world or something that they believed was needed to survive in the next world.

About that time, I was startled by the sound of a door shutting and I turned to see the beautiful brunette whom I had encountered earlier in my little mishap. I was surprised to see her here in the lab on a Saturday night. I figured that she would be out at a fraternity party having a good time instead of working in the computer lab.

When she saw me, she mockingly clutched her books to her chest and with feign terror said, “Stay away! Keep your distance you brute. I won't stand for you to abuse my books anymore."

She laughed and sat down at the terminal next to mine. I was embarrassed, turning red, and she laughed even harder when she saw that.

"I'm very sorry," I said, “usually I am very coordinated and normally I don't knock down beautiful women."

"That's alright," she said, “I usually don't sneak up behind good looking men and smell their cologne while they are watching keg ball."

We both laughed for a moment, each of us seeming to want to say something else, but neither of us doing so. Instead, a strained silence seemed to hang in the air, both of us just looking at each other, until she broke eye contact and sat down in front of a terminal beside the printers.

I returned to trying to decipher the references that the computer had generated, but I just couldn't seem to concentrate. Instead, I saved the information to my account and logged out of the system.

When I stood, I startled the brunette and caused her to drop a notebook that she had been reading. She bent over to pick it up and glared at me as I gathered my belongings.

"Well, it does seem that you enjoy scaring women and making them drop things. Did you perhaps work in a haunted house when you were a boy?" she asked with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"How did you ever guess?" I asked in mock surprise, "I come from a long line of circus performers!”

"That's all right," she gave me one of the most beautiful smiles that I had ever seen, "I just got wrapped up in this program that I am working on so that it startled me. I'm Lyssa, by the way. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself earlier, but you didn't catch me at one of my better moments." I laughed and held out my hand, “And I am Josh. I was surprised to see you here in the lab this time of night. You look like you should be at some society gala instead of here."

"Now I'm no more out of place than you appear to be. You look like you should be drinking daiquiris on a yacht sailing around the Caribbean."

"Only in my dreams." I replied. "What sort of program are you working on?" A seemingly innocent question, but one that was carefully planned to get several key points of information out of this beautiful woman, answers like, are you a student, do you have a job, or are you single.

"Well, it is sort of difficult to explain, but basically it is a computer model of a biochemical process that I am working on in the lab where we are trying to combine some rare metals with a carbon backbone structure. It really sounds more complicated than it is." She looked slightly embarrassed, as if she were ashamed that she was working on something that most people couldn't understand, or maybe because she was bragging. "And just what are you working on this time of night that is so interesting?" she returned with her pert little attitude.

"You think your project sounds complicated, you will laugh when you hear what I have been working on. I'm trying to learn to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. It is for a project that I have been working on trying to learn more about the healing arts of antiquity." A rather bold if not an all-encompassing lie. I was rather proud of this lie, for it would cover almost any question and it was partly true.

Lyssa looked somewhat impressed, as she just sort of stared at me as if she expected me to be some sort of nerd, and she was impressed that I wasn't here doing some sort of statistical analysis.

"So, are you some sort of history professor then?" Lyssa asked.

"No, actually I'm the captain of a yacht who doubles as a doctor when I'm not at sea and sometimes when I am."

She laughed, that same beautiful, light, and airy laugh that seemed to lighten the mood in the room almost instantly. "Josh, the book killer, yacht captain, and part time physician. Quite an interesting character to meet at the library on a Saturday night." And with that she seemed to brush me aside and went back to work on her terminal.

I took that as a sign that our playful bantering had come to a close. I grabbed my jacket and started to head out the door.

‘No,’ I told myself, ‘I am not going to let a chance like this slip through my fingers. I am going to find some way to get to know this beautiful woman.’ I walked over to where she was sitting and pulled up a chair, waiting for a break in her concentration to ask her if she would like to have dinner.

Without even looking up, and seemingly without breaking her concentration, she said, "Yes, Josh, I would love to go to dinner with you, just give me a few more minutes to finish this and then I need to run home and change, since you caused me to get this filthy grass stain on my jeans, but then I would love to go."

I just sat there and I know that I must have looked either shocked or dumbfounded, but I had to laugh when Lyssa finally turned from her terminal to give me another of her mischievous smiles. Then I began to seriously wonder if she had read my mind or, was she just very good at the dating game, and sort of knew what I was going to say. Either way I was impressed.

I nodded and eased back into my chair, pulled out my phone and started to read the research I had downloaded until she was finished.

I didn't find much else in the information I had saved. Just a lot of references to where certain symbols had been found, and what they pertained to. I really learned nothing new from those pages, but it did pass the time, so much so that I didn't notice when Lyssa turned off her terminal and turned to watch me.

Finally, I noticed the silence and looked up, only to see her intently staring at me, as if she were examining every single inch of me, looking into my very soul. I started to turn red in the face and she just laughed, stood up, and held out her hand for me.

I stuffed the stack of papers into my case, accepted her hand, and almost lost my balance as I stood up because of that same strange electricity that I felt when I had first helped her to her feet.

We headed off for her apartment, I followed her in my car, and we played a nice little game of chase through the city. She had an older, but well maintained, 280 Z and she was a good driver, weaving in and out between cars, shifting up and down, even running one stop light. In record time we had arrived across town and when she finally slowed and signaled a turn, something she had not done all the way across town.

This little drive had gotten my adrenaline flowing, something that had not happened for quite a while, and she was a good driver, something that I considered very important. Who else could understand my love of driving fast and fine German engineering than someone who also enjoyed driving?

"Nice driving." she said as she slid out of her car, gracefully as ever, long legs emerging first, "It’s good you passed my first test, with a car like yours it would be a shame to waste it on careful driving." She gave me an evil little grin and motioned for me to follow her as she darted up the stairs.

Her apartment was tastefully decorated. Not girlish in pink and frills, but not manly either. Just simply done in peach and navy, with white oak wood, something I was also partial to.

"Why don't you fix us both a drink? The bar is over behind those louvered doors. I'd like a bourbon and coke and help yourself to anything else I have. I'll just be a minute while I change." With that she disappeared into the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse, and closing the door.

I fixed both of us a bourbon and coke and kicked back on the couch with the remote control to her CD player which had a cool, new fusion jazz disk in it that was perfect for my mellow mood.

Lyssa emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later holding up a green plaid sleeveless dress that she asked me to zip for her. It fit her beautifully, not too tight, but definitely, figure flattering.

I handed her the drink as she finished putting on some earrings, and she downed almost half of it before she sat it down and bent over to get a pair of shoes that were half tucked under a chair across the room. Her dress rode up just enough to get a great view of two of the most beautiful legs I had seen in a long time. If there was something the medical profession could teach a person was to appreciate good anatomy.

"I love this new disk," she said as she slipped on her shoes and sat down on the couch beside me, taking another sup of her drink, “I got it just the other day and I have had it on ever since then. My neighbors probably hate it by now."

We finished our drinks, pretty much in silence, enjoying the music, and each other’s company. It was strange that I felt comfortable just sitting there beside her, usually, unless I was talking to someone, I felt uncomfortable around people, but not Lyssa. It was nice just to sit there in silence and listen to the music.

Several minutes later, when the disc was almost finished, Lyssa finished the rest of her drink and took my now empty glass and headed to the kitchen.

"Where would you like to eat?" she called from there, over the running water of the sink. "I know this great little bar and grill a few miles away that has a really great grilled chicken sandwich and a pretty good band that plays later tonight if you are interested."

"Sounds great to me. I'm sure you know this town a lot better than I do." I replied, standing up and stretching out my muscles that were tired from the drive down this morning and from sitting most of the day. I had hoped to eat at a favorite restaurant here in town, but I could drive back anytime and maybe even get reservations. I might even have a reason to return to town sooner than I might think if the night continued at the successful rate that it was presently following.

Lyssa appeared from the kitchen carrying a brown leather jacket, "Well, let’s get going then." She opened the door, turning the lock and pulled it shut behind her. She then took my arm and we headed down for my car.

---

The bar and grill was a cozy little place and we picked a table towards the back of the place, away from the stage where the band was beginning to set up.

The server appeared a few minutes later and we both ordered another round of bourbon and cokes and we went ahead and ordered our meals while she was there. Our drinks appeared a few minutes later and she began the small talk by asking what I was doing in town when I had out of town plates.

"You're awfully observant. Yes, I'm from Charlotte, but I needed a down link to the library of congress and State was the only place that had an open computer lab on Saturday. Besides, it's where I have a computer account.

"Did you ever get your program to work?" I asked in return.

"I wasn't really trying to get it to work, I just needed to see how far along it had gotten. It takes several days for the program to run because our time on the mainframe is limited and we can only get time when the government isn't using it. But it still didn't seem to be working correctly, but I won't know for certain for two or three more days."

"You said you were a biochemist, are you a graduate student at the university?" I asked, for I still wasn't sure how old she was. She looked like she was twenty-one, but she acted more mature than that. I was certain that she was single, there had been no signs of a man in her apartment.

"I wish I was a graduate student still. Actually, I just started as a researcher along the professor tract, mostly because I'm not much good at anything else and I couldn't get anyone to sponsor my race car driving career."

I laughed, and she just smiled. I realized that she was serious and I felt bad that I had laughed. "You really did try and drive professionally, didn't you? I bet you were great, so why couldn't you get anyone to sponsor you?"

"Mostly it was that macho male bull shit. They didn't want a woman among their midst and the easiest way to keep me from winning was to keep me in a second-rate car. So, after a few months of the same old shit, I sold out, and went back to school. So here I am."

Our food arrived about then and we both set about devouring our food with little conversation. We chatted aimlessly as we ate, commenting on how the food was good, the bar was nice, and the band sounded pretty good, after they got started.

The bar was getting crowded by the time we finished our meal and we decided to let someone else have our table. We had decided we would head to the upstairs bar to listen to the music.

We both got another round of drinks and sat back at the bar and enjoyed the jazz band. The saxophone player was pretty good, but what made the band was the female lead singer who had this incredible voice. She could cut through just about any range that the band could play and make it look easy.

I was brought out of my little world of amazement by Lyssa who had grabbed my arm and was pulling me towards the dance floor. I gladly accepted her lead and it was fascinating to watch Lyssa move to the music, her lithe body moving in ways that would set any man's mind wandering in directions that were better not thought about in public.

It wasn't as if she were sexually graphic, or even suggestive, it was just that she moved with a simple subtleness that gave the hint that she had a fit body under her dress and that she knew how to use it.

As if on cue, the band started to play a slow song and Lyssa stepped up into my arms and rested her head on my shoulder as we moved to the slow rhythm. I was trying to imagine just which parts of her body were rubbing up against me and the soft tickle of her breath on my neck was about to drive me crazy, but I must admit that it was a nice sort of crazy.

Then all hell broke loose and the mad sort of crazy began.

Just as I was really starting to enjoy holding this beautiful young body in my arms the windows along the front of the bar exploded with the sound of gunfire. Broken glass was flying everywhere and I dove for the floor, pulling Lyssa down with me and covering her with my body.

Bullets and glass continued to rain into the bar and the screams of the people grew in pitch as bullets began to find their marks. I started to inch towards the stage, the nearest cover that I could see, but when I tried to pull Lyssa with me, she shrugged me off and started scooting for the back door, shouting for people to get down and out of the way.

I started after her, yelling at her, and she turned with an ice-cold stare that could freeze the Caribbean as she pulled a very nasty looking gun from a garter belt that I had missed earlier.

That stare and another barrage of bullets convinced me to again take cover behind a speaker and all I could do was watch as she disappeared out the back door of the bar.

I thought I heard a few shots answer this last burst and then suddenly all the shooting stopped and the unmistakable sound of sirens could be heard approaching. I heard a door slam and brake lights lit up the inside of the bar as I stood and saw the back of a blue van disappear down the street.

The screams of the wounded were my next concern. Working in a mid-city emergency room I was used to the after effects of shoot outs and I had even been shot at a few times, and my mind immediately began to triage the wounded as I scanned the room.

There was a girl who had been standing near the window who was missing most of her head. Two of her girlfriends were screaming hysterically as they turned away from the carnage, only to see another woman lying there with a gaping chest wound. It was too much for her and she turned towards the wall and began to throw up.

There were two other bodies that were certainly dead, another with a head wound, and one who had taken a shot right in the middle of the chest. I first grabbed the gaping chest wound, pulling a tablecloth off, and finding a water pitcher that had somehow survived the carnage, I soaked the cloth with water and packed the wound, helping her in her respiratory effort until we could get a chest tube in her.

Next, a person shot in the arm. The bullet apparently clipped an artery because blood was spurting all over the place. A girl was leaning over him, hysterically trying to stop the bleeding and I had to literally throw her off to get at the arm and put a tight tourniquet on the wound.

A third person had two bullet wounds but other than a little bleeding from some cuts made from broken glass that I tried to stop, the biggest thing was getting a nearby person to help comfort him and hold his hand until help got here.

There was a fourth older person in the back of the room that I had seen earlier, but now he was clutching his chest and was turning blue. I didn't see any wounds and quickly surmised that he was having a heart attack, brought on by the excitement. I ran over and helped ease him to the floor and felt for a pulse. There wasn't one and he had stopped breathing so I immediately began to resuscitate him and I soon lost all track of time as I struggled to get, and keep, a pulse in this man. Twice I had gotten a pulse and twice had lost it. I was wishing for my emergency room for an IV or a life pack when, for the third time, I got a pulse that seemed stronger and steady and this time held as I continued to give him mouth to mouth.

A tap on the shoulder revealed a paramedic who said he would take over and I gladly let him while I leaned back against the bar and tried to catch my breath. Paramedics and police were swarming the bar now, trying to restore some sense of order to the carnage they found inside.

That was a preview of Glimpse of Infinity. To read the rest purchase the book.

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