Bad Nerd Rising (22 page)

Aleksi loped toward the
exercise room. Thoughts of Tia were never far from his mind. But
then there was the other woman in his life also occupying space.
His mother would drive him insane before this was all over. Why was
she such a problem these days?

And what about that
mystifying secret?

Why had his aunt told him
she suspected he played a role in it that his mother hadn’t
confided? They didn’t even know if there was a secret.

His thoughts threatened to
overwhelm him, and Aleksi, fists clenched, made for the treadmill
first. He set the speed and incline at rugged levels and took off,
wanting to race away from his problems.

But they’d only follow him.
He knew that. It didn’t stop him from running faster.

***

Tia tried again to rub her
headache away, but something inside her brain wasn’t paying
attention. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and kept logging
results into the computer. Her headache roared back with evil
laughter, or taunting menace, she wasn’t quite sure
which.

Deciding to ignore the
pain, she kept working, and thought longingly of her shower. All
those levers with the various pressures and the steam would ease
her aching head. But she stayed at the bench and kept logging
plates. The results weren’t what they had expected, but then why
should that surprise her? So far this entire visit hadn’t been what
she expected. Life wasn’t what she had expected.

With a sigh, she placed the
next plate onto the finished pile, suspicious of the To Do stack.
She was sure it was reproducing when she turned her head. Maybe
there were elves in the palace who kept sliding more plates into
the heap when her back was turned.

She scowled at the pile and
with a grumpy groan, picked up the next plate. Maybe she shouldn’t
have eaten half of Aleksi’s cheesecake. But he had proven to be a
tough negotiator. She only got half, but then she also managed to
steal kisses in between bites. Tia still couldn’t figure out if
she’d enjoyed the dessert or the man more.

She was leaning toward the man.

Mmm, he was yummy. Any man
who could compare to chocolate cheesecake was an incredible man
indeed. Tia certainly had never met one like Aleksi before. Well,
her Granddad was a great man. So was her daddy, but she’d never
dated a man who was so impressively comparative.

Amazing, sweet, tasted
good, breathtakingly handsome, smart, funny, compassionate,
responsible – Aleksi’s list of qualifications were extraordinary.
The only thing wrong with him was he was a prince. Mostly because
being a prince was not something easily remedied with training;
like if he wasn’t housebroken yet, and she had to teach him to
leave the toilet seat down.

How did a woman teach a man
not to be a prince? Was that even possible?

She was pretty certain it
was out of her realm of experience. It might even be out of General
Emma’s, and that meant it bordered on the impossible.

Tia sighed again and
massaged her forehead again. The minions pounding from the inside
had obviously welcomed others back from a coffee break because the
tapping and pain had doubled.

Giving up, she rose from
the computer and staggered into her office. She was sure she’d
placed a bottle of pain medicine in her desk. But which drawer?
Staring at her desk like an idiot didn’t give her the answer she
needed so she started methodically yanking open drawers.

Of course, she found the bottle in the last
drawer she searched.

Now, something to ease the
pills down. A liquid. Her eyes played over her desk but not so much
as a bottle of water or half filled mug of coffee showed.
Darn.

Frowning, Tia’s eyes lit
on the small refrigerator in the corner. Hadn’t Maria mentioned
they kept drinks in there for the lab personnel? She tugged the
door open and met with a vast array of drinks. Wow,
thanks Maria
.

She helped herself to an
iced tea, as there were several bottles of them. This would do. The
caffeine might help keep her awake while she tackled the growing
stack of plates and help ease her headache.

How many pills should she
take? Squinting at the bottle, she thought the directions said to
take two. She shook three out of the bottle and stared at them for
a moment, shrugged and tossed them back with a gulp of the
tea.

There, that should take
care of matters. Wonderful.

Eyeing the stack of plates,
she thought maybe it looked like about the same number that had
been there when she left. To be sure, she counted the stack. Still
fifteen to go.

Tia rubbed at her head
again, and then got back to work. If she didn’t hurry, they’d all
reproduce and she’d have to contend with thirty plates instead of
the fifteen.

After picking up each plate
she made a note as to what she saw on the agar. They’d have to run
each colony through an identifier, but Tia wasn’t a Ph.D. in
microbiology for nothing. She knew her bacterium.

And none of the colonies
growing on the plates before her made sense. These colonies weren’t
normally found in drinking water. It was almost as if they’d been
added there. This made no sense.

Why would someone add
bacteria to the water people drank? Especially in a
hospital.

An act of terrorism?
Maybe.

But Tia doubted it. These
colonies, in high quantities might make the young and old very
sick, but would only cause discomfort to healthy individuals. And
from what she could gather about the people of Rurikstan, most of
the people were healthy.

Making a mental note to
hold a meeting with the lab staff in the morning, she plowed
through the remainder of the plates. Hoping they’d find these
results as odd as she. Tia also made a note to bring in the water
authority personnel again. See if their recent data compared to
what she currently logged.

Maybe they were seeing the
same weird results. That might indicate these colonies were normal
for Rurikstan’s water. Or they could be as flabbergasted as
she.

Please let it be the
former
.

Tia didn’t know who she
directed that plea too, but she sent it nonetheless. Because she
really didn’t want to deal with the fact that the more results they
logged the more questions were raised.

From a scientist’s
viewpoint, this equation was a problem. From a human standpoint, it
was head-banging-in-frustration worthy.

And since she already had a headache....

***

“You look happy,” Tia said in an aside to
Helena when she breezed in the next morning.

“I am,” Helena responded.
There was no denying the glow that emanated from her.

“Good for you.”

Helena frowned. “You on the other hand, got
stuck here all night, didn’t you?”

Tia shrugged. “That’s my
job. But it wasn’t all night. I got about four hours
sleep.”

“What is that American
saying? All work with no play makes Tia a dull girl?” Helena’s
accent and intonation reminded her strongly of Aleksi’s. He spoke
more formally, but it still made her miss him, which was
silly.

“Tia’s a dull girl whether she plays or
not,” Tia answered wryly.

“I don't believe that.”
Helena looked skeptical.

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“Did you at least eat supper?”

“Aleksi arranged for
Crumley to make us the evening meal. Emerson wheeled it in for
us.”

One delicate eyebrow rose.
“Ah, Emerson. So everyone knows you and the prince ate supper
together. In your office I presume?”

Tia reflected that it
wasn’t fair how gorgeous Helena looked this morning. “We did eat
supper in my office. Then Aleksi left to take a phone call, we
split his dessert, and he had to go do whatever princes do. While I
stayed and logged yesterday’s results.”

“No hanky panky?” Helena still sounded like
she didn’t quite believe a word that came out of Tia’s mouth.

Tia scowled at her. “Do I
look like the type to resort to hanky panky?
Especially
with a prince?” No way
was she admitting to her extracurricular activities with Aleksi
last night.
No way.
Suppressing a shudder so as not to tip off Helena seemed
appropriate.

Helena, blast or bless her,
Tia couldn’t decided which, didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Her answer was
unequivocal and firm.

Wow. Maybe she was on to
something here. Maybe she could have Aleksi. Then she thought of
Aleksi’s mother.
Maybe not.
She really wanted to see him though.

With an arched brow of her
own, although there was no way Tia’s disbelief matched Helena’s in
beauty, but one had to use what one had. To prove her case she
said, “I hate the color pink, I have terrible accidents when
wearing high heels, and I’m allergic to makeup. What part of that
spells princess material?”

Helena didn’t look at her,
but she was listening because she stated, while opening her email,
“You’re nearly six feet tall, with a supermodel’s body. You don’t
need makeup because you’re so beautiful you could grace magazine
covers without it. Know too, that there are hypoallergenic brands
now that are good. There’s nothing in the princess code that says
you have to wear pink or high heels.” Then Helena glanced at her
from the corner of her eye, and raised a finger when Tia opened her
mouth. “And if it bothers you about walking in high heels, we have
an expert right here in the lab.”

As one, she and Tia both
turned to stare at Maria. Who scampered around the lab, in high
heels, as though they were sneakers. “Should we hate her?” Tia
wondered.

“No. Not yet. I’ve been
telling myself there’s something wrong with her for the last two
years.”

“And?”

Helena shook her head. “I
haven’t discovered it yet. But I will.”

“How can she help me learn to walk in high
heels?”

“Sweetie, I’m pretty sure
Maria could show you how to run in high heels. With
scissors.”

***

“What did you find last
night?” Jorge asked after everyone arrived, imbibed some coffee,
and collected their thoughts. That’s when they all liked to
converge for a quick lab meeting.

With everyone grouped
around the main bench in the lab, Tia spread out the reports she
had generated in the early morning hours and passed a copy to each
of them. “You tell me,” she said as she watched their
faces.

All three of them frowned,
before flipping through the entire report then returning to the
first page. Confusion etched their features and Tia’s heart sank.
These bacterium were not common to these wells then. Or at least
not during the past month.

That meant...
she wished she knew
.

“What are these bacterium
doing in a drinking well? We see these in certain tests we run in
the hospital...” Maria raised bemused eyes to Tia, who bit her lip
and shook her head.

“I was hoping they’re common to these
wells.”

“The one thing these bugs
have in common is they’re all dangerous in large quantities,”
Helena said, as she slowly flipped through the report. “And we see
them in our hospital testing.”

Tia nodded. “Yes I also
noticed that.”

“Staph, strep, E-coli,
salmonella, all of them are common, but bad in the quantities found
in well twenty-six.” Helena stared at the sheet,
frowning.

“Since well twenty-six is
the hospital well, and unfortunately, these bugs are found in the
hospital, how did this contamination happen?” Tia
ventured.

Jorge started. “The
biohazard room.”

All eyes turned to stare at him.

He stared back. “The main
infectious waste room is in the basement, very close to the well
mouth. Maybe we should start there.”

Tia closed her eyes as
unwelcome thoughts stormed through her brain. “That’s the best plan
we have so far.”

“Do you want me to call
Graham?” Maria asked as she gnawed on her lip.

“Yes, you’d better. He’ll
want to be in on this. But I’m thinking maybe we need to all go
over there and take a look.”

“I’d feel better if I could
see the entire area,” Helena said. “I rarely enter that section of
the hospital.”

“Me, either,” Maria added.
“I really hope we discover what is causing the problem.”

“Some of the other wells
are also showing some odd bacterium for a well, though, so we
shouldn’t assume,” Tia said grimly.

They all stared at each
other, and Tia hated the despair that seemed to grip them. Maria
finally yanked out her mom attitude. “Let’s get well twenty-six
figured out. Then we’ll tackle the others,” she decreed.

That sounded good to Tia.
“Okay. That’s excellent advice.”

Jorge and Helena looked
relieved at not having to offer a suggestion. Tia was glad Maria
was used to making decisions. It helped. Because she certainly
didn’t have anything to add.

It made sense to figure out
the problem in the most contaminated well, first. Then they’d worry
about the discrepancies in the others.