Carbide Tipped Pens Part 13

"If only you had a medical tattoo..." Dan deadpanned from behind her.

"Conflict of interest," she answered automatically, as she always did.

He chuckled, a rumble like an avalanche. "Except that half the judges and more than half the jurors we argue in front of have med-tats."

"Yeah, well."

"Remember that one we argued, which was it, the fourth? Fifth-?"

"Fifth."

"Where-yeah, fifth-where the entire jury had med-tats?"

"I've got it under control. My epi-pen works fine."

"So get the tat and keep your epi-pen."

"Can't. They won't renew the 'script. Risk of overdose. I know the arguments, Dan, I just can't bring myself to trust my life to something I can't control."

"You? Control issues? Nah." He laughed, but his voice was low and serious when he added, "Someday it won't work, Indi."

In the lobby behind them, the commotion peaked. Screeching cries of fear pierced the roar of mingled voices. Indira turned, but Dan threw an arm out in front of her.

"Careful."

Uniformed security and plainclothesman policemen rushed in as a man broke free from the crowd. For one frantic moment he met Indira's eye. Then someone crashed into him from behind and he went down with a thud.

"Well, that's not going to be good," Dan said.

Dan perched on the edge of her desk, arms crossed lazily.

"You won't believe what it was."

Indira raised an eyebrow.

"Some whacked-out protestor tried to spray the crowd with ricin loaded into an epi-pen. Don't worry, it didn't discharge."

Indira had logged many hours of practice at schooling her expression, but incredulity broke through now. "What kind of sick-wait. An epi-pen?"

Dan snorted. "Yeah. Guess we'll be using crayons in court from now on. Security will probably start confiscating everything pointy at the door."

Indira gave him a long look of exasperation.

Dan grimaced. "Yeah. I thought of that. I'm sure you can get some kind of exemption, right?"

"I'm sure." Indira kept her thoughts to herself. She knew he was concerned about her, but he was also looking a little smug about his prediction coming true.

"It'll work out, you'll see." He stood and rapped his knuckles twice on her desk. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You can't take that in."

Indira scowled at the epi-pen in the guard's hand, to keep herself from scowling at the young man who held her medicine hostage. It wasn't his fault. Suited lawyers and nervous family members murmured behind her, s.h.i.+fting in a restless herd while she held up the line.

"Come on, Ari. Yesterday I was Indira and today I'm 'ma'am'? I have a note from my physician right here. It's biometrically notarized. You know I need it for my perfume allergy; you check it through every day."

The young man looked around for help. "I'm sorry. Maybe you can speak to my manager. She left for a meeting about fifteen minutes ago. She should be back in an hour, maybe?"

"I can't wait that long. I'm due in court in twenty minutes."

He shrugged, a dull red creeping up his face and ears. The din behind Indira was growing louder and more frustrated. "I'm sorry."

"Fine," she said, picking up her carry bag, sans epi-pen, and slinging the strap over her shoulder with a frustrated jerk. "Keep it. Can I go in now?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Dan waited for her inside the checkpoint. He matched her angry strides easily with his long legs. "You sure that's a good idea, hotshot?"

"Nothing's happened in months."

"Yeah." His answer was subdued, doubtful, and his face settled into the frown that was his normal expression. Indira was glad. It made people get out of their way.

The morning session was what Dan liked to call a "defense attorney's yacht-payment" session. Hours of quibbling over minor details, accomplis.h.i.+ng nothing. By the time they broke for lunch, Indira was getting a headache. As she exited the courtroom, a woman stopped in front of her so quickly Indira almost crashed into her.

"Miss Chang. I didn't expect to have the pleasure of seeing you today. I was worried that all the fuss yesterday would delay our case."

Heather Gannon was the CEO of Gannon & Perez, developer and manufacturer of pharmaceutical and diagnostic tattoo technology. She wore a pale yellow suit with a string of pearls at her perfect throat. Somehow she managed to carry off the Stepford Wife look without losing one bit of her ferocity as a businesswoman. Indira couldn't help but notice that she made it look s.e.xy, too. Too bad that was a real conflict of interest, and anyway, Gannon and Lucy Perez had been married since before they started the company.

"No. We're still scheduled for this afternoon. If you'll excuse me, I-"

The familiar itch started in her throat, around her eyes and mouth. Indira sucked in a strangled gasp. Already her throat was tightening. There wasn't enough air. A hot flush swept her and she staggered back into Dan.

"Indira? Oh, G.o.d. Someone call 911!"

Indira woke, groggy and itchy. Her heart stuttered in a moment's panic before she realized that it wasn't the itch preceding an attack, but the more general, pervasive itch of pain medication. She became slowly aware of the all-too-familiar steady beep, and the cold, antiseptic smell of a hospital.

d.a.m.n.

The deputy DA sat at her bedside, leafing through a magazine. "You're up," Rowan said, trying to hide his worry behind a shaky smile. He'd been her boss almost since she'd pa.s.sed the bar, and was as much friend as colleague. "Glad you're back with us."

"Thanks. Me, too. What's the status of my cases?"

Rowan raised a brow. "Considering you nearly died, maybe you can give yourself a couple hours' recess before you start talking work again, counselor?"

"It was just an allergic reaction."

Rowan's face hardened. "No. It wasn't. It was an episode that you almost didn't survive. What were you thinking, going in there without your epi?"

"I was thinking that I had an appointment with a judge, and that opposing counsel would be only too pleased if I didn't show up."

He shook his head. "Sometimes I think you're trying to give me a heart attack. Really, Indi, that was stupid. Dan could have handled it without you. You almost died."

"But I didn't. I just need you to talk to someone and get an exemption for my epi straightened out."

"No. You're not going back to court. It's already been decided."

"Then undecide it. Come on, Rowan. Talk to someone at the mayor's office."

"I have. The mayor himself told me to take you off. No one is keen to start making exceptions when you're not the only lawyer in the city. Dan's perfectly competent, Indira."

"How many negligence and malpractice cases have I won against Gannon and Perez for implantable biotech?"

"I know."

"Nine."

"Yes, I know."

"How many has Dan argued?"

"Indira-"

"How many?"

"I know."

"None. That's how many. Dan's a good lawyer, but this is my case."

"Not anymore it isn't. I'm sorry."

The snake wound around Dr. Tehari's arm in sinuous green and yellow coils. Its head was poised over her wrist with open jaws that seemed ready to swallow her hand. Or slither a few centimeters farther and sink its fangs into Indira. Indira turned away, closing her eyes and losing herself in the constant buzzing noise.

"You all right?" the doctor asked.

Indira forced herself to look at the snake, rather than at the angry-red skin around her half-finished tattoo.

"What's that one for?" Indira nodded toward the snake.

Tehari grinned, a flash of white teeth. "Nothing." She winked. "That's just to scare the patients. This one," she wiggled the other wrist, displaying the single blue line tattooed around it. "This one's for my diabetes."

"Huh. Plain and simple." Indira took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She'd shoved that d.a.m.ned epi-pen into her own thigh often enough; she could handle one little needle.

"I was one of the test cases," the doctor said, and it took Indira a moment to remember what they were talking about. "The first ones were all the same," she went on. "They only got fancy once they were in common use. I keep meaning to make it into something more interesting, I just haven't decided what I want yet."

There was something oddly poetic about a tattoo artist not knowing what she wanted tattooed on her own skin. Indira had already known that she wanted a delicate vine of ivy with diagnostic readouts in the leaves. She'd had the design picked out for years, actually, but then she had started taking cases against Gannon & Perez. When she had seen up-close just what the tech could do when things went wrong, the med-tat had been put on permanent hold. She wondered if the doctor knew what she did for a living.

"Heard you're off the case," Dr. Tehari remarked. "It was on the news."

Well, that answered that.

"Not anymore, I hope," Indira said, nodding toward her arm without actually looking. "Not after this."

Dr. Tehari grinned. "I was surprised to see your name on my patient list. I would have thought you'd be a little, well, disinclined to get the tattoo, considering."

"It's not personal. I'm just doing my job." Indira grimaced as the needle traced a thin, painful line over a nerve. "Though it wasn't my first choice, I'll admit."

"You're doing the right thing. Allergies like yours are one of the best applications of the med-tat. Don't think there have been any cases of failure with these."

Indira shook her head. "There have, but they were addressed years ago. They're one of the safest applications now."

"And you would know."

Silence lapsed but for the buzz of the needle. Indira looked toward the vial with her name and patient ID on it. Each vial of serum was customized, engineered out of the DNA of its designated target. The tattoo clinic received the bioengineered serum from Gannon & Perez, and then added it to that patient's ink. She had tried a case where the labels on two vials had been switched, and two patients had gotten product meant to cure conditions they didn't have. The non-diabetic who got the insulin regulator only noticed that her dust and pet dander allergy wasn't getting better. The diabetic whose blood sugar suddenly went wild was the one who brought the case. When Indira won it, Gannon & Perez had tightened its quality a.s.surance practices.

"This is where I usually make sure you know how this thing works," Dr. Tehari said, "but given who I'm talking to, I suspect you know better than I do."

Indira tried to smile. "I'd say I know the basics." The tattoo didn't contain medicine, but rather engineered cells that could produce medicine as needed, whenever needed. Because the cells themselves were never depleted, just activated and deactivated, the medicine could never run out. The diagnostic displays were mostly for rea.s.surance. People liked the feedback so that they knew the tattoo was working.

The buzzing halted while the doctor switched inks, the sudden silence echoing in Indira's ears. "I'm just finis.h.i.+ng up the display. This'll show the presence of allergens. Greens are all-clear. You might see some fluctuation in the green, but that's just cosmetic, like a screensaver when your phone is in standby. Yellows mean a small but not dangerous concentration is detected, brighter toward the source of the concentration so that you know which way to go if you want to avoid it. The deeper autumns are when things get nasty. Red means you're around a high enough concentration to trigger the drug. Brown means that it's in your system, dealing with the threat. You know what the epi hit feels like. The color just reinforces that yes, that's what that flushed sensation is. Then brown will fade back to yellow and eventually green." She set the tattoo gun down and wiped clear, soothing gel across the angry skin. "There. Have a look."

Indira turned her head with mild trepidation, which disappeared as soon as she saw the finished product. "Wow. It's gorgeous." A slender green vine wove its way up her inner arm, with four delicate leaves sprouting off it in perfectly shadowed trompe l'oeil. It looked real, and the faint s.h.i.+fts of green in the leaves made it seem like they were swaying in the breeze of a sun-dappled glade.

The doctor smiled. "Thanks. I like to do work that's more than just functional. I have an MFA in art, but it didn't take long to realize that an MFA doesn't pay the bills, so I went into med school."

"Sounds like a perfect career for you, then." The woman working on her arm didn't seem old enough to have gone through graduate school and med school, but with the cosmetic implants available these days, you never knew.

"Well, it rules out the squeamish artists, that's for sure." She set the tattoo gun down and wiped clear, soothing gel across the angry skin. "There. All the leaves are keyed to the same readout, but they can be reprogrammed if you get other med tattoos later on. I like to leave room for growth."

"Ha-ha."

"Yeah, no pun intended or anything."

Dr. Tehari set to cleaning up, carefully sealing the ink pots. They went into a clear box along with Indira's vial. More quality a.s.surance-if something went wrong, not that it would, the ink and serum would be available for testing. The box was labeled with Indira's name and patient number, and then sealed with biohazard tape.

By the time the works.p.a.ce was clean, the gel was ready to come off. Dr. Tehari wiped it away gently, cleaned the skin again, and applied a few pumps of a fine, cold aerosol mist. "This will seal it up and heal it, so don't worry about b.u.mping it on anything or getting it wet, but it'll stay a little tender for the next day or two. We'll let your immune system recover, and tomorrow we'll test it out and make sure it works."

Indira grimaced. "Yeah. That's the part I'm really looking forward to." After her recent hospital stay and the enforced leave of absence from work, the last thing she wanted to do was tempt anaphylaxis for fun.

Tehari shook her head. "Don't worry. It'll be fine. The cells will be all settled in their new home, ready to pump out antidote before you've even realized you need it."