Free Invasive Procedures by Aaron Johnston Page B

that the Healer will return in three days to administer a countervirus and stop the treatment.”
    “You got it.”
    “And all this you’ve learned in the last forty-eight hours?”
    Riggs handed the book back to Frank. “We have George Galen and his little book here to thank for that. Everything we’ve learned started there.”
    Frank leaned back and silently flipped through the book again, this time paying attention to any legible text. One passage read:
    Man has evolved into the captain of all living things, the product of time. And yet in his current state he is blind to his potential andenslaved to diseases that need not beset him. Only the Prophet can open him up and allow him to become something greater than himself.
    The Prophet
    This prophet, whoever he was, obviously thought very highly of himself. Here he was prophesying about his own future achievement: helping man reach his evolutionary potential.
    Frank shook his head. How could George Galen, the author
of
this book and a genius by anyone’s definition, believe this crap? How could he believe that such a prophet existed? Sure, Galen had run on hard times, but had his fall from fame been so severe that he had gone mental?
    They landed at LAX and got into a government-issued town car and drove north on the 405. Frank’s luggage and the case of countervirus were stored safely in the trunk of the car.
    Frank sat in the back, staring down at the closed charred copy of the Healer book of scripture.
    “If you know these Healers are responsible,” he said, “why not hit the streets and arrest the first Healer you find, take him in for questioning?”
    “We thought of that,” Riggs said. “Unfortunately, Healers have all but vanished since the explosion, like they knew we were on to them. We’ve got the LAPD keeping an eye out for them, but as far we as we can tell, they’ve all gone back to whatever hole they crawled out of.”
    They took the Wilshire Boulevard exit and immediately came upon the Federal Building, a massive, white, impenetrable-looking structure. They drove past the long row of flagpoles out front and headed for the back parking lot.
    In minutes they were walking through the building’s entrance in the rear, passing through a security checkpoint designated for armed governmental employees. Frank flashed the ID card Riggs had given him to the security guard and followed the two agents to the elevator.
    As they waited for it to arrive, Frank realized that no one else was approaching this elevator. The lobby was fairly crowded with people, but everyone else used the elevators across the hall, the main elevators of the building, the ones going up.
    A chime sounded, and the elevator Frank and the agents were waitingfor opened. They stepped inside, and Carter produced a key, inserted it into a hole, and turned. The doors closed and the elevator descended.
    “Welcome to the BHA, Dr. Hartman,” Carter said with a smile.
    Frank looked at the console and saw that there were no buttons for floors. Wherever they were going, there was only one stop.

7
CORE
    Galen led Monica down a series of corridors, talking constantly. Monica was doing her best to keep up, but the man had more energy than she’d expect of someone his age.
    “You’ll have to excuse the mess,” he said, waving his arms vaguely in the air. “It’s a work in progress. We plan on finishing all the construction eventually.”
    A long sheet of plastic hung across the hallway in front of them. They stepped through it, and Monica saw the mess to which he referred. This whole wing of the hospital, if it was indeed a hospital, was still under construction. Walls were unfinished. Electric sockets were open and unwired. Building supplies littered the floor: conduit, sheetrock, nails, buckets of plaster. Nor had any tile been laid. The floor was rough concrete.
    “Watch your step,” Galen said, leading her through the maze of hanging plastic sheets.
    “I know it doesn’t look like