It was replaced by a milky-white glow through which the needle passed to penetrate the mattress beneath him!
"Huh?" gasped Dr. Horton. A look of great surprise came on his face as he turned toward Cooper. In silent disbelief he withdrew the needle, and Mike's chest reappeared. "That DIDN'T happen!" he whispered, "It couldn't!" He threw the useless syringe onto the tray.
"Try his arm," said Cooper.
Horton grabbed another syringe that had already been prepared. Removing the plastic cap, he held Mike's arm and tried again to inject him. The needle seemed to penetrate, but when the doctor squeezed the syringe, the liquid squirted out of Mike's arm into a wet blotch on the bed! Horton again stared, bewildered, at Cooper.
"What do we do now?" asked Cooper.
"There's not much we can do," Horton replied. "He doesn't seem to want us to do anything. We can only wait and see what his body does. It's all up to him now. Right now, I'm on my way to check on some other important matters in the building. If you need me, please have me paged."
He walked to the opposite side of Mike's bed in his slow manner that came with age. He pulled the white curtain around Mike's bed, a little more toward the end of it. The lab door had been left open by one of the techs, as usual. He, of course, wanted his patient's condition to be kept under top security precautions.
"Would you kindly escort my assistant, here," Dr. Cooper said and pointed to Jeanie, who was now standing nearby, "to the emergency dorm for me?"
"Of course! I would be pleased to offer such a pretty young lady a hand! You're going to be staying a while, I would assume?"
"Yes, I need some time alone with the boy, to think and meditate. I'll be glad to keep an eye on things for you, while you're gone."
"Good! Excellent!" Dr. Horton smiled. "You may use my phone anytime you wish. Take care, Matthew. I'm sure things will be all right. So many strange things happen in the world today, and most seem to turn out for the better."
"Mmmmmmmm," mumbled Cooper. He was already in deep thought.
"Come along, young lady! I can see you've had a difficult time of it all. You need some rest!" Horton called. He held out his left arm to her.
Before leaving with him, she couldn't resist rushing to her boss' side and giving him him a quick hug. She had never seen him so worried! Feeling very heartbroken, Jeanie joined her older escort and left the clinic silently.
Matthew Cooper seemed frozen where he stood. Everything was so quiet here. The only faint sound was the hum of Mike's EEG machine. This noise snapped Cooper's mind back to thoughts of the lab. He hunted for the telephone and noticed the nearest one on the wall near the bedside.