"Heart and lungs in good shape?"

"They're functioning."

"How old?"

"She's thirty-four. Why?"

"I've been following a medical patient on the teaching service. Endstage congestive failure. Blood type AB positive. He's been waiting for a new heart?Vivian went over to the chart rack. "Which bed?"

"Eleven."

Vivian pulled the chart out of the rack and flipped open the metal cover. Her face belied no emotion as she scanned the pages.

"She's not my patient any more," said Abby. "I transferred her to Neurosurgery. They drained a subdural hematoma."

Vivian just kept reading the chart.

"She's only ten hours post-op," said Abby. "It seems a little early to be talking harvest."

"No neurologic changes so far, I see."

"No. But there's a chance…"

"With a Glasgow Scale of three? I don't think so."Vivian slid the chart back in the rack and crossed to Bed 11.

Abby followed her.

From the cubicle doorway she stood and watched as Vivian briskly performed a physical exam. It was the same way Vivian performed in the OR, wasting no time or effort. During Abby's first year — the year of her internship — she had often observed Vivian in surgery, and she had admired those small, swift hands, had watched in awe as those delicate fingers spun perfect knots. Abby felt clumsy by comparison. She invested hours of practice and yards and yards of thread, learning to tie surgical knots on the handles of her bureau drawers. Though she could manage the mechanics competently enough, she knew she would never have Vivian Chao's magical hands.

Now, as she watched Vivian examine Karen Terrio, Abby found the efficiency of those hands profoundly chilling.

"No response to painful stimuli," Vivian observed.

"It's still early."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Vivian pulled a reflex hammer from her pocket and began tapping on tendons. "She/ AB positive?"