The Fountain of Age by Nancy Kress

epidemic of collapses among the very old. All at the same time. About a half hour ago.”
    “Disease?”
    “No.” She heard how positive she sounded. Well, she was positive. “When the plane went down.”
    He looked baffled, as well he might. She said, “I’ll take you to Dr. Jamison. He’s the St. Sebastian’s physician.”
    Jamison wasn’t in the dining room. Carrie, leading Detective Geraci, found the doctor in the kitchen, in a shouting match with Jake DiBella. “No, damn it! You’re not going to further upset the relatives for some stupid, half-baked theory—No!” Jamison stalked off.
    Carrie said, “Dr. Jamison, this is—” He pushed past her, heading back to his patients. She expected the detective to follow him, but instead Geraci said to Jake, “Who are you?”
    “Who wants to know?”
    She had never seen Jake so rude. But he was angry and frustrated and scared—they were all scared.
    “Detective Geraci, RPD. You work here?”
    Carrie said quickly, before the two men could get really nasty, “This is Dr. DiBella. He’s doing a medical research project at St. Sebastian’s, on . . . on brain waves.”
    Geraci said, “I received an anonymous call. Me, not the Department, on my cell, from the St. Sebastian front desk. The caller said there was information here about the plane crash. You know anything about that, doctor?”
    Carrie saw that Vince Geraci believed Jake did have information. How did she know that? How did he know that? But it was there in every line of the detective’s alert body: He knew that Jake knew something.
    Jake didn’t answer, just stared at Geraci. Finally Geraci said, “The plane went down half a mile from here. A U.S. Air commuter plane carrying forty-nine passengers, including thirty-one members of the Aces High Senior Citizen Club. They were on a three-day trip to the casinos at Atlantic City. Everyone on board is dead.”
    Jake said, “I can’t talk to you now. I have to take some brain scans while these people are unconscious. After that idiot Jamison realizes what I’m doing and throws me out, we can talk. Carrie, I’ll need your help. Go to my office and put all the equipment in the corner onto the dolly, throw a blanket over it, and bring it the back way into the kitchen. Quickly!”
    She nodded and hurried off, so fast that she didn’t realize Geraci was behind her until they reached Jake’s office.
    “Let me get that, it’s heavy,” he said.
    “No, it’s not.” She lugged the console onto its dolly. “Shouldn’t you be asking people questions?”
    “I am. Does DiBella always order you around like that?”
    Did he? She hadn’t noticed. “No.” She added the helmet and box of peripherals on top of the console, then looked around for a blanket. There wasn’t one.
    “Do you work for DiBella or for St. Sebastian’s?”
    “St. Sebastian’s. I have to go to the linen closet.”
    When she returned with a blanket, Geraci was reading the papers on Jake’s desk. Wasn’t that illegal? Carrie threw the blanket over the equipment. Geraci grabbed the handle of the dolly before she could.
    “You need me,” he said. “Anybody stops you, I’ll just flash my badge.”
    “Okay,” she said ungraciously. She could have done this, for Jake, by herself.
    They brought the equipment into the kitchen. Jake set it up on the counter, ignoring the cook who said helplessly, “So nobody’s having lunch, then?” All at once she ripped off her apron, flung it onto the floor, and walked out.
    Jake said to Carrie, “Hold the door.” He slipped through to the dining room and, a moment later, wheeled in a gurney with an elderly woman lying peacefully on it. “Who is she, Carrie?”
    “Ellen Parminter.” After a moment she added, “Eighty-three.” Jake grunted and began attaching electrodes to Mrs. Parminter’s unconscious head.
    Geraci said, “Come with me, Carrie.”
    “No.” Where did she get the nerve ? But, somehow, he brought that out in her.
    He