The stylus spun around Brendon's thumb like a propeller. First one way and then back around the other. He was sitting in his tiny workstation in the ER trying to focus on his paperwork.
It wasn't happening, so he picked up the tablet and started to do a round of the ward.
It had been getting more and more crowded over the past weeks. Cases were coming in at a quicker rate than his team were able to treat. They had patients on gurneys in corridors and hallways now. More people were joining Jon Doe in long term sick and, equipment was beginning to get scarce. Brendon worked his way through his colleagues as they hurried around him preparing patients. Suddenly a nurse accosted Brendon, "Have you seen Kross?" Brendon spun.
"No, have you checked his office?"
"Yeah," she said, thrusting a tablet and stylus at him, "Are you able to sign the transfers on these ten patients? I can then start to get them prepped to move." He ported his tablet under his armpit and took hers.
"Are these already on the list?" he asked.
"No, additional. Kross said there was room for another ten." Brendon studied the documents on the screen.
"He's moving Jon Doe?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah, and a couple others out of long term, apparently District 12 is opening up an aftercare facility now too."
"I thought they only had capacity for an overflow ER?" said Brendon, surprised. The nurse shook her head.
"They've opened an offsite somewhere. Kross must be squeezing the Authority pretty hard for them to be moving this fast."
"Yeah, he must be," agreed Brendon. "Explains why he hasn't been around much the past few weeks." Brendon started signing the documents on the screen, swiping through them one at a time. "At this rate we should have our corridors back in no time." He finished and handed back her tablet. The nurse smiled and walked away. He took a beat and looked around his ER. It was a hub of activity. They'd had to hire extra agency staff to assist with transporting patients. For many of them it was the first time dealing with neuro trauma injuries, which put an additional strain on his staff, who had to coach and supervise the newbies.
He felt his work phone vibrate. On the screen was an oversized notification: "911." An emergency case coming in on an ambulance. Purposefully but calmly, Brendon headed for the triage cubicle. As he walked past his station, he dropped his tablet on the desk without breaking his stride. Other members of the crash team were converging on the cubicle close to the entrance and were beginning to power up the machines ready for the patient. "Two minutes out," said one of the nurses. She was a petite Latin lady with an earpiece. Brendon started swiping through his phone and then started feeding information to his team.
"It's an IC one male, approximately between fifty and sixty years of age, convulsions, heart rate one sixty, blood pressure one eighty over sixty, still in session. Headset a T-twenty three. No modifications. No substance use suspected. Time in session, approximately one hour. Let's prep the HyperSim machine to two twenty, get the stabilizer drips ready, and let's prep the firewire cables and ensemble ports."
The team carried out Brendon's instructions without saying a word. Well-rehearsed as they were in such situations, some of the newer members gathered round to watch the veterans work. Brendon's phone buzzed again. "OK, they're pulling up." Just like a race team pit crew, everyone arranged themselves to take the patient.
They heard the gurney smash open the doors to the ER down the corridor. "Make way. Comin' through!" yelled one of the paramedics as he heaved the heavy gurney around the corner and into the triage bay, his partner providing the thrust.
On the trolley was a violently convulsing body, flailing around like a landed fish. The lead EMT was holding the patient's head, trying to keep the headset from flying off. The gurney wheeled in and immediately a nurse grabbed the left arm and tried to insert a drip. The burly paramedic tried to stabilize the body enough for her to do it. It took some skill to achieve, but she managed. Once it was in, the nurse flicked a switch on the automated plunger and the machine started beeping as it started to administer the drug quickly. The pitch was high, like it was indicating a high-risk process or warning of a large machine moving.
Over the next ninety seconds the spasms started to subside. The team watched as the convulsions became less and less and allowed for team members to move in. A nurse at the head of the bed began to stabilize the headset and placed the patient's head on a specially designed cushion that cradled the skull in a large divot. It was designed to prevent the head from rolling around under the weight of the headset. It meant that she could now safely pop open its cover to get at the ports and hook everything up to the HyperSim machine to monitor the patient's brain activity.
As the system came online, Brendon began configuring the settings on the large touch screen in the corner. "Jesus, look at these readings," he exclaimed. "Charlie, have you ever seen anything like this?" He called over to a male nurse on the other side of the bed who was getting a pair of cardiac monitors ready to stick to the man's chest.
"Oh my God," he said, mesmerized by the wild spiking lines on the screen. "Run a diagnostic. Check the gear." Brendon complied and ran a ninety-second self-scan on the equipment. As he waited for the machine to run, he looked over and took his first real look at the patient. A white male, late middle age, heavy-ish set, grey beard, grey t-shirt, dark blue jeans, matt black V.R. headset, red demon eye stickers on the front.
The realization that it was Riley hit him like a bullet.
He jumped to the chart that was hanging off the back of the gurney. He tapped the screen and swiped to the relevant section. The name on it was indeed Riley Blake and the incident address was his office. He must have been working late. Brendon turned to one of the paramedics as they were leaving, "Who called it in?" he asked.
"Secretary I think, she was pretty shook up. Said she'd inform the next of kin."
The screen on the HyperSim came back online.
The diagnostic dashboard gave the system a clean bill of health and then flicked back to the monitor screens. The lines as wild as they had been before but now coming even faster. Alarm warnings flashing on several panels of the screen.
"We need to get those activity levels down before his brain cooks," said Charlie looking at Brendon. Brendon looked over to the nurse by the drip.
"One hundred CCs of Apalo," instructed Brendon. The nurse went over to a cabinet at the top of the bed and pulled out a syringe and bottle. After quickly preparing the dose she moved round to inject it into a side well on the line that fed into Riley's arm.
They all watched the screen looking for a change but it didn't come. "Another fifty," he said looking at the nurse. She swallowed and prepared another syringe. Again, no effect. Brendon looked at her as to request another dose but she cut in before he had the chance to speak.
"Anymore and he'll go into arrest." Brendon pursed his lips knowing she was right. He turned to the nurse at the head of the bed overseeing the connectors running out of the headset.
"Sally, we'll need to do a hard shutdown and remove the unit." She acknowledged and pulled out a neatly bundled red and yellow cable. It was unusually thick with a woven texture. She reeled it out and connected one end to the side of the screen. She then flipped open a cover on the side of the headset. Inside was a port with a sliding door. Its border was coloured in the same yellow and red as the cable.
She inserted the end with a click.
While she was doing this, Brendon was navigating the screen configuring the procedure. Once he'd finally acknowledged all the warnings about how dangerous it was, he was able to check the last few check boxes and activate the start button ready to commence. His finger hovered over the red oblong as he waited for Sally to finish rigging up the cable. She gave it a final controlled tug out of the port and stood back. She gave Brendon a quick nod. Everyone else stood back. Brendon pressed onto the screen purposefully.
The body gave out one long spasm.
Riley's back arched unnaturally, his arms flat to the bed propping up his weight. The lines on the readouts now spiking wilder than ever. On the right hand of the screen, a five second countdown clock appeared. When it hit zero, it dissolved, and Riley's body went limp, slamming into the gurney.
The readouts flattened.
Each now following a smoother, calmer contour. "OK, let's get this off," instructed Brendon. Sally carefully unplugged the cables that were connected to the headset. She started with the thick red and yellow one and then worked around the few others. As she did that, Brendon and Charlie put on a pair of black latex gloves. Once everything was disconnected, the lines on the screen went flat and Charlie and Brendon moved in to remove the headset.
Charlie reached round the back to loosen the straps and guide the unit over the back of Riley's head. Brendon fixed the goggles and slowly pried them away from the face.
The blood started as a trickle down the right cheek towards the ear and quickly turned into a substantial cascade as Brendon lifted it off. "Holy fuck!" said Charlie, taking a step back.
"Oh my god!" someone said over Brendon's shoulder. Riley's face was covered in blood. His silver beard now a dark matted mess of skin and residue. Brendon leant over to peer into Riley's face.
"His eyes are gone."
Riley's eye sockets were nothing but two little pools of blood. The smell of blood and exposed burnt flesh hung and wafted into the air. Everyone in the cubicle was staring at the macabre scene. One of the newbies covered her hand with her mouth, gagging, and ran for the bathroom. On the screen the only readout still showing any sign of life was the heart monitor. It read a strong pulse.
Brendon watched from afar as Riley's wife held his hand and his two teenage sons stood over him on the other side of the bed. The team had managed to clean him up fairly well, but there was still a little blood on the parts of his beard that were visible. The bandage that wound around his eyes and head covered the worst of it.
He felt a presence next to him.
Naomi was standing by his side.
She wore big dark glasses and had her hands firmly shot into the pockets of her jacket, looking at Riley. Brendon turned to face her. "I'm sorry, Naomi." He put his hand on the back of her shoulders and slowly rubbed them. "How are you doing?" She just dropped her head and shook it, tears tracking down her face from under the glasses. "Let's go somewhere where we can talk, OK," and he gently led her out of the ward.
They sat in the coffee shop over the road from the hospital.
They were at a table by the window. Naomi still had her glasses on and seemed to be staring down into her coffee, hands still in her jacket pockets. Brendon watched the rain trickle down the window. The night was dark, wet, and gloomy. They'd already sat in silence for a good ten minutes. "I loved him," Naomi finally said, not looking up.
"I'm sorry, Naomi," Brendon said earnestly. "I don't know what happened. I'd never seen anything like that before. His headset must have malfunctioned or something, but we'll look into it. We'll find out what happened." He was leaning over the table towards her, his hand stretched out. She finally looked up.
"This was no accident, hon," she inhaled, bringing herself back into the room. "He'd spent the past week trying to get into that community Grace is in, The Sanctuary or whatever it's called." She said the name with disdain. "He was trying all kinds of shit. He said it was nothing like he'd seen before, and you know he was good. He could get in anywhere." Brendon listened. "These are some bad people, hon. This wasn't faulty wiring."