Christ! She scrambled to stand up straight. Do they have Grafter detectors in the paint or something? She looked around frantically in case a team of armed guards was coming to punish her for leaning with malicious intent.
“Code Heliotrope,” said a calm Scottish voice over the speakers. “Incoming wounded. Code Heliotrope. All medical personnel proceed immediately to the reception area and operating theaters. Code Heliotrope.”
Doors were opening along the hallway and people were rushing out. Odette found herself being swept along by the crowd, and in moments she was in a sort of round lobby with a circular nurses’ station in the middle and corridors coming off it like the spokes of a wheel. People were hurrying about, and no one seemed in the mood to stop and help a visitor. She pressed herself up against the nurses’ station, as much out of the way as possible. There were three nurses there, typing away on computers and talking frantically on phones. One of them, a bald woman with eyes ringing her skull, looked at Odette questioningly, and Odette shook her head, indicating she didn’t need anything. The nurse nodded, and Odette went back to watching the chaos.
“What happened?” one nurse called out to a medic.
“Something at a kid’s birthday party over at Gants Hill,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what, but bad things went down.”
People were getting wheeled in on gurneys, and it did not look as if they were coming from a child’s birthday party. For one thing, all of them were wearing body armor in various states of disrepair. Grievous wounds were much in evidence, and there was a good deal of screaming. The smell of blood filled Odette’s nostrils, and she found herself mentally conducting triage on the victims rolling by in front of her.
The injuries were weird. One woman had a spiderweb of cuts that sliced across her chest and through her armor, but rather than blood, rivulets of silver, like mercury, oozed out of her body. Two men hurried by carrying a stretcher on which an unconscious youth was foaming indigo at the mouth. As they passed, the paint on the walls around them turned a virulent turquoise and then shifted back to white. She watched them hurry away and saw that the temporary redecoration followed them down the hall.
Another medic came in pushing a gurney on which lay a man who appeared to be half turned to glass. Odette couldn’t tell if this was the result of the malevolence at the birthday party or if he was meant to be like that, but the man did not seem at all happy.
“What happened to the kid whose birthday it was?” asked Odette.
“Whole family got eaten by the cake,” said the medic, and then he rushed on. Odette and the nurse exchanged horrified glances. Then a painfully loud sound, like an air horn being fed into a wood chipper, tore through the hallways, and Odette and the nurse and everyone else clapped their hands over their ears.
Are we under attack? Odette wondered. Her instincts were itching to pop out her spurs, and she had to actively keep them in check lest she puncture her own face and poison herself. The noise grew louder and more painful, and then a medic wheeled in a stretcher carrying a man whose combat armor was drenched in blood. Restraints crisscrossed his body, his right arm had been crudely splinted, and Odette saw that his left leg had been torn off at the knee and was in a plastic bag at the end of the gurney. The horrible wound had been carefully bound up with white gauze, but some blood had seeped through.
The torturous sound was coming from the patient. It was his voice that was warbling and shrilling up and down inhuman scales and setting Odette’s teeth on edge. The medic was wearing a bulky set of ear protectors and a grim expression.
“Get some painkillers into that man now!” bellowed a doctor. He was just barely audible over the man’s screaming.
“They don’t have any effect on him!” the medic shouted back. “It’s in his prep file!”
“Then sedate him!” yelled the doctor.
“He doesn’t respond to any sedatives!” came the answer. “You’ll be operating while he’s awake!”
“I definitely think you should be having this conversation right here in the lobby!” screamed the bald nurse with all the eyes. The surgeon and the medic turned to look at her, and just then, the patient shifted. His arm twisted against the splint, and a jagged bone cut through the skin. Blood squirted up into the air and then began to pour out, and the man’s painful screaming faded away to a weak moan.
Without thinking, Odette scrambled to the gurney, leaned across the man’s body, and applied pressure to the spurting wound. She could actually feel the force of the internal fluids pressing against her fingertips, and hot gore continued seeping out under her hands, although it was much slower.
It had been an automatic response on her part, but in retrospect it seemed like a terrible idea. The patient’s eyes were still open, and he was looking at her pleadingly. A normal person would be unconscious, she thought. I suppose there are disadvantages to some inhuman abilities.
“I’m right here,” she assured him. “I’m not leaving you.” She turned her head over her shoulder. “You may wish to move quickly here, before this man bleeds out.” They were all looking at her. “Now!” The doctor’s head moved in a figure-eight pattern as he scanned the situation.
“We can’t arrest the bleeding here,” he said. “We’ll need to get him to surgery. Are you okay to keep pressure on his arm?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then,” the doctor said. “You’re not going to be able to walk, bent over him like that, so I’m going to lift you up onto the gurney,” he said. “Maintain pressure.” Odette nodded and kept her grip tight as the man put his hands on her hips and lifted her gently. She straddled the patient awkwardly, careful not to jostle his injured leg. “Now move!” he barked at the medic. Several people pushed them down a hallway and through a series of heavy doors. The patient was still looking up at her, his eyes wide with pain and shock.
He’s my age, she realized with a jolt. And cute. Grievously wounded, she admitted, but cute. Sandy-colored hair cut short, nice features, and pale blue eyes. Say something comforting, thought Odette.
“So, painkillers have no effect?” she said sympathetically. “That’s really got to suck. Especially right now.”
Brilliant. Nice job.
“I’m immune to all drugth and poithonth,” he said thickly. “Thatth why I’m on the firtht-rethponthe team.” He frowned. “Why am I talking like thith?”
“Blood loss and shock,” said Odette. “You might be about to pass out.”
“I wish,” he said ruefully. “But it’th nithe to meet you. Thankth for thtepping in to, you know, thave my life.”
“My pleasure,” said Odette, swaying slightly as they went around a corner.
“I’m David.”
“Odette.”
“Nithe t’mee’choo,” he slurred.
I wonder if Pawn Bannister has noticed that I’m gone? she mused as they entered the operating theater.
Around her, people bustled about. Despite the organized chaos and the critical damage to the young man, Odette felt in her element. The intense focus on the problem at hand, the stripped-down surroundings, the blood — I could be back at home, she thought.
David, however, did not seem quite so at ease. He winced away from the surgical lights and regarded every development warily. Odette tried to reassure him as the nurses carefully removed the man’s armor. He winced as the blood-soaked cloth was pulled away from the cuts on his chest and the tender area where his leg had been severed.
“Sorry, Pawn Baxter, but you leave your dignity at the door,” said one of the nurses as she cut off his clothes.
“I din’t think thith mission wath gonna end up with me naked and a cute girl straddling me,” joked David weakly.
“Oh, yes, this is hot,” said Odette, eyeing the cuts on his chest with a clinical eye. They appeared to be shallow, but they were long. “Nothing like having a lot of people standing around swabbing up your blood to get you in the mood.”
“You seem fairly cool about it,” said the nurse.