The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

III



What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the

battle

Deuteronomy 20:5





28





EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER

Old Town, City of Ruin

Southeastern Turkey

Gabriel died shortly after noon on the same day he rode into Ruin.

A man in a HazMat suit appeared over him, his visor fogging with hurried breath, drawn by the cardio alarm.

‘Over here!’ His voice was muffled by the hermetic suit, lost amid the wail of the alarm and the howls of other patients.

‘HERE!’ He reached out a gloved hand and placed it on Gabriel’s chest, pumping hard on the breastbone to massage the still

heart beneath it, cursing the fact that his other hand was strapped tight to his chest by a sling.

Another suited figure looked up from another bed and started to walk over, any urgency blunted by the now commonplace nature of

death. It was the third time a cardiac alarm had sounded that day and, with so many infected and suffering so hideously, it was

hard not to see the release of death as something of a blessing.

‘Do something,’ the man at the bed said, still pumping rhythmically on Gabriel’s chest with his one good hand.

The new arrival glanced at the monitor, the heartbeat flat-lining. He looked down at the still form, bound to the bed. ‘He’s

gone,’ he said, flicking a switch to silence the alarm.

The man at Gabriel’s side looked up, anger lighting his face, his breath fogging his visor as he spoke. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Dr Kaplan, I’m the senior physician in charge, why do you ask?’

‘Because I want to spell it right when I write up the charge of medical homicide by neglect.’

The doctor’s eyes dropped to the ID displayed in the clear pocket on the front of the man’s suit and read the name: Chief

Inspector Davud Arkadian, Ruin City Police. Pushing Arkadian’s hand away he moved up to the bed and continued the CPR on Gabriel

’s body. His bulky helmet turned back towards the other doctors. ‘Over here,’ he shouted, loud enough to be heard above the

din. ‘Make it fast and bring the crash unit with you.’

Gabriel felt like he was floating upwards, flying in a bright sky. Below him he could see fields and rivers rushing past, flitting

between clouds that grew thicker the higher he flew. He felt weightless, peaceful – free.

Through the clouds he saw the land fall away and the vast mirror of the ocean stretch out. Huge flocks of birds flew past him, all

heading in the same direction towards land. Even at this great height he could see other things moving across the water below.

They left lines behind them, long straight, white wakes like scratches on the surface of the sea. Ships. Thousands of them, all

heading back to land, the lines of their wakes slowly converging the closer they got to port.

He continued to rise, as if some force was pulling him up to the bright sun that warmed and welcomed him. No. Not the sun, more

vast somehow and indistinct. It continued to grow the closer he got, bigger even than the ocean below though he could not see the

edge of it. Moving towards it required no effort, it was as easy as falling. But there was something about the ships and the birds

that plucked at something inside him. They were all going in a different direction to him, and it made him feel uneasy. He felt

like he should be going the same way too, back to the land, away from the soothing sun that filled the sky.

He tilted himself downwards, his head pointing back towards the earth and swept his arms through the air, pulling himself down and

away from the light. The steady rise stopped, just a little, then started again, pulling him up like he was a cork bobbing in

water. He fixed on a spot of dry land far below him, reached out with his arms again and pulled forward, kicking hard with both

legs.

‘Clear!’

Two of the three HazMat suits stepped back from the bed. The third held the defibrillator paddles to the smears of conductive gel

on Gabriel’s chest and pressed the twin fire buttons.

Gabriel arched upwards, his bound hands twitching into claws at his sides.

Dr Kaplan stepped forward, checking the ECG monitor and resuming CPR. The line on the screen jumped then settled back to nothing.

‘Nearly had him. Give him another milligram of epinephrine and get ready to try again.’

The second suit fumbled a syringe into the cannula fitted to Gabriel’s arm, the urgency and his gloved hands combining to make

this simple task ten times more difficult. He emptied the plunger and sent a milligram of adrenaline into Gabriel’s veins. Inside

his inert body the peripheral vascular system responded, constricting to send a shunt of blood to his core, thereby raising his

blood pressure. The doctor placed the syringe on a stand and pressed a button on the defibrillator unit to prime it again.

‘Charging,’ he called out. The insectile whine of building electricity cut through the air.

Dr Kaplan continued to pump Gabriel’s heart with his interlaced hands, forcing blood through veins while Arkadian made himself

useful as best he could with his usable arm. He stayed by Gabriel’s head squeezing the bag valve mask fixed to his face, sending

a steady pulse of oxygen to his immobile lungs. He watched the line on the screen flicker but stay flat, the heart still not

beating on its own. The second doctor got ready with the paddles, placing one high and one low with the heart in between.

‘Clear!’

Gabriel arched. On the screen the ECG jumped.

They moved back to their positions, three people working together to carry on functions that were normally automatic, keeping him

alive by hand while the ECG continued to dance but refused to settle.

‘We can’t keep on with this indefinitely,’ Dr Kaplan said between pumps. ‘CPR and artificial respiration only go so far in

keeping a patient viable. His brain is already being starved of oxygen. Any longer than a few minutes and it becomes increasingly

pointless.’

‘Then you’d better get a move on,’ Arkadian said.

Kaplan nodded. ‘OK spike him up with another mil of epinephrine. Let’s go again.’

Arkadian focused on the bag in his hand, squeezing and releasing it steadily at the same pace Gabriel would breathe if he could.

‘Come on,’ he whispered, dipping his head down level with Gabriel’s ear. ‘Don’t go out like this. Not like this.’

Gabriel could see the land beneath him getting closer but the effort to reach it was exhausting. Occasionally a gust of wind would

help him out, blowing him downward in a sudden surge, but it never lasted long and the upward force would start to pull on him

again, working on his mind too, telling him to give up, let go, relax and float away.

The land was also taking form and he continued to focus on it, using it as a hook to pull him down, fixing on a patch of green in

the middle of a vast, dry desert. He continued to kick and pull with his arms, swimming in the air like he was trying to get to

the bottom of a crystal-clear lake.

He could see more now, trees and rivers and a lake at the centre of the green, reflecting the bright sun behind him. And there was

something else, a person, a woman, standing by the edge of the pool and looking around as though she had lost something. She was

calling out but he was still too high to hear her. He could feel weariness flooding his whole body and again the voice from above

told him to just let go. Then another gust of wind pushed him down, halving the distance so he could finally see who it was and

hear what she was calling.

‘Gabriel!’ Liv hollered into the same wind that had pushed him close to her. ‘Where have you gone? Why have you left me here?’

Gabriel kicked harder, the sound of her voice and the sight of her pulling at him now with far more strength than the light in the

sky. ‘I’m here,’ he called out. ‘My love, I’m here. I’m coming for you. I’m coming back.’

Then he kicked once more and something seemed to snap. The lights went out and he was suddenly falling through darkness, down to

the earth that he could no longer see, and down to the woman he could no longer hear.

‘Heartbeat steady at eight nine, BP 100 over 80.’ Kaplan stood back watching the proof on the heart monitor that it had taken

over the job he had been doing for the last five minutes.

Arkadian continued to pump the air bag, too scared to stop in case it was the only thing keeping Gabriel bound to this earth.

‘You can stop that now,’ Kaplan said, ‘he’s breathing on his own.’

Arkadian stepped back, suddenly aware that he was drenched in sweat inside his spacesuit. ‘Congratulations, Doctor,’ he said,

managing a smile, ‘you just saved a good man’s life.’

The doctor looked down at the figure on the bed. The infected and blistered skin already starting to sheen again with sweat as the

fever came back to life too. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But for how long?