Nation of Enemies

by H. A. Raynes

  •Could recipients of clean MedIDs offer fees to the donor’s family? Attractive to families in financial need. Riskier but possible.

  A knock at the door startles him. He turns the notepad over. “Come in.”

  Nurse Huberty leans in. “A car accident’s arriving in five. Multiple vehicles.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Gurneys burst through the double doors and the struggle for life is on. Wails and screams. So much blood. A metallic taste is on the tip of Cole’s tongue. He dispatches patients to beds, assigns residents and interns as the voice-­activated data populates a floor plan on the smartwall at the nurses’ station.

  He steps in alongside Dr. Riley, who’s intubating a seven-­year-­old girl suffering from internal injuries. According to the EMTs, she’d been traveling in the car that caused the accident, sitting in the backseat with her older brother. No one will ever really know what happened, not that it matters. Her parents and brother are dead.

  The girl’s outcome is inevitable. Still, they fight for her despite her injuries and vital signs. For the better part of an hour they work on her, but finally the moment comes.

  “Time of death, seven-­eighteen P.M.” he says. His latex gloves snap when he peels them off, dropping them to the floor. An entire family wiped out. He closes his eyes against the beauty of the little girl. Senseless.

  “She reminds me of someone,” Riley says quietly. “I can’t think who.”

  He opens his eyes and takes in the girl’s long brown hair, her pale skin. Gently, he lifts one of her eyelids to reveal blue eyes. “Did you scan her?”

  “Yes. Typical pediatric record. Tonsils out. Stitches in her hairline. Nothing else.”

  “Genetic predispositions?”

  Riley shakes her head. “Clean. Lucky girl.” Her tone is ironic.

  Lucky. Someone should be lucky today. My God. This is strangely a perfect moment and he can hardly breathe.

  “What a waste,” Dr. Riley says.

  “Maybe it doesn’t have to be.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Two nurses shut down machines and begin cleaning up. Protocol states that within the next hour this child will be scanned and transferred to the hospital morgue. The next of kin—­presuming there are any—­will be called—­and she will be transported to a funeral home. There isn’t much time.

  “Stay with her,” Cole says.

  “What?” Riley exchanges glances with the nurses. “I should check the board.”

  “In a minute.”

  “Dr. Fitzgerald, this girl is dead. There are a line of patients—­”

  “I’m aware. I’ll check on the residents. Stay with her, please. I’ll be back.”

  Riley presses her lips into a thin line. For the past month, since he caught her refusing to update MedIDs, their relationship has lacked any pleasantries. She’d relented, but she cooperates grudgingly and barely acknowledges him. Perhaps he can change her mind about him.

  Pulling the curtain closed, he moves through the ER and scans the beds, but his focus isn’t here. Back in his office, he shuts the door. His heart is pounding. He’s thought this through countless times now. Considered the consequences. It’s the right thing to do and it’s time to act. He adds to the list on his notepad:

  •Children (infant—­age 18). They aren’t due monetary payouts, which is a positive. Either orphans or MedIDs donated by parents.

  He waves a hand over his desk, prompting his monitor to rise. Verbally, he scans medical records, filters a search by date, age, gender. And there she is. Tess Connelly. The patient Dr. Riley had refused to scan a month ago. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Just a year older than this girl.

  Despite weeks of insomnia, he couldn’t be more alert. He tears the page from his notebook and hurriedly makes his way back to the curtained area. If he’s right, his young colleague will be eager to join in this effort. If he’s wrong, she may expose him, cost him his career. Maybe even his freedom.

  He slips through the opening to find Riley alone with the girl. Quietly he says, “Walk with me.”

  Furrowing her brow, she does as she’s told. For such a slight person, she takes up a lot of space. Not one to hold her tongue, he couldn’t have been more wrong about her being mousy. Through the maze of hospital corridors, he leads her to a rarely used exit. He presses his finger against the security screen and it opens. They are alone in a darkened alleyway between hospital buildings.

  Riley crosses her arms. “I did nothing wrong in there.”

  He shakes his head. “We all tried our best.”

  “Then what are we doing out here?”

  “Have you done her scan yet?”

  A bitter smirk creeps onto her lips. “This again?”

  “I assume your politics haven’t changed?”

  “You can’t fire me for having an opinion. Since you gave me the ultimatum, I’ve done the scans. I’m here every day, I sleep here, I can’t even get away when I’m unconscious. I’m an asset to this hospital, but more importantly, I’m an asset to the patients. I’m here for them.” She steps closer. “This is all I have left.”

  He takes a deep breath. “If you were President, what would you do about the MedIDs?”

  “What?”

  “Humor me.”

  She searches the ground and finally meets his gaze. “I’d make them obsolete. And if that wasn’t an option, I’d reverse the number system. Anyone under a seventy-­five would get priority treatment. They’d be entitled to full-­time employment to ensure they’d receive income necessary to pay for any care above and beyond what is covered by government-­funded health care.”

  It’s the answer he’d hoped for. “Do you remember your patient, Tess Connelly? The little girl whose mother begged you not to scan?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’m showing this to you and you alone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulls the wrinkled notebook paper from his pocket and hands it to her. As she reads, he studies her. It’s impossible to know what’s going through her mind. When she finishes, she looks up. “What is this?”

  “The beginning.” He shrugs. “It is what we make it.” He explains how the idea emerged, to swap MedIDs from the deceased to the living. The outline of a rough plan is sketched aloud, and as he talks, she nods along. By the time he finishes, her entire face has softened.

  “You’ve gone along with—­and enforced—­the system,” she says. “What’s changed?”

  There’s no need to go into Kate’s death or their denied emigration. Not yet. He shifts on his feet. “My wife and I just had a baby girl. She’s pure. Perfect. But someone in the government disagrees. One point separates her from the lucky ones. So despite all our parental efforts, she’s damned by her DNA. Controlled by it. As we all are, by design of the MedID law. So for that and many other reasons, I want to level the playing fields. And since we can’t get rid of MedIDs, let’s use them to our advantage.”

  “Sounds like a revolution, Dr. Fitzgerald.”

  It’s not a label he’d considered. “I suppose it is. But it’s not as simple as just helping ­people get out of the country. We need to build a network of ­people who’ll be held together by more than political or religious beliefs. Citizens who want to stay in the U.S., who believe that freedom and family is the most important asset in a society, and that government has no place in private matters. Those ­people, the ones who receive donor MedIDs, will appear to be the healthiest out there. Somehow, we need to covertly find doctors willing to care for them under our own code of ethics, without proper scans. Then, personal data will only show standard care issues, nothing more. Years from now our group will outnumber the true clean MedIDs. And in time we’ll make the rules.”

  “You dream big.” Riley smiles.

  “I have a new baby. Maybe it’s the
sleep deprivation.”

  “I’m in.” Her voice is hushed, her tone excited. “This is everything I believe. Each time I do a scan I hear the words ‘Do no harm’ and my stomach burns. How can I help?”

  A rush of relief lets him breathe easier. “I’m sure you understand how dangerous this is. There’s no turning back once we do this. Treason is treason.”

  “I suppose ­people that commit treason think they have a just cause,” Riley says.

  He nods. “For now it’s just you and me. We’ll start a database of potential MedID recipients. We need to build our network slowly and very carefully. And we need a core team.”

  “You have anyone in mind?”

  “Yes.” Details rush at him, a flurry of images that he needs to sort through to make this a fluid process. “Have you been to Hudson’s Funeral Homes?”

  “Hasn’t everyone?”

  “Steven Hudson. His funeral chain is national. There could be unlimited possibilities.”

  “Why would he want to help us?” she asks.

  “Leave that to me,” he says. “I think there are a few ways to approach him.”

  “Is there a Plan B?”

  “There’s barely a plan.” A nervous laugh escapes him. “Let’s concentrate on today. Your patient, Tess Connelly. She’s a perfect match for the little girl down the hall. Would her parents be interested? And desperate enough to keep this quiet?”

  “The mother pleaded with me not to scan her.” Riley nods. “I think it’s safe to reach out.”

  “They’ll need to get here stat.”

  “What’s the process? Today, I mean.”

  “We do what we always do. Make calls to next of kin. Tell the family, if there’s anyone to tell. Call the funeral home. And do the scan. But this time we’ll remove the donor’s MedID and Tess Connelly’s MedID and reimplant them into the other’s arms.”

  “But what about postmortem skin damage?” she asks. “The MedID retrieval site on the forearm will be obvious. It’ll raise suspicion.”

  “We use Dexyne,” he says. “It’s a new topical enzyme just approved for market use.”

  “I’ve heard of that. When applied within forty-­eight hours after death, it induces healing in the skin.”

  “Made for morticians,” he adds. “Steven Hudson must love it.”

  “So Tess Connelly will effectively be in the system as deceased.”

  “And Tess will become . . .”

  “Emma Gifford was her name,” Riley says. “But how will she travel with her parents when they don’t have the same last name?”

  “Emma Gifford is an orphan. The Connellys will petition for adoption. They’ll need to stay in the States while the process is happening and then move once it goes through. Adoptions have been fast-­tracked since the war started. Too many orphans.”

  “We don’t come across clean chips every day. So many ­people need them.”

  “Millions.” It’s overwhelming, so he tries to focus on the details that are right in front of him. Otherwise he might never begin. “I’m working on it. In the meantime, we have one.”

  “Thanks for this. For including me.” Riley holds out her hand and he shakes it.

  “I’ll clear a room. You call the Connellys.” Having a partner gives solidity to it, especially since she sounds even more convinced than he is. They head back inside.

  The incessant cycling of patients continues throughout the night. There is so much noise and action throughout the ER that no one notices when Emma Gifford is scanned out and discharged. She clings to a much-­loved pink teddy bear and wears long-­sleeved pajamas, despite the humid July night. With a final wave to her doctors, Emma walks past the automatic glass doors hand in hand with her soon-­to-­be adoptive parents, the Connelly’s.

  Back in his office, Cole sits again at his desk, his body aching from hours on his feet. He stretches his arms in an attempt to free familiar knots that pull at his shoulder blades. Remembering the page of notes in his pocket, he pulls open his desk drawer and retrieves an ornate cigarette lighter a patient had once given him. Over his metal trashcan he flicks it open and a small blue flame licks the single piece of paper. Within seconds it turns black, curls into itself, and finally disintegrates into ash.

  “And so it begins,” he says aloud.

  Chapter 28

  NEVER ONE FOR religion, Sebastian sits in the pews at Patriot’s Church and listens to Reverend Mitchell’s sermons with a mix of bewilderment and disgust. The blatant manipulation of his congregation is breathtaking. Men and women alike appear completely drawn in by this heretic. Will Anderson does as they do. He listens and nods. Kneels when he’s told to. Reads along in the Bible. But he also studies those few allowed into Mitchell’s inner sanctum. The bodyguard, a long line of children who follow him out each ser­vice, and several others dressed in navy who are placed strategically throughout the nave.

  The pews and extended seating must hold fifteen hundred, with probably another thousand in the standing room and balcony sections. It’s a shame; Mitchell bastardized Trinity Church. Sebastian remembers the National Historic Landmark well from childhood, an impressive stone facade, enormous tower with a clay roof. The centerpiece of the Back Bay. When everyone fled the city for rural areas, the real estate market crumbled. Mitchell purchased the church. He must’ve bought off the Historical Society because he distorted the Romanesque style, melded it with a modern, twenty-­first-­century megachurch aesthetic. Each ser­vice, a children’s choir belts out something that sounds like pop music about Jesus. Kids do cartwheels down the aisles. ­People of every age and race clap along with the beat.

  No one’s taken particular note of a tall, broadly built man in his late thirties with a beard who mostly wears polo shirts and khakis. A few weeks in now, Will Anderson is friendly, talks to anyone who sits next to him, and doesn’t hold back his enthusiasm during the ser­vice. A welcome member to the flock.

  Getting close to Mitchell has been impossible, but he can’t rush it. Renner’s informant still won’t commit to being a cooperating witness and working with Sebastian inside. Last week at coffee hour he met Taylor Hensley. It was brief, but even in two minutes of conversation, he can tell she’s warm and outgoing. Two things the press never mentions. The tiny divots in her cheek had drawn his eye, and she seemed to shy away when she caught him looking at them. She’s stunning, despite the marks. She cuts her hair so short, tries to look severe, but instead the focus is on her face. He had a hard time looking away.

  Thanks to the Bureau tech assigned to his case, Will Anderson’s BASIA application has been bumped up the list. Just yesterday he received a piece of mail that said nothing more than date, time, and address. One thing they’ve learned from the informant is that militia applicants are screened and must give personal testimony explaining his or her interest in serving BASIA.

  Last night, Sebastian ran the speech backward and forward until it felt natural. Unable to sleep, around three A.M. he’d gotten out of bed and had tea on the couch. It’s something he used to do with Kate when they both had insomnia. He’d talked to her as if she was there, allowing the steam from the hot drink to warm his face like her breath might have.

  He arrives promptly at the Patriot’s Church offices wearing a brown suit and a plain blue tie. Inside the main entryway, he follows signs to the Testimony Room. It’s a long corridor that feels particularly empty without the usual flow of ­people on church ser­vice days. A few more turns and he’s there. He doesn’t recognize the men and women who wait outside the room. No one makes small talk.

  Intel on Patriot’s Church dates back to when it opened in 2020. Bureau analysts estimate that a hundred ­people from around the country give testimony weekly with the hope of joining the militia. The NSA has intercepted several video transmissions from applicants, but they’ve provided no proof of conspiracy, only belief in the church an
d antigovernment sentiment. It’s unclear how many are accepted, but Sebastian calculated that if Mitchell accepted ten ­people per week over ten years, he’d have over five thousand new recruits. Far too many unidentified enemies of the state. Today, it’s crucial that he be chosen as one of them.

  The door opens and a lean man in a dark suit calls a name. Sebastian hoped Anderson was a shoo-­in for first, but evidently they’re not going alphabetically. A woman with the last name of Foreman leaves with the man. Exactly fifteen minutes later another applicant is called. Sebastian checks his smartwatch and it’s clear there’s a schedule being followed. ­People shift in their seats, exchanging glances. The door opens.

  “Will Anderson.”

  Adrenaline courses through him. He stands and follows the man, who is several inches shorter. Sebastian stares at flecks of dandruff on his navy blue shoulders.

  “Right in here, please.” The man leads him into a windowless room with four white walls, one of which contains a one-­way mirror. In the center of the room there’s a table with two seats, one on either side.

  “Mike Michaels,” the man says. They shake hands. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Will Anderson.” Sebastian sits down, facing the mirror.

  “You have three minutes to testify,” Michaels says in a bored tone as he takes the adjacent seat. “Tell me about yourself. What brought you here. And why you’d make a loyal and contributing member of BASIA.”

  “I grew going to St. Paul’s Episcopal in Baltimore. It was like a second home to me. When the war started, I got my MedID along with everyone else. At the time I didn’t think much about being a seventy-­two. I went to school, got good grades, got married, worked in finance. But then a doctor visit exposed a weakness in my DNA sequencing. I have alpha-­1 antitrypsin deficiency. Basically, I’m missing an enzyme in my lungs and liver and I’m prone to respiratory infections. Employers equate this to meaning I’ll miss more days of work. There’s no cure, no treatment. I was laid off and now I can only get contract work. With the war, the unemployment rate, I’m lucky if I work six months out of the year. Then my wife . . .” He shoves a hand in his pocket. Inside is Kate’s engagement ring. He touches the smooth edges of the platinum band, the jagged edges of the diamond. “She died before our first anniversary.”