by Adam Steel
Ellie merely nodded and said nothing. She could have sworn that the mechanical praying mantis, had winked at her with its blood red eyes.
‘I suppose you want to see the hologram as well?’ he said, gathering the sheets of information that were spilling out of the terminal.
He slapped them roughly into a cover sheet and stuffed the complete file into her hands.
‘Yes please,’ Ellie replied, trying hard to keep her nerve.
He ‘huffed’ again, and flicked his hand up and down, gesturing towards the viewing area.
‘One minute. Give me one minute to fire F.R.E.D up,’ he complained.
She could hear him cursing as she hurried past F.R.E.D and made her way up to the viewing area. Once Mr Mackenzie had started the process of creating the 3 D holographic image, he signalled to her that it was ready and he left the room.
A light came on above the swing door and a sign read:
DO NOT ENTER
UNSAFE
He couldn’t be bothered to accompany her in the viewing area. She had banked on that and she was glad of it.
She looked down at the autopsy report, as F.R.E.D awoke from its sleep. The floor began to vibrate: softer that when a body was inside of the shiny white capsule. Ellie opened the beige cover of the file. The first thing she saw was a photograph of Irene, her friend as she used to look: as she looked the last time she had seen her alive.
Ellie gasped, ‘Irene,’ she whispered.
She put the picture of Irene into her pocket where she would keep it safe.
The main autopsy report showed a body plan.
It indicated multiple knife wounds and it was grim reading:
Victim UTOPIAN No. 334456782.
Cause of death: multiple knife wounds: organ failure due to blood loss.
Specifics: Lacerations to the neck.
Severance of the Hyaloid Cartilage
Knife penetrations to the left lung, abdomen and groin
Defensive knife wounds to both arms
Bruising to the face, neck and head
Other Factors – Victim was pregnant, foetus (female)
No evidence of sexual assault
Ellie slammed the file shut. Foetus. Irene’s baby. Little Irene Junior, she thought angrily.
F.R.E.D was starting up.
She looked up, startled.
The metal mantis was revolving around the top of the capsule.
It looked angry.
The two metal pincers either side of (what looked to her like its head) clicked together, menacingly. F.R.E.D started making whirring noises.
The room went dark (except for the wall behind it) where a 3 D image of Irene was being constructed from a million blue strands of light. Layers and layers of blue light built the image. Ellie was now looking at a three dimensional body of Irene as it would have appeared during the cycle through F.R.E.D. It was a ghost Irene which now haunted the room from which it had been extracted. Ellie felt Irene so closely that it was as though she were actually in the same room as her. The ghost of Irene began to rotate. Her digital face turned to the viewing room. Her eyes were wide open. Ellie wanted to scream out, but she could say nothing. She was rooted to the spot. In all of her wildest dreams she hadn’t expected this process to have the devastating affect that it was having on her. It felt to Ellie, like Irene’s very soul was crying out to her for help. The blue ghost of Irene was standing with arms out to each side and legs slightly apart as though she had been strapped to a gurney by restraints. The blue lines thickened, and the red colour of knife-wounds overlay the ghostly image. Every stab wound, every bruise, and every injury, was laid bare for her to see. Ellie couldn’t help but draw her eyes to the place where little Irene Junior lay nestled. A hollow, shadow of a place. It was no longer a nurturing chamber for a warm baby to flourish. She cupped her hands to her mouth and cried hard, stifling every gasp in case Mr Mackenzie came back.
The mantis creature stared back with its eager red eyes: “Mine. All mine,” she imagined it was saying.
What is this. What did they do to her? Ellie thought. She turned away and tried desperately to stifle her cries. Her legs felt so weak she collapsed to the floor. She remembered now that night. When she had lifted Irene’s head up from the blood filled bath, there was a bullet hole clean through her forehead, yet these ghost images, showed no evidence of even the slightest, brain damage. She pulled herself up so that she was peering over the top of the viewing screen. Ghost Irene was starting to fade.
‘Help meeeeee…’ it appeared to call out, as it began to dissipate back into the body of F.R.E.D.
Within seconds Ghost Irene was gone. It was no more than a presence that resided inside of F.R.E.D, like some lost soul waiting to be released from its earthly chains.
Ellie sat on the floor, stunned. She had the files and she had seen the holographic image, yet none of the evidence matched what she knew she had seen that night at Irene’s house. She realised that the news articles she had read in the Daily Utopic two days earlier, were based on the ‘false’ autopsy report, that she was now holding in her trembling hands. She decided that she had to find out who had doctored the autopsy report. Only then would she be satisfied, that the haunting ghost of Irene would be released from F.R.E.D. Her immediate thoughts were, It’s Mackenzie, but then she recalled him saying that Irene’s autopsy had been conducted through TALOS systems and not his.
Ellie sat on the floor for several minutes, contemplating on how she was going to get past Mr Mackenzie, without him noticing that she was looking decidedly distressed. She heard voices coming from the morgue and quickly got up and brushed herself down. Several technicians were assembling another piece of equipment next to F.R.E.D. It was her chance to slip out during the distraction. They would be too busy to notice her. She picked up the autopsy report and, holding it up to her face, walked out past the technicians. She left the morgue as fast as possible and ran up the corridor to the lift. Once inside it, she checked herself in the mirror, and tried to make herself look as normal as possible. It was difficult because she felt anything like normal, having realised what she had discovered about Irene.
When she got back to her consulting rooms, she locked the door and switched off the phone. She needed time to think and time to plan what to do next and it was hours later before she had plucked up the courage to do something. She left her consulting rooms and made her way through the covered walkway at ground level. She was heading towards the Research and Development departments. When she reached them they were busy. She was banking on that being the case. The white-coated technicians were hurrying in and out of the laboratories carrying clinking trays of chemicals and equipment.
As she passed one of the technicians she stopped, ‘Mind if I have one of these?’ she asked, picking up a small, sterile, sample pot.
‘Sure help yourself,’ the technician answered, and hurried on past.
Ellie stuffed the sample pot into her coat pocket. She took the elevator up to the third floor (where Irene used to work and where Nicolas Oggwell had last been a client). She passed the double doors of the kidney dialysis unit. The sign was still there, only the message had changed. It read:
Unit closed until further notice
Walking through the familiar oncology wards brought back memories of Irene, good and bad. Her legs felt wobbly. She had an odd pain in her chest, a heartache pain. The ward was eerily quiet. Twenty beds lined the ward, but only four were occupied. Two new nurses were on duty. One was attending a patient on the ward and the other was working on a computer in one of the side rooms. Her heart sank when she saw the new young doctor sitting in Irene’s office. In her chair. Irene’s name plate had gone from the door. It wasn’t Irene’s door any more.
The ward nurse smiled at her, ‘Hi, how can I help you, Doctor?’
She smiled back at the ward nurse and said, ‘Just thought I’d pop by and see how things are going for you down here in Oncology. I see they have found you a new Doctor for the
ward.’
The ward nurse seemed unsure of how to respond, but answered, ‘Yes. That’s Doctor Bright. They transferred her in from another Sector. It has helped a lot since Dr Sharpe left…’ then she hesitated, ‘You know how it is…’
‘I know how it is,’ Ellie replied.
She knew how it was looking sure enough and it was pretty ugly from where she was standing.
‘How are your patients? I see the young girl is getting a lot better.’
The ward nurse turned to look at the little girl in the far bed.
‘Oh. Yes. That’s little Michaela. She’s almost ready to leave now. Her mum and dad will be in later today to pick her up. A lovely young girl. Her dad works quite high up for the Masons you know.’
Her face brightened when she mentioned the masons.
‘He does? That’s nice. It’s always rewarding when things go well,’ Ellie said about as sincerely as she could manage.
She looked over towards the empty bed where an elderly woman had been lying the last time she was on the ward.
‘And what about the elderly woman? Did she get better and go home?’
‘Oh. No. She died. Cancer – too far gone to treat. Shame.’
‘Oh I see. Well that’s sad. And what about the other woman? The one who was sitting in the bed over there,’ Ellie said, pointing at one of the empty beds.
‘Oh you mean Martha Been? Discharged. She’ll be treated as an outpatient now.’
The ward nurse was flipping over notes on the desk, when she added, ‘It’s funny about Martha.’
‘What is?’
‘Well. She didn’t look like she was getting any better to me. Yet we had instructions to discharge her and send her home. I guess they know better than me - after all - I’m just a lowly ward nurse,’ she said sarcastically.
‘I see. I guess they do. Mind if I go out that way?’ Ellie said, pointing down the end of the ward which opened out into the back exit and down the stairs.
‘Sure,’ the ward nurse said, and continued flipping through the files.
Ellie walked down the line of beds, until she came to the one with a middle aged woman lying in it. She recognised her from a previous visit to see Irene. The woman was moaning. She was holding out her hand and begging for her to come to her. A screen was pulled half-way around her bed. Ellie looked back at the ward nurse who was now on the phone laughing and chatting to someone who was obviously not a client. She slipped around the screen, out of sight.
The notice above the bed read:
NIL BY MOUTH
ELIZABETH STRATTON
The woman was waving her hand around trying to take hold of Ellie’s hand. She looked grey. Very grey. Her eyes were half closed.
‘Doctor?,’ she whispered to Ellie.
‘What is it Elizabeth? Can I get you something?’ Ellie said warmly.
‘Have you come to help me?’ she managed in a very weak voice.
‘Help you. What is it? What do you want?’ Ellie said.
The woman grabbed her hand. Her fingers felt cold and lifeless.
‘The charts,’ she said and let go.
Ellie picked up the notes which were on a clip-board at the end of her bed. She studied the charts and comments.
Stomach cancer.
Operation scheduled.
Patient not responding to treatment.
‘The medication. It’s not working,’ she managed to whisper, using her fading eyes to point to the bag of fluid dripping into a tube that was attached to her arm.
Ellie looked at the drip and squeezed the bag.
‘Not working. Are you in pain?’
‘No. No pain. I’m dying. They are letting me die. Please help me Doctor Sharpe.’
Her eyes closed.
‘I’m not Doctor Sharpe. I’m...’ Ellie started to say. Doctor Sharpe is down there. In that dreadful place, haunting F.R.E.D like some soul thrown into damnation for a crime they hadn’t committed, she thought.
It went unheard as the woman slipped into unconsciousness.
‘I’m not Irene. But I will help you,’ she whispered and touched her hand gently.
Ellie looked through the gap in the screen. The ward nurse was still on the phone. She unhooked the bag of fluid from its holder, and expertly squeezed a small amount of the fluid into the sample pot that she had picked up earlier. She was out of the ward and back down into her consulting room before anyone had noticed. When she got back inside her room she took her white laboratory coat off the hook behind the office door, and put it on. She took her name tag off and removed the white insert. Turning it over she wrote as neatly as possible the words: “SANDRA: PHARMACY” and put it back into to name tag – pinning it back on to her breast pocket. From the stationary cabinet, she took a clip board and standard blank client file sheet. She scribbled a name, and date, on the sample pot, and put it in her pocket.
She had a funny image of a piece of jigsaw floating in the pot. A bit of sky.
The Research and Development laboratories were still very busy, as expected. The auto-analysers were located in a side lab off the main lab. Ashley Harris was sitting in front of one of them working away. He was a university student in his work placement year on a biomedical degree. Ashley Harris had his hair tied back in a long pony tail. He was attempting to grow a goatee’ beard, and failing. His lab coat was open and he was wearing a tee-shirt with the words: “Genius at work” across the front.
He was a clever young man, that had won a scholarship for university, but he was also very gullible. Ellie hated to take advantage of the young lad, but it was necessary. She had no choice.
‘Uh-hum…Ashley Harris?’ she queried, holding the clip-board to her chest so that the name tag was obvious.
He looked up from the machine to see ‘Sandra,’ a pharmacy nurse standing in front of him. He didn’t recognise her. He looked at her name tag first, then her white coat then her concerned face. She thought that a young man of his age ought to be looking at others things first, and that he was too wrapped up in his work.
He blushed and answered, ‘Yes. Can I help you?’
Ellie coughed lightly.
‘The girls in the Pharmacy sent me down here to see you Ash. They said you would help me sort out this little bit of a problem,’ she said in a voice that would make even the hardest man wilt.
She dangled the sample pot in front of him.
Ashley’s face flushed even more.
He tutted, and said, ‘Late again. I don’t know. You Pharmacy nurses. You should know better than to bring the samples in here on spec. You’ll get me shot,’ he joked nervously.
Ellie thought hard about that, she really hoped not.
‘Sorry Ash. I can see you’re up to your neck in work…but…just this once. Pleaaaase,’ she said, putting on her best flirtatious smile.
It was a smile that said, I might even sleep with you if you do it.
‘Alright…Give it here,’ he said, taking the sample and reading the label.
He looked sheepish.
‘Oncology. Chemo-standard I guess. Is that what you want to run on it?’
‘Oh…Yes. You know the usual standard chemo-stuff. Like what strength it is. That sort of thing, I guess.’
Ellie was very bad at lying and it didn’t come easily, she hoped he would buy her story.
He fell for it.
She was secretly relieved.
‘Okily dokily,’ he said cheerily, extracting a sample with a hypodermic needle and shooting it into the auto-analyser.
It was clear he loved his work and she felt guilty about getting him into any kind of trouble, but this was necessary. A few seconds later the results were on screen.
‘Do you interpret the results Ash?’ she asked, pretending to be interested in his work.
‘Nah,’ he said boldly, ‘All the results for standards on the treatment drugs are sent by the system directly to Mason De-Barr’s offices. We don’t do the final interprets.’ He paused, ‘I'm not suppose
d to... but if your desperate I could do you a screen capture of them if you want though?’ he offered. 'Of course it'll be pre-processing so might be hard to understand.'
Ellie's eyes lit up. ‘Yes. That would be good because I have to take them straight to the consultant. He’s on the wards waiting for this and he’s in a very bad mood,’ she replied.
‘Wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Sandra. Snotty consultants think they are God. Here, take this,’ he said, handing her a copy of the results and the sample pot.
Not all of us think we are God, she thought, only some.
‘You’re an angel. No need to mention this though. You don’t want to get the team in Pharmacy in trouble. Do you Ash? The girls think a lot of you,’ she smiled, at the budding genius.
Secretly, she hoped that this disguised warning would be enough to protect him from any kind of trouble.
‘No probs’,’ he answered, ‘See yah later, Sandra…maybe? he called after her as she quickly left the room with the results.
‘Course. Yeh. Bye for now, Ash, and thanks,’ she called back without looking back.
Ellie made her way back to the lift where she removed her lab coat and pressed the button that would take her up to the roof terrace.
The glass-house was mostly empty, except for a young couple, who were wandering amongst the towering plants, hand-in-hand and sharing a quiet moment of privacy. Eric was nowhere in sight. A gentle piece of music (which she suspected that Eric had chosen especially for the young lovers) was playing softly. It was very hot outside that day and the vents were fully open. She walked down the length of the glass-house and turned into one corner away from the young lovers. They had stopped to admire a cluster of banana plants. They disappeared under the huge velvety leaves and she could see them kissing from the bench she was now sitting on. She envied their innocence. She could see Eric’s door from where she was sitting. It was open and Amadeus was sitting on a coconut matt in front of it.