by Mallory Kane
Kristen glanced at him, noticing the velvet blackness of his eyes. She smiled nervously. "Well, you know how it is," she commented but he had already careened around the corner,.
"I thought you said this place would be deserted," Rider hissed.
"Rider, shut up! It is. During the week this floor is teeming with people." She pushed the down button and sighed as the doors opened immediately. She pushed the stretcher in and punched B.
Rider sat up.
"Stop it! You can't do that!" she cried. "There are cameras in here!" She tugged on his shoulders until he lay down again.
"I'm burning up under here, Doc. Where are we going?"
"Shh!" she hissed.
"Those cameras may have sound."
"Oh, yeah," Rider said, his voice muffled by the sheet.
"Now shut up and close your eyes!"
The bell rang and the doors began to open. She pushed the stretcher out into the dark corridor, peering around, but it appeared to be deserted. "So far, so good," she whispered. "Our only problem down here will be the pharmacy and surgical intensive care. Everything else is deserted on Saturday."
"Where are we going?"
"Where do you think? I'm taking your advice." Kristen wheeled the stretcher past the pharmacy window and down the hall. She would have to go in to the surgical suites through the recovery room, since the main doors were right across from the intensive care unit and the family waiting room. She prayed there were no emergency procedures going on.
As she passed the back door to the pharmacy, two pharmacists came out, griping about having to work the weekend. They nodded at Kristen and dropped a passing glance to the sheet-covered form on the stretcher. She nodded back, hoping they wouldn't stop to consider why anyone would be wheeling a dead body into the recovery room. At the automatic doors that opened into Recovery, Kristen paused.
"Rider, are you sure you want to do this?" she whispered. The more she thought about it, the more frightened she got. "I've only handled a laser scalpel one time for a cataract removal." Without waiting for a reply, she wheeled him in through the sliding doors.
"Just a few more seconds," she whispered as she pushed the stretcher through to another set of doors. The rooms beyond the glass doors were dark. She pressed the button on the wall and they entered the main surgical suite. She took a quick turn around the room, checking all the offices, closets and other anterooms. Then she said to Rider, "Okay, you can sit up."
"Thanks," he said wryly, pushing away the sheet and sitting up. "Where are we?" He rubbed his face.
There was a noticeable lack of odor in the room, as if the air was conditioned so rapidly and thoroughly nothing was allowed to linger, even cologne or the scent of mouthwash. Kristen rolled the stretcher up close to an exam table and Rider slid over, shivering.
"Shit, Doc. These tables are cold."
"I know, I'm sorry. Usually they heat them, but we don't have time for that."
"Yeah, you're right." He sat on the table, enduring the cold of the steel seeping through the thin, wet cotton of his sweat pants. "What now? Where's the equipment?"
"I don't know, okay?"
His angel-doctor was nervous. Rider reached out and pulled her to him. "Hey, Doc. It'll be fine. Now, can I do something?"
He held her hands, knowing how she depended on her empathic sense to keep her in touch with the world. He drew them to his mouth and kissed the scraped knuckles and the gauze-covered blisters, noticing that the faint discomfort in his gut was a mere echo of his earlier pain.
Kristen leaned over and touched his lips with hers, then shrugged and extricated her hands from his. "Let me see what I can find," she said.
He watched her as she made another turn around the operating suite. She stepped into several side rooms and out again, looking more and more discouraged by the minute.
"I don't think they do the eye surgery in a different place," she said uncertainly. "But I can't figure out where the equipment is. Unless—"
Flashing a smile at him she darted off through another set of double doors. Rider sat still for a couple of minutes, but he wasn't about to let himself lose sight of her. So he vaulted up from the table just as she pushed open the doors and rolled in a heavy piece of equipment.
She rolled it over and plugged it into a floor outlet. Immediately a row of lights came on and something began buzzing insistently. She walked back over to the table, carrying an instrument of some kind.
"Lie back down," she said. "I've got to anesthetize your eye."
He lay down. When Kristen began to pull Velcro straps across his arms, he grabbed her wrists. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She stood there, held in his brutal grip, until he felt foolish and let her go.
"I'm probably going to screw this up anyway, Rider. If you move, I could kill you."
"Shit. And I thought I was having a bad day yesterday." He endured the indignity and panic of having his arms and legs and chest strapped down to the table, but when she pulled a chin and forehead strap across, he growled at her.
"Rider," she pleaded.
"No! I can do it, but you're not going to strap my head down. I'll stay still, I swear." He glared at her until she relented. "They strapped us down. Everywhere—arms, legs, torso, head." He shuddered. "You don't know what it's like. I lay there for hours. I couldn't even move my head, couldn't see—"
Rider’s voice gave out and he had to stop. The memories didn't stop, though. He'd lain there, in the conditioning chamber, imprisoned, barely able to swallow, while the leads attached to his temples, his eyelids, his jugular, all his pulse points, fed him information he didn't want, flashed disturbing images across his vision that he couldn't blot out, even with his eyes closed.
They'd made him into someone he wasn't, someone he hadn't wanted to be, and he wasn't sure if he could ever get back to the person he had been before. He wasn't even sure that person was still inside him.
Rider's thoughts slammed up against the wall of that idea. If he had volunteered, why did he hate it so much? Why did he hate the TAINCC if it was helping him avenge his wife?
There were too many questions. Too many mysteries, not the least of which was why he was protecting the very person he'd wanted to kill. His angel doctor. He stared up at her.
She nodded. "Okay," she said softly. "You win. Here goes."
Kristen opened the cabinet on the front of the cart, searching for the sterile, ophthalmic anesthetic. She finally found a box full of individually packed doses.
"Rider, when I told you I haven't done much of this I wasn't exaggerating." Kristen knew just how accurate her words were. If anything, she was underplaying the gravity of the situation. On the one hand she understood that if she couldn't do something about the device in his eye, they were doomed. But she had only had that one experience with the laser scalpel, and that was under the supervision of the Chief of Ophthalmology. And she hadn't known that patient. He hadn't been the man she was beginning to love more than life.
"Doc, let's just get on with it. I'm hungry."
Despite her worry, she smiled at him. "You're incorrigible," she said. "Now, I'm going to put something in your eye to anesthetize it. I'd like to put you to sleep, but I don't think we dare chance it." She lifted the metal instrument.
"What the hell's that?" he said as she brought it close to his eye.
"This? It's a clamp to hold your eye open while I work."
He turned his head away. "No."
"But Rider—"
"I said no. I can hold still. I can hold my eye open."
She made a noise that sounded like a short laugh. "No you can't. Not once I start working."
"You've never been in the TAINCC, Doc."
She sighed. "You just told me they strapped you down,"
He turned his head back and met her gaze. "That was at the beginning. They taught us to stand anything."
Her eyes went wide. "Oh—" she muttered, then took a deep breath. "I'm not sure I can do it if I know yo
u could move at any second."
"I won't move," he said flatly.
She nodded. "Here's the anesthetic." She raised the tiny plastic container and squeezed several drops into his eye.
His breath hissed between his teeth and his eyelashes quivered, but he didn't blink.
"You can blink, Rider. I need you to, to distribute the drops."
He closed his eyes. "Warn me next time, Doc. That stuff stings."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The irony of Rider's reaction to the drops amazed Kristen. He had endured bruised ribs, blinding nausea, metal digging into the skin of his back, all without complaint. But he griped about a little sting.
While the anesthetic did its work, she turned to the machine that buzzed behind her and gazed at the electronic display. The laser probe was awkward and unfamiliar in her hand. She shifted it, allowing her hand to familiarize itself with its shape and weight. If she held it like a pencil, her forefinger rested on its hair-trigger switch.
Pointing it at the floor she pressed the tiny button. A beam of blue light sprang from the tip of the probe, a beam so tiny, so sharp, it was hard to see. She let up on the button and the beam disappeared, but a tiny curl of smoke rose from the floor.
Fear clutched at her diaphragm like the pain of Rider's bruised ribs. She depressed the button several times, getting the feel of the instrument, watching the pattern of laser burns on the floor tiles.
"Doc, what are you doing?" Rider turned his head, straining to see. She heard the edge of panic in his voice—she couldn't delay much longer.
"Practicing," she said, trying to make her voice light.
"Yeah? Well, from the smell of burning plastic, I'd say you're either doing real well or real bad." He relaxed his head and closed his eyes. "Any time, Doc. Any time at all."
Kristen walked around to the head of the stretcher, gazing at Rider's upside down face. "Okay. Is your eye numb?"
He nodded.
She lifted the laser scalpel, then lowered it. "I need to clamp your eye open."
"No."
"If your move, I could put your eye out—" Or sear your brain. Her heart lurched at the thought. For a minute, she stood with her eyes closed. There was a place inside her where she kept the detached professionalism that allowed her to be a good doctor, if she could dredge it up. If she couldn't find it, then they were as good as dead.
Breathing deeply, she willed the tension in her body to flow away, leaving in its place a calm assurance.
She pulled a surgical lamp down close to Rider's head and turned it on. He didn't move.
"Stare at the light, Rider. Stare hard, and make sure you don't move." Relieved, she heard her doctor's voice coming from her throat. Maybe she could do this.
"Doc—?"
"What is it?"
"Promise me something."
She sighed. Don't distract me, Rider, she begged silently. Don't say anything that will make me cry.
"Let's get out of here when we're done. Hospitals make me nervous."
"But it's the safest—" Kristen stopped. Something in his face made her remember his worry about the elevator camera having a microphone. What if the camera in his eye had one too? Even if they stayed in the hospital, it wouldn't hurt to make whoever was listening on the other end think they planned to leave. "Let's do. This place is making me very nervous too. Now shut up and don't move."
The laser probe was cold and hard in her hand as she adjusted the light and positioned it over Rider's pupil. She could just make out the minuscule black speck close to the retinal wall.
She placed a hand on his jaw, marveling at the strength, the tension there. "Okay," she whispered. "Here goes." Carefully, she depressed the button and let go.
It was over in less than a heartbeat.
Rider's breath hissed out like a steam kettle.
"It's done." She hadn't moved and neither had he, but when she uttered those words, his body collapsed like a dropped marionette.
"Rider?" She tightened her grip on his jaw. "Rider!" He was limp. He had passed out.
"I'm so sorry I had to hurt you," she whispered, checking his pulse. It was strong and steady, thank God.
Then she coaxed up the doctor's assurance once more and examined his eye with a narrow magnifying light. The little cube of black that had been attached to the retinal wall was now a misshapen lump. Kristen could see blood welling on the mucous membrane and she hoped to God she hadn't blinded him, but at least the camera was destroyed. His eye was already turning red, so she placed a thin line of antibiotic ointment under the lid and put a bandage over it.
She straightened up and looked at him. His mouth had relaxed and his jaw was no longer clenched tightly. He looked so helpless and lost, lying there unconscious. Then, without warning, a violent shivering racked her body. Delayed reaction, she diagnosed. She didn't care if she trembled enough to shake the foundations of the hospital now, because now it was over. She had done it! She had melted the tiny square device with its reflective lens into a lump of nothing. Maybe they'd have a chance now. She wrapped her arms around herself and waited for the reaction to pass.
Rider choked and coughed, and Kristen roused herself, quickly and deftly turning him onto his side. He heaved dryly, though, and she realized he didn't have any food in his stomach to lose. She kissed his pale cheek then spread a sheet over him and rolled the exam table out the door. She prayed no one would see them.
As she pushed the gurney off the elevator and turned toward the end of the hall where the morgue was located, the orderly who had spoken to them earlier sauntered by. Kristen eyed him, then glanced down the deserted hall, wondering where he had appeared from.
The boy nodded and grinned. "See you've still got that live one. Good thing for you. Where you're headed will be quiet this weekend." He leaned toward her and whispered conspiratorially. "Nobody will die this weekend. Nobody at all."
Kristen stared into the black holes of his eyes, familiarity crawling up her spine like a spider. "Who are you?" she whispered. Up close, she wasn't even sure if it was a boy or a girl.
"Just a bit of a gross prophet," the kid said, and grinned as he saluted her.
She turned and watched as his white uniform disappeared around the corner, then continued on toward the morgue.
"So far so good," she muttered under her breath, then laughed a little hysterically. "You really ought to work on a new line, Doc," she said to herself. "You've used that one quite enough."
Great. Now she was talking to herself. It was probably the idea of being in the subbasement. She hated it down here. It smelled of a strange combination of antiseptic and dirt. Part of the area under the basement was finished, but part was still just pylons and dirt. The pipe space, Engineering called it. Kristen always felt claustrophobic down here.
Right now though, she was thankful for the deep, dark quiet of this area underneath the basement of the hospital. It was just the place they needed to hide and rest. They'd be safe for a while, if they weren't discovered.
Kristen stopped in front of the double doors to the morgue. She walked around the stretcher and pushed on them. They swung open silently.
She heard a moan from Rider. Maybe he was waking up. It worried her that he had been unconscious so long. If he went into a coma—
Quickly, she pulled the stretcher into the room and pushed the doors closed, offering a silent prayer that the odd little orderly was right and no one would die this weekend.
"Okay, Rider. We're here," she whispered and uncovered his face. He was still out, but she thought she could detect a slight evening of his breaths, as if he was asleep instead of unconscious. She looked around. All the exam tables were empty, clean and shiny and waiting for the next guest, who wouldn't mind how cold their steel bed would be.
"No guests today. At least not yet," she muttered as she looked around.
It had been years since she'd done morgue duty, but she thought she remembered a little office somewhere. The red emergency lights w
ere the only illumination, and this room, like the OR had no smell—no smell at all. The air was so clean that it irritated her nostrils.
Leaving Rider on the table, she stepped through a door, finding herself in the office. There was a tiny desk and an old desk chair. A stack of neatly folded scrubs lay on the one side chair, and in the corner was a supply cabinet.
She opened it. Blankets. Blankets and a pillow—for the residents to nap while they did morgue duty. She searched further. She'd never known a resident in her life that didn't keep a stash. Even in the morgue. Sure enough, behind a box of paper clips she found them.
Several little brown vials with typed labels. Aspirin, ibuprofen—she pushed them aside as she read the labels. Ah, there they were. Some hydroxyzine capsules. Not as good as promethazine for nausea, but slightly less sedating. They would work.
She looked around the room again, squinting in the dim red light. A narrow white box sat beside an old dilapidated couch. She stared at the small refrigerator, hardly able to believe her luck.
Inside there were containers of juice, which had probably been swiped from the cafeteria, and somebody's leftover lunch. She sniffed carefully at the paper bag. Nothing obviously spoiled. Suddenly thirsty, she opened a carton of juice and swigged it gratefully, then spread two blankets on the couch and carried two more back to Rider.
She couldn't move him to the couch, so she'd just have to wait until he woke up. She spread the blankets over him and touched his forehead. His unbandaged eye was dancing, undulating under the delicate skin of the lid.
"What are you dreaming, Rider?" she whispered as she stroked his forehead, trying to smooth out the furrows between his brows. She closed her eyes and tried to glean something from him, but all she got was a muddle of confused images that she couldn't sort out. Too tired, probably.
"I hope your dreams are good ones." She wrapped one of the blankets around herself and sat on an exam table, watching him. "Please hurry up and come back to me."
#
Dr. Rider Savage gazed out the streaked scratched glass window of his office and noticed the haze was darkening. He liked that the history department was in the oldest building on campus, but they could have replaced the ancient, streaked glass.