Mirandahh Asche Drachenn of New Rydynn city, Sabattann, entered the ER of New Rydynn Memorial Hospital through the side street double doors. It was a marvel to her that they opened for her, the automatic action on the doors was sporadic at best. As always, the ER was a gleaming antiseptic white. The room was partitioned off into curtained areas for the treatment of patients with some measure of privacy. The few functioning trauma areas were divided by low walls of which some of the separating windows had long since been broken out. One survived, and the others were covered with privacy curtains bleached to whiteness, even if the material scavenged for them hadn’t been white to start with.
Ash, as Mirandahh was called, was of average height, blonde, blue-eyed and she carried herself with the confident stride of a Union of Medics paramedic. The silver band on her left hand flashed as she took off the wrap-around shades she’d gotten in a trade for some rice cakes and typewriter ribbons. Today’s haul had been typical of her scavaging trips out into the city, garnering a few things, but nothing extravagant.
She plunked the med-kit she carried over her broad shoulders onto an empty exam table in curtain one and began to rummage about. Carefully setting out a flask, an astrolabe and a fine looking bag of rocks, she saw something by the name of Trelnikk crept in. In fact, he crept about in a creepy little way and he didn't smell very good either. He looked at Ash who got the creeps watching him slink in. "Yo," she called to him. "What's the problem?"
Trelnikk looked at Ash, odd little noises coming from him. "Liiife ... whatttt ittt isss anywayyy..."
The working elevator that led to the ER waiting room deposited Greg Calsso, twenty-three year old pathology medic, yawning behind his hand. He was unaware of a black smudge, possibly of charcoal, that darkened the sharp line of his jawbone. He glanced around, seeing a mostly empty waiting room. Greg then grabbed himself a lab coat from the grouping on hangers near the ER locker room, slipped it on.
"You sick or got something to trade? I got pens with ink that works? Hey? Sound good?" he heard Ash say to someone he hadn't seen and made his way toward her voice, brushing his hair back from his tired eyes. "Evening Mirandahh," he called, making his way into the main ER where several exam areas had their pristine curtains drawn back, blissfully empty. Thankfully quiet. He took note of how she'd commandeered one of the areas for her usual trading and smiled to himself.
Ash nodded to Greg and waited for Trelnikk to answer her. "Yo, Greg. Scrounge up anything good for the sale?"
A sheepish look crawled onto Greg’s face. "Not unless you think people'd be interested in DNA samples."
Ash shrugged and hooked a thumb to the outside. "Never know, Greg. There's a market for everything out there..."
"Liiikelyyy sickkk...nuuuthing muchch tooo traaade..." Trelnikk finally spoke up, his whole presence that of a creepy slowness… something out of sync with survival and reality.
Ash squinted at him. "Symptoms?"
Truth be known, Greg had decided to take a nap when he was supposed to be looking. "Yeah.. that's true."
Meralynn Harperr made her way down the hall toward the ER. Her feet shuffled with near silence as her eyes glanced over her notes but she nearly stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Trelnikk. She swallowed, her inexperience betraying her as she saw the scabs and sores that littered his tormented flesh.
"What's wrong," Ash prodded Trelnikk orally. "Look, I can't do nothing till you tell me the symptoms, right?" From inside the big med-kit, she took out a smaller, worn and well used one.
"I finally finished the Pathology reports for the other night." Greg told her and tossed out a report while he remembered. He leaned against a stretcher.
"Blisssterrrsss," Trelnikk said slowly. "...scabsss...burniiing sensaaation...pain in generalll... I feeeell great....." He smiled, all three of his rotting teeth showed.
"Yeah? Join the club." Ash flicked her ice blue eyes at the report and gestured with her chin at it. "Anything tricky, Greg?" She fished out a bottle of stuff and a syringe.
"Well, other than the fact that all but two were going to be dead soon of Radiation anyway… not really."
"Yeah..most of 'em are, Greg."
"Ooooohhh...gooodyy...clubbb..." Trelnikk tittered.
"You been treated before?" Ash asked Trelnikk, while she carefully filled the syringe. Her attitude with the man was all business and she sent a flashy wink to little Meralynn to let her see how one dealt with the horrors of life. Ash felt so old around that girl. Best not to think on it.
"Thinnk soooo...not helllp a lottt..."
"Yeah well, this will help with the pain. Roll up your sleeve or...well... peel it off."
Greg saw the grin and looked back over his shoulder. "Ah..there she is," he said, his own grin helpful. "Evenin Meralynn."
Mera’s lips curved in a slight smile, and she winked back as if some secret was shared between she and Ash. Then she turned her more controlled gaze to Greg. "Staying out of trouble?"
"Of course. Don't I always?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Mera asked him, a soft chuckle floated from her throat.
Trelnikk looked at his arm. Clearly, he was amazed to see cloth still there. As he pulled it away, some skin followed suit. "Oops," he said as if it hardly mattered. He remembered the big booms that did this to him but specifics were lost in a fog of time.
"Oh," Greg said to Mirandahh, chuckling past Mera’s comment, "Here's a kicker though. Now that I remember, one guy actually had a Non-mutated form of the flu."
"The flu?" Ash did a classic double-take to see if Greg were really serious. She grimaced, looking back at Trelnikk and grabbed for the antiseptic from her med-kit. "Ugh, man," she breathed.
"Real kick in the pants ain't it?"
"Hey...somebody get me some clean gauze." Ash shook her head. "Do we even know how to treat the flu?" she mused.
"I did some research in Elliot's database, it seems to be the one thing we never could cure."
"Look out, Greg. Could be an epidemic."
Mera reached in a nearby drawer and pulls out a roll of gauze. "Have you found any more supplies? We are almost out here...." She counted just shy of dozen sterile rolls left of the material.
"I'll make sure to wear a containment suit next time," Greg smirked. He watched Mirandahh work, making mental notes on her style and method.
Ash chortled as she took the gauze from Mera and tore a strip. Dabbing some antiseptic on it, all while keeping hold on the syringe, she said, "Meralynn, I need stuff to trade for it, you know? Got anything good?" To Trelnikk, she grinned. "This is gonna sting..."
"Ssstiiing...sssting is immmprovemmmenttt..."
Mera twisted her lips as she bit the inside of her cheek. Her face contorted with thought and finally, disappointed, she said, "Well... no. I guess not."
Ash listened and lay the pad on the raw patch on Trelnikk's arm. She got the creeps all over again as she treated the man but shook it off as best she could. To Mera she said, "That's all right. I got kids out scavenging and I've been saving up my water rations." The gauze stuck to Trelnikk’s skin and Ash couldn't bring herself to remove it.
"Oooohh..prettty," the man murmured.
"Okay, boyo," Ash said, bedside manner in tact, "a little pin prick and the pain will go bye-bye."
Greg reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a small square of paper. "Heh.. sorry to drop this on ya Mirandahh, but we're out of burn plates. Last one went up on smoke last night."
Ash glared in Greg’s direction. "Super," she said. Quick, sure and efficient, the needle went into Trelnikk’s arm and came out again. Her patient actually giggled as it went in and out and felt a mild burn that marked the morphine's journey into Trelnikk’s muscle.
Mera’s brown eyes lifted towards Trelnikk. Her expression said she found his reaction curious. She saw his eye twitch and heard him say, "Ooohhh... That wasss funnn..."
"Regular party of fun," Ash said to Trelnikk as she threw the syringe into the Sharps recycling container and quickly disinfected her hands with a gel like antibacterial disinfectant. Water was precious and it dried without stickiness and required minimal amounts of water to make. They were able to make their own at the hospital with the right dry chemicals. Sometimes they had to deal for those, but often the Freemen would bring what they could when they found or traded for supplies that would be helpful to the hospital. "Now you go to the soup kitchen and get yourself something hot, right?"
Trelnikk blinked his eyes and twitched, then blinked again. He looked around, assessing. "Thisss place isss nice..."
Ash smirked, "You got that right," and pulled some plastic wrap, another flask and paperclips out of her big bag.
While Mera watched Ash work, Greg finally got off his duff. He strolled toward the ER's large double doors that led outside. As he looked out the windows on the doors, through a haze of dust, he could see the flashes of light in the distance. "Well, they're at it again," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Mera came up behind him, the sound of her shoes faint on the tiles. "They are always ‘at it’," she told him in a low mumble.
He looked back over his shoulder. "Yeah...I think you're right. Maybe it won't be as bad though." To himself he mumbled something. Mera thought she heard, "yeah, right…"
"I smell another all nighter coming up," Ash grumbled. Then she turned and announced. "Meralynn...was thinking about taking a trip to the frontier. Wanna come?"
Mera’s eyes lit up at the offer. "Me?"
Not quite understanding that it was Ash who'd set her up in this with just the suggestion, Greg turned to look at Meralynn. "She's thinking about a what?" he said to Ash while still looking at Meralynn as if she'd sprouted a second head. "Are you nuts?"
Mera turned from him on her heels, to glance toward Mirandahh. "Now Greg," Ash said, "You're just jealous." The grin that graced her face was laced with traces of madness.
"Yeah… jealous I can't go out and get my fool head blown off?? Hardly."
"Elliot tells me," Ash scowled fiercely, "That there's a species of plant out there… extract the juices and you got a decent pain killer."
"I feel all cooped up," Mera said, fixing Greg with a frown. "Like a chicken."
"Oh, chicken's good... but if you go out to the frontier, you'll be a fried chicken!"
About then, Ed Archer came in, hugging his gun to himself. Ash stared at him, asking her usual barrage of questions and he claimed he came in only to visit Meralynn. Greg and Mera went a few verbal rounds about her going out into the "frontier". Ed promptly told Greg how he mustn't have been very experienced if he still called the wilderness the frontier and Greg claimed this as building block of his argument against Mera’s going anywhere.
The idea of going out and about looking for supplies that the hospital needed made Mera feel as if she could be even more useful. There were the ubiquitously dirty little kids who ran through the ruins and found things for Ash, getting food or water in trade for things they couldn't use but that the hospital might. Why couldn't she, Mera, be as useful?
Greg, in his disapproving way, gave in eventually to the concept of Mera’s going, but he insisted that she not go alone. He very nearly volunteered to go along to keep her from getting killed, but his expression showed vitally clear disappointment that he'd not won the argument.
Ash slipped into her own small world of spirits and was staring at things that weren't there while Greg’s made a last ditch effort at getting Mera to stay. He looked to Ash for help, knowing full well she'd never take his side of it.
Mera smile at Ed, remembering a previous visit of his to the hospital and her eyes glittered a bit as she asked, "Run into any more of those... spiders Ed?"
"There's nothing out there except those spiders," he said, emphasizing Greg’s argument and pointing at Mera, "You plan on dying?"
Greg took this as a good sign, pointing in turn to Ed. "SEE! He knows it's insane to go out there!"
"Everyone is against me," she complained, her arms crossed over her chest.
Then Ed blew him out of the water and offered. "I'll go with you, Meralynn." He smirked. "Or maybe I should make a run and go out by myself?"
In her distant world, Ash was muttering under her breath, "Yeah...yeah...whatever. Okay."
Ed had some difficulty with the look of the man Trelnikk and when the one known as Goon to the hospital staff tromped around a corner, as if he were a fixture there in the hospital, Ed's dislike for crowds, borne of being so long alone in the wilderness, made him jump back a bit at the sheer hugeness of the man. He apologized, explaining he wasn't used to … people.
"Hey... man," Ash rather growled at Ed. "Get used to it. We ain't all pretty pictures."
Greg seemed surprised that Ash should speak that way, but Ash was often acerbic at odd times, especially drifting back to the real world from her ‘spirit walks’. "Say what?" Ash plastered a smile on for Greg’s benefit, but it didn't comfort him much.
Mera couldn't help smiling when she saw her friend Goon. There was something about the big man, whatever had changed him and made him this way over the course of his life on Sabatt, whether the radiation or the living, it didn't matter. He often looked bored with the mundane but always he looked happy. He grinned when he greeted everyone and Mera’s own smile just grew wider. Something about Goon was fundamentally good and Mera was always glad to see him.
"Fix-person-help-lady lot hi!" Goon said after a moment of thought.
"Hey Goon, my man," Greg grinned to him.
"Learn-make-fix-person-man lot hi!"
Greg smirked. "How are ya Goon?"
"Burn plates...gauze...meds...how am I gonna get this stuff." Ash muttered softly.
"Smart nurse lady," Goon called bouncing and waving in a clumsy manner at Mira. "Lot hi!"
Ash looked up, drawn again to what transpired around her. She squinted at the Goon. "Yo Goon-baby. What did you bring me?"
The big man blink-blinked. "Goon not baby. Goon lot big." He nod-nodded, his head bouncing a bit with the motion and grinned. Well, no one could argue that with him, that much was certain. He realized that Greg had spoken to him and blinked at the man. Looking down over himself, Goon said, "Goon not know how Goon."
Greg smirked in amusement. "Forget it Goon."
Goon seemed to think this was easy and nod-nodded again. "Goon forget," he said. He spied the bazaar of the bizarre which Ash had set up on an exam table and shuffled his way toward it, his look a curious one. There was all manner of neat-o stuff there to see. Paper clips, the astrolabe, a couple of flasks and pens with real ink. Goon began to poke at the various things with a huge but gentle finger.
"You got anything to trade, luv?" Ash asked him.
Goon looked down at himself as if something would suddenly make itself known as an item for trade. When nothing appeared he said to her, "Goon no have thing." He scratched his head and returned to poking at the articles on the table again.
Ed finally turned to the object of his interest on this trip to the hospital and said to Mera, "How's it going?" She smiled softly and explained, not at all softly, that all had been fine and dandy until Greg tried to get in her way of going out. It was clear to Ed that she harbored no ill-will toward the pathologist of the place, because even though she complained, she'd winked at Greg. The pathologist made as if he were all sorry for being so concerned and smirked to himself. Ed decided to offer his own incentive and beckoned to Mera with a finger.
When she'd made her way over, he whispered into her ear. "It's night. The tanks are silent... wanna ditch this stitch hut?"
Mera noted that the others were all busily engaged and said under her breath, "Really?" She kept her eyes on Greg and Mira.
"Yeah, why not." He shrugged. "You'll be safe with me... but depends on what you wanna get."
"We need stuff for the hospital... gauze, batteries, anything we can get our hands on."
"Batteries," his eyes widened as he spoke. "What kind, uh, how big? I can do batteries. The other stuff might be scrounged up."
Mera gestured and stepped out into the waiting room, just out of view of the others. Ed followed after her. "You're sure it will be safe?"
"Well... ‘it’ won't, but you will. I've lived this long...I must know something about the outside world. For instance...the dead zone has no more radiation. Bugs and small animals run around there." Mera blushed slightly. She remembered an error she had made the other night when she'd met Ed about the dead zone. "And if the big spiders are machines... then there's no radiation at all. Because that means they're not really monsters."
Mera made her decision, confident the hospital needed what supplies she could find. "All right."
"Lead on, doc." Ed said.
"I'm no doc," she chuckled softly, her feet shuffling to keep step with him as they moved out of the sterile hospital and into the coming night.