The frame of a Syrynykk appeared rather suddenly in the connecting doorway, her tail swaying slowly at her feet. Her jade eyes narrowed as a broad, reptilian head was swung side to side to examine those beings who were present in the Emergency room of the New Rydynn Memorial Hospital. Perhaps she had hoped to see a certain other Syrynykk, or maybe she had only come for the sake of company, but whatever the case, she was here and she met any gaze cast upon her. A a soft hiss of sound accompanied the flickering of her tongue from between her jowls and teeth. It darted briefly out to quiver in the air, then hid once more within her jaws. She moved with a lanky step to a far corner of the ER, so silent in her manner as not to be heard. Her job that night was to watch; and, as she settled down to watch the evening's proceedings, there was a distinctly reptilian smile upon her scaled lips. She saw the Medic called Ash rushing about the lobby ...
===
Hurried, Ash moved through the lobby, counting on her fingers and muttering, "One ... fuel ... okay. Got that to spare. Two ... med kits. How many ..." She muttered all the way to the nearest E7 terminal and barked out, "Elliott ... how many med kits can we spare?"
Elliott, his soothing voice smooth through the speakers, responded, "Mirandahh, at last count the hospital had 10 fully equipped packs."
"Okay, okay. Get Braxx and Telwinn on alert. We're going to leave tomorrow morning."
"Done, Mirandahh. Do you require anything else?"
She lifted her head and spoke to the air. "Yeah, Elliott, get me a decent map this time."
A slender young man dressed in a hospital jumpsuit walked cautiously to the lobby doors from one of the wards. Any observer would have seen the pain showing in his gray eyes. He stretched experimentally, and groaned slightly.
Ash looked up from the flashing supply manifest on the monitor screen and nodded to the man she recognized as Shad Gray. "Feelin' better?"
"Hmm." Shad glanced at Ash and shook his head slightly. "Wish I could. The doctors have been studying me for the past week."
She narrowed her eyes at Shad a moment with a look that bespoke the grinding of mental gears. "Oh ... yeah, yeah. The flu. You got them docs puzzled." The medic went into the ER and Shad followed as she dove behind a desk and began to rummage under it.
"Yup, the ‘flu.’ Guess not everyday you get a chance to see something new on this planet..."
Ash's voice came back to him muffled. "Hell, you see new stuff every day. You should see some of the mutant viruses running amuck out there." The box appeared on the desk top before she rose from beneath it.
Shad nodded slowly. "Yeah ... lots of unexplored areas out there. Death in many forms. Seen a few of them... Not a pleasant sight."
"A virus?" Ash chuckled as she straightened and looked right at a shadow that seemed to move. She could have sworn there was a Syrynykk in the doorway. She blinked and the lizard apparition seemed to be gone, melted into the dimness of the shadows where Ash's mind couldn't take time to play. "You need a microscope to see a virus," she told Gray as if he needed reminding. She began to sort through the contents of the box she'd plopped on the counter.
"Well," the man frowned, embarrassed as if he'd said more than he should have. "Well, not exactly. My senses are starting to act up."
Ash pulled a flash light from the box and examined it. Her resultant expression said she was dubious as to its functionality. "Like how?" She asked Shad.
"I've been hearing people's heart beats sometimes."
While she tapped the flashlight against her hip, Ash made a slow turn to face Shad. "That so? You sure it wasn't your own heartbeat?"
"I'm also seeing the workings of objects."
Noting the beam didn't come on, her brows drawn together, Ash gave the light a hard shake. Her face was void of understanding as she looked back up at Shad. "Uhm...don't get what you mean there."
The man scratched his chin in thought. "Some.. balls orbiting a nucleus," he said, moving his hands around to illustrate. "That's it … molecules. As if, my eyes become like a microscope."
In frustration, she gave the light one hard tap against her hip and it flashed on. Her face brightened as well in response to her success, and may have given the man the impression she believed a word he said. "You're telling me you can see molecules?"
"It's. Odd. Just getting used to it. Starting to get it." He said disjointedly, but so calmly that he even shrugged. "Either that or that flu's making me delusional."
Ash shined the light against her palm and squinted at the marriage line etched there on her third finger. She offered a sly grin to the man as she clicked the beam off, conserving what energy was left in the batteries. "You want my professional opinion?"
"Sure. Couldn't hurt."
"The meds are making you loopy." That said, she tucked the flashlight into one of the many pockets on her jumpsuit.
"I wouldn't be surprised; but, would that explain that black oil in my system?"
"Black oil? What black oil?"
"I've been leaking it ever since I came here. It's been appearing mostly where I was beaten up."
He had her attention with that one. She couldn't help it, she peered around the desk to look at Shad's shoes. She was a little more cautious now because maybe – just maybe -- it wasn't the medication making this man loopy, but rather the insanity itself. "What'd the docs tell you?" Then again, if he were leaking oil, that sure could be a useful commodity. Her lip twitched slightly.
"They haven't much of a clue... I have checked on some of their tests That flu ... oil ... is starting to replicate and change my system."
To help control her lip twitch, Ash turned to the terminal. She punched in a bit of code on the keypad and silently went over Shad's chart displayed there on the screen. There were paragraphs of notes and a low whistle escaped her as she cleared the screen of the information. She said to Shad "This is way out of my field, kiddo. Way out..." Shad raised an eyebrow at her as if disbelieving and she said, almost casually, "Honestly, I'm no doc. Just a medic. I keep ‘em together ‘til the doc’s fix ‘em up."
The double doors slid open to admit the man called Bad Zac. Smoke drifted up in a lazy curl as he exhaled the last tendrils of a drag from a cigarette, then slipped inside. His dusty boots clumped against the tile floor. His long coat fluttered in a dance from the breeze without. Zac scanned the ER with his one good eye as he searched out Ash, the lady doctor.
Shad glanced cautiously at the man in the long coat at the same time that Ash’s gaze locked on the Zac. As soon as the one-eyed man entered, but before the double doors had even closed, she asked, "You got those distributor caps?"
Zac whipped his head to her directed question and smirked. The clump of his boot heels was the only sound he made as he crossed the floor and came to a stop in front of her. He then casually leaned against the counter. His nimble fingers fish for the pack of smokes he kept in a breast pocket. His eye never left Ash’s face. "I got 'em," he offered in a rasped, yet hushed voice, a cig popped into his mouth even as he spoke.
Without a word she too acted. She reached behind the desk and produced, not one, but two cartons of a fine tobacco product, still tightly wrapped in plastic. "Let's see 'em."
The brow above his eye was most certainly arched. The cigarette dangled from his lip. He glanced quickly at the rucksack he had dropped at his feet just to be certain it remained where he’d put it. "Where'd ya get the smokes?"
Other men distracted them both as they came down the hallway from the lobby toward the ER. Zac had entered through the ambulance bay doors directly into the room, but these men moved from the main entrance and only now did the others see them. The majority were dressed like civilians but their expressionless faces gave silent voice to the fact that they were soldiers. Ash could immediately tell that they were not Freemen.
The man in the middle walked enshrouded, with only his hands exposed. Pressed together, they were placed as if he were in deep thought or in prayer. Onkar gestured with two figures and several of his comrades moved to the opposite side of the lobby, not yet having entered the ER where Ash and Zac and Shad lingered. The man’s hands lifted then to pull back the hood of his shroud. The motion exposed a serene face and a cruelly lighted plastic patch. One green eye shifted around to take in the visages of those present in the ER.
Shad held his head suddenly as in great pain. "Ahhh," he cried softly. "That again."
"Whoa," Ash said, her eyes ripped from the procession toward the ER from the Lobby.
Zac remained where he had leaned, but he noted that the smokes disappeared before Ash moved to aid Shad. His lip flickered briefly in an appreciative smile and his foot went protectively to the sack he'd dropped on the floor as he watched. He took in the positions of the new arrivals carefully. He didn't like the look and in an absent shift of his weight, Zac stooped for the rucksack. He shuffled away from the desk asking Ash, "Got grubb?" so quietly that she didn't hear and he didn't wait for an answer.
Sack slung over his shoulder, cig still dangling from his lips, he slipped inside the cafeteria. A few moments later he found him sitting under that flickering light, eating his stew. He chewed slowly and with a controlled bite much like his one-eyed perusal of the near empty cafeteria was.
In the ER, Shad frowned. "The pain's been getting more frequent..."
"Steady there..." Ash said, a hand on Shad's shoulder. "Let me take a look." Her penlight in her hand already, she moved to face him.
The man in pain cradled his head in his hands. "Gods, it's like something's rearranging my head from the inside out." He lifted his head up to face Ash. She gently opened his eye a bit more and flashed the light within. "The docs got me on the strongest painkillers they have. And still," he waved his hand about. "Nothing."
"Okay, okay. Relax," she smiled, her bedside manner functional. She moved on to his second eye. "Where is the pain?"
"Center of my head."
"Top center? Bottom? Middle?"
"Best way to describe it Middle."
"Okay...dizzy?" Ash asked.
"Just a bit."
"Okay...you sit down. I'll call up a doc and have him look you over."
As Shad turned his head he spotted the man dressed in the robes. "All right," he said to Ash, who followed his gaze while she tucked the penlight in her breast pocket. "Churchman," Shad muttered and turned his head away in caution.
"Elliott, who's on call tonight?" Ash asked the supercomputer, speaking into the air knowing his audio sensors would easily pick up her voice.
"Dr. Everett is making rounds tonight, Mirandahh."
"Right, Elliot. Can you have him stop down and check on a patient ... Gray, Shad. ID 782-011-98."
The shroud of the robed man moved with his every subtle twitch of muscle – like a living thing. Whatever his intent in the ER, he exuded stealth. He stopped somewhere near chairs, slowly turned and as his brow lowered over his green eye, gazed in the direction of the man who tried to hide behind the Medic; the one she'd identified for him as Shad Gray.
Onkar smelt of burnt incense and it spread like disease throughout the room. His gaze at the hapless man in pain evolved into a stare.
Ash wrinkled her nose at the burnt candle smell and told Shad, "Okay ... Dr. Everett will be down to your room soon to see you." Shad exited the ER immediately to return to his room. Onkar lifted his fingers and blew a ginger kiss after Shad, his soft laughter following the man's retreat.
With Shad gone, Ash could return her attention to what she had been so frantically preparing to do before – a mercy run to the far side of the city. She let out a long breath as she patted down her pockets. She snapped her strong fingers. "Blankets.... Damn...batteries. I need batteries. Where is that one-eyed guy?" She turned then quite deliberately to the robed Churchman and said, "Hey you. Got anything to trade?"
Onkar’s finger tips tapped, still prayerfully, against each other as he glanced at Ash. "Batteries could be arranged, Dr. Drachenn, for a price." A slowly winding smile lit his face.
"Ain't no doctor," she said and leaned forward to fold her arms on the counter. "So you can stop buttering me up. And everything's got a price."
He wandered closer. "You act as if you were a doctor. And the price I would ask is inconsequential to you."
A wide grin spread across her lips to hide the curiosity sparking in her eyes. "That usually means a huge favor."
Zac’s empty spoon soon hit a near empty bowl with a clink. He propped his feet up on the table top and leaned back to stuff an unlit cig back in his mouth. He rolled his head on his neck, smiled at the resultant "crack" and rose to make his way out to the main lobby once again. As he cleared the cafeteria door, the ER came into easy view through the open double doors and Zac noted the robed man in close proximity to Ash. Zac slowed his forward progress and deposited his frame into a nearby chair where he could watch, maybe listen, but not directly interact until it was his turn for the business for which he'd come.
The man spoke softly. "I am not well versed in hospital procedures. How would one go about finding a patient?"
Ash's face hardened to all emotion. "No politics here. You know that."
Onkar’s one green eye lifted and searched her from head to toe. "That is too good to be true."
"Show me the batteries," Ash said, still leaning forward. She hadn't moved a muscle save to speak. She watched the man's one green eye swayed and glanced at one of his comrades and Ash's blue eyes narrowed in deep suspicion. Without a word, the soldier slid his hand into his side pocket. Zac rose from his seat and moved quickly but leisurely to the desk at the same time, his rucksack hanging from his hands. He leaned there "waiting his turn" and full of distrust that wasn't – quite – obvious.
The Churchman in civvies pulled two batteries from a side pocket and tossed them to the robed man who caught them. "Will these do?"
"I was hoping for car batteries," she told him with a half smile and her eyes flickered to Zac.
Onkar chuckled and leaned closer to her, the perfume of burnt incense filling the air between them. "For car batteries, you'd have to do more than just find me a patient, Mirandahh."
She met his gaze for a moment, then looked away first. "Anyone can find a patient. All you have to do is ask."
"I hoped especially that you would escort me to the room."
Zac tried to bite his tongue, but couldn't keep from speaking. "Look ya sick freak," he said to Onkar, "go fondle one of yer dead followers and let me get some real business done with the lady doc here." Zac tossed a tight smile to Ash. "Ya got them smokes?"
Onkar stared at Zac and sneered, "Arrogant huumunn rabble," as he pushed himself back from the desk. Zac held up a hand for him to talk to without even looking at him.
Ash blinked one slow, dumb blink at the rucksack as Zac slid it across to her. "Smokes? Oh! Yeah." This time, the female Medic slyly pulled out only one carton of cigarettes. "Let's see 'em," she said again.
"Any man," Onkar said, "who depends on a woman to obtain cigarettes is obviously incapable of showing any sign of manners." The robed Churchman moved from the desk and with a curt gaze to his men around the room, stalked from the lobby into the hallway. He spoke in low tones to one of his men. "Inform H'livaania that Orsa is here and she's extinguishable." Faintly he smiled. "No politics." Together, they disappeared down the hall and around a corner.
Though Ash was watching, she couldn't make out what was said, but for the name Onkar spoke. While the Churchmen gave her the creeps, it hardly mattered what they imagined they could do. Ash knew that Elliott had his eye on things and that the hospital security force patrolled every floor. They didn't carry weapons, but they hardly needed them. Elliott had control of the air filtration system. He could flood a corridor with nitrous oxide as easily as he could control the administration of painkillers to patients plugged into his systems.
Protecting the hospital, though not one hundred percent effective against all inside attacks, was far easier than it seemed. Many people had made the mistake over the years since the Great War in believing that New Rydynn Memorial was a ripe peach ready for plucking. The amnesty of the Union of Medics toward all those in need gave the hospital and it's staff a mistaken air of vulnerability and naivete to the uninformed observer. In fact, that apparent vulnerability would have been better defined as confidence in the ability of Elliott Seven and the Security crew to protect them. After all, they existed for the survival of all species on their war torn world and the staff never considered that anyone might object to that.
Unfurling the rucksack, Zac held it open to Ash for her inspection. She peered into the sack at the distributor caps and said, "They work?"
"Putter got ‘em workin’," he growled. "And they're damn clean as I've ever seen."
She slid the carton over to him. "Batteries. Auto if you can get 'em."
"I saw two earlier," Zac said, eying the single carton.
"Huh?"
"Two Cartons," he said distinctly.
"Oh...yeah. One for the caps. The other for batteries."
He smirked. "No more one for one?" He grunted, but slid her the two distributor caps. "Toss in a shower card for the kid?" He nodded.
"Yeah, yeah...one for the kid." She plucked her prize from the counter, leaving Zac to deal with the tobacco.
"Good," he said, shifting his cig from one corner of his mouth to the other. "Now. About these batteries," spoken as he tucked the carton into his ruck.
"Yeah. They gotta work. Fit in say...an ambulance. I need 'em in two days."
His jaw dropped slightly and he looked at her incredulously. "Two days? Ain't a miracle worker, doc."
"Yeah, well. That's when I need it." She shifted from foot to foot. She could hear voices, what sounded like the distant speech of Elliott in other parts of the hospital. One got used to it, and the hum, after a while, but it was wearing on her that day. She stuffed the caps beneath the counter which was already stuffed full to bursting with her scavenges.
There was a twitch under his dead eye and another shift of the cig as he debated. He rubbed his tanned hand over his chin. "Two days, huh?" His voice sounded like pebbles over gravel. He squinted his eye, adding things up in his head.
Ash nodded. "Going out on mission then. An orphanage got in the way of the war."
"No shit?" Zac said, arching a brow. He looked off in the direction of the bay behind her, where he’d originally come in. He looked at her, smirked and leaned forward. "Need a driver for the second vehicle?"
She licked her lips, her look speculative. "You offerin'?" Zac looked left, then right, then nodded. "Didn't think you were that kind of fellow."
"You have no idea what type of 'fellow' I am, doc."
"Yeah, I could use a second driver." She watched him smile and gather up his ruck to sling it over one shoulder in one smooth motion. She hugged herself tightly, many things racing in her head. "Hey ... " she called as he turned to leave at her acceptance. He stopped and turned back. "What's your name?"
He moved back, pulled a butane lighter from his pocket and there was a flare of flame in front of her. She blinked and he touched the flame to the cigarette. He grinned.
The singsong voice of the computer came over the speakers just then, "Mirandahh, air filter 17 is clogged."
Zac sucked in a lung full of smoke and held it as he said, "One eye," then turned to head out into the dusty Sabattann night.
Ash actually laughed as she turned to face Elliot's speaker. "Hello again, Elliott. Where is air filter 17?"
"Hello, Mirandahh. Air filter 17 is located above the staff laboratory."
In a far better mood, Ash chirped, "I suppose you want someone to unclog it then." She drifted toward the elevator.
"That would be a task someone would have to perform, yes. I cannot change the air filter myself," the supercomputer told her as though it was something she didn't already know.
"No kidding," Ash muttered softly with a smile and added a note about the air filter to Chumba’s "to do" list that hung on a clipboard from the lobby desk.
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