driver had absorbed.
“Well, I guess you found your guy,” Jasper motioned at the bloody lump on the ground. He joined Jackson, sitting on the bumper of a police cruiser, watching for the ambulance.
“My guy?”
“Your hacker.”
“Maybe. But I’m guessing he was doing a lot more than hacking.”
They dropped the topic as a team of paramedics rushed in. They asked him the usual questions. Had he hit his head? What name? What city? State? Date?
Jasper wanted to talk his way out of all that, out of the preliminaries, the vitals checks. He knew he was fine. He could feel it.
But they were professionals. They insisted.
And he played along. Fine, fine.
They also insisted he ride along with them to the hospital. Maybe he’d get a CT scan.
Why the hell not? It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.
He stood, ready to refuse transport, when his legs almost went out from under him, causing Jackson to grab his arm and haul him up, complete with another string of cursing. Maybe it was about time he experienced things from the other side of the stethoscope, Stateside, anyway. He could consider it like a vacation.
10
Fiona
S he had a few other life-support cases to worry about aside from her sister. There were two of them on her rounds that morning, two nonresponsive heroin overdose cases. A man and a woman. Both young, both relatively good-looking. It went against what Fiona was taught about drug abusers, heroin especially. Maybe they were new to the game.
The sad truth was that they were seeing it spread to more people. Sometimes people she’d just treated a year or two ago. They’d be sent away from the hospital after surgery, armed with a prescription for painkillers. And then, when the prescription ran out, and the money ran out, they’d come back to the hospital after their street solution backfired. Sometimes overdosing on their first try.
It was the first hour of her shift and Fiona was still feeling groggy from a mostly sleepless night. That, coupled with the worries of her sister, and of these two others, meant that the day’s first screwup was just waiting to happen. She could almost tell it was going to happen.
What would it be this time? Another catheter clamp?
Incorrect medications?
Falling asleep while standing?
Her head felt like a goldfish bowl: heavy, water slopping around with each movement. Her feet felt like two little bricks, shuffling along the hallway, in and out of various rooms. Her voice, when prompted to be loud and cheery for its audience of patients, struggled against sleepiness and melancholy, a slide into monotone dreariness. She dealt with her sickest patients first, the two coma victims. They wouldn’t require much conversation. Nor would the elderly patients, who were as sleepy as she. Or that guy who didn’t like her enough to want conversation.
Someone like Marva, certainly, was out of the question. Fiona would need a few coffee breaks before waking up enough to be on Marva’s level. To give her the care she needed and the support she deserved. What Marva needed, also, was that insulin pump. Fiona wasn’t very excited about coming to see her again empty-handed. The cries about the injections and the blood tests were beginning to wear on her.
Fiona could think of a few other people she’d like to torture. Death by a thousand pricks.
“Hi, Fiona.” It was Dr. Wahl, smiling, walking toward her in the hallway. There was one of them, right on cue. There was no escape.
“Hi.” She winced a smile at him as he approached.
“How’s everything? Good?”
She nodded.
“Good morning so far? Um, I just wanted to . . .” his voice trailed off, and then lowered in volume as they both stopped awkwardly in the hallway. “I just wanted to ask about your sister. I heard about it from Wendy. So terrible. How’s she doing?”
Fiona kept smiling, offering up the same stock answers that he seemed to be looking for. Yep, she’s hanging in there.
“Does she need
“Well, I guess you found your guy,” Jasper motioned at the bloody lump on the ground. He joined Jackson, sitting on the bumper of a police cruiser, watching for the ambulance.
“My guy?”
“Your hacker.”
“Maybe. But I’m guessing he was doing a lot more than hacking.”
They dropped the topic as a team of paramedics rushed in. They asked him the usual questions. Had he hit his head? What name? What city? State? Date?
Jasper wanted to talk his way out of all that, out of the preliminaries, the vitals checks. He knew he was fine. He could feel it.
But they were professionals. They insisted.
And he played along. Fine, fine.
They also insisted he ride along with them to the hospital. Maybe he’d get a CT scan.
Why the hell not? It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.
He stood, ready to refuse transport, when his legs almost went out from under him, causing Jackson to grab his arm and haul him up, complete with another string of cursing. Maybe it was about time he experienced things from the other side of the stethoscope, Stateside, anyway. He could consider it like a vacation.
10
Fiona
S he had a few other life-support cases to worry about aside from her sister. There were two of them on her rounds that morning, two nonresponsive heroin overdose cases. A man and a woman. Both young, both relatively good-looking. It went against what Fiona was taught about drug abusers, heroin especially. Maybe they were new to the game.
The sad truth was that they were seeing it spread to more people. Sometimes people she’d just treated a year or two ago. They’d be sent away from the hospital after surgery, armed with a prescription for painkillers. And then, when the prescription ran out, and the money ran out, they’d come back to the hospital after their street solution backfired. Sometimes overdosing on their first try.
It was the first hour of her shift and Fiona was still feeling groggy from a mostly sleepless night. That, coupled with the worries of her sister, and of these two others, meant that the day’s first screwup was just waiting to happen. She could almost tell it was going to happen.
What would it be this time? Another catheter clamp?
Incorrect medications?
Falling asleep while standing?
Her head felt like a goldfish bowl: heavy, water slopping around with each movement. Her feet felt like two little bricks, shuffling along the hallway, in and out of various rooms. Her voice, when prompted to be loud and cheery for its audience of patients, struggled against sleepiness and melancholy, a slide into monotone dreariness. She dealt with her sickest patients first, the two coma victims. They wouldn’t require much conversation. Nor would the elderly patients, who were as sleepy as she. Or that guy who didn’t like her enough to want conversation.
Someone like Marva, certainly, was out of the question. Fiona would need a few coffee breaks before waking up enough to be on Marva’s level. To give her the care she needed and the support she deserved. What Marva needed, also, was that insulin pump. Fiona wasn’t very excited about coming to see her again empty-handed. The cries about the injections and the blood tests were beginning to wear on her.
Fiona could think of a few other people she’d like to torture. Death by a thousand pricks.
“Hi, Fiona.” It was Dr. Wahl, smiling, walking toward her in the hallway. There was one of them, right on cue. There was no escape.
“Hi.” She winced a smile at him as he approached.
“How’s everything? Good?”
She nodded.
“Good morning so far? Um, I just wanted to . . .” his voice trailed off, and then lowered in volume as they both stopped awkwardly in the hallway. “I just wanted to ask about your sister. I heard about it from Wendy. So terrible. How’s she doing?”
Fiona kept smiling, offering up the same stock answers that he seemed to be looking for. Yep, she’s hanging in there.
“Does she need
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