Mercy 6 (26 page)

The pencil outline was square, ruled. But it was drawn, not cut like the previous one. She looked behind her, directly facing the opposite wall. Stepping over pipes, she kept her eyes level on the wall as she paced toward the other back corner. Nearer, she watched for an appearance, a shimmering line or arrow, a red dot of light, her tired eyes aching for it.

Her drop began slowly, knees buckling, head faint. The wall eluded her reach. The corner pitched to one side. The floor hinged with a creak and a clang, throwing her into darkness. She slammed inside hollow metal, slick against her clothes, impact acid on her tongue, a blood taste.

And she was falling.

The metal gave whenever she struck and ricocheted, so there was little pain besides friction burns. She covered her head with her arms. The upward blast pushed at her. She almost passed out from the acceleration. The darkness was complete. She was collapsing, going terminal, nerves flaring. She sought to cover herself, to hold the hem of her skirt with one arm while wrapping the other about her head.

She screamed as though underwater, the sound thickened into bubbles. The air gained substance, slowed her, grabbed her. Clothed her. Linen covered and blinded her with white. She came to a stop, then bounced softly, pushed to the surface, sank back. Her pulse was racing. Everything else felt all the more still: the nest of linens and laundry bin that held her, a clean room, the distilled air of the basement.

She was now more angry at Mullich. She stared into the black square, a laundry chute suspended from a white ceiling in a small room. In the distance, from beyond the door, she could hear faint notes from some of Claiborne's music. She remained still, letting the cloth suspend her, letting her pulse normalize. She counted three full and even breaths.

The black square directly above her was silent.

Then, “Anna.”

The
A
echoed foreign, almost an
H
in front, soft, deep, down the chute, falling over her.

Mendenhall raised her head.

“Stay still,” said another voice, a young woman. Silva. “That's it.

Hold still for a while. Sounds come out of it once in a while. The building expanding and contracting. They sound human. Always in two syllables. Mullich says, anyway.”

Mendenhall worked herself into a standing position. Silva had removed her lab coat and changed into a dress, blue with vaguely Thai piping. She wore black ballet flats. Her ponytail was set higher than usual. The disguise worked, giving the impression of Eastern, far from Brazilian.

Still buried up to her shoulders in linens, Mendenhall tried adjusting her own failed disguise, tugged the skirt, twisted the blouse, curled her toes to make sure the Mary Janes hadn't flown off during her plunge. Her clothes embarrassed her. She wanted to remain in the bin.

“I stuffed as much as I could up the chute,” Silva told her.

“Mullich said not to bother. But he's never done it. It's all blueprint to him.”

“I liked him better as an enemy.”

Silva offered Mendenhall her cell.

“Get rid of it,” said Mendenhall. “They'll just track us with it.”

Silva maintained distance. Her feet were together, prim.

“How long have you been in here?” Mendenhall worked her way to the edge of the bin.

“About two hours.”

Mendenhall looked to the chute. “From there?”

“Yes.”

“From Four?”

Silva shook her head. “They never found me. I dropped from Seven.”

“Seven.” Mendenhall shivered. A double moan came from the chute, a kind of chant.

“He put stuff in it. For me. It slants a bit. Good design, he says.”

“Mullich showed it to you?”

“The journalist,” replied Silva. “Mullich showed him; he showed me. When I was trapped on Seven. Promised a soft landing. It wasn't that soft. I tried to make it better for you.”

“The journalist. He's still here?”

“He found me because he knew you were outside. Knew

somebody was pretending to be you. Here. He's really good.

But high.”

Mendenhall pried herself over the side of the bin, stuck her landing as best she could, tried to look awake and ready. She could have returned to the linens and in their coolness slept for hours.

Silva took a step back. “I'm thinking of turning myself in.”

“We have more to do.”

“There's nothing left to do.”

“We can help Dr. Claiborne.”

“If I go to his lab, it's a threat to him.”

Mendenhall pulled on her shoulder, tested the joint. “You're a kind person.”

“Why do you say that?”

Another chant fell from the chute, almost her name. It seemed to cut across her, shift her, a stick in water. She craved an apple, a slice of ginger, that pinot she had left back at the bar, her work in the ER, arrivals, and sleep, a hard full slam, darkness, blackout.

“How would you have treated Cabral?” Mendenhall closed her eyes and rolled her shoulder some more. “If you had known? How would you have treated him? Before he slept and died.”

“Full rest, oxygen, glucose.”

“Would you have left him alone? Bedside?”

“No,” Silva answered. “That would be the worst. I would think.”

“But I mean would
you
have left? Even if someone else remained?”

“No.”

“Then don't turn yourself in. Stay down here.” Mendenhall tested their distance, took a half step. “Help me with someone. I brought her in. Julia. Her name is Julia.”

Silva neatened her stance. Mendenhall imagined her fall, a diver, feet first, arms folded, given over, slicing the dark.

“I'll show you what I found.”

The basements weren't as open as Mendenhall had hoped. From beneath the door she and Silva could tell a security pair was patrolling the hall.

“I could go out.” Silva tightened her hair band, adjusted her flats.

“They get me. You get to Julia.”

“There might be more.” Mendenhall put a hand to the tech's shoulder. “I have a better idea. You play doctor. I play dead.”

Mendenhall lay on a gurney, arms straight. Silva covered her with a sheet, hung a toe tag on her right foot.

“This won't fool anyone.”

Mendenhall relaxed in the whiteness. She would have to fend off sleep. “They're very scared of death,” she replied. “We don't have to fool them. I scared one away by just stepping out of the shadows.

Up there they are brave. But very skittish in the basements. When they see you, know this.”

“If this doesn't work, then we both get caught. What happens to your patient?”

“Dr. Claiborne will be with her.”

“The sheet moves when you breathe.”

“Listen. They—the DC security—seem to think the virus is down here. That it began down here or is being shoved down here.

Put on your mask and gloves. Go straight to that room. Hold your breath if you have to, and I'll hold mine. One minute. That's all it takes.”

In the hall, she lost confidence. She was blind, the white now smothering. She quickly lost breath and had to gasp, sucking in the sheet. She sensed Silva breaking stride, losing the straightness of the gurney. The wheels skidded sideways. Dead gurneys were different, meant for delivery, not speed, cold and heavy. Mendenhall's back ached. She needed a pillow.

She heard a pair of footsteps, boots. The gurney swayed to the side. Silva took a quick breath.

The steps changed pace, and a low voice asked questions, the answers silent—a cell. Mendenhall felt cold, helpless beneath the sheet. Foolish.

“Ask them for help,” she whispered. “Ask them for escort. To open the door for you.”

She slipped her fingers beneath her waistband.

“Please.” Silva's voice sounded all wrong as she called to them, almost begging.

The boot steps quickened. Mendenhall's lungs tightened. She locked her knees, tried to count, to remember with her fingertips which colors were where. She could hear the men moving fast, the familiar squeak of heels on linoleum, a sound that triggered the best in her. The pair surrounded the gurney. Silva gasped. Mendenhall let them yank the sheet, let them fill their hands.

She gripped a syringe in each hand, thumb on plunger. She had never injected anyone without knowing what, without knowing how much, without getting to assess them at least in a glance.

When the sheet whipped off her, she stabbed both men in the femoral triangle, her one clear decision.

They opened their mouths with the pain, made no sound. They both reached for Silva instead of her, an odd gesture that gave Mendenhall confidence. She maintained needle pressure, eyed the colors. The bigger man was getting Demerol. But the plunger there was kicking back against the grip of thumb. She was in the artery.

She gave an extra thrust to counteract the blood flow, to get the dose in and through before the gush. He staggered back, snapping the needle, leaving the empty syringe in her hand. Blood spurted in pulses from the needle. Silva dodged the spray and it speckled the wall.

The smaller guard was getting a dose of adrenaline in his femoral vein. He froze. His arms and legs went rigid, his eyes wide. The fate of his partner terrified him. She hoped he had a strong heart. The bigger guy went down and out. Silva tended to him. She removed the broken needle and applied pressure with two fingers. She pressed with enough force to roll the man flat. His arms flopped.

“Any tear?” asked Mendenhall. They were staring at the rigid guard, waiting for him to fire loose.

Silva shook her head.

Mendenhall removed the needle from her guy. She scrambled off the gurney, stood by him, touching his shoulder. She assessed Silva and her guy.

“Main?”

Silva's hair was falling loose from her ponytail. “No,” she replied.

“Inferior epigastric.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“We can stash them. Really push. Tuck the vessel. Count to forty.”

With her fingers pressed to the point of the man's pelvis, Silva looked at Mendenhall. Then her eyes questioned the guard who was still standing. His jaw was clenched, and he was breathing quickly through his teeth.

“Don't worry,” said Mendenhall. “I have something for him.”

They put the men in the elevator and sent them up to the ER. They would both be out for at least four hours.

“You're clear of all this,” she told Silva.

The tech said nothing, hung her head, gazed at the base of the elevator doors. On the worst nights in the bay, when every drunk falls, every addict ODs, every bar breaks into a fight, the moon is full, great new stuff hits the streets, no questions asked, everybody knows everything, nobody's saying nothing, Mendenhall would take hold of Pao Pao's forearm. The nurse would pause and lift an eyebrow.

Without a word Mendenhall would release and turn and face the next arrival, the next scream, the next sour breath, the next open wound. She touched the cool bend of Silva's hair.

She led her to Julia's room.

“I need you. You're the one to do this. They got me. They get to have me.”

Claiborne was with Covey in the makeshift room. They stood on either side of Julia. Claiborne was running a new IV, something fresh he must have brought from his lab. Mendenhall had never seen him—or any pathologist—do this, tend to a live patient. She wanted to start all over, to be as he was, run as he ran. To be what you had to be, do what had to be done. Even in the ER, her world, where she was most confident, she still always felt she was winging it, fighting herself, off center, leading with the wrong fist.

He had also brought a soft light to add to the green exit sign's glow, a quaint-looking lantern set on the nightstand. With her thumb Covey was applying pressure to Julia's forearm vein.

“I drew some more blood.” Claiborne kept his eyes on his work as he spoke. He seemed reluctant to look at Silva. “I took arterial blood first. Hypoxemia was pretty clear, anyway. I tried testing parasympathetic—”

Mendenhall cut him off. “Parasympathetic, enteric, and sympathetic will cross-indicate. Forget those.” She moved to the foot of the bed to get a long view of the patient. Julia's eyes did not track her, appeared to see her once, then lose her. Mendenhall held her hand out and up, trying to catch her vision. She snapped her fingers. Covey, Claiborne, and Silva looked; Julia did not. “One pupil might be dilated, the other constricted. All three ANSs are vying at once.”

Claiborne and Covey watched Mendenhall. She turned to Silva.

With her hand she made slicing motions above Julia's body.

“Measure reflex, bottom up.” She uncovered Julia's feet and grazed a fingertip along her instep. “Starting here. My guess is she's struck through the upper thigh, somewhere with large muscle mass/lower vessel ratio. It doesn't really matter, though. I think let her fall asleep now. Maintain oxygen, fluids, and glucose. Have Silva hold her hand. Make sure Silva is holding her hand and looking into her eyes as she goes under. Say her name. Say her name. I think she likes singing. Don't let go of her hand as she dreams. If she makes it, others will, too.”

She turned and headed for the door. She never heard him coming, he was so silent and quick. Claiborne took hold of her elbow, crowded her into the door, his length pressed to her. He whispered into her ear.

“
You
need to sleep.”

“I need to get off this floor, get them away from here. I'll be fine.

I'll sleep in Q after they nab me.”

“You know what I mean.” His lips were touching her ear. She wanted to breathe in his scent, the clean cut of his shirt. “You need to
let
yourself go under.” He touched the side of her shoulder, indicating where Julia lay. “Like that. With us around. I brought plenty of IVs. I got the time.”

She lifted her eyes to his.

“You were struck with her,” he whispered. “But you were more down on sleep. Way down. You're worse off than she is. You know this. Let yourself know this.”