Saint Joseph School

Volunteer rotation, Crowne Point medical center. 21:00, Friday, June 15th.



The only sound in the triage and monitoring room was the soft whir of computer fans and the static burst of changing CCTV channels. Friday night, nine PM, and it was quiet. Gabe leaned back in his chair, and clicked the monitors to another view. "Clear on forty-seven, Hey, what are you doing this weekend?" Gabe, and his staff supervisor Jennica were utterly alone in the ward, the attending physicians off taking care of patients and the other staff-volunteer duad in the cafeteria on break. Breaks were a luxury they seldom afforded, but they hadn't had more than a broken toe and one alcohol overdose puking in their lobby in nearly an hour.

His partner of the moment, Jennica looked over, "Clear on forty-eight too, I'm going to the movies with the boy, how about you?"

Gabe flicked another one, "Prom..." he said, smiling, "school dance tomorrow, figure I'll spend Sunday recuperating from being out until dawn..."

Jennica shrugged, "live fast, die young, leave a cute corpse I guess."

Gabe shook his head, somehow talking about dying while clicking through the pediatric monitors seemed a bit tasteless. "Yeah you know I'm such a party ani-" He was cut short by the medi-beacon panel in front of him, which suddenly sprouted christmas lights: a red light, then three, then half a dozen accompanied by a dozen more in amber.

"Holy..." Jennica said, dropping her coffee cup to the floor, the slosh-thud was the only sound for an instant, and then the alarm klaxons split into the silence.

Gabe locked in, sat upright, took a deep breath. Showtime.
"eight medweb beacons active, looks like a team went down, routing in from the sewers, Steel Canyon hit capacity, we might need to re-route."

Jennica stared at the panel a moment, her face screwed up. "Alright, Wing one will take the incoming medbadges, I need to call dispatch." and with that she ran out of the room...

Shit, now he was alone. And they were still coming.
Lights came on in pairs, triads, never in single groups, three with severe burns from Steel Canyon routed due to overflow, two more in the sewers. Half the wards were full in seconds. Then, there was an ear-splitting tone, and the panel went to full capacity.

Bill, the other staff triage nurse ran into the room, his volunteer lackey steps behind. "what the hell is going on Gabe?" he boomed.

"We're getting hammered, transfers from Steel, over 20 medbadge activations in the last three minutes, and there's still Ms. Barnard."

"Gabe. Move." And with that Bill pushed him aside, taking the console, hands flying across the controls. Four doctors on staff, 30 patients and counting, Gabe could see the ER clearly, not from the CCTV cameras, but on emotional impressions alone. He was running before he knew it, sliding through the massive double-doors into the trauma room.

The place was sheer and utter pandemonium, every bed full, overflow beds being rolled out by nurses, the sharp ozone smell of transporters actuating, blood covered part of the floor, as a man wearing spandex and missing part of his arm attempted to get up off the bed. "Azure? Azure?" he cried, to be answered by an incoherent grunt from an blue-armored man laying on the cot four down from him with most of his torso separated. At the end of the row the attendnats clustered around a bed, one straddling the patient with his hands on his chest, trying to restart his heart.

Gabe knew what he had to do.

They didn't allow supernatural powers in the medical wards, mainly for concern out of their occasionally uncontrolled nature, worries about the use of healing abilities and magic depleting some form of natural ambient energy required for recovery and a good dose of professional jealousy.

Nevertheless Gabe stepped to the center of the room, surrounded by the barrage and the bedlam, and he Pushed.

Life energy isn't unlike electricity, it flows from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration, which is as good an explanation of the ubiquity of life on earth as any other. He could feel the difference in potential energy, his intensely vivacious aura, the mangled and dying around him, the tension was unbearable, like being stretched out thin. So he did what came naturally to him, he pushed, with every fiber of his being in a concentric circle he pulsed pure life, brilliant flaring as he lifted several inches into the air. And he kept pushing, feeling pure vital energy itself flowing through his hands like sentient quicksilver, the room faded into white, and he pushed, oh god he pushed.

Gabe had come to on the floor of the ER ward, drained from exertion. The last two hours had been a hazy blur of waiting rooms, lobbies and animal exhaustion.

He'd never met the hospital administrator before, not even when he was accepted to a volunteer position, and yet here he was, staring into the obscenely bright sunlight streaming through the windows, bone-tired and his stomach buzzing inside him with trepidation.

"Mr. Templar, I must tell you, your actions were absolutely unacceptable for this hospital." he gestured out to the papers covering his desk, Gabe's entire life history spelled out in triplicate mimograph. "however, just because I must, does not mean I enjoy doing so."

Gabe managed a thin smile, "I know sir." It had become his mantra.

"security clearance level 34, decorated in three warzones, you've worked with a quarter of the Freedom Phalanx... I would imagine by now you could follow orders, Mr. Templar."

"Yes sir."

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"Yes sir."

"well, out with it son."

Gabe lifted his head, it felt strange and mechanical, "32 patients, four doctors, sixteen people mangled after an attempt to jump not one, not two, but three 30-foot-tall clockwork at once in the same small park. The numbers should speak for themselves. If I had not have acted, people would have died."

"you need to trust the attendants! you're only a-"

Gabe cut him off boldly, "I'm certified field medic grade four, I know a fatal injury when I see one, you've got my chart. I stand by what I did, you can throw me out now." He slumped in the chair.

The administrator looked him over, slowly, taking a four-count breath, probably to calm down.

"I'll chalk that one up to exhaustion, you'll never make it as a doctor without playing by the rules, you say you're a field medic, you can prove it, I'm transferring your volunteer contract, you have 100 hours remaining on it."

Gabe winced, it wasn't going to be that easy to get out, "where to sir?"

"we'll see, we'll see."

Gabe was sitting on the porch of his parent's house, after dinner.

Dinner had rapidly regressed into playing 'what's that?' with the medals on his jacket. His father, an old military man, had apparently decided that whatever he was doing now was 'close enough' to longbow to count, so the majority of the evening was spent explaining every badge and button sewn onto his dress uniform jacket.

"you needed to talk?" Gabe's dad asked, as they stepped out onto the porch. He pulled out a cigar and lit it with a match.

"yeah, uh, I've got some forms I need signed. Volunteer transfer."

Dad nodded, "alright, where you headed?"

"They're sending me to Siren's call, they need people with a security clearance to work their switchboard... non-combat," gabe shrugged, "I still need guardian's signature."

Gabe's dad smiled, "you'll be working out at the Longbow medical center?"

Gabe nodded, gripping the smooth edge of the porch and leaning out; the night sky was turning blue and orange, the sun blurring out behind the war walls and streetlamps flicking on across the city.

"I thought longbow didn't want you?"

Old wounds again, Gabe's dad was never happy he'd washed out of the ROTC thanks to his lack of control over his electrical manipulation.

"Not good enough for combat, good enough to be an unarmed medic..." Gabe shrugged.

His dad nodded solumly, walking over next to him. "I'm proud of you, son." and Gabe suddenly felt like he was in a Longbow recruiting ad.

"thanks."

"I mean it, here." he pulled out a bundle from behind the door, "I've been meaning to give this to you... your grandpa said to give it to the first kid to get drafted, I figure you're close enough." he laughed, opening the package to reveal the barrel to a gun, glinting in the late evening light in spectral highlights of gold and red.

"I can't." Gabe said, flatly.

"take it."

"I'm too young."

"it's in my name, a gift."

"I can't carry it."

"you're a registered hero..."

"we don't carry them."

"Gabe, son, seriously, take the damn thing, maybe you never use it, I hope to hell you don't have to. It's because Dad wanted someone who was carrying on to have it."

Gabe smiled weakly, and took the butt of the revolver, it was smooth-worn and heavy, a bulky device.

"It's a colt single-action army model, seen action in three wars and with two cops, son. It was important to him to keep up the tradition."

"I'm no cop, dad."

"close enough, son." He said, smiling.


-----------------------------------------------

It was well after midnight by the time that Gabe got home, signing into the dorm with his parent's co-signing his excuse. He slipped into his quad like a ninja, high on the balls of his feet and trying not to wake anyone up, circumnavigated into his room, tucked the revolver, sans ammunition, deep under the other souveniers in his top dresser drawer, buried under a video tape, a chunk of a dam and a sheaf of papers.

Gabe walked in, and assumed his post at the medweb console. Back in King's Row. Crowne point, it'd been ages, months since he'd been back here. It felt right again. Siren's call was a zoo. He was wound too tight for Siren's Call; truth be told he was probably wound up too tight for King's Row too. It smelled like quaternary sanitizers, that acerbic halogen smell, tinged with a hint of lemon air freshener, stale coffee and staler sweat, moments of panic frozen into pheremone signatures. The chair fit him now, just right. Set to the right height, the lumbar support set to his back.

"Hey Gabby" Jennica looked up from her own console, "long time no see, man." She brushed long hair out of her face.

"Yeah, Siren's Call rotation, I guess you were shorthanded tonight."

"mmhmm" she turned back to the console, "quiet night, we've got one in on bed twelve, some kid that had a close encounter of the Hellion kind, so I hear you're leaving?"

Gabe smiled a little, "I had a 100-hour contract... if I put in six tonight I'll be up to 130."

Jennica didn't respond for a long time, "You know I'll miss you, Gabby."

Gabe arched an eyebrow. He never knew she even really thought much about him at all, "oh, uh... thanks?"

"Hey, don't make too much of it Gabby," she said, waving her hands in front of her chest, "it's just you know what you're doing and you actually talk to me when you're on shift," she paused a second to press a button, "transferring a green-level to Triage-4- the other kid was useless, lost his head under pressure."

Gabe smiled, "and I didn't? that's how you lost me to begin with..."

She shrugged a little, "eh, I think you made the right choice, how did Siren's Call treat you?"

Gabe turned his chair to face her, "alright enough, it's hectic out there, patch-them-up-send-them-out kinda stuff. On a busy night we'd clear fifty guys, young guns trying to make a mark in the warzone I guess."

She took a sip of her coffee, "wow, so uh, what now? you complete your community service hours?"

Gabe raised his other eyebrow, "uh... this was volunteer, I didn't have to do this." The suggestion was mildly insulting, but it would be an easy assumption to make.

"Lucky bugger. And underage, before you ask what I got tagged for, so don't worry that I'm like some horrible criminal."

A light lit up on Gabe's console, the process was automatic, scan the line, hit the transfer button, "yellow in on channel four, sending to ER three. I wasn't even going to ask."

"It was my boyfriend's!" she protested.

"Jennica, really, I don't care..." when did his voice become tired suddenly? "I'm just a medic. By the way, don't think you're getting rid of me down here for long."

Jennica tapped out a long string into the keyboard, calling up patient data idly, "oh?"

"I'm trying to get the school to send me to night school, biology, first aid, the state says they have to pay for it if I've taken all they offer at the school."

"Ah, you're going to be one of the lab volunteers? or civvy triage?"

"Nah, I'm gunning for EMT-B by graduation, figure I'll do gurney-hauling duty for the paras, I want to go to med school someday."

She looked up, a look of mild surprise on her face, "you, a whitecoat? I'd never see that..."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jenny."