The other security guy laughed, and Mr Mercy gawked, testing my grip before easily breaking it, and then he stared at my wrist. "Hey! Bandbox! She's got a bracelet!"
That caused the other security guy, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed adonis of a man that looked vaguely familiar, to blink, "Really? Mantis blades or the big gauge? I bet five eddies it's the big gauge. You know what they say, bitches love cannons." Well, that was true, but... "She looked a little... fast just now, you know, too."
The huge guy nodded thoughtfully and said, "Nah, hand's strong but 'ganic. Has to be a wire. I'll add the debt to your tab, choom." Then he stared down at me, "You know how to use that, girly?"
I coughed and said, "It would be pretty stupid to have it on my wrist if I didn't. I think we've all seen that clip from America's Most Violent Home Videos. I don't want to make anyone a bunch of money by being their next submission." The video in question was perhaps one of the most famous videos from that particular entertainment program, and I had seen the clip online of a supposed street samurai yanking out a monowire, throwing out some cool-looking moves and then decapitating himself instantly. It was set to a laugh track.
It was... very gross but very illuminating too. I redoubled my training with the wire software after seeing that. He nodded slowly at me and didn't say anything else because the two pilots walked in.
The pilots gave a pretty comprehensive briefing, from the AV status, any maintenance that was due today, in this case, a replacement attitude indicator was going to be installed, the weather and how that would impact any flights, ammo status, and then mentioned me. I waved to everyone.
After the briefing, the pilot walked me through both where I would be sitting in the AV, all of the emergency features and exits, how to talk on the intercom and radio (and, more importantly, how not to talk when I didn't want to) and then pronounced me good enough. I had to sign a piece of paper confirming I got the initial emergency training on the AV-4, another piece of training waiving any liability if I was injured or died pretty much under any circumstances, and a final one which was an NDA about any patient I saw, with pretty stiff looking penalties.
Curiously, I asked him, "How much fuel does this thing burn?"
That got a wide grin and said, "It burns a very economical one litre per fifteen seconds, on average." Holy shit, with the price of CHOO2, that was astronomical.
That must have shown on my face because he laughed and said, "That really is quite an economic burn. Forty years ago, this same AV-4 model with the older turbofans would burn twice that, at least."
He led me back into the base, and after that... we waited.
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You mean I'm not getting paid for this?
It's the little things that you don't take into account when you're making plans. Like, for example, that you've never actually flown on an aeroplane before, to say nothing of a helicopter, and to say nothing of an AV. There weren't even any armrests for me to white knuckle grip; the spare seat was a fold-down jumpseat, so I just gripped the five-point harness that I was strapped into for dear life.
Hearing laughing over the intercom, I glanced over to assistant Med-Tech, a man named Alex Santos, but they called him Teddy Bear for some reason. I didn't like the cut of his gib, especially now that he was laughing at me, "Never actually flown before?"
I gritted my teeth but nodded the armoured helmet I was wearing. I had been looking through the heads-up display this armour system offered to try to distract me. "No, I haven't. But it should be fine." I told the clinician-only circuit on the intercom. I was just kind of nervous, but I wasn't actually scared.
I clicked over to listen to what the pilots were doing out of curiosity and to distract myself.
"Trauma Tower, Trauma 2, request clearance for departure, destination filed, but it's a 232 heading on the departure. We're going over to Pacifica..." one of the pilots said.
Very quickly, a bored-sounding woman's voice came back, "Trauma 2, Trauma Tower, departure from pad bravo at your own risk, IFF check okay, forwarding your squawk to Night City departure at this time, check in with Night City departure on channel 7, see ya."
The sound got loud as the ducted turbofans of the aerodyne spooled up, and then we gently lifted off into the air. The nose of the aircraft dropped a bit as we turned left and headed off into the distance. There were no windows to look out of, but I could switch the HUD on my helmet to show me an exterior view of wherever I looked. I think that was how the security people used the guns that were attached to the side of the aircraft, so I switched to the exterior view and looked down at the city below me.
I muted the pilot's net and asked over the clinician one, "So we don't know anything? You would think the client would have a recent biom that we could ping from here."
"Yeah... that is required for Platinum coverage, and most Gold-tier clients have that as well, but it isn't necessary for Silver, which is what we're responding to. We just have the complaint — acute chest pain and shortness of breath. We can run an EKG when we get there like it was a hundred years ago, back in the pilgrim times," the man named Teddy Bear said.
I didn't think the pilgrims had paramedics or electrocardiograms, but I decided to remain quiet about that. Nobody likes a smart ass. I pulled up the client's information, which was listed as US2771212 Richard Gage, an employee of Fuji-Westinghouse, and a temporary three-month Silver-tier policy in Night City. Not a night city native, then. We were flying directly to the Playland at the Sea amusement park.
An employee on a contract with the park, perhaps? I always liked trying to figure out the happenstances of a patient before we got to them, I had pretty good accuracy, but it was fun when I got surprised, too.
Anno glanced over at me, "Do you mind carrying the gurney, Taylor?" I shook my head; I didn't mind. It was pretty lightweight.
The co-pilot pilot got on the shipwide net and said, "Landing in two mikes."
That caused the big security guy named Mercy to get on as well, "Two mikes. Cold LZ. Weapon checks." That triggered everyone but the pilots and me to briefly pull out their weapons. The security guys had two small bullpup carbines while Anno and Mr Bear just casually pulled out their pistols, checked to make sure a round was in the chamber and replaced them in their holsters. Considering they already checked them before they got in the aircraft, I was pretty sure they took having your weapon ready and good to go pretty important around here.
As we approached the landing zone, the display on my helmet switched automatically to an augmented reality guidance system, with the patient's beacon listed as being eighty metres to the north-northwest, inside a building. That was pretty cool, as even if he didn't have a biomonitor, he had to have something we were tracking. One of the Trauma Team cards, perhaps?
As soon as the skids touched the ground, my five-point harness automatically popped open and was reeled up and out of my way so I could just jump out of the aircraft, which I did so after Dr Anno and Mr Bear. I grabbed the fold-up-style gurney and followed them behind the two security guys. They didn't run, and Dr Anno described the pace they set as "prudent haste."
It was interesting to see everyone around us get way out of our way. I mean, I knew Trauma Team had a reputation, and I had even seen them shoot a number of people on ground calls, but it's a lot different perspective. It must be like walking down the street, walking side by side with a giant pitbull dog or something.
The security guys gave the bum rush to the few people that were in the room with the patient, including one park security guard, and then allowed us to enter. My gaze went to the patient, and I was pleased to notice that my Kiroshi's automatically used near-field communication to interface to the helmet I was wearing, as the vision I was seeing zoomed correctly to take in the man's face at very great detail. I was a little worried I would just get a zoomed-up sight of the interior of my helmet.
They briefly introduced themselves to the patient, and I thought about what the park employees had told the security guy before they rushed them out of the room. He was an employee for a subcontractor, known for troubleshooting things on every end of the park, walking everywhere. It was the little things you heard that could help you the most if you needed to make a differential diagnosis. Although my power often let me cheat, that meant I had to pay even more attention to the little things to give a plausible reason for my diagnosis.
They used a small device I had never seen before that automatically and rapidly started an IV on the patient. That was seriously cool, and my power wanted me to look at it some more, but I shifted to glance at the patient again.
The guy already had his shirt off for some reason. Although that wasn't too uncommon, a lot of patients with chest pain did that, and I scanned his chest and abdomen, frowning, as the two clinicians quickly connected wireless sensor probes to a number of places on his body, with Dr Anno saying, "Taylor, right here is fine."
I nodded and slid the gurney out right in front of the patient. The EKG was already in process, and I saw the waveform from all twelve leads in front of my face, which caused me to frown some more. Mr Bear said to the patient, "Mr Gage, please lay down on the gurney, and we can delta." Already they had administered a healthy dose of pain medication, as well as something to get his blood pressure down.
The man nodded, looking very relieved already, and carefully laid down on the gurney. Both Dr Anno and Mr Bear grabbed one end and started carrying the man out of the door; we hadn't been in the room for more than thirty seconds. Normally ground assessments lasted at least five or ten minutes in a case like this, but I supposed they weren't in the business of wasting time.
As we walked, Dr Anno asked, "So, what do you think, Teddy?"
"MI or PE, maybe?" the man said, which caused me to shake my head a little bit.
Anno noticed that, and his curious voice came over our private net, "Oh? Taylor? You have an idea?"
Shit. I had intended to keep my mouth shut here. I coughed, "The waveforms of his EKG are inconsistent with an active MI; a PE is possible but unlikely due to the background info we have on his lifestyle. The biobed in the AV has a sonic scanner; I'd recommend activating it on the flight back." My medical sense was telling me that he had an aortic aneurysm, but I couldn't quite say that I believed he did because I saw the way his abdomen almost imperceptibly distended when his heartbeat; now, could I?
Rather than be pissed, Mr Bear just glanced back at me and asked, "You think he has a dissecting triple A?" I nodded at him. He considered that and said, "That could be. Five eddies say it's a pulmonary embolism, though." I nodded, accepting the bet. That was easy money.
Even Anno nodded at him, "You're on. I think Taylor is right. This guy probably has had chronic hypertension for months dealing with his job and a preexisting aneurysm for the same reason. That or amphetamine toxicity or an anxiety attack. If it's one of those nobody wins, deal?"
"Wait, I was talking with the patient and wasn't listening when the park employee told us about him. I thought he was a guest, sedentary lifestyle, sitting here in an interactive roleplay BD for the past eight hours," Mr Bear said, trying to walk back his bet. That would have made his guess of a pulmonary embolism much more likely. Any time you sat still for a long time dramatically increased your risk for blood clots.
Dr Anno tsked, "Too late, sucker! I'll tell the pilot to be easy on the flight back. The last thing we want is a bunch of turbulence causing Mr Gage to pop." I nodded; that was possibly one of the few things that they couldn't fix. I was pretty sure they could maintain oxygen to his brain for the flight back, but it would turn a simple milk run into a train wreck. And it would also vastly increase the costs involved to Mr Gage here. Depending on how long his body and organs stayed without oxygen, he might have to have much of it replaced.
As it was, he was looking at a cheap and simple arterial replacement. Probably with synthetic polymer options, as that was indicated in patients with past aneurysms and hypertension. Possibly a new or replacement heart might be recommended, depending on the state of his, and finally, a biomonitor would definitely be recommended at the Trauma Centre. If he had one and had known about his predilection for hypertension, he would have been told to go to the doctor as soon as the aneurysm started to develop, probably many months or years ago.
The helmets and armour we wore were designed for NBC protection, supposedly, but they definitely were soundproof. People outside could only hear us talk if we engaged the speakers, they couldn't hear us speak over our internal com net, which was good, probably if it was common practice to bet on the health status of the patients.
Returning back to the AV, they settled the gurney, patient and all, into the biobed, and we hopped back aboard. After making sure my seatbelt was secure, I fumbled for a few seconds looking through the drop-down options on the HUD before I found the biobed, pulling up its display.
As we lifted off, Anno said, "Alright, I'll start the ultrasound." The sonic scanner in the biobed popped out, and he directed it to the patient's abdomen. Although Anno called it an ultrasound, it actually used ultrasound, infrasound, and even audible noise to create images, so it was actually called a sonic scanner. I had a small hand-held version, about three generations out of date, back at my apartment.
"Fuck!" Mr Bear yelled privately, and immediately I noticed a transfer to my digital wallet of five eurodollars. He paid promptly, at least.
Anno chuckled and explained, "He doesn't like losing bets. He's gone to some extreme lengths to win some in the past." I nodded, but I wasn't as quick with this user interface as they were, so it took me a moment to pull up the images. Yeah, he definitely had an aneurysm, over seven centimetres wide and up pretty high in his chest too.
The armour and helmet I was wearing were pretty interesting. It connected to your interface socket and functioned almost like it was an implant. If it had a powered exoskeleton component, it would be considered a rudimentary ACPA, but as it was, it was just an interesting tool. My ZetaTech SelfICE didn't trust it, though, and was running a completely emulated virtual operating system and piping everything to and from it after sanitising everything. When the armour disconnected, that entire virtual OS would be wiped in real-time.
