Mercy looked both sceptical and hopeful, which wasn't surprising as he saw the damage that single bullet had done. But he nodded, "Okay. They're scrambling the follow-on team now. But we were so quick here, it might take them five to ten mikes." That was true; it had barely been four minutes since we received the initial call. They were still probably getting dressed to take their turn as the ready-five bird.
I nodded, suddenly glad that all of the pockets on my borrowed uniform still had all of the equipment, even if I wasn't intended to use any of it. Mercy jumped in the side of the AV, and it didn't waste any time and started flying off to the north.
Running over to Bandbox, I flipped him over so that he was on his back and looked at the damage. Well, shit. He didn't have a heart anymore. That one-armed, no-legged torso of a Maelstrom was a good shot.
How could I stabilise... no fucking heart?!
I took stock of the equipment I had, which wasn't much, and I let out my breath in a slow relaxing pattern for a second, drawing deep on whatever superpower I had and the tools I had available to me.
Then nodding, I grabbed a small multitool of Bandbox's waist, flipped it to a cutting tool and carefully cut the uniform away, suddenly careful as I realised that if that knife on that tool wasn't monomolecular, then it was at least really close.
Then I grabbed some IV tubing I had in my pockets, lifting Bandbox up slightly to disconnect an electronic box on the back of his uniform and grabbing it, and flipping the multitool to a universal fastener removal tool. I only had a little time before he was well and truly dead.
I stirred from a light fugue. I called it a fugue, but I realised what I had done, even if not quite how. All of the Trauma Team armours had a built-in cooling system. They would just be too hot to wear otherwise. I had ripped out the coolant pump on his suit and then kludged together what was, in effect, a replacement heart with the coolant pump and a bunch of IV tubing.
The IV tubing was, besides being IV tubing, much too small in diameter to actually support sufficient blood flow without it being way too fast, so it wasn't really a solution. Still, after bypassing a lot of his arteries, it was enough to keep his brain and his core organs oxygenated. His internal biomonitor reported he was "alive" again, with acceptable levels of blood oxygenation, at least for now.
A second Trauma Team AV hovered exactly where the first one departed, and four people hopped out. One of the clinicians asked, "What's his status? His biom is reporting acceptable SPO2 now."
Uh. How was I going to explain this? I said, "The GSW totally obliterated his heart. I figured he was dead, but it was worth a try, so I pulled the coolant pump out of his MCU and kind of kludged together a bypass-heart pump." I checked the time; his brain had only been without oxygen for about two and a half minutes.
"What the fuck?" the other guy said as he looked down at the crime against nature and his armour's warranty that I had wrought.
"That's... one of the craziest things I've ever heard. Not the most, but maybe the fourth," the first guy said as both clinicians bent down to start working on him. I spent a moment pointing out which arteries I had bypassed, which I had just clamped shut, and how fragile the pump was.
"Alright. This probably is only going to buy him another ten or fifteen minutes. Already his brain SPO2 is inching down into the low 80s. Let's get him to Watson," the Senior Med-Tech said, and then glanced down at me, "Uhh... we don't have our jumpseat installed."
I had expected that as I had watched the pilot put in the extra seat this morning. I waved a hand, "I'll just call a Delamain and get a ride back to the Tower."
One of the security guys nodded and said, "The police probably won't hassle you, but try not to say too much to them. You might not, technically, work here yet, but they'll assume you do. MaxTac isn't responding, but both the NCPD and BioTechnica are. The latter shouldn't hassle you..." he trailed off, paused, and glanced around at the total devastation of the cafe, which was caused by a minigun attached to a Trauma Team AV, and then said, "... but uhh... maybe leave, now, before they get here. They don't have ready teams like us in town, so they won't be here for fifteen or thirty mikes. Just in case."
I nodded and watched them leave. I looked around and grabbed one of the pistols from one of the downed Maelstromers, slid it into the empty holster on my armour after checking it, and then grabbed one of the submachine guns and slung it carefully around my body. Then I briefly went around to each person that was down, looking for survivors. That and I wanted to know if the minigun was responsible for any of the deaths. Surprisingly, it wasn't. I wasn't sure if it was luck or the pilots actually being good shots, though.
As for survivors, I found three, one of which was unconscious and bleeding from a severed leg below the knee. I quickly wrapped a tourniquet around the wound and carried the woman to the front of the cafe so that she could be seen by the responding medtechs more easily.
The other two were acting dead, which I thought was a really good strategy under the circumstances, but when they realised I wasn't Maelstrom, they started sobbing and thanking me. One was seriously injured; in fact, he was slowly bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to his shoulder that had nicked his thoracodorsal artery.
I patted myself down and found a bleeding control kit in one of the pockets, and told him, "You aren't a subscriber, but I'm stuck here for the moment, and you're bleeding to death. Do you want me to help?"
"John! I told you we should have bought the subscription!" replied the woman, who must be his wife or girlfriend. Rather lucky that they both managed to survive the incident, they were in one of the corner booths.
He nodded very fast, "Uhh yes... am I? It doesn't feel that bad." Then he glanced at the woman, "Okay, you were right!"
I pulled open the bleeding kit and told him as I carefully cauterised the artery with a semi-disposable electronic ultrasonic wand, getting a wince from him as I did so, "Yes, the artery in your shoulder was nicked. It wasn't gushing out, but you still would have probably lost consciousness before the 911 EMTs could get here."
At about that time, the SWAT team threw a flashbang around the corner and rushed in. The grenade went off, but my helmet automatically corrected for it, and I didn't even hardly notice. If they had just exploded that lady who I had saved, I was going to be pissed. Still, I raised my hands in the air and quietly recommended these two conscious survivors do the same, and they did so.
"Trauma Team... what the fuck... only one of you?" asked the man in similar, although matte-black tactical armour after clearing the room, waving my hands down with a gesture. I wasn't supposed to say much, but I had thought of how to explain this, "Our AV took a hit from a giant fucking gun, and it couldn't take both the patient and me back, so I stayed around." That was true, too, after a fashion.
He nodded, the cops lowering their weapons, "You know what happened?"
I shook my head, "We responded to a platinum client, it was a suspected cyberpsycho, but when we got here, it was six Maelstromers. Everyone in the cafe, except these three, was already dead. We put down the Maelstrom and evaced our client; that's all I know. Corporate told me not to say much more than that or provide any speculation or inferences."
The head of the swat team sighed. That meant he had to intentionally make a sighing noise while indicating her wanted to transmit, which I thought was funny. "Yeah, alright. Thanks for flatlining these psychos. You gonna head out downstairs, or is another AV coming for you?"
"Send another AV for me? I'll be lucky if I can get them to pay for the cab fare," I told them, honestly, which caused three of them, including the leader, to snicker. I nodded at the man I had helped, stood up, and walked over to the guy who shot Bandbox and grabbed his giant fucking gun. My scanner activated and identified it as a Techtronika RT-46 Burya, a relatively new electromagnetic pistol out of the Russian Soviet Republic.
"Hey, that's evidence..." one of the non-SWAT uniform cops said.
The SWAT team leader yelled, "Fucking let her take it; that's probably what shot their AV."
It was, but the reason I was grabbing it was I figured Bandbox could use a souvenir. "Thanks. See if you can get the Med-Techs in here before that lady bleeds to death, okay?" She was in a pretty nice dress. An expensive one if the tag from Jinguji was to be believed. Yet she didn't have a Trauma Team membership. That probably meant she was either someone like me who tried to save a lot of money or possibly a call-out type escort whose clothes were a business expense. Either way, she didn't deserve to bleed to death.
He nodded, "They're on their way up from the elevator now."
I waited at the elevator; on the off-chance, it was Gloria, but it wasn't. Shame. I told them briefly the injuries and then got in the elevator going back down, walked past a group of uniformed police and hopped into a waiting Delamain.
"Why, if this isn't unusual... It is a pleasure to see you again, Miss Hebert. However, I will have to make a notation that we will charge a cleaning fee to Trauma Team if you get blood all over the back seat," said the genial voice of the AI driver.
"Hi, Del. Trauma Team tower, please," I said to him, a little tired. Not sleepy, but I was coming down from an adrenaline spike.
His animated head tilted, "Del? A diminutive of Delamain? That isn't actually my name, ma'am, but as I don't actually have a proper name, I think I approve of your appellation. Thank you."
Although we weren't actually that far away, traffic was a bitch today. About midway through the drive, I got a call from the Trauma Team hiring manager that had interviewed me; I picked up, "Hello?"
"Hey, Taylor. How are you? I heard what happened," he said, in a sort of feigned sense of empathy. It was polite, though, so I didn't hold it against him.
I replied, "Oh. I'm fine. Headed back to the tower now. I assume we're on a safety stand down for the rest of the shift?" There were only like seven hours left, and they had told me a base would go on safety stand-down for at least a half shift if a teammate was seriously injured.
"Yeah, probably. Are you still interested in the job?" he asked.
I nodded, "Yeah. I mean, shit happens wherever you work. A ground ambulance isn't that safer; at least you have a giant minigun on your side."
He smiled, looking a little relieved, "That's good! It's a little unusual, but after we heard about how well you did on your base visit today, we'd like to extend you a tentative job offer."
I blinked; this was a little unusual. I drew deep on my memories of Alt-Taylor and tried to phrase my responses as would be expected for a third-generation Corpo, "Well, I guess I tentatively accept then, with the caveat that I don't find anything objectionable in the contract after I have my attorneys review it." Although I didn't actually have any attorneys, I hadn't paid that online firm a retainer in order to call them that I was sure that they'd accept my repeat business. It may cost a couple thousand dollars or a little more, but it would be worth it.
"Excellent! I will forward you the job offer and contract now. Do you think you could have it reviewed and signed by Friday?" he asked.
I nodded, "Sure. But I'll have to give NC Med Ambulance two weeks' notice. Beyond the fact that it is the proper thing to do, much more importantly, it's in my contract with them, and I'm not interested in being held liable for a breach."
He chuckled, "We really like that you're willing to do the proper thing with your current employer. However, I've already reviewed your contract with them, and we will execute the buy-out clause. That only costs us five times your salary for two weeks. It will let them pay someone overtime to work your shifts, still have some money left-over and let us start you in the new class starting Monday. A win-win-win, I'd say."
That was unusual. But I nodded, "Okay. That's fine. Let's plan on that; I am calling the firm I use now. I may have it approved and signed by tomorrow."
"Excellent. As soon as you do, I'll send travel arrangements for your indoc class in Seattle on Monday. That's one week long, and then you'll start Basic the following week," he said, smiling.
Wait, what? "Basic what?"
"Well, basic training. All medics without military experience take an abbreviated eight-week course," he said mildly.
Fuck. I hadn't realised that. But I should have. But it kind of made sense. Certainly, both Mr Bear and Dr Anno were a lot more tactical than, say, Gloria was.
I sighed and nodded, "Alright. I'll call you tomorrow." Then I briefly reviewed the contract and arranged for the online law firm to review it as well.
Just what was I getting myself into?
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Front-leaning rest position
Meetings were often held these days virtually, but what was even more common than that was conference vidcalls. One such call was occurring, despite the fact that it was past eleven P.M. for everyone involved.
A slightly tired-looking man said, "Present for this conference call are International Assistant General Counsel Maxine Meyers, Night City Director of RiP Ryan Davis, Night City Medical Director Samantha Kim, and myself, Tyler James. I currently hold the position of Regional Vice President for Communications at International and am the RVP on call tonight. Ms Kim, you asked for this meeting in accordance with our crisis response protocols; what's up?"
The woman coughed, "Two reasons. First, we responded to a Platinum client at the Biotechnica Hotel. Long story short, a group of Maelstrom assaulted the building and almost killed the client. The client did flatline twice but was resuscitated. Once I saw the client's name, I called you. It's one of the board of directors of Biotechnica, in town for some unknown reason. Without security for some unknown reason."
The tired man perked up, "And we saved him? Preem. We can definitely use that. Okay. You said two reasons."
Kim nodded, "Yes. It's common for potential new hires to shadow our teams in the last phase of the hiring process. In this case, a young woman was shadowing our team. Unfortunately, one of our security specialists was flatlined in the firefight. I'd like to ask everyone to just watch a short three-minute video, and you'll understand why I think this is important."
