Sandra nodded. “I’m just working a contract here, but after this, maybe I should think about a transfer. They said it could take as much as two more hours to complete the inspection of our unit, so they sent our supervisor over with some work she can do here.” She nodded at Mable and lowered her voice even more. “I wanted to go home with pay, but you know how they are. Our supervisor told us to check in with the director of nursing and get put to work here. But I’m getting a coffee break first, you know?”
“Yep. Like, ‘You on the clock? You stand there even if the dining room be empty.’ Like my legs don’t ache.”
“Preaching to the choir.” They fist bumped and Sandra went back to the table. The three drank bad coffee and weak tea, ate stale muffins, and murmured quiet platitudes and nonsense as Mable worked. While they chitchatted, Sandra repeated the discussion with Shaniqua. She hadn’t told a single lie, and yet she hadn’t told the full truth either. This must be the way politicians got their start. Innocent falsehoods. Sandra was equally horrified and smug that she had pulled it off.
Fifteen minutes later, Mable muttered, “Got several possible choices that fit with the MTT’s coordinates. Rooms 410, 413, 501, and 506 all seem to be newly activated.” She flapped her hand at them and said loud enough for Shaniqua to hear. “Go. Check in at fourth and fifth floors. I’ll be here working.”
Sandra and Marvin stood and made their way out the door into the hallway. Quietly, Sandra said to Marvin, “I’ll take four. Be careful.” Marvin nodded and headed to the elevators. Sandra took the stairs. In her pockets were two of Marvin’s Invader devices, assorted pens, and a single fob that would alert Mable if there was trouble. Mable could kick butt if she got in a tight spot and Marvin was a big guy. He could likely get away. Short of turning attackers into emus, Sandra was helpless. But she was going todosomething this time, and not sit on her behind and do nothing. Not anymore.
Marvin
Marvin stood justinside the unit’s doors, watching. Every person was pushing a little portable computer cart around, eyes on their screens, fingers tapping. The woman behind the desk was probably the charge nurse and she was either really busy or was avoiding making eye contact with her nursing personnel. Marvin was betting the latter.
He grabbed an empty cart and swiped his ID card into the reader. It came on and his name appeared at the top. Well, part of his name. Marvin, but Marvin Finklehopper, RN. He grinned at the name. Finklehopper was a frog in some children’s books. Mable was trying to make him laugh. Confidently, he pushed the cart down the hallway, and not one person looked his way. His old training in the Marines still paid off, every damn day.
He entered room 501 and closed the door behind himself.
Sandra
Sandra foundtheir client in room 410. Franzen Rubin Van Dijk was lying on his left side, facing the door. The cables that harvested his magical energies were plugged into a neurological port on the back of his head, much like someone had said during the riot in the dining room. The movie with the guy who did the internet stuff in virtual reality. What’s his name. The guy from the movie Speed. She and Harold had really liked that movie. Sandra Bullock had been fantastic.
Franzen did not look like the Speed guy in the virtual reality movie, except for his port. The back of his skull had been fitted with a black plastic disc, into which three small wires were plugged, and the wires were looped on a large hook behind his head, before they disappeared into the wall. Franz looked like a weathered, starving old man, hairless, his skin so smooth over his bones, it was shining. He had a feeding tube, a catheter, and two IVs. And his breath, through open lips and his slack mouth, smelled slightly yeasty.
Sandra plugged in the Invader linkage nodule to an empty AC wall socket, turned it on, and waited for the little light on the side to turn green. Green meant Mable had recognized the device down in the break room, and was busy turning down the drugs that were keeping Franz comatose. She was also monitoring the client’s vitals. They couldn’t just turn off the drugs. Withdrawal would be a horror. But they could start weaning the patient off.
He had been missing for over six weeks. He had a port in the back of his skull. Franzen was in a bad way.
Sandra left the room.
Room 413 was one of the people from Table J. Her name was Beulah Mae Ettinger, a tan black woman with weaves in her hair. Sandra plugged in her small device, waited until it lit up green, and left the room without incident, taking the stairs fast, to the fifth floor. That had to be where Dani was.
Marvin
Marvin was hard to miss,tended to stand out in a crowd. So when he stepped into room 501 unobserved, he whooshed out a huge sigh of relief. He shoved his nurse rolling cart-laptop-stand-thing into the corner and plugged in his little tracker Invader thingamabob and watched the tiny green light come on. Mable had recognized the device and was doing her thing.
He had invested his earnings from the recycling contract in a variety of startups, and the MTT had already made him a fortune. Now it was going to help Tridevi rescue a lot of people. The press from a rescue would make him even richer.
The man in the bed, eyes closed, breathing steadily, was Buck Hackenmeister, the supposedly dead guy from yesterday. He didn’t have a port in his head yet, but he was out cold. Buck had turned his wife into a boa constrictor. Poor guy. Though Marvin could have used that talent when his second wife divorced him. She was a snake through and through, and the poetic justice would have been perfect.
Marvin slipped to the door and peeked out. The hallway was clear and he pushed his little cart out, into the hallway, and toward room 506, his eyes taking in the location of every person, and where each site of egress was. He slipped in and whooshed out another relieved breath. This was harder than sneaking from dorm room to dorm room when he was in college and wildly popular with the coeds. He pulled back the sheet. The woman on the hospital bed was Dani and she was alive, wearing a purple patient gown, her steel gray hair a tangled mess. He attached the MTT to the wall and waited for the green light.
When it appeared, he lifted Dani’s arm and spotted the super-glued incision Sandra had made. He squeezed the skin, and felt the clicking sensation that meant the MTT had been fully activated. It was now mated with the Invader, and between the two, Mable could override the IV’s programing for opioids, collect vitals, track the patient, record everything said in the room, and transmit all the data to Tridevi’s office.
The MTT and Invader devices were his pride and joy.
The lights on the IV cart went dark. His little devices were working. Dani hadn’t been drugged long enough to have to go through withdrawal. She should wake fairly soon. With one hand, Marvin kinked the line carrying opioids, and with the other, he squeezed the IV bag, forcing fluids through the remaining line into her. Not enough to cause problems, but enough to start flushing her system of the drug.
Ten minutes later, Dani woke, blinked, and tried to focus on his face. She frowned furiously and when she tried to talk, her words slurred. He spotted a foam cup of water and held the straw to her lips. It took a few tries but finally her lips closed around it and she drank. When she turned her head to indicate she was done, she said, “There’s no way I got drunk enough to go home with you. But I’m hungover as crap.”
He blew out a relieved breath. “We didn’t spend the night together. Though that would be a night you would never forget.”
“I’d roll my eyes, but I’m afraid I’ll puke.”
Quickly, he reminded her of the case, and she nodded her head very slightly, as if trying to wake up without vomiting.
“Okay. Okay,” she said after another few minutes. “I’m awake. I’m still full of drugs, but I’m awake. And I remember. I think.”
Behind him the door opened. Marvin whirled, his fists coming up. But it was just Sandra.
