Trevor hit Record on his tablet and got as comfortable as he could in the seat, focusing his attention on the lecture. Forty minutes in, the tunnel-vision focus he’d fallen into was abruptly shattered by the medical school’s AI interrupting the lecture.
The holographic screens blanked out before returning with a two-word warning in neon color: CODE SILVER.
Overhead, the speakers came to life as the AI announced “Code Silver in the Emergency Room. Code Silver in the Emergency Room.”
Trevor ignored Dr. Bishop’s call for calm and instead tossed Anika his tablet as he yanked his handgun out of his backpack. He got to his feet and raced for the door.
“Lock the door behind me,” Trevor tossed over his shoulder at Dr. Bishop as he left the lecture hall behind at a run.
Trevor had been informed of the hospital emergency code system on the first day of medical school. Code Silver meant there was someone with a weapon in the Emergency Room area, or there was a hostage situation taking place. Either option was unacceptable, and Trevor couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
Protocol dictated that medical staff do whatever they could to ensure the safety of their patients. That meant sheltering in place, having the AI lock every single door against unwanted entry, and waiting for the police to arrive.
This wasn’t the MDF base, where an override was possible due to Trevor’s status as a metahuman and his former rank as a member of Alpha Team. Lafayette University’s AI had no reason to listen to his demands.
Which meant Trevor had no choice but to telekinetically open every single locked door between him and the Emergency Room on the ground floor.
He took the stairwell rather than the elevators, careening down the flights at double-time until he reached the bottom landing. Sliding his telekinesis around the door, Trevor gave a mentalyank, and the sliding metal door was wrenched off its grooved track. Telekinetically shoving it into the wall casing, Trevor entered the hospital hallway, dodging around nurses frantically working to secure their patients.
Trevor mentally mapped his route to the Emergency Room and raced there, knowing lives were on the line. He kept his hands steady from long practice, finger resting against the frame of the pistol as he ran.
“Make a hole,” Trevor yelled as he careened around the corner and nearly toppled an empty hovergurney.
Whether or not people recognized the military slang, people got out of his way. Maybe it was his weapon, or the look on his face. Trevor didn’t care, so long as he had a clear path to the ER.
When he rounded the final corner, emergency strobe lights flashing overhead, he could see one security guard on the floor bleeding from a gunshot wound in his arm. A quick glance at the amount of blood on the floor told Trevor the wound wasn’t fatal. The man’s partner was crouched over him, speaking into her comms. Her weapon was drawn and pointed at the sealed doors leading to the ER.
She must have heard his approach, because her head snapped around, as did her gun when she caught sight of his own.
“Friendly,” Trevor snapped even as he raised a telekinetic shield between them. He wouldn’t put it past the woman to shoot him. She couldn’t know he meant no harm to her.
“You aren’t the police,” she retorted.
Trevor raised his free hand and made a cutting motion in the air. The double doors to the ER were telekinetically wrenched apart.
“Not even close.”
Trevor entered the ER waiting room with his weapon raised and a telekinetic shield between him and any threat. He cased the area in seconds, noting the nurses and intake staff huddled behind their stations, and the patients in the waiting area lying flat on the floor. One gunman covered the ER exit and another guarded the doors leading to the emergency ward itself.
The sliding doors were locked open by a crude device. Beyond them, in the area where patients brought by ambulance were received, was a third gunman. The asshole had his gun pointed at a collapsed hovergurney near the triage desk.
Kneeling in front of the damaged medical equipment, curled around the body of a bleeding, unconscious woman, was a blond-haired paramedic in a DC FEMS uniform. The man had one arm raised at the gunman in a pleading manner. The look of fear on his pale, attractive face was impossible to miss.
“Don’t do this,” the paramedic said.
“You should’ve stayed out of my business,” the gunman said.
Trevor erected a telekinetic shield between the gunman and his targets before telekinetically wrenching the gun out of his hand. The force of the pull broke the guy’s fingers, but Trevor didn’t care as he used his power to slam the man face-first onto the ground and keep him there. Ignoring his scream of pain, Trevor raised one hand and made a slashing motion with it.
The gunman guarding the ER’s main entrance and the one guarding the security door leading into the ward were telekinetically wrenched off their feet. Frozen and dangling in the air, it didn’t take much effort on Trevor’s part to remove their weapons. Keeping them immobile, he slammed them both spread eagle on the ground hard enough to crack a rib or two.
Their handguns spun through the air toward him, coming apart as they did so. Trevor telekinetically scattered the pieces all around the ER waiting room. He set a telekinetic shield across every person he could see as he walked toward the triage desk.
“You fucker,” the gunman near the broken hovergurney slurred, unable to move much more than his mouth beneath Trevor’s invisible power.
“Shut up or I’ll break your jaw when I close your mouth,” Trevor ordered coldly.
The paramedic stared at Trevor’s gun with wide blue eyes, one coming up bruised, the expression on his face part fear and part uncertainty. Trevor held up his hands in a calming manner, gun pointed at the ceiling. He studied the paramedic and the patient in his arms, zeroing in on the deep graze in the man’s left arm. Blood had soaked his uniform sleeve and dripped onto his fingers.
