by JJ Pike
The Professor nodded. “Exactly. And if she goes down, we have less of a chance to study what went wrong here.”
“Are you going to carry her?” said Jan, the emphasis falling on “you.”
Christine looked away.
“Right,” said Jan. “And neither will I. We’ve seen how virulent this is. We both want to study her, but there’s no way to touch her without risking death ourselves.”
“Leave her,” said Fran. “If the building doesn’t fall, we can come back and treat her. If it does, we’ll retrieve her remains and study her in autopsy.”
That was bleak. It made Paul even more determined to get Fishgirl out of there. He couldn’t keep calling her Fishgirl, even though she looked like the coolest, fish girl freak he’d ever seen. “What’s her name?”
“Angelina,” said Christine.
He turned back to the girl on the bed. “Yo, Angelina, my name is Paul. I am going to get you dressed and get you out of here.”
“Do not touch her!” Christine and Jan spoke in unison. It made him smile. That was what he and Petra did. Oh, man alive. He needed to call her and let her know he was okay. Just as soon as they cleared the building.
“I know not to touch her. They told us that a million times when we were being processed. They think it’s something communicable. I get it. I won’t touch her skin. I’m still getting her out of here.”
“Tell me your plan,” said Christine.
“We’re going to find non-plastic fabric, cover her completely, and walk out the building. Simple. It’s like the Gordian Knot. Everyone’s going at it too hard, making it complicated. You need a sword of logic to go BOOM and just cut the knot into pieces.”
“You are your mother’s son, no doubt about that.”
The building shook, this time more violently.
“Do it now,” said Jan, “or don’t do it at all.”
“We’re out of time,” said Fran. “We go now.”
But they didn’t go right away. They had to mess with her drip and her meds and what she might need while they were transporting her. The Professor was kind of like Mom, in that she insisted they each take doses of her IV meds in case they got split up. Paul only had one shallow pocket in his scrubs top, so he ended up using elastic adhesive tape to affix a bunch of pre-filled syringes to his chest.
The adults were busy arguing about why Angelina was so central to understanding MELT. Or, as in Fran’s case, arguing against. He didn’t listen too closely. He was much more interested in studying Fishgirl’s scales. He wished he had his phone because Petra would have been uber-impressed if he’d been able to send her shots of a real-life mermaid from an up close and personal perspective.
Fran held the doors as the four of them—Christine, Jan, Paul, and Angelina on a hospital bed, but fully unplugged from all the hospital machines and IVs and needles and drips—passed through. “I hope she’s worth it,” she said.
“Everyone is worth it,” said Paul. “We save one and we save them all. End of story.”
The doors closed behind them and the building started to sway.
Chapter 12
Jo grabbed Aggie’s hand and pulled her towards the sliding doors next to the ambulance bay. “We’ve got to go. Now.”
Aggie was a mish-mash of emotion. She knew the situation in Manhattan was now ten times worse than it had been half an hour ago, but why that meant they had to move any faster than they had been wasn’t clear.
A couple of EMTs rushed the doors, their patient grey as death and twice as still. Aggie didn’t like his chances. Manhattan was crumbling, but people out here were going on with their lives as usual. Or, as in this case, going on with their heart attacks or strokes.
“We need to shore up the compound.”
Aggie dug her heels in, refusing to move. “What do you mean, ‘the compound?’”
“Your house, my house, Jim and Betsy’s house. They’re encircled on three sides by the river. We have a natural choke point. We have to go and secure that point.”
Aggie shook her head. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll explain in the car.” Jo was out the automatic doors, waving them on as if their lives depended on it.
“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what you mean.” Aggie didn’t like to move unless there was a clear plan in hand. She wasn’t a “leap first” person.
“You saw…” Jo waved her camera at Aggie and Midge, as if that made any sense. “Things are worse.”
Aggie nodded.
With three strides, Jo was at her side, hissing in her ear. “People will panic. When they leave—and many more are going to try to get off the island now—they are going to come which way?”
Aggie cocked her head to one side while she thought it through. Jo wasn’t wrong. People would stream upstate.
“That’s right, west and north. Some of them will have family they can stay with, but New York City isn’t called a ‘melting pot’ for nothing. People come from all over the country—no, all over the world—to make the city their home. That means we’re going to have a bunch of displaced people. Hotels, motels, and Airbnb’s are going to be full by the end of the day. Where do the rest of them go?”
Aggie took a step towards the door.
“That’s right. They look for a place to stay, with friendly people and an extra room.” Jo darted back to the doors. “Did your mom and dad not talk to you about the plan?”
Aggie straightened herself up, but kept her face impassive. Which plan? There were so many. She didn’t need Jo thinking she was in the dark. “Of course.”
“Well, then you know…” said Jo, as if that settled everything.
Aggie felt backed into a corner. She’d tacitly admitted that she agreed with “this plan” when she had no idea what Jo was talking about.
“What plan?” said Midge.
“Please, please, please get her in the car,” said Jo.
“I am not a ‘her,’” said Midge. “I am right here. I can get myself in the car.”
“If things are this dire,” Aggie pulled back, taking Midge with her, “we can’t leave Petra.”
Jo rolled her eyes. “She’s safe for now. She’s never going to leave that boy while he’s in critical condition. We can come back for her. We will come back for her, I promise.”
“Aren’t people going to come to the hospital, too? If they’re looking for beds?”
“That’s not how it works,” said Jo. “People don’t think like that in a crisis. They go where they’re comfortable. Now, let’s get going.”
Aggie still wasn’t convinced. She stood her ground.
“If we move him…” Jo let it hang in the air.
Aggie knew the silence game. She was a pro. She could outwait a statue, she was that stoic.
“Fine.” Jo breezed past her and headed for the elevators. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
It was a silent elevator ride, with Midge examining each of them in turn. “You’re like twins,” she said.
Aggie squeezed her hand, but didn’t speak.
“Identical rocks.” Midge laughed at her own joke. Aggie and Jo remained stony-faced.
Petra hadn’t seen the news, so she wasn’t moved. “He’s only just gotten out of surgery.”
“I know,” said Aggie, “but things have changed.”
“We’re hundreds of miles from Manhattan,” said Petra. “What’s happening down there is horrible, but look around. This place is calm. There are doctors and nurses and food on demand. Sean has medicine and expert supervision. He also has a gash up his leg that has about four-thousand stiches.”
Aggie turned to Jo with her “told you so” look on her face. Petra would never leave without Sean.
Jo stepped up. “Things are about to get real,” she said.
Petra laughed. “I think they got real several hours ago when my boyfriend fell through the floorboards and almost died.”
“For all of us,” said
Jo. “There are going to be riots. Not immediately, but soon. People keep it together for a short time. There could be some looting, but we don’t need to worry about that. What we need to concentrate on is day three and day four.”
“Day three and day four of what?” said Petra. She turned to Aggie. “Do you agree with all this? Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“According to neighbor Jo—who we barely knew until this morning and who Mom and Dad hardly ever mentioned—the five of them came up with ‘A Plan.’” Aggie did air quotes, so it was clear to everyone that she was being sarcastic.
“The five of them?” said Petra.
“Mom, Dad, Jim, Betsy, and Jo.”
Petra laughed and turned to Jo. “If they did any planning with you, Aggie’s right, they would have mentioned it.”
“I prefer to fly below the radar,” said Jo. “Your parents wouldn’t have mentioned me as a courtesy.”
Aggie snorted. Didn’t sound much like Dad. Mom, maybe; she was good at keeping secrets. She’d sure kept some big ones about what her firm was doing. But, Dad? No. He was an open book. They told each other everything. He would have told her if there was a plan to keep people from penetrating the “choke point.”
“Why do you think your father left me in charge?”
Aggie and Petra laughed in unison—short, sharp, deeply sarcastic laughs.
“You are not in charge,” said Aggie.
“I am,” said Petra.
The sisters looked at each other and laughed again.
“Well, we each have our area of expertise…” said Aggie, “…but I am the planner.”
“We’re wasting time. Your dad would want you back at the compound, making sure people couldn’t get in. We have a valuable cache of food and weapons. We can’t afford to lose either.”
“So, you go,” said Petra. “We can come later. I’m not leaving him.”
“And I’m not leaving her,” said Aggie.
“And I’m not leaving, too,” said Midge.
Jo sighed. “Makes me glad I never had children.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, too,” said Aggie. “Because you’re trying to bully us and you’re not listening.”
Jo flushed. “I’m trying to get you to safety. You don’t understand the severity of the situation. You’re young and idealistic and that’s great. But you don’t know what you don’t know. And, in this case, what you don’t know could kill you. So, tell me, what do I need to do to convince you that we have to go immediately?”
“Find a way to take Sean,” said Petra. “And keep him safe. And don’t let his leg get infected. So, you know, nothing. Nothing you say will change my mind.”
Aggie nodded. “And tell me something Dad said that only he could have told you. Because I do not believe that he was in on some plan with you and didn’t tell me.”
Jo nodded. “Give me a minute.” She sat in one of the flimsy, uncomfortable chairs, watching the ICU go about its regular business for several minutes. “Right.” She stood up, brushing invisible lint from her jeans. “First up, your mom and dad had a code. We are now at a Mutant Pineapple level of alert.”
Aggie nodded. “Dad could have told you that when he was over at your place. That’s not deep or meaningful or convincing.”
“They also had an evacuation plan. If the five of you were ever split up, you were to check in at the Lake Placid Lodge boathouse every seven days.”
Aggie’s eyes popped. That was a lot of detail to share with a stranger.
“Paul was to collect Grandma Margaret. Petra was to be in charge of the guns. Aggie, you were supposedly in charge of the animals, though that came with a codicil. You were only to evacuate them if it put neither you nor your siblings in harm's way. All three of you were to protect Midge and make sure she didn’t get lost in the mix.”
All three girls stood, slack-jawed and dumbfounded. Jo knew about their evacuation-and-reconnect plan.
“Do you believe me now?”
Aggie didn’t want to, but she found her head nodding along with her sisters’.
“That doesn’t get Sean out of here safely, though,” said Petra.
“I have a plan,” said Jo.
It took seven minutes and three rounds of explanation before they all knew the parts they were to play in “Operation Spring Sean.”
Looking “natural” was literally the hardest thing Aggie had ever done. Midge was far better at it. She actually looked like she was playing a game on her phone as she leaned against Sean’s hospital bed.
They let the orderly bring ice a couple more times. Midge never looked up from her phone. Petra did the whole “I am the concerned girlfriend” routine. And Jo was as chill as a polar bear, hanging in the corner of the room, one leg crossed over the other, her hands in her lap, her eyes closed. If Aggie hadn’t known what was about to go down, she would have sworn Jo was napping.
Look normal, look normal, look normal. The more she said it, the more she was convinced she looked guilty, but she couldn’t help it. She was guilty. She was about to commit a major crime; probably a felony. Even though it was something she knew Mom would approve of, she felt guilty down to her bone marrow.
They let the nurse come and check all of Sean’s vitals. She made pleasant chit-chat about how well he was doing and how good the surgeon was and blah-blah-blah. Aggie had her eyes on the clock. It all came down to timing. The meds cart was going to start making its rounds in three more minutes. In other words, in an eternity.
As the meds cart halted at the room next to Sean’s, Jo sauntered towards the toilets. As she left, she winked at Midge.
Midge nodded and winked back. Not too suspicious, then.
The cart stopped outside Sean’s room. “How are we doing in here?” The nurse was cheery, keys in hand. She unlocked the meds cart and left the keys in the lock, which was Midge’s cue.
She leapt forward, screaming, her hand oozing blood.
Jo was a damned genius, syphoning that out of the bag that hung above Sean’s bed. It was damned convincing.
“It hurts.” Midge was good. Queen of the over-actors. Didn’t matter, it had their attention. Petra crowded Midge and the meds nurse, while Aggie slipped by, swiping the keys from the cart.
Please, please, please, let Jo be right. Let there be pharmacy keys on this ring. She speed walked her way over to the ladies’ bathroom. “I have to get my aunt,” she said. OMG, why was she such a dweeb? She shouldn’t have said anything. That just made her look weird. She cursed herself for her inability to lie like everyone else.
She needn’t have worried. Turned out, the nurse at the station wasn’t paying her much attention. All eyes were on the little one, who was bleeding profusely. They’d find out, soon enough, that there was no cut. Then what?
Jo was waiting the other side of the swing door. The two of them raced down the hall to the pharmacy. One, two, four keys later, they found the right one.
“Just grab as much as you can,” said Jo, “and stuff it into this.” She handed Aggie a pillow case and steered her to a shelf. “Like I said, as much as you can.”
Mom had lectured them on the need for meds if there was ever an emergency. The fact that Jo had the same plan bolstered her claim that she’d been in on some “master plan” with her parents.
Jo jacked her elbow into the fire alarm. “Here’s hoping.”
The alarm shrieked and the red lights all over the ward flashed. The ward was abuzz with running nurses, but there were no collisions, no accidents, no falls. They all knew where they were going and what they were doing. Evacuating an ICU was precise work. They would, fingers crossed, leave Midge and Petra and go to their posts in order to get as many patients out as possible.
Aggie could hear the Charge Nurse shouting orders over the sound of meds cascading into her open pillow case. They were to move in an orderly fashion, no running and no panicking. They were to use the surgical elevators unless instructed otherwise. They were to convene outside in the
Parking Lot at Roster Station 7. She clapped her hands to chivy them along.
“Keep grabbing,” said Jo. “We need everything we can get.”
Aggie ran her hand to the end of the shelf and used it as a scoop, tipping everything into her pillow case.
The fire warden was checking rooms. They could hear her—“clear,” step, step “clear” step, step, “move it along,” step, step—getting closer.
