Mercy 6

“The EMT’s from here; one other nurse is also from Three, the other maybe from Seven. The one from Seven — neck pain. I’d say the other nurse from Three has the highest fever: 102 five, by the look in her eyes. Chest pain. The EMT, no pain at first, then neck and chest.”

Pao Pao said nothing, blinked once, then waited.

“One came in about five minutes before the other from ICU.

The other two right after.”

“Cabral — the EMT,” said Pao Pao. “He—”

Mendenhall raised a hand. “He. He just kind of joined in. When he saw them coming.”

Pao Pao waited. Blinked.

Mendenhall spoke as softly as possible. “Here’s what we do.

We’re going to give Thorpe one of these.” She checked arrival one.

“I focus on her, tend to her. You remove your mask and goggles and touch the other three, push them away, get that other nurse to join you. Get her to chat them up.”

* * *

Cabral sat up and scooted to the edge of his gurney before the nurses reached him. He was still in his EMT scrubs. He peeked at Mendenhall and inhaled through parted lips. Mendenhall said nothing to her patient as she palpated beneath the arms. She was tracking Pao Pao and the other nurse. They made a good tandem: Pao Pao silent, her arms swift and deliberate, the other nurse stooped and cooing.

Mendenhall felt something along the brachial crease, a spasm, realized too late that she had let her fingers linger there. A second later the woman convulsed, hips thrusting, head pushing back.

Perspiration dampened her brow and neck, visible to all in the tendrils sticking to her skin. The nurse with Pao Pao lifted her hands away from their patient, held them there, her eyes widening along with the sudden spread of her fingers.

* * *

Three went to ID. Cabral would maybe escape. Mendenhall sat in her cubicle, trying to fashion her entries. She was hoping to just leave Cabral out of the charts. There would be more of these hysterics; he might be forgotten.

Pao Pao was clearing a corner of the bay for fever arrivals, forming slots between empty beds for incoming gurneys. Mendenhall felt the dull nausea of defeat, nearing surrender. She could just play this out, let Thorpe get everything he wanted. How long could this last?

Three, four days at the most? But she had trouble imagining an end, Thorpe never managing to isolate anything.

Because there is nothing to isolate. She entered this on her screen.

She needed to read it, to close her eyes, then open them and see it again.

Pao Pao stood at the opening of the cubicle. Her expression was one of flat assessment, the Samoan lift in her eyes checking the grim line of her jaw.

“Are you right?” she asked.

Mendenhall tried to nod but only lifted her chin, looked.

“Because ID is going to fill up,” said Pao Pao. “They will start to pick and choose from these fevers, sending some back here. I plan to work through it. Working makes work pass quickly.”

“Does it matter, Pao?” Mendenhall sighed. “If I’m right?”

“To me, yes.”

Mendenhall pivoted her screen for the nurse, pointed to the last entry.

“Say it,” said Pao Pao. “Please can you say it, Doctor?”

“I’m right,” said Mendenhall.

“That convulsion,” said Pao Pao. “That convulsion surprised you.

I saw.”

“That was my fault. I contributed to the hysteric. I left my hand in one spot too long. She thought I found something.”

“Did you find something?”

Mendenhall shook her head. “I’m right.”

15

She tried to be Thorpe, to see as Thorpe. On her screen she brought up the latest studies on toxic shock and viral hemorrhagic fevers. When she read the descriptions, the symptom variations and anomalies, she could see the possibilities.

Both could mirror sudden trauma. Both could strike a final blow suddenly, earlier symptoms hidden in the general malaise of grief, work, recovery. But when she let her vision rest on the ER bay, her self-doubt waned.

Two figures wearing the black and purple of ID entered the bay. Overdressed with surgeon’s cap and booties, the leader moved directly toward Mendenhall’s line of patients, the beds nearest the main station and elevators, the ones Pao Pao had arranged for her.

Even with his exaggerated getup, Mendenhall recognized Dmir.

She had never bothered to figure out his title, his position. She just knew him as a sort of containment executive, Thorpe’s link to the profane. Dmir liked to dress up as a doctor, did that whenever he had the slightest opportunity. The surgeon’s cap was new.

His trailing nurse appeared embarrassed by it, slouched and hanging back a half step. Mendenhall swooped into the bay. It felt that way; she didn’t sense her legs, any of herself — on wings.

As she moved to cut off Dmir, she tried to reengage with her body, her thoughts, distill and purge the metaphors. Dmir was metaphor. Mendenhall was real. She sensed Pao Pao sliding in to cover the flank, drew from this.