Читать книгу The Immune - Doc Lucky Meisenheimer - Страница 12

After leaving Goldman’s office, John began his shift in the ER triaging the dead and soon-to-be-dead from the salvageable injured. There were no Colossi in Florida, so all envenomizations were from common airwar stings. In the triage area, the typical patients were young adults. They were most likely to escape an attack.

ASC released an antitoxin for airwar stings just days before. The antitoxin helped minor envenomizations, but not severe stings. Unfortunately, a common side effect was a transfusion-like reaction. One out of fifty victims died from the antitoxin. Private pharmaceutical companies petitioned ASC for the antitoxin production process. ASC refused and Senator Snivaling explained the denial in a press conference.

“Airwar antitoxin is far too important to entrust to private companies who would profit from its production,” said Snivaling, “ASC always looks out for the common man.”

Fair and equal was the distribution plan, with ASC officials as the top priority. ASC took a great deal of pride in supplying the antitoxin free. There was always a severe shortage.

John was on a mid-morning break checking news on the Internet. Although he knew the Internet was rife with bogus reports, it was more informative than ASC news. Network programming was nothing more than cloned presentations hour after hour. He cringed each time he heard of another ASC plan to “manage” the net.

The current buzz was a viral video of Ube Watabee, a Rwanda tribesman trapped by an airwar. The video showed Ube running and falling in front of an advancing airwar. Covered by black tentacles, he unmistakably struggled free without assistance. Although he had a few small scrapes from the fall, he claimed to have suffered no ill effects during his escape. The captivating portion of the video was a close-up of his skin showing no evidence of airwar stings.

John’s eyes turned from the computer monitor to the television screen. ASC spokesman, Glavin, was holding a press conference with Senator Snivaling.

“Yes,” said Glavin, “I can assure the press that the Ube video is a complete hoax. I’ll remind everyone this is an extreme violation of our airwar sedition law. Anyone forwarding or disseminating this video will be arrested and prosecuted.”

Glavin looked obsequiously at the senator, then stepped aside. Snivaling took the podium.

“ASC is offering a one-million dollar reward for information leading to the capture of the producers of this sham video,” she said, “I’m personally disgusted with the crimes committed. These criminals will be punished swiftly and severely.”

John’s eyes returned to the computer. A second video of Ube was now surfacing. This time an airwar passed over an upright Ube as he walked through the curtain of tentacles. Ube passed to the other side unscathed. Although John realized this was a hoax, other reports had surfaced with similar claims. Even though it was impossible, the thought of it made John feel good.

John’s attention shifted back to the television. Glavin returned to the podium. An aide handed him a red folder and whispered in his ear. Glavin nodded.

“I’ve just been informed in the last twenty-four hours, total human attacks on airwars decreased thirty percent with a corresponding decline in human fatalities worldwide. Even more exciting is the criminal, Ube Watabee, has been captured. He has fully confessed to the immunity hoax.”

A wave of disappointment passed over John.

Glavin continued, “Ube is currently being transferred to an ASC facility. There he’ll have psychological testing and a full confession tape will be available in a few hours.”

Senator Snivaling, who appeared smugly pleased, leaned to the microphone, “The capture of this horrible man is an important victory in the run, hide, and do no harm battle,” she said, “We must fight this as a collective society. One thought, one action, one world, one victory!”

“Dr. Long,” interrupted a triage nurse, “there’s a man who wants to see you.” John looked up from the television. “Says he knows you.”

The nurse maintained a stoic look. An unmoving detached countenance graced the faces of the hospital staff. It was the only way to cope with the daily horror.

“He’s got a boy with him,” she added, then glanced at the floor and shook her head, “He’s a stage eight.” Then she disappeared from the doorway.

John’s stomach knotted up. It was hard enough giving bad news to parents he didn’t know, but when he knew the family, he couldn’t disassociate himself from the event. It was always heart-wrenching.

ER personnel triaged airwar stings on a one-to-ten rating stage. Children rarely survived a stage five and none survived past a stage seven, even with antitoxin. Matter of fact, due to shortages, ASC protocols banned use of antitoxin on kids above stage six. John hated the rule, but he understood the practicality. On the other hand, government dealt with statistics and he dealt with real people. “For the good of society” rang hollow when dealing with a dying child and the eyes of the parents were on you.

John walked back into the triage area and saw a tall man who appeared to be about forty. He had salt and pepper hair, strands of which were pasted to his forehead from sweat. His white dress shirt was plastered to his body from perspiration, revealing a swimmer ’s physique. His clothes were disheveled and stained like he’d been rolling on the ground, but he was still wearing a tie. The man was holding a limp figure of a young boy, maybe seven or eight years old.

“Bob!” said John, and motioned to a nearby stretcher, “My God! Bring the boy here.”

John couldn’t remember Bob’s last name, but they both swam at the YMCA Aquatic Center with the master ’s swim team. John knew Bob and his wife owned a small gift basket business, Bob’s Baskets and Balloons. He visited Bob’s shop on a weekend a few months back. It was a small storefront in a strip mall near the hospital. Most of what he remembered of the shop was an animated, friendly, freckle-faced boy eager to assist him in his selection. Bob introduced him as his only child, Daniel, with pride only a father could emote.

“John!” said Bob, “I . . . please . . . Daniel needs your help.

John glanced at the limp figure. He was unrecognizable as the boy he met previously. Daniel was lifeless except for labored breathing. His face was red and bloated from stings, and there were large bruises on his swollen arms and legs. The father ’s eyes welled up in tears. John motioned him toward an empty treatment room. It was the only bit of courtesy John could offer in the busy triage area; just a moment of privacy. As they walked through the threshold of the treatment room door, John said quietly, “I think your wife should hear this as well.”

Bob turned now with visible tears running down his cheeks.

“Didn’t make it,” he said choking the words out, “I couldn’t pull her away. I could only save one of them.”

Bob sobbed as he gently laid the boy on the treatment table. The yellowed plastic covers over the fluorescent lights suffused the room with a yellow glow, making the ill boy’s skin look more sallow than it was in triage. John did a cursory look at the boy while taking his pulse, which was weak and thready. Sadly, John thought, he didn’t even save one.

John put his hand gently on Bob’s shoulder and looked directly into his eyes, “Bob, it hurts to say, but reality is, I can’t help your son. He’s too far gone. Antitoxin won’t work at this stage, but I’ll do my absolute best to make him as comfortable as possible.”

“I want you to transfuse him,” demanded Bob. His face looked as if it had turned to granite.

John, taken aback by the unusual request, paused, then said, “Bob, it doesn’t work that way. A blood transfusion wouldn’t benefit your son.”

“I want you to transfuse him with my blood,” said Bob unyielding, “We have the same blood type. Commingle our circulation; transfuse him into me and me into him.”

“Bob,” said John firmly, “not only would a transfusion not prolong Daniel’s life, the toxins in Daniel would certainly kill you as well. The absolute best option for your son is letting me make him comfortable.”

Bob responded by reaching into his pocket and pulling out a nine millimeter handgun. He aimed it at John’s chest. His hand was trembling. “John, you’re a good man, but I’ll start shooting if you don’t do this for Daniel.”

“Put the gun away!” said John, eying the blue-steeled weapon, “If anybody sees that pistol, you’ll be labeled a terrorist. Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Your life will be over.”

“If you don’t transfuse Daniel, my life is over,” replied Bob with a shrug.

“No!” said John, now raising his voice, “you’ll carry on, but if I transfuse like you ask, you will both die!”

“Wrong!” said Bob, shaking his head stubbornly, “I’m immune to the stings.”

John paused for a second and glanced at Bob’s exposed skin. No edema, welts, or erythema was present. He had treated numerous heroic individuals who saved others from airwars. The one hallmark of these heroes and heroines was they invariably looked as bad as, or sometimes worse than, the victims they saved.

“You came in contact with tentacles?” questioned John.

“Yeah,” replied Bob, “I had to run inside the curtain to get my boy.”

“You went inside the curtain and came out?” said John with amazement.

John knew the curtain was the outermost specialized layer of tentacles, which were black like the hydrogen sac. The black tentacles were more mobile than the red inner layers and more toxic. They grabbed and attached to objects on the ground to pull airwars forward. If an immediate death occurred, it was typically due to massive stings from the outer curtain. Although not public knowledge, ASC released information to medical personnel indicating less effective stinging power inside the curtain. The inner tentacles, red to pink in color, although mildly poisonous, were more specialized in binding and lifting.

The outer curtain was the source of contact for most treatable stings largely because those passing to the inner curtain rarely got out alive. A person could wear protective garments, but airwars seemed to sense this and would bind and lift, then drop anyone wearing protective covering from a height of forty to fifty feet. Sometimes repetition of this process occurred until the victim was dead. Of course, there was no reason victims couldn’t survive, if rescued, as the screams of victims inside the curtain continued for hours. These screams continued until death or to the point the victim transferred into the digestive chamber.

John looked at the dying boy. He weighed the resolve in the father ’s eyes against the trouble he’d be in if he agreed. The gun aimed at his chest factored in as well.

“Okay,” said John, “I’ll do it.” He knew he would do the same if it was Cassandra lying there. “But please hide your gun!”

Bob appeared to be studying John’s eyes to determine if this was a feint.

“Thank you,” said Bob finally, then he handed the gun, butt end toward John.

“You keep it,” said John, waving the gun off. Then he smiled and winked at Bob, “Besides, what would I do with another one?”

Bob gave John one brief smile back.

John exited the exam room and returned to the triage area. He knew it would be difficult to set up the transfusion by himself. He couldn’t enlist the help of any other medical personnel. If it got out, the procedure would end and Bob would face certain incarceration. In addition, there was the problem of doing a commingled transfusion. He’d never done a direct transfusion; nobody did this in modern medicine. Commingling circulations might be a physiology experiment in a dog lab, but never as a human treatment.

Clearly, there were a list of risks a mile long, but he didn’t know what they were, and he didn’t have time to look them up. He also knew there would be hell to pay in the end, but he would just point to the dead man’s gun and say he was coerced. Hospitals needed doctors too badly to revoke his medical license.

Even in the face of the negatives, John felt exhilarated. He knew he was pushing the limits of medical ethics, but for the first time, he was trying to accomplish something that might make a difference. He knew deep down the procedure was doomed, but at least it was an attempt. Gathering the equipment for the transfusion took several minutes because he had to do it sub-rosa. Then there was a problem of disappearing an hour from triage without others noticing. Although five other doctors worked triage, his absence would eventually become apparent.

John draped his hand in a hot pack and approached the head triage nurse. Lifting the wrapped hand, he announced, “I just got a secondary. I’m feeling a bit weak. I’m taking an hour break, but I’ll be back.”

A “secondary” was a sting on medical personnel from tentacle fragments remaining attached to victims. Usually, secondaries were minor injuries due to minimum envenomization. The nurse seemed relieved he was returning after a break. Most personnel took the rest of the day off.

“Dr. Long,” said the nurse with concern, “do you want one of the other docs to look at you? I think this is the first secondary you’ve ever had.”

John knew he was a bit unusual in that way. He’d been lucky so far; in fact, the other docs deferred patients with tentacle debris for his evaluation.

“No, I’m fine. The hot pack is working well.”

Medical staff used hot packs to denature venom that might remain high in the skin. If you could take the skin temperature to 118.5º F, you could denature one component of the poison, and this was the component responsible for pain.

“I’m holing up in treatment room seven for an hour,” said John. “Please don’t have anyone disturb me.”

The nurse nodded and walked off.

As he rejoined Bob and his son in exam room seven, he placed a Do Not Enter: Procedure In Progress sign on the door and removed the hot wrap from his hand. John pushed a gurney with the box full of collected supplies into the treatment room. Bob climbed on a gurney as John hung IVs and tubing. Bob adjusted himself so he and Daniel were lying side by side.

The procedure needed an IV and John had trouble getting it started. The large needle needed for the transfusion, coupled with the swollen skin, required several sticks in the boy. John was out of practice as well. He hadn’t started an IV in a decade. He thought in a few more sticks Bob would start reaching for his gun, but Bob looked on with stoic reassurance.

The procedure required two IVs each, one in the radial artery and one in a vein of the same arm. The artery of Bob connected to the vein in Daniel and the vein of Bob to the artery of Daniel. When he connected the tubes, the circulations would commingle. John coupled the tubes, looked at Bob, and said, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely!” said Bob without hesitation.

John opened each valve and blood shot down the translucent tubes, forcing out the clear saline solution. Within seconds, each line was now supplying blood to the other.

John watched Bob closely for toxic signs, as he knew the venom in Daniel’s bloodstream was now entering Bob’s body. John figured if airwar toxins didn’t kill him, a transfusion reaction would. Amazingly, after five minutes, Bob demonstrated no signs of ill effects and began a casual conversation. The light conversation seemed to ease the tension, but after a few minutes, both seemed to run out of things to say and they sat back in silence, watching Daniel’s monitor.

After fifteen minutes of silence, there was a change in the vitals on the monitor. Daniel’s pulse dropped from a tachycardic 178 down to a more reasonable 115, and his blood pressure increased from 40/0 to 80/40. The boy groaned.

“I’m getting antitoxin,” said John and he stood to leave.

“No!” said Bob, raising his free hand, “He’s improving. Let’s not change a thing.”

John knew they were dancing on the edge anyway, so he nodded agreement. Another twenty-five minutes passed, and the change was nothing short of miraculous. The boy was sitting up, crying in his father ’s arms. His vitals had almost normalized. He looked like he’d been beaten by a two-by-four, but it was clear he would survive.

“Bob,” said John ecstatically, “I’ve got to let the staff know,” he began removing the IVs, “This is a breakthrough. We need to notify ASC immediately. If we determine what this quality in your blood is, we could potentially save tens of thousands of lives. You’re the real live Ube, not a hoax.”

John was shocked to see Bob vigorously shaking his head. Just then, John’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen. It was Cassandra. He let the voice mail pick up and made a mental note to call her back.

“No one must know,” said Bob.

John was astonished, “For God’s sake, why?”

“I’m a member of Mad Mike’s Liberty Fighters,” said Bob with a hushed voice.

John paled. Mad Mike’s Militia was the government’s biggest terrorist threat. Reward posters for members hung everywhere. The liberty fighters were reckless in their attacks on airwars. Glavin’s press releases excoriated Mad Mike on a daily basis. John could relate to the militia’s hatred of airwars, and Mad Mike had many Internet supporters, but their absolute disrespect of authority concerned him.

Bob continued, “Look, I know you think of us as monsters or terrorists, but we believe airwars must be killed not coddled.”

“You release thousands more for each one you kill,” retorted John.

“Not always. We had two clean kills where no juveniles were released and many others where less than one hundred escaped.”

“Somehow it doesn’t reassure me to know we’re replacing each one with only one hundred new ones,” said John with a slight amount of sarcasm.

“Well,” said Bob, and he began cleaning his son’s face with damp gauze, “We’re improving.”

The boy pulled away as the gauze touched the inflamed skin.

“Dad,” whined the boy, “I want to go home.”

“In a minute Danny boy,” said Bob with a loving smile. He then looked back at John, “The government’s idea of run, hide, drop your pants and bend over is worthless,” he said.

John gave a slight laugh and replied, “Well, it’s certainly not a testosterone-driven strategy, but it seems to be working. In the areas with complete adaptation of the strategy, the death tolls have dropped ninety-five percent.”

“So deaths of hundreds rather than thousands are acceptable to you?” said Bob sarcastically, “What the government doesn’t say is the Colossi are appearing in huge numbers in areas following policy, and I assure you they’re not gentle giants when pissed off. At some point there’ll be hell to pay. Don’t be an idiot, John.”

John felt the irony. Only hours ago he was in Goldman’s office saying the same thing. Somehow being called an idiot made him feel obligated to twist himself into defending ASC.

“ASC’s best minds believe this is the necessary policy to save lives,” said John, but without feeling much conviction.

Bob retorted, “Of course, and if you disagree, ASC kills you. Look, I don’t doubt they fully believe in what they’re recommending. It seems compassionate; sacrifice the few to spare the masses, but it’s reckless compassion and let me tell you, politicians are experts at reckless compassion. In this case, the government isn’t fighting. They’re doing a victory surrender.”

“From what I know, it’s the militias who are reckless.”

Bob smiled and said, “You only know what ASC tells you under the pretext of preventing panic.”

“Well,” said John. “Panic isn’t on my top ten list of desirable emotions. Bob, you’re the key to a much-needed treatment. You may be singular in this respect.”

“I’m not,” said Bob with a smile.

John looked astonished, “You mean there are others?”

Bob nodded, “I’ve personally known two others, then there’s Ube.”

“You think Ube is for real?” said John with disbelief.

“Absolutely!”

“Dad!” interrupted Daniel, “my face burns—bad.” His face was cherry red from the stings.

John opened a cabinet and pulled out a white aerosol can of lidocaine spray.

“Close your eyes, Danny,” He said and sprayed a light coat over the boy’s face, “That should help shortly.”

“Thanks, Doctor Long,” said Daniel, “It feels better already.” He pulled on his dad’s tie. “Dad, can we go now?”

“Not yet,” said his father.

John looked at Bob and said, “But why on earth would someone cover it up?”

Bob laughed, “Think of it. You can’t have a bunch of guys immune to stings thinking they can attack airwars, releasing juveniles all over creation.”

“Well, I suppose, but at least you can try to contact ASC.”

Bob shook his head and said, “Well, both the guys I mentioned did. Jeff Bowen disappeared with his family at gunpoint in the middle of the night. Steve Able got a late night phone call warning of what happened to Jeff. He left his apartment and went to his neighbor ’s house, only to see his residence raided by ASC agents. His name appeared on a government terrorist list the next day. He’s now with Mad Mike’s Liberty Fighters.”

“How do you know I won’t turn you in?” asked John boldly.

Bob smiled as he picked up his son from the gurney. “Because you’re like most, frightened. You want to believe the government can legislate every problem away. That’s a comforting thought for the masses because it doesn’t require any personal responsibility, but deep down, self-interest motivates us all. You still question whether we’re going down the right path. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept your gun—by the way, my deepest thanks. You’ve burdened me with a debt I know I can never repay.”

John contemplated what Bob said and knew at least part of it was true. He watched in silence as Bob carried his son out of the hospital. The boy gave a slight wave to John as the sliding doors of the ER opened. John realized the remarkable event he experienced would alter the airwar crisis. He just needed to decide how to use the discovery.