The first time they had to bring a kid to the hospital, Kiana went with one of the other medics—a kid who panicked whenever Band-Aids didn’t stick—but he was the only other medically-experienced kid willing to venture out of the Graveyard on what was potentially a suicide mission. That first time, a new arrival had climbed to the tail of a cargo jet on a dare. He fell and cracked his skull. Risa would have gone, but everyone convinced her there was no point and it was too impractical. Kiana and the nervous medic had taken the boy to the hospital with a whole fake story of what happened and documents to back up a fake identity. The boy died in the hospital. The second time it was a girl with a burst appendix. Again the girl was rushed to the hospital, again Risa stayed behind, and again the girl died.
Risa doesn’t know what her presence at the hospital can do. All she knows is that she can’t sit back and wait to hear about another kid’s death.
- - -
Kiana helps Risa out of the back, then single-handedly carries Dylan into the ER waiting room, with Risa rolling in behind her. Now Risa must display her acting skills. She thinks about her friends in the band who had been playing in the Chop Shop when it blew—the ones who died—and the memory brings necessary tears to her eyes. Then she dredges up a character that saved her once before: the ditzy girl who talks in questions.
o;Self-determination,” he decrees. “I will make decisions for myself now.”
“Of course, of course,” Roberta says. “And I’ll be here to advise you.”
“Advise, not order. Not control. I will choose what I do, and when I do it. And I will choose my own companion.”
Roberta nods. “Agreed.”
“Good. I’m hungry,” he tells her. “Have them bring me a steak.” Then he reconsiders. “No . . . have them bring me lobster.”
“Whatever makes you happy, Cam.” And Roberta hurries off to do his bidding.
18 - Risa
Risa is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of feet pounding up AcMac’s ramp. She’s hoping this late-night visitor isn’t for her, but it always is. No one comes here in the middle of the night unless there’s some kind of medical emergency requiring her attention.
Kiana pulls back the curtain and barges in. “Risa, a couple of kids just got brought in. It’s bad, real bad.”
Kiana’s a sixteen-year-old who works the infirmary’s night shift, lives for drama, and always blows everything out of proportion. Having been purged from a family of doctors, she has a chip on her shoulder when it comes to proving what a good junior medic she is, so her exaggerations are usually just to make herself look better when she solves the emergency. The fact that Kiana has come to get Risa and isn’t trying to take all the glory herself means the situation must truly be serious.
“A couple of kids were messing with an engine turbine,” Kiana tells her, “and the whole engine came down. . . .”
Risa pulls herself out of bed and into her chair. “What were they doing messing with an engine turbine in the middle of the night?”
“I think it was some sort of dare.”
“Incredible.” Half the injuries Risa sees are either self-destructive or just plain stupid. She often wonders whether it’s just the nature of Whollies, or if it’s the same in the outside world.
When she arrives at the infirmary jet, every medic, both on and off duty, is already there. While a couple are older teens who stayed behind when they reached seventeen, the rest are just kids who have been trained to treat minor injuries, nothing more. The sight of blood doesn’t scare Risa anymore. What scares her are her own limitations—and from the moment she rolls in, she knows she’s way out of her depth.
In the corner one kid grimaces and groans with an obviously dislocated shoulder—but he’s getting only minimal attention, because the kid on the table is much worse off. His side has a huge, jagged wound through which Risa can see at least one protruding rib. He quivers and moans. Several kids frantically try to stem the bleeding, applying pressure to key arteries, and one kid with shaking hands tries to fill a syringe.
“Lidocaine or epinephrine?” Risa asks.
“Lidocaine?” he says, like it’s a question.
“I’ll administer. There are epinephrine injectors already prepared.”
He looks at her like he got caught in the school hallway without a pass.
“Adrenaline!” she says. “It’s the same as adrenaline.”
“Right! I know where those are!”
Risa tries to focus in, not allowing herself to be overwhelmed by the larger picture, and gives the injured boy the first shot, which will ease the pain.
“Did anyone call the doctor?” Risa asks.
“Like three times,” says Kiana.
There’s a doctor who comes out to the Graveyard when they have something on their hands they can’t handle. He does it free of charge, no questions asked, since he’s sympathetic to the resistance; however, he takes their calls only when he wants to. Even if they’re able to reach him, however, Risa knows what he’ll say.