I is for Ian

“Maybe there is,” I said. “I have an idea. If anyone needs me, I’ll be right back.”

Passing by the elevators that I now viewed as a death trap as long as the construction guys were there, I headed to the door to the stairwell and stopped cold when the door swung open.

Mr. Sutton’s very red and very irritated face popped out. He was followed by other people I vaguely recognized as assistants of some type and a board member or two. He eyeballed the room, then settled his vision on me.

“Dr. Davis,” he said.

“Yes, Dr. Sutton?”

“Gather all of the department heads on this floor. I want to see them all in the breakroom in five minutes. All of them. Nurses too.”

“We’re already short-staffed, Dr. Sutton,” I said. “Would it be alright if—”

“All of the department heads, Dr. Davis. Five minutes. We need to discuss the generator blowing and a plan for the next few days. All hands on deck.”

With that, he flung himself through the door in a manner that seemed to defy his age and went barreling down the steps. Assistants and board members followed him, desperate to stay in his orbit. I turned to see a host of nurses, orderlies, and a couple of doctors standing around behind me.

“Everyone back to work,” I said. “Except you, Willis. And you, Martha. And you, Daisy.”

“What’s going on?” Daisy asked. “What did he say?”

“He said he wants all the department heads downstairs in the lobby in five minutes. Something about the generator blowing. I would put money on it being those construction guys’ faults.”

“You think so?” she asked. “I thought they said they were wiring that whole floor on its own.”

“I don’t know why else the lights would fade when the storm hasn’t hit yet,” I said. “Come on, let’s get going. I need to grab a water.”

Dr. Sutton routinely had meetings of department heads, though usually it was in his office on the floor above. I was sure it was bothering him to no end that he was going to have to move to the lobby for this one. I wondered how many patients were waiting for ER down there at the moment, but then I remembered they could partition off part of the lobby as a triage for mass casualty events.

That had been a fun seminar.

Daisy and I walked down together, and when we got to the lobby, they had indeed partitioned off part of it for the meeting, leaving the rest for the ER patients. There weren’t many, thankfully, and the floor only had the noise of a couple dozen people murmuring together as they wondered what exactly was happening.

I rounded the corner of the partition and saw Dr. Sutton at the other end of the room, talking to someone. As I got a few feet closer, I saw that someone was the man from upstairs, the one I had been calling Ian. He was gesturing pretty wildly at him, doing a version of his patented yelling-but-whispering thing.

The construction worker was nodding, looking as upset as anyone generally did when being brow-beaten by Dr. Sutton and like he was trying to interject defenses but being blown off. Looking around, I didn’t see any other construction guys there with him.

Ian again tried to say something, and Dr. Sutton cut him off, holding a palm up as he pulled out his phone and presumably checked the time. Then he snapped around to look at all of us piled into the area, many of us on chairs, but some of us standing. Daisy and I hung near the back on our feet.

“Your attention, please,” Dr. Sutton said.

It was classic the way he shushed a crowd. He didn’t ask for their attention. He informed them of what he needed and then added a “please” that had a finality to it. It wasn’t actually a politeness, his please. It was a warning. Collectively, we hushed ourselves.

“You will need to remain calm,” he said. “I will not tolerate panic or argument. Are we clear?”

A sound of general murmuring agreement responded to him from the crowd.

“Over the next twenty-four hours, we will be evacuating Five Corners Hospital and transferring patients to various hospitals and clinics in our region.”

And the murmuring became full-out shouting.

I winced at the sound of so many of my colleagues being wildly upset and voicing their displeasure, not that I disagreed with them. It was ridiculous to have to stage an evacuation, especially with the storm on its way.

“Silence,” he commanded, gaining some measure of control again. It was somewhat awe-inspiring how little bass he needed to put in his voice to achieve the quiet. “I said no argument and no panic.”

“Why, though,” a surgeon I recognized the face but not the name of asked.

Dr. Sutton’s eyes floated over to the construction worker and then back to us.