Chapter One First, Do No Harm #3
At the nurses' station, Aoi looked up from her screen.
"You're supposed to be resting."
"I am walking slowly."
"That isn't rest."
"It is slower than running."
"You're impossible."
"So I'm frequently told."
Aoi slid a chart across the desk.
"Mrs Kobayashi's temperature has come down, but she's refusing the nasogastric tube again."
"I'll speak to her."
"She called the last doctor a sadist."
"That was Doctor Ishikawa."
"Yes."
"Her assessment may be clinically accurate."
Aoi covered a laugh with one hand. From further down the corridor came the sound of someone retching, followed immediately by a call bell. Aoi stood.
"I'll get it."
Renji glanced at the ward clock.
"You're due to finish."
"So are you."
"My shift finished yesterday."
"That is not the defence you think it is."
She started down the corridor, then looked back.
"Doctor?"
"Yes?"
"Eat something."
"I had coffee."
"Coffee is not food."
"It contains water."
Aoi pointed at him in warning before disappearing into the next room. Renji returned to the chart.
He liked Aoi. That was not unusual; he liked many of the people he worked with.
They were skilled, compassionate, occasionally infuriating.
He knew their preferred coffee orders, their children's names, which consultants they disliked and which nurses were quietly carrying more grief than they admitted.
They knew almost nothing about him. He had become skilled at offering pieces of himself that resembled closeness without requiring it — a dry comment, a remembered birthday, an extra hour covering someone's shift.
Enough to be trusted. Never enough to be known.
"Still pretending you're invincible?"
Kael's voice came through the earpiece Renji had nearly forgotten he was wearing. Renji did not react outwardly. He lifted the tablet closer to his face as though reading.
"You're using a secure emergency channel to criticise my sleeping habits."
"I'm using a secure emergency channel because you ignore your phone."
"I was operating."
"You're always operating."
"People continue to injure themselves."
"And you continue acting surprised by it."
"I leave for Shanghai in three days. Try not to complicate my last week here."
"What's in Shanghai?"
"A rumour. Probably nothing."
"You never chase probably nothing."
"No," Kael admitted. "I don't."
Renji walked away from the nurses' station and entered an empty linen room, shelves of folded sheets surrounding him.
"What do you want?" he asked quietly.
"Nothing urgent."
"Then why are you calling?"
"To make sure you're still alive."
"That seems unnecessary."
"Accord policy disagrees."
Renji's expression tightened.
"Which protocol?"
"Seven-C."
"That is for unexplained biological exposure."
"Yes."
"I have not been exposed to anything."
"That you know of."
"Kael."
A pause. The humour left Kael's voice.
"There was movement near the southern tunnels."
"What kind of movement?"
"We don't know yet."
"Human?"
"We don't know."
Renji looked towards the linen-room door.
"Casualties?"
"None reported."
"Then this can wait until morning."
"For you, morning is a philosophical concept."
"Send me the report."
"Already did."
The line disconnected. Renji remained still.
Protocol Seven-C. The designation had not been used in years. He opened the encrypted notification on his tablet.
ACCESS RESTRICTED.
SOUTHERN INFRASTRUCTURE ZONE.
SUBTERRANEAN DISTURBANCE.
ORIGIN UNKNOWN.
No images, no witness statements, no useful information at all. Renji closed the file.
Hospitals had rules for blood-borne infections, radiation, chemical contamination and mass casualty events. The Accord had rules for everything hospitals did not know existed. Most protocols were never needed. That was the point of them.
Renji left the linen room. He had taken three steps when the overhead speaker activated.
"Dr Takahara to Emergency. Dr Takahara to Emergency immediately."
Every muscle in his body sharpened. Aoi emerged from a patient's room.
"What is it?"
Renji's pager vibrated before he could answer.
TRAUMA ALERT.
MASS CASUALTY INCIDENT.
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: EIGHT MINUTES.
NUMBER OF PATIENTS: UNKNOWN.
POSSIBLE CONTAMINATION.
He looked back towards Aoi. The fatigue vanished from his posture so completely it might never have existed.
"Call Akiko," he said. "Wake every available surgical registrar. Open the secondary trauma bays and tell blood bank we may need another massive transfusion activation."
"What happened?"
Renji read the final line on the alert.
CASUALTIES RECOVERED FROM SOUTHERN TUNNEL NETWORK.
For the briefest instant, Kael's warning returned to him — movement underground, Protocol Seven-C. Something cold settled beneath Renji's ribs. He handed Aoi the tablet.
"Get everyone ready."
She read the alert and hurried towards the desk. Throughout the ward, lights came on, doors opened, phones began ringing. The hospital stretched awake around him.
Renji turned towards the lifts.
Far below the city, something that had remained buried for centuries had been disturbed. Now its survivors were coming to him.