"This way!" the strange woman cried, pulling Borland by the arm. He was dizzy. His vision blurred as his arms and legs wobbled, felt like they might collapse. But there was miraculous, drug-induced energy flowing through him as he sprang along after her, blithely medicated, giggling about the coppery cold air that tickled his torso and thighs.
His mind reeled with vertigo, spun slowly forward like he would fall out of his head.
They pushed past another set of doors and ran to the elevator as its doors slid open on a nurse inside. She looked at Borland's bloody clothing, shrieked and fell back, sliding against the far wall of the elevator as Borland's 'rescuer' slashed and stabbed the air with her scalpel.
The terrified nurse hit a crowd of buttons on the far panel and the doors in that side of the compartment slid apart. She rolled ungracefully backwards into a white-lit hall full of shelves and supplies.
"Out!" the strange woman barked, launching a kick at the air behind the fleeing nurse who stumbled to her feet and fell into a shelf full of equipment. There was a crash of shattering glass.
"That'll teach her!" Borland shouted.
Then the strange woman grabbed Borland's arm and pulled him into the elevator. He lost his balance and slammed into the corner. His face rang off a thick stainless steel railing, smashed against fake veneer.
He struggled on his knees laughing as his rescuer punched the 'close door' button beside her, and both sides of the elevator slid shut.
Borland pressed against the tingling wet bulge under his smock as the woman slapped another button. The floor lurched and the elevator started to climb.
Borland was chortling wetly. He pushed off the wall with one hand while the other cradled his bloody gut. A deep throb cut through him but faded in a fog of painkiller.
"Hey! You're pretty good," he said and then chuckled. The morphine and Ativan were still coursing through his system, annihilating his pain and anxiety before it could reach his brain. "Is it the centipede?"
"What do you know about centipede?" she asked, eyes round with disbelief.
But Borland's attention had shifted down to the blood that soaked the front of his smock. He opened one of the ties to investigate the damage beneath and his hands found the numb edges of a gaping five-inch incision.
"Oh," he said, and chuckled. "That's really, really bad, lady!" He looked at the woman as she stared at the lighted numbers over the door. "There must be some real trouble."
"You don't know how lucky you are." She gave a serious half-smile and reached out, patting the back of his bloody hand where it covered his open wound.
"I got to you in time," she said and then shifted the scalpel to her left hand as she reached behind her and pulled a gun from where it was wedged in the waistband of her pants. Borland recognized the. 9mm; it was made of ceramic. A serious piece of hardware-professionals used it: detectives, military police, even Variant Squad Lieutenants.
Take your pick lady, who are you?
The woman winced as she cocked the weapon, remembering that she had fresh injuries too, but was running without Borland's morphine.
He laughed thinking about it. Of course, he didn't have her sutures. He giggled.
We're screwed!
"What's the plan?" Borland asked, probing the bloody edges of his surgical opening with his fingers. Then his attention fell back to her gun.
And he asked: "Who do you work for?"
"Lots of people, and nobody," she growled and glanced fearfully left and right as the elevator shuddered.
"Oh, like black ops?" Borland said, comically calm. Blood was seeping down his chest, and he was starting to feel nauseous. "The army? The Feds?" Then he snapped his fingers. " You're with the police?"
She nodded solemnly. "I used to be…"
The elevator stopped and the woman leveled her gaze.
"Listen, I've got to get you somewhere safe, so they don't finish what they started." She frowned. "They cycle people through every four days, moving new patients sequentially through the procedures starting in the basement and ending on the third floor. It's a house of death."
"I'm on the third floor," Borland said and then coughed. A chill shook him and he chuckled. "My stuff's there, if we're running."
"Exactly! And none of the civilians will feel like giving us any trouble," she growled and stabbed a button to hold the door closed. "When we go out of here, we run to the right. Get as far down the hall as we can go. Once we get our bearings we'll grab your stuff."
"Sounds good," Borland snarled, balling up his bloody right fist. His left hand still pressed against the open slit over his navel. It was starting to feel heavy.
"Ready?" she said, raising the pistol in her right hand.
Borland nodded, and lifted his fist.
"Let's roll! " the woman shouted and slapped the button that opened the doors.
They slid aside to reveal the nurse with the German accent standing by a patient in hospital blues. The nurse raised her e-board like a shield. Borland's rescuer bowled the woman over as he followed in her wake. The startled patient stepped back but not fast enough to avoid Borland's right cross. The man crumpled.
They ran past.
A trio of patients staggered out where the hall turned right. The woman kicked one in the groin and he went down howling. Borland blasted through the others like a tank.
A deep pain ran around from his chest to his back.
But the morphine dissolved it as he rumbled along after the strange woman.
Keep going.
He felt light-headed then and dropped to a knee. The jolt caused a spasm of pain to clench his belly and lower back. Then the morphine haze descended.
Not far.
This time, though, he had to grind his teeth against a shadow of the pain-the painkiller unable to handle it all. He dispelled his companion's concern with a nod as she looped a hand under his arm and heaved him to his feet.
He screamed as white-hot agony clenched his stomach muscles.
"I'm fine," he gasped, recovering quickly. "Keep going!"
They hurried along the corridor casting looks left and right.
"Up here!" she shouted, elbowing another patient into a wall. He crumpled crying out in pain.
Borland checked his chest for his nametag. They told him never to remove it. But it wasn't required during the operation. Another sharp stab of pain in his gut, and he tumbled against the wall, dizzy-leaving a great red smear.
"Don't know my room number," he said and coughed as she grabbed his arm and pulled him wheezing along with her.
"Bastards knew I was coming for you," she snarled and then pointed up the hall with her gun-the last door on the left. "That'll do for now."
She reached out and gripped Borland's shoulder; steadied him as another spasm of pain brought a sheet of sweat over his face.
Behind them, down the hall he could hear the shouting and clamber of pursuit. The noise echoed dully, distorted by a hollow ringing in his ears. His vision blurred, and another chill shook him.
The woman whipped through a door pulling a reeling Borland close on her heels.
Inside it was the exact duplicate of his room, except there was a man in the first bed. Some old chap was out cold, asleep with painkillers. He'd already had the operation.
But they finished his.
The strange woman shut the door and ran to the window in the far wall. Checked it, saw that it didn't open.
"We'll make a stand here!" she announced and then reached out to Borland, pulled him down by the bed beside the window.
He collapsed against the wall pressing the wound over his stomach. His lower back was aching now, and his testicles answered a shift of position with a blast of pain.
What's happening?
"Okay…good," he said, looking down at the big hole over his navel. He wadded up the lower half of his smock and pressed it against the opening. "I got to stop this bleeding."
"I know," she said, waddling forward on her knees to peer around the end of the bed. She grabbed a pillow and threw it to Borland. He hugged it against his wound.
The old man in the other bed snored.
"I still think I got you in time," she said bleakly and then held her own abdomen. Tears sprang into her eyes.
"All right, I'm Joe Borland," Borland said wincing. A spasm shook his gut; the contractions caused a hard knife of pain to strike deep. "What's your name?"
"Judy Martin," she said, glancing quickly to the door.
Voices were gathering outside. People were calling and shouting. There were loud thuds as other doors were forced open.
They're looking for us.
"Okay Judy," Borland said, looking down at his wound. Blood continued to seep out. It wasn't gushing but… "I'm going to need a doctor, soon, and painkillers." He nodded toward the door. A wave of dizziness passed and he slurred, "So, what's going on? What do they want?"
She sighted along the gun barrel, trained it on the door. "Same thing they took from me."
Sweat glazed Borland's forehead. Pain throbbed against his hand, pushed through the morphine.
"They got mine," Judy said, finally, allowing herself to rest against the wall, still aiming at the door. "But I won't let them take your baby."