"Right..." Riko says. And he pauses, trying to gather his thoughts to say the next part. "Do I get to say no? Or... or make a different call?"
Note: No real CWs for this chapter. This one's mostly setup and might feel a bit expositiony.
<< Main Masterlist << Signal War
Purgatory ▸ F is for Functional ▸ Something Stupid ▸ Cold Spray ▸ Unlaced ▸ Charmed ▸📍Ballet
Ballet
"You ever worked in one of these regional trauma hubs?" the man asks them, on the flight in. His flight suit is dark blue, and there's a grinning smiley-face patch amongst the ones on his uniform that mark him as a flight medic.
It is dark outside the windows of the air transport. Far away in the horizon, the final band of gold gives way to the press of night. Most of the flight medics have gone quiet, heads tucked down, rocking gently in the minor turbulence.
Riko turns from the window, shaking his head. "Frontline, and a couple of casualty clearing centres."
He checks the give of the camera on his vest, assures himself again that the activation button is locked down in the "on" position.
Martenn and Xyller, the other levy medics on the flight, shake their heads too.
"Rappon city paramedic," Xyller says.
"Rural hospital," Martenn says. "And a few disaster relief deployments: Postro, Copitron and Naygal Town.”
Riko is impressed. Rappon is one of the most violent and volatile inner cities on this side of the war. And Martenn has named the last three major disasters of the last four years.
"Right," Mr. Smiley says. "So... imagine 20 inner city emergency rooms, on a major disaster day, sending their worst casualties to you, 24/7."
Another flight medic snorts. Her hair is braided tight against the sides of her head in the typical Jombian style, so Riko isn't surprised when she brings up her hand and twists it in the sign for "understatement". There is a slight scoff in the inflection.
"They're flying into Zenith,” she says. “Try 50 emergency rooms. And they're all on fire."
"Descriptive," the first flight medic grins. "And accurate. So eat, sleep and shit when you can, not when you need to."
Xyller puts up his hand, like he's a student in class. "There's this guy called Hallen? Seems he's got quite a reputation."
"Best patient survival rates in any trauma hub by far," the Jombian flight medic says. "Nobody comes close to Daddy D's numbers." Her fingers swirl upward in an expressive sign to indicate “beyond belief!”
"Daddy D?" Riko says, and his mouth quirks in amusement. "Sounds like a vid performer. Or a pimp."
In the dark quiet of the shuttle, one of the flight medics snickers. Another shifts in his sleep.
Mr. Smiley teeth are bright in the gloom. "Well, if he gives you a good report, your career is pretty much set for the next couple of years," he says.
The Jombian flight medic nods in agreement and jerks her fingers decisively downward in the sign for "confirmed".
"Meaning?" Xyller asks.
Martenn speaks up. "People fight for a stint under Hallen," he says. "If you have Hallen sign off a Zenith rotation, doors open up. Your pick of competitive postings, your specialist training applications go on the top pile, senior clinicians take notice of your name..."
Xyller's eyes go wide. "Whoa," he says. "All that for a 10-day deployment?"
Riko smiles and shrugs. "Guess we lucked out."
The Jombian flight medic glances at him, her eyes shadowed in the low light. And then she crooks the sign for "poor thing."
+++++++++++++
The deck tilts under Riko's boots as they make their descent. Out on the tarmac, a man is standing alone in the vast dark, his face lit by the handheld pad he is holding.
The landing gears activate, sending jagged vibrations through the unlit interior. As the whine of the engines modulates and pitches up, Riko puts up a hand against the bulkhead to steady himself.
The pilot's voice is scratchy and distorted over the intercom: "Welcome to Zenith. Good luck."
All the personnel on the craft are standing ready near the doors. One by one, they each tap a dongle on their shoulder.
Riko is right next to Mr. Smiley, so he catches the man murmur quietly to his shoulder-mounted dongle, "Hi Zai, missed me?"
The flight medic tilts his head for a moment as if listening. Whatever the device says back is projected so narrowly as to be inaudible to Riko.
"Roger," Mr. Smiley responds. "We'll take good care of her."
The Jombian flight medic holds her hand up, flexing her hand to sign, “ready, brace, ready, brace.” A thump shudders up through the craft as it lands.
Out on the tarmac, floodlights come on.
Riko had thought the man on the tarmac was by himself, but the floodlights have revealed a small army of people and drones surrounding him, in neat contingents.
They stand still in the bright light, unnervingly silent and intent.
Xyller turns to look back at the flight medics. "Why are they--"
“Waiting for eyes to get used to the light,” Mr. Smiley explains.
“Also, waiting for ramp extension,” the Jombian says. She pats the braids on the side of her head perfunctorily, tucking a stray strand back in.
The whine of the ramp hums under their feet. And then, they feel more than they hear it, as the ramp touches down on the ground.
As if a race starter gun has gone off, the people on the tarmac surge into action.
The Jombian flashes her hand out, “launch, launch, go!”
Riko and the rest of the off-boarding medics have barely stepped out onto the ramp, and people in overalls are already running up it, jostling past them. Mr. Smiley gestures the new levy medics to the side, away from the tide of activity.
"Hallen will come for you afterward," he says, pointing at the man with the pad, who is stock still, like a rock in a stream, as the operation swirls around him.
"For now, wait here." Mr. Smiley points down at the ground, and Riko looks. There is a faded yellow box painted on the tarmac.
"Enjoy the show," he says, grinning, and then goes loping off to join the rest of the flight medics.
Riko feels like equipment, parked safely out of the way.
The sides of the craft are levering open, and Riko can see the people who had run up the ramp swarming around the pallets and the boxes inside. There is the clack-clack-clack of metal buckles closing, and then a coordinated shout of "Starboard, tier one, clear!".
In a graceful logistical ballet, the pallets and boxes are lowered out of the craft with hydraulic lifts and maneuvered neatly onto delivery drone vehicles. Each one swivels elegantly out from under the shadow of the craft and whizzes noiselessly toward the large building behind them.
The last vehicle drone hasn't left yet, when the coordinated shout arises again: "Port side, tier one, clear!"
The same thing is happening on the other side of the shuttle.
Mr. Smiley jogs up to an area with patients on gurneys, where the rest of his flight medics have gathered. Records and equipment is being handed over, and the flight medics are being briefed on the patients they will be caring for on the flight out.
"Starboard, tier two, clear!"
Hallen taps an item on his pad and flicks it forward. Twenty metres away, a small group of drones immediately breaks off and moves under the craft, opening up access panels in the belly of the shuttle. They start pulling spent energy units out, replacing them with fresh ones.
Another flick, and contingent of cleaning drones glides into position, to stand by at the ramp. Some of them trigger their disinfection sprays in preparation, sending mists of water into the bright air; pssh-pssh-pssh. A rainbow wavers briefly over them.
"Port side, tier two, clear!"
Now, the sides of the craft are closing up again, and the logistics personnel are trooping out urgently, boots thumping on the middle of the ramp. The cleaning drones swivel and roll up into the craft, skirting the outside edge of the same ramp.
From inside the shuttle comes the hiss of disinfectant spray, the rising whine of scrubbers and the roar of venting air.
Hallen flicks an item on his pad toward the flight medics. They all start tightening the restraints on their patients, tucking in blanket edges and gathering close against the sides of their respective gurneys. One after another, the lights under the gurneys turn green as grav plates activate.
By the time the last flight medic taps on the dongle on their shoulder, the cleaning drones are already back out on the tarmac.
Hallen gathers his fingers, and slides them across the surface of the pad, toward the shuttle. The first team of flight medics starts pushing their floating gurney up the ramp.
Six patients are hovered past. Amputees, burn victims, a woman who looks like she's missing half her cranium.
Mr. Smiley's group is the last to board. He flashes a grin at Riko and the other levy medics, offering a thumbs up as they go past. The Jombian medic wiggles her fingers near her mouth in a sign for "luck, luck, luck."
Riko signs back, somewhat rustily, "careful flight, soft landing."
She jerks her head back at him, surprised, and he catches a glimpse of her pleased smile as the door closes.
The shuttle's engines rise in pitch.
The power drones slam shut the last access panel and clear out, followed closely by the hover sled with the spent energy cells. One of the drones is holding an energy cell to its centre mass as it trots out from under the air transport's shadow.
The engines had never cycled down, and now, mere minutes after it had landed, the shuttle rises into the air again.
+++++++++++++
Hallen does not look like a vid performer, or a pimp. He's a small, muscled man, with grey hair cropped close to his skull. He holds a quiet, severe gravitas that presses down on all of them.
He looks each of them over in turn and studies the documents on his pad.
When it comes to Riko, Hallen holds his gaze on him for several seconds longer, studying him with cool, slate-grey eyes.
"How long have you been civillian side?" he asks, and Riko realises this is the first time that they have heard him speak. The man's voice is mellower than he expects.
"Five months, sir."
Hallen lets out a hum, his eyes skimming the pad. "Let's see if you've gotten soft," he says.
Each of them is handed a document on a backlit device.
"Read this carefully. To indicate agreement, press your thumbprint on the AI dongle," Hallen says.
Riko studies the gadget clipped on his document device. It's the same small unobtrusive widget he'd seen the flight medics use when coordinating with Hallen. Rounded and low profile, the only identifiable feature is a tiny lens mounted on it, and a clip on the back.
The document itself is a standard agreement for such deployments, with an added clause for agreeing to participate in testing "prototype technology, diagnostics, medical procedures and therapeutics".
Martenn must be an infernally fast reader, because he asks about it before Riko has gotten to the end of that paragraph.
His voice is quizzical. "Prototypes?"
They all jump when, instead of Hallen, a smooth female voice answers.
"Zenith is an operational evaluation site. Emerging medical technologies are routinely trialled here under active deployment conditions."
It takes them a moment to realise the voice is coming from the dongle clipped on Martenn's document.
Xyller looks at his dongle wonderingly. "For example?" he asks.
The same voice is now coming out of Xyller’s AI dongle. "Like the Zenith Artificial Intelligence you are currently interfacing with. My function is operational coordination. I provide patient sector data, manpower allocation, task prioritisation and resource optimisation through continuous awareness of staff location and activity."
Riko tilts his head. "So... you tell us where to go and what to do?"
"In part," it replies. "I provide operational recommendations based on sector load, staff availability, competency and projected workload."
"Right..." Riko says. And he pauses, trying to gather his thoughts to say the next part. "Do I get to say no? Or... or make a different call?"
"Yes," the smooth AI voice says. "Operational recommendations from this AI may be overridden by clinical judgement."
Hallen catches them looking at him, and nods in confirmation. "It's supposed to assist you, so you can better apply your human and professional experience in patient care. All the prototypes and experimental tech here serve that singular purpose."
Riko feels his shoulders relax. He can get behind that.
He presses his thumb to the surface of the dongle, and it makes a little trill. The document flashes green.
The rest do the same.
Xyller and Martenn pin their dongles to their right shoulders, and Riko is trying to decide if he should do the same.
"It can go next to your camera," Hallen says. He glances at the steady blue light. "How long have you had it logging?" he asks.
"Since before shuttle descent, sir," Riko replies.
Hallen lets out an approving hum. "Five months civilian side and you haven't lost all your good habits."
Riko flicks the lock so the power button is accessible. "Should I power it down?"
Hellen pauses, considering it. "Keep it on," he says. "Would be interesting to have proper field-camera data against the AI logs. The dongle's video feed isn't forensics grade."
His AI dongle requests a new thumbprint to sync with the camera. When he does, they both emit matching chirps. "Handshake success," the AI says.
"Hang on to your flexpad," Hallen instructs, demonstrating why it's called a flexpad as he folds his up into a strip and wraps it around his forearm.
And that is it. Their intake process is done in minutes.
Hallen points them toward a large, central building. “Now go be useful,” he says.
"Sir?" Martenn calls out as Hallen turns away. "Who do we report to?"
"Instructions will be issued as and when required," Martenn's dongle says out loud.
They watch Hallen walk away.
"So... I guess we go see what needs doing?" Xyller ventures, after a while.
They jog up to the side of the building, and the moment they turn the corner, they can hear the familiar sounds of an emergency floor. But massive. A low rolling roar, like an air transport passing by far above.
Riko feels the noise in his bones and molars.
Even after the flight medics' warning, and their own individual experience working triage, the intensity of what they encounter when they round the corner has them stop in place.
Riko can't tell what he's looking at exactly. Just that it's loud and busy and huge.
The resonant rumble is the noise of a multitude of voices, simultaneously multiplied and diffused by the expansive layout. The urgent Brownian motion of staff bodies across the floor looks like chaos.
"Shit," Martenn says plainly.
It isn't any sort of proper facility. Just an immense, cleared-out warehouse, fitted with rows and rows of cots, so many that they seem to disappear into the distance. Almost every bed is occupied.
Riko blinks rapidly, getting his bearings. At first glance, it looks like one of the casualty clearance centres he's worked in. Just bigger. And messier. Because there aren't any hubs or coordination nodes that Riko can see. It doesn't make sense how anything is organised--
He frowns. Something tugs at him.
And all of a sudden the logic jumps into focus. They are not organised around anything because something is coordinating them.
There is a spike of commotion about 20 meters away, where a doctor is struggling with a crashing patient. Instantly, seemingly magically, as if there is some sort of psychic command, three nearby staff immediately drop their tasks and move quickly toward the emergency.
The doctor is still fighting to save his patient's life, but now with the manpower he needs. Around him, there is movement from across the sector as people relocate to step into emptied roles, or spread their attention to encompass their neighbour's patient.
Now he knows what he's looking for, Riko sees it happening in a multiplicity of layers across the entire floor. The scale is boggling.
This isn't anarchy, it's... it's layered and complex, and mathematical and... fuck, Mish would know what to call it. Something impressive. Something with the word stratified in it. And dynamic. She'd make it sound impressive.
This was what the Zenith AI meant.
Hearing about it was one thing. To see it was another.
"Shit," Riko breathes. It's... beautiful.
Now that Riko can see how the place operates, other things jump out at him.
Like how the bare concrete floor and stripped down facilities are overlaid with infrastructure.
Add-on service beams run overhead at regular intervals, sending compact bundles of power and data cables into utility columns that serve each patient sector.
Mobile medical equipment is docked neatly around the base of each column, rapid-charging for the next use, and large overhead status displays show sector loads and incoming casualties.
There are three state-of-the-art modular operating theaters taking up the back of the warehouse, their smooth, pristine shells looking shockingly incongruous in the industrial space.
But for all the elaborate choreography, Riko also takes in the signs of an operation that is severely understaffed.
The staff have the dead-eyed look that speaks of prolonged lack of sleep. Rumpled uniforms. A drone carrying meds and equipment arrives by a patient, and there is no staff to receive it.
Xyller's eyes are wide. "Uhh, Miss AI... where do I go?"
Their dongles chirp. "Standby. Integrating new profiles into operational network."
Riko glances at the flexpad wrapped around his forearm. Like Xyller's and Martenn's, it is scrolling rapidly through their data as the AI plugs them into the network.
Riko glances at the room, and he immediately sees a number of emerging gaps. He responds with body-level memory, his hands already up, snapping on gloves.
He taps Martenn and points him toward a nurse who is wrestling down a flailing soldier. Xyller he sends toward a doctor whose nurse has been pulled elsewhere.
Their dongles chirp. "Assignments confirmed. Proceed." Their flexpads update with patient particulars and assignment details.
A tall doctor is striding across the floor. From the instructions he's calling over his shoulder at a nurse running to keep up, Riko reckons he'll need at least another pair of hands. He steps up next to the nurse and joins their little crew.
The doctor is surprised when he turns and sees Riko.
"Who are you?" he says. His eyebrows go up into a fringe that is lank and greasy. The lines on his forehead are etched deep.
"I, uh, I just came in on the shuttle," Riko says.
“One of Daddy D’s,” the nurse says.
“Oh, right, the civilian deployment…" the doctor says, and there's a note of relief in his voice.
"Right on time. Grab that tray, civi.”
Purgatory ▸ F is for Functional ▸ Something Stupid ▸ Cold Spray ▸ Unlaced ▸ Charmed ▸📍Ballet
<< Main Masterlist << Signal War
Author's note: This is the blasted chapter that I had to rewrite 4 times! But I once I got the POV right, all these additional details and characters started showing up. Which is usually a good sign!
Taglist (comment or DM to be added or removed): @stars-hide-our-fires // @hueningplushie //@deerslayer14 // @elvenarcane // @thelazywitchphotographer // @ziploc849 // @whumpacabra // @withdrawingramen // @starlit-hopes-and-dreams // @deadbvcky // @pumpkin-spice-whump /// @hot-rangers-in-chains /// @genuineformality /// @whumpy-daydreams (I'm so happy the whump distribution system brought us together.)