The Medcenter had always been a busy place, though that was no surprise. Humans were a fragile species. So many moving parts, and all of them prone to failure. The pollution didn't help. If it wasn't the radioactive waste being pumped into the San Morro Bay, it was the smog drifting off of Santo Domingo. Day in, day out. Still beats lead poisoning, Joe thought to himself, as he waited atop the landing pad, garbed in the green, white and red of his profession.
Ceramic plating over a Kevlar vest over an aramid-lined jumpsuit. Good shit, though nothing when compared to the tech his helmet was stuffed with.
The firepower was nice, too. A G-58 Dian, courtesy of Kang Tao. Tsunami Arms' Nue strapped to his thigh, and enough nades and dorphs to make even a Maelstromer giddy with joy. TTI didn't skimp when it came to outfitting their personnel with the best weapons and tech money could buy. Made sense, really. The clientele being what it was. Highfalutin corpo types with deep pockets tended to value their lives more than most, though everyone had something to lose.
Even if that something didn't amount to much.
Puffing on a cigarette, Joe eyed the skies as the pilots ran the AV through its pre-flight checks. Engines spooled. Thrusters flamed to life. The draft they kicked up tugged at his limbs, or maybe that was just the wind. Up this high, it was hard to tell. 'Alright, boys and girls! Five minutes! Five minutes til showtime!' He heard the co-pilot shout over comms. Joe turned to look over his shoulder, one thumb raised in acknowledgement. He couldn't see jackshit through the CrystalDome protecting the pilot's cabin. He was certain they could see him, though.
'Fuckin' MT's takin' her sweet time getting here.' Murphy growled, flicking down his visor. Charlie Team's other security specialist, he was a big, broad-shouldered gonk. But he looked mean, and the way he handled his weapons suggested he knew how to use them. Joe could live with that. 'Chill, choom, chill!' He smiled. 'She'll be here. Ain't no way one of ours would miss out on a pay cheque of this calibre.'
'Yeah, yeah!' Murphy replied, cheerful as always. 'Just sayin', princess better hurry the fuck up, or we'll be leavin' without her.'
Dietmaris's eyes stared emptily ahead at nothing in particular. Her scleras were lined with fatigue's thin red lightning bolts. They were the only indicators of a stressful job on her otherwise expressionless face. That, paired with the electric green uniform and the red helmet under her arm sporting a white asterisk logo, explained her predicament better than any words could. Trauma Team ®.
She was alone in the elevator, climbing floor after floor in her ascent to the rooftop where her squad awaited takeoff. It reeked of the bleach which scrubbed clean a thousand pairs of gore-stained boots walking in and out every day. There was also the faint scent of vomit lingering in the air as the occasional employee succumbed to the pressure of the job. The daily encounters alone make TTI's mandatory paramedic military training look like a joke. Die liked to think she was one step ahead on that account—a childhood in a combat zone had made sure she was desensitised early on. For many, this elevator ride was the most dreadful part of the day. A cyclical constant that promised stacks and stacks of pain, lined with the allure of eddies. A job that paid well, but at what price? Like a shuttle that launches one to hell, if heaven and hell had traded the up and down. But it was a hell that Die relished in.
A droplet of blood rolled down her philtrum, over her lips, down her chin, then fell to the ground in unison with the passing floors. Her gloved knuckles wiped the trail and examined the stain; the crimson traces had seemingly blended with the red shiny latex. The corners of her mouth curved in the faintest smile.
One minute until takeoff. The doors of the elevator drew open like curtains, revealing the stage. Exterior: Night City. Act one: Don't die, Die. It was the same play she watched every day, just with different actors playing the Play-Dead role. A strong current invaded the space and rushed through the strands of her hair. She put her helmet on and it hissed shut around the collar's magnets, hermetising her suit.
"Come on, boys! Corpses don't pay!" A light-hearted exclamation as her muffled, thin voice barely carried over the roaring jets of the AV. She strode across the landing pad and climbed on board the aerodyne, nodding at the assistant EMT. She double-checked the jump-kit, cryo-tank, and drug shelf before joining the comms channel.
"Ready when you are," she chirped merrily and moved into position. Please take your seats, silence your phones, and let the show begin.
'That ain't strictly true, Die.' Joe replied as the MT hurried past. Kidnapping was epidemic in Night City. One moment you would be walking down the street, hand in hand with your output, then all of a sudden she's being bundled into the side of a van whilst you lie bleeding on the concrete. Maybe it was the scavs what done it, or maybe it was one of the hundred or so gangs calling Night City home. Either way, someone was getting carved up just so someone else could get rich.
Snuffing out his cig, Joe hopped aboard the AV as the pilots readied for lift-off.
His crash seat was just as comfortable as the last time he'd sat in it, which was to say not at all. But the restraints kept him from being bounced around the cabin like a human pinball, and that was enough for him. 'Alright, people. The greenlight has been given, and we are go for launch! Remember to keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times! First stop: City Centre!'Corpo Plaza. Fuck. Leaning back in his seat, Joe braced himself as the AV began to rise, engines snarling, weapons live. 'What do you reckon it is this time?' He asked the others as the AV dipped, picking up speed as they hurtled above the city, just one more star in the pre-dawn sky. 'Fish bone again?'
The Team had been out twice before this. First run, they'd been called out to a high-end restaurant in one of snazzier parts of Downtown NC. Some suit had decided to let natural selection run its course by biting off more than he could chew. A Silver membership had stopped that from happening. There had been lots of back patting, followed by a whole lot of embarrassed swearing.
Die rolled the tape on the dream she had last night.
A flurry of camera flashes obscured the reporters. Die struck a pose, then another, and walked the blood-red carpet. "Miss Hicks, would you tell N54 News what inspired your look for the night?" A media person asked, pointing their microphone at her.
A humble smile. She cast an innocent glance over her shoulder at the body she had just operated on. She adjusted her intestine scarf that had made a bloody mess coiling around her neck. An intricate dress composed of a human's entire nervous system, draped and glistening from her shoulders like a dazzling array of sequins.
She bated a breath, "Some things just come to me in a vision."
The holo-ad for Network 54 blurred and swam out of view as the AV turned toward Corpo Plaza. Joe's question forced Die to shift focus.
"Maybe a heart skipped too many beats." A dreamy smile could be heard in her feathery voice under the helmet. "Romantic, when you think about it."
"Or maybe you'll get another chance to practice your Heimlich!" Leslie, the other MT on the team, joked. "Who knew a fishbone would pay so well? Bet the guy didn't think it'd be so expensive either."
Leslie had been on the job for about a year and still flinched at the sight of gore. Die hated that about her, along with her naivete and lack of on-the-go thinking. Leslie would cry when they lose a patient and scoff at injustice, as if it affected her personally. She was a small Cuban lady with curly, dark hair. If Die had to describe her with a single word, she'd go for 'unremarkable'.
On the other hand, Die's Heimlich manoeuvre was absolutely flawless, she liked to think. She recalled the angle of approach that day. At 0.8 meters behind and slightly to the left of the subject, non-dominant leg forward, bracing for resistance. She had wrapped her arms around the patient's torso, just under the xiphoid process. Thumb-side of the fist inwards, just above the navel and her other hand wrapped tightly around it. She delivered each thrust with calibrated force; two sharp upward compressions, spaced 1.25 seconds apart, just as her training dictated. The obstruction cleared without resistance. It was intuitive, really.
"Guess the fish had a better lawyer," Die responded shyly, almost embarrassed at her own joke.
"What does the biomon report say?" She spoke to the pilot now, uninterested in entertaining small talk with Leslie.
