Out of the Black - Lee Doty [123]
There! As she scanned backward through the OR-1 logs, Ping was wheeled backward through the doors by an orderly. Then, as the reversed playback continued, he moved back into position, the orderly left backwards, and the surgeons and tech returned to surround him. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She stopped briefly in the waiting area. Without sitting down, she pulled up the logs for the camera outside the fifth floor elevator bank. She scanned back until she found Ping and the orderly getting off elevator three backwards. She closed that window and accessed the logs for the camera in elevator three. Continuing this pattern, she found that Ping had been transferred to a post-operative recovery room on the seventh floor. The live feed from his room showed that he was not yet conscious, though that annoying medkit had been replaced with a white bandage bound around his head. She wondered briefly if he was bald under there. She hoped so.
Scared but smiling, Rae moved to the elevator bank.
On her tablet, she closed all the monitor windows except the five elevators, Ping's and Alex's rooms, and the elevator bank on the seventh floor. After insuring that the elevators weren't packed with cops, she pressed the call button.
A few minutes later a car arrived bearing a mother in her thirties and a five-year-old girl whose blonde hair was pulled up into a single vertical ponytail that only children and mental patients can wear well. The mother was looking pensive; the little girl was carrying a festively-beribboned plant from the gift shop. Like all five-year-olds on a mission, the little girl looked giddy with excitement. Rae returned her smile.
Two minutes later, Rae entered Ping's room. The room was dim, with lights only bright enough to keep her from bumping into the furniture. He was an inky shadow in the bed. Putting her back to the room's camera, she pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noticed that he was stirring.
"Detective?" Rae shook his shoulder lightly, "Ping?"
He moaned, shifted.
She knew it would probably be an hour or so before he was allowed visitors, and probably a few more before they would allow him to move about, but this was kind of an emergency. She shook just a little more aggressively. "Ping, wake up!" she hissed.
"Don't start slappin' me." He said.
"Well I ain't kissin' you, that's for sure." The relief was an uncomfortable weight in her voice. She was no longer alone.
"Where are we?"
"Hospital. Downtown."
He tensed. "Either you're kidding, or I don't remember the situation correctly."
"Hey, you're the one whose been nagging me for two days to 'seek medical attention'."
"Two days!" He tried to sit up- failed.
With a groan, he lay back on his pillow. "I feel like I've been clubbed on the head with a rifle butt."
"Ah, at least your memory hasn't failed."
"Rae, why are we in a hospital... why aren't we dead... is it over?"
Rae ticked her answers off on three fingers. "Alex sent me a message. Dumb luck maybe? Nope."
"Where's Alex?" Ping asked after a few seconds of processing time.
"He never woke up from that nap he took while we were driving on Roy's lawn."
"Not in two days? But he sent you a message. From where?"
"Good question." She took a few minutes and told him the basics of what had happened.
"Sounds like we're in trouble," Ping concluded, "still."
"Hey, at least you got a nap."
"You bring my sword?"
"Your sword?" Rae raised her eyebrows.
"Dek gave it to me. Made it sound like a holy charge. I had the most disturbing dream about it. Help me up."
Rae patted the duffle on her back. "Got your Excalibur right here babe, brought clothes and all the toys." She put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into the sitting position. After a few more seconds, they worked together to get his legs over the edge of the bed.
Ping sat in a swoon, rocking from side to side. "I need a wheelchair. Where's Alex?"
"Ten floors