✅ Project SETI: Surrogates for Extra-Terrestrial Insemination

Part X: Blindsided

          Gabriel struck Nova's chest with a closed fist in an attempt to disrupt the life-threatening arrhythmia that danced erratically across the heart monitor's screen. It paused, then continued, and Gabriel sighed in frustration. He bounded over to a small console on the wall and flipped a switch. In the hallway, a short two-tone beep sounded off and a robotic voice spoke:

          "Code blue in DR #4. Code blue in DR #4."

          He quickly pressed defibrillator pads in place on his chest as he waited for the staff to respond. After setting it to charge, he found himself grappling with an unusually strong bout of anxiety and guilt—he thought that, maybe, if they'd just gone straight to surgical intervention on account of the unviable egg, this wouldn't be happening right now.

          He willed the thought away and watched silently as the defibrillator discharged. He turned his attention to the ECG trace while Nova jerked and shook, and he saw that while it had stopped the irregular rhythm, his heart hadn't restarted.

"I'm not fucking losing you now," he hissed as he made the bed lie flat.

          He had just started chest compressions when Julia rushed through the door with a young man named Seth: the quiet surgical nurse Gabriel usually had with him during his procedures. He had neatly barbered short black hair and eyes that looked either very light blue or grey, depending on how the light hit them. His teal scrubs billowed around his tall lanky frame.

          "I thought we had more time," Julia said intensely as she observed the sonogram. She quickly turned her attention to the patient afterward and started to undo one of the leg restraints. Seth immediately moved to undo the other.

          "Me too," Gabriel spat between his vigorous compressions.

          "We need to get him to the OR. He's just going to keep going under as long as that thing is in there."

          Gabriel desperately crushed Nova's mouth with his own and blew into him when the cycle ended. "Okay. Let's go."

          He got onto the gurney, steadied himself on his haunches, and launched into the second cycle of compressions as the anti-gravity device activated. It gently lifted itself and adjusted to sit about six inches off the ground, and it began to correct itself in real-time with each of Gabriel's compressions to keep the gurney stable through transport.

          He knew that they were moving through the hallways and would arrive at an operating room soon, but he had tunnel vision: he was only aware of Nova, how he shook with each thrust into his heart, and how the bright overhead lights flashed over his face, but his half-lidded eyes remained fixed and dilated.

          The heavy door to the decontamination chamber slid open as he finished the second cycle. He stopped only to check Nova's carotid pulse and resumed compressions when he couldn't feel it, even through the fumigation process. He zoned back in when he realized he needed to get down so they could move Nova to the surgical table and promptly climbed off of him.

          Seth and Julia grasped the sheet on the bed, and together they seamlessly transferred Nova to the table. Julia then busied herself disconnecting the equipment from the previous room and replaced it with the monitoring equipment of the OR, and additionally, the dual-headed advanced probe.

          "This can't be good," Seth said as he held up a bloody spot on the sheet after he'd pulled it out from under him.

          "There was a tear," Gabriel explained while he waited for Julia to get the leads and defibrillator pads in place on his chest. "I didn't get a chance to mend it yet."