Poor Unfortunate Souls

1 - Code Leech

Eisheth winced as she finished scrolling down the body of the email, tugging on the leash attached to her badge. Grigori's breath was close enough to almost cascade down the back of her neck as he read over her shoulder, his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his white coat. After a few seconds, he clapped a hand on her shoulder. "I think it'll be great!"

Ah, malignant optimism: thy name is Dr. Grigori, she thought sourly, releasing the badge. It zipped back to its proper position with a click. "I just wanted to work a day shift..."

"Well, you know, needs of the hospital and all that." He smiled with his customary vagueness at her and padded off towards his office, ready to head home. They were almost to the freedom that was shift change.

Before she could answer, the overhead page came on. "Would a nurse from Surgical Floor please dial 9274 for Materials Management? Would a nurse from Surgical Floor please dial 9274 for Materials Management?" Even distorted by the intercom system, there was a strained element to the voice.

"Not it!" Four of her coworkers blurted the two words out almost simultaneously before scattering like marbles.

She sighed and picked up the receiver, hooking her shoulder around it to keep to her ear as she dialed. It was probably just something screwy with supplies again. "This is Eisheth from Surgical Floor."

There was no polite introduction, only an interrogation waiting for her. "Who sent a pneumatic tube of biohazard materials for disposal to us about five minutes ago?"

"Biohazard materials?" Eisheth blinked, and then a slow, horrible realization dawned on her. Those motherfucking leeches. Play dumb, Eisheth, play dumb. "Umm...I would have to ask. Why?"

The silence on the other end of the line sounded suspicious at best. "It showed up leaking blood. Then we opened it."

"Oh?" Eisheth tried to sound interested and not like she was imagining the horror show of the last sixty seconds of tiny, bloodsucking invertebrate lives as they went on the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of adventures on their way to be executed in alcohol. "I thought those things were sealed pretty tight."

"Look, whatever fucking moron screwed that lid on cross-threaded it."

She remembered the difficulty they'd had in getting the stupid thing together. That meant that the thing had leaked blood all down the tube, from one end of the hospital to the other. This is why we don't work six short-staffed shifts in a row, Eisheth. "I'm sorry. I'll let everyone know not to do that in the future."

"To cross-thread it or send us fucking medical-grade leeches through the pneumatic tube system?"

"Yes." Eisheth rubbed the center of her forehead with her fingers. A medically inadvisable amount of non-narcotic painkillers washed down with a thermos of terrible coffee had done nothing to kill her tension headache. It was an exhaustion not even death could cure. "Look, I'm sorry there was a mess. It won't happen again."

The sound of a smug sort of righteous indignation was like nails on a chalkboard. "We're filing a report. This was a mishandling of hazardous waste."

She almost groaned out loud. "Is that necessary?"

"It's hospital policy. Do you have any idea how much work this is going to be to clean up? Who sent the tube?"

She was done. "Shit, code! I've got to go!" Eisheth slammed the receiver down and then buried her face in her hands. Almost as if she'd willed it into being, a half second later the sound of a shrieking alarm came from down the hall, cascading off the sterile walls.

"Which one's that?" Bel asked blearily, coming from the other direction as fast as his sleep deprived legs could take him.

"Probably Room 12," Eisheth said, checking her watch as she hustled. "It's been a whole fifteen since he tried getting out of bed."