At Gun Point

~26~

The semi-functional traffic control robots were the mother of all traffic jamming in the city centre main street. It hampered me from driving to my expectations. Pedestrians were strenuously rushing across the roads avoiding to banged by the passing vehicles. I veered between the tall buildings as I drove towards Poga Avenue that will lead me to the Medicare Hospital. I was driving cautiously not wanting unnecessary attention. Pedestrians and motorists were looking at the Veyron with amazed faces as I drove past them. I had removed the top covering leaving the Veyron roofless.

Minutes later, I was parking my Veyron at the reserved parking lot since the guards had directed me to park my car there. I had already called the hospital telling them I was coming to see the men they took at the mall the previous day. I went to the guards room to be checked for weapons or anything unwanted by the X-ray scanners. People were seated in the makeshift asbestos roofed shades with comfortable wooden benches erected side by side on the cemented floors, waiting for the siren to go off so they may enter the hospital to see their relatives and acquaintances. The spacious yard was filled with flowers and different types of trees all systematically planted. It made me think of home,back in Raspberg. I already missed my family, though I had just parted with them in the morning. They meant everything to me.

The bus had already arrived with the relatives of the men in the hospital. I joined them as they were chatting with Mrs Sasiya in one of the shades as we awaited the siren to go off, signalling us to move inside. As I was greeting them, the siren went off and people began to move into the reception to be checked in since they had already been given documents with their names and the person they had come to see at the gates by the guards and the hospital's administration. This was being done as a way of enhancing security to all the patients inside the hospital. There was no one who was allowed to enter the premises without passing through the security checks, avoiding situations where people would come to kill a patient inside. There were also security cameras placed in many places, some at the parking lot,some in the shades and some were capturing all the movement in the streets around the building. A professional security company called Fawsets was the one taking care of the security system. I admired this. I saw it necessary to implement at my offices back home and to enhance security at my factories, just in case.

People were not too many so it didn't take time for us to pass through the reception. We had a matron leading us to where the men were stationed. As we moved in the white painted corridors, the stench of medicinal drugs and pills hit my nose hard. I didn't like this smell at all. Doctors and nurses in their all white attire and nurse aids in their light blue uniforms were walking fast past us. Some were heading to the dining hall to eat their lunch,whilst some were escorting people to see their relatives in the patient department. She then told us we were to first go and see the doctor responsible for the victims of the incident. I asked her who was that doctor and she said Dr. Dickens, our family doctor.

When I had been called in the morning, I had been told some of them required surgery,one was to be amputated his right leg and the other was to be amputated only if the condition of his leg was to intensify. Others required different organs surgical operations. Three were in a state of comma, with one of them having 50/50 chances of surviving. I didn't tell anyone this information, I just wanted them to see for themselves. For me, this was the time to see in detail what Doctor Edward Dickens had briefed me in the morning. He was our family doctor, each time we required any medical attention he was the one who attended us, unless the case required specialists. I liked the man for his cheerfulness and a personality filled with empathy. We were to first go to his office before we were to proceed to see the patients. This was because they were all in the hospital on my account. He was the one who oversees their recovery procedures and maintain their files closer to my family's. The information he had shared with me was classified and he had just broke his professional rules of not to disclose any information about a patient without the company's permission. He just did it because he respected me and we were becoming good friends.