IDIOPOTENT

Chapter 7: Fold

"Dr. Cole."

Phin paused his reading about the giant terrapins of Three Mile Island and looked over the edge of his tablet at Reiniger.

"It is quite late, young doctor." Reiniger tapping the antique watch on his wrist, a curious sort of anachronism among the bleeding-edge technology in the unit. "Get some rest. You sleep far too little for how hard you work."

"Work is why I'm here," answered Phin. Though Reiniger hadn't explicitly said so, it was obvious he possessed psychic ability of some kind, but that didn't mean he knew. Until Phin was sure, he would assume his secret remained so.

"Yes, but you don't want to burn yourself down." Reiniger reconsidered his word choice. "Out? Ah well. Neither is good."

With one young, stable patient in his supervised care and another who was - static, Kane had called him - Phin had no reason to argue. He could read in his dormitory as well as in the unit, and it didn't take a mindreader to tell that the older physician had spoken from kindness, so Phin rose to oblige.

The screen of Phin's tablet turned red, and the badge on his chest started to emit a low buzz. He glanced at Reiniger, who was frowning and staring at his own device, face pink in the reflected glow. His badge gave a brief vibration, drawing Phin's eyes to it. A number "5" had replaced the "1" it normally displayed. He looked back up, not knowing what to ask.

"Nothing good," Reiniger answered.

The buffer room door hissed open. Kane strode in just short of a run.

"Call Cole," he said to Reiniger. "Get him here now." Reiniger silently pointed at Phin across his body.

Kane frowned. "You should be in your dormitory."

"Couldn't sleep."

"You certainly won't now," Kane responded. "Come on, young doctor, stay with us." Cole fell in behind the two older physicians, Kane leading them in a jog when they exited the unit into the hall.

"Someone is folding?" asked Reiniger.

"Three minutes," said Kane. "It sounds bad. We'll not have a census of two any longer."

They hurried down passages Cole had not yet seen. More staff - nurses, doctors, orderlies, others whose dress didn't mark them as any of those - joined the rush as they went, like tributaries flowing into a river. Most looked intently serious. Phin spotted Abby and Davis in the press, but neither was close enough to speak to, and it didn't strike Phin as the right time for salutation.

Their path ended at an elevator bay with two open doors, both filled in seconds. "Stairs," instructed Kane, clearly unwilling to wait. A wave of his badge opened a door to their right, depositing them in a stairwell; they ran down two flights that ended in another locked door Kane waved open. This bay, elevator doors closing, having deposited their first wave of occupants - was more industrial than medieval, cement but for one wall of metal split diagonally from top left corner to botton right. High-pitched beeping echoed around them as personnel held badges before the line of scanners at the wall. Phin scanned his after Reiniger, the last to do so. As he did, a heavy metallic click sounded, and the triangular doors opened.

The space beyond looked industrial too, like an warehouse or a hangar bay. On the far wall opposite from the medical personnel, armored soldiers with rifles, railguns, and several long-barreled, shoulder-mounted weapons Phin didn't recognize poured through another heavy portal and took up positions on a raised walkway spanning the length of the wall to his right. Every barrel pointed at the enormous greyish rectangle across the space's floor that took up the majority of left-hand wall. The rectangle rather resembled a theater screen bordered by a silvery frame; at its foot was a matte-black section of rubber or durable foam, about the size of a basketball half-court. Beside it, three technicians on raised platform typed at massive computers and talked into headsets.

Several dozen stretchers surrounded the black rubber mat in front of the grey screen. Phin had never seen their like. Each consisted of a gel mattress laid atop an off-white half-cylinder with two IV poles at its end, fluid hanging without tubing. He didn't see any monitors. Tall carts with who-knew-what within dotted the spaces between beds.

A metal gate stuttered with unbarred openings stood between the personnel from the Mission and the floor. Phin held up at the holographic warning that flashed at the entrances: "DO NOT GO PAST THIS POINT WITHOUT RADIATION PROTECTION."

"Don't stand there," prompted Kane. "We're radiation-shielded already. Time to go to work." Indeed, everyone from the Mission but Phin, Kane, and Reiniger had been obliged to pause and were shrugging thick jackets on over cumbersome overalls, all beige with a radiation symbol that blinked green. Ignoring these, Kane ran through a gate to the open floor. Phin followed.

"What are we doing, Dr. Reiniger?" he asked. He'd been trying to listen and learn, only asking questions when he'd exhausted his own store of knowledge and couldn't find an answer in any resource on his tablet. This situation met both criteria.

"We shall soon find out, young doctor," replied Reiniger, brow furrowed. "A fold always surprises. The physician must become the artist."

"He means you've gotta freestyle, doc." Brandt came up, shoulders and chest filling out his radiation jacket. "No textbook, no algorithm. Chances are, you've never seen this before. Chances are, nobody has."

"Just so," nodded Reiniger. "Ash, stay with him. Trust your training, Dr. Cole."

Reiniger jogged to the front row of stretchers, where Kane already stood at the head of a bed. Brandt went to the back row, gesturing to Phin to take up the same position. The pilot began opening drawers of the nearest cart, setting up IVs and laying out pre-drawn syringes of drugs, naming them for Phin's benefit as he did. Nearly all were familiar.

"What's a fold?" asked Phin.

"That," answered Brandt, tossing his head at the grey screen while he continued to work. "The short version: Fort Eisner's metahuman spec-ops team inserts around the world. This is how they get back when things go sideways, and when things go sideways... Well, they almost always need us. Sometimes they don't," he added grimly.

Brandt finished his preparation; by the time he did, each bed had a doctor at its head and nurses and technicians orbiting it. In his inexperience, out of his element and into one he had no name for, Phin felt acutely alone, despite Brandt's competent presence.

"May I join you?" The figure suddenly beside him wore the same shielding as everyone else, with an added helmet and gloves. Phin peered through the transparent faceplate at Jack Franklin's model-handsome face.

"They called a psychiatrist down?" asked Brandt. He sounded curious, not unfriendly.

"Indeed. All hands on deck," said Franklin. He nodded at Phin. "Better that we neophytes stick together, no?"

"Neophyte?" asked Brandt.

"Newcomer. First-timer."

"Ah, noob. Yeah, it's a good idea to double up if you've never done this before."

Looking around at the floor, now fully staffed, Phin did note several other beds hosting two physicians. Garvin Davis, the triple-boarded researcher, stood with a shaggy-haired, bearded doctor who looked like he'd been handed extra baggage.

"Stand away," sounded a disembodied voice in the emotionless tones of artificial intelligence. "Folding in three. Two."

"Here we go," said Brandt, under his breath.

The rectangle's grey grew lighter until Phin had to squint, as if he'd stepped from a dimly-lit room into bright sunlight. The sand-covered bottom of an arid mountain ravine appeared, all browns and grey and devoid of vegetation. A mass of figures in fatigues or exoframes rushed around a far bend, kicking up sand. Some carried comrades; others turned to fire behind them. Several in armored flight suits brought up the rear, looping and spinning to dodge violet beams that left smoking craters in the rocks. The scene was totally silent, lending the kinetic, frenzied action a surreal quality. The retreating soldiers came closer until Phin could see every pain-stricken grimace and streak of dirt on their faces.

The first of them fell onto the black mat.

The screams started.