|YA featured story|
Welcome to 2325.
The natural world is no longer habitable, the government has been all but privatised and the 15-billion strong population has spent the last 170 years crammed into a single man-made continent.
When her father's...
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I dug my nails into the armrest as we travelled at high speed. There was no air traffic and thanks to the Soar's turbo engines, we were in the Southern Territory in a matter of minutes.
Tension prickled the air inside the car like static. None of us spoke. I glanced around at Delta as she lay limp in Axel's arms. He'd turned off his face hazer and pulled off his hood—his worried eyes met mine and I got the feeling she didn't have long left.
The car dipped and I faced forward as we descended to land in the rooftop carpark of a teal building. My stomach swirled with equal parts relief and surprise as I realised it looked like a hospital. The guys had actually kept their word.
Then I read the holo letters over the rooftop entrance.
"The Cosmetic Sanctuary?" I frowned.
Zaphron parked, shaking his messy, jet-black hair free of his hood and pulling off his glitching holo-mask. My stomach squeezed at the sight of his face. Dark bruises were forming below each of his eyes, accentuating their colour, and drying blood crusted his lips and chin—in a pattern that indicated it must have come from his nose.
"We have a doctor here—Raven," he said, wiping his nose and mouth as though he could tell I was staring at them. "She used to work in the emergency department of one of the public hospitals. She's the best."
I decided not to dwell on who he meant by 'we' and focused instead on how I hoped this doctor would be good enough to save Delta. I just needed to make sure she was in safe hands. If this wasn't a set-up then there would be time to grill Zaphron later. As I scrambled out of the car and followed Axel across the lot, my heart sank to my shoes—she looked dead in his arms.
A nurse rushed up the corridor to meet us as we hurried through a set of automatic doors. She had a quick, hushed conversation with Axel that ended with her ushering us into a small operating theatre a few doors down.
Axel carefully put Delta on a padded table in the centre of the room and stepped back, bumping into an equipment trolley. The theatre was packed with all kinds of monitors and equipment. We could barely all squeeze in.
I peered over Axel's shoulder at Delta. Her skin was pale and ashen—the laboured rise and fall of her chest almost non-existent. I almost couldn't bear to took at her.
A dark haired, model-like woman—who I assume was Raven—burst through the doors. She slipped past us and took hold of Delta's wrist. After regarding her weak pulse she turned to the nurse.
"It looks like hemorrhagic shock—she's lost too much blood. I'm going to need an IV kit, fluids, plus Midazolam and morphine, and get me some haemostatic dressings." Her orders came with a confident urgency that I found both unnerving and oddly comforting. At least she seemed to know what she was doing.
She inspected Delta closely as the nurse bustled around, collecting up bags of fluids and syringes. Raven's gaze shifted to me, her eyes an unnatural pastel shade of green and full of piercing intensity. "Your friend has lost a lot of blood—too much for replacement with a synth kit. She's going to need an onsite transfusion." Her mint eyes locked on Zaphron. "Who's your universal blood donor?"
