Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center | San Francisco, California
The ride to the hospital was a blur.
After giving details to Denzel, Kayne turned her attention to doing everything she could to keep Symon alive. She had ripped open his shirt, and was pressing his tie to the wound as a compress. The shot was in his left pectoral muscle. She had no idea about the biology involved, whether this was a fatal hit or not. She just knew that, so far, he was breathing and moaning, which she took as a good sign. But the moaning was growing quieter, and he’d lost consciousness despite her best efforts.
She began shouting commands for QuIEK, guiding it to not only call for an ambulance but to reroute the closest one it could find that wasn’t already occupied or on its way to another emergency. She had the AI open a path, turning on and off all traffic lights as needed, pausing the metro rail, even strategically disabling electric vehicles and other cars that had remote start capability, using them to form barricades and stop traffic, to keep the roads open.
When the ambulance finally arrived, she refused to let them go without her. Police hadn’t been made it to the scene yet, but security from the BO&C building were out on the sidewalk, managing crowed control, communicating with authorities.
Kayne made it clear she was going in the ambulance with Symon, and the paramedics must have decided that saving his life was more important than arguing with her.
Again, once they were on their way Kayne had QuIEK clear a path, and they made it to the ER in record time. Once they screeched to a stop at the ER entrance, and Symon was wheeled out of the ambulance and directly into surgery, Kayne allowed herself to be pulled aside.
“Are you family?” a nurse asked.
“Yes,” she replied, without hesitation. “I’m his wife.”
The nurse nodded, and after that the conversation was sympathetic, if not entirely informative. They were placating her, trying to keep her calm. She didn’t need them for that. She could keep calm in the face of trauma. What she needed was answers. And no one was yet in a position to give her those.
It didn’t take long for police to arrive. A fact that Kayne was alerted to as her smartwatch began vibrating. If she stayed here, like this, surrounded by these placating nurses and hospital staff, she was as good as caught. And she couldn’t let that happen.
She had to stay free, so she could find who did this.
She slipped away, guided by QuIEK through a network of halls and stairwells until she managed to find a relatively empty and quiet space on the fourth floor. She snuck into a vacant room, into the bathroom, and did her best to scrub Eric Symon’s blood from her hands and clothes.
She had to abandon the coat. It was camel colored and had become a blood-soaked ruin. There was no way anyone would fail to notice it. But everything under it was dark enough to hide any flecks of blood. And though her hands were still a bit pink, they were less noticeable than her eyes and cheeks. She’d been crying, and it showed.
She rinsed her face, toweled herself dry, and took several deep breaths.
Exiting the bathroom with the coat folded over her arm, she made her way back out into the corridor. She spotted a rolling laundry basket and hid the coat under the soiled sheets. So far, no one had paid much attention to her, and she made her way casually to the stairwell, moving downward as quickly as she dared.
On the second floor she exited the stairwell and wound her way through a set of hallways that resembled an office building more than a hospital. QuIEK was telling her that the ground floor was absolutely riddled with police and FBI agents. One of their own was down, and that was going to put everyone on high alert. She needed to get out of here.
She tried to take a breath, to calm herself. But a sob overtook her anyway, and she found herself crumpling to the floor, gasping as tears streamed down her face.
“Are you alright?” a man asked. He knelt beside her, his face concerned. He reached out, tentatively, and put a hand on her shoulder.
She sniffed, wiped at her eyes, and nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. It’s… it’s been a long day.”
He studied her. “Do you need anything? Maybe I can find one of the doctors…”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
She got to her feet and moved away, not looking back.
According to QuIEK, there was a sky bridge on this floor that led to the building across the way. She found it and moved as quickly as she dared. And when she reached the other building, she crossed through to the far side before going to the ground level.
Once she was out on the street, a car pulled up.
“Alex?” the driver asked.
She hesitated, alarmed but not sure yet what to do.
“Who… who’s asking?” She couldn’t think of a better question.
“I’m Afshar,” the driver said. “I’m your Uber.”
It took her by surprise. She hadn’t set up an Uber. She hadn’t even been thinking about it.
QuIEK must have anticipated she’d need a way out of there.
She’d given it that directive, in the simplest terms. Find the fastest way out of here. It must have determined that this as the only way she was going to get away from the scene in a hurry, without being spotted. And it had handled details like this for her so often now, it must have defaulted to what it knew—the solution that was easiest to implement.
Or… was it more than that?
She climbed into the backseat. The car pulled out and wove its way into traffic. She checked her phone and saw that the destination was one of her stashes. There would be a change of clothes, among other items. And there was already another car scheduled a few blocks away, an easy walk that kept her in a low profile.
It was a bit baffling, but she couldn’t deny it. QuIEK had taken it upon itself to plan not only an escape route, but a waypoint for getting herself back in check, and a second car to get her further away from the scene. All without her input.
She’d have to look into that, later. See what it meant, if anything, in terms of the evolution of her AI software. For the past few years she’d been tinkering under the hood, refining code, adding complexity. She’d taught QuIEK a lot of new tricks, especially around the imperative of keeping her out of the hands of the authorities. Maybe that had paid off in ways that Kayne hadn’t anticipated.
For now, though, she put QuIEK to work on a different task. A grimmer purpose.
She was going to find whoever shot Eric Symon.
And she was going to kill them.