I lay my head back, trying to remember to breathe. I tell myself that there’s nothing I can do, that I have to let Finkler work.
“Goddamn it,” he says, talking more to himself than to me. “Stupid thing. Keeps slipping.”
More gunshots ring out, closer this time, like they’re coming from inside the hospital. “Please hurry,” I say, clenching my teeth so hard that my jaw twinges. It helps keep the lightness in my head at bay.
“Sorry. Never done this before. Artery, I mean.”
I hear running footsteps, and tilt my head back to see people sprinting past the door, yelling at each other. A face appears in the doorway. Eric. His eyes are dancing, alive with the heat of battle.
“How’re we doing?” Finkler says, without looking up.
In response, Eric swings away from the door, letting off a round of shots at someone we can’t see.
A moment later, he strides into the room, then reaches around behind his back and pulls out a handgun.
I’m so wired that, for a moment, I’m convinced he’s going to shoot me. But he just holds it out to Finkler, who gestures at him to put it on the table.
“They’re coming in from all sides,” Eric says. “We have to split our defences. You see anybody come in that’s not us, shoot them.”
“Got it.”
“There are too many of them. They must have been lying low, camped somewhere we couldn’t see.”
“Got it.”
“We’re going to hold this corridor, but they’re coming in from everywhere, and we don’t have nearly enough people. If we—”
“I said I got it, Eric! I’m working here!” Finkler waves him away. Eric vanishes, exploding out of the door, loosing off another volley of shots.
Finkler keeps operating. He’s working with stitches now–I can feel the thread jerking through my artery. I try not to imagine what it looks like. The anaesthetic is still there, but the pain is winning, hot and sharp, shooting up from the wound.
It isn’t enough to hold off the fogginess in my mind.
There’s a shout from the doorway. My eyes fly open to see Finkler grabbing the gun, loosing off two quick shots. The bangs are enormous, and the shots ricochet off the corridor wall. I have just enough time to see a shadow there before it vanishes, ducking out of sight.
“Yeah!” Finkler shouts. I look over to him, in time to see a fresh spurt of blood jet up from the wound.
He sees it, too, and his brow furrows. “Here,” he says, holding the gun out to me.
I take it in one shaking hand. It’s heavier than the stingers we had on Outer Earth, the surface slimy with oil.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say.
“It’s easy,” he says, raising a scalpel. “You point it at someone and pull the trigger. Bang.”
“I know how a damn gun works!” I say, shouting the last three words as the anaesthetic gives way, a shrieking pain blasting up from my thigh.
“Sorry,” Finkler mutters. He doesn’t stop, using his teeth to hold the end of the thread. His arms are soaked in my blood. I don’t know how much I’ve lost already, and I really don’t want to think about it.
I keep my eyes on the door. I have to tilt my head back to look at it, so it’s upside down. “How will I know who to shoot?” I say, tasting sweat.
“What?” Finkler is barely listening.
“What if I shoot one of your guys?”
A second later, a Nomad comes through the door, and I realise that that’s not a mistake I’m going to make.
The man is tall, with pale skin and lank dreadlocks. He wears a sleeveless T-shirt and torn pants. At first, I think his face is scarred, but then I see that it’s paint: long slashes of it, red and grey, curving around his nose and mouth.
He has a gun, long-barrelled, battle-scarred, around his neck on a sling. He leads with it, kicking open the door and flying into the operating theatre. For a second, he’s brought up short, not expecting to find an operation in progress.
One second is all I need.
I raise the gun and fire, not thinking, not wanting to think. I pull the trigger again and again. The kick from the weapon nearly takes my head off. My view is upside down, and my wooziness makes it tough to aim: two bullets go wide, but the third finds its mark, tearing away half of the man’s neck. He goes down, full ragdoll, spinning as he hits the floor.
“Jesus!”
Finkler ducked when I fired, pulling the scalpel out of the wound. The pain rockets through me, delayed by my adrenaline but finally shooting home, and I let loose an animal cry. The air is thick with the smell of gunpowder.
Finkler gets back up, wiping his forehead, staring down at the wound. “Shit. I think I sliced a muscle.”
“What?” The word is almost a shriek.
“No, hang on. It’s fine. I just have to be careful.” I feel Finkler’s fingers in the wound, opening it further. “Hang on… got it. There. Artery’s patched up. No harm done. We’re fine.”
He’s barely finished speaking when another Nomad bursts into the room. This one is even more terrifying–his head is shaven, and the paint goes right over the top of his skull, as if his head is some kind of ancient totem. He’s bare-chested, and he’s already raising his gun.
I raise mine faster. I fire once. Twice. Both bullets go wide. I pull the trigger again, and the gun clicks empty.
The Nomad grins, takes a step forward. His eyes move from me to Finkler. He lets his gun drop, and takes a wicked-looking knife out of his belt. Its blade is long, slightly curved, the edge notched and gouged. Smart, I think, not wanting to but doing it anyway. He doesn’t want to waste ammo.
I hurl the gun at the Nomad. It’s a last-ditch move, awkward from my position, and it doesn’t even come close to hitting him. Finkler cries out–a high, warbling yell. But he doesn’t move away from the table. Instead, he moves around it, trying to shield me.
The Nomad smiles, sauntering towards us, taking his time.
The room swims in front of me. I blink, and there’s something around the man’s neck. It’s a rifle, and behind it is Harlan, yanking it backwards, pulling tight.
The Nomad grunts, tries to fight him off. He’s strong, and when he wrenches his body to the side, Harlan is lifted clean off his feet. He screams, but refuses to let go, pulling the top of the rifle into the man’s throat.
I will myself to move, but it’s as if my mind is no longer attached to my body. I don’t know if it’s the fever or the blood loss. I can’t do anything but watch.
The Nomad reaches behind him, slamming his fist into the side of Harlan’s head, who lets go, tumbling away. But the Nomad is focused on Harlan, and he doesn’t see Finkler lunge forward, doesn’t even realise he’s there until the scalpel is buried in the side of his neck.
His knife clatters to the floor. It’s the last thing I hear before I sink into oblivion.