Nadean burst from the room as the monitor beeped,“ DOCTOR DURANT!” she yelled as she ran down the hall, “Has any one seen Doctor Durant?” one of the other nurses, sitting at the desk pointed down the hall, as she looked up sleepily from the computer node, suddenly more alert as she saw Nadean’s flush face.
“I think he was heading home for the morning Nade, What’s wro..”
Nadean didn’t hesitate as she dashed down the hall towards the faculty parking lot. She was wishing under her breath that she could stop him in time. IT was a miracle; she sang as her heard beat wildly in her breast. Running as fast as her crocs would carry her down the vacant halls of the hospital. She turned out the door and stopped, swinging her head side to side as she looked for Durant’s car, “NO, NO, NO!” she screamed as she stomped her foot.
“Nadean?” a dry voice said from behind her.
She turned on her heel as looked back towards the door, there leaning against the white stucco was Dr. Monty Durant. A thin clean-shaven man with heavy eyes and a soft southern drawl. He seemed entertained as he looked at Nadean, a tight smile on his face as he held his coffee.
Nadean glared at him for a moment as she collected herself, “You can’t leave.” She said almost breathlessly, “The boy… in room 406... there was a reading on his monitor.”
Monty pursed his lips as he absorbed Nadean’s words, but he didn’t move. He simply tilted his head side to side. He could see that the nurse was waiting on him to do something. He thumbed his personal node, marking the time and grunted, “2:42 Am…Huh…What kind of reading was it?” he said then took a long drink from his styrofoam cup. Though he didn’t feel much concern, he knew that there was a data patch coming though tonight, so a false positive wouldn’t be out of the norm. For the last three years he had been dealing with newbie nurses jumping at every bright light on the node monitors. It was frustrating but, where else could he work with such cutting-edge medical technology.
“Sustained cognitive synchronicity!” Nadean half shouted, clear excitement dancing in her eyes, “Nancy is still monitoring the pati…!”
As she said the words, Monty felt his jaw fall slack, his cup slipping from his hand as he turned in the door and began to run down the hall, his boots slapping against the floor echoing through the night. Nadean didn’t miss a beat and was right behind him. Monty felt a surge of energy fill his worn body, adrenaline and something else… something he thought long since retired from his vocabulary… he felt… Hope...”
He thundered into the quiet room where Nancy sat monitoring the node that projected from the desk. The nurse jumping from her seat as Monty stormed in, breathless and wild-eyed. He hurried to the terminal and began to read the collapsed chart clusters, and there among the clusters of collapsed widgets was the one monitor that had never truly served a function. The Cerebral-hypervirtual-excitement monitor, there was a steady wave slowly moving across the small widgets surface. Monty could feel his heart beating in his neck as he reached forward and tapped the widget expanding the information to view the chart. Instantly there was another panel opened and it was filled with prompts “What the hell is this?” he said under his breath.
Stolen novel; please report.
{Directive Achieved}[Subject: Patient 0001} Last: ERROR First: ERROR
Data Entry: Confidential
Access Denied
B/P: 70/100
O2 saturation: 98%
Connection: Stable[Tremor]
E-kosat: 100%
Neural Net Map: 100%
Metabolism[Suppression]: 40%
ACTIVE BODY Net: Limited: Require Admin Action
Notes: 428761-562-889756*42 Achieved
Admin: Rkronis-42- system activation- INITIALIZING
“Where the hell is the patient information?” Monty said sharply as he turned to Nancy, “Never mind... continue to monitor the, I’ll be back…” Monty waved his hand as he turned and clopped out of the room yelling as he went, “I need to contact the technical department,” Suddenly he stopped and turned to Nadean who had followed him partially out of the room, “Copy all data from this node and bring it to my office, I need to and stop the overhaul.”
Nadean watched as Monty flew down the hall towards his office, his boots still slapping against the stark white floor. She looked back to Nancy who had resumed her place at the desk in front of the monitors, “He does realize that all the information is cached in his office doesn’t he?” She said with uncertainty.
Nancy looked up from the monitors with bloodshot eyes, “What do you expect? He’s a doctor…” With that one liner she returned to her duty of monitoring the patient and fell silent.
Nadean stifled a giggle as she thumbed her own personal node and requested the data from the terminal and watched as Nancy purposefully paused and glanced at her with sardonic contempt, arching an eyebrow wryly as her finger fell on the confirmation key.
“WHAT NOW!” Nancy shrieked as she began to furiously swipe at the various monitor screens.
Nadean joined Nancy at the desk and saw a series of red warnings and screen locks. “What’s going on?”
“Its locking us all out!” Nancy shrieked as she rushed out of the room and dashed down the hall to the cell. She slammed the door open and hurried to the pedestal and accessed the data, her fingers flew across the access screen, her breaths coming short and sharp as she cursed under her breath, “Shit, Shit, shit, shit.”
Nadean watched helplessly as the senior nurse cursed and typed furiously. She watched as the screen Nancy was viewing flashed black and lines of code shot across the screen, various subroutine boxes opened and closed as loading bars finished and then a single line scrolled across the black screen.
Program Optimized: INITILIZING…
“GET THE DOCTOR!” Nancy bellowed as she looked at Nadean, “HE NEEDS ..”
Nadean didn’t wait, she turned and dashed towards Dr. Durant’s office. As she dashed by the other doors, she could hear the same warnings and guessed that the entire system was affected by what ever was happening. “What did it mean?” Nadean screamed in her mind as she approached the door to Durant’s office. She burst in and what she saw took her back. There were dozens of holo-screens flashing, and Monty was screaming at someone over his node as he darted from screen to screen.
“I don’t give a rats ass what it takes Clyde!” Durant screamed as he continued to type furiously, “What do you mean you’ve been locked out! HOW THE FUCK IS THE IT DEPARTMENT LOCKED… NO.. DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!”
Nadean stepped into the office and felt utterly invisible amidst the chaos and noise, “DOCTOR!” she screamed drawing Durant’s attention. He looked to the door with wild eyes as he held up a single finger.
“CLYDE, FIGURE THIS OUT NOW!” Monty slapped the node on his wrist then rabidly swiped his hand through the air shutting down all the screens. He suddenly looked haggard and worn as he looked back to Nadean, “What is it now?” The words fell from his lips and into the strange silence that taken over the office.
“Nancy is locked out of the…”
“We all are Nadean.” Monty said flatly as he leaned forward, pressing his clenched fists against the cool surface of his desk. His sandy blond hair falling over his face as he whispered, “what is going on…”