Vol. III Chapter 7 “Jack of diamonds.” (Part 2 of 2)

Shaw helped Ava to the gurney behind the curtain. He extended the arm rest and took his position. Medical equipment had been laid out on the metal work surface. The electric blue, Ultracite core on a tray held by Ellen. Burton stood by a terminal, the cylindrical disposal canister for the used core within reach.

"Alright," Burton accessed the device of his own design on the child's arm, displaying the real time medical data on the terminal. "Pulse and bp stable. Alpha brainwaves detected, she's very calm. Retracting access panel." He typed a command on the terminal and the panel on the underside of Ava's pipboy retracted.

Shaw turned on his stool and took the forceps from the medical tray. "Core looks undamaged. Extracting." He gripped the core in the forceps and glanced across. Burton gave him a nod, Shaw twisted the core and pulled it free. Burton held the disposal canister while Shaw reached over.

The spent core slid into place, Burton snapped the lid shut, twisting it so the mechanism separated the primer and core within. He set it down and waited until the light turned green. "Core is safe, prep the new one."

Ellen stepped to the foot of the gurney, carrying the Ultracite core on a surgical tray. Shaw stood to grasp it with the forceps. Burton glanced at the medical display. "Theta and beta wave oscillation." Burton had a questioning tone that stopped the procedure dead. Something's wrong, he thought, getting lost in the possible causes.

"Burton, Burton!" Shaw growled, trying to get a reply. "What does it mea—" Suddenly Ava screamed. Her eyes went wide with terror. She convulsed and bucked. Kicking the tray from Ellen's grip sending the core flying across the lab, smashing glassware and clattering off a table. Ava kept screaming.

"Burton sedate her! Ellen find that core!" Shaw took charge, shouting over the screaming child. Thinking fast, he stuffed a roll of bandages in her mouth and did his best to hold her down. "Ava, it's ok, it's going to be ok." Somehow he sounded calm. Burton grabbed a syringe, pinned down a writhing leg and stuck Ava in the thigh. It didn't do anything.

"Ellen!" Burton yelled as he prepped another syringe.

"Almost..." He could hear her banging around, trying to reach the core. "Got it!" Ellen bounded over, holding the core in her bare and bleeding hand.

"Hold her still!" Shaw barked, leaning his weight onto the still screaming girl's arm. He managed to slam the core in and twist it. Ava went limp.

 "Pulse is...normal." Shaw used his hand, Burton checked the terminal.

"Everything's in the green, she's out." Burton didn't understand.

"Is she ok?" Ellen asked, still bleeding. "What the fuck was that?"

"Pain." Shaw looked lost in an unpleasant memory for a moment, before starting to treat Ellen's cuts.

"I need to think." Burton put data on four monitors, sat down, and began sliding between them. He almost felt grateful for the distraction. It felt better than thinking about what he'd done to the children.

Hours passed as Burton worked. Trying to understand what happened, why, and most importantly how to stop it happening again. The smell of cigarette smoke broke his concentration. Shaw pushed a chair with his foot, inviting Burton to take a break. He found a fresh mug of coffee waiting for him.

"Pulled some glass from Ellen's arm. Put in a dozen or so stitches, she'll be fine." Shaw tried to sound positive, but it irked Burton.

"So will Ava." Burton snapped. He lit his cigarette and softened his tone. "I mean she is fine. Like nothing happened." He slid back over to a monitor and brought up an event log. "Do you remember when she tried to skate down that bannister?"

"Popped her shoulder back in myself." Shaw stared at the sedated child. "Brave little Ava."

"This is the moment it happened." Burton pointed to a graph with one large spike in the middle. "This is what happened tonight." He tapped a key and the graph changed to one filled with huge spikes.

"Jesus." Shaw turned from the monitors. "What did we miss Burton?"

"We didn't miss anything." He felt the generosity of Shaw's words, but this was on him. "We didn't miss anything…" For a moment Burton felt the rush of an idea. "But there was something missing." He began typing, focused on nothing else.

"Burton." He felt a tap on his shoulder, Shaw had been trying to get his attention. "I'm going to check on Ellen and grab a book. Do you want anything?"

"No, thanks." Burton saw that he'd misunderstood something as Shaw paused.

"So you'll keep an eye on her." Shaw helped him.

"Yeah, of course." He glanced over to Ava. Still sleeping behind the surgical screen, then he put her vitals on the next monitor.

Burton felt an answer coming into focus and tried not to enjoy it. Knowing the cost of this unexpected discovery. As Burton worked a sound began to creep over the ambient hum of recirculating fans. He dismissed the drip as another leak. Until it grew louder, becoming a pour. He turned and saw red, splattered across the white surgical screen.

"Ava!" Burton darted from his chair, rounded the curtain, and froze in shock. Ava sat up on the bed, biting down on gauze to keep from yelling out. She'd taken a scalpel from the medical kit, and had begun hacking through the flesh on her left arm, just above the pipboy.

Blood gushed from the bone deep wound with every stroke, spattering onto the polished resin floor. "I want it off! Get it off me!" Ava screamed as Burton wrestled her arms apart, covering his lab coat in red. "Ava calm down! It's going to be alright I promise!" Blood seeped through his grip as he tried to put pressure on the wound, trying to keep his balance on the slick floor. Ava yelped and thrashed for what felt longer than the few minutes it took Shaw to return.

With a well trained calm he took charge. He stuck a needle in her thigh and pushed the plunger. Ava's strength ebbed away and she slumped back. "Let me in." Shaw stepped behind Burton. "Move." Blood poured from the wound. "Clotting powder." Burton tore a green packet with his teeth and tipped it onto the cut. Ava twisted and groaned, but Burton held her down. After another syringe in the thigh, she finally passed out.

"She cut to the bone." Shaw peered over his glasses to make eye contact, before looking back down at the first stitch he'd put in Ava's arm. "I told you to watch her." His tone stayed calm, his hands steady. Burton felt Shaw wanting to yell, yet chose this moment because he couldn't.

"I didn't...I had her vitals…" Every response Burton found seemed like a weak excuse. "I'm sorry." He looked at Ava, thankfully out cold. "I never thought she'd do something like this."

"Neither did I." Shaw's anger seemed to deflate, leaving only sadness. "Did you find any answers?"

"I'm close to something." Again his eyes fell to Ava, traces of blood still on her pale face. "It'll be too late to help her." Burton felt his guilt rise like bile in his throat. Shaw tied off the last stitch and snipped the suture. He let out a deep breath and finally sat back. "There might be something we can do for her."

Burton went back to his terminal, focusing on what he could do, instead of what he should have done. Shaw moved anything remotely sharp to the other side of the room and mopped the floor. Then he sat by Ava's bed, reading aloud from a book.

"I have something." Burton felt useful for the first time in hours. Shaw glanced over Ava and stepped away. "The nano filament grafts are conductive, they function as an upgraded nervous system. Without power it's supposed to go dormant, inert." Burton clicked the screen to show Ava's med data.

"This is the moment we pulled the core." Burton continued. The human shaped map of nerves erupted into red. "Pain is data. It's signals moving to the brain. The filament is supposed to transmit the data to the device. No device, no signals, no pain." Burton clicked to a close up of a brain in agony. "Instead, the signals got sent back to the brain." He didn't want to imagine how that felt.

"What does that mean?" Shaw asked after a pause.

"It means the device exceeded its mandate." Burton could tell Shaw didn't grasp the implications. "It means the system, the device, attempted to access another processor so it could remain active."

"What does that mean?" Shaw grew impatient. The night's events pushing at his stoic demeanour.

"It made a choice. It fought to stay ali…" Burton stopped himself, choosing a better word. "Active."

"Isn't that what the emergency protocols are for?" Shaw knew the system well, but this went beyond that.

"Except this wasn't an emergency. Not for Ava." Burton watched Shaw grow wide eyed. "It made a choice that benefited itself."

"What do we do next?" Shaw put the revelation aside, focusing on moving forward. Burton envied that.

"I've developed a countermeasure protocol. A series of coded strobe lights to induce a seizure. It'll overload the subject's brain, prevent any signals being received." Burton felt a hint of the detached scientist return over the last few hours. He clung to it. "This will also lead to a suggestible, postictal state so we can keep the subject calm and administer sedatives."

"Good." Shaw still seemed troubled.

"This won't happen again." The scientific certainty brought a measure of comfort. Burton waited for more questions. To his surprise none came. Instead Shaw walked back to Ava, perching on a table near the foot of the gurney.

"Too late for brave little Ava."

"With the system fully active I was able to access the eidetic recall functions. I wiped the last six hours." Burton had designed the function for exactly this type of traumatic memory. "She won't remember cutting herself." That felt like a scratch compared to the reason she'd taken such drastic action.

"There's something we used in the field. Snatch a target, dose them, they'd forget what happened and we could fill in the blanks." Shaw seemed uneasy. "It worked too. We usually told them their boss gave them up and they believed it. Most of the time."

"And the rest of time?" Burton felt like a hypocrite.

"Heart attacks, strokes. One guy died outright. But these were men our age." Shaw turned from Ava, letting out a deep sigh.

"What was it called?" Sodium amytal and hydroxybutyric acid, he thought, making an educated guess.

"I don't know, we just called it a forget-me-shot." Shaw tapped out a command on his pipboy. "I'm sure it's in my files, I've given you clearance." Shaw returned to his seat by Ava, opening the book but not reading it.

Bunsen burners heated round bottom flasks. Vapours cooled and dripped down spiral glass tubes. An hour later Burton had prepared the compound. He tied a rubber tube around her thin, undamaged arm and waited for a vein to pop.

"Do you think she'll forgive us?" Shaw asked. Another night sat by the bed of a sick child had wore him down.

"I don't see why she would." Burton pushed the plunger. "I don't see why any of them would."

Burton kept busy over the next few hours. Shaw didn't move from Ava's side. Burton felt like he couldn't be trusted.

"Burton." Shaw called out. "Morning Ava, it's alright, you're in the lab." Shaw had a reassuring tone.

"Morning Sir." She sounded groggy and tried to move her restrained arm. "What..water please." Shaw held the plastic cup and straw he had ready. He waited for her to finish gulping down the water. "What happened?

"What's the last thing you remember?" Shaw asked, watching her intently. Ava paused for a moment.

"I was in class." She began to look worried.

"It's alright, that's normal." Burton added, hoping his position as the defacto doctor and clean white lab coat would reinforce the lie. "We carried out the activation procedure you were briefed on last night. We gave you something to help you sleep so we could monitor you. Around o'three hundred you got up to go to the bathroom, but you tripped, knocked over some glassware and fell onto the shards." Ava's eyes began to fill with tears.

"You cut your arm pretty good and banged your head." Shaw unstrapped her arm but didn't let her move it. "You'll be fine, stitched and stimmed your arm myself. Should leave a gnarly looking scar." She let out a half laugh that became a whimper. "Few days bed rest and no boarding for a month." Ava pouted. "Fine, two weeks." Shaw smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry Ava." Burton couldn't help himself. Shaw scowled at him, worried at what he might say next. "I should have been watching you, I should have cleared the lab." Coward, Burton thought to himself, using selective truth to lie to a child an attempt to ease his guilt.

"That's alright sir, accidents happen I guess." Ava smiled at him. It felt like a dagger in his heart.

"Who's hungry?" Ellen appeared with Ava's favourite breakfast cereal on a tray, breaking the awkward silence.

"What happened?!" She rushed to Ava's bandaged arm.

"I tripped and knocked over some glass, no big deal, doesn't even hurt." Ava's response didn't convince Ellen, but she knew better than to question it. For Ava's sake if nothing else.

"I'll be back in a few hours to change your dressing, if you need anything, have Ellen call us." Shaw left and Burton followed. The door hissed shut, Shaw strode past the windows, then slumped against the wall. "You know, I thought I was done waiting up all night by a hospital bed."

"You are." Burton wanted to set his friend's mind at ease. Shaw always kept to the mission, despite everything, but seeing a child in such pain seemed to shake his resolve. "We'll keep her in observation for a day or two, then we'll start…" He trailed off, seeing Shaw couldn't think about putting another one of the children through another procedure. "You should get some rest."

"I'm going to. So should you." Shaw headed for the residences, while Burton made an excuse to linger outside the lab. He wasn't going to sleep. His mind raced with possibilities. Deep in the code he wrote something had shifted, and he didn't know what.