37

Nolan had been walking for a good twenty minutes up a steep hill until he leaned against a fence to rest. His thighs were on fire as the exercise had been more than what he was used to, but this out of the way hospital was quite the journey. St. Markus Mary was a veterans hospital so it was located on the edge of town rather than in the heart of the city.

It has been founded by Buddhist monks rather than a Franciscan order so it was badly in the need of more money and better management. The ceiling tiles in the walkway to the hospital were caving in. A Tibetan monk on a ladder gave him a toothless grin as he wondered if the dude was qualified to be doing pipe work. The waiting room was crowded with screaming children running around and throwing toys while older women with wrinkled foreheads knitted away with thick headphones. It smelled like sweat and strangely of turmeric.

It was one of the strangest hospitals he had visited by far, but a quick Google Search had revealed that the hospital was way ahead of others in New York City for using a hybrid of eastern and western medicine. Many of the country's top research scientists had trained there. As he took a number and sat, he thought to himself, maybe it was due to the huge refugee population living close by which from the applications being filled out near him were over enthusiastic about participating in free research studies.

Nolan watched as patients began to dwindle around him. He kept asking around if people knew who Dr. Wu was, but no one knew enough English to understand him. Finally an African woman cradling two babies nodded and said, "That doctor is very hard to find."

Nolan looked at her in shock, "I need to see her. It's very urgent."

An old monk with a mold on his thinning bald head with decaying teeth pointed in the direction of the open doctors' offices door. "She'll be someone in there. You know that is where they all live in work. Very good lady. She helps me. I saw her today eating outside before she went inside."

Nolan nodded slowly and gathering his courage as it seemed Dr. Wu was a rather open person walked into the corridor with doctor's offices. There was a security tag on the side of the door but it was already ajar even though the light was red. It took Nolan a couple minutes to find the office he was looking for. The door was unlocked so he pushed it open and found two maroon waiting chairs unoccupied so he sat down. The office was uncomfortably cold with every perceivable surface covered in books other than the two chairs. There were towers of books reaching the ceiling with the titles facing the rolling chair next to the plain wooden desk. There were little black stallion ornaments wedged between books that would have looked nice without the the space they occupied being invaded. There were binders with overflowing patient report next to a monitor glowing with an anatomical screensaver. There was a duffel bag in the doctor's chair open showing a wrap dress wrapped around a pair of running shorts.

It was the most messy room he had ever been in. Nolan sighed to himself. He hoped the doctor he had taken all this effort to find, was as brilliant as Dr. Amrati had said.

After an hour of playing a game on his phone, Nolan's laboratory tendencies to maintain order took over and he began to straighten the books by author and subject. A bloody pair of gloves were found shoved into the bottom desk drawer which upon opening the door Nolan nearly retched. She was disgusting enough to have a whole metal drawer full of dried blood. He filled the trash can.

After sterilizing the now empty drawer, he filled it with all the odd surgery tubes and scalpels which were in their plastic packaging. He remembered how Ellie hated when he tidied her car garage of tools, he made sure to take notice of the order where everything was kept so everything was not completely shifted, just straightened. After he finished setting up the whole office, he could actually see the whitewash of the walls behind the books and Dr. Wu's certificates on the walls.

He was trying to figure out the name of the school by googling the names on the certificate when a clearing of the throat caused him to turn to see a tall thin woman lounging in the doorway. Her scrubs were covered in wet fluids -- a mixture of yellow and read that looked as if her own organs were falling out of her stomach. She looked at him darkly brandishing the bone saw to the juncture at his neck.