'I just got in. The new guy, Johnny? He said that my office won't be ready until tomorrow.' She smiled and sat down on my couch. Offices really need a couch. I've spent many all-nighters working and catching catnaps every now and then on it. I've caught Jim and 'Becca on it a time or two also. Uh, I mean I caught them one at a time— not together—although I have recently noticed some chemistry going on there.
'How did it go in D.C.?' I asked.
'Not sure. But let's keep on plugging and figure out how to do the experiment. We'll get it flown somehow.'
All of a sudden a crash—no, more like an explosion—came from the clean room. Then I heard Jim.
'Call 911!' he was screaming.
Tabitha and I bolted to the airlock door where we found Jim walking Rebecca to the kitchen. Her left arm from the elbow down was covered in blood and her hand was mangled severely and coated with glass fragments. She was shaking but not making a sound. When the cold water hit her hand she collapsed to the floor.
Johnny came around the corner, 'What the hell was tha—' He fainted when he saw Rebecca's hand. Obviously, medic isn't one of the things on his resume. Tabitha put a cushion from one of the chairs under 'Becca's head. I immediately propped her feet up and held her arm over her head as well.
'We gotta stop this bleeding now!' Jim screamed.
'Calm down Jim!' Tabitha barked. 'Get the first-aid kit!'
'Doc, we never replaced it after we lost it in Tsali when we went mountain biking up there, remember!' Jim looked frantic.
'Then get me a couple of towels. Fast!'
Johnny came to, 'What can I do to help?'
'Go get the car and pull it around front.' I told him. Looking back at 'Becca's hand once the blood flow had slowed some, I realized that her ring finger was missing and there were hundreds of shards of glass sticking out of her arm. The missing finger wasn't bleeding that badly, but the ugly gouges that the glass had made were bleeding profusely. I looked at Tabitha. She saw and only nodded back at me. Jim returned with the towels.
'Jim hold her arm up like this! I'll be right back.' I grabbed a sandwich bag out of the cabinet and headed for the clean room.
There was nothing left of the vacuum chamber and there were glass fragments all around where it used to be.
'What the hell happened in here?!' After a minute or so I found her finger inside the remains of the vacuum chamber glove. It had been severed cleanly, most likely by a large piece of glass. I held the bottom of the sandwich bag and turned it inside out so my hand was on the inside (or outside rather) of the bag. I picked up the finger and turned the bag right side out and zipped it.
By the time I returned Tabitha had 'Becca's arm wrapped in the towels and 'Becca had regained consciousness. She was calm, everthing considered—she was probably in shock. Jim on the other hand, was nuts. They were getting her upright and on her way to the car.
'We're close enough to the hospital that we can have her there in ten minutes or less,' I told them. Johnny was apparently out in the car waiting. I found the twelve-pack cooler under the sink and ran to the refrigerator. Once I was sure there was enough ice in the cooler I placed the sandwich bag in it and closed it up. I also grabbed my laptop on the way out.
'Johnny get us to the hospital safely. You understand me?'
'No problem, I just don't want to see the blood,' Johnny replied.
I sat in the front and Tabitha, Jim, and 'Becca were in the back seat. We made 'Becca lie down with her head in Tabitha's lap and her feet in Jim's. Jim continued to hold her arm up. 'Becca was fairly catatonic.
I popped open my laptop, pulled up my duckbill antenna, and logged onto the Internet. I punched in the Huntsville Emergency Room online service. I adjusted the camera lens of my laptop to see me. A person wearing scrubs appeared on the other end and asked how they could help. After explaining the situation and putting 'Becca in the camera's field of view they took us a little more seriously. I told him our ETA was about fifteen minutes tops.
'What is her heart-rate?'
Tabitha was way ahead of me. 'It is about sixty-nine beats per minute.'
'How much blood loss has there been?' He seemed concerned. I realized part of the problem.
'I forgot to mention that she is very athletic and her resting heart-rate is probably much lower than that.' I often get double-takes in the doctor's office when they take my pulse. Why are Americans so out of shape that when somebody isn't it's a surprise? The doctor/nurse whatever he is on the other end seemed to relax slightly.
'She's lost a considerable amount of blood. And there are glass fragments imbedded throughout her arm.' Jim shouted over my shoulder.
The doctor, as it turns out, stayed online with us all the way to the door of the emergency room. When I told him we were pulling into the hospital he signed off and met us at the door. It must have been a slow day. He and an orderly helped us get 'Becca out of the car. By this time the towels were dripping wet with blood and 'Becca was getting very weak. We got 'Becca and the cooler with her appendage in it on a stretcher and they rolled her off. Jim tried to explain the accident but he had no idea why the nanotech chamber exploded. Most likely it imploded first. Tabitha had gotten Rebecca's purse and we rummaged through her wallet until we found her insurance card. Once the clerk had swiped 'Becca's card through the machine, there was nothing we could do but wait.
'Should we call her parents or anything?' Johnny asked.
'Well, she never knew who her dad was and her mom died when she was in high school. We're really all she has as far as family goes.'
