“Help me up, and I’ll be okay,” Ashton averred.
The two detectives, plus one of the beat cops, levered Ashton to his feet as the others went to delay the IPD officers.
Then the slidewalk came on and they jogged along it for the near archway and the commuter train station beyond.
Roger was in a bad way. The oldest cop had hit him in the arm, and Carter had hit him in the belly. He was bleeding badly, but he pulled a kerchief out of a pocket and stuffed it into the wound, trying not to scream in pain. He figured if he could get home, he could get help…but he had to avoid bleeding out along the way.
He hobbled for the maintenance exit as fast as he could manage.
Demetrius commandeered a car on the commuter train, ensured the security monitor was killed, and he and Gorski eased Ashton into a train seat.
“All right, let’s see,” Gorski demanded.
“Aw, I’m doing better now,” Ashton protested, even as Gorski and Demetrius stripped him of his jacket and tie. “It’s just gonna bruise.”
“I want to make sure you don’t have any internal injuries,” Demetrius insisted. “The shock wave from the impact can still cause injury – even death – even if the bullet doesn’t penetrate, Nick.”
“I know, I…” Ashton broke off, then sighed, and began stripping off his shirt and upper body armor. The other two men hissed.
“Gonna bruise?” Gorski echoed. “More like already has. Damn, Nick.”
There was a big purple-blue-black blotch on Ashton’s right chest, running roughly across his lower breast. Ashton wrinkled his nose in a displeased scowl.
“Shit,” was all he said.
“Can you breathe okay?” Demetrius wondered. “Any sharp pains when you inhale or exhale?”
“Not particularly,” Ashton decided after a moment to check. He took a deep breath. “I mean – urg. That hurt. Not sharp, just, you know, bruised.”
“Probably even bruised some of the ribs, Gene,” Gorski suggested.
“Yeah. Could be some green breaks in there, though. Maybe we need to get this looked at, son,” Demetrius said.
“But the Sandman!”
“Can wait until we make sure you’re going to be okay,” Gorski pointed out. “He never went after another victim until the first one had died, anyway. We have some time, here. Not much, but enough. You have lungs, heart, liver, and pancreas all in the general vicinity of that hit, and any or all could have been damaged by the shock of the impact. And any one of those could be bad.”
“The damn assassin must have been hot loading,” Demetrius muttered. “That handgun gotta have had a hell of a kick.”
“Hope it kicks him straight to hell,” Gorski cursed.
Notifying Colonel Peterson of the attack in a VR message, the trio rode the commuter train to their stop, which was IUS Imperial Center. They promptly escorted Ashton to the nearest hospital, which happened to be the Imperial University’s teaching hospital – which was often the one used by Imp City police, in any case. They took him straight into the emergency room entrance, showed their credentials, explained what had happened, and escorted Ashton alongside the nurses as they immediately took him back to a currently-available ER physician.
Half an hour later, and after Ashton had been scanned and x-rayed ninety-nine ways from Sunday, Dr. Anita Brand pronounced him more or less intact.
“He does have some rib bruising, and the muscular hematoma is epic,” she declared. “And I’m sure there is some trauma to the lung, and maybe a bit to the liver. I don’t see any heart problems; the bullet must have struck at an angle. Don’t be surprised if you have some pain when you breathe for a few days, and don’t be surprised if your bowel movements turn rather yellowish, or even greenish, for about a week. Oh, and expect some diarrhea.”
“Bile?” Demetrius asked.
“Exactly, from the liver bruising,” Dr. Brand confirmed. “It could even cause some digestive issues, because a large bile dump can seem to burn its way through your gut, so I’d recommend a low-fat, bland diet for a few days to avoid generating an even larger bile dump.”
“Um, okay,” Ashton murmured. “Can I put my shirt on now?”
“I’d like to pad that bruise a little, first,” Brand recommended. “It would probably feel better. And I’ll prescribe some topicals and a few things to speed up the healing, especially if we can get the nanites revved and working on it. I want you to watch out for a while, though, and don’t dislodge any clots.”
“Huh?”
“Bruises are clots forming under the skin,” Brand explained to the young man. “It’s the body’s way of stopping the subcutaneous bleeding. But you don’t want to dislodge one and have it float through your circulatory system. If it gets wedged someplace – the heart, the brain, the kidneys, the lungs, the retinas – well, it’s just a very bad situation, and it can be fatal, depending on where it gets stuck.”
“Oh,” Ashton said, suddenly realizing. “Stroke, heart attack…”
“Pulmonary embolism, blindness, kidney failure, yeah,” Brand said. “All that nasty shit.”
“So we need to keep his heart rate and blood pressure down, too, right?” Gorski asked. “Does he need to go on medical leave?”
“Mm,” Brand considered. “He’s a detective, right?”
“Right,” Demetrius said, before Ashton could correct the physician’s terminology.
“Normally we come in after something has happened, not while it’s happening,” Gorski explained.
“Do you need him for a case?”
Demetrius, Gorski, and Ashton exchanged considering glances.
“Do you remember the Sandman murders, about ten years ago?” Demetrius wondered.
“Oh hell yeah,” Brand said, expression twisting in disgust, then she started and stared at them, horror-stricken. “Don’t tell me that bastard is back?”
“Yup,” Gorski sighed.
“What, did he come after you guys?”
“No, this is an old enemy,” Ashton said; it was his turn to sigh. “But that was the case
