72 feet.

  That’s how far Hannah had to fall, according to her Truthseers.

  They highlighted the wreckage that raced her to the bottom as she kicked off the more substantial pieces. Survival margin: collapsed to minimal.

  Her vision drained to monochrome as she twisted midair, shielding Mac by instinct, by habit, by doctrine.

  Then—a sharp nothing.

  Disembodied.

  In limbo, her soul drifted towards a white light so intense and singular it began to crumble her remaining sense of scale. From somewhere above—or below—indistinct voices argued, their tones familiar, procedural, final.

  “She’s—”

  Mac.

  A weak wail escaped his lips.

  ---

  Slack.

  She wasn’t held together by tension anymore. That scared him.

  Mac fought down the bile rising in his throat, sour and bitter eating at the back of his tongue. He rolled her over on her side. Then he shot a quick prayer to the sky leaking in from the enormous hole in the roof.

  Stay calm, Mac.

  But his quivering lip and shaky hands gave him away. Mac stole one more glance at Hannah as if a second look would put her back together again. He looked away. To his right, the Sunriser sat there on the dry dock, its missiles just crowning from the launch bays.

  Boots doubletimed behind him. Familiar hands touched him on the shoulder.

  Tar.

  Gordon.

  Abe.

  Julia.

  “Medic!” someone from the rear echelon called out.

  Mac pushed himself to his feet, brushing at his sticky clothes without really seeing them. Orders. He needed something to do. Through the crowd, he spotted Abe. He staggered toward him, stopping short when he reached him.

  Mac half-heartedly saluted his commander. “Abe.”

  Abe’s eyes went wide. “Mac.”

  “Orders?”

  Abe didn’t hesitate. “You’re done here. Ride the chopper with her. Hold her hand.”

  Mac searched Abe’s face, but Abe tore his eyes away.

  “It might keep her alive.”

  Mac nodded. “Understood.”

  A hug. A double shoulder pat.

  Past them, a team of six medics hovered over Hannah, strapping her into a bright orange sled.

  “And lift!”

  Mac ran after them.

  ---

  He caught them outside.

  “Life flight taking off in 20 seconds!”

  Hannah’s hand.

  Still warm, but limp. The roar of the rotors deafened him. He didn’t care.

  “Breath sounds diminished on the right,” a medic yelled, picking up his train of thought and putting it back at its origin.

  Mac made himself as small as possible. Blood and cheap antiseptic from the medics’ gloves violated his palate as he gave Hannah’s hand a firmer squeeze.

  The pilot took off.

  Over the whirring rotors, Mac caught a few words over the radio. “Stanford… Polytrauma… ETA eight minutes.”

  Another medic shot back. “Probable lung contusions. Possible flail. Possible pneumothorax. Possible hemothorax. Need O2, chest seals, and a needle.”

  A firm set of hands moved Mac off to the corner of the stretcher. He could still hold her hand, but he was farther now. Farther than he’d ever been from her since they met.

  “Keep holding her hand. Don’t touch anything else.”

  Mac nodded.

  The medics kept working and talking. “BP?”

  “Soft. Abdomen’s rigid.”

  “Hang blood.”

  Mac watched as the medics clipped a blood bag on a grab handle using a spare carabiner. Green. His focus waned.

  What a weird detail to remember.

  He looked down. His knuckles had turned white and his palm was sweaty.

  Gross.

  But he didn’t let go.

  “AB positive,” a medic interjected.

  Mac’s brain cobbled together a joke, but destroyed it at the last second.

  He shifted his gaze and peered out the window, the warmth of Hannah’s hand still on the back of his mind.

  Oh. Holy fuck. I’m in a helicopter.

  Below him, traffic screamed across the kink of the San Mateo Bridge—neat lines of red tail lights and white headlights flickering on in the dusk. Next to him, Mac wished he could just breathe her back to life.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  If only.

  Nothing about her life felt decided yet.

  “Head trauma?”

  “Suspected severe concussion. Pupils unequal. Already elevated her head. Monitoring CO2.”

  The pilot buzzed the intercom. “Five miles out, starting descent.”

  Mac’s stomach pitched up and then settled into a new equilibrium.

  Redwood City and Palo Alto’s dull lights vied against the fading daylight as the chopper banked toward Stanford.

  Around him, the medics hustled, securing loose gear.

  The most muscular of the medics addressed him again, this time with more urgency.

  “Sir. When she crosses that red line before the operating rooms, you can’t follow her in. We got her. They got her.”

  Mac nodded once more. “Okay.”

  Shortly afterwards, city lights gave way to Hoover Tower and Stanford’s red roofs.

  SKRRRP! Then the skids bit the helipad. As the pilot wound the engines down, the cabin once again blurred into a flurry of activity.

  Mac hopped out, making sure to follow the exact footsteps of the crew, ducking when they ducked, and matching their stride when they picked up the pace. They cleared the helipad and pushed Hannah toward a blinding fluorescent entrance. The sliding glass doors opened wide.

  ---

  Down the elevator. Running. Nurses shouting words and numbers Mac didn’t care to know the meaning of. He didn’t even register when Hannah slipped from his fingers, past the stark red line painted on the linoleum. Behind him, the emergency room waiting area buzzed on. Ahead, frosted glass and—

  Hannah.

  Slumping his shoulders, he turned back toward reception. No verdict yet. It was a cold comfort.

  Mac found an empty seat far from everybody. Far from the crying kids and the injured waiting to be called. He sat down and cried.

  ---

  The minutes stopped behaving. Time stretched and grew all around him. A passing nurse’s smartwatch pinged her a reminder. Mac gripped the hospital’s clipboard and the matching shitty pen with the same white knuckles and sweaty palms he held Hannah’s hand with: the papers had her name on them.

  An overhead announcement fluttered over his head. “—Stanford University Medical Center—”

  “Sir?”

  No response.

  “Sir.”

  “Sir!”

  Mac finally looked up.

  Another nurse. Another set of questions. Another set of papers.

  Mac answered them, hoping he knew Hannah well enough. He handed the first set of forms back.

  Crap. What did I write on that question about marital status?

  “On second thought,” he said, “I need to make a correction.”

  The nurse slid the clipboard back to him.

  One clean strikethrough later—about as clean as he could manage—Hannah’s marital status read: Married.

  The nurse glanced at the page, then at Mac. Just long enough to register it.

  “Initial here.”

  Mac did.

  He filled out the rest. Signed where he was told. Handed the papers back.

  Then more waiting. Long, loud hours.

  By hour two, Mac finally noticed himself: sticky, dusty, bloody clothes. Moons of dirt hid under his fingernails. Crystals of maple syrup bedazzled his hair.

  “Your clothes are contaminated. Would you like a clean set?”

  “…Okay.”

  “You can clean yourself up in the bathroom. It’s just hand soap, hot water, and paper towels, but it’ll do for now,” the nurse told him, handing him a set of disposable scrubs and a red biohazard bag. “Your clothes go in here.”

  Mac took the scrubs and trudged to the bathroom.

  ---

  Under the phosphorescent, unflattering glow of the harsh bathroom lights, Mac stared into the mirror. The face staring back looked like a shell a man had once occupied. His head pounded. Half-formed moments from the last day pressed in behind his half-shut eyes, disordered and unfinished.

  You’re Mac McGuire. You’re married to Hannah Frickin’ Sinclair. You’re at the hospital. She’s badly hurt. And you can’t do anything but wait, pray, and clean yourself up.

  Turning on both taps, he washed his hands, face, and hair, taking a couple pumps of soap from the nearby dispenser. He shut them off. Then, he dried himself with a wad of one-ply paper towels. The paper scratched at his skin and barely did the job.

  Mac stripped, bunching up his dirty clothes into the provided bag. Finally, he took care of the rest.

  He changed into his new suit of armor: a thin blue top made of that stuff that dentists clipped onto a patient’s shirt, drawstring pants that didn’t quite fit right, and paper socks.

  Disposable clothing.

  Only his combat boots made it out unscathed. Those weren’t disposable. Mac hoped Hannah wasn’t, either.

  Back to the crying kids. The injured. The ill.

  This time, four familiar faces waited for him.

  Tar.

  Gordon.

  Abe.

  Julia.

  ---

  36 hours.

  That’s how long Hannah was expected to be in surgery.

  Hour eight. Hannah’s parents got there. That wasn’t a pleasant conversation. Something about powers of attorney that he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. But they tired themselves out and fell asleep in the seats across from Mac.

  Mac did the same shortly after.

  Hour sixteen. Daylight. Mac rubbed his eyes open, falling in and out of consciousness as Tar wrangled the deep black bags under her eyes. She pushed her glasses up and swiveled her laptop screen up at some important-looking eggheads in white lab coats.

  “Hmm… It’s risky,” the head nerd remarked, his eyes never leaving the screen. “But I don’t see another way.”

  Mac took advantage of his half-asleep state to spy Roger’s reaction.

  Roger clenched and unclenched his jaw. “My daughter…”

  He had seen enough. Tar would fill him in on the details later; Mac trusted the plan. Shutting his eyes once more, he fell back asleep.

  Hour eighteen. Gordon got the crew breakfast. Grilled cheese and coffee for everybody. The real kind. Not the ones from the cafeteria. Mac counted his blessings that he was friends with the fastest driver in the Bay. It passed without a word.

  By hour twenty-four, people were talking again. Gone were the usual crying kids, injured, and ill: the rest of the people stuck in the waiting room were now mostly fellow trauma spillovers from the battle. The captive audience craned their necks to the middle rows of the waiting area.

  “Mac. You understand so far?” Tar asked.

  Madeline sat closer to Roger now, her hand cuffing his wrist.

  “Yes. You’re working with the doctors to hack the firmware on Hannah’s cybernetics so Eureka can manage them using a…” Mac blanked for the phrase Tar used.

  “Tunneling protocol,” Tar supplied quietly.

  “Right. And that’s because Hannah’s nervous system is shot. She needs help now. If this doesn’t work she might—”

  Mac blinked hard and fast, failing to prevent the tears starting to string down his cheeks.

  Tar started crying as well. From Tar’s laptop speakers, Eureka bawled in turn.

  Mac looked around, rubbing his face on his sleeves as the tears kept coming. It wasn’t just them now. Abe. Gordon. Julia. Rowcols. Roger. Madeline.

  Tar lifted her glasses, drying her eyes with the heel of her hand. She drew in a steadying breath, then spoke again. This time flatter, more careful.

  “The hospital’s confirmed it,” Tar led in. “You’re her medical proxy. Power of attorney’s on file.”

  Oh Hannah… I guess this is what they call faith.

  Mac stared at the floor tiles and ground his boot against them, the thin soles failing to buffer the tremors up his leg.

  He nodded once.

  “If we do this, we can’t take it back.”

  Tar paused.

  “Best case, she might not even need the help. Worst case… we know.”

  Mac lifted his head, his eyes burning as he glanced around his circle once more. Taking two more seconds, he answered.

  “Do it.”

  Tar gave his face a once over one last time. Then she buried her nose in her laptop again and started typing.

  The sliding doors down the hall hissed open. Bright light spilled across the linoleum.

  Step. Step. Step. A nurse cleared her throat, addressing the party. “We’re ready on our end. Your decision?”

  Mac stood at attention. “Yes.”

  “Then wait here.”

  “Okay.”

  Step. Step. Step. The doors slid shut again, sealing themselves with a soft click.

  Staring at the closed doors, he listened to the muffled beeps and hums of the machines keeping Hannah alive for a fleeting moment, wondering if that was the last sign of life he’d see of her.

  He sat back down.

  12 more hours.

  It would have to do for now.