THE FACE IN THE MIRROR by Anotherjaneway It was nine in the morning at the Ojai College campus. Roy DeSoto was starting up yet another vo-tech course of CPR for public citizens. Johnny Gage was setting out the resusi-mannequin onto the blue gym mat on the floor, and setting its electronic wires in place. "Huh, you must be crazy, Roy. Working doubles, then teaching the morning of your day off." he scoffed, part teasing, part complaining. "Don't tell me you've got a new addition on the house you're trying to pay for." "Not for the house.." Roy said, shifting on his feet, and studying his polished shoes. Gage's smile wiped into a huge grin, "Nahhhhh.." he bubbled as understanding dawned. "Yep. Joanne found out for sure last night from her family doctor." John dropped the dummy and rose, pumping Roy's arm like a happy uncle. "Well, I'll be. Congratulations, buddy."  He leaned in, hitting Roy on the shoulder, "That's great! Three's a more rounded number." When his partner frowned in confusion, John added, "They say families have 2.6 kids per household." His face fell ruefully, but amused, "But in my case, it's definitely a negative number." Roy handed John a cup of coffee from the counter by a sunny window. "Don't lose hope, Johnny, You've only had what?  Five crash and burn dates this spring? Not a bad average. And the summer's young yet." "Not a bad average. Not a bad aver--?" John lifted the coffee to his lips. It never got there. "Yeah, but when will I find HER.?" he sighed. "I seem to have better luck attracting hairy furballs than women lately." "How's Bonnie doing anyway?" "Fine. She's quiet. Doesn't mind going to the neighbor's when I'm at work. And she's the one who's been finding me those dates to begin with." John said, polishing his fingernails on his gray terry shirt. He adjusted the navy bandana tied around his forehead up a little more, drawing his mouth up smugly. Roy rolled his eyes, "They say, dogs attract girls like moths to the flame." "And this flame is hot to trot.." John said, "I've landed a date for tonight." "Oh?" Roy asked, "Who?" he said with a wide splitting yawn. "Betty.." his partner said mysteriously. "In fact, she's going to be one of your students today. Moreno thought he saw Betty's name on your roster there." He said pointing to Roy's slate. Roy folded his arms. "And I thought you volunteered to help me with the class today just to be magnanimous." he said levelly, sipping his cappuccino. "I am being magnanimous." John said with conviction, stabbing Roy's yellow t-shirted front with a finger. Roy didn't believe a single word, "Only as long as it takes to enforce that heroic rescuer image on her with this course work. I'll just bet you're going to volunteer to be her heimlich partner. You know, to get in real tight and personal with her right off." John's face beamed into a pleased smile, "Hey, I never even thought of that angle. You know, for a very happily married man. You're pretty savvy. Thanks. partner." He watched as Roy fell into another series of face tearing yawns. "You'd better get more sleep from now on. Even your wrinkles are getting wrinkles. Start getting some more sleep or I'm going to haveta take over driving the squad." Roy was about to launch a protest when there was the sound of a bell and the rumble of many footsteps coming towards them. John put a finger to his lips, "Later.. Now you're on. Just try to act natural. You know. Make me look good." he said with a pleading look, sitting at one of the desks. He took up a hotdog from a pouch in his knapsack, on cue, and started munching loudly. Roy sighed deeply and just shook his head. He took a seat in the first of twenty empty ones ringing the demo mat and flipped his baseball cap around, looking nonchalant as he slumped there. There was the usual nervous mix of new housewives, looking to gain the reassurance of the first aid training for their infants. Or, like this month, the latest teen aged summer lifeguards chosen from high school job programs to fill needs for L.A. County's vast ocean beach front. He became one of many to introduce themselves to each other in casual social groups. About five minutes later, the class took in the air that the teacher wasn't in yet and filed into conversation clusters around him. Even Gage made a big show of saying hello and eating eagerly and chewing his food around his words. He milled about acting boisterous and very biker-ish. Until he threw hands up over his throat and knocked his chair over in surprise. He started to gasp and wheeze,  staggering around. Two teens jumped up in alarm and started for the door to call for help. Another football player type teen grabbed Johnny by the shoulders and started shaking him. A blond woman in jerseys with platinum eyes did the only thing she knew, pounding gingerly on Gage's back with a few fingers as if he were made of glass. Of course, that did nothing to help. Going limp, John fell to the mat and utter panic ensued. The class of students milled over him ineffectually poking here and prodding there until. Roy got up from his place watching them all and "rescued" the choking Gage with the proper techniques in a calm manner, first listening, then checking in his mouth, then following up with back blows and one set of abdominal thrusts. Johnny promptly spat out the hotdog right into the class's shocked faces. They leaped backward out of reflex as the seemingly unconscious man made a ballistic missile out of his sausage bite. Gage opened his eyes, grabbed Roy's hand, and rolled neatly to his feet. "Thanks, man. I needed that." and he plopped down into his own seat as if nothing had ever happened, buttoning up his shirt again. The stunned onlooking students blinked. Then some got angry or sank into chairs with shaky adrenaline reaction. One redhead man stood over John, "You mean you weren't really in trouble?!!" he shouted at Gage. "Nope. He wanted to see what you all would do for me just now." Johnny said, pointing to DeSoto. Silence filled the room. Roy spoke up, taking off his hat. "Pretty scary, wasn't it? Kinda funny how higher reasoning goes out the window in the face of a true medical emergency.. You,." he said, pointing to the burly teen who had tried shaking Gage. "Could have injured him or even made the obstruction worse by doing that.  You." he said, smiling slightly at the blond woman in the jersey, "were closer to the right track. but sometimes, it's not a good idea to just go pounding on someone's back if they're making  good attempts to dislodge a foreign body. You meant well but in this case, it only made things worse and your victim went unconscious when things completely blocked off with your "tiny" tries at helping. You others, who ran for the phone, made a good decision. Sort of. Summoning help is a sound choice, but it is always second order of business in a medical crisis like this one.." "Second order.?" said the angry teen. "But I thoug--" He broke off when Roy held up his hand and shot him a diplomatic smile. DeSoto flipped his chair around, foregoing the desk, to be face to face with his class. "Let's start off on the other foot shall we?" "Morning. I'm glad you came here today. I'm Roy DeSoto and this is Johnny Gage, my department partner of six years." John nodded, all serious in greeting, once. "We're both L.A. County Firemen/Paramedics in our day jobs, when we're not scaring the bejeesus out of CPR class attendees." Roy went on. Light chuckles filled the room. DeSoto went on. "Now, if you'll  allow us, let us impart a little of what we know so you can have the opportunity to make a real difference for somebody when it counts the most and to be successful at it to the point of having the ability to SAVE that life free of panic. You're here today to learn much more than just what to do for a heart attack victim or a toddler choking on a grape. You're here today to assess any given emergency situation and become an effective caregiver to that victim until professional help arrives. Minutes and even seconds count, like in the urgent scene you saw Johnny enact here." And he went on, explaining why calling for help was second in importance. He met the angry red headed man's eyes. "Your first duty to any medical emergency victim. is to assure and establish a viable airway, do whatever you can to restore and/or maintain breathing second, then to assess and/or maintain circulation of bloodflow to the brain, last of all. But what if the mouth's so badly cut, you can't get a good seal with which to perform mouth to mouth at all? Or what if someone's neck may be broken? How do you establish an airway then without tilting that person's head back to get one? If you don't, they'll suffocate, if you do, they might be paralyzed. What do you do? There's is much more to CPR than just pushing on someone's chest and pinching their nose and blowing air into their mouths. So let us show you what to do in many medical cases that aren't so neat and tidy an incident as the ones your text manual shows you." ------------ It was two PM. The class ran smoothly, following demos of the heimlich and other moves and a movie, outlining oxygen debt and the six minute chart. Johnny learned that the shy blond woman was Betty, the one he had known was coming. They seemed to hit it right off in Roy's mind. She worked through her timidness about breathing into a dummy only after Gage demo'd it for her. He caught Johnny over lunch break and held up a compressions tape sheet from Betty's mannequin sequence.  "Hey, Johnny, she's a strong one. Just look at this graph! She's in the green on those CPR compressions. Perfect." Gage smacked Roy on the shoulder, "I know, she nearly busted my ribs even pretending the heimlich. I think I'm in love." Roy sighed, "Just don't go fainting dead away in class just to get her to breathe for you or anything. Our intro demo part is over. You two are disruptive enough as it is so far." he said smiling. "And we've still the test outs to do on them all." "Oh, puhleassee. I'm not that dumb. I want her to kiss me for my natural charms, not some foolhardy stunt like that." "Hmmm. I wouldn't put it past you." Roy laughed. Johnny was oblivious, "She has great reactions. I mean, when I pretended a blackout with a full obstruction while standing, she had her hands right there underneath my head so I wouldn't bang it going down. Now that's sweet thinking on your feet if you ask me." "If you say so. If I were her. I'd have dumped you like a sack of potatos and let your fall knock out the obstruction." Roy quipped. "Oh. Ha. ha.." Gage said dryly. "You're just bent out of shape because I'm using my "uniform" to win a girl. I'm not using my uniform, how can I be? I'm in a tank top, I'm..just teaching her class that's all.." Roy was skeptical, "Uh huh." But he said nothing more, grinning behind his newspaper. "Gage, the choking Romeo. Now there's one for the history books." he mumbled. ------------------------------------- It was the next day at the station and Roy was still yawning. Johnny rolled in whistling Dixie, and popped his locker open with a fancy butt flourish. Roy didn't even look up, pausing with his arms still stuck in his T-shirt sleeves he had cocooned over his head as he sat on the changing bench. He appeared to be snoring. Gage turned and tapped Roy's covered head. "Hey. You alive in there?" Snnorrreee.. "Come on.." and John pulled down Roy's T shirt the rest of the way. "Man. you need a pot of coffee if you're going to get anywhere today. Didn't you sleep in the last few days like I told you to?" "A little. Had an unexpected amniocentesis bill slip up on us yesterday. Had to take on another class to pay for it." "Amniocen--"  John guessed, "Oh. Is everything ok.?" Roy looked up at him blearily. "Huh? Oh. yeah. It's standard to run one of those at this stage of the game. Especially with this being Joanne's third ba--- YAWWNN---by." Another ear splitting yawn jumbled his last words. John threw Roy's uniform shirt at him, who was too tired to catch it. It bounced off his face. "Wake up. or I'm going to have give you some O2 to revive ya. Time for breakfast." and he headed into the kitchen, leaving his sleepy partner behind. "I have a feeling it's going to be a busy shift for us. It's a full moon tonight." Gage groaned. "Don't remind me." came Roy's voice from the locker room, floating across the station's truck bay. ------------------- Sounds of fork scrapes and bowl slurps filled the kitchen along with the aroma of at least three kinds of morning repasts. At one seat, the happy eating got a little loud and not so harmonious. Wood chair legs squealed like nails on a chalk board as one particular man pushed backward from the table. *Spit* A large glob of Juevos Rancheros festooned Captain Stanley's paper napkin as he doubled over and relieved his burning lips of a totally unexpected attack on his tongue and throat. ". whoa..*cough*!." Cap's long arms shot out and grabbed a metal jug of water and drained half of it in desperate swallows from the jug itself. All eyes at the table shot up from newspapers and magazines in surprise. Johnny looked up from dishing hashbrowns onto his platter. "Cap? You ok? " he said half rising in concern. Hank held up hands to show everything was cool and waited for his voice to come back. Then he set down the metal water pitcher with a hollow liquidy clang. "Marco, what are you trying to do?" he shouted in his best offended tenor voice. "Are you trying to kill me?" He pushed away his Mexican eggs and eyed them distrustfully, "I know. This is some kind of revenge because I made you drag and hang all the engine's hose in the tower before you left last night." Captain Stanley said regaining his chair. Marco shook his head vehemently. "Oh, no no no. Cap." with eyes widening. Cap went on. "I SAID, Try one of your sweet little old mother's breakfast recipes for a change of pace but I didn't mean creating a four alarm fire! Man,,, whooo wee.." he coughed. Gage sat down again, chuckling in relief that he hadn't requested eggs like Captain Stanley had done. Marco's turn at breakfast detail was always a sort of culinary roulette when he got into one of his creative cooking moods. Marco, "Don't look at me like that, Cap. Your exact quote, to clarify things, was.. 'How about breaking our scrambled eggs and bacon tradition and whipping up one of your mother's recipes for a new change of pace?' You didn't say what KIND of recipe, nor any limitations on any spices." Hank mulled over that, looking a lot like the "Honest Abe" he was, "Hmm. Guess I did say that, Marco." And he reached over and stole Gage's lone bagel. "Hey!" John protested, out ranked. But Gage quickly and craftily snatched another solo bagel from Chet Kelly's plate while the curly haired fireman laughed uproariously over something in his funnies section. Kelly reached down, without looking, for his bagel ..and didn't find it. He whipped his paper away and complained to the chipmunk cheeked paramedic next to him. "Gage!!" Johnny shrugged "Snooze? You lose." he said, chewing loudly. Soon,  Chet found and walked fingers to Stoker's plate and procured the last onion bagel there. SLAP! "OWW!"  Chet howled, dropping his booty and yanking his guilty fingers into his mouth. He sucked on them. Mike deftly refolded his scolding magazine into his lap and took a bite of bacon. "Never raid unless you can get away with it. Chet, you're getting sloppy. Must be because Gage finally one upped the Phantom, eh?" Chet rolled his eyebrows, frowning. "No way man. Has hell frozen over? The Phantom's sharp as ever." His next raid on Marco's pancake was thwarted with a viscious fork parry from Lopez, "Ah ah ah." the Mexican warned. Mike laughed, thoroughly enjoying his rescued bagel. "Really? How do you figure?" Cap snickered over his milk. Then Johnny eyed the tardy DeSoto shuffling into the kitchen.  He pantomimed to the guys to keep quiet about his next action, putting a finger to his lips. Then he made a big show pulling out a chair for his partner, "Hey Roy. Here's some nice hhhottt coffee. " he grinned hugely. DeSoto missed all the warning signs. Roy rubbed dry eyes and lifted the mug handed to him while he plopped down into his seat next to Chet. "Thanks but I don't think it's going to help any. Not unless you've got an IV that's pure caffeine somewhere around here." Gage clicked his tongue. "Fresh out." John said, picking up Cap's abandoned plate of steaming Mexican eggs. "Ooo, Roy. Doesn't that smell good?  Dig in, pal." And he deposited his offering in front of DeSoto, sliding several napkins towards him, too. He shoved the water pitcher to a far corner of the table, well out of comfortable reach. All eyes watched with amused horror as a sleepy Roy cut a large biteful of the eggs and inserted them into his mouth. Gage thought. '3..2..1.' But Roy kept chewing, slowly. his eyes more shut then open. Chet couldn't resist. "Hey Roy?" "Huh?" "How's breakfast?" "Oh.." Roy said, looking down at his salsa covered hen's eggs. "Fine. I guess." Gage looked at Roy incredulously. "Roy. Aren't they kinda hot to you?.." he said, aiming a butter knife at Roy's platter, with one cheek still big with bagel. "Uh..."  DeSoto considered. Then he mumbled "..no?" he ventured. "Holy cow.  That's crazy. You're taster's wwwaaayyy off.. Cap here couldn't even BREATHE around em." Gage whipped out his penlight and reached out making a big show looking at Roy's pupils. "You're not even an Apgar Three on the scale man. Are you slipping into a coma or something?" Roy slapped Johnny's hand away laughing. "I'm not feeling any pain eh? Well, at least these eggs won't go to waste. Marco..my compliments on your mother's recipe." he replied, forking himself another hot sauce smothered egg yolk. "Gracias mi amigo. At least I know who to cook for now." he glared at Cap. Cap looked up from his very mild toast and butter. "Sorry Lopez. I'm from a French neighborhood. Tame palette I guess."  he said apologetically. Roy went on.. "Maybe this numb brain thing will get me through today with the minimum shift's torture." Gage scoffed, "I highly doubt that." pocketing his penlight. Cap eyed Roy critically. "One of the kids keeping you up, DeSoto.?" John spoke up as he watched Roy drain yet another mug of java. "Yeah,, the unborn one. Joanne had a ped bill Roy had to work off. He took on another CPR class after the one I helped him on." he said. Cap winced. "Ooo, tiring way to earn a few bucks. Nothing like four hours of CPR demos to wear out a guy." Roy shook his stiff arms. "I would've been spared if my buddy over here bailed me out again and helped me to teach it." "One time's enough." "Yeah?" Roy quipped, "That's only because you got yourself that date from that one student, eh? Betty I think her name was." he chewed a few times before asking, "How did it go?" Gage didn't make eye contact as he swiped his plate clean with a slice of bread. "I was at Eight's pulling extra duty, or I'd been there pal." he said, avoiding the question. Roy just grunted, angling his jaw with an amused smile. "She dumped ya, didn't she.?" The gang erupted in giggles again. Chet voiced a score count. "That makes it.. what? Six strung and hungs this year, Johnny? What a tragic track record. A real bummer." Gage said, with unconvincing icyness, "Cut it out. Kelly. Leave your prying OUT of my love life." "What love l-?" Kelly started to say before Cap pointed his all mighty index finger at him to cease at once. Chet amended what he was going to say. "..uh,  lingers, except for later, right? For the next time around? " he smiled wanely, covering his arse and making an escape back into his paper. Cap ended his challenging glare and continued chewing. He shoved two pots of coffee in front of DeSoto. "Hey John,. throw these in your pocket, eh.? Feel free to use them on him any time you need to, pal." He said topping off Roy's mug yet again. A pack of smelling salts plunked into Gage's hands as he reflexively caught what Cap sailed his way. He laughed, brandishing them, before pocketing them into his shirt. Roy said sarcastically, "Oh  ha ha." ------- An alarm sounded, a long one, through every category of callout mode tones. "Station 51, Station 8, Truck 137, Battalion 14. Multiple pileup on Hwy 101. Two miles east of Roy Rogers State Park. Two miles east of Roy Rogers State Park. Meteorological weather station reports heavy fog in the vicinity. Time out. 07:59." Gage turned to Roy,.. "Full moon's true to form yet again." and he pushed out of his chair. The gang made their vehicles and slipped into helmets, overcoats and seat belts. "Station 51, Responding. KMG 365." Cap said, writing down the 10-20 on a pad and handing off carbons to both Stoker  and Gage. They rolled out. ========================== Ten minutes later Cap thumb motioned for Stoker to slow down the engine travelling in front of the squad. He squinted through the thick musty smelling mist, boiling before him and ordered. "Lopez, get out on the footrail and see if you can see anything, okay pal?" "Right, cap."  Marco stepped out of the rear cab and hung onto a spot mirror. Cap waved Mike to drive forward carefully. Then he thumbed his radio. "Engine 51 to Truck 137. We're two miles south of mile marker 2 next to the south end of the park. We can't see anything. Give a directional blast on your airhorn, will ya?" "Will do. We are at the first MVA to the north. No victims as yet. We have evacuated the area and are beginning a washdown." "10-4. Appreciate that." Cap replied. All in the cab, strained to listen. So did Gage and DeSoto in their truck. A horn bellowed from fairly close away. "That sounds like only a fifth of a mile." He thumbed the mike, "Gage, DeSoto, we're there." "10-4, Cap." Roy said. The paramedics and firemen bailed their vehicles. Cap shouted to his men, "Fan out. Start searching. There's no cliffs to speak of here. We're level with the ocean on this stretch of the freeway." That much was true. All the gang could smell the tang of sea salt and could hear distant waves echoing to them under the blanket of heavy fog. Cap chose to relegate scene triage to Battalion 14, which pulled up right behind Squad 51.  Hookraider took over the task, understanding Stanley's decision was a sound one. Men were needed to search cars. Even those with captain's rank. "Battalion 14 to Station Eight. Station 51's got the south end. Position your men in the northbound lane, to mile marker three. Number of effected MVA's, unknown at this time." Gage and Roy moved out, walking fast with meager torches and their gear. Chet followed them with stokes and O2, shouting. "Can anybody hear me? Fire Department!" Gage and Roy nearly fell over the first mangled car, gray, like the smothering fogbank around it. Johnny saw a second red pickup on its side a short distance ahead through the murk. "Chet! Marco! Check out that truck!" Roy tried the passenger door of the car they had found but it was jammed. "I got it. Go check over there." John told Roy. John poked his head inside and saw clothes. Two sets. "Cap! Get a K-12 over here! I've got victims!" Gage finished a brief check for gas, then wormed into the narrow window up to his waist. Glass crinkled under his gloves as he found the driver. Gasping loudly, he slid himself closer in the tight space next to the first victim. The smell of blood was strong and something else that was very bad. He felt for a carotid he knew wasn't there. A definite sign of fully dialated pupils made John's heart sink. What he saw in the back seat was even more tragic. Roy leaned in the window looking in on Gage, "That truck's clear. Everybody got out without injury." he said, thick with concentration. "How are they?" He couldn't quite, see inside. John curtly shook his head, vacating the crushed car. He waved Marco and Cap with the K-12 away to the next vehicle. "She's been disemboweled. Gone for too long. The toddler's DOA, too." Roy glanced back at the impossibly flat roof collapsed over the babyseat and saw two sneakers poking out. The only thing he recognized. "Johnny." he gasped, clutching Gage's jacket as the shock of another child's death sank in. John understood it was ten times harder for Roy to see that kind of fatality, having kids of his own. He covered the mother and child up with a blanket quickly, hiding the sight. "Roy. Just move out. There's gotta be more victims around here. Only a semi could do damage like this." he said of the gray Honda. Roy got on his walkie talkie, and mechanically, John marked the car with fluorescent orange search paint. Putting an X on roof and door. Swallowing, he put the symbols for two bodies next to it. "Cap, we've got two DOA's in the first car. Second truck's clear but I'm smelling gas." Roy reported. Cap ran up waving on several stations' men with 51's K-12 to take over the head of the searching. "I'm on it. Marco! Run two inch and a halfs to cover any gas spills, Stoker, you're with him. " Then a chief from Station Eight pummeled toward them. In the gray gloom, his white helmet almost appeared to be glowing. "We've found all of them. Seven cars, one semi. Besides these two, here. One of my men's found a Winnebago upside down along the guardrail. There's two little girls inside. Their parents are fine." "We're on it." Roy said. "Cap have the guys bring our gear.!"  He put back on his helmet and grabbed biophone and oxygen and followed the Station Eight chief to the site. "I'll get it myself." Cap answered.  He ran back to the Honda to collect the stokes and IV box. John followed to get the defib and drug box. Soon, John, the station eight man, Cap and Roy followed an eerie trail of hissing cherry flares that acted as a beaconing line along the way. "Good thinking." Gage said to the chief. "This is a faster way of getting around in this stuff.." meaning the heavy fog that was around them. ----------- Roy was the first one to arrive at the rolled camper. He was met by a dazed father who only had superficial contusions on temple and cheek. The man grabbed onto DeSoto's arm and begged him to let him inside the RV. Roy physically peeled his fingers off, deciding the man to be a low priority case. "It's all right, You're all right. They're still alive. I'm going in to check them out right now. Just sit on the curb here and take it easy! My partner will take a look at ya in a second." He handed him off to Cap and crawled into the window the chief indicated. Station Eight had already cracked it open and laid overcoats over the glass. ----------- John knelt by the wife, who was sitting supported by Vince on the roadside. He glanced at the man Cap brought over, knowing him to be the one a bit better off of the two. John asked the burly motorcop, "Any of em injured?" Vince said, "He seems ok. But the wife almost went out on me twice, though." Gage took her face into one glove and checked her over visually. There wasn't a mark on her. He took her wrist into his hand, feeling her radial pulse. It was rapid, but strong. She seemed just out of a faint, leaning heavily on the officer. "My name's Johnny Gage, I'm a paramedic with the Los Angeles County fire department. Are you feeling any pain anywhere?" The wife stayed dazed, staring at the Winnebago. John pulled an aromatic ampoule from his shirt. He snapped it and waved it under her nose. "Hey. can you hear me.?" The slender woman gave a shudder and whipped her face away from the fumes of the capsule, coughing. She peered around blearily, then focused again on what she was looking at. Emotion flooded back in a wave, "My babies.! I have to get to my girls. They're still in there! I- I've got to help them. The dresser pinned them inside." And she struggled in Vince's protective grip without thinking. Johnny held her by the shoulders firmly. Her struggles jostled his helmet and it fell off. "Take it easy now! My partner's working on that. Now let's just make sure you're all right before you move around so much, ok?" Gage said. The clatter of John's helmet on the concrete made Cap, by the chief, shout for his man he couldn't see. "You ok over there?" John answered. "Yeah.!" The woman nodded, finally fully awake. She calmed down as John softly spoke to her. He told Vince, "Keep her upright. That's how you found her, right?" Vince nodded, "Yeah. and the sergeant said she was walking around earlier before I got here." Gage strung cannulas of O2 set at six liters for both husband and wife and began to get a set of vitals for Rampart. As he worked, he glanced over to the Winnebago, wondering what Roy had. ----------------- Roy found a jumble of furniture in his way. Gasping, shoved his way through and found the children. He waved the station eight man monitoring them away. The man retreated back out of the camper. A tangle of wall and sheet metal had wrapped the two girls up like pretzels. One child's head wasn't visible and three arms in pink stuck out from where they were. It was hard to tell which limb belonged to which child inside a hole in the debris for both were wearing the same kind of clothes, pink jumpers. Reaching into the gap, Roy felt up the body of the child whose head was hidden, to her face, feeling for breathing. His bare hand encountered wetness around her neck that was sticky, but cool. 'This one's not bleeding that bad,' he thought. And he was satisfied with her rate of taking in air. He made sure she stayed breathing well by slipping in a child sized airway. Roy began to search for the reason why the little girl was unconscious. Shifting around, he grabbed one of the arms he thought belonged to the hidden child. There was a strong pulse in the brachial artery that attested to a fair blood pressure , giving Roy more reassurance that she was stable and not critically injured. He shifted each girl slowly apart from the other, without jarring neck or spine. Trying to find how they lay.  They're so tangled up here.  His effort failed. The twisting metal made him give up the attempt. He got on his walkie talkie, "Cap! These two girls are pinned in real good. We're gonna have to cut them out! I can't get good access to either one." 'We're on it, Roy. Hang tight. We're coming now.' DeSoto finished his quick assessment on his patient. He found no more blood stains on the girl. But it was bothering him that he couldn't reach all of her to know for sure, her true physical condition. Roy moved to the conscious child, who was watching him with frightened silent eyes. DeSoto flickered fingers quickly at her eyes to see which startled fingers moved in the debris so he could identify the position of at least one set of hands. "Hi. How are you doing? My name's Roy. Pretty scary in here, huh? " She nodded, which told him her neck wasn't hurt. DeSoto leaned back, setting his handytalkie behind him while he pulled some closet partition out of his way. He cursed again in his mind how flimsy Winnebago materials were in the trailer. "Don't go!" the girl cried. She reached out and grabbed Roy's jacket. "I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm here to care for you and your sister right now." And he smiled at his small charge. "Roy?" "Yeah.!" It was Cap, making his way towards where the girls were trapped. "I got the gear." "Hand over the IV box first. We're gonna have to get lines into both of them before we extricate either one." Cap got to Roy's side just as he spoke again to the frightened sister who began to struggle when the splintered dresser boards above her began to creak. "It's ok, honey. Just relax. Someone's coming, that's all. Mom and dad's just outside. This is my friend, Captain Stanley. He's a fireman like me. We're going to help get you and your sister out of here. " She said boldly. "He's not Captain Stanley. He's really Abraham Lincoln.  I learned about him in school." she claimed, voice hitching with nervousness. Roy and Cap exchanged ironic looks. Hank mumbled, "Guess I do sort of look like the man." he said, scratching his head. They spent a minute or two, leaning over their young patients while they freed what they could off the two children. But it was soon apparent Roy was right. The jaws were needed to do any more. The air in the tiny space slowly grew hot and stuffy and made DeSoto feel every second in a torrid grogginess, but soon, he bent over the unconscious sister to get a BP on an arm he had freed. He guessed it was hers because of blood spatters on the sleeve. Cap touched another tiny arm at random. "Is this one yours?" he asked the tiny girl. He sing songed, moving fingers on that limb testing for neural response. "This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home." he sang. The little girl giggled. "No, that's my sister's." Cap kneeled near her face to get closer and to get more comfortable in the small space. "Ahh!" she screamed. Hank instantly froze. And lifted a loose board from where he had been kneeling. A left leg was curled un-naturally under her chin. There was no doubt whose limb this was. "Roy." DeSoto took his stethoscope out of his ears and saw where Cap was pointing. "Is there a pulse in it?" Hank removed a sandal and checked. "Can't tell. Hell, all of her's cold right now." Roy said, "Hand me a hair traction splint. "First thing, we're going to straighten that limb out." "With this metal in here like that?" He said of a wound in the thigh. A three inch long stake of side chrome stripping was embedded there. "We have to. There can't be any bloodflow in the leg with it being that dislocated. I'll think of something and work around that shard." He thought for a few seconds. "I know. Immobilize it. Keep that piece from moving around. Use bulky dressings or, some of that wall insulation. Anything you can use." "Right." After he was through, Cap slid drug box, IV box and defib next to DeSoto. "What can I do here now?" Roy finished cutting away the pink shirt on the buried sister. "Get our awake little princess here on the monitor. We can always use the paddles to check her sister's EKG. It's the best way we have to keep tabs on her vitals with her being buried like this." Cap nodded, and got out leads for his patient. Then he handed Roy the defib paddles, stretching their coiled cords across to him. Roy threaded the paddles through his tiny access hole and set them on bare skin, an arm and a waist; the only places he could reach well. It was enough contact; Cap and he got a wavering strip off the stilled girl. "Bradycardia. deep. Probably from that neck bleeding. If a jugular's so much as bruised you get a reading like this." he told Cap. He got a second set of vitals on her and a set on the frightened sister while Cap initialized two tie ins on the EKG monitor using the pads and leads he set in place on the second child he was near. "What's that?" she said as two sets of beeping audios filled the air. Cap stroked the girl's cheek. "That is a heart TV.  It shows us you got one around in there somewhere." He peered, tapping on her chest gently. She smiled, "And the other squiggly line is Cassie's TV?" "Yep. That's right." "Cassie is your sister's name?" Roy asked as he positioned a hair splint by the leg Cap and he were about to move. It had completely slipped his mind to find out the girl's names and to use them. "Uh huh." she nodded. "And I'm Robin." "Nice to meet two such pretty young ladies. Do you and your sister always wear the same outfits?" DeSoto asked, while he blindly checked Cassie's neck more closely for any lacerations he might have missed. "Not always. But today is Cassie's birthday. And we wanted to fool Grandma into getting our names wrong again." Cap said. "It's your sister's birthday? Well, we're going to have to do something about that now aren't we, Roy?" Roy looked up from his concentration, and flipped on an instant, but tight, smile. "Yeah." "Really?"  Robin asked. Another shaking of the debris around them announced another fireman picking his way into the camper. Stoker came near and passed off an O2 apparatus to Roy, "This is eight's. Johnny's using ours." "Thanks."  DeSoto got out the unit's demand valve mask and started hyperventilating Cassie to get her heart rate to speed up. Cap gave Robin a nasal cannula on a second O2 line after showing her how it worked on himself. He adjusted it around her face. Captain Stanley heard the sound of a K-12 begin to cut through the Winnebago's outer wall. A blade protruded noisily, making Robin startle, but the saw retreated the second it got through the wall. Roy's talkie buzzed, ##Cap? It's Kelly. We've gotten most of the way through. Get those girls under cover.## "10-4, pal." Cap touched Robin's arm lightly. "Let's see. something special for a very special birthday. Hmmmm. I know. Do you think Cassie would like to wear a fireman's helmet? We've got one for both you and her." "wow." Robin nodded. Cap and Roy flipped up their own overcoat collars to shield themselves from the rain of saw embers to come. Cap gave his helmet to Robin and Roy used his to make a roof over Cassie's face between two beams. Roy nodded to Cap that he was ready for both the splinting and the saw. Hank warned the little girl what they were going to do. "You let me know the moment you feel anything like an owie when we move your leg ok? And we'll stop." Cap told her. Robin squeezed Cap's hand as her fright mounted. She began to cry. "No. I don't want t- to. I want mommy." Her EKG sped up rapidly. He leaned over Robin and smiled, "Hey, I know that. Roy knows that, too. But we have to bundle you up first all safe and sound before we get you out of here. Ok? Now those men out there are going to cut us a door. It's going to get a little loud. Think you can handle that?" But Robin was beginning to drift and didn't answer. Hank turned up the flow on her O2. Cap gave the go ahead on the handy talkie "Go ahead Kelly. On the double!" The sawing resumed, and showering orange sparks began to fall from above them that lit up the camper. Roy was in his own private world. His mind was racing with priorities and he was fighting his own fatigue.  Wisps of oxygen from the girls' masks would give him seconds of clarity but they didn't last.  Why didn't I sleep a little longer last night. One more hour would've done it.  Now. Concentrate. You aren't going to be able to contact Rampart until you're out of this confined space.. he told himself.  Focus. Maintain Cassie's positive pressure ventilations for a minute longer. Then get that circulation back into Robin's fractured leg. Roy gave Cassie a few more assisted forced air shots then left the demand valve on passive, so that it fed a healthy stream of oxygen to her when she breathed in, automatically. He turned to Cap and together they drew Robin's hideously broken leg out from under her face and down her body as easily as they could. Robin screamed at one point and passed out. Her EKG sank into shocky sinus rhythm. A minute later, the task was done. The metal shard in Robin's leg under the Cap's dressings began to pulsate with each heartbeat on Robin's monitor. Roy smiled, "Ok, that's it. We did it, I think." Cap checked his end of the splint, fastening off the tension straps holding Robin's leg straight. "We did. Foot's warming. " DeSoto's smile faded, "Where's the break at in that leg." he asked Cap. Hank cut away the girl's pink slacks around the straps. "Looks like there's an exit wound in the middle upper thigh. Femur. And another one lower down by her ankle. There's a deformity there, still." Roy nodded, head back in Cassie's niche as he resumed her forced O2, "So far so good. That sounds like it was an open fracture, which we reduced. That ankle I'm not so much worried about. Is her thigh any bigger than the other one?" "No." "That's good. At least she's not bleeding out inside that leg. Last thing we need is an arterial bleed. We can't exactly get a pair of mast trousers in here, now can we?" Cap caught the note of exasperation in his paramedic, "Easy Roy. We've done what we can here. Now Kelly and the whole gang should get us out inside five minutes." He eyed the rain of sparks and their location. "He's 3/4's the way around making us that door right now." --------------------------------------------- Outside Chet was sweating with effort behind his face plate. Marco was anchoring his shoulders while he cut into the Winnebago's side. But then the rasping buzz of the K-12 soured somehow with a sound of something very much like static.. Marco smelled ozone. "Chet! There's a live power line nearby!" Chet turned but didn't stop cutting. "One more second and I'll be through." "Chet!!" A hanging wire from a broken, leaning telephone pole that no one could see in the fog, swayed in the rising wind of coming daylight. A thick cable sparkled with blue fire, ionizing the air before connecting with the wall of the Winnebago. Current passed through Chet's sweaty gloves like water and into Marco. Both men were thrown backwards by the shock and fell onto the road. From where he was, Johnny Gage heard a crackling and looked up, horrified, as a massive blue arch illuminated the contorting forms of Lopez and Kelly. "Chet!!  Marco!!" He ran as close as he dared to where he thought they went down. He couldn't see them through the fog. And he didn't dare move any closer. Ozone nearly choked him. He thumbed his talkie, "LA, this is Squad 51. Cut all power to the Southbound Highway system, now!!" ------------------------- In the RV, the sound of sawing stopped. Cap looked up at the cutting outline and saw the job wasn't yet complete. It had gone quiet out there. Roy met his puzzled gaze. "Must've hit a beam or something." He was about to ask what was happening on the talkie when the EKG on both girls soured suddenly in a downward wave. "What th--?" It almost looked like resolving defib on the monitor. His bare hand brushed the metal floor. It tingled and he suddenly felt short of breath. He jerked his hand away with an effort of will. "Cap! The RV's being electrocuted! Get on your shoes' soles" A sickening wash of ozone flooded the tight space Cap Roy and the girls were in. They could now hear the crackling power striking the RV. They could see lightning blue through the cracks of the sawed wall. Cap gasped, "What about the girls?" Roy began grabbing the strewn dresser clothing around them. "Stuff insulation under them! If we get a direct hit from that wire. It'll kill them. They're touching this wall directly." He frantically put on his gloves again, avoiding the twisted metal around him and shoved sweaters, pj's and towels under his patient. Cap did the same for Robin. But before they could finish, a bright flare of fire buzzed and the bucking powerline wire wedged in the crack the K-12 had made at the top of the wall. The girls caught the whole backwash of electricity for a brief second before they were insulated from the floor by Cap and Roy. The EKG rhythms plunged again, more deeply, but they didn't flatline. Roy ducked involuntarily and so did Cap at the angry energy snapping so near their heads. It was a near thing. Then under DeSoto's hands, Cassie's chest failed to rise. "Cap! Check Robin. Her sister's just arrested." He redoubled his ventilation efforts again, using the demand valve on Cassie, watching her EKG monitor intently. But there were no further downward spikes at all. Their desperate mats of laundry had worked. Captain Stanley caught something of Roy's sudden urgency over the hideous noise from the powerline. He reassessed Robin, and she too, was apneic. "Roy, she's going down. No breathing." DeSoto handed Cap another pediatric oral airway and told him how to insert it. But there was a problem. Only one demand valve was available. Hank improvised, starting to breathe for her, wearing the cannula in his own nose, using his own lungpower and the flow of O2 through him to keep oxygen in her body. But there was a blessing even in the fetid darkness. The two EKG's on the defib monitors still sounded off, like music to his ears. Roy didn't admit it, but part of the tingle he got touching the metal floor underneath him had jarred him physically. His eyes blurred as he worked over Cassie.  Shake it off. Shake it off. It's just a headache. He knew the girls needed IV meds. And they needed them right now. Cap got on his walkie talkie, crouched around Robin's head. In between delivering breaths to Robin, he spoke, shouting. 'LA, this is Engine 51. Emergency!' "Go ahead 51." 'We're......pinned down surrounded by live power lines. Cut power to the area immediately. Multiple victims.......are involved.' "The power company has been notified. Two minutes to shut down." dispatch replied. Cap gave Robin another breath and looked up. "How are we going to get med authorization? You've got your hands full with that demand valve!" Roy backed out of Cassie's niche. "Relay. Then get Gage in here!" But before he could get back on his handytalkie he heard a frantic Gage contact him. 'I heard ya on the horn! Hang tight. Chet and Marco are down! **a large crackling of power**   Dammit!! I still can't get to you or them! You're going to have to make due without me!' There was thudding sound as John threw away the talkie in another attempt to circle around to get to his fallen coworkers. Roy heard only static follow on his radio. Cap and Roy were left alone, underseiged by the powerline in the camper, but they kept working to maintain the girls. Outside, Gage spotted another EMS crew appearing from the fog a few yards from the camper. He made sure he was heard and seen by picking up and throwing one of the road flares in their direction. He pointed at the camper when the men turned to face him. "Get my partner! He's in there! Live power line!!" Then he jumped the guard rail, moving up onto a hilly bank just visible to him in the mist. It was on a level with the top of the rolled Winnebago. John leaped on top of it, mindful of his fog damped shoes, quickly dancing until he got his overcoat under his feet insulating him from the deadly electricity surging under him. Stoker, who had come running at Cap's frantic radio call, handed him a shepard's crook. "Use it on them! Not the cable!  Or the polymer will melt on you!" Gage nodded, leaning on his stomach, over the edge of the camper's caved in roof. Mike tossed him a rope, which he looped around the end of the crook.  He extended the pole, and snagged Chet's hand, the only thing sticking in the air against a piece of debris. He jerked the line, tightening the noose and flung the line back at Mike on the ground. Station eight's men dragged Chet out of the hose watered danger zone to safety. Gage glanced over only long enough to see them roll him over onto his back before catching a new rope from Vince. His toss at Marco's foot, missed. His next toss caught him across the face, awakening him with its rough sting. "Ughhh!" "Marco, Listen to me! Grab the rope!" Marco contorted with each shock from the wire but he still had wits enough to hook an elbow around Gage's looped line. Johnny leaped back onto the grassy rise and hauled Lopez towards him away from the watery pavement. He got Marco to his feet and they got out of there. "I got ya. I got ya." Lopez locked into an involuntary spasm just as Gage and others got him back over the guard rail. He dropped in their arms and was quickly lowered to the ground and held carefully so his head didn't abrade on the concrete while he shook. "Ah. it hurts so bad!"  His breath was squeezed out of his body by a great steel band of his own muscles. *choke*... The world retreated for long seconds before the convulsion left him as quickly as it came. His vision came back. Marco saw a ring of faces over his. And one he recognized. ".ugh. Johnny.?.*gasp* H-How's Chet.?" John looked over across the road from where he was crouched over Marco. He could vaguely make out the outline of a Pasadena FD back bobbing up and down. "They're working on him." "uh no.." Lopez said, slinging an arm over his face. "They got to him fast enough now just worry about yourself for once, all right?" John said sharply. " Mike. Get the stokes!" Gage shouted. "I want him near me and the gear boxes!" John tried some levity as he undid Marco's overcoat and cut through his shirt with clothes shears from his hip holster when he saw that its buttons had fused together. "If your breakfast wasn't hot enough this morning. It sure is now. Your hair's curlier than Kelly's." Lopez groaned. Gage wasn't all sure that it was laughter. He kept a hand on Marco's chest. "Can you breathe, ok? That was some jolt you took there." "*cough* y- yeah." Marco tried to straighten out his body.  But then an even stronger muscle spasm curled him up into an agonizing ball. "Ahhhh!! Gage. Make it stop!!.. It's killing me.." he sobbed. "Easy, Marco. There's meds I can give ya to do just that But you're going to have to wait. You've been one upped by Chet here. Stone!" he shouted to a Pasadena man he recognized, "Get him on some O2 will ya.?" He said, pointing at Marco. "Put him on fifteen liters, non rebreather. Bring a bite stick. His convulsions won't resolve." Johnny turned Marco onto his side before the next spasm could make him ill. "The O2 will deal with some of your nausea ok?" Marco lost focus and stopped writhing as the spasm quit shaking him like a dog with a rag. He drifted. "Hey." John looked down at Lopez's pale face. He was now half out, but still moving air. "See you in a few minutes." He lingered only long enough to see the new EMS team insert a bitestick and start up his order of O2. "Marco. Hang tough. I'll be right back!" Johnny shouted as he stood up. Gage took off at a run to get to Kelly's side. Stoker, Vince, Station Eight's chief and Vince's partner, Garner got Marco into the stokes and brought him across the road to where Chet lay on the ground. Station eight's men were performing CPR on Kelly and using their own resusitator to give ventilations. John thunked down onto his knees and checked out Chet's pupils with his penlight around the demand valve mask without getting in that fireman's way. "They're reactive." He knew things weren't going to be easy. Roy had the squad's defibrillator. "Damn. If only we had another defib box." he mumbled. Then Vince spoke up. "There's one in the lifeguard tower station on the beach. "Vince peered about. "We're at mile marker two, aren't we?" The Chief nodded. "Where exactly is that station?" Vince thought hard. "It's about twenty five meters off the park entrance at the south end. It's a base station. There should be guards there now." "Well what are you waiting for?!"  Gage said, listening to how the oxygen from the positive pressure mask was perfusing in Kelly's lungs with his stethoscope around the CPR man. The Chief ordered, "Get a move on..!" he pointed to two men. "Yes sir.!"  Two firemen ran towards the direction of the ocean's waves. They disappeared into the fog. Gage shouted suddenly, "Hold it. hold it.!"  gesturing to the ventilator. "Chet's distending too much. I'm not getting any good volume in his lungs at all now. On the count of three, we'll roll him." At the end of a set of chest compressions, Kelly was turned on his side, with his head tilted back.  John pressed Chet's hugely air swollen stomach carefully, and the lung constricting air expelled back out of his mouth. When he finished, John swept inside Chet's mouth with a finger. It came away clear. "All right. back over. Back over. He didn't get sick." CPR continued. Gage nodded at the return of vents inside Kelly's chest. He pulled off his stethoscope, and sighed. John saw the powerline still arching in the Winnebago wall. He saw Truck 137's crew circling it, still separated from Roy and Cap. They were stymied. "Damn it. I wonder why the power company's taking so long." He saw one of Eight's men plunk the squad's biophone right in front of him and another unit's drug, trauma and IV boxes. "Where did you get that?! " he said incredulously happy. One of the men answered. "Station Eight's. But they've gone with the defib, They had a touchy OB in labor to the hospital. Stone said you might be needing this." "Good enough." He picked up the receiver and hailed Rampart. "Rampart this is squad 51. How do you read?" As if on cue, the power was cut to the writhing wire above them and its burning end went black. It settled to the ground. A new saw advanced on the camper immediately. John nodded with satisfaction, thumbing his walkie talkie. "Roy, they're coming in!!" ----------------------- The base station next to the front desk was empty, until the red light began to flash. Dixie McCall looked up from her slate at the sound of the incoming transmission's double buzz. She flagged down Joe Early coming out of treatment three. "Joe." and she pointed with her pen. Dr. Early went into the glass enclosed room and toggled the switch on the radio after starting the recording machine. "Unit calling in, please repeat." "Rampart this is Squad 51." "Go ahead 51." "Rampart, we have six victims at a multiple MVA. Two Code I. Two are still inaccessible.  Two superficial. Victim one and two are victims of electrical shock. Victim one. Negative vital signs. We're administering CPR. His arrest was witnessed. Victim two is semiconscious and suffering from severe muscular convulsions with moderate respiratory distress. He is stable. Victims three and four are children, trapped inside a trailer. Roy is with them now with a hand held radio, linked to you via dispatch. Victims five and six have minor cuts and abrasions." John reported. Joe early read the notes he took down. "Go ahead with victim one." Gage looked over to the men working on Chet. "10-4,Rampart, " Johnny swiped sweat off of his lip as he talked, "Chet's CPR has been ongoing for four minutes. We've had problems with distension, request permission to insert an esophogeal airway." "Go ahead 51. Then defibrillate at 400 watt seconds." John lip's set into a frustrated line, "Negative on the defibrillator, Rampart. We don't have one. A lifeguard station is nearby. We're waiting for beach lifeguards to respond with their equipment." Joe saw Kel walking by and motioned for him to come into the room curtly then added,  "10-4, 51. Start an IV D5W, TKO. Continue CPR. Administer one amp Sodium Bicarb. Then 5 cc's 1/10,000 mg epinephren IV Push. " "10-4. IV D5W TKO, one amp Bicarb, 5cc epinephren IV. Inserting an esophegeal airway." Gage repeated to his attending doctor. "Standing by." Dr. Early replied. He nodded to Dr. Brackett and handed him his notes and a transcript of the first minute of 51's call.  Kel continued reading intently. Joe said, "There's no defibrillator there. 51's working on it. They said they'll have one soon." Brackett said, "Six victims? Must be a bad one." Joe grunted and waited for his paramedic to come back online. Slinging the phone receiver and cord over his shoulder, Johnny grabbed a laryngoscope and an EOA. He bit his lip as he threaded it into Chet's throat, down the scope's guide groove and into his stomach. He was almost afraid that there'd be swelling from his evac earlier but there wasn't any at all. The tube settled to its end mark, effortlessly. "Ok."  He said to the man with the respirator. The valve was reconnected to the airway tube a second later. John listened to Chet's ribcage. "Ok, give him a shot." Kelly's chest rose. Gage heard good breath sounds on the left side. He shifted his stethoscope over to the other side. "Again." he nodded. He heard pure air sounds there too and no gastric bubbling. The tube was in place properly, he inflated the airway's gastric bulb. "We got it. Continue the CPR." He got an IV line in on sheer blind luck into Chet's inner arm vein at the crook of the elbow. He ran the D5, and then squirted air out of the epinephren needle before injecting it into the IV's rubber port. "Anything?" John asked when he was through. The fireman at Chet's head checked for a carotid. He shook his head. Gage cursed with more than a little frustration,  "You're making it hard for us.. Chet, I was only kidding about the full moon thing." he said, setting the IV bag under Chet's shoulder. John then got out the Bicarb ampoule and prepared and injected that blood neutralizer into the IV line. "He'll need a truckload. He's been down forever." he mumbled. "Where are those lifeguards.?" On cue, two people, a man and a woman in red shorts and jackets ran up to them being led by the chief's men. They had a white box with them. They crouched by Gage and the crew. The youngish athletic man spoke, "I'm Lt. Craig Pomeroy. This is Jill Riley, senior lifeguard. Heard you needed this." John smiled and grabbed it. "You're beautiful!" He flipped open the lid with a flourish and his face fell. "What th-?" He got out the phone in the same motion. "We have a defibrillator, Rampart. But it's a type I've never seen before." "What model is it?" Joe asked, puzzled. "I couldn't tell you, doc.." Gage said quite honestly. He heard Kelly Brackett emit an oath in the background. Dr. Early went on, "Any chance of finding another Defibrillator?" Craig spoke up to the fireman/paramedic. "I'm authorized to use this pack, sir. It's an automatic unit. It'll assess whether or not he's receptive to countershocking." John shouted eagerly, "Hold on, Rampart!" He set the phone down setting fingers on the woman lifeguards' arm. "Wait a sec. You said it determines heart recapture optimums?" They both nodded. "Rampart, ah,. The Lifeguard lieutenant here says he's fully trained on it. And that it has conversion analysis. What should I do?" Gage asked, breathless. Brackett slammed the button down, "Do whatever it takes, 51. He's running out of time!" he growled. Johnny nodded. "10-4." Then he looked to the Baywatch lifeguards. "You heard the man. Do it." Quickly, Jill and Craig threaded two huge pads that were attached to the strange looking monitor. There was no EKG screen to speak of, Gage thought. Until he saw a digital one pop on a screen the second the leads hit skin. Then they touched a green switch on the side of the device. A computerized synth voice spoke, ---Stand Clear. Stand clear-- analyzing patient. -- Johnny took the lifeguard's cues, motioning, and all the firemen lifted their hands from Chet. --No signal. Continue CPR.-- The team resumed their resusitation. "What's that mean? Why didn't it fire?" Johnny asked. Jill reset the device. " It means your bicarb hasn't had a chance to neutral this man's acidosis. When did you give it to him?" "Three and a half minutes ago." "Then it won't be long until the pack determines viability and defibrillates. It won't shock a heart in the wrong chemistry. Saves damage to the patient. Back off everyone." Craig ordered. Again the crew stood off. ---Stand Clear. Stand clear-- analyzing patient-- Everyone held their breaths. --Countershocking.-- *Shock* Chet Kelly's torso lifted only slightly, almost gently under the box's new kind of direct delivery system. ---No Pulse. Continue CPR.-- Johnny's patience hit a breaking point. "Damn it!" Gage sharply motioned for the CPR team to begin working again. Jill reassured Johnny. "The bicarb is working. Soon, his blood will be prepped enough for the pack to deliver another shock. It'll be another ten seconds." Gage grabbed her arms, "Wait a minute. Are you saying that right now, Chet's system is still too acid for that thing to work? Craig put his hands on his knees, "Yes." Gage smiled, "Hang on..  Rampart, There's still no conversion after one countershock. We're showing deep flatline on the pack."  Come on, docs, guess what I'm guessing. "Hmm. Sounds like his blood is still too acid. Give another amp Sodium Bicarb." Joe said finally. Yes!  Gage thought happily. But then Brackett came on. "Gage, we'll need to bump him up into coarse V-Fib again. I am personally authorizing you to give 2 cc epinephren Intracardially." Johnny's face fell and he gaped, slowly, "Hold on. Rampart, IC? I've never done one in the field." "I have full confidence in you, Johnny. You've seen me do it enough times."  Brackett said. Gage licked suddenly dry lips. "Uh,.10-4, one amp Sodium Bicarb, then 2cc Epinephren IC. Stand by." The bicarb load was in and empty when John got over being stunned about what he was being asked to do. Johnny drew open the paper off the premixed syringe. He motioned with his head to the firemen around him. "All right. Stop the ventilations." He fingered the proper position into the cartilage between the third and fourth ribs and cleared the six inch needle of any air. Jill Riley looked away as the long needle plunged down. Gage advanced the cath until he felt one pop, then two. "All right, I'm through the chest wall, nnghh. and the pericardial sac." then he felt a tenuous third resistance in the needle, ventricle tissue! "There.!" He pushed the plunger until all of the amber fluid in the chamber was gone. He held his breath and withdrew the needle back the way it came and looked at the tip of it. It was all there. Nothing had broken off. He sighed, passing off the spent syringe to the needle bin in the Drug box. Then nodded for CPR to resume. John sat back onto his butt, rubbing his mouth in relief. "I did it. I actually did it." The lifeguards continued where he left off. The green button was pressed again. ----Stand clear. Stand clear--analyzing patient-- More than one man crossed their fingers. --Countershocking.-- *shock* ----Pulse detected. Pulse detected..  Detach unit's power source.-- The last line of the computer's voice was drowned out by cheers from all the rescuers over Kelly as his chest began to rise and fall. Johnny snatched the phone to his mouth. "Rampart. We have a Ventricular rate of about 30." It was Brackett's turn to sigh and tremble a tad. "Good work Johnny. You saved both my professional reputation, and yours. Think we should add that little trick to the Paramedic manual?" Gage just grunted in the negative. "Hell no. My nerves are shot!!" But he could almost hear Brackett grinning through the biophone line. Joe early added, "51, start an IV of an Isiproterenol Drip, and the rest of the bicarb. Continue O2 and monitoring. Transport as soon as possible. Send us a strip lead two." Jill turned a toggle on the pack for Gage and a few other dials he didn't understand and said, "This will be lead two." Brackett and Early grinned at the unfamiliar voice but bent over the paper roll feeding out of their relay monitor. "Looking good, ..ma'am. " Kel joked. "Johnny, Increase the drip until his rate's around seventy, will you? We'll wait on his vitals until you've treated victim two." "Affirmative, Rampart."  He finished his med order on Kelly and then turned his attention to Marco behind him. ------- Lopez still had good color and was moving slightly. Gage looked to the Pasadena man who was carefully watching Marco's breaths steaming under the mask. "Is he still having spasms?" Johnny wanted to know. "Yes." On cue, Lopez twisted up, in one arm and leg on the same side.  "Tonic convulsions now?" Gage wondered. John shouted, "Marco! Can you hear me?" His coworker's face didn't change. Johnny got closer to his ear. "Marco!"  But Lopez didn't react. Johnny checked out his pupils. Then on a thought, rubbed a knuckle into his sternum. Marco twitched and fingers moved slightly on the relaxed hand. But that was all. Johnny relayed what he had found, "Rampart Victim Two's Marco Lopez. He's semi conscious and diaphoretic. Respirations are labored at.." he paused to check. Then Gage was surprised to see the two lifeguards stringing a different patch from the auto defib unit of theirs to Lopez's bare shoulder. Pomeroy shrugged, "Your doctor is going to want to see how he's doing too." Johnny smiled, "Fair enough." he said, muffling the  phone mouth piece, Then he finished his report, "Respirations are 36 and irregular. He's having frequent seizures in his lower body and extremities. The spasms started all over him when we first got him free but now seem to be confined to the left side of his body. He's on fifteen liters of O2. Additional vitals to follow." Early wanted to know. "51, Sounds like the electricity traveled down his central nervous system from the contact point and has disrupted neural activity on that side. I want a BP from that arm. What's his heartrate?" "Pulse is..120 and irregular, BP is..*sigh* . Stand by for the BP." Gage got a reading quickly by stepping his foot on the twitching hand  on Marco's left side while Jill and Craig helped hold the arm still for him, restraining it at shoulder and wrist. "..BP is...Hold him, 72 over 30." He reported, pinning the phone to his ear between his shoulder and face. Marco began to gag slightly in his stupor. But there was nothing left in his stomach to lose. He only had weakened dry heaves as he lay on his side, gasping tightly around them. John slid his free hand to Marco's neck, pulling his larynx up a bit in his thumb and fingers to see if his breathing evened out. It didn't. Johnny added. "Rampart, Marco's getting stridorous. I think the petite mals are having an impact. And he's really nauseated and he's getting a bit cyanotic." "Try an esophageal airway, 51." Joe ordered. "Negative, Rampart. He has a gag reflex." Gage said. "What's his response to pain stimuli?" Dr. Early asked. "Somewhat to pain, nothing to verbal cues. And he's now showing no signs of voluntary movement on his uneffected side." Joe considered, then asked, "51, is he still vomiting at all?" "Negative. his stomach appears to be empty." Dr. Brackett laid down the plan. "Hmm. Johnny, sounds like he'll tolerate a naso pharyngeal airway. Go ahead and intubate him. It should help his air intake and keep him from aspirating any bodily fluids." "10-4." Gage nodded as the lifeguard Craig anticipated his need and handed him one already out of its wrap. He nodded thanks, while he listened to the rest of Kel's instructions. "..Send us a strip. I want to see what's happening to his cardiac functioning." Jill took off Marco's O2 mask and held it near but out of Johnny's way. Johnny gel-ed the nasal airway and guided it through one of Lopez's nostrils and down, until it was in place fully. He checked its positioning in the back of his throat with a penlight, peering into Marco's mouth. Then he replaced the bite stick in between his involuntarily clenching teeth. "All right. Get that O2 back on him.".. Jill complied. He listened for a moment, molding the mask carefully around Marco's nose and mouth and the seizure stick, then smiled as his labored gasps eased off and began slowing. "Ok. he's set. It's working." He picked up the phone, "Doc, his breathing's leveling off. Respirations are 24 and deep." he nodded with satisfaction. "He's in better color too." Gage pointed to Jill, and she sent Marco's telemetry to the hospital as she had done with Chet's readings. Brackett eyed Lopez's strip as the audio feed danced in its soft wavering pitch, filling the base station's tiny room. Dix held her breath, and so did Joe. Kel finished reading the strip, and one of his eyes twitched as he toggled the sending talk button. "51, I'm getting only minor ventricular irregularities. Your fireman's one lucky man. Looks like the jolt he took was only of moderate intensity. His nausea's not cardiac related. It's most likely due to pyschogenic shock. Give .05 mg Atropine ,  IV, 51. And start an IV of D5W, TKO to get him out of it." Johnny replied, grateful at the news, "10-4, doc, .05 Atropine in a D5W IV to keep open."  He tore a bag out of its paper and strung a line in after nabbing a vein. He splinted the tubing and the catheter in Marco's arm with an IV board, so it wouldn't be torn free in his seizuring. Then he added the atropine. Lopez began to shiver differently and the convulsions on his left began to spread to his other side. Jill cushioned his head in her hands but other firemen replaced her gentle manual restraint with two sand bags that worked even better. Gage got on the phone quickly, "Rampart. Atropine is in, but ah,. his convulsions seem to be getting worse. And more frequent." Dr. Brackett, "It's a tough tradeoff, 51. Atropine for that good air exchange. But increased tremors." He mumbled off phone to Joe. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."  He got back on the line. "All right Johnny. We're going to find middle ground. Draw up 10 milligrams Diazepam for an IM only." Gage frowned, rocking back on his heels, grumbling at his only viable option. He knew what the doctors were asking him to risk.  Great. first Kelly's IC, now this. Kel went on, "Watch him closely. The Diazepam's going to depress his breathing every step of the way. You're going to inject half a cc at a time until he's just at the point where the tremors cease. Got that? Half cc for every fifty pounds body weight. You lose lung draw and we're in trouble." "10-4. Diazepam IM. One half cc per fifty. Stand by." "Standing by." Johnny wasn't happy. He knew the risks of losing Marco's respiratory ability were high due to his shock; let alone those incurred from his having a downer drug used on him. Coma couldn't be far away if Gage over shot his mark. He closed his eyes, holding the needle and shot of muscle paralyzer up between his chilled hands as he tried to recall what he had heard Lopez joke about his weight a week ago while he was standing on the station's scale. "Now what did you say Lopez? 185?.190 pounds?"  He couldn't clearly remember. "Damn." he cursed, grabbing up his talkie. "Squad 51 to Engine 51. Come in." Captain Stanley answered, "Gage? Is that you? Hurry up. We've got two respiratory arrested girls in here." "Hold on, Cap. I'll be right there. But Marco needs treatment right now more than they do. You've got the kids maintaining just fine from the sound of it." Johnny said. He could hear Roy's PPV's and Cap's mouth given breaths plainly. "Right now I need to know Lopez's exact body mass." Cap grabbed up the radio closer to his free ear, "What did you just ask? The saw's too loud in here!" "Roy . Cap!. how much does Lopez weigh? How heavy is he?  Brackett's got me anesthetizing Marco to control petite mals. Now how many pounds do you remembering seeing in his file from last week, Cap? I can't do this at all unless I am absolutely right on or he'll get real sour on us real fast." Cap said, "I don't honestly know, Gage.. Roy?" DeSoto wiped sweat from his eyes. His head was pounding from the remnants of the electrical surge he took through his fingers on the floor. His mind raced, then he snatched the radio away from Cap and hollered, "Chief, get one of your men in here right now to take over for me. My partner needs me out there ASAP. Johnny I'll be right there.!." A minute later, Stone wormed his way to Roy's side and took over Cassie's resusitation effort. Roy put a hand on Cap's shoulder as he worked over Robin. "I'll be right back. Call me if either of their EKGs so much as twitch." He left his radio on Robin's stomach, within Cap's easy reach.  Hank nodded as he placed another seal over the child's lips and blew her another careful breath. Roy made sure Cap had enough oxygen flowing through the cannula on his face to go through him and then to the child. "Got to remember your trick for the books." he quipped. That simple statement made Hank relax a whole nine yards. Roy felt comfortable then with leaving the four of them in the camper. ========== DeSoto stumbled out into the fog. He found Gage and Kelly and the Pasadena group by following the flares glowing on the road. He arrived too fast and banged into Gage. He lost his balance. squatting down near him over Marco's writhing form. Gage looked at him "Hey, easy! I almost stuck you.." He said, whipping the needle away from Roy. "S-Sorry." Roy coughed, rubbing his eyes to clear them. Johnny looked a little more closely at Roy, "You ok?  I know you're better than me at this, but if you're too tired.." "I- I'm fine. Give it here." Gage studied Roy's sweaty face for a moment, and noticed a stench coming from him. Burned flesh. "Hey." he took up Roy's arm, "Where did you get that burn?" "It's nothing. I.. touched some hot metal when I got too near the K-12." he lied. Marco needed him to act. Now. "You sure you're all right?" Gage said, still hanging onto Roy's jacket. "Yeah. I'm fine." DeSoto said. Something about his conviction fooled Johnny. He studied Roy's face a moment longer, then slowly handed DeSoto the syringe. "ok." he said. Johnny picked up the phone. "Rampart, Roy's going to do it. He's got a better idea of how much Lopez weighs." "Get on it, 51. Every minute with those convulsions is another minute too many." Brackett said. Roy's brain fuzzed as he swabbed down the fleshy part of Marco's flank. "He said.. he weighed. 81 kilos. in the gym. Joked about how it was the same weight as our punching bag.." he whispered to himself. "What?" "Shhhhh" Roy said, wiping moisture from his upper lip. "He said. 81 kilos.. I'm certain of it. that's why he looked so funny working out with it. It kept knocking him around.. Yeah. I remember laughing at him trying to keep on his feet." Gage nodded, smiling slightly. "He's not much of a Mohammed Ali, I take it, eh? Only 81 kilos? " then he clammed up. Johnny occupied himself with taking another BP on Marco's still arm, mentally kicking himself for distracting Roy. He began pumping up the BP cuff. Even that small snicking valve sound intruded badly upon Roy's concentration. He took a deep breath trying to ignore it.  .now, how many pounds is 81 kilos.?  He did a mental calculation and then said out loud to Johnny with a short nod of his head.  "Injecting. . Inj  uh,.2.5 cc's Diazepam. IM." And he stuck the needle into muscle, pushing the plunger to drain to the 7.5 remaining line. Gage looked up, ripping his stethoscope out of his ears. "Roy?! Did you just say 2.5.?" He whipped up Roy's hand off the syringe still impaled in Marco's hip, gasping. He jerked out the needle and flung it away quickly,  but it was too late. "Roy. 81 kilos is only 178.5 lbs!  The dose should have been dif---!." The absolute horror that rose in Roy's face transferred to his own. Roy began to tremble, but automatically, he felt Lopez's chest for air movement. Marco breathed still, but shallowly. He got out his penlight and looked very quickly at Lopez's eyes. The pupils were fixed and dialated. He pointed to them, his face a tortured mask, dropping his shining pen light. The bulb shattered on the pavement. Gage knocked Roy's hands away fiercely using his own light to see and saw the undeniable sign there too. Coma. Johnny was stunned, but brought the phone numbly to his mouth, "Rampart. we have a problem. I think we made a..a .mistake." Brackett looked up sharply from his notepad. "What do you mean, Johnny? Talk to me." Simultaneously, Roy reacted. "Oh my god. Johnny, what have I done.?" The moment proved too much. DeSoto's head fuzz reared up as he tried a futile denial. Then his brain refused to function any longer. Roy slumped to the ground, letting the rising black from his near jolt of electricity claim him. "Roy?!"  John shouted. He flung out a hand. But Jill and Craig were faster. They caught the fair haired paramedic before his head hit the ground. Craig told him. "He's fine. He's fine. I got him." he said after a check of his carotid. "He's just out cold. I don't see anything more than that." Brackett's demanding voice shouted at their feet. "51! What's going on over there! This man's EKG has just hyperbolically leveled. He's overdosed. He's down too deep." Gage picked up the receiver. "Doc. Roy .. injected 2.5 cc's. Way too much." Joe didn't hesitate, "25 cc Narcan. Push it." "Doing it." Gage got the universal drug antidote from the box and used it. "Come on, Marco. Snap out of it. Nap time's over." He watched a fireman increase an ambu bag's delivery of controlled 100% O2 to Marco a few more notches. The Pasadena man had begun using one when he had first heard the word "overdosed." But the EKG remained at its suppressed eerily slow, uniform sinus rhythm, the earmark of the coma state. Brackett announced over the landline, "No conversion. Keep hyperventilating him, Johnny. And put DeSoto on the line, I want to talk to him." "I can't doc,. He's out cold. He may be injured from his trying to get to the other victims. He's got a burn I didn't check out very well." He groaned in anger as he saw other marks of charring soot on his skin that Craig had uncovered as he opened Roy's shirt to monitor him. "I think he might have tangled with the same powerline that took out Chet and Marco." Joe toggled the speaker when Kel didn't respond to Gage right away. "10-4, 51. Monitor DeSoto and treat for shock. Listen to me.  I want you to stay focused. We'll work out all of this later. Give me another set of vitals on Marco and get him set to transport. Now. I want to know about victims 3 through 6 in triage priority." "10-.10-4. Rampart.." Johnny said mechanically. "Cap's with victims 3 and 4 now, I've just learned, they're two girls in respiratory arrest." "Give me a man with them who can get me their vitals." Early said. "Stand by." Gage once more got on his radio. ====== The rest of the rescue was a blur to Johnny. The tremendous load on Johnny as senior assessor was soon halved shortly after Roy's collapsed. Gage remembered the side of the Winnebago being finish cut and pulled free and then a new station's paramedics rushing in to relieve Stone and Cap's ventilations of the two girls. With a firm tie to Rampart, the injured children's conditions were stabilized rapidly, and Cassie and Robin, with their parents, were transported out by Mayfair rig ten minutes later. That completed, Johnny could focus on the full implications of events with Marco, Roy and Kelly. ========== In a second, red lighted speeding rig, Chet awoke enough to spit out his airway en route. Johnny leaned over him just in time to hear him complain about his head aching and about his chest that somebody had used both as a trampoline and as a stone for the proverbial sword. Gage winced, rubbing his own chest, imagining what it must be like for Chet, having a fresh six inch needle puncture wound down heart deep. "You have no idea the trouble we had to go through to save your butt, Chet. Just be grateful you're still breathing." he grinned lopsidedly. "Ohhhh..ow." Then Chet asked about Marco as his memory returned. "How's Lopez? My god, I swear I could hear his mustache sizzling just before I blacked out." he laughed a short laugh before the painful reminders of his rescue, shut him up. He turned his head, seeing his familiar coworker firefighter lying next to him on another stokes. Gage deflected masterfully, with his smile locked in cement with all the skill of the paramedic hiding bad news. "Worry about yourself and that halo you narrowly avoided, Chester B." Gage said, firmly planting the O2 mask back over Chet's face.  "That's your first concern." Kelly blinked, twice, shoving his O2 mask onto his forehead, thinking. "Ok, Lopez is entitled to a little confidentiality. But what's HIS story?" the curly haired fireman said, pointing to a third stokes Johnny was leaning his rear on in the crowded ambulance. That one held Roy's dusty, limp form. Kelly saw that he, too, was on precautionary O2, but no IV hung over his head. Naturally, Chet assumed the lightest possible outcome to that scenario. "Don't tell me the sandman caught up with DeSoto during my rescue?" Chet laughed weakly. "Now that would be REALLY embarrassing. Glad I wasn't awake for that little blunder." he chuckled. Kelly actually saw Johnny suddenly wince at his words and look away. The haunted look in Johnny's eyes sobered Chet more than the water did from the Phantom's revenging can sprung a year ago.  A sick feeling gripped Chet that had nothing to do with his near brush with death. "Gage. What is it that you aren't telling me?" John fiddled with both Chet and Marco's EKG settings before he replied in the softest of voices. "I don't know how in the world I could possible begin to tell you what happened Chet. I can't believe it really happened m- mysel--." he admitted, his strong baritone cracked with emotion. "You see.. Marco needed a drug to stop his seizuring. Roy was so tired. and I didn't see how tired he was. I let him take over. And.. he ." Gage looked down at his soiled hands, ".gave him. too much.." Kelly rose up onto his shaking elbows. "What?" in utter disbelief, then a few seconds later, in denial, " Johnny. even with an OD, I've seen you use that stuff, what is it called? Narcan. Yeah. Like you use with the cocaine addicts all the time. That will fix Marco right off as soon as we get to Rampart,." he smiled desperately. But his eyes on the stretcher next to his only revealed a deathly still man, and an oddly mechanical heart rhythm, unnaturally slow for lifesigns, scrolling on the screen next to his own. ".right?" Johnny's eyes filled and he set his hand on Marco's stomach just for the reassuring rise and fall of his breathing in another attempt to delude himself. "Chet. That tiny OD put Marco into a coma, one from which he might not ever awaken." The sirens above Chet's head began to alter in pitch, its urgency mocked, as a new sound mingled with its wail and began to grow. The sound was of two completely grown professional firefighting men, starting to cry. ------------------------------------------ "Roy..." A voice.  It was someone he knew. He was certain of that while he worked around the pain and fog in his head. "Roy... Open your eyes.. It's me." Roy DeSoto opened his eyes to a bright light, which was instantly angled, out of his eyes by a nimble hand, which cocked the overhead light away from his face. Roy coughed. A gentle smile resolved into focus. Dixie McCall sat on a stool by the side of his treatment room gurney. "How are you doing?" she asked. "You took long enough snapping out of it." she teased. "Thought I might have to light matches under your fingernails just to revive you." The joke didn't make Roy laugh. Roy tried to rise but she was instantly there, restraining him. "Easy. Dr. Morton will be along to check you out in a moment. Now you just lie back and wait for him. Do you remember what happened to you?" Roy groaned, fighting dizziness and swept fingers to his nose, feeling the flowing cannula resting there, but it was only his expression that conveyed his next question because he couldn't yet talk. "You passed out. Johnny brought you in here himself, twenty minutes ago." "I did?" He took another deep breath from the oxygen tubing and his stubbornly foggy head cleared. Emotion wracked DeSoto cruelly as full recall of what he had done dug into the pit of his stomach. "Marco! Oh my god. Dixie. I-- It's Marco. I-I. gave him an overd-- " He cut off when he saw her small slow nod. The room swam nightmarish in his mind's eye as he returned to every paramedic's idea of a living hell. He sucked in a choking sob and demanded. "How is he?" Dixie's doe eyes lowered fractionally but she met Roy's gaze again right away even as her caregiver's voice deepened into a note of seriousness. "...He's the same I've heard..  Dr. Early's with him now. He's ordered an EEG scan on him." Dixie held up an admonishing finger when Roy started to protest, started to leave the bed. She snicked up the bed's side rail, preventing him. "Now you listen to me Roy DeSoto. We'll get answers soon enough. But those won't come any faster if you go barging in there like some guilt ridden, self sacrificing Don Quixote. Besides, you have no idea which treatment room he's in right now at all, do you?" she said, folding her arms. "Dix." he started to say. She ignored him, "Chet, on the other hand, is asking about YOU." she said significantly. "There's a fireman who's got his priorities straight. He's concerned right now with Roy DeSoto. And so am I. " She changed the subject a bit to deflect him, "Did you know that your partner brought Kelly back with his first IC ever? Chet converted right away. Gage nearly wet himself when Brackett gave him the order, but he did what had to be done, flawlessly. Shows his skills as a paramedic are gr--" she broke off, uncomfortable when she realized what she had been about to say. Roy let the comment sting. "But what about my OWN skills as a paramedic, huh?" he said with some heat. "Yeah, I trained Johnny, so did you, and he now saves a hell of a lot of lives. because of us." he said sarcastically, "But tell me this, Dix. When did I lose track of managing my own stamina and judgement? Can you tell me that? When did I lose my edge?" Tears filled his eyes as he absently picked at the burn dressing someone had placed on his arm while he had been unconscious. "How can I get up tomorrow morning to even shave? I can just see it, pretending all's well. Staring at my own face in the mirror.." His voice was intensely bitter, "A little lost sleep and I blow all propriety out the window with a fateful misinjection that turns one of my best friends whom I've known for almost six years into one of the living d--..." "Roy.." Dix admonished. "Now you listen to me and you listen to me good. Dragging yourself over the coals about this thing isn't helping one bit. It's not helping you and it's not helping me. And certainly that attitude's not helping Marco." The mention of Lopez's name made Roy look away. Dix grabbed Roy's chin to make him look at her. She said frankly. "You know as well as I do that it's still way too soon to know if the Diazepam caused permanent harm yet or not. You know the findings in this scenario are unrevealing for a week or two at the very least.. So don't go writing off any people so soon. Neither your friend, nor yourself." She let him go. "So you made a mistake. A terrible one. One that will most likely have a lasting effect no matter the outcome. But let's face it, together. You don't have to be alone with this. Not at all." She angrily brushed loose hair from her eyes and took his hand, "That's why I'm here, Roy. That's why we're all here. So don't you forget that. Your family loves you and so do your crewmates. Don't let them down by giving up on anyone. And I won't have you giving up on yourself so start dealing with it right now, Roy DeSoto." on to the next part