Chapter 10 - The Flatline in Room 402
Valerie threw herself against the glass of the ICU door, her hands pressing flat against the cold surface. Inside the sterile room, the heart monitor was a solid, unrelenting red line of sound. Nurse Helen was already pushing past the state troopers, ripping the door open and rushing to the side of the cot where Lila lay motionless, her pale blue cardigan tangled around her small frame.
“Crash cart! Now!” Helen screamed into the hallway, her hands pressing rhythmically into the little girl's chest in a desperate bid for CPR.
“Step back, Ms. Kincaid!” Detective Miller yelled, drawing her service pistol and positioning herself directly in front of the doorway, her eyes darting down the darkened, red-tinted corridor where the emergency lights cast long, twisted shadows.
Valerie couldn't move. She stared through the glass at Lila’s pale, lifeless face, the terrifying echo of the morning ringing in her ears—*My dad said it wouldn’t hurt, but it does.*
“She’s in ventricular fibrillation! Charge to one hundred joules!” a doctor shouted from inside the room, slamming the defibrillator pads against Lila's thin chest.
Thump-hiss.
The body of the seven-year-old arched slightly against the mattress from the electric shock, but the monitor didn't change. The flatline tone continued, high and unbroken.
“Charge again! One hundred fifty!”
Out in the hallway, the heavy emergency fire doors at the end of the corridor suddenly hissed and began to close automatically, triggered by the power failure. But as they slid together, a heavy combat boot wedged itself into the gap, stopping the metal doors from sealing.
Miller raised her pistol, her muscles tensing like coiled steel. “State Police! Drop whatever you’re carrying and put your hands where I can see them!”
The heavy fire door was shoved open with brute force.
Stepping out of the darkness of the stairwell came a tall man in a tailored dark suit, wearing latex gloves and carrying a heavy, titanium medical transport case in his right hand. His face was calm, his graying hair neatly parted, and his wire-rimmed glasses glinted under the red emergency lights.
It wasn't the man with the wrench. It was a face Valerie recognized instantly from the framed photographs hanging in the front office of the elementary school.
It was Dr. Harrison Vance.
“Put the gun down, Detective Miller,” Harrison Vance said, his voice smooth, cultured, and utterly devoid of fear. He didn't even look at the weapon pointed at his chest. He looked straight through the glass window into the ICU, watching Helen desperately compress the chest of the motionless child.
“You’re under arrest, Dr. Vance,” Miller barked, stepping forward with her handcuffs ready. “Step away from the door or I will open fire.”
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Harrison didn't move. A faint, cold smile touched the corners of his mouth. He raised his left hand slowly and tapped the side of his Bluetooth earpiece.
“You can arrest me, Detective,” Vance said calmly. “But if that child flatlines for more than three minutes, the encryption key for the entire neural network deletes automatically. And the girl dies with it.”
