"Wrap the resident in a thermal sheet. Staging Bay C. Clear the lane for morning count. Log the exception." Pruitt walked away at the unhurried pace of an office manager heading for the breakroom.
#BerkeleyTapes

He tilted the screen toward Blevins. "What does standard transport require?"
"Two armed officers. Continuous bedside rotation."
"And our post count at the south perimeter right now?" Blevins's mouth moved. Nothing came out.
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"Property flag on this unit from midnight?"
"Yes, sir. Unverified injectables, no CURES barcode. Standard seventy-two-hour hold."
"Right. Unverified file. An outside transfer triggers an IGSA audit penalty."
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For a fraction of a second his gaze passed over David. No anger. No hatred. No satisfaction. The flat look a clerk gives an item that won’t scan. Then it returned to the screen.
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It was convincing. He knew it was. Three years of organizing, every hour of Guild training, and it came out clean even through the shivering. Pruitt's eyes came up off the tablet.
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"Director. There's a nineteen-year-old dying of something insulin fixes in twenty minutes. You have an affirmative duty of care. It's in Title 15, in your own contract. A medic is four blocks away. One phone call. You're the only one who can make it."
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David got his feet under him, hands shaking so hard he hooked his thumbs into his collar to still them. He found the voice, the real one, the one that had held four hundred people on the steps of Sproul in the rain.
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"Status, Blevins."
"Resident AX-88319, sir. Unresponsive. Protocol Four completed, no reversal."
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Wade Pruitt stopped at the threshold, his softshell zipped to the neck, lanyard dead center, tablet under his arm. He stayed behind the yellow stripe and looked into the pod like an inspector over a broken sewer main.
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"Dose one administered."
An octave lower now.
"Resident non-reactive."
Leather soles tapped on smooth aggregate as someone approached.
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He jammed the nozzle into Tadeo's nostril and depressed the plunger. A small pneumatic hiss. Nothing changed. Ribs still hitching, in, then out, in, then out. Each exhale pushed out another sweet, rotten cloud.
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"You're treating an overdose? Smell the air, it's ketones. His glucose must be over six hundred!"
Blevins didn't answer. Couldn't. His flowchart had no entry for ketones. Only a protocol for an unconscious body: antagonist, wait three minutes, log the response. #BerkeleyTapes

He pulled a naloxone auto-injector from the die-cut foam and tore the red tab off with his teeth.
"That is not an opiate!"
The orderly got a knee under himself before a shield pinned him flat.
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"Resident is non-responsive." Into the epaulet mic.
"Initiating Standard Response Protocols." He didn't check the wrist. Didn't feel for a carotid.
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Blevins knelt with a molded yellow Pelican case, Axiom's asset tag hot-stamped into the plastic. Twenty-two, maybe. Face shiny with late-shift grease. Fingers trembling on the latches.
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A gloved hand caught his shoulder and pulled. The poly-blend tore like wet paper. He went down hard onto his hip against the cinderblock.
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Only the hospital orderly stayed down. "Respiratory rate thirty-eight. Nail beds pale, perfusion gone, skin dry. Kidneys failing from the acid. Don't lay him flat! He's bringing up bile."
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"Feet to the wall seam." Blevin's cadence was straight off a laminated card. Two contractor guards shouldered in behind him and pushed the room back by sheer displacement.
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An ambulance is only four blocks away. #BerkeleyTapes #SpecFic #WriteSky 🧵

Photo: Bibby Stockholm, Falmouth Docks, Cornwall, England.

Hector rose, eyes on the camera dome, and struck the door's base seam with his shoe heel, one, two, three, low and even, a sound that traveled through the floor plates instead of the ceiling gate. Ten seconds of nothing. Then a mechanical click. (23/23)
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