“The kid’s immune system is running on overdrive. T-cells, antibodies, histamine, white blood cell count, C reactive protein, it’s all elevated. The kicker is that the machine hasn’t identified any known bacterium, virus, spirochete, or protozoan, but it does register a high percentage of proteins that it can’t tag. What I’m not getting is any signature for the usual poisons.” She gave the machine a pat. “But, Michaela, this beast only has limited diagnostic functions for specific toxins. If it’s not in the machine’s catalog, it can’t tag it. For sophisticated analyses, you need a hospital-grade unit.”

“We don’t have one.”

Gabarron cocked an eyebrow, glanced back at the boy. “I’m pretty limited myself. I’m trained to render initial aid, evaluate and stabilize the patient, administer pharma, deal with immediate trauma, and give out bandages. Anything beyond that, I’m supposed to load the patient up and ship them off to The Corporation’s closest hospital for advanced care.”

“Which is Port Authority.”

“What do we do? Call them up, ask them to send their A-7? Try and get Toni aboard as they hover like the Supervisor did when she got here? Or send a seatruck to the beach pad and transfer the boy there?”

“They’ll want money, Anna. Those miserable SDRs they’re so fond of.” This would have been a wonderful time to remind Gabarron that she’d been the one to piss on the Supervisor’s shoe and incite the rest to sever relations.

Instead, Michaela told her, “Get on the radio. Have Dik patch you through to Raya Turnienko at the PA hospital. Use the hospital frequency and only the hospital frequency. Then, when you get Turnienko, agree on a specific frequency for our use so we can talk privately. We don’t want Aguila listening in. See if Raya has seen anything like this, and if she knows how to treat it. Maybe it’s something simple that we can handle here, on our own.”

“Call now!” Mikoru snapped. “Whatever it takes, we are going to save my son’s life.”

“I don’t care what we have to do,” Yosh insisted, panic and desperation in his dark eyes. “Mikoru and I have already lost three to miscarriage and stillbirth. Three. My son is going to live!”

If passion could heal, Yosh certainly had it nailed.

“We’ll do everything,” Michaela told them. Glanced at Gabarron. “Let’s go talk to PA.”

As she led the way out into the hall, Michaela wondered what this was ultimately going to cost them. How did you pay people for saving other people’s lives? How did anyone put a price on that?