“Coded en route, Doc,” wheezed the smaller of the EMTs. Judging by the voice, it was a woman. “A minute, maybe. We wouldn’t have brought her in at all if she’d coded sooner.”

“CPR?”

“Yeah, and epi times one. Shocked twice.” The EMT stared at her shoe. “You want to call it?”

Compton looked again. The patient’s eyes were closed, luckily. She hated when their eyes were open. The patient was young; in her thirties, most likely, with gorgeous red hair and ugly blue skin. Compton shuddered; she also hated blue skin. Perhaps more than anything on earth, she’d grown to hate blue skin.

“She’s only been down a couple minutes,” she said. “Let’s tube her.”

The larger EMT shrugged at the idea of inserting a breathing tube for this patient. “Your funeral, Doc,” he said. He and his partner eased out.

Jerry continued chest compressions, but his eyebrows rose. Like Compton, he’d also survived an early bout with artiovirus and consequently found himself one of the most sought-after nurses in this particular circle of hell. Needless to say, running a code with two people was not how this was supposed to go down. In the good old days of a month or so ago, you might have ten or fifteen people in a code room, each of them a cog in a well-oiled machine. Now there weren’t enough people to comprise a code team. Instead, each doctor paired with one nurse, and, if they were really lucky, a tech. Every now and then a respiratory therapist might materialize too, but since half the hospital’s population consisted of ventilated patients, they couldn’t make it down to the ED much anymore. If the doctor was unlucky: no nurse and no tech, so she’d have to figure out a way to perform chest compressions and administer medications by herself, all while simultaneously inserting tubes into the trachea, the jugular, the antecubital vein, and the bladder. Plus, all of this would have to be documented somehow, to prevent conspiracy theorists from later asserting that Grandma had been surreptitiously strangled by a corrupt doctor on the take from Big Pharma.

“You don’t think we should tube her, Jerry?”

Jerry shook his head, his expression terse. “I’d tube the one next door,” he said. “Better chance.”

Compton wasn’t about to argue with one of the best nurses in the ED. She stuck her head out of the cubicle and hollered, “Body!”