“No, you aren’t doing anyone any good right now. You go. I’ll work with her.” He nodded in the direction of a terrified-looking child wearing scrubs. Compton peered at her, homing in on the badge attached to her lanyard.

“That’s a second-year medical student, Jerry.”

He shrugged. “You go to war with the army you have, Doc. We’ll be fine. See you back tonight, okay?”

“Okay, yes,” she said, certain she was lying. After tonight she would never set foot in this place again, not if she had anything to say about it. Lots of people would die if she didn’t come back to work, though. Also: lots of people died when she was at work. That last thought wasn’t what she’d meant to think. What had she been trying to think? Compton clutched her head in confusion.

She stumbled to the doctors’ lounge to pee and discard her scrubs, which were now doused in most of the major bodily fluids. After gulping an enormous amount of water straight from a fresh bottle, she removed her scrubs and showered. Afterward, feeling marginally better, she opened the door to the cabinet containing fresh scrubs and found it empty. No towels either. Of course. The heroic environmental services people couldn’t wash scrubs and towels in addition to all their other decontamination duties. And who knew whether the laundry service the hospital employed was still functional?

But she’d rather pop out her own eyeball with a spoon than re-dress in the scrubs she’d just discarded. Or would she? Which one would people on the subway find more offensive: a reeking, bloody, vomitous, literally shitty doctor or a buck-naked one?

Something gleaming and bright on the door caught Compton’s eye. She drifted over to it, wondering if it was a mirage. She reached out a trembling hand. It was real. Still encased in yellowed plastic from the dry cleaner’s, someone’s white coat hung on a hook on the door. Please, prayed Compton, please, for the love of God, don’t let this be a short medical student coat.

It wasn’t. It was a full-length doctor coat, owned by somebody named M. Trey Garnett III, M.D., in the Department of Colorectal Surgery. Sending out a big mental thank-you to M. Trey, she donned it, pulling her arms through sleeves so big they seemed like angel wings. M. Trey must be fucking enormous, which was excellent news, because it made the coat even longer.