He dragged the cart over, parking it next to Madison’s chair with a terrified expression. Kira pulled on a pair of sterilized gloves and pulled up Madison’s shirt to expose her belly. “Hold still,” she said, placing the ultrasound probe against Madison’s skin. “Screen up.” The screen flickered on, a black-and-white grid with a wedge-shaped image in the center. The image flashed and moved: a sonographic re-creation of the organs in Madison’s abdomen. Kira had been completely lost the first several times she’d seen an ultrasound, but after weeks of practice the fuzzy pictures seemed crystal clear. “That’s your bladder,” she said, moving the probe with one hand and touching the screen with her other, defining labels and boundaries that the computer then remembered and kept track of in real time. “That’s your stomach, that’s the baby’s foot. There we go, the baby’s body.” She worked quickly, her fingers scurrying over the screen, lighting up measurements and calling up archived statistics from Madison’s previous visits. “Head development good, chest development good, inner organs all look good. Heartbeat strong. Bladder filling and emptying. Spine looks good.”

Madison grimaced again, gritting her teeth and clutching the arms of her chair. Two nurses rushed in behind them, Sandy and Nurse Hardy. “We’re here, Walker, thanks for getting her started.” Hardy pulled on a pair of gloves and took the probe; Kira gave it up nervously, stepping back as Nurse Hardy’s more practiced hands took over the ultrasound. “Describe the pain,” asked Hardy.

“Strong but inconsistent,” said Kira, “localized toward the side with the stomach. She’s also bleeding—I think it’s an abruption.”

“What’s that?” asked Haru. “Is it bad? Is she okay?”

“We’re doing our best, sir,” said Hardy. “We just need room to work.”

“What about the baby, is the baby okay?”

The image on the screen flopped in and out of view as her abdomen flexed, and Kira pointed at the screen.

“There was a shadow.”

“I saw it,” said Nurse Hardy, moving the probe farther down to the side and altering the angle. When Madison stopped squirming, the image stabilized on a large black oval, the stomach, and behind it a fuzzy black triangle. The computer identified it almost immediately, marking it in red. “The placenta’s separating from the wall,” said Nurse Hardy. “It’s a partial abruption, just like you said.” She stared closely at the screen, at the deep red slash across the center. “Good work, Walker.”

Kira felt the wave of tension begin to seep out of her, down through her feet and into the floor, leaving her drained.

“What does it mean?” asked Madison.