The horrified witness in the back of Abe’s mind watches him snip steel as if he is cutting origami, with Xavier and the woman passenger just beyond the end of the blades, and wonders if he really knows how to do this. But the thought never reaches the part of Abe’s mind that’s at work. A Chippie comes over to help, pulls the wet steel back with his gloved hands, Abe keeps cutting, they make a good new door approximately where the old one used to be, and Xavier’s got some compress kits plastered on the woman and is busy injecting her with various antishock superdrugs and a lot of new plasma/blood. Then it’s time to get her into the inflatable conformable braces, neck and spine held firm and they reach in and everyone takes a hold, carefully here, breath held, warm flesh squeezed between the fingers, blood trickling over the back of the hand, they lift her out, oops her hand is caught, Abe snips the folded section of dash and she’s free. Onto a stretcher, off to the ambulance room in the back of the truck. They run back and extricate the man, who may or may not be living, his head looks bad indeed but they stretcher him and run him into the gutbucket, lay him next to the woman. “Shit I’ve got to confirm the guy in the lead car,” Abe remembers, grabs Xavier’s steth and runs back. He has to break a window and lean in to get the steth on the driver’s neck. Readout shows flat and he’s back to the truck. A private gutbucket has showed to pick up the two from the follow-up car, Abe gives them a quick thumbs-up and guides the cutters as they’re reeled back on board and jumps in the driver’s seat, seat belt on yes, off they go. These old gasoline hogs can really accelerate.

Xavier sticks his head out the window that connects the cab to their rolling ER. “Going to the Lagunatic Asylum?”

“No, the canyon is so fucked up, I figure UCI is faster.”

Xavier nods.

“How are they?”