M.A.I.D.S. [season 2]

Episode 2: What Women Want

M.A.I.D.S. [season 2] Episode 2 – What Women Want

There was near-silence in the hospital room after the doctor made his proclamation.  The Synthia-nurses continued attending to Pandora—“You’re healing quite well!”—while Adam stared daggers at the doctor.  Adam's fists clenched and unclenched in agitation.  There were hospital security guards outside the room, and though they were no great threat to Adam, he didn’t want to draw more attention to himself and his companions than was absolutely necessary.  That, and he was not in the habit of killing innocents if it could be avoided.  At FIST he had been given the award for "Least Collateral Damage" three years in a row.

“Misters Adam and Monroe, I will need your weapons,” the doctor said.  His voice quivered slightly when he spoke, and Adam could tell that the man had no great desire to confront Adam or Monroe.  Monroe, who was an expert at maximizing collateral damage, bristled at the doctor's words.  Adam's last friend was as tense as a panther ready to pounce.  Adam shifted his weight from one foot to the other, purposely blocking Monroe's path to the doctor.  I can’t have you flying off the handle, Adam thought.

In her bed, Pandora sat up and drank some water while the flat Synthias buised themselves about her.  Pandora was still groggy from the medication and blood loss, but realization came quickly when she saw Adam turn to Monroe and ask for the man’s weapons.  Pandora turned to face Sotiria, who was the very image of uncomfortable.  Pandora's biosynthetic mind was racing, and she knew with dread certainty that the group could not afford to be captured here.  Though her back still ached from the wound, she knew that she was healed enough for what she would need to do.

Adam turned around with Monroe’s assault rifle, shotgun, and pistol in hand.  He lifted them to the doctor.

"My, uh, Hippocratic Oath prohibits...ahem," the uncomfortable doctor stood in the doorway and snapped his fingers at the guards beyond it.  They were alert to his signal, and when he inclined his head toward the weapons one of them moved forward.

That’s when Pandora leapt into action.  She planted her foot into the ribs of one of the nurses, shoving the Synthia hard.  The Synthia struck the door, slamming it shut, and from the sound beyond the doctor must have sprawled into the hospital guards.  Pandora grabbed the heads of the other two Synthias and knocked them together, rendering both nurses unconscious.  She then gingerly got out of the bed.

“What are you—”

“You need to put that chair through that window before the blast shields come down,” Pandora interrupted Adam.  She was stopped over one of the nurses, stripping the Synthia of its scrubs to replace the open-backed hospital gown.  Monroe grabbed the indicated chair and used it to destroy the indicated window.  The blast shield began to come down, and Monroe used the chair to prop the window open.  Alarms screamed throughout the facility, and they knew it wouldn’t be long before the hospital guards converged in force on the room.

“This door isn’t going to hold!” Adam said to the others.  He’d jammed it shut as best he could with what was at hand in the room, but he knew that the hospital guards would maintain a breach team, and that they would be assembling with a quickness.

“It does not need to,” Pandora said to her owner.  She had put the hospital gown on the nurse she’d stripped in an attempt at modesty.  She went and scooped up Robobot before moving to the window.

“What are you planning?” Monroe asked.

“We go out the window.  Our vehicle is just a short distance away, combat-parked and ready to roll out.  We flee toward the airport.”

“If FIST knows we're here, they gonna look at the airport!” Monroe pointed out.

“I’m counting on it,” said Pandora with a devilish grin.  “Sotiria, please carry the nurse to the car.  No, not the one in the gown, the other one.  Thank you dear.  Ok, shall we be going?” without waiting for a response the unique Synthia leapt out the window.  Though her landing wasn’t nearly as graceful as it could have been (she stumbled backward and fell on her rump), she neither sustained additional damage nor aggrivated her preexisting wound.  That was not pretty, Pandora scolded herself, but I am recovering from a life-threating wound.