Veronica looked around the ransacked library and sighed. She had heard the library was in rough shape, but this was worse than she had imagined. Anything remotely valuable had been stolen-there were no computers or printers left, the vending machines had been tipped over and broken into, and most of the bookshelves and tables were either gone or destroyed. The only things left were the books, which were strewn all over the floor.
Veronica was there looking for medical textbooks. She figured the university owed her that much.
There were a few other people in the library. Some of them might have been looking for useful books, but most looked like they were hoping to find something valuable that had been overlooked. Veronica picked her way towards what had once been the research section. She hoped that most of the big, heavy books she was after had just been left where they fell. She found a clear spot of carpet amidst the heaps of books, sat down, and started sorting through the books around her. It was tedious, but she had all day.
She had stuffed a couple of textbooks into her backpack when she heard someone say the Johnson dorm was on fire.
She froze. That was her dorm. "Are you serious?" she called out.
"Yeah," another former student shouted from the other side of the library. "Some idiot thought it was too cold in the building and decided to start a fire in the common room to warm things up."
Veronica swore under her breath and sprinted out of the library. Since the economy had crashed, the university had turned into a place of anarchy. Her roommate had run off with her laptop a few weeks ago, and now Veronica kept her most valuable possessions with her at all times. Her money, cell phone, charger, and the few pieces of jewelry she hadn't sold yet were stowed in the innermost pocket of her backpack. The medical textbooks she had salvaged from the library were in there too, and she felt them thumping heavily against her back as she ran. But she couldn't carry all of her belongings around constantly, and everything else she owned was in a dorm that was on fire.
A thick, dark column of smoke billowed above the tree line. Veronica's heart sank, but she kept running toward her dorm. Crowds of students and drifters were all making their way toward the fire with varying degrees of urgency. Those with a personal stake in the fate of the building were the ones sprinting; everyone else was just looking for free entertainment, a chance to gawk at destruction and other people's misery.
There was plenty of both when Veronica got to the dorm. The entire building was engulfed in smoke and flames. Windowpanes were exploding from the heat and chunks of the roof were caving in. The fire was loud, roaring and groaning and crackling behind the screams and shouts of the people standing on the lawn around the building.
Veronica heard sirens in the distance, but anyone could see it was already too late to salvage the building. Her eyes burned, and she wanted to punch the idiot who had started the fire. Then she shuddered as she realized there was a chance he had died in the flames, that people she knew might not have made it out, that she might have been in there if her day had gone differently.
A fire truck pulled up to the building. Three firemen jumped out and started working to tame the flames. If they were lucky, they would be able to keep the fire from spreading to the surrounding trees and buildings.
An ambulance parked a few buildings down from the dorm. Its siren cut out and was replaced by a prerecorded message: "Anyone with first aid or medical knowledge who is willing and able to assist this team of EMTs, please approach the ambulance immediately. We will begin assisting everyone in need of medical attention shortly. For the health and safety of everyone, treatment order will be determined based on the severity of injury. Please remain calm, and we will be able to help everyone in an efficient and orderly fashion. Thank you for your patience and cooperation."
Veronica hurried to join a small knot of volunteers gathering by the back door of the ambulance. She recognized a few people as former classmates, other people who had come to college to learn to be nurses. Back in the good old days of classes and nursing programs.
An EMT opened the back door of the ambulance. She was slight and short, but her voice was loud and commanding. She shouted general instructions on how to treat burns while another EMT passed around boxes of latex gloves and packs of bandages, cold compresses, and antiseptic wipes.
Veronica pulled her hair back into a ponytail and donned a pair of gloves. She had fallen in love with nursing when she was ten, after a car accident had landed her mother in the hospital. The nurses had impressed Veronica with both their knowledge and their compassion. They had answered all of her questions about her mother's injuries and what they were doing to fix them, about what being a nurse was like, about how to become a nurse herself one day. They taught her how to help care for her mother after her surgeries, when she was finally well enough to go home. While her older brother and younger sister were both squeamish, Veronica was good at changing bandages and keeping an eye on stitches.
Veronica didn't believe in much, especially now. But she did believe that it was her destiny to be a nurse. Any opportunity that put her closer to that goal was always worth taking, even if she had just lost most of her belongings in a fire.
The EMTs finished handing out supplies, and Veronica and the other volunteers scattered to help the injured. Veronica lost herself in what she was doing. For the next couple of hours, all Veronica saw was the patient in front of her and how she could help. She cleaned and bandaged lacerations, applied cold compresses to burns, distributed pain medicine and comforting words. She cleaned away blood and ash and grime and left people better than how she found them. Veronica hadn't been this happy since her classes had been cancelled.
The ambulance drove off as Veronica approached the last injured girl on the lawn. Veronica paused to watch it go. She wished she was riding off with it. As soon as she finished helping this girl, she would go back to being an out of work, out of school teenager, and now she didn't even have a place to stay. She did her best to push the panic and the loss out of her mind. After all, she still had one more person to help.
"What's your name?" Veronica asked as she examined a cut on the girl's forehead.
"Sandi," the girl answered.
"How did you get this cut?"
Sandi rolled her eyes. "Someone pushed me into a doorway when we were all running out of the building."
"You're lucky. It's not serious," Veronica said as she cleaned and bandaged Sandi's head.
When she finished, Veronica reluctantly pulled off her gloves and dropped them in a pile on the ground.
Sandi fiddled with a ring on her right hand. "You don't think I have a concussion, do you? I hit my head pretty hard."
"It doesn't look like it. But I can sit with you a while to make sure. I don't have anything else to do." Veronica sat down. She noticed there were still a few unused pairs of gloves in the box the EMT had given her, and she put them in her backpack.
"No classes today?"
Veronica laughed. "You must not be from around here. The university's been dead for weeks."
"That sucks. My community college shut down when everything tanked, but I figured a big university like this would be able to keep going."
"It did for a little while. When the economy collapsed, the university president assured us that classes would continue and everything would be fine. But once the tuition checks for the semester cleared, he and some trustees took whatever money they could get their hands on and got one of those offshore platforms."
"What a bunch of assholes!"
Veronica nodded. "Exactly. So now they're enjoying the safety of offshore living and I'm stranded here."
"Here isn't so bad," Sandi said. "It's obviously not great, but I've seen a lot worse."
Veronica glanced at her skeptically.
"I'm serious," Sandi insisted. "My hometown had riots and shootings once people started losing their jobs. We couldn't leave the house for a week. When things finally settled down, there wasn't much left. I think the only people left there now are druggies and gang members. All the decent people have left."
Veronica picked at the grass next to her. Unless her family had been lying to her in their occasional phone calls, things back home had never been that bad. "So where's your family now?"
"My mom moved in with her boyfriend. He's one of the guys who stuck around." Sandi picked at a hangnail. "My sister was down south when everything happened. She's still there, says she's got a steady job and things aren't as bad farther south. So that's the direction I'm headed."
"Do you have a car?"
"I wish. I've been hitchhiking; as long as you have something to sell, there's always someone willing to give you a ride. My sister's boyfriend's friend owns a bar a few hours south of here. It sounds like she might have a job, or at least a place to stay. You should come too."
"Does this friend's job require two people?" Veronica asked doubtfully.
Sandi shrugged. "Maybe. But if not, you could still stay with us for a few days until you figure out another plan."
Veronica looked back at the smoldering ruins of her dorm building. She had no reason to stay, and a few hours south would be a few hours closer to home. Veronica's mother and siblings didn't have the money to help her get home. But if she could get home, maybe they could help each other find work, or move somewhere that still had jobs. If Sandi's sister was right and there were still jobs down south, then at least she would be heading in the right direction.
"Alright, I'm in," Veronica said as she shouldered her backpack. She figured hitchhiking with someone was safer than trying it alone.
Sandi picked up a beat up duffle bag, and the two girls walked across campus toward the highway. They swapped stories about college and their dreams for the future.
"I'm going to be a personal trainer," Sandi said.
"That's your dream job?"
"Yes. I like staying in shape, and I like bossing people around. It's a perfect fit," Sandi laughed.
Veronica laughed too. That was one way of figuring out your calling.
The two girls stopped when they got to the highway onramp. "Now we wait," Sandi said as she flopped down. Veronica sat down next to her. Sandi pulled a granola bar out of her duffle bag and offered Veronica half.
They had finished the granola bar and their conversation when a beat up car finally drove up and pulled over to the side of the road. The driver rolled down his window. "Where are you girls trying to get to?"
Sandi pulled a slip of paper from the tiny pocket in her skinny jeans. "The Pixel Dust Bar," she said and read off the address. "You got room for us?"
"I suppose I do, but it'll cost you," the man said.
"How much?" Veronica asked as she mentally tallied up her belongings.
"I don't need money," the man said. The corners of his mouth twitched up in a way that turned Veronica's stomach.
"Seriously, how much?" Sandi pressed.
"Half hour in the back of my car," he said.
"Ten minutes," Sandi countered.
"Twenty-I've got the last car in town."
"Ten. I'm the only girl around."
"Not you, your friend," the man said with a nod to Veronica. "I've got a thing for brunettes."
Sandi turned toward Veronica and frowned sympathetically. It looked like she was commiserating over a spilled drink or a ruined sweater, not over being pimped out to an old man in a rusty, run-down car.
Veronica's mouth went dry. Apparently this was the world she lived in now, where getting a ride anywhere meant becoming a prostitute.
"If you're not interested..." the man said. He took his foot off the brake and rolled forward a few feet.
Veronica gritted her teeth. "Ten minutes," she snapped. She pulled out her cell phone and set a timer as she yanked open the back door of the man's car. "Starting now."
Veronica spent the next ten minutes mentally repeating the scientific name for every bone, muscle, and tendon in her hand. Phalanges, metacarpals, flexors, abductors...
The timer went off and Veronica jumped out of the car. Once the man was back in the driver's seat, she and Sandi climbed into the back seat.
The man flipped on a CD of old western songs as he pulled onto the highway.
Sandi whispered encouragements to Veronica: it wasn't so bad, the first time was always the worst, it beat selling drugs, you always had something to sell, you could make a living until something better came along.
Veronica nodded along. This would get them to the next town, where she could form a plan, figure out the next step she had to take to become a nurse.
She couldn't stop flexing her hand.