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Dust coated his teeth and the back of his throat. It was dry and chalky and a little metallic. Bitterness washed over the roof of his mouth and the root of his tongue, and a hollow spasm tightened his stomach. A frantic knocking in his throat, and a sickening throb behind his hips – Pantalone could identify it as his own heartbeat, so loud and violent that it almost obscured the low, unwavering voice in his ear.
Almost.
“–cannot move, Feofan. Do you understand me? Even the smallest alteration to your position may prove catastrophic. I know you are conscious, Feofan. Remain still and attend to my voice.”
His right shoulder rested awkwardly against broken tile, and his wrist was enclosed by bare fingers, while everything below his waist seemed unsettlingly remote beneath a vast, immovable pressure.
“Such devotion.” Particles dragged across Pantalone’s throat as he spoke. “Good morning to you too, my dear.”
A sudden burning pain spiked through his pelvis and buried itself deep into his spine, and breath left him without a sound. The urge to move was unbearable, but a cold hand pushed down against his shoulder before the impulse could win.
“I require your full attention, and your acknowledgement of my instruction, Feofan. A structural beam has fallen across your hips and fractured your pelvis. Its weight is presently limiting the haemorrhage, but if you disturb that pressure before I am equipped to replace what you lose, you will die. Tell me you understand.”
Pantalone forced his eyes open, dust covering his lashes, reducing the fractured ceiling above him to blurred planes of dull grey and wavering light. Dottore – the version of him preserved at thirty-five – leaned over him at the edge of that broken light, close enough for Pantalone, glasses absent from his face, to distinguish the fine powder clinging to his icy-blue hair.
Beyond him, a blackened support beam stretched between two heaps of fallen masonry. His fingers twitched, wanting nothing more than to reach up and brush his fingers over Dottore’s cheek.
“I… understand, Zandik.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “You may consider me… exceptionally cooperative… until instructed otherwise.”
There was a rattling in his chest that he knew full well Dottore would already have locked onto. Then, a rough discomfort, almost like a deep tickle, deepened behind his sternum. He turned his face away from Dottore just as the cough wrenched itself free, and every muscle through his abdomen contracted. His body naturally tried to fold around the pain, and indescribable agony split through his pelvis. Dottore pushed his shoulder against the floor.
“What did I say? Do not twist. If another comes, allow it. I will keep you still.”
Tremors passed through his abdomen long after it ended, each one seizing the muscles around his ruined pelvis all over again. He tried to wait them out, and draw air in shallow, careful breaths until the blur above him separated once more into fractured ceiling, drifting dust, and Dottore.
“How long was I unconscious?” His gaze drifted across Dottore’s body as best he could – though he could have been torn to shreds for all Pantalone knew, the fogginess in his vision would have concealed it. “How did this happen? Were you caught beneath it?”
Dottore’s mouth parted, then closed again, as he turned to the beam crossing Pantalone’s body, before returning to his face. “You were unconscious for nine minutes and forty-seven seconds. The structural failure is confined to this section, and the remaining personnel are accounted for. As for how it happened… that unfortunately remains to be determined.” His thumb pressed firmly into Pantalone’s pulse. “And I entered after the collapse, therefore sustained no injury, so that unfounded concern of yours can promptly vacate your mind. Now move your toes, and tell me if you can feel them.”
Somehow, and Pantalone had no idea how, his promise of exceptional cooperation did little to ease Dottore, as his hand remained pressed against Pantalone’s shoulder, as if he couldn’t be trusted to keep still on his own. Which was quite frankly preposterous. When had Pantalone ever argued against medical advice? Deeply offended, he tried to curl his toes.
“Well?”
“Give me a moment.”
“You should not require a moment to establish whether you can feel part of your own body. Either the sensation exists, or it does not.”
“Then it does not. Is that what you wish to hear?”
Dottore stopped. “Of course that is not what I wish to hear.”
Pantalone reached out and grabbed Dottore’s hand. The Doctor’s press against his pulse had left a white crescent in the skin.
“I need you to slow down. I know you are frightened–”
“I am not frightened.”
“Then you are distressing me without even the courtesy of a reason,” he said with far more breath than he was comfortable sparing. “There is no need for either of us to be concerned. I need not place any faith in the integrity of my own body when I possess considerably more faith in you. Whatever damage I have procured, my dear, you will put it right.”
Dottore began to shake his head slightly, but he said nothing. Good. It was frankly unreasonable that, in addition to surviving the damaged architecture presently laying across his body, Pantalone should be required to preserve his physician’s composure. Then again, Zandik always had been rather costly to maintain.
“Of course I will,” Dottore finally said. “Do you think I doubt my abilities?”
“Of course not, my dear.” Pantalone raised his hand, and Dottore leaned towards him immediately, sparing him the reach, until Pantalone could cradle a cheek powdered grey with dust. “Of course not.” He brushed his thumb behind the mask and beneath his eye.
“Feofan,” a voice called, only a decade older than the one beside him. “I am here.”
“What took you so long?” The thirty-five year old Segment beside Pantalone demanded.
“My apologies, I have yet to master instantaneous relocation, and I am not overly familiar with the blueprints of this particular…” He gestured around the mess. “Renovation.”
Forty-Five had emerged through the broken wall carrying a black medical case. His gaze passed over the beam, the blood darkening Pantalone’s clothes, and the hand cupping a younger version of his own face.
“Unconscious for nine minutes and forty-seven seconds,” the thirty-five year old said. “Now conscious, coherent, and appropriately orientated. Pupils equal and reactive. He is maintaining his own airway, respiration is shallow but bilateral. One episode of coughing, without haemoptysis. Radial pulse one hundred and twenty-seven, reduced in volume and continuing to rise. His skin is cooling. No vascular access has been established and no medication administered.”
Forty-Five stepped over onto the other side of the fallen beam, and set down the case on a stable piece of rubble and opened it.
“The beam crosses the pelvis at approximately the level of the greater trochanters. Assume an unstable pelvic-ring fracture with ongoing retroperitoneal haemorrhage. Its weight is presently providing the only compression, and nothing beneath or surrounding it is to be disturbed…” He then lowered his voice. “Limited movement and sensation below the ankles, distal circulation has not been assessed.”
Forty-Five acknowledged the information with a slight inclination of his head. “Feofan? I need to establish whether the sensory deficit reflects vascular compromise or injury to the nerves before any attempt is made to alter the compression across your pelvis.”
Pantalone’s brow furrowed. “Forgive me. I am certain that was a perfectly lucid sentence when it left you, but it unfortunately reached me as very little of the kind.”
Forty-Five lifted his head. “Your blood and nerve supply. I need to determine that circulation is still reaching your foot. And I hate to tell you this, but removing your boot ordinarily would risk too much movement to your leg, so the best course of action is to cut it away.”
“Excuse me‽ Those boots were specially commissioned in Fontaine!”
“Yes, I remember, I assure you. I was there for the entirety of it.” Forty-Five slipped the shears beneath the leather. “Feel free to add the cost of their replacement to my laboratory expenditure.”
“Oh, believe me,” Pantalone murmured, “I shall.”
The ‘younger’ Segment rested his hand over Pantalone’s where it still laid against his cheek. For a moment, he held it there, his face turned into the warmth of Pantalone’s palm. Then, he guided it down to the stone beside his shoulder, keeping it enclosed within his own, while with his free hand, he pushed a loose strand of hair from Pantalone’s eyes. Those same fingers then brushed over his temple and into his hair as he watched Forty-Five’s examination.
The older Segment cut open the boot from calf to instep, pulling apart leather, lining and laces, folding them aside. And it did pain him to do so, Pantalone would be pleased to know. He did inwardly cringe at the chewed up leather – though that probably had nothing to do with the item and everything to do with the cost he knew he’d be covering. Really, must Feofan have such skewed priorities? The left foot was significantly paler than the right. He pressed one of Pantalone’s toenails until the little colour present disappeared.
“Capillary return exceeds four seconds.”
“Dorsalis pedis?”
Forty-Five shifted two fingers across the top of the foot, repositioned them, and waited. “Faint… Intermittent.”
“Posterior tibial?”
“Present, though diminished. The temperature discrepancy is… appreciable.”
Thirty-Five’s fingertips swept behind Pantalone’s ear, and began another unhurried passage through his hair. Then, they settled along the hinge of his jaw, keeping his head still.
“Forty-Five is going to examine the circulation and nerve response in your left foot. You will remain facing me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Zandik, I understand. My mental faculties have not deteriorated that dramatically.”
“Well, forgive me for not trusting you.”
“I have no intention of looking!”
“No, no I refuse to indulge the fiction that your curiosity has miraculously acquired limits. Do not move.”
Pantalone narrowed his eyes. “Curiosity has nothing to do with it. I merely prefer to know what is being done to my property.”
“Your priorities will never cease to astound me.” Forty-Five muttered. Thirty-Five’s palm remained firm, his thumb resuming its slow stroking through Pantalone’s soft, silky hair.
Forty-Five touched the blunt end of an instrument to the exposed heel. “Do you feel this?”
“This is demeaning.”
“Quite,” Forty-Five agreed, the corner of his mouth lifting as he applied the pressure. “The indignity ought to be accompanied by a firm sensation at the centre of your heel. Is it?”
Pantalone sighed far harder than his present state should have allowed. “Yes. A little. Yes.”
The pressure moved along the outer edge of the foot. “And here?”
“Distantly, I suppose.”
“And here?”
Pantalone waited for a sensation he was supposed to feel. “Are you doing something?”
“No,” Forty-Five replied mildly. “I simply thought now would be a hilarious time to play a trick on you. Yes, Feofan, I am pressing hard enough against the base of your smallest toe to leave a mark.”
“No, then. Nothing.”
Forty-Five repeated the pressure, harder this time, then tested the corresponding point on Pantalone’s right foot. “This?”
Pantalone instinctively pulled his foot away slightly, Forty-Five having to hold onto his ankle. “Perfectly clear.”
He returned the instrument to the left, and again found no response. Forty-Five’s fingers found the arteries beneath the ankle and pressed down.
“Alright. Sensation is absent across the outer forefoot, with no voluntary movement in the toes. Dorsalis pedis is intermittently palpable, posterior tibial diminished, refill approaching five seconds, and the temperature has fallen since my arrival.”
“Neurovascular compromise.”
“With demonstrable deterioration in perfusion. The foot remains viable, though inadequately supplied. I shall repeat the examination in two minutes.”
“Did you bring large-bore cannulae and tranexamic acid?”
“Two cannulae, blood-giving sets and sufficient tranexamic acid. Sixty-Five has the warmed blood, oxygen and binder.”
Beneath Thirty-Five’s thumb, Pantalone’s pulse stumbled through another rapid succession. “One hundred and thirty-four.”
Throughout the exchange, Thirty-Five continued running his fingers through Pantalone’s hair. A fingertip would occasionally trace the outer curve of his ear, or pause over the beat at his temple, while the other hand maintained a loose possession of Pantalone’s. He might have been soothing himself. He might have been doing a multitude of things. But Pantalone saw no reason they could not both benefit.
A tourniquet tightened above Pantalone’s elbow. He didn’t even notice the older Segment crossing the structural damage to be by his side, yet there he was, palpating the crook of his arm, following a vein already flattening beneath shock, before cleaning the skin, and pressing in the cannula. He flushed it, connected it to something, and at that point, he stopped watching. He wasn’t squeamish, but it was such an awkward position to strain his eyes to see. And he didn’t need to see to feel the cold spreading beneath his skin.
“Zandik?”
“What is it?” Thirty-Five was first to answer, though Forty-Five’s work paused briefly as he looked to attention.
“Precisely… how much reassurance am I expected to extract… from the word ‘viable’?”
“Blood is still reaching it,” the older Segment was the one who answered. “We have plenty of time in which to intervene… You needn’t concern yourself.”
“I am not concerned… If anything, I feel really quite pampered. Though dare I ask… how many others have you summoned to witness this… particular indignity?”
“Everyone capable of reaching us in time.”
Pantalone studied the younger face above him. “All of them?”
“You have part of your building lying across you, Feofan. It felt pertinent.”
“Not our eight year old self, mind you,” Forty-Five added, as he did something more with the IV that Pantalone did not care to inquire about. “The situation is quite chaotic enough.”
Voices, or rather the same voice copied three times over at different ages, reached the chamber before their owners.
“Slow down.” The oldest grumbled. “Do you wish to cause another collapse?”
“How reckless do you imagine me to be?” The youngest replied with a huff.
Sixty-Five harrumphed. “I know better than to answer that question.”
Eighteen ducked through the breach first, a portable oxygen unit clasped to his chest with such conspicuous care that it felt unsettlingly out of character for him. Perhaps the most frightening thing Pantalone witnessed that day. No, the most frightening thing was that clearly, plastered across his face, whatever retort Eighteen had prepared had disappeared when he saw Pantalone beneath the beam.
Twenty-Five followed with the folded binder and another metal case, while Sixty-Five negotiated the fractured threshold behind him, one hand steadying the insulated container of warmed blood. In the space of several seconds, Pantalone found himself regarded by five variations of the same stare.
“Well,” Pantalone said softly. “Aren’t I lucky? Under more favourable circumstances, this arrangement would be… Mm, really quite enticing.”
Eighteen shuddered. “Ew. Ew, you are all disgusting.”
The portable oxygen unit landed beside Pantalone’s head, and the youngest of the Segments present dropped to his knees after it, indignation plastered across his face as he fitted the narrow tubing beneath Pantalone’s nose – although the care with which he cleared dust from the skin first rather undermined the effect. Twenty-Five meanwhile had already moved towards the beam, unfolded the pelvic binder beside Pantalone, and began assessing just how it could be drawn into position at the exact moment the weight holding him together was lifted.
“Left antecubital access is secure. Tranexamic acid is running.” Forty-Five said quickly.
Sixty-Five set the insulated blood case down within reach. “Then I require your other arm, Feofan.”
Pantalone looked up at him with a slow blink. “You will have to fight for it.”
The delay of Thirty-Five releasing his hand lasted no more than a second or two, yet Pantalone felt every fraction of it. Of all the versions of Zandik that survived the years, this one in particular had always been the most territorial of them. The fact that every perceived rival wore his own face, carried the same memories, and possessed an equally intimate knowledge of Feofan only ever seemed to aggravate that instinct. It was quite charming, honestly. He’d never encouraged Thirty-Five by pretending such jealousy could earn him anything. Rather, it was merely another extravagant display laid at his feet, and it would have been terribly ungracious not to admire the workmanship. And he wasn’t above telling him so. He might have, had his breathing not begun to fail him.
The tearing of sealed packaging. A tourniquet tightening above his elbow. Sixty-Five saying something about the condition of his vein. Terrible, he was sure. They’d all always had such difficulty getting blood out of him. But all those details felt so far away now. Forty-Five was back by his legs now – when had that happened? He could just about feel one hand resting lightly across his ankle. Beneath the pressure crushing his hips, something broad and unyielding had been pushed into place.
“Blood is running,” Sixty-Five said from beside him.
“Binder positioned,” Twenty-Five said from further down.
“Distal pulse remains intermittent,” said Forty-Five, further down still.
Eighteen’s hand settled beneath Pantalone’s jaw. “Airway prepared.”
Thirty-Five administered something through the first line. Analgesia, Pantalone assumed. It did little for the weight compressing him, but it did make the shattered ceiling soften above him, and the words spoken around him lose their edge until the loudest noise around him was the sound of hissing oxygen.
Hands surrounded him. It felt as though there wasn’t an inch of his body not touched by something. It was almost relaxing, all things considered. One hand beneath his jaw, one around his ankle, one by the crook of his elbow, and one resting on his thigh. He’d had dreams that started quite a bit like this.
“Your body will want to move when the weight does.” Thirty-Five whispered in his ear. “Try to fight those instincts. I need you to stay with me, focus all your attention on me. It will be unpleasant, but I… We have you. Leave it to us.”
“All my attention? How very like you.” Pantalone allowed his head to settle fully against him. “Very well. I leave it to you, my dear.”
Voices overlapped, metal creaked, something mechanical sounded. It was all quite overwhelming, and yet for a decent amount of seconds, nothing appeared to happen. The hand beneath his jaw remained steady, blood flowed through the transparent tubing, and Thirty-Five’s breathing touched his temple in an even rhythm that Pantalone found himself following.
Then: “Lift!”
Pressure lifted from his hips, and it was immediately replaced by sheer, striking pain. He could feel the fractured halves of his pelvis shift enough to tear a scream from him, and try as he might to keep still, his back tried to arch. Two strong arms locked across his chest, while the younger Segment held his airway open. The violent pull of the binder closing brought another pained noise from him, and he barely heard Twenty-Five’s quick apology, as he felt the pain compressing inwards until it ceased to possess any identifiable centre.
“Hold the leg.”
“Binder locked!”
“Pulse falling–”
“Increasing the flow.”
It all stopped making sense to him. Hands moved everywhere at once. Forty-Five had his thigh and ankle held tight, while Twenty-Five kept his hands on the binder. He could just make out Eighteen bending over him as his breath disintegrated into short, useless attempts. And through it all, Thirty-Five held him so closely and so tightly that every convulsion travelled from one body into another.
Pantalone could no longer see the ceiling. A dark and hazy pressure had closed around the edges of his vision, leaving only a narrow arrangement of red eyes and masks and powder-blue hair.
“Feofan.” Thirty-Five sounded so impossibly far away. “Do not close your eyes.”
“I am not…”
“Then look at me.”
It took several attempts to find Thirty-Five’s face. It moved through the narrowing space above him, separating and re-forming whenever Pantalone blinked. He heard one younger voice announce that the binder remained secure, another slightly older voice ask for room at the left leg. Sixty-Five said something entirely unclear to him, but seemingly certain for everyone else. Thirty-Five loosened one arm across his chest only to brush the dust from Pantalone’s lashes.
“Keep breathing.”
A clear mask replaced the narrow tubing beneath his nose, and sealed against his face, filling the enclosed space with the cold rush of oxygen and the damp warmth of Pantalone’s own strained breath.
“Respirations shallow and increasingly irregular.”
“Pressure is seventy-eight over forty-six. The first unit is nearly through. The second is ready.”
Thirty-Five’s thumb passed beneath Pantalone’s eye, drawing down the lower lid to examine his pupils. “Tell me where you are.”
“On the floor… of my office…” The mask clouded faintly with every word. “I am very perturbed by it.”
“Begin the second unit as soon as the line clears, maintain the leg exactly as it lies, remain by the binder throughout transfer, and you–”
“Yes, I know.” Eighteen rolled his eyes. “You’d think I’ve never done this before.”
Another pulse of darkness passed over Pantalone’s sight, and when it receded, several of the same face looked down at him.
“We are going to move you now.” Thirty-Five lowered his head until nothing else could occupy what little remained of Pantalone’s vision. “And for once in your life, I need you to be a good patient.”
The stretcher had been engineered to separate lengthways, and had been laid out along either side of him.
“Head secure.”
“Line clear.”
“Leg supported.”
The two halves met beneath Pantalone and locked together with two heavy clicks. Twenty-Five checked the binder’s fastening once more, and Thirty-Five’s arm remained behind his shoulders until the rigid support had fully taken Pantalone’s weight, then withdrew only to settle across his upper chest again.
“On three. One. Two. Three.”
They lifted.
Kept perfectly level between them, Pantalone nevertheless felt gravity take hold of every damaged structure independently. The binder drove into the tops of his thighs, fractured bone shifted against its restraint, and the muscles throughout his lower body contracted in one helpless, wrenching spasm.
His fingers closed around a fistful of the nearest Segment’s coat, while breath struck the inside of the mask, yet refused to return to him. He was carried only a short distance, yet Pantalone could feel each second pass through the locked tension of five bodies trying not to jar him. Every minor movement sent sickening pressure through his hips and up the hollow of his spine. He couldn’t hold back the sound that escaped him. Everything else was such a blur.