Doctor Helsinki Alphecca was a twenty-eight year old woman with what her parents used to call a 'single track mind'. She would never be dissuaded or moved from the path she had chosen to walk, and as the years went by the technique of distractions slowly lost it's magic, until what had once been an obstinate child filled to the brim with stubbornness grew into a young woman of determination and sheer willpower, fueled by a passion to put bonfires to shame.
At eighteen she had moved out, found an apartment near campus, and found a less than savoury job that allowed her to spend the bulk of her time in classes, first premed, then medical school, and then speciality training that took place while she was practicing medicine for her first years. It took her eight years to realise her dream, eight years, five apartments, three cats, two arrests, and one job she became very, very good at.
It was doing this job that began the massive conundrum that would continue for the rest of her life.
Helsinki was first and foremost a doctor, specialising in neonatology and paediatrics. Secondly, she was a bloody good con-artist and thief. Sleight of hand, street scams, home burglary, she was there and had done it successfully and pocketed her winnings which always went towards her studies. Thirdly, and some might say most of all, Helsinki was balls-to-the-wall one-hundred-percent ready to go at all times. Didn't matter what it was, what the consequences could be, or what shoes she had worn that morning, you could trust her to fling herself into anything with little concern for anything else.
She behaved like a teenager on a lads-trip to Bulgaria at all times.
Having no off-switch and no gauge between 'yes' and 'no' is a sure fire way to end up in trouble. Working ten hours after a ten hour shift with only a half hour break that technically means breaking the law? Of course, I'll be right in. Breaking and entering to rearrange furniture? I'm on my way. Agreeing to be a key player in an elaborate scheme to fleece a woman of her husband's life insurance money? Count me in.
So we begin with Helsinki sitting in the back of a cab, sipping a large energy drink and clutching a bag on her lap filled with a vast array of pilfered medical props. Reflex hammers to portable blood testing kit, scalpels to suture kits, it was all crammed in her bag that sat bulging on her lap.
Apparently the Mark had an embarrassing medical problem and didn't want to go to hospital or a clinic to get it checked, and so called a number she found printed on a flyer she found at her local market for an in-home doctor visit. Ergo, Helsinki was sitting in a cab travelling on the M1 out of London, hurtling at speeds previously unknown to man because her driver was some maniacal Albanian who took her very seriously when she said she wanted to get to her destination fast.
She was looking at her work-work phone, the one she used for medical based business and frowning at the text she'd received from a particularly loud-mouthed nurse.
There was a spate of projectile vomiting in the maternity ward and she should expect to be called in to help should the ten other paediatricians start drowning or one of the four neonatologists on staff need someone to insert an IV while they distract parents.
She tapped out a reply with nimble fingers trained for precision work and small needles, muttering under her breath as she did.
And then the car was t-boned.