I told someone else that I hated hurting Bucky, but I did it enough while writing "The Third Directive." It didn't seem right to just toss these practice bits before skipping away to do something else. No fluff here, nothing nice at all.
1948
Dr. Spanova deftly knotted the last suture and clipped the waxed filament with her curved scissors. "There you are, all done," she commented, knowing perfectly well that the man on the table couldn't hear her. She scribbled the post-operative orders onto the page, and returned it to the clip at the end of the steel table. Without thinking much about it, she automatically clasped his right wrist, the non-prosthetic one, to check his pulse. The vein throbbed under her fingers, the rhythm much too fast.
A moment's observation showed that his respiration was atypical for someone coming out of anesthesia as well. The breaths were spaced correctly, but shallow, sharp and quick. The duty nurse who had been monitoring his vital signs during the surgery had reported nothing amiss. She opened one of his eyelids, and found no latency in the pupil reflex. "Wait a second," she said, putting her hand to his forehead. It was damp with sweat. "You're…not sedated?" Dr. Spanova felt her stomach twist as she snatched the chart up again and scanned it. The tank feeding the mask line had been oxygen only. "No order for anesthesia?"
To her shock, his eyelids fluttered and opened. His gaze was unfocused, but there was no doubt that he saw her. And in the depths of his blue eyes she saw pain, horrible pain. The clipboard dropped from her suddenly numb hands and clattered on the floor. "Dr. Zola!" she shouted, backing out of the surgery room. "Dr. Zola!"
She found him in his office, squinting through his thick glasses at a yellow-covered scientific journal. "What is it?" he asked without looking up.
"The man in 335, the one with the detatched upper abdominal rectus…"
"Oh yes, was the surgery successful?"
"He had no anesthesia…he was awake for the entire procedure."
Dr. Zola shrugged. "He doesn't need any."
"What do you mean? He's tachycardic, he's got brisk reflexes and full autonomic response..."
"Exactly what I said. He doesn't need any. If he moves too much, just administer more paralytic. If he is not cooperative in other ways, call the orderlies. They'll see to it."
"Post-surgical analgesia?"
"He…doesn't…need…any." Dr. Zola emphasized each word sternly, peering at her through the lenses that almost comically magnified his eyes. "He will not voluntarily move until he is given an order that he may. You need only check the site in a couple of hours and make certain the healing process has begun. He will not even have a scar in a few days, you'll see." Zola waved dismissively, turning back to his reading. "Complete waste of concern."
When Dr. Spanova went back to the surgical suite, she saw that the intravenous line and the oxygen mask had been removed. At the sight of her white coat, his breath rate increased perceptibly. He did not move. "Don't be afraid," she said. She ran some cool water from the tap into a cup, and brought it to the bedside. "You can't have anything to drink yet, but I bet your mouth is dry. Are you able to swallow?"
His eyes focused briefly, and he swallowed. Dr. Spanova dipped a clean gauze pad into the water and dabbed it to his lips. The man lay motionless, but after a moment, he slowly licked the water from his mouth. "Just a little bit more," she said, allowing a few drops this time. Again, he licked at the water. He must have been parched; the surgery had taken several hours. But as Dr. Zola had predicted, the incisions were already beginning to granulate, the earliest stage of healing. "I can't give you anything for the pain, I'm sorry," she said gently.
His expression remained impassive, but he blinked once.
The door opened behind her. She had just enough time to notice his pupils dilate. A white-shirted orderly raised a pistol and fired, sending a single bullet into the back of Dr. Spanova's head. Blood splattered in a rain of thick droplets, and lances of red splashed onto the wall and across the bed. She slumped out of the chair, dead before she hit the floor. Dr. Zola sighed. "Thank you, Orderly. Clean this up when you have time, please." He glanced once at the man on the bed. "Complete waste of concern. Restrain him before the paralytic wears off, before you do anything else. You have less than 15 minutes."
After the orderly had strapped him firmly to the table and departed, a single tear slid from the Soldier's closed eye, leaving a wavering pink track through the slick of blood that mottled his face and chest. It would be dried and gone by the time they came back.