After she passed the third accident on the PCH, Brenda got worried. Pulling off ahead of the wreck, she reached for her radio, ready to relay the location of this latest pile-up. Her eyes cut automatically to the small green signs peppering the side of the highway. Mile markers. She wondered how many people drove past them with no idea of their significance.

"Dispatch, this is Chief Johnson. I have a 4 car MVC on the PCH, marker 48 going northbound. Looks like a bad one, might want to send the bus and the freezer."

She waited. She hated these new digital radios. Before, you could use the familiar hissing to let you know that you were on the air. These digital frequencies kept an eerie silence until the person on the other end responded.

"Dispatch. Chief Johnson, come in?" She leaned down, and fiddled with the control panel, checking the volume. Everything was in order. But the radio remained silent. She dropped the handset, sighing, and pulled her cell phone from her oversized tote. She keyed in the familiar number for the direct ring to central Dispatch.

"All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later." The disembodied voice intoned.

"Dammit! Digital is the future my left foot!" Brenda tossed the phone back into her bag, and reached down between the seats for her Mag-light. She was going to have to at least see what she could do for those poor people. She pushed open the car, and stepped out in to the salty air. Clicking on the light, she trained the beam on the car pinned to the guard-rail. The people in there were most likely already dead, the metal mangled beyond recognition, but she had to start somewhere.

Shining the light through the rear window, she swallowed back the bile. An empty carseat didn't bode well, but maybe the child hadn't been in the car. Brenda could only hope. Moving around, she focused the beam on the driver's seat, finding that window rolled down. A man sprawled over the steering wheel, his head bent at an unnatural angle, the unused seatbelt dangling uselessly behind him. Brenda shook her head. He might have had a chance, before the impact of his body against the windshield snapped his spine. She was about to turn away, continue checking, when impossibly, the dead man groaned. Brenda gasped.

"Sir? Don't move. You've been in a terrible accident, and you most likely have a broken neck. Moving might make the damage worse. She gingerly stepped closer, putting her hand on the arm hanging limply over the steering column. He felt cold, colder than Brenda expected, and she pulled her hand away. His eyes snapped open at the loss of her touch, and they seemed cloudy, as though a milky film lay across them. An uneasy chill washed over Brenda, and she smiled thinly.

"You just hold tight sir. I need to check on the occupants of the other vehicles. Help will be here soon." She stepped away, suppressing a shudder. "I hope."

She moved to the next vehicle, this one an SUV with tinted windows. She shined her light in anyway, pressing her face close to the glass. She couldn't see much, but from what she could make out, there were two people inside, and both were still. She tried to pull the door open, but the ruined metal made that impossible. She sighed, and moved to the third car. A young woman was pinned against the steering wheel, the driver seat pushed so far forward; Brenda was amazed she was still breathing. She tried the handle on this car as well, but again, it was fruitless. She raised her voice to be heard through the glass.

"Ma'am? You were in a terrible accident. Help is on the way, so you just hang on, okay? Just hang on."

The fourth car was the least damaged, and Brenda approached it with more hope than she had the other vehicles. The small pickup truck's hood was crumpled, but the side panels seemed to be mostly intact. She trained the beam on the driver's side window. A young Asian man was slumped against the window, his face covered in blood.

"Sir?" Brenda tapped the window with her flashlight. He didn't move. She pulled at the handle, sighing in relief when the door came open. She moved around, to brace the young man as she pushed the door open the rest of the way. His skin was also cool, and Brenda wondered how long they'd been on the roadside, and where the ambulances were. Surely some other passerby had been able to reach emergency services. L.A. was famous for being shallow, and superficial, but Brenda was sure enough humanity remained that someone would've called.

The young man let out a pitiful whimper as she eased his body out of the truck. He had a wicked cut across his forehead, and his left arm flopped uselessly at his side. She laid him gently on the ground, and felt for his pulse. He whimpered again, and his eyes seemed to flutter behind the papery skin of his eyelids. She glanced at her watch, and wondered at the sluggish beats beneath her fingers. She stood, and reached into the truck, flicking on the hazard blinkers. She looked down at the young man, and decided perhaps flares might be in order. She walked quickly back to her own car, and popped the trunk, pulling out the emergency highway flares, and walked back about 20 yards past the ruined vehicles, before setting out the glowing cones.

Sighing, she returned to her car, and tried the radio again, to no avail. She plucked her cell phone from her tote, and pulled the self-heating blanket from the emergency kit in her trunk. She headed back to the pick-up truck, and knelt next to the young man, tucking the blanket around his thin frame. He groaned, a thick, guttural sound. She smoothed his hair back.

"Shhh. It'll be all right. I got you a blanket, and I'm going to call again, and see how long before help arrives. You just try not to move, okay?"

She dialed 911 this time, breathing a sigh of relief as it rang. Her relief quickly turned to puzzlement, and then to stomach churning dread as the line continued to ring, unanswered. Perhaps there'd been a terrorist attack on the department. She closed her eyes against the picture of the new building, holding her team, the whole department, and all of central Dispatch for the whole of L.A. county, in flames. Looking at the young man, pallid and sweating now, she realized she couldn't, in good conscience, wait any longer. The other people in the other cars were perhaps beyond help, but this boy was in her hands now. She got to her feet, and moved to stand at his head. She shoved her hands under his shoulders, and pushed him into a sitting position, and stepping to his side, she pulled his arm around her shoulders, hauling him into a staggering stance. She reached for his other arm, and shifted, so that his torso was supported mostly on her back, and she took two wobbling steps before she kicked off her kitten heels, wincing as the pavement bit into the soles of her feet. Slowly, she made her way to her car, and pulled the back door open. He tumbled gracelessly from her grasp, landing hard on the bench seat, though it didn't seem to jar him out of his pain induced stupor. His eyes fluttered open briefly, but they stared off into a distance Brenda couldn't see. She tucked his feet into the car, and slammed the door, then got into the driver's seat. Pulling out into the unusually light traffic, she tried 911 and central dispatch again, and got the 'all circuits are busy' message. She tried Fritz, and Gabriel, and in a fit of desperation, she dialed Sharon Raydor. All to no avail. Brenda tried not to panic, even as she cursed her tendency to listen to top 40 pop stations instead of talk radio. Not that it mattered, she realized, as she snapped on the sound system and scanned through the stations. Hissing static. Katy Perry. More hissing static. Brenda glanced in her mirror at the young man in her back seat. He'd curled himself into a fetal position, moaning every so often.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the hospital came into view. Then she frowned, as the throngs of people in the parking lot and emergency lanes in front of the building registered.

"What on earth?" She whispered to herself, maneuvering the car into a spot that wasn't packed with pedestrians. Turning the ignition off, she once more tried central dispatch, and then threw her phone down in disgust. Realizing she'd feel better with it on her person, she tucked it into her blazer pocket, and got out of the car. She walked around to the back of the car, and pulled the door open. Reaching in, she shuddered at the clammy coolness of the young man's skin. She hooked her arm around his back, and pulled him up into a sitting position, and then scooted him to the edge of the seat, swinging his legs out onto the ground. She hefted him up so that once again, her back was supporting most of his torso, and she staggered a bit under the weight. She wished she'd gone back for her shoes, though she knew she wouldn't have been able to make even this awkward trek in them. But she cringed at the thought of going into the hospital barefoot. Lord only knew what she might pick up.

She pressed through the people milling about in front of the doors, and as the entrance slid automatically open, she stepped through, and immediately called for help. A quick look around showed that the ER was packed. The older woman at the registration desk looked as though she'd been crying, and Brenda felt badly for her, but decided her good samaritanism was on the brink of running out. She approached the desk.

"Excuse me, I'm so sorry to disturb you, but I need a little help." She smiled sweetly as the woman looked up at her with tired eyes.

"You'll have to sign in, and wait to be called." Came the dry response.

"I don't know this young man's name to sign him in, you see? He was in a car accident, and I couldn't get through to emergency services for some reason. So I brought him here in my car." Brenda's arms were beginning to tremble from the effort of holding the young man in place.

"You and half the county had trouble, lady. Like I said. Sign in, and have a seat." The woman started to turn away.

Brenda sighed deeply. This wasn't going at all as she'd envisioned. She cleared her throat, and when the woman didn't turn back to her, Brenda decided to play dirty.

"LAPD. I'm going to have to speak to your supervisor, then."

"You're a cop?" The woman sounded slightly disbelieving.

"If I wasn't holding a hundred and thirty pounds of concussed young man in my arms, I'd badge you, but you'll have to take my word for it," she peered at the nametag and continued, "Doris. Now are you going to get me a wheel chair or something for this poor boy?"

"Yes ma'am." Doris seemed sufficiently cowed, and Brenda smiled tightly at her as she leaned heavily on the desk.

Doris returned quickly, pushing a shiny wheelchair in front of her. Brenda waited until the locks had been engaged, and then bent down, lowering the boy into the chair with a little help from Doris. Once the weight had, literally, been lifted from her shoulders, she stood up straight and groaned as her lower back protested the prolonged burden.

"Thank you so much, Doris. Now, I was on my way home from work, on the PCH, and I passed 3 accidents. Two of them already had emergency services in place, but the third one was a 4 car MVC, with nary an ambulance in sight. I pulled over, set up flares, secured the scene as best I could, but I could not for the life of me get through to 911, or the direct dial to central dispatch. What on EARTH is going on? And why are there all those people out front?"

"I honestly don't know, Officer." She started to explain, but Brenda interrupted.

"Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, but you can call me Brenda, under the circumstances."

"Brenda, then. I don't know what's going on. I was supposed to be off duty at 6, but admin is making everyone pull doubles. We've been swamped all day, people complaining of a sudden onset of fever, aches, headache. Thing is, it seems to be the same all over LA County. St. Marks up the road is just as swamped as we are. All the ERs in the area are standing room only, and we're running out of beds. Guess that's why the 911 system went down, maybe? Too many people trying to call for help." Doris shrugged, and turned to look closely at the young man in the chair. "You said he was in a car accident?"

"Yes. He was the fourth car in a small pile up. There are still people up there, but I couldn't get them out..the car doors were too mangled to open. I'm pretty sure one man is dead, he must be by now, and I don't know about the others. They didn't look too bad, from what I could see through the windows, you understand, but I wasn't able to make a complete assessment."

"Well. He looks just like everybody else we've seen today, aside from the dislocated shoulder. Pale, feverish…you might want to keep an eye on yourself over the next few days, make sure you don't come down with whatever this bug is. Seems to be a doozy. Anyway, if you write down the location of the accident, when we get a free bus, I'll send someone up to check on the rest of the vics." Doris was back in full business mode, and Brenda was relieved that the young man wasn't her responsibility any longer.

"All right then. Well thank you so much for all of your help, Doris. I certainly appreciate it. I hope you get to go home soon." She smiled again, but a genuine smile this time, as she scratched the mile marker and direction on a post it.

"Thanks, you take care." Doris wheeled the young man around to the triage cube.

Brenda watched for a moment, then turned and walked out of the hospital. She was tired, she was achy, and she'd left a perfectly good pair of shoes on the side of the highway. She wanted to go home, and have a big glass of merlot, and curl up with her husband and her cat, and forget all about today.