A man dressed in a warm-looking black military with brass buttons walked silently through the critical care trauma center looking in on each of the curtained off rooms. He paused, checking sensor readings, he'd enter some of the rooms and eye the still intact chains extending between body and soul.
As he walked the hall between section four and five, a second, younger man blurred into the space beside him offering him a hot and highly caffeinated drink. His metallic belt and gold shoulder plaited shoulder cords glinted in the mellow lighting as he gratefully took the drink and thanked the younger man.
"So, how's everything going?" asked the younger asked.
"It's been quiet," he answered, "I had to bury the woman in 1-D, but nothing else really. I'd keep an eye on 2-G, 3-B, and 5-F though. 2-G isn't in her body but she has a pretty strong connection and seems to be doing well with her new medication, 3-B isn't looking as good but he hasn't left his body yet. 5-F is out and it looks like it's just a matter of time. Here, I'll show you."
The two uniformed men turned into section five entered the first room on the right, passing a nurse filling out forms just outside the curtain. Inside the room an older woman with dark, graying hair stood holding the hand of the patient who lay twitching and comatose in the bed. To the side a younger woman with brown hair and glasses sat in a guest chair head bowed over a textbook seemingly ignoring the rest of the room.
The first man waved to a wild haired man who stood watching the two women, from his chest a thin chain emerged and lead to the patient laying in the bed. "This is John, and that's his wife and over there is his daughter."
"Hey, John," said the first man to the disembodied soul, "How're they doing?"
"Oh, you know. The nurses have told them that I'm brain dead shortly after they arrived. Chana is stressed about a report she has due on Monday. Wendy…" The grey haired soul went quiet, watching his wife of 30 years as she dabbed her eyes with a kimwipe.
The older black dressed man drew his younger counterpart out of the room. "John had a heart attack on Monday morning, his wife performed CPR as they waited for the emergency services but since his brain was without oxygen for around 30 minutes he has no cortical activity and his brain stem is damaged too. He's not going back into that body even though his chain is still attached. The doctor will probably recommend pulling him off life support."
Through the curtain they could see the young woman start to bounce her knee, her eyes fixed unmoving on her book, she reached for a kimwipe for her eyes, cleaning her glasses with it afterward. A neatly dressed grey haired woman brushed in shortly after and the two men in Black Serge went back out into the main hall. The older officer called a quick farewell to the soul waiting in the room.
"Have you worked Crit. Care before?"
The younger man shook his head
"Well, it shouldn't be any trouble, if anything unexpected happens they just move them to Emerg' and then it's Cathy's problem. Otherwise, you just have to listen to the nurses and you'll know if a family has to make a decision like John's family. Speaking of, he has some great stories of when he was a fur trader for the Hudson's Bay Company."
"Really? I thought they stopped doing that a century ago"
"Nope, you should ask about the giant carrot, or his prank using flippers, or maybe how he trained a friend's vicious dog by performing an accidental lobotomy."
"What? Is that legal?"
"Who knows? I guess I'll introduce you to 2-G before I let you on your own. You know what bothers me the most about this shift?"
"What?" the man asked concerned.
"The music, I can't figure out the pattern. They must have a satellite station but the genre's change from song to song. Like right now we have pop, earlier there was an old Madonna song, and before that a country song and some Nickelback."