The whole hospital's system was down. Hackers had locked the system, and now the whole place was in chaos.

"Our server has been corrupted and shut down. And until we can restore the system, we'll be operating under downtime procedure. That means paper charts."

"Oh, and no tablets people," Maggie jumped in over Ms Goodwin. "Hand them over."

This was a nightmare.

"So, we have no access to anyone's medical records?" Sarah found herself asking. "How - how do we do stuff?"

"Well, there was a time not too long ago when we actually treated patients without the aid of computers. Imagine that." Goodwin hadn't meant to come across quite so sarcastic, but she had. "Tell them, Dr Charles."

Maggie was trying to take his tablet from him. "Can I keep it if I promise not to use it?"

"Sorry Dr Charles, IT need to check them all out."

Natalie had bigger concerns. "It's not just the electronic medical records that are disabled, right? I hear imaging's down as well?"

"Yeah, so that means what? No x-rays?"

"And no CT scans, no MRIs ..."

For once, Connor and Will were on the same page.

"We'll have to cancel all elective surgeries for the time being," Ms Goodwin confirmed. "But the IT department is confident they can disable the malware and get us back online soon. And in the meantime, we'll make do. We'll use the transport monitors to read the vitals -"

"- I'm sorry," Connor interrupted her. "But the note says that if we pay them thirty coins they'll give us the decryption key."

He had a valid point. Why not just pay up and get back online again? It would mean they could all get back to actually doing their jobs.

"It's hospital policy not to engage with extortionists."

"So we're going to fly blind with one arm tied behind our back?" Yeah, Connor was not happy. "It seems a little short-sighted. I mean, it's what? Thirty, forty thousand dollars? Seems like nothing."

"We're not paying the ransom, Dr Rhodes." Goodwin meant business. "We don't need to. We're not so fragile that we can be knocked off our game that easy."

Oh my God. They were seriously going to do it.

As soon as they dispersed, Sarah was mildly panicking.

"Sarah, hey!"

She was trying to get away, but she should've known better. To be honest, she'd been expecting it.

"Dr Rhodes," she greeted him very professionally.

"Uh, look ..."

He was scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Claire mentioned you guys had talked."

"So?" she asked him, picking up a paper file and throwing it a slightly disgusted look. "We're friends. Friends talk."

He nodded. "Right."

She rounded on him now, genuinely not entirely sure why they were having this conversation. "Is my friendship wiht your sister going to be a problem?"

"Uh ... no."

"Good."

"Good?"

She smiled sarcastically. "Because if it is a problem, it's one you're just going to need to get over."

That was when she took her leave.

Dr Charles and Sarah were grabbing a coffee not long after that, working out what needed to be done up in psych and how theyw ere going to make this whole thing work. And then, he threw a spanner in the works.

"Oh, I heard they are having a hard time filling the vacancy left by Dr Wheeler's death."

She did not know what to make of that comment. "The ED residency?"

"Yeah." He wasn't meeting her eye when he said, "Well, you just graduated from med school. I thought you might know somebody who's interested."

And then Ms Goodwin stole him away.

What did he mean by that? Was he trying to get rid of her from his service?

The bigger question was did she even want to go back to the ED?

All of a sudden, the monitors around them came back to life. No one knew who had paid the ransom, but everyone was thankful life was going back to normal.

Connor was particularly thankful, given he was in the OR with an open chest. And a bullet inside the right ventricle.

Saving lives is just what they do, right?

Downstairs, Sarah ran into Dr Charles. She figured it was now or never.

"Dr Charles, if you want to fire me why don't you just do it already?"

That threw him. "Fire you? Why would I want to fire you?"

"Okay, I might not be the greatest psych intern of all time, but I know a little bit about subext and the cognitive unconscious. So when you told me that there's an opening in the ED, I'm left to wonder does that mean you want me to quite psych and take that job?"

Ah, the classis Reese ramble.

"No. No it does not mean that at all."

"Because I am not quitting," she said defiantly. "I am sticking with this all the way. And so if you want to get rid of me, you're gonna have to do more than just try and get in my head."

Of course, this wasn't really about psychiatry. There was more to it, they both knew it. But she still found herself storming away.

She was confident, she was determined, and she was going to be a damned good doctor. She was never going to forget that.

It was late - as in, very, very late - when Connor woke up in an empty bed. A cold, empty bed.

He found Robyn out in the kitchen, manic. She was hearing rats in the walls. But there were no rats, and definitely no noise.

Something was very wrong.