CHAPTER 3
Gabriel Lorsange had let down his hair, kicked off his stiletto heels, removed his false eyelashes and settled down for a pleasant evening at home watching TV when he was startled by a battered grey Citroën nearly crashing into his front window. He leapt from the couch, nearly tripping on his skirt, and glanced outside. As surprised as he was already, he was even more so when he saw his sister climb out of the wreck, dragging along with her none other than Samurai Jack.
"Rebecca!" he shouted as he opened the front door, "What is going on here?"
"I'll explain it all later. Now, quick, help me get him into the house."
"Is this who I think it is?"
"Most likely," she answered. "Just get him inside. Like I said, I'll explain later."
The instant that he touched the man, Gabriel found himself covered in blood. "My God. We've got to get him to a hospital."
"Well, that's just the thing... how long until you graduate from the medical school?"
His heavily made-up eyes widened even further. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You're not serious."
"Would I have wasted the time to bring him here otherwise? He's dying, Gabriel, and you know I can't take him to anyone else."
"Rebecca, I'm not learning to be a trauma doctor! I'm learning to be a plastic surgeon!"
"But you had to learn about this sort of thing as part of the requirement, right? You always used to complain about it!"
"But even if I can figure out what to do for him, I don't keep any medical supplies in my house!"
"Well try, unless you can think of something else!"
By this point the siblings had managed to drag the unconscious Samurai inside and laid him out on the floor. Gabriel nervously put on his glasses and began looking over the scene.
"Okay, okay..." he said, trying to stay calm. "Umm... the first thing to check are the ABC's. First, I need to check his airway-"
"GODDAMMIT GABRIEL HE IS PASSED OUT AND BLEEDING TO DEATH ON YOUR LIVINGROOM FLOOR!"
Gabriel was restraining tears by now. This was a bit more pressure than he was prepared to handle. Trying his best to stay calm and think coherently, he spoke aloud. "Let's see, let's see... um... he's bleeding. Okay. We need to stop that. Get some towels and bandages. They're in the bathroom. Hurry!"
Rebecca raced off for the bathroom. Gabriel meanwhile ran as fast as he could to the kitchen, threw open the freezer, grabbed the ice tray, and returned to the injured Samurai without even bothering to close the freezer door.
When Rebecca came back she held an armful of wrinkled towels. Gabriel took them and quickly began to wrap them around handfuls of ice. He handed one of the packs to Rebecca.
"Put that on his arm, where he's shot. Put pressure on it."
Rebecca did as instructed. Gabriel fashioned three more of the ice packs and began arranging them on Jack's body.
"This is good," he said, noticing the injury to Jack's side. "This one has an exit wound."
"How long do we have to stay like this?" asked Rebecca.
"We have to hold these for ten minutes to see if he stops bleeding."
"If? Gabriel!"
Gabriel glared at his sister. "If I knew a better way, I'd do it! Besides, on at least one of these injuries, it's good that he's bleeding so much. It means that there's no real internal damage... I think."
"I'd think that gushing blood would be an excellent indication that there was internal damage! Blood is supposed to be on the inside, not on... everything!"
Gabriel was growing nervous again. "Let's see... oh! Fuck! How long has he been out?"
"I don't know... five minutes? I came here as fast as I could."
"Shit! We need... Ah! I keep telling you, I don't have any medical supplies here! He needs medications, an IV, something to get his blood pressure back up... Hold onto these."
Gabriel suddenly dashed off, letting the ice-packs he'd been holding fall to the floor. Rebecca screamed after him.
"Gabriel! I don't have enough hands!"
Frustrated, Gabriel called back. "You want me to teleport across the house? I'm doing my best!"
He ran into the bathroom and grabbed a bottle of caffeine pills from the cabinet. He shook the jar, hearing roughly four pills rattle inside. Were he not out of breath, he would have sighed. Then he spun around, his stockings causing him to skid across the linoleum, and returned to the livingroom.
He tossed the bottle at Rebecca who was leaning over Jack, her body contorted in order to hold all four ice-packs onto his wounds.
"Give him some of these!" said Gabriel. "Don't ask me how! Just make sure he doesn't choke."
At that Gabriel ran off and began tearing apart the kitchen. Rebecca reluctantly released the ice-packs in order to examine the bottle.
"Caffeine pills? How are these supposed to help?" she called out.
"I don't know!" Gabriel screamed, frustrated. "If you know some junkie with amphetamines and shit around then take him over there! This is what I've got."
Rebecca sighed angrily. "Oh, for God's sake! I'd have done better to bring him to mom's house."
Gabriel was ready to weep with frustration. "I can't remember whether or not to remove the bullets... I heard somewhere you're not supposed to, but I also heard that you are... and if he doesn't stop bleeding, he'll need surgery... oh shit! We've got to keep him warm, too- Rebecca, we really need to take him to a hospital!"
"He'll just be arrested of we do that!"
"Well, it's preferable to letting him die on my carpet!"
Rebecca sighed. "Okay. What, exactly, do you need in order to make sure he'll be alright?"
"He needs antibiotics, a blood transfusion, probably an X-ray or an ultrasound..."
"Do you think we can move him into the car?"
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "What are you planning to do?"
"It's for the good of the world. Some unscrupulous activities are allowed."
"Oh, God. Rebecca, what are you planning?"
"We need medical supplies, which we don't have... Would the medical school have what we need?"
Gabriel winced realizing what his sister had in mind.
The battered grey Citroën parked noisily on the 7th floor balcony of the medical school. Rebecca sprang from the car, leaving Gabriel and the unconscious Samurai in the back. It was arguable as to which of the two men looked more pale.
"What should I get first?" asked Rebecca.
"It doesn't really matter... a blood-testing kit and sutures and umm... whatever else you find on that counter. Just be careful; there is a security-bot."
Rebecca nodded. Quietly, she took a tire-iron from the back of the car, then with all her strength used it to smash in the window of the school's operating room. Gabriel cringed at the noise. The Samurai lay motionless.
Rebecca crept barefoot over the glass shards, into the dark room. She knew that she had to move quickly. First thing on her list was the blood-testing kit. Gabriel mentioned that it would be out on a counter. For several moments she groped through the dark until she was able to locate it at last. She took as many items from the countertop as she could carry, then scurried back over to the car.
"What should I get now?" she asked, handing over the loot.
"Go for the ultrasound machine," Gabriel answered. "It's the first thing you see when you come in through the front door. I'll do the blood-test while you're in there."
Rebecca raced back into the room, stepping on the remains of the window but not noticing. She was on a mission for the world, afterall, and there was no time to be inhibited by minor injuries.
She traveled across the room toward the door. From there, the first machine she saw was about as large as a microwave and rested on a wheeled cart. She tore the plug from the wall and began rolling the device out to the balcony. Once it reached the car, she removed the machine from its stand and started wrestling it into the car.
"How's the blood test going?" she asked Gabriel.
"Good. It's a simple test, it just takes a moment for the results... Ah! No, Rebecca! That's a heart-rate monitor! We need an ultrasound!"
"What? This was the first thing I saw from the door!"
"Well then grab the second thing! That's not the machine we need. I know his heart-rate, and it's not good. The ultrasound! It's small- it's portable! Hurry!"
Rebecca dropped the heart-rate monitor to the concrete, shattering the viewing screen into two-hundred green-tinted shards. Had she been hooked up to such a machine, her pulse would have read about 190. Racing back into the dark operating room, she managed to locate what was probably the ultrasound: it was a much smaller device than the other, made of white plastic. It almost looked like a child's version of a medical device. Hurriedly, she snatched it up.
Suddenly the door flew open, revealing the security-bot, standing about three feet tall and equipped with a red-glowing motion-detecting eye, a green-glowing heat-detecting eye, and two guns. Rebecca shrieked with surprise upon seeing it.
Crime levels being what they were, the security-bot was programmed to shoot without any regard as to whether the person in question was actually trying to resist arrest or indeed even armed. Rebecca gasped, hearing the first clicks of the gun being loaded.
"Gabriel!" she screamed, "Start the car!"
Just as the words left her mouth, the first set of bullets were fired. They came so close she could feel them rustle her dress. Still carrying the ultrasound, she ducked behind the operating table, just as she heard the Citroën's engine sputtering to life outside. She glanced around the room, trying to find a way out. Glimpsing another rolling stand, she devised a plan. Protectively clutching the ultrasound to her chest, she leapt onto it, her weight propelling the wheels into motion and sending it across the room at great speed toward the balcony. Behind her, the security-bot began to fire a second round. The bullets caused occasional sparks.
Finally Rebecca, the stand and the ultrasound machine slammed against the Citroën, the sudden force knocking her onto the car's mangled hood.
"Is this the right machine?" she yelled over the gunfire, holding the device above her head.
"Get in the car!" Gabriel screamed, panicked.
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes it's the right fucking machine! Get in the car!"
Frantically, Rebecca pushed the ultrasound machine through the hole where the windshield used to be. "Just go!" she cried "Hurry!"
Gabriel was about to protest when the security-bot's latest round struck the remains of the car's front bumper. At that, he backed up with Rebecca still clinging to the hood, hitting the back of the car against the balcony railing and knocking off the license plate. The screams of both siblings echoed for a full block as the vehicle took off into the sky.
Gabriel drove for only a short distance before stopping so that Rebecca could get inside of the car. Once in, the first thing she said surprised him.
"Ah! Gabriel! What happened to Samurai Jack?"
Gabriel turned and found that Jack, who was not buckled in, had rolled off the back seat in all the commotion and was now lying on the floor. Weary and nervous, Gabriel turned back to driving.
"He'll be fine, trust me," he said bitterly. "His blood-type is AB, by the way. That's good, that means any kind of blood we find will be compatible."
"So we could just give him some of ours, then?"
Gabriel winced. "Theoretically yes. However, he needs a lot. We'd both be unconscious by the time we pumped enough into him. Oh, and incidentally we don't have a pump."
Rebecca cried out in frustration. She stopped to take a couple of deep, calming breaths before speaking again.
"Gabriel," she said, "Drive me to a pay-phone. Stay parked nearby, but not too close. I have an idea of how to get the rest of the supplies we need."
She had robbed a medical school. She had hijacked not one, but two ambulances. She had made some shady dealings with an old hobo. All in less than twenty minutes. That taken into consideration, it was not surprising that there were now three police vehicles chasing after the crumpled Citroën. All the flashing and noise, one might have taken it for Mardi Gras.
Rebecca drove maniacally trying to lose them while Gabriel sat in the back with Jack, performing every medical procedure the famous Samurai required. All the necessary machines were plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. It was not an ideal circumstance, but there was no other option; Jack had gone for over forty minutes without the medical attention he needed, and it couldn't be postponed any longer.
Just as Gabriel began the delicate task of removing the bullet from Jack's leg, Rebecca called back:
"Hold on, Gabriel. I'm about to make a dive."
Gabriel gasped. "No, Rebecca! We're not strapped in and there's no windshield! You'll kill us!"
Rebecca muttered a curse. She drove silently for a minute before speaking again. "Okay. I have another idea. Gabriel, try to keep Jack hidden. Try to keep yourself hidden, for that matter. I'm going to pull over and talk to them. When you see your chance, jump into the front seat and drive off. Okay?"
"You're insane, Rebecca."
"I know. Just drive back to your house as fast as you can, and take care of Jack. I'll try to stall them. I'll contact you..." she tried to think of when she would next be able to contact him. She didn't know. "...Eventually."
At that, Rebecca slowed the car and parked it on the nearest rooftop. She emerged with her hands raised to the sky. The three police vehicles parked in a semicircle around her.
Rebecca put on her most innocent and airheaded persona. "Was I doing something wrong?" she asked. "I kept driving because I thought you were following someone else."
Six officers leapt from the police cars. All were either aliens or robots. All pointed guns at her.
"Put your hands on the hood of the car!" one of them screamed. He had clearly been inspired by action movies.
Rebecca pouted, not moving. "What did I do?" she asked, sounding confused. She was waiting for Gabriel to drive off.
"Bitch, you broke about fifteen different laws! And at least two of them were Aku laws! Put your hands on the hood of the car!"
"Well there's no need to be rude, regardless of whose laws they were!" She was trying her best not to sound too aggressive.
Just then the Citroën took off at full speed, flying from the roof like an artillery shell. Perhaps to test this comparison, the officers let a few of their own bullets fly after it. Rebecca sighed with relief as the car got away, seemingly unharmed.
As she was beaten, pepper-sprayed, cuffed and then finally thrown into the back of one of the police cars, Rebecca tried to look upon the whole incident as simply one of the inconveniences it was necessary to face in the process of seducing a celebrity.