"Code Blue"
By I am a good fighter
Powerpuff Girls created by Craig McCracken and all characters associated with the show are owned by Cartoon Network
While the world first learned and was now waiting, things were happening inside the hospital. Bubbles had been returned to her original room and the only monitor she'd been hooked up to displayed her blood pressure, heart rhythm and heart and respiration rates. All had slowed further. The drainage tube had been removed and the collection bag was gone. Buttercup, Bellum and Waldman had walked in together past the guard that was still stationed there, and Waldman had done some quick checking. Bubbles' pupils were fixed and dilated and didn't respond to light. He told them he must be getting back to check on Blossom and Bellum stepped outside the room with him, to give Buttercup a few minutes alone. The guard moved away down the hall to give them privacy, keeping the room and both ends of the hallway in view, constantly moving his eyes as nurses, technicians and orderlies went about their duties.
"How long?" she asked simply.
Waldman shrugged. "I can't say. An hour? Quite frankly, she should have been gone…it's almost like she's waiting for something…"
Bellum sighed. "The girls always did seem to have an extra sense when it came to one another…she might be holding on…she might be more aware of things than we know. She could have heard Blossom screaming, even though she'd already been taken from here…she could have heard…she wants to know if Blossom's going to be OK."
Waldman blinked. "That IS all possible, with her hearing. There's so much about the brain that we just don't know…I'd better be going…if that's what she's holding on for, the sooner we can tell her something…"
Sara nodded and he left. Privacy was less an issue than earlier and she pulled out her cell phone to check up on the Mayor. It was just before LeBeau's bombshell would hit, and everything seemed to be under control.
There was definitely nothing wrong with Buttercup's hearing and she heard every word. While Sara talked with the mayor, she went to the bag in the corner and took Octi out, and tucked the doll under Bubbles' right arm. Then she gently climbed onto the bed and sat next to her sister. She took Bubbles' left hand and leaned down to speak quietly.
"Bubbles…I don't know if you can hear me…they think maybe you can…Bubbles, don't worry 'bout me an' Blossom. We're gonna be OK. We got the cancer too, but I think they can fix it. Thanks to you, Bubbles. You saved the day for us. They wouldn't know if it wasn't for you. It's OK, you don't hafta hang around for us no more if you don't wanna."
She couldn't fight it off anymore. She let go of Bubbles' hand and threw herself down next to her, taking her in a hug. "But I don't want you to go!"
As Sara finished the call, she heard the child break into sobs. She looked into the room and saw the small body shaking, and decided to wait until Buttercup cried herself out, her own heart breaking at the sight of it.
As the media circus was just beginning, things were getting underway in O.R. # 3. There was an elevated observation area that looked down into the operating room, through a large window with thick glass. It was used for medical students to watch and learn. Professor Utonium stood inches from the glass, nervously waiting, still dressed in the green scrubs they'd given him to put on when he'd been sterilized along with the gun, by briefly standing in an ionizing airbath just outside the O.R.. It wasn't customary to let a parent observe, but it was necessary for him to be there in case the team encountered any trouble with the gun. He watched as they lifted his daughter, already under anesthesia and with the contents of two drip bags running into her left arm, from the gurney into the center of the table. He felt helpless seeing the oxygen mask over her mouth. All of her long, beautiful tresses were gone, and her hair was in a buzz cut except for where her head had been shaved in the back.
He heard a noise and turned. It was Dr. Waldman, joining him to watch. They would be able to communicate with Dr. Vora and her surgical team below through flat microphones built into the wall in front of them. The speakers were in the ceiling above. He looked at the equipment arrayed around the operating room. The second set of drip bags, hanging from their rack and ready to go. The adult-sized oxygen mask. Both needed for when Blossom had been 'grown'. The cutting tools. The gun itself, lying on a steel table along the far wall. Everything sterile.
Dr. Vora came in through a door, all scrubbed, and slid her hands into gloves as one of her team held them out for her. She picked up the gun, looked it over once, then raised it. She looked up toward the observation window. The Professor gave her the thumbs up. Another nurse removed the IV from Blossom's arm, briefly applied pressure and then bandaged it. This had to go quickly. The anesthesiologist moved around behind the nurse, holding a needle, ready to inject the contents through a port into one of the new IV bags, in case Blossom needed a 'booster'.
The IV had to be changed, because when Blossom increased in size, so would everything, including the hole in her vein. The needle from the IV would stay the same size and fluids would mix with escaping blood. There'd be a big mess and unwanted delay. Once she was to the right size, the new IV hookup would be made and the procedure would begin.
Vora took careful aim. "I cannot believe I am doing this. Good thing for us all I am not Mojo Jojo."
Mojo Jojo checked the final readouts on his computer display inside the cockpit of his destroying machine. It was 2:10 and he was ready to go. He was unaware either that Blossom had been in surgery for fifteen minutes, or of the situation he would find outside the hospital when he got there. He would find that very much to his liking. He pushed the button controlling the massive doors to his underground facility and they opened, flooding the compartment with light. The robot lifted out and he blasted away as the doors began to shut.
This janitor's closet was larger than the others, and it had a cart instead of just a pail. The cart held a bucket and mop, bottles of cleaning fluids, rags, a trash receptacle and one of those plastic triangular 'wet floor' warnings. In the janitor getup for the last time, LeBeau took his cart into the third-floor nurse's lounge. These lounges were scattered throughout the hospital. This one served the staff on the third floor from the rear wing's two nurse's stations, and the surgical team from pediatrics, one floor down, as there wasn't room for one down there. There was a woman, dressed in blue, sitting at a table eating a sandwich and drinking a soda from the rows of vending machines along one wall. She was reading a magazine and glanced up for a second, then went back to her reading. There was the one long table surrounded by molded plastic chairs, and the counter held a microwave oven. Off of this room, there was a smaller room with two couches and some upholstered chairs, a beat-up TV set, and more magazines tossed on the two tables, one in the center and one between two chairs. In spite of who these people were, there were a couple of ashtrays with a few cigarette butts in them. Off of this room, on opposite sides of it, were the entrances to the men's and ladies' rooms, each with lockers. LeBeau went in the men's, and proceeded to spill about half the contents of his pail onto the floor near the lockers. He took one of the spray bottles, which he had filled with water, and set the sprayer to its fullest stream, then squirted it at the ceiling above until the bottle was empty. Water dripped down into the puddle he'd made, and some dripped on the lockers. Then he went back out to the main area, where a clipboard hung on a bulletin board. There were notices for upcoming continuing-ed classes, a union meeting, a couple of cars for sale, etc. The clipboard, he was hoping, would contain a copy of the week's duty rosters that he knew would be kept at the stations themselves, but he'd have no way of getting to those. He lifted it off the peg, and sure enough, there they were, for the pediatric wing, the pediatric surgery department, and the third floor. He pulled the sheet from his pocket that he'd gotten from his briefcase and clipped it on top, then studied the roster for the surgery department.
The nurses in the other departments worked eight-hour shifts. The surgical staff were scheduled in twelve-hour blocks, but LeBeau knew that was flexible. They'd stay longer if an operation ran over. What he was looking for was the days off for the surgical nurses, in particular the names he'd committed to memory, the six men. Two of them were off, Peter Ferrara until six that night, and the other, Mark Tomlinson, was not scheduled until tomorrow morning, Friday, at six. Both, luckily, were in the group of three where he might pass for them in a set of scrubs. He wanted the surgical staff, because he felt he would have an easier time passing himself off in the pediatric wing, where he was sure Bubbles was. A surgical nurse probably wouldn't be questioned back there, and in a place this big, might not be known well enough by the regular staff in that department to be able to tell that he was an impostor. He figured it wouldn't help him get much info on the other two Powerpuffs. He'd for sure be recognized by one of the co-workers of the person whose clothes he was wearing, and a blue-clad nurse from one of the other areas wouldn't normally be back there in surgery, either. He'd give it a quick try, but his main goal was to get back to Bubbles' room. When her death came, the hospital would sit on it for a while, he believed. He'd take care of that.
He heard two voices coming his way and started to hang up the clipboard. Two men in the blue scrubs came in.
"Hey, what are you doing?" one of them said.
LeBeau pointed at the clipboard, which was swinging slightly, and smiled.
"Just reading that."
The sheet he'd clipped on there was one of those office jokes that were always floating around, one he'd saved from the newsroom back at the station. It was one of the best he'd ever seen.
The two read it and broke out laughing. "Ha, that's beautiful!" the one who hadn't challenged him said.
"Yeah," the first one said, looking at him again, "but what are you doing in here? You guys only come around at night."
LeBeau thumbed toward the locker room. "Fourth floor toilet overflowed."
They looked at each other and took off. "Crap!"
He followed them in and they saw water dripping from the ceiling.
"Aw, geez." the first one said.
"Hey, at least it's not OUR lockers." the other replied.
LeBeau took out his mop. "You guys might want to let folks know to go somewhere else until I get the place disinfected."
"Yeah, we'll do that." the first said, shaking his head as they turned and walked out. "Stinkin' place is fallin' apart…"
LeBeau leaned the mop against the nearest locker and took the 'Wet Floor' warning from the cart and put it just outside the locker room. Then he searched for Ferrara's and Tomlinson's lockers. With them being gone and their street clothes and valuables not inside, maybe they'd be unlocked. Tomlinson's was, and a green scrub top with his name on it hung from a hook. He quickly slipped it on over his head. Way too big. Tomlinson had to be over six foot. He took it off and put it back. He found Ferrara's locker. Locked.
"Nuts!"
He snapped his fingers. "Dirty clothes hamper!" He looked around. "Yeah, over there!"
In a corner stood a metal frame with a canvas sack stretched over it. A minute and twenty pieces of dirty clothing later, he found a top with 'P. Ferrara' stitched on the left breast. It was just a tad loose. Ferrara must be an inch or so taller than LeBeau. But it was so wrinkled he couldn't use it. That was all right, he knew where the linens were kept. As long as he was out of the place before Ferrara came on at six…
At precisely the instant Mojo Jojo's robot lifted off, Dr. Johns came through the front doors of Townsville General Hospital, right on time. He made his way directly to the small podium that had been brought out from storage in the media center. A hospital logo on a canvas banner hung on the front. The crowd hushed immediately to hear what he had to say, and CNC's 'experts' all went silent as well. The world was waiting. He adjusted the microphone. Strobes began to flash and the sounds of the cameras' high-speed film advancers mixed with his words.
"Good afternoon. I have a brief update. Bubbles' condition has changed slightly for the worse and I regret to say that it is terminal."
This brought a gasp from much of the crowd, those who had failed to understand the gravity of the situation from his statement a half hour earlier.
"We may not ever know the cause, but unlike the unfortunate incident you all witnessed when one of those media cowboys got loose in our facility…"
His outrage was clearly visible, and it was shared by much of the crowd. They didn't really care for the way they'd learned about it.
"…we cannot conclusively say at this time that it is in fact cancer. Bubbles was treated for growths in her brain, which proved to be too far advanced to treat effectively, but results of a biopsy taken last evening will not be available until later today. In the meantime, routine tests of Blossom and Buttercup showed the presence of similar growths…"
Amother gasp. "…though they are much less pronounced, and we believe, treatable. Blossom's condition is believed to be at a stage about two weeks behind that of Bubbles. She is in surgery at this moment and we think she stands an excellent chance at a full recovery. Buttercup's condition is at a stage one to two weeks behind Blossom's and she has experienced no symptoms of illness. She has not been admitted to the hospital and is free to leave at any time."
At this, a cheer went up.
"I will briefly answer questions. Stanley?"
"When can we expect to know the outcome of Blossom's surgery?"
"Thank you, Stan." Johns breathed a sigh of relief. The answer, which would be truthful, would place a sort of hold on things and perhaps get everyone in the crowd, if not the media, to realize that they must all be patient. He knew he could count on Whitfield, which was why he turned to him first.
"It is a difficult, though not especially dangerous procedure, and should last four to five hours. We won't be able to give her any tests until tomorrow morning at the earliest. We will update you again when the surgery is over, on her condition at that time. Maria?"
"Yes, will you be making an announcement regarding Bubbles?"
"Yes, after the family has had an appropriate amount of time to be with her, an announcement will be made. At this time, Professor Utonium is assisting the surgical team and cannot be with her. That is all right now."
A loud grumble went up from the contingent of press, and some shouted out questions that wouldn't be answered. But the crowd had been soothed if not cheered up. They saw through the ambiguity of the statement to its sad truth. There was nothing that could be done for the little girl inside except to pray for her in her transition to the next world. Many began to weep. But the anger and tension were lifted in a wave that was almost a visible thing. It was replaced by a cloud of sadness, as they stood waiting for the news that would inevitably come.
The CNC gang cut short its endless speculation to run a hastily pieced-together account of the lives of the Powerpuff Girls, focusing on the one who they talked about as if she was already dead. The phrase 'She was' was used often. The deathwatch went on as the ratings continued to climb.