upwards, flying in a bright sky. Below him he could see fields and rivers rushing past, flitting between clouds that grew thicker the higher he flew. He felt weightless, peaceful – free.
Through the clouds he saw the land fall away and the vast mirror of the ocean stretch out. Huge flocks of birds flew past him, all heading in the same direction towards land. Even at this great height he could see other things moving across the water below. They left lines behind them, long straight, white wakes like scratches on the surface of the sea. Ships. Thousands of them, all heading back to land, the lines of their wakes slowly converging the closer they got to port.
He continued to rise, as if some force was pulling him up to the bright sun that warmed and welcomed him. No. Not the sun, more vast somehow and indistinct. It continued to grow the closer he got, bigger even than the ocean below though he could not see the edge of it. Moving towards it required no effort, it was as easy as falling. But there was something about the ships and the birds that plucked at something inside him. They were all going in a different direction to him, and it made him feel uneasy. He felt like he should be going the same way too, back to the land, away from the soothing sun that filled the sky.
He tilted himself downwards, his head pointing back towards the earth and swept his arms through the air, pulling himself down and away from the light. The steady rise stopped, just a little, then started again, pulling him up like he was a cork bobbing in water. He fixed on a spot of dry land far below him, reached out with his arms again and pulled forward, kicking hard with both legs.
‘Clear!’
Two of the three HazMat suits stepped back from the bed. The third held the defibrillator paddles to the smears of conductive gel on Gabriel’s chest and pressed the twin fire buttons.
Gabriel arched upwards, his bound hands twitching into claws at his sides.
Dr Kaplan stepped forward, checking the ECG monitor and resuming CPR. The line on the screen jumped then settled back to nothing. ‘Nearly had him. Give him another milligram of epinephrine and get ready to try again.’
The second suit fumbled a syringe into the cannula fitted to Gabriel’s arm, the urgency and his gloved hands combining to make this simple task ten times more difficult. He emptied the plunger and sent a milligram of adrenaline into Gabriel’s veins. Inside his inert body the peripheral vascular system responded, constricting to send a shunt of blood to his core, thereby raising his blood pressure. The doctor placed the syringe on a stand and pressed a button on the defibrillator unit to prime it again.
‘Charging,’ he called out. The insectile whine of building electricity cut through the air.
Dr Kaplan continued to pump Gabriel’s heart with his interlaced hands, forcing blood through veins while Arkadian made himself useful as best he could with his usable arm. He stayed by Gabriel’s head squeezing the bag valve mask fixed to his face, sending a steady pulse of oxygen to his immobile lungs. He watched the line on the screen flicker but stay flat, the heart still not beating on its own. The second doctor got ready with the paddles, placing one high and one low with the heart in between.
‘Clear!’
Gabriel arched. On the screen the ECG jumped.
They moved back to their positions, three people working together to carry on functions that were normally automatic, keeping him alive by hand while the ECG continued to dance but refused to settle.
‘We can’t keep on with this indefinitely,’ Dr Kaplan said between pumps. ‘CPR and artificial respiration only go so far in keeping a patient viable. His brain is already being starved of oxygen. Any longer than a few minutes and it becomes increasingly pointless.’
‘Then you’d better get a move on,’ Arkadian said.
Kaplan nodded. ‘OK spike him up with another mil of epinephrine. Let’s go again.’
Arkadian focused on the bag in his hand, squeezing and releasing it steadily at the same pace Gabriel would breathe if he could. ‘Come on,’ he whispered, dipping his head down level with Gabriel’s ear. ‘Don’t go out like this. Not like this.’
Gabriel could see the land beneath him getting closer but the effort to reach it was exhausting. Occasionally a gust of wind would help him out, blowing him downward in a sudden