Reborn Before the Apocalypse: The Last Medic System

4. Fair Trade Rule

Caleb waited with his palm flat on the cold rig, and the red ring pulsed in the dark below the floor. The drip echoed in his memory, and he held his breath.

"Triage, whose are they?" he whispered again.

"The sweep reads what is there and nothing more," Triage answered at last. "It cannot read who put it there."

Caleb frowned at the empty air where the glow had been. "Then show me the cabinet again, and show me what is inside it," he urged.

"The sweep is spent," Triage replied. "It fades now, and it will not return today."

The red ring shrank to a dot and went out, and the bay looked plain and gray again. Caleb rubbed the chill from his arms and let out a slow breath.

"Then I need a key and a good reason, and I have neither," he muttered.

"You have time," Triage offered. "It is not much, but it is something."

A woman's cry cut through the rain outside, sharp and high. "Somebody help me, please, my arm is on fire," she called.

Caleb grabbed the trauma kit from the bumper and shoved the half sandwich into his jacket pocket. "I am coming, so hold on," he shouted, and he ran for the open bay doors.

The rain hit his face in cold needles as he burst out onto the curb. A striped awning sagged over a small soup cart, and a woman sat on an overturned crate beside it with her arm clutched to her chest.

A steel pot lay on its side at her feet, and gray soup ran across the pavement in thin streams. The smell of onion and scorched skin rose in the steam, and it made Caleb's eyes water.

"I am a medic, ma'am, so let me see that arm," Caleb said as he dropped to one knee.

The woman shook her head hard and hugged the arm tighter. "Do not fuss over me, young man, because I am fine," she gasped.

"You are shaking, and you are gray in the face, so you are not fine," Caleb countered gently. "What is your name?"

"Dot Ferris, and that was my best pot," she groaned, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "It slipped right off the burner and hit me on the way down."

Caleb held out both hands and kept his voice low. "Dot, I need you to let go of your arm so I can look, and I will be very careful," he promised.

Dot opened her fingers slowly, and a long red stripe ran from her wrist almost to her elbow. The back of her hand was already swelling, and a pale blister had risen near her knuckles.

Caleb sucked in a breath through his teeth. "That is a deep burn, Dot, and it needs cool water right now," he announced.

Dot pulled back and shook her head again. "I cannot go in there, because the hospital will charge me a fortune, and I have eleven dollars," she protested.

"Then we will not go in yet," Caleb answered, and he pointed at the cart. "Do you have a water jug in there?"

Dot nodded toward a blue plastic jug under the counter. "It is the one I use for the dishes, and it is clean," she said.

Caleb dragged the jug out and unscrewed the cap with a squeak. He took her wrist in his left hand and tilted the jug until a thin stream of cool water ran over the burn.

Dot hissed and arched her back. "It stings like a hundred bees," she cried.

"I know, and that means the water is working, so stay with me," Caleb urged. "I am going to count to sixty, and we will do it again."

"Count out loud, and count slowly," Dot pleaded through her teeth.

"One, two, three, four," Caleb began, and the old habit steadied his own breath. The rain drummed on the awning, and the water ran in a bright thread over her skin.

By the time he reached sixty, Dot's shoulders had dropped, and her breathing had slowed. Caleb refilled the jug from the bay tap in the doorway and began again.

"That is much better," Dot admitted, and she let out a long, shaky sigh. "My mother always said to put butter on a burn."

Caleb shook his head and smiled. "Your mother meant well, but butter traps the heat, so please never do that," he said.

Dot laughed weakly and wiped her nose on her good sleeve. "I will remember that, and I will tell my sister, because she is stubborn," she vowed.

Caleb poured for another ten minutes, and he counted every minute out loud. The cold water numbed her skin, and the red stripe faded from angry to pink.

At last he set the jug aside and opened his trauma kit on his knee. He pulled out his last pair of gloves and snapped them on, and the rubber squeaked against his wet fingers.

Dot eyed the kit and frowned. "That looks like a small kit for a big job," she observed.

"It is, and I will make it work," Caleb replied.

He tore open the three alcohol pads and wiped his hands clean, because there was no soap within a block. The sharp smell cut through the onion in the air, and the cold stung the cracks in his knuckles.

He lifted a roll of gauze, unrolled a long strip, and folded it into a loose pad. "I am going to lay this over the burn, and I will keep it light so it does not stick," he explained.

Dot watched with wide eyes as the gauze settled over her arm. "It feels like a cloud," she whispered.

Caleb wrapped a second strip around her forearm in a soft spiral and tied it off with a neat knot. "Keep it dry, and do not pop that blister, because it protects the skin underneath," he warned.

"I will not touch it, and I will keep it dry," Dot promised.

"If it turns red and hot, or if you get a fever, come straight to the ER and ask for me," Caleb added.

Dot looked at the wrapped arm and then at his face. "How much do I owe you, young man?" she asked.

Caleb peeled off the gloves and shook his head. "Nothing, Dot, because I did not do anything special," he insisted.

Dot narrowed her eyes. "Nobody does nothing for nothing, so tell me your price," she demanded.

"There is no price, and you can keep your eleven dollars," Caleb replied with a small smile.

A pale blue panel flickered into the air beside his head, and Caleb jumped. Dot did not seem to see it at all, and she only looked at him with a puzzled frown.

Caleb leaned away from her and read the glowing line in his mind. "Credits, one," he whispered.

"One?" he muttered, and he stared at the number. "That was a real burn, and I used my last gloves."

"Free care earns very little," Triage explained quietly inside his head. "A gift is kind, but it gives the system almost nothing to measure."

Caleb rubbed the back of his neck and kept his voice low. "That does not make sense, because I helped her a lot," he argued.

"You did, and I am not taking that away," Triage replied. "I only tell you what it pays."

Dot cleared her throat and tilted her head. "Are you talking to yourself, young man, or have the rain and the fumes got to you?" she asked.

Caleb blinked and gave a sheepish laugh. "I am only thinking out loud, and I do it too much," he confessed.

Dot pushed herself to her feet with a groan and brushed at her damp apron. "Well, I do not take charity, and my mother would rise from her grave if I did," she announced.

"It is not charity, Dot, because I wanted to help," Caleb protested.

"Then call it a trade," Dot insisted, and she planted her good hand on her hip. "You gave me an arm, and I will give you soup, bread, and a sack of canned beans."

Caleb looked at the spilled pot and the wet pavement. "You just lost your best pot, and you need your food to sell," he reminded her.

"I have a second pot, and I have a back room full of beans I cannot sell fast enough," Dot countered. "Take them, or I will follow you into that hospital and shout about it."

Caleb held up both hands and laughed. "All right, I accept, and I thank you," he surrendered.

The blue panel flared bright, and the number jumped in front of his eyes. Caleb stared, and his mouth fell open.

"Credits, six," he breathed.

"A fair trade pays five times what a gift pays," Triage explained. "Each side gives, and each side keeps its dignity."

Caleb pressed his fingers to his lips and tried to hide his smile. 'It paid five credits for a few cans of beans, and it paid one for a whole burn.'

Dot cocked her head and eyed him. "You look like a man who just won a raffle," she teased.

"I think I did, and I do not know how yet," Caleb admitted, and he rose to his feet.

Dot ducked under the awning and came back with a steaming paper cup. "Drink this while I fill your bag, and do not argue," she ordered.

Caleb took the cup in both hands, and the warm steam rose to his face. The soup tasted of onion, black pepper, and a little sweet carrot, and the heat spread slowly through his chest.

"That is the best soup I have had in my life," he said, and he meant it.

Dot beamed and patted his arm with her good hand. "You come back tomorrow, and I will have a bigger bowl," she offered.

She returned with a heavy cloth sack and a loaf wrapped in newspaper. Caleb slung it over his shoulder with a grunt, and the cans clanked together inside.

"Keep that arm dry, Dot, and I will check on you in two days," he reminded her.

"You are a good one, young man, and do not let this city tell you otherwise," Dot called after him as he walked back toward the bay.

Caleb stepped under the dripping edge of the bay roof and set the sack down against the wall. He opened his trauma kit and looked inside, and his heart sank.

One roll of gauze lay in the bottom, along with the tourniquet and the scissors with the loose screw. The rest was gone, and the kit felt light as a paper bag.

"That was all of it, from one burn," he said under his breath. "One burn, and I am down to scraps."

"Your supplies are small," Triage agreed. "That is why trade matters more than charity."

Caleb sank onto an upturned crate and stared at the rain. He thought of Gerald's thin shelves, the red numbers, and the forty-five days ticking down beside him.

'If one small burn costs this much, I cannot give away what I have for free, and I cannot give away what I do not have.'

"Triage, I understand the credits now," Caleb said slowly. "Fair trades pay more, and I should ask for something every time."

"That is part of it," Triage answered. "There is something more that you need to see."

The blue panel brightened and shifted, and a single line of plain white letters formed in the air. Caleb leaned forward, and his breath caught in his throat.

“RULE: NEVER GIVE UNTIL EMPTY.”

Caleb read it once, and then he read it again. His hand rose to the shoulder where the teeth had torn in, and the old, cold weight settled in his chest.

"This is the rule that I will not break," Triage said, and its voice was calm and firm. "I will hold it for you, even when you will not hold it yourself."

Caleb stared at the glowing words, and the rain beat down on the roof. He did not answer, because he knew exactly how he had died.