The surgeon firmly ushered Brendon down a series of dimly lit corridors. The air was pungent. It smelt of antiseptic and mold.
Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, giving off a soft hum that was occasionally punctuated by distant voices and the clatter of equipment. It felt like the whole place had been superficially renovated after decades of standing vacant.
"Dr. Charles Whitmore," the surgeon finally said, extending a chubby, sweaty hand. His puffy face bore an unsettling grin that seemed to stretch too wide. "I'm the Chief Surgeon here. And you are?"
"Brendon Walker," he replied, shaking Whitmore's clammy hand.
"Thanks for coming in on such short notice," Whitmore continued, his voice carrying an erratic quality. "They probably didn't tell you very much about the assignment, did they?"
Brendon feigned ignorance, shrugging slightly. "Not very much."
He caught a whiff of Whitmore's breath as they walked. Alcohol mingled with some kind of breath mint. A chill crept down Brendon's spine.
Brendon's earpiece started to hiss. He could hear Naomi's voice cutting through the static, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. He discreetly pulled it out and slipped it into his pocket.
"We're doing a nephrectomy today," Whitmore explained, his eyes glinting with manic enthusiasm. Brendon nodded slowly, trying to mask the apprehension tightening in his chest.
"The patient is already prepped and waiting for us in theatre," Whitmore continued, leading him toward a scuffed blue door with a square frosted glass window at the end of the corridor. "Unfortunately, we had a last-minute dropout on the team. Hence all the mad rush. Let's not keep her waiting," Whitmore said, feigning a flamboyant flourish as he gestured Brendon inside.
Inside was a small, stark washroom.
More fluorescent lights.
A row of sinks, clean but old, gleamed under the harsh lighting. Each with arranged bottles of antiseptic soap and hand sanitizer placed next to the taps.
"Here," Whitmore said, handing Brendon a set of blue scrubs. "Get changed. You'll find a gown, mask, and hat inside the cabinet." He pointed to a wooden door at the far end of the room.
Brendon nodded, trying to keep his breathing steady as he accepted the scrubs.
"Make sure you disinfect your glasses properly before you come in," Whitmore instructed as he stepped back toward a door in the back left corner. "The scrub room is through here." He gestured, his eyes narrowing slightly as if assessing Brendon's readiness. "The theatre is just beyond that."
Brendon nodded.
"I'll meet you in there," Whitmore said, breaking his stern expression with that unnerving grin again before exiting.
Brendon got dressed and took a deep breath as he pushed through the door into the scrub room. He washed up at the sterile sink with a big bar of surgical soap and peered through the window into the operating theatre.
There was nothing routine about this surgery.
Nothing routine about this whole place. Brendon's stomach was churning, but he knew he had no choice but to play the part Whitmore had assigned him.
The operating theatre was cramped.
Brendon could barely see the rest of the surgical team in the darkness around the table. There were only two others: an assistant surgeon and a surgical nurse, both engrossed in some task. Neither of them acknowledged Brendon.
Brendon stepped closer and surveyed the scene.
Trays held scalpels and clamps; everything shone with an artificial brilliance. A single, harsh overhead lamp beamed down onto the table like a sentry light. The patient, a woman, was lying on the table, her chest rising and falling gently with each breath. She was covered with blue sheets up to the neck, and her stomach was exposed through a flap in the covering. She had an oxygen mask on her face and above that an unusual looking VR headset that slotted neatly on top. She didn't appear to be on any anaesthetic.
Dr. Whitmore stood beside him, his mask and hat framing his bloodshot eyes.
"You'll be our circulating nurse for this procedure," he said, gesturing toward the surgical table.
"She's not on any anaesthetic?" Brendon asked.
"We're using an experimental anaesthesia," he explained with a hint of pride in his voice. "The V.R. induces a state of complete unconsciousness. Much safer than traditional methods," Whitmore insisted, his eyes gleaming enthusiastically. The words sent shivers down Brendon's spine as he looked back at the woman.
He swallowed hard but held back further questions, wary of drawing Whitmore's ire. Tension knotted his stomach.
Whitmore turned away and moved to adjust his gloves, leaving Brendon standing there, uneasy about what was about to happen. He was caught between disbelief and professional obligation as they prepared to dive into an operation that felt vague and poorly planned.
Whitmore stood over the surgical table, his hands trembling slightly as he prepped for the initial incision into the woman's abdomen.
Brendon observed.
The room hummed with an unsettling energy, and the bright overhead light illuminated Whitmore's swollen features and perturbing eyes. "OK, let's begin," Whitmore declared, his voice brimming with a manic enthusiasm.
The blade sliced through the skin easily, but Brendon winced at the imprecise way this so-called Chief Surgeon seemed to rush, lacking any kind of finesse. Blood started to pool almost immediately, but Whitmore pressed on without pause.
The scrub nurse moved quickly to soak up the excess bleeding, but it was clear they were already losing control of the situation. As Whitmore continued to cut deeper, exposing layers of muscle and tissue, Brendon couldn't shake the feeling that he was witnessing a butcher at work.
"Clamp!" Whitmore barked after what felt like an eternity of cutting. He struggled to hold back blood vessels while trying to identify the kidney beneath layers of flesh and skin.
Brendon felt compelled. "You need to be more careful," he said firmly, but Whitmore waved him off with a dismissive hand as if brushing away an annoying fly.
Finally locating the kidney, Whitmore set about clamping and cutting blood vessels with a shocking lack of delicacy. Brendon watched in disbelief as he fumbled through each step. The way he dissected the ureter was downright reckless under his hands.
Ninety minutes had slipped by in a blur of hurried movements and escalating tension in the operating room. A procedure that would normally take three hours of precision surgery was complete in half that time. A whirl of ineptitude and dire technique had left Brendon feeling that he had just violated his Hippocratic oath. When they finally extracted the kidney from its mooring, Whitmore's eyes seemed to grin triumphantly as if he'd accomplished some great feat.
He gestured for the organ to be placed into a transportation case. "Nurse! Put this in the pickup room for the courier. It needs to go out ASAP," he commanded, barely sparing a glance at Brendon.
As she complied, Brendon's eyes narrowed at Whitmore's flippant attitude. Controlling bleeding became another exercise in chaos; despite the scrub nurse's and Brendon's frantic efforts to manage it, blood continued pooling. The patient needed two transfusions.
Finally, Whitmore was able to focus on closing the incision. After clumsily stapling the patient's stomach closed and brushing it with iodine, he declared the operation a success. Brendon couldn't believe what he'd just witnessed.
Brendon stood at the sink, vigorously scrubbing his hands under the harsh overhead light. The sterile soap foamed around his fingers as he focused on each movement, trying to wash away the experience that clung to him like a limpet. The assistant surgeon, an Asian man with a stoic, emotionless expression, worked beside him in silence, peeling off bloodstained gloves and binning his soiled operating gown.
Across from them, an older black nurse methodically wiped down her arms and face, as her brow furrowed with a look of discontent.
No one spoke.
The atmosphere buzzed with an unspoken unease that felt palpable in the small scrub room. Each person washed up as if following a ritual. An act of cleansing that could never quite remove the dirt of what they had just done.
With a final rinse, he turned off the faucet and dried his hands on several paper towels, glancing at the others as they finished up without so much as a word. They shared no camaraderie at this moment.
"Brendon," Whitmore's voice called from behind him, slicing through the silence. "Come see me in my office when you're done, OK. Down the corridor on the right."
The request held an air of authority that Brendon didn't care to acknowledge. He nodded stiffly but didn't look back. "OK," he said.
Brendon stepped into Whitmore's office, the air thick with too much air freshener. The walls were adorned with framed certifications and medical accolades that seemed to contradict the hack job that Brendon had just witnessed. A heavy oak desk dominated the room, its surface cluttered with files and medical equipment.
Whitmore motioned for Brendon to take a seat before sliding an envelope across the desk. "Here's your pay for today," he said, his grin widening unnaturally again.
Brendon hesitated before picking up the envelope. It felt heavy. He opened it and thumbed through the new crisp bills inside. He couldn't remember the last time he handled actual real cash before. He estimated that there was around three thousand dollars there. He stared at it.
"Now, I'll need some ID," Whitmore continued as he settled into his chair. He glanced up at Brendon expectantly.
Brendon fished out his driver's license from a slot in his phone case and handed it over without a word. Whitmore took it, scrutinizing the details while pulling out a stack of paperwork from a drawer. Brendon raised an eyebrow. He hadn't seen actual paper forms since he was a resident, and even then it was rare.
As he filled out the forms, Whitmore spoke casually, as if discussing nothing more than the weather. "What we do here helps hundreds of transplant patients across the country," he said, tapping his pen against the desk rhythmically. "This experimental procedure has reduced organ rejection rates by over half." Brendon nodded slowly, trying not to show his growing revulsion at the man.
"It's noble work," Whitmore added, filling in another line on the paper with precise strokes. "Just think, your hands played a part in that." The words hung in the air and felt like a noose tightening around Brendon's conscience.
"Before you leave," Whitmore said, shifting gears smoothly as he produced a couple of Non-Disclosure Agreements from beneath a pile of papers. "You'll need to sign these."
He slid them toward Brendon, along with a pen. "They're cast iron due to the proprietary nature of what we do here."
Brendon scanned the documents quickly; legal jargon blurred together under Whitmore's intense gaze. "Just your signature here and here," Whitmore urged with that unnerving smile again, waiting expectantly for compliance.
As Brendon stood to leave, a sudden thought struck Whitmore.
"Wait a moment, Brendon," he said, his voice carrying an edge of urgency. "You'll need a security pass for next time."
He motioned for Brendon to step back toward the stark white wall beside the desk.
"Stand there," he instructed, lifting a digital camera from his cluttered desk. The shutter clicked as Whitmore snapped a picture of him.
"Perfect," Whitmore remarked as he lowered it. He turned back to his computer and began typing with frenetic energy. The soft whir of machinery filled the silence in the meantime.
Brendon shifted his weight, trying to ignore the knot in his stomach. He felt exposed under Whitmore's scrutiny, like prey being evaluated by a predator.
Whitmore's fingers danced over the keyboard until he finally pressed 'Enter.' The printer sputtered to life nearby, spewing out a glossy plastic security tag emblazoned with Brendon's name, the picture Whitmore had just taken, and a series of codes that meant nothing to him.
"Here you go." Whitmore slid the tag into a protective sleeve and rummaged through a drawer for a lanyard. His fat, clumsy fingers then hooked the new tag onto it and held it up triumphantly.
"Congratulations," he announced, grinning wider than ever as he presented it to Brendon. "Your ticket back in. Charlene will be in touch with your roster, but you can expect two or three of these each week, OK." Brendon accepted the card with a nod. He could feel Whitmore's gaze lingering on him as if weighing his worth before releasing him.
After thanking him curtly, Brendon paced away from the office. Looking over his shoulder, he made in the direction of the locker room, but he didn't go in. He glanced around cautiously, making sure Whitmore or anyone else was not around, and then he briskly walked past the door and headed deeper into the building's warren of corridors.